The Silence

by Susan Allott

  She sat down in the striped garden chair and heard her front door slam. She took a cigarette from the pack and shunted the chair around, turning her back to the house. Her hand shook and it took her three goes to get the thing lit. This was ridiculous. She needed to get a grip.

  “Mandy.”

  She didn’t reply. She was facing right into next door’s line of shrubs and her eyes had fixed on Lou’s roses. They were bright and full, opened up from a day in the sun. She couldn’t bring herself to look away.

  He was right behind her now. “What are you doing out here? I was calling you.”

  “Sorry. Just enjoying the quiet. Nice breeze.”

  He stood next to her. His face was bloated from crying and two purple veins had risen jaggedly at his temples. She reached out for his hand and he gripped it tightly.

  “Feeling any better?”

  He nodded. “A bit.”

  Isla ran out her back door, turned several off-kilter cartwheels on the grass, and applauded herself loudly, scaring the cockatoos in the trees. Steve’s frown unfolded as he watched her. He was soft over kids. Isla wasn’t his biggest fan, mind you. She’d seen and heard too much of all this. The tears and the outbursts. Mandy was used to it, but she could see how a child might be put off.

  “Look at my cartwheels, Daddy!” Isla called out to Joe, who had walked out onto his deck. “Look at me!”

  Joe clapped his hands and cheered as Isla cartwheeled past. He caught Mandy’s eye and nodded, raising a hand in greeting. God Almighty, she was looking straight at him. She waved back and shunted her chair to the right.

  “You’re home now, love,” Mandy said. “Try to relax. There’s a few beers in the fridge.”

  He shook his head. “Thing is, Mandy—”

  Joe sat down and undid his tie with both hands, tugged it free of his collar and threw it down on the deck. Something was different about him. He’d changed his hair, she thought. Cut it much shorter. And he was wearing a suit, of course. That must be it. He looked twice the man, somehow, in the crisp white shirt and the suit pants. She felt blood rush to her face.

  “I can’t take much more of all this,” Steve was saying. “I’m not up to it, darl’. It’s a dirty job.”

  Mandy moved her chair another few inches to the right, clipping Steve’s boot. “You always feel this way afterward. Give it a day or two and you’ll be right.”

  “I don’t think so. Not this time.”

  She caught the edge to his voice. It exhausted her, the way he needed her. She felt drained and guilty, both at once. She held her hands out and he lifted her to her feet. “How bad was it?”

  “It was bad. Like always.” He spoke into her ear. “I don’t like who I am sometimes.”

  “Stop that.” She eased her hands free. “Don’t start all that now.”

  “She cried herself hysterical,” he said. “Begged us to take her back home. That can’t be right, can it?”

  Mandy smiled at him, kissed his cheek. He smelled of sweat, and the hot interior of his truck. “Come on,” she said, letting the smile slip as she looked over his shoulder at Isla roaming around the back of her yard; the mob of cockatoos shifting about in the trees. Sweet Jesus, she thought, don’t let him start up again, not here. “Why don’t you take a shower, Steve? Get yourself freshened up. That always helps.”

  He looked down at himself. His police blues were creased and stained. “You’re right. Been wearing this getup for days.”

  “Once you’re changed, I’ll fix you something to eat. We can have a quiet evening. Get your head straight.”

  “Righto.” He stayed where he was. “Sorry, darl’. I’m not sure I’ll spring back from this one too quick.”

  “You got the job done, love. That’s it now, for a while.”

  He nodded. “Hope so.”

  “Gotta take the rough with the smooth. Right?”

  “Right.” He didn’t look convinced. “I’ll take a shower.”

  Mandy sat back down and tried to get settled again. Her gin had gone warm. She was still aware of Joe sitting out on his deck, smoking a cigarette. The curve of his spine, his neck, the back of his head.

  She looked away. Joe Green had never caught her eye before. He had a knockout wife and a second baby on the way, for God’s sake. What was with her today? She stood, picked up her glass, and took a quick glance in Joe’s direction. Louisa stared back at her. Brown, sad eyes. She was sitting at Joe’s side, telling him something, and he was looking out at the yard, watching Isla run around in the trees.

  Mandy’s face burned up. Her skin flushed hot, then cold. She nodded at Louisa and turned her back, self-conscious in her crumpled sundress as she walked away. She felt caught. Exposed. Which was daft, but she felt it all the same.

  8

  Sydney, 1967

  “What’s howdy?”

  “It means hello in America.” Joe patted the seat beside him. “Come and sit down. Watch the film with me till your mum gets home.”

  Isla climbed onto the couch and sat in his lap. “Howdy,” she said.

  “Howdy, partner.”

  She knelt on his thigh and ran her hands over his scalp. Since he’d had this buzz cut, she wanted to stroke his head whenever she could get close enough. She wasn’t gentle about it. He moved his whisky tumbler so she couldn’t knock it and tipped his head forward for her. Sometimes with Isla you had to give in and let her have her way. The same was true of her mother, although he didn’t give in to her half as often. Isla was less complicated. She thought he was God on earth, and he was putty in her grubby little hands.

  “Why don’t they say hello?”

  “Different places have different words, love. They think hello sounds funny.”

  She moved her hands across his skull. “Is that why Mummy talks funny?”

  “She doesn’t talk funny.” He smiled to himself. The head massage was helping, now she’d calmed it down a bit. He let his eyes close. “Your mum’s from England, like me.”

  Isla climbed down from the couch. “Pop to the loo,” she said, in a half-decent English accent. She spread her hands and held her arms out. “I think I’ll just pop to the loo.”

  He laughed. “That’s not bad.”

  “Goodness me.” She lifted her chin, flared her nostrils. “What a ghastly candelabra.”

  “A ghastly what?”

  She was bent double, laughing at herself. It was that time of night when she’d be in stitches one minute and crying her heart out the next. He shouldn’t have let her stay up so late. But she was good company. Nobody else made him laugh these days.

  “Where d’you get this stuff, Isla?”

  “From the telly,” she said, sitting back down beside him. “Mandy lets me watch her programs with her when it’s raining.”

  “Does she now?” He smoothed her hair, which was stiff with seawater and full of sand.

  “Why don’t you talk funny?” She yawned. “Daddy?”

  Because I’ve lived here six years, he thought, and I made the effort to fit in. And I never had a plum in my mouth to start with.

  “I don’t know, Isla,” he said. “I think it must be bedtime.”

  “You said I could watch the film till Mummy got home.”

  He laughed and she laughed back, pleased with herself. “Did I say that?” He wrestled her a little bit, going easy so he didn’t make her cry. “You look sleepy,” he said, and she didn’t deny it. “Why don’t I put you to bed?”

  “I can sleep here with you.” She lay down with her head in his lap and pressed her face into his shirt.

  “As long as you do sleep,” he said. “I don’t want you chatting to me all night, you hear?”

  “I won’t.”

  He reached for his drink.

  “What’s a candelabra, Daddy?”

  “I’ll give you a candelabra if you don’t go to sleep.”

  She started laughing again. He was useless at this stuff. “Come on,” he said. “Don’t play me up, lov
e.”

  He managed a sip of whisky while she stretched out and got herself comfortable. After a minute she went still, and he tried to watch the film. He’d lost the thread of it a while back, but it was helping to numb his brain after working all day. That and the whisky. He was leaning on the grog a bit heavy these past few weeks. He’d expected the promotion to be hard going, but there were days lately when he felt like he was in over his head. Nobody knew what they were doing, and they were looking to him for decisions. Sometimes he wondered if he should have stayed where he was, supervising the site and the men, taking his tea breaks with the rest of them and knocking off early on a Friday. They’d all changed toward him the minute he’d turned up in a suit and tie. He’d expected it, of course, but it didn’t make it any easier when they headed off to the bar without him, leaving him up to his neck in plans and drawings and problems. More problems than he could have imagined. Every day the newspapers were asking why Sydney needed an Opera House on Bennelong Point, and he was halfway inclined to think they were right.

  But he’d decided to buy the Holden. The latest model. They had more than enough in the bank. It was a lot of money, and they’d have to step up the savings plan afterward, but he needed something to make it all worthwhile, to balance out the long days and the stress. The thought of the car was keeping him going when he was dead on his feet at the end of the day. They’d be able to get out of town on weekends, see the places they’d read about when they were planning to move out here. Lou had liked the look of those spots up the coast—Byron Bay, Noosa—but they’d never gotten there. He wanted to take her out of Sydney, show her this country, make her see it the way he did.

  Isla was asleep. He’d lift her into bed in a minute, so it all looked shipshape when Lou got back from Mandy’s. She’d been gone a while, come to think of it. Still, it was good for her to have someone to talk to. Mandy was a nice woman. She’d known what to do when Louisa was low, back when Isla was a baby. They’d come to rely on her.

  Joe picked Isla up and carried her through to her room. It was going to be tough if Lou had another low patch with the new baby. He hadn’t said so, but it had been his first thought when she’d told him she was pregnant again: What if you can’t cope? What if you draw the curtains for six months and cry every time the baby cries?

  He set Isla down on her bed and pulled the covers over her, found her Digby bear and tucked him in the crook of her arm. She’d be starting school before long, and if Lou got her driving license, it would all start to come together. She’d be a busy mum, taking the kids to the beach, to the park, to school and back. She could stop working, stop relying on Mandy so much. Stop pining for home.

  Isla turned in her sleep and kicked her covers off. She was the love of his life, this girl; this funny kid who came along before they were ready and knocked them sideways. The whisky was turning him soft, but still, it was a fact. He’d been mad about her from day one. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. Her hair and skin smelled sharply of the sea. He should have made her take a bath. Then again, it was outdoor dirt, the healthy kind of dirt that kids should smell of. He’d smelled of mildew and cabbages at her age and had never seen the sea. He needed to remember that, whenever Louisa’s moaning got to him. This was a better life for them all, by a long shot.

  He left Isla’s night-light on and shut her door behind him. There was a shootout on the TV, filling the lounge room with gunfire and stampeding horses. It was almost ten o’clock. He took the whisky bottle through to the kitchen and topped up his glass. He’d make this his last one. Looking for matches in the second drawer down, among the elastic bands, coins from the old currency, reels of cotton, and paperclips, he found a set of keys, held together with string and a cardboard tag that read Steve and Mandy. God help them if they ever needed their spare set; it was hopeless trying to find anything in this house. The thing you needed was never the thing that emerged from the chaos. He’d spent ages looking for the savings book earlier and hadn’t found it. The mess, the clutter, drove him mad. He couldn’t relax when the place was a tip. Louisa knew that. But she’d rather put up with mess than give in and do as he asked.

  Joe sat down at the kitchen table and smoked a cigarette. He was sober enough—just—to know that his own voice, in his head, was starting to sound like his dad. Time to knock it on the head with the whisky and call it a night. He stood and tipped the dregs from his glass down the sink, ran the glass under the tap and drank some water. This was something his dad had never done in his life.

  The credits were rolling on the TV. He was tired, but he didn’t fancy the thought of the empty bed. He’d just close his eyes on the couch while he waited for Lou. She’d be home any minute. This wasn’t what he was used to, was all. Usually she was the one at home on her own on a Friday night.

  He woke to the sound of the back door slamming shut, movements in the kitchen. He tried to unfurl himself from the tense ball he’d slept in. His legs and neck were stiff, his mouth dry. “Lou?” He sat up and listened. Nothing. He got himself up on his feet and called out to her again.

  “I’m in here,” she said at last. She sounded strange.

  “You okay?” He pushed the kitchen door open. She was sitting at the table with her head in her hands. He sat down beside her. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need to tell you something.”

  “What?” He pulled her hands away from her face. “What is it?”

  “I don’t want a car.”

  He waited, and when she didn’t continue he laughed and rubbed her back. “You had me worried there.”

  “The money you want to spend on the car could get us home.” She turned her chair to face him. “I don’t want to be here, Joe.”

  He groaned and put his hands on her shoulders. He didn’t have the energy for this. “It’ll get easier. Once we’ve got the car, we can—”

  “Listen to me.” She twisted out of his grip. “The car won’t solve anything.”

  “How do you know? You haven’t given it a try.”

  “I knew you’d say that. I knew this was pointless.”

  He held her eye a few seconds. “You’ve been talking to Mandy about this, haven’t you?”

  “I might have.”

  “For Christ’s sake.” He sat back and looked at the ceiling. “What did you tell her?”

  “Never mind about that.”

  “I do mind. What did you tell her?”

  “I told her I want to go home before the baby comes. She persuaded me to talk to you about it.”

  “Some things are private, Louisa.” He felt his voice rise. “Some things should stay between us.”

  She stood, and her own voice rose to a shout. “I knew you wouldn’t listen. I knew you’d do this.”

  “I’ve worked my backside off for the car.” He stabbed the air with his finger. “Months of overtime. And now this promotion. Do you have any idea—?”

  “I didn’t ask you to.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t ask you to work so hard. I’d rather not have the extra money if you’re going to spend it all on yourself.”

  “The car is for us!”

  “Rubbish. It’s a status symbol.”

  “That’s not true!” He slammed his hand on the table. “I want us to see the country, as a family. Start to enjoy being here.”

  “I don’t want to see the country.”

  “You are the most ungrateful—”

  “I can’t be grateful for something I don’t want!”

  “You’re unbelievable.”

  “Am I? For wanting a say over how we live? Where we live?” She threw her arms up. “Can’t you see, I can never be happy in this country? Don’t you care about that?”

  “Do you really think you’d be happy if we went home?”

  She stared at him. “I was happy before we got here.”

  “We weren’t married long before we got here. Maybe it’s us that’s wrong. Maybe we’d be in trouble wherever we lived.” />
  He hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t known he even thought it until he heard himself say it. He lit another cigarette, just to occupy his hands, to avoid looking at her.

  “Is that what you think?” She sounded hurt.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “You think we’re the problem? You and me?”

  “I just meant.” He reached for the whisky bottle and poured himself a glass. “I think we’d likely have the same set of problems if we went back home. Running home’s not the answer.”

  “You’d still drink too much in England, you mean?”

  He drained the glass in one. “Don’t start.”

  “You remind me of your father lately, you know that?”

  “I said, don’t start!”

  She picked up the bottle, which was nearly empty, and held it up for him to see. “That’s gone down quick, Joe. Aren’t you meant to be saving?”

  He snatched the bottle from her—too hard, too rough—and slammed it down on the table. “If I can’t have a drink in my own home—”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “Can you blame me?”

  She started crying then. He was drunk, it was true, and he wanted her to leave him alone so he could finish the bottle in peace.

  “Don’t cry.” He stood beside her and reached for her hand. “Come on. It’s late, and we’ve both said things we shouldn’t have.”

  “I meant everything I said.” She was crying hard. “Is there any chance, Joe? Any chance we could go home? Would you consider it, one more time?”