There’s no operatic ending to this tale, I’m afraid. In fact, to be perfectly frank, it isn’t the sort of tale that has an ending. I did give it a beginning, I admit, but just for purposes of seduction. I could write you an ending, if you insist:
Late the following summer, surrounded by her seven children and secure in their love, Grandmother passed peacefully away. Released now from the rôle of dutiful daughter, Yvonne began slowly to live life as she wanted—to speak of her life as a good life in all its parts, to enjoy its graces, to travel a little, to spend time with her children as the mood took her, even to learn Greek at last, just for fun …
No, that won’t really do. It’s insipid and graceless. What about something like this:
At long last the day arrived. In a turmoil of contradictory emotions I sped along the freeway towards Melbourne airport, scanning the sky for signs of her plane swooping in to land. Not five minutes from now, not four not three …
But no, that really won’t do either. It does sound a bit like me, I agree, but you can tell my heart’s not quite in it. The last thing that happened, if that’s what you mean by an ending is this:
Last Sunday evening, as I do every second Sunday, according to our secret tradition, I dialled Yvonne’s number and waited for her voice to interrupt the burring. ‘Oh, Robert!’ she’d say any second now—she always does and I get a bolt of pleasure—‘I was just about to turn you on on the radio!’ (Oh dear, I always think, I hope I haven’t got anyone saying … well, ‘fuck’ or anything on the show tonight … or a lesbian separatist or …)
But that will hardly satisfy you, either, if you really crave an ending. If you really crave straight lines. I told you: this is a tale without an ending. I have told you the truth. Now trust me.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Yvonne, my mother, for her frankness and generosity in sharing her thoughts and experiences with me; Peter Timms, for his support and confidence during the writing of this book; and the many other friends who encouraged me over a number of years to write my stories down. I would also like to thank the Literature Board of the Australia Council whose grant made the writing possible.
About the Author
Robert Dessaix was born in Sydney in 1944 and is a well-known broadcaster, writer and translator. He studied at Moscow University in the late sixties and seventies and for almost twenty years taught Russian language and literature at the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales. For many years he was the presenter of the ABC Radio National’s ‘Books and Writing’ program. He has also published translations of works by Dostoyevsky, Turgenev and a number of Russian poets, and his translations with Aubrey Mellor of plays by Anton Chekhov have been produced in threatres around Australia. His most recent publication is his essay collection As I Was Saying.
Other Books by Robert Dessaix
NOVELS
Night Letters
Corfu
NON-FICTION
Twilight of Love
Arabesques
On Humbug
As I was saying
Copyright
A&R Classics
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 1994
This edition published in 2014
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Robert Dessaix 1994
The right of Robert Dessaix to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Dessaix, Robert, 1944- author.
A mother’s disgrace / Robert Dessaix.
978 0 7322 9737 4 (pbk)
978 1 7430 9994 0 (epub)
Dessaix, Robert, 1944– Biography.
Authors, Australian – 20th century – Biography.
A828.309
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Cover image by shutterstock.com
Mother's Disgrace Page 17
