Chapter 50
Colin Brennan
Friday, 3 June
Three days after Bernadette revealed that she had been raped by Jack Constable, Dr Sarah Soliman called me to say that Bernadette had requested a family conference with Leo and me.
‘Is this usual?’ I asked.
‘It’s not unusual. Sometimes bringing the family in at crucial times in a person’s therapy can be beneficial.’
‘Very well.’
What now? I thought. I was beginning to feel like one of those puppets at a sideshow where you threw a ball to knock it down and it sprang up again, leering at you. I didn’t know how many more knocks I could take. There would be no good news in this ‘conference’, I was sure. Leo was free the following Friday morning, so we made it for ten o’clock.
We were shown into a sitting room, pleasant enough, with flowers and sun coming through the window, although the day was cold. Thank God it wasn’t the stuffy little visitor’s room where Sarah Soliman had lectured me the last time I was here.
Bernadette looked exhausted. She had dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept, but her demeanour was different somehow. She met my eyes when we came into the room. ‘Hello Daddy, hello Leo,’ she said in that high, childlike voice.
There was none of the hostility with which she’d greeted me last Sunday.
We sat then, but I couldn’t escape the same impression that I was on trial for some unconscious transgression.
Dr Soliman began, ‘Thank you for coming, Colin and Leo. Incidentally, may I use first names?’
We both nodded.
‘And please call me Sarah. Bernadette is taking an important step today, and I’m here to support her, not to direct the conference in any way. The conversation is between you three. Is that understood?’
Again, we nodded.
‘Last Saturday, Bernadette revealed to you details of the crime that was committed against her when she was a young woman of twenty-one.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that she was raped in our home by someone I thought I could trust.’
‘Don’t blame yourself, Colin. You had no knowledge of it, and as you say you trusted this person, who I understand is dead now. However, Bernadette has asked me to be here because there’s another aspect of the crime that she wants out in the open. Are you ready, Bernadette?’
‘Yes.’ Bernadette sat straight in her chair, her hands joined in her lap. They were trembling. She spoke as if she’d rehearsed the words many times. ‘When it happened, it was just after my twenty-first birthday. Do you remember, Daddy, that you and Mummy gave me those lovely pearls?’
Yes, I remembered. Mary had ordered them through a jeweller in Broome. I felt sure Bernadette would lose them.
‘Anyway, that’s not important,’ she said. ‘When he came to my room and did that to me, I really didn’t understand what was happening. I knew it was wrong and it felt dirty, but I didn’t know what it was. I was a very silly, inexperienced girl, and I’d been so sheltered.’ She paused.
Leo and I sat waiting.
‘Okay, Bernadette?’ the doctor asked.
Bernadette took a deep breath and sipped from the glass of water on the table before her. ‘Thank you, Sarah, I’m fine.’ She paused slightly, before continuing, ‘So as you know, I was very innocent. He said not to tell anyone and I didn’t, not even Mummy … but … but nine months later there was a baby.’
No! I could feel my stomach sink to the floor and my heart rate increase. Not that, please.
Bernadette kept talking in that rehearsed way. ‘I had no idea I was pregnant. No idea at all. I could see that I was getting bigger, but I’ve always been large so I thought nothing of it. I’ve never cared about my appearance. I ate whatever I wanted and I never did any exercise, so it stood to reason that I’d gain weight. Really, when I think back, I knew so little about my body.’
So much for Catholic education and its prurience about sex education, I thought. Those nuns have a lot to answer for.
‘Then one night I began to have what I now know were contractions. They went for hours. Indigestion, I thought, something bad that I ate, perhaps. But I must have called out because Mummy came.’ Bernadette’s mouth twitched. She was trying hard not to break down. ‘Mummy delivered the baby. It was dead — blue, purplish.’
Sarah stretched out her hand to cover Bernadette’s.
‘It’s okay, Sarah, I’m not going to cry.’
The silence in the room was a thick cloud, palpable.
‘What happened to the child, dear?’ I asked softly.
Then she did cry, gasping for breath so we had to strain to understand. ‘Mummy … Mummy took it. She baptised it so it wouldn’t go to Limbo. Then she took it away.’
What a nonsensical notion ‘Limbo’ always was, discredited now of course. My mind kept working, even as I tried to absorb the dreadful story.
‘Took it where, Bernie?’ Leo asked.
‘I don’t know. She said everything would be alright. She cleaned me, gave me a pill and told me to sleep. She said we wouldn’t tell anyone. She told me to stay in bed. And I did, for weeks. It was just after that that I went into hospital, and then I began seeing Dr Werstein.’
‘Did she ask you who it was, the father I mean?’ Leo asked.
‘Yes, but I didn’t tell.’
So Constable — that putrid excuse for a human being — got away with it. I wished I’d known. I’d have had him in court in five minutes. We could have taken DNA samples. Could have put him in jail. Honestly, I didn’t know if I could take anymore of this.
Bernadette’s story rang true for me in every detail. It would be just like Mary to do what was necessary, dispose of the baby’s body, care for Bernadette, keep the whole thing from me, the self-righteous Judge whom, she was sure, would see it as one more disruption to his life by his foolish daughter. Mary baptising the baby was so typical of her that I almost wept.
I wished desperately that she’d told me. I wished she’d given me the chance to be compassionate, to be a father, to get some justice for Bernadette. I swallowed my outrage. As Leo would say, this wasn’t about me. ‘What do you want to do about it, Bernadette?’ I asked. ‘Do you want us to go to his family? Demand reparation? There’s some possibility that we could sue his estate.’
She looked terrified. ‘No, Daddy, no … no … I just wanted you and Leo to know, so you’d understand … you know, my problems, why I have no confidence … you know, scared to leave the house. I just wanted you to know, that’s all.’
‘You’ve been very brave, Bernie.’ Leo went to her chair and knelt before it, taking her hands. ‘I will do anything … anything to help you get stronger.’
Bernadette patted his hand in an absent way. She seemed relieved that the story had been told.
‘Where to from here?’ I asked Dr Soliman.
‘That’s up to Bernadette. Telling you about the situation has been a breakthrough for her, and she’s been very brave. But she knows that it’s only one step. There is still a long way to go. She must do the work. I’m just here for support and guidance.’
There’s still so much poor Bernadette doesn’t know, I thought … about Harry, his crime, the torching of the house, his incarceration … but now certainly wasn’t the time to tell her.
I thanked Dr Soliman, and on an impulse I stood and held out my arms to Bernadette. I couldn’t remember when I had last hugged her. A very long time, I was sure. I expected her to refuse my embrace, but she came into my arms and I held her briefly.
‘I am so sorry, darling,’ I said.
‘Yes, Daddy.’ She patted my back as if it was she comforting me.
Chapter 51
Colin Brennan
Sunday, 5 June
There was a ‘FOR SALE’ sign on the fence by the gate. I remembered the house. It was a particularly lovely two-storey Federation home in South Yarra. The leadlight windows were original, and the small veranda where I stood was shaded by a red-flowe
ring gum. The north-facing formal garden was meticulously kept. The doorbell was answered by a man in his thirties wearing an apron over blue jeans and a white T-shirt. The son, I realised. I’d never met him. As I recalled, he was their only child.
‘Hello, I was hoping to see Sylvia.’
He looked at me with suspicion. ‘Yes, that’s my mother. What’s it about?’
‘Oh, sorry.’ I extended my hand. ‘I’m Colin Brennan, an old friend of your parents. I couldn’t get to your father’s funeral, so I wanted to pay my respects to your mother.’
He relaxed then and shook my hand. ‘Judge Brennan. We haven’t met, but of course I knew of you when I was growing up. Mum’s here, but I’m not sure how well she is this morning.’
He led me through a wide, tiled entrance to an elegant sitting room. Sylvia sat in a floral covered armchair in front of a glowing log fire. She didn’t look up when we entered, but she patted and murmured to a small dog on her lap, a prissily groomed poodle, which yapped sharply at me.
‘Mum,’ David said. ‘Judge Brennan is here to see you.’
An old woman, she looked up slowly, watery eyes struggling to focus. Then a tremulous smile crossed her face. ‘There you are darling Jack, you’re home. Puddles and I have been waiting for you.’ She stroked the ear of the silly dog. Then turning to David, she said, ‘Bring my husband a drink please, then we’ll have dinner in an hour.’
I looked at my watch. It was ten in the morning.
‘Now, sit down Jack dear, and tell me about work. How’s the Renton trial going?’
The Renton trial was a famous one that Constable had presided over. A man killed his wife and four children and staged it as a murder-suicide. It had ended twenty years before with the conviction of Renton and his lover.
David raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Dementia,’ he whispered. ‘Today’s a bad day, I’m afraid. She thinks I’m the cook.’
‘I’ll bring you a cup of tea and a biscuit, Mum. What about you, Judge Brennan?’
‘Call me Colin, please. Just a cup of black coffee.’
Although Sylvia was shrunken with age, there was still something of the imperious, bossy socialite in her manner. ‘Jack, I can’t get any work out of this new woman.’ There followed five minutes or so of domestic troubles ranging from inadequate dinner menus to the gardener bringing dirt into the lobby.
‘Sylvia, it’s Colin Brennan. Remember you were friends with my wife, Mary?’
For a moment the cloud seemed to clear, and then it settled again. ‘Oh, Mary Brennan. Yes, I ran into her in Toorak Road yesterday. I must invite her for lunch, dear Mary. But one is so busy.’
Through my hazy memories of Mary’s funeral, I recalled that Jack and Sylvia had been there — Jack self-important in his morning suit, and Sylvia in designer black.
David brought in the tea and coffee, and we sat in silence as Sylvia caressed the hostile little dog.
‘How’s your health, Sylvia?’ I asked, hoping she might recognise me just for a moment. ‘Are you well?’
‘Why, Jack,’ she said, ‘you know I’m well, but it’s sweet of you to be concerned. Now, don’t forget we’ve got that tennis party with the deputy Premier at the weekend. I hope you’re going to be free. It’s so embarrassing when you make excuses.’
It was fruitless. I stayed as long as was decent, and then I rose to leave.
‘Where are you going, Jack? You know we’ve got guests for dinner.’
I bent and kissed her. ‘Just back to chambers for an hour or so, dear, then I’ll be here to pour the drinks.’
I followed David to the door.
‘Sorry you had to see her like that,’ he said.
‘Yes, it’s sad isn’t it? Are you her carer?’
‘Just for now. She’s moving to a nursing home next week where she’ll get the constant care she needs. She’s going downhill rapidly, as you saw. Then I have to pack up the house.’
‘I see you’re selling it. It’s a magnificent property.’
‘Yes, it’s under offer. Not that there’ll be much left after I’ve invested money for Mum’s care and paid off sundry debts.’ He looked angry, suddenly. ‘I’m afraid Dad owed a lot to various “creditors”, shall we call them.’
‘Banks?’
‘If only! No, gambling debts to some really shady outfits. There was an irresponsible side to the old man that Mum and I are still paying for.’
‘I’m sorry for that, David. I had no idea.’
‘Most people didn’t. Mum worked very hard to keep up appearances.’
So that was it. ‘Karma,’ Leo would say. The story I had come to tell Sylvia would remain with me. I wouldn’t inflict it on this innocent man, Constable’s son.
I shook his hand with what I hoped was warmth. ‘I wish you and your mother well, David.’
I sat in my car outside the house, the key not fully turned in the ignition. A voice on Radio National discussed a film review with an actor I’d never heard of. What did any of it matter? Sylvia slumped in that armchair, living in the past. That’s what happened to the bright, surging spark of life that propelled us into the world; the body became a shell and the mind slowly leaked away.
It would happen to me soon enough.
Unbidden memories of Bernadette as a child came up to meet me. Playing in the shallows at Sorrento, a T-shirt and hat protecting her fair skin. Running to me when I came in the door from work, my hug and greeting never warm enough. Sticky little fingers on my best suit, and Mary hurrying to pull her away. Taking tea with her dolls in the garden, chattering to them. Those golden moments gone. The concerts and Speech nights I rarely found time to attend. The years of school uniforms, books and sport, her hopes for my approval gradually vanishing.
Over the years, I must have become just a frequent, rather frightening visitor to her. It was always Mary. ‘Mummy’ she would call. I couldn’t remember when she stopped calling to me, stopped expecting anything of me.
Then the decline into cloying dependence on her mother and the first signs of agoraphobia … and … Jack Constable.
I let that happen.
And Sylvia.
At the end of life, we became children again.
‘What a truly sad story,’ Nadia said when I told her later that afternoon when we met up.
After the disastrous visit with Sylvia, I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t face Leo, and by now I was finding the Club suffocating. I had called her from my car, waiting for the slump in my gut if she told me she was busy. But no, we met in the Botanical Gardens, since I was in South Yarra. It had been years since Nadia had been there, so it was a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
We walked the green corridors of the gardens, along the Australian Forest Walk, and towards the Herbarium, pausing to watch toddlers playing in the Children’s Garden. We bought picnic food at the café and walked along the Hopetoun Lawn and around the lake.
I told her everything about the various stages of Bernadette’s illness, her relationship with Harry, Alison’s birth, her hoarding, and this latest dreadful revelation of the crime committed against her by Jack Constable and the stillborn infant. I poured it all out, no longer caring for my dignity or bothering to pretend that I was above it all.
By the time we found a seat in the sun at Picnic Point, Nadia knew more about my family and my self-doubt than I had ever confided to anyone.
‘I feel like a criminal,’ I told her. ‘I’ve let my children down. I should have been a better father. I don’t know how to make it up to Bernadette.’
‘We’re all inadequate, Colin,’ she said. ‘We all let others and ourselves down. You have to stop whipping yourself about it all. I’m a believer in the practical. You can’t change the past but you can choose the kind and good thing in the present.’
‘That’s what Leo says. Start with an act of kindness and multiply it. If you don’t feel love, act as if you do.’
‘I think I’d like Leo,’ she said.
The conversati
on moved on. Nadia was applying for funding to establish a Centre for Polish Studies at the university. She outlined her hopes for it, as well as her frustration with the endless paperwork. She asked me again about Stasiewicz’s book of poems, and when I told her that Alison had it she seemed pleased.
‘I wonder if she’d lend it to me. I’d love to show it to some of my students, and even to begin translating some of the work.’
‘You’ll need to ask her. I’ll bring her to meet you.’
As we strolled I described my home at Golden Beach, and my intention to purchase an apartment for Alison and me, to give her a home until she finished school. Depending on Bernadette’s health, it might also become a home for her. I would then transfer the title to Alison when she turned eighteen.
As we explored the Fern Garden, Nadia took my arm, smiling at me. At that moment my failings seemed to matter a little less. Neither of us were young, but there was time yet, and perhaps more sweet moments like this to come — or so I hoped.
Chapter 52
Alison Brennan
Sunday, 5 June
My hair smelled of grease from the Hungry Jacks’ kitchen, but it didn’t matter. Mum and I were knitting squares.
‘We must have the same size needle,’ she said. ‘A good middling one, nine.’ She pulled a spare set from the bag at her feet.
The pair I’d brought were too big.
‘You’d need very thick wool for those,’ she said.
She showed me how to cast on. She was very quick, and at first I was clumsy, but I soon had thirty stitches in the red wool I’d brought. She showed how to do the basic stitch, ‘garter stitch’, she called it — needle through the stitch, pull the wool around, draw it through and onto the next one. We did thirty stitches and thirty rows, and then we cast off. Each square was an achievement.
The Blooming Of Alison Brennan Page 17
