Why ever did I come? Peg wondered. She gazed around the tiny apartment with its sparse furnishings, bare walls and cold, vinyl floor. Bored Peg. Boring Peg. Empty, wooden, hollow.
Suddenly, with a resounding snort Carol woke up and started paying attention to her guests.
‘Oops! Was I asleep? Done your assignment, Peg? Started mine this morning but after a couple of wines to pep me up I had to have a sleep after lunch, so that was the end of that,’ she said, pouring herself another glass of red wine.
‘No,’ Peg replied tersely, staring off into space. ‘No, I haven’t had time to start it yet.’
Peg chain-smoked. Carol, when awake, chain-smoked. This was very ‘in’ behavior for the time of which I write, the 1990s, before people became aware that they were slowly poisoning themselves and others around them.
‘I started mine,’ Linda offered. ‘Shit, I hate Freud. He’s a bloody pain in the arse.’ She was growing perceptibly drunk as she sipped determinedly at her wine, flicking her hair back while glancing seductively at Michael and singing along to the music.
It was also very ‘in’ to swear when attending University, especially if battling to obtain an Arts degree.
‘Do you have a degree, Michael?’ Linda asked after a gigantic pause in the conversation, in an effort to get Michael to do something besides drinking beer.
Damnation, thought Peg. I was about to hot-foot it out of this hole when he arrived. Now I’ll have to stay on for a decent pause or they’ll think I’m rude. As if I give a continental. What the Hell! Buggeration!
At about twenty-five, Michael was handsome in a soft, squishy sort of way, seemingly poured into his uniform like a sausage into its skin. He was very aware of his own importance with the three stripes on his highly-pressed sleeve.
What does that mean, Peg wondered. Three stripes? Three strikes and you’re out? Stop meandering on in your mind and just get away from this lisping dude.
He wore the obligatory slim-line mustache as featured by so many officers in the armed forces. Arrogant, totally concerned with his own ego, Peg thought as she buzzed on thinking about the return trip through the pitch black night, not interested whether he had a degree or not. Self-involved bastard.
He was muscular and well-built as well as having a very pronounced lisp which would have amused her or gained sympathy from her if she were not so unhappy. Why didn’t he get some speech therapy? Surely if the armed forces thought enough of him to give him three strikes.....stripes, they would have enabled him to pronounce the letter S. You would have thought so, she assured herself. As if I give a rat’s arse! Her edginess turned to distaste as she tried to think of an out.
‘Yeth,’ said he, ‘I have theveral degreeth but I won’t bore you with the detailth.’
Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a shit, thought Peg, underwhelmed with almost fatal disinterest. You’re making me terminally ill, you trumped-up asshole.
Carol, who had been awake for fully ten minutes, swamped her drink and promptly settled in for another snooze.
‘Wake me in there’s anything I should hear about,’ she moaned as she slipped away again into semi-consciousness, hanging ever lower in the saucer chair.
The evening wore on and dragged on. Peg wished herself anywhere in the universe except at the miserable party. She drank the obligatory wine, ate the obligatory dip and biscuits and watched the clock.
Carol woke occasionally to curse the world, have a quick swig of wine and nod off again. Linda played records to her heart’s content and flirted unmercifully with the straight-laced Michael, who seemed to be as taken with his whereabouts as Peg was with hers. Passive Peg. Bored and boring.
This is absolutely and positively the worst night of my life, thought Peg, ever more bored and still more boring, suffering through the monotony of the evening with her blue eyes full of disappointment over the afternoon and the way her son had not seen her.
What a pushover Mitch must have thought her to invite him back into Michael’s life after fighting so hard to stop all access, blaming his heavy-duty bullying behavior. She had warned him that she would brook no ill-treatment of her son this time around.
No use brooding over it. Time to discuss it when Michael got home tomorrow. Surely with a new wife present and a few small children added to the mix, Mitch would keep a civil tongue in his head for a couple of days if push came to shove.
Carol stirred, kicked out with one boot-clad foot, upsetting the fishbowl on the side table. It clattered to smithereens on the floor and several tiny fish gasped and flung themselves around distressingly.
‘Christ!’ she muttered in disgust and refilled her glass with red wine yet again.
Linda, Michael and Peg scattered to rescue the fish, return them to the safety of a small mixing bowl and clean the mess up. Little bits of pretend seaweed lay forlornly on the ancient carpet, sadly soaking the pretend wool feebly.
‘I’d thay Carol ith her own wortht enemy,’ commented Michael to Peg as he wrung the sopping dishtowel out into the sink in the kitchenette.
‘Is she a friend of yours?’ Peg asked disinterestedly.
‘Heaventh, no,’ said he primly. ‘I met Linda at a party latht week and she athked me to come tonight. Carol’th your friend, I gather?’
‘I know her from Uni. Pick her up sometimes when our lectures coincide. I had no idea she had such a drinking problem, though. Poor Carol,’ Peg remarked reflectively. ‘Sometimes when I call to collect her in the mornings she seems a bit under the weather but then again, that’s pretty much how I feel and I don’t have a drinking problem. Just studied half the night.
‘Yeth,’ he agreed. ‘I’d thay it’th a drinking problem, Peg.’
‘Bloody men!’ drifted in Carol’s well-modulated tones from the lounge room.
Linda replied with some psychological jargon about Karen Horney’s pet theory on penis envy.
‘Oh no!’ shouted Carol, conscious enough to get the gist of the hypothesis.
About this time, with the big hand on the twelve and the little one on the eleven, Peg’s mind woke up, clicked over and moved into first gear. Time to escape without appearing too rude.
‘I think it’s time I left,’ she said quietly to Linda who had come to the kitchenette with yet another dripping tea towel. Who would have thought that small fish tank could hold as much water as the Mediterranean Sea? And how I wish I’d never come.
‘A coffee before you go, perhaps?’ asked Linda politely.
‘Oh, no thanks all the same,’ Peg replied quickly, anxious to put the whole experience behind her.
‘Linda thaid you live out of town, thomewhere near the Airforth Camp,’ said Michael.
‘That’s right,’ Peg replied stiffly.
‘Can I athk you for a lift?’ Michael queried, handing Linda his wet tea towel and donning his blue cap at a jaunty angle, then straightening his mustache deftly with an agile lower lip. ‘I came to town with a friend earlier and he’th already gone back to the camp.’
‘Sure,’ said Peg briefly. She took her heavy coat from the back of the kitchen chair and put it on in haste, anxious to be up and going. She walked over and shook Carol gently by the shoulder.
‘Thanks for the lovely night, Carol. I’m going home now and Michael’s getting a lift with me. See you in class on Monday.’
‘Thanks for coming, Peg..er..Michael. Michael?’ mumbled Carol with a wobbly smile.
They almost ran from the front door through the chilly air, climbing into the cold and running the motor for a few minutes to take the chill off the interior of the vehicle.
The two drove out along the dark, almost deserted highway silently, except for the radio blaring at full volume again. Great little conversation-stopper, thought Peg.
Eventually Michael became tired of the blasting music, asking if her could switch it off.
‘I suppose so,’ said Peg with bad grace. She jilted her chin in the air as a sign that he could do so. He smiled at her but she ignore
d him, wanting no further conversation.
He left like chatting, so tried a little light conversation.
‘I get a little lonely at the camp. Not too many of uth live in.’
‘Shame,’ replied Peg, trying in vain to show an interest but preoccupied with her own thoughts.
‘Yeth. My fianthee ith in Thouth Authtralia. Port Auguthta to be exatht, actually.’
‘Uh huh.’ If I can get through tonight I’ll feel better in the morning. If I get through tonight I can get through the rest of my life, I think. I hope.
‘Yeth. We write regularly but it’th not the thame. I ring her every Thunday evening but it’th thill pretty lonely.’
‘True. Not the same,’ she replied flatly, trying her best to summon a smile.
Everything seems different in the mornings. I’ll feel better then and my boy will be coming home at the end of the day.
‘I get leave in Augutht and I’ll fly over,’ he informed her, making rather juvenile hand gestures imitating a plane.
‘Great!’ It came out as almost an explosion.
Surely after all these years he won’t be won over by his father? Want to live with him?
‘Are you married, Peg?’ he inquired pleasantly.
‘No.’ Barely a restrained whisper.
We’ve been such good pals, surely he won’t want to leave me now when he’s getting close to being reared.
‘Widowed?’ he continued, pressing the point.
‘Divorced.’ Dear God, please don’t let us discuss that. Please let him leave it alone.
‘Oh. I’m tho thorry.’ He looked towards her sadly. Don’t look at me like a bloodhound, she wanted for all the world to say but held back as he glanced at her with quiet pity. Almost home and rid of him now.
‘I’m not. Sorry is about the last thing I am,’ she assured him in a tone full of meaning while giving a slightly unhinged laugh.
She roared along to the next corner and threw the gear stick down a notch. Have to get off this topic. Something stony gathered around her heart as she recognized the fact that he was intruding on her personal emotions. She did not like the intrusion and she did not like him. The sooner I can unload this joker the better, ran through her head.
‘I live along that street down there,’ she put in quickly. ‘I’ll just zip out to the camp and drop you off. It won’t take long.’
‘I wouldn’t mind the coffee we mithed out on before. I don’t actually feel like going back to camp jutht yet.’ He smiled across at her gingerly, perhaps aware that he was skating on very thin ice. He had small greenish eyes that were neither sensitive nor perceptive.
She felt her cheeks turn hot with a swift anger that she realized he had not been aware of but she felt no compunction in blaming him for it having arisen.
‘Okay.’ Maybe we can find something to talk about over a cup of coffee.
He followed her inside the house then into the kitchen and sat silently while she, just as silently, made the coffee. She sat down opposite him at the pine table and offered him milk and sugar. They sipped their coffee and talked in a desultory manner about Rumpty, the weather and the Airforce camp. Her face was composed, her anger driven down to an almost acceptable level.
Finally, he rose to go. She walked with him to the door—he had said he could walk back to the camp from her house. In the doorway he reached out and took her warily in his arms. He gazed adoringly into her eyes.
‘I find mythelf thrangely attracted to you,’ he said tenderly.
Peg didn’t speak, nor did she move. Oh, sure, and you’re only about thirteen years younger than me and engaged into the bargain. Bars of guilt and prohibition existed around her having a relationship with this egotistical man. Age difference, a fiancée in South Australia, absolute indifference to the man, longing to be left alone, missing her son to distraction and worried sick about him.
Mute, aching, painful Peg. Fractured Peg. Hollow. Hurting.
‘I’d like to make love to you, Peg. May I?’ This followed by the obligatory kiss.
You’re a prig. Pompous, jumped-up prig. Opiniated, arrogant arsehole. What about your fianthee waiting for you in Thouth Authtralia?
She didn’t reply, mute Peg, futile, powerless, empty. The image of her own Michael swam before her and she shut her eyes to block out the scene. The air force man gave a sensuous shiver as he held her close then released her to take a further drag on his cigarette, emitting a cloud of smoke around both of them.
If she lost her son she would surely die from grief.
Mitch’s house was huge, sprawling, brick. How well he could provide for the boy with his successful business. How satisfied was her son with the timeworn, weatherboard house and her straightened means?
Her son seemed to love her a lot. They were always the greatest of friends. When they had a car accident and she had cut her head on the steering wheel, Michael had been heartbroken and said he wished it had been him that was hurt instead of her. How touched she had been by that and how glad he was not the one to be injured.
But Mitch’s life was so glamorous by comparison to hers with her tightly budgeted way of living, existing on little while she reared her son and studied full time. Her ex-husband had so much more to offer financially.
Her eyes remained closed as the Airforce man held her and she tried her best not to cry.
The uniformed person reacted as if to a sign of passion from her, her deep-drawn breath, her tightly closed eyes. He took her hand and led her across the hallway to the bedroom with a soft, seductive smile on his face, assuming he had won out by the sheer might of his presence.
My son has gone with his father. He didn’t even see me at the football grounds. Maybe he just loves his father best, that’s all. He can give him all the possessions I can’t. Will that matter?
‘I am not normally the philandering kind,’ the spruced up person assured her as he slipped between the sheets of her narrow bed.
She looked at his burly, blond haired body and gave a audible sigh.
‘I don’t believe in philandering either,’ she said, staunching her anger that she had been brought to this incident when all she had wanted out of life was a peaceful, happy existence with a loving husband and her precious son.
The two made what can be roughly described as ‘love’, passionless reactions to each other, passing some time together in the night. Strangers filling a little loveless space, simply getting through the night, grappling in the bitter, sterile, dismal darkness.
Silent, hollow, numb. Fractured. She closed her eyes and thought about her misery. She guessed he closed his and thought about his fiancée, or his inflated ego.
Shapes and patterns in the dark, on the ceilings, on the walls. Shadows and shades, nameless fears and unmistakable ones intermingled. The silence was so deep she could hear her own heart pounding.
‘Please go,’ she said very soon as she climbed out of bed to don her dressing gown.
‘I’ll ring you thoon,’ he said as he left her in the doorway. ‘In a day or two, for thore,’ he added as an afterthought.
She suffered an acute attack of panic at the thought of David answering the phone to this man.
‘For sure,’ she replied, smiling thinly. God, how I hope he doesn’t! She was grimly silent as she ushered him into the freezing night.
There was nothing more to say in parting so he laughed uneasily, a laugh almost as hollow as Peg felt herself to be.
Crazy Peg. Futile, aimless, hollow.
Morning dawned, a golden autumn morning spun with tranquility, peace, hope, bright flowers and multi-colored leaves in a carpet on the ground.
Peg loved the autumn mornings. She spent the day writing her assignment. Freud, Jung et al. At four she switched the oven on and placed a rolled roast inside. Michael would be home soon. He would be hungry. She went back to her assignment.
Peg didn’t hear the car, didn’t hear a sound of her boy’s arrival until Rumpty lifted his head from Peg’s foot and wa
ddled towards the door. Every joint in his short, squat body was alive with movement, his little tail going like a threshing machine.
‘Mum, I’m home. Hey, where are you?’ She heard the door clip shut and his overnight bag thump to the floor of his room before he came to seek her out.
‘I’m here, son. Hi, how are you? Hungry? Did you enjoy your weekend?’ She stopped her typing and opened her arms for her son to come to her and know how welcome he was. I am your home, Michael, she told him silently with a thankful prayer for his return to her.
‘Oh, sure, I had a good weekend but it’s great to be home with you and Rumpty.’ His face erupted in a wide grin.
He had grown from a quiet, thoughtful little boy into a tall and slender teenager with brown hair and sky blue eyes like her own. As he kissed her hello a sobbing laugh rose in her throat. He is home, my boy, home. She tacitly understood that he was as pleased to see her as she was to see him.
She held her breath all week. Every time the telephone rang she quaked inwardly and her mind swam as she rushed to answer it before Michael could get to it and ask about the mystery man with the lisp.
Each time she answered the phone it wasn’t him. Every day she relaxed a little more, knowing that the man had probably been as lonely and confused as she was, just trying to get through the night, blundering along without the aid of a moral compass, as she had been.
Saturday came around again. He hadn’t rung. She took her Michael to play football. This time after the game he climbed in beside her and they chatted and laughed as they drove away with Rumpty in the back seat, joyous.
15. But Don’t Tell Sarah
Conrad Himmlar, short and squat, ageing and balding, sat in front of the solid laminex and timber bar sipping a rum and coke, perched on a bar stool swinging his stumpy legs, his feet not quite touching the floor while he gazed around in peaceful contemplation. His jaw was squarish and his eyes with their faintly blood-shot whites were cold, his lips fat and unsmiling. Little tufts of graying brown hair sat in splendor around the edges of his polished crown, his little tonsure.
As usual, he was suffering from an overblown sense of his own importance, being prepared to entertain his guests that night with the best of food and drink. He puffed out his barrel chest, master of all he surveyed. His face broke into a warm smile as he took in the satisfactory surroundings he had ‘worked his guts out’ to supply, constantly slogging until his retirement at around thirty-five.
Eloquent Silence Page 26
