‘I mean, I sort of know where she is. Here, in Canberra.’
‘Then why can’t you find her?’ I still thought of the place as an overgrown country town. Walk down the main street, hang about the Woden shops, go to the theatre, and you’d bump into everyone sooner or later. Helen was probably out at Uncle Vanya right now.
‘She won’t have anything to do with me. Yvonne at the lab hinted she was still in town. Now she won’t talk to me either.’ Helen worked as a research assistant in a laboratory somehow connected to the ANU.
Poor Alex. There were more than a dozen years of friendship between us but also a gulf of misunderstanding. Just how wide that gulf was hit me next.
‘It was all failure from the start. We never slept together before we were married. Then afterwards . . . But we were always good friends, you know. Close. That’s what counts in a marriage, don’t you think?’ He looked at me, pleading. Those glass-plated eyes were almost threatening.
Of course friendship counted. ‘But doesn’t sex count for something?’ I said. ‘Just a bit?’
‘Not if the relationship’s genuine. Not in an open marriage. You’re so middle-class, Tasman.’
I refrained from pointing out the obvious – if it was so genuine then why had she left? – and instead leaped to the offensive.
‘Middle-class! You’re the one with the public service career and the three-bedroom house in the suburbs. Plus you drive a Volvo.’ Alex slumped into his pouffe. ‘Anyway, if you’re trying to tell me that you and Helen pursued sexual relationships elsewhere then isn’t it likely she’s gone off with some lover? Hadn’t you better find out who he is? And what about you? Are you having it off with someone? Maybe she’s jealous, or hurt, or –’
‘No!’ He stood up. ‘You don’t get it.’ He was almost shaking. Then he took a deep breath. ‘Yes, it’s likely Helen has gone off with someone. But it wouldn’t be a him.’
Finally, a chink of light. Alex was close to tears so I patted the pouffe. ‘Sit down. Maybe I don’t understand, but you’re not doing much to help.’
He shook his head again and sat. Sighed. ‘There was no one else for me. And Helen . . . Well, Helen married me to stay in Australia. Otherwise she had to return to Cork, and the family. They’re very strict. Catholics, of course. She got away because she couldn’t bear it. All her sisters were married, with kids.’
The chink was getting wider. ‘Do you think she’s always been a lesbian?’
‘Yeah, probably.’
‘And marrying you might have been to try and escape that?’
‘Cure it. That’s what she said. Her family and everything.’
‘And you married her knowing or suspecting all this?’ He nodded. ‘And despite the open marriage thing, you’ve been . . . faithful? Chaste?’ He nodded again, looking at the floor.
I felt a prickle of pity. A marriage of some inconvenience to him. Or was it? And an agreement to dally down the primrose path, except in his case it had led nowhere. Alex had never had luck with women. At university he was appealing in a scholarly, bearded way, and plenty of young women were attracted to men who could quote Shakespeare as well as complete tax returns. But nothing ever seemed to work out. He would go cold after the first date. I wondered if he’d ever come to terms with his own sexuality, if there was something deep-seated and passionate about his suspicion of lesbians. And his evident belief that he could rescue them. Or at least one. Despite the fact that of all our friends I should be the one who could talk about this, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t ask Alex.
We met for lunch the next day on the corner of the Sydney building. Or the Melbourne one. I always mixed them up.
‘They left . . . huh . . . huh . . . halfway through.’ Alex was puffing after the walk from Marcus Clarke Street. Despite the cold wind he was unfit enough to produce a constellation of sweat across his forehead.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The others, last night. They told me they left the play at interval.’
‘What others? At Uncle Vanya?’
‘Julia, and a couple of others from finance.’
‘You didn’t tell me there were others! That it was a definite arrangement.’ In fact I wouldn’t have minded seeing Julia. Maybe the others.
‘Oh, it wasn’t a firm commitment,’ he said far too airily. ‘Anyway, I explained that you were too tired and depressed. About Riley.’
‘You what? What do you mean, about Riley?’
‘He wouldn’t come here with you.’
‘He’s got work.’ I began to walk quickly. The wind was icy. Fuck him. He was the one with major marital problems.
‘Look, I didn’t mind. Really.’
‘Good.’ I walked faster. Alex puffed, catching up.
‘Besides, you were right. She said the play was terrible.’ He glanced at me. I said nothing. ‘Anyway, I didn’t really want to spend time with Julia. Not after work as well. Just splitting up with Evan. She’s coming on a bit too heavy for me. I need my own space at the moment.’
I resisted the urge to punch him, and not just for the clichés. The very idea that Julia might have fancied him . . .
‘Why was it so bad? The performance?’ I couldn’t help myself.
‘Someone was reading from the script, a last-minute stand-in. And the one playing Telegin had a cold and kept blowing his nose.’
The wind propelled us along, towards Alex’s club.
‘A fine day to kill oneself.’
‘What?’
‘Just a line from the play,’ I said. ‘The only one I properly remember.’ To be fair, it was years since we’d seen it, on another distinctly off-kilter Alex night.
Downstairs, the club was cosy enough. The menu was basic but the place was warm.
‘Steak and chips and a beer,’ I ordered. ‘And you’re paying.’
Alex conveyed high-minded disapproval by ordering a salad without dressing and a mineral water. He hated being both health-conscious and overweight. Normally I wouldn’t drink at lunchtime but I was inclined to be provocative.
‘Have you thought about talking to Helen?’ Alex asked.
‘I don’t think there’s much I can do. I suppose I could try, but . . .’ Alex was looking too earnestly at me, his bulletproof spectacles reflecting the potted palms of the club centrepiece behind me.
‘What about her family? Have you tried there?’
He looked away. ‘She’s not in touch with them. And I’ve never spoken to them.’
‘Never? What about the wedding?’
‘None of them came. You remember.’
Along with his bickering parents and the dreadful Cantonese food, like we were eating out in Goulburn in 1965, I did remember that. And Helen’s cold appraisal when Riley and I were first introduced to her, how she turned away and muttered something about our matching suits, which could have been complimentary but I found condescending.
‘Did they even know you were married?’
‘She told them.’ He shrugged. ‘She said she told them.’
I ate a chip. Alex was clearly leaving information out but then Helen was the black lamb of her family. And they were in Creagh, County Cork. Still, it was a global community and even villagers on the bottom of Ireland were just a Facebook click away. Alex and Helen had met in the library one night when he was finishing his master’s. She’d been here for less than a year and was working in the lab while applying to take a science degree. At least, that was what Alex had always said.
‘Are you sure this is the full story?’
‘What do you mean? You think I’m making all this up?’
‘Only asking if you’ve remembered everything. Names, phone numbers, addresses?’
‘You’re talking to a person who knows every Melbourne Cup winner since Archer in 1861. Ridden by John Cutts. Trainer, Etienne d
e Mestre.’ I must have rolled my eyes. He leaned closer. ‘Someone who memorised the periodic table of the elements in school. Primary school. Of course I remember!’ His forehead was glistening again.
‘Sorry.’ I finished my beer. ‘You’re not eating?’
Alex had barely taken a mouthful of his salad. ‘Not hungry.’
‘Are you feeling all right?’ His sweaty face looked paler than usual.
‘Fine.’ He pushed his plate away and tossed the napkin on top. ‘I haven’t forgotten anything, you know.’
There was no logic in this. Plenty of men knew the cricket scores for the last fifty years but never remembered where they put their keys. Riley was one of these men, though I was not. I was very good with keys, wallets, phones. Not so sure about missing wives.
‘All right, what if I visit this Yvonne after lunch, see if she knows anything?’
‘Good. Are you finished?’
‘No.’ I beckoned the waiter and ordered the cheese plate. ‘And a strong flat white, thanks.’
Disapproval gleamed from behind Alex’s spectacles but I ignored him. If I was going to be bullied into finding a wife I would at least obtain some small indulgences.
By the time I reached Helen’s place of work, I was glad of them. It had taken me three buses through suburbs named Deakin, Hughes and Pearce, along streets called Kitchener, Hodgson and Mawson, and by the end of it I’d had enough of famous dead men. The lab was at a place called, incongruously, Bunda Bunda. The person I sought was working alone in one of the smaller buildings in the complex, a block like a school demountable. Yvonne appeared puzzled, then suspicious. When I mentioned Alex she leaped up off her stool.
‘You’re his friend!’
‘It’s all right, he’s not contagious. A little toxic now and then.’
She thought for a moment, then sighed.
‘Helen’s not here. We had a drink after work last Friday, then yesterday she didn’t turn up. I thought she was having a flexi day. She had to take the cat to the vet or something. Then today, no Helen. I’ve tried ringing but no answer. I thought I’d try her place after work, before ringing the police.’
The police? It hadn’t occurred to me that it might be serious.
‘Where’s she staying?’
‘You’re his friend. She doesn’t want him to know.’
‘I promise I won’t tell him.’ I explained how we went back years, how Alex got on my nerves but was like a mild skin complaint, something you got used to and didn’t bother trying to cure any more. How he was devastated by Helen leaving, how he wanted to talk to her.
‘I know all about his desperation and desolation. I’ve answered enough calls in the past few months . . .’
‘He told me he’d only rung once or twice.’
She shook her head. ‘He rang here every day at first, then about two, three times a week until late last week, then nothing. Helen was furious. She told me not to tell him a thing, not even that she was still working here. She changed her number, of course.’
‘But why? People break up all the time, it doesn’t mean you don’t talk to the other person. You have to talk about the house, the bank, the cat, something.’
‘She wasn’t angry at first, just fed up. He pestered the life out of her, always anxious about everything. Used to ring her every minute of the day, for the stupidest reasons.’
‘That sounds like someone who cares a lot.’ But then I recalled how just last night he was hovering with tongs, almost counting the grains of rice I was eating, fussing over the radio, the music. Demanding that whatever was up, he be the one to fix it, stroke it, feed it, understand it. Yet never noticing I was freezing all night. Alex’s domestic performance. All so fake. Designed to draw attention. She must have stopped wanting to be the audience.
‘I wonder why she ever married him,’ Yvonne said.
‘It was unexpected.’
‘I know that Helen was lonely, Alex was lonely. She needed to stay in Australia. He had this empty house. I suppose they were both misfits. And they thought that they’d both misfit nicely together.’
‘Yvonne, Alex told me Helen and he . . . well . . .’ Awkward. I’d only just met the woman.
‘I met Helen at Fancy Nancy’s,’ she said.
Click. Fancy Nancy’s. Diamante. V & V. Freddy’s. Canberra was full of specialty bars, I hadn’t forgotten that.
‘She told me about the position here.’ Yvonne gestured around the lab. ‘And no, if you’re wondering, we aren’t on together, never have been.’
‘None of my business.’
‘Well, what is your business?’
‘Alex just wants to talk to her. I said I’d help, as a friend, that’s all. But now you say you’re worried. Do you think she would have gone away just to get him off her back?’
‘She’s not that sort of person. You know what he’s like.’
Over the years I had felt like killing him, and again just last night. But then I’d imagine going to confront Alex and being met with those silly short arms, that bespectacled puzzlement. Maybe Alex’s real problem was that people didn’t care enough one way or the other.
‘I’m going to close up early here and go to Melba.’
‘Melba?’ Melba!
‘Helen’s flat’s there.’
I gave Yvonne my card, in case. She tucked it into the back pocket of her jeans where it would probably remain until the next wash.
The door was locked. I checked the time again: Alex had said he was having a flexi afternoon and would be home. I knocked again, then again, louder. The aluminium screen door rattled noisily. A dog barked. The neighbour’s head appeared from behind a lasiandra shrub.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘I saw him come home, a few hours ago.’ He waved his secateurs at the door. ‘Don’t think he went out again. I’ve been out here all afternoon working.’ He waved them again and I noticed the garden bags bulging with clippings. A gust of wind sent a stray twig gliding down the otherwise bare driveway. His dog ran up. We both watched as it caught the twig and returned to him. I stared at the dog, a kelpie-something cross, who dropped the twig and stared back. A fine day to kill oneself. It struck me why, given Alex’s prodigious memory, he hadn’t responded to that line from Uncle Vanya.
‘You might be worried?’
I looked up at the man. ‘Yes. Excuse me.’
I turned to the front door again and placed my backpack down, opening the screen door, which had not been locked. I lifted my foot and applied an R.M.Williams hard next to the lock. It flew open. Cheap ex-government places. I walked inside.
‘No point in coming now.’ I was sitting on the front step, talking to Riley on the phone. The police were still inside, the ambos had left. The neighbour’s dog had come to sit next to me, leaning hard against my side, as kelpies do.
‘It looks like Alex set all this up just so someone would be here to find him.’
‘I’m really sorry. I can get there first thing tomorrow if you really want.’
‘It’s okay. Listen, I’ve got to go.’
‘Tas?’ he said. ‘Tas?’ His voice was already distant.
‘Ring you back soon.’ I pressed end and looked at the phone.
Inside, a police officer was in the living room, another in the kitchen. Irrational pride flooded me, thinking of the great effort I had made with the washing-up the night before. I went to the bathroom, conscious of a sudden urge to pee. It seemed to go on forever. Washing my hands I jammed the Palmolive Gold back into the soap dish harder than necessary, then quickly dried them and walked out. The thought had just occurred that I probably had to find a way to contact Yvonne when my phone rang again.
‘You are kidding.’
‘I wish,’ Yvonne said. ‘She was in her bed, dressed. She looked peaceful.’
‘So did Alex. Let me
guess: morphine overdose?’
‘Yeah, they think so.’
I sighed. For the second time that day I thought, How very Chekhovian.
SECOND
Festive Food for the Whole Family
Your Christmas lunch or dinner need not be constrained by those fussy and inflexible eaters within the family. A perfectly splendid meal can still be created with a broader range of ingredients than might normally be used for a festive occasion, along with some careful planning and preparation in the weeks before. Knowing well in advance the dietary requirements of your guests will assist considerably, so you are urged to approach them with a checklist before finalising your menu. Modern families typically comprise vegetarians, vegans, non-pork eaters, seafood allergics and coeliacs, meaning your pantry should be comprehensive enough to provide anything from gluten-free fruit cake to tasty alternatives to roast turkey.
Naturally you commence with the pudding, which is already sugar-free, as you have been making this for years, relying entirely on the natural sweetness of the dried fruit. It will be easy to replace the wheat flour with a healthier rice flour, or even with ground hazelnuts; however, do not forget your younger sister’s nut allergy and while you shall warn her in advance, you should perhaps on the day also present her with her own sugar-, nut- and gluten-free little pudding, just to be on the safe side. This is what Christmas is for: thoughtfulness, selfless gifts, reconciliation, peace on earth and within families.
Do remember that some guests will not consume alcohol and this goes not only for the cake and pudding but also for the brandy butter, which of course will not be eaten by the vegans. However, a more than acceptable version may be made with vanilla pods and coconut cream, and fat-reduced options will be best for those watching their weight. Note that while it might be tempting for you to regard the festive season as a time for liberation from diet-consciousness, others may not agree.
A perfectly acceptable gluten-free and vegan version of Christmas cake may be made with fine polenta, macadamia or coconut oil, a good quality dried fruit mix pre-soaked in cold tea, and spices that you should grind yourself for better flavour. Adding black pepper will be your secret ingredient to enhance the piquancy, and while the lack of eggs will mean the cake is somewhat unbound, the final moist texture will more than make up for this.
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