The Landing

by Susan Johnson

  They were to be married in the chapel at the Anglican Church Grammar School, known as Churchie, where Syd went to school; a big society wedding, anyone who was anyone would be there. In the absence of a mother, Mrs McAlister and Evelyn took Marie to Gwen Gillam to have a wedding dress made (organza, the bodice stitched with seed pearls; an extravagant veil, trailing six feet). Evelyn and Syd insisted she go into McAlisters after closing hours to choose her going away outfit, which she did, eventually, reluctantly. Marie was amazed that Syd had not breathed a word of how rich he was; an entire shop, running over several floors, hundreds of employees! Standing in the magnificent shop, her courage failed her; she was hoping to talk to him about marrying in a registry office instead but she understood then that it would be a waste of breath. Everyone was making such a fuss; she would never have said yes if she had known.

  ‘All brides are nervous,’ said Evelyn, holding up a dress.

  She felt sick, faint; she had to sit down.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ she said.

  ‘Yes you can,’ said Evelyn. ‘Girls have been getting married forever. Nobody ever died from getting married.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said.

  Evelyn put the dress back on the hanger.

  How could she possibly explain? What could she say to a girl who thought the worst thing that could happen to you was getting your hair caught in the rain without a scarf?

  ‘I don’t like being the centre of attention,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, everyone secretly likes a bit of attention,’ Evelyn said. ‘It’s just bad taste to admit it.’

  ‘I really don’t—I don’t,’ Marie said, beginning to cry, her courage not only failing her but running, sprinting out the door and onto the street, every ounce of will and hope and bravery she had left in her fleeing.

  ‘Sshh, sshh, don’t cry now,’ said Evelyn, kindness itself, so kind, so very kind.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ she said again, when she could speak. ‘I can’t, Evelyn, I can’t.’

  Evelyn passed her a clean hanky. ‘I think we should get the tram home,’ she said. ‘If you really can’t go through with it, you’ve got to tell Syd.’

  Marie swallowed. ‘D’accord,’ she said.

  She did not want to get married. She did not want to be singled out, every eye upon her. She did not want misery, stockings flung out windows, a son released into the sky, a flower blooming, fading, falling.

  They did not talk on the trip home. Their bodies swung gently against each other; terribly, Evelyn took her gloveless hand in her own. Marie hated being touched; she hated having her hand held. Her hand began to sweat but she did not know how to extract it so she kept it there, in misery, the sweat flowing like a fountain from her palm, like a religious miracle. Finally, in agony, at last, they were at their stop. When Marie stood up there was a damp patch on her dress where her hands had been flowing in her lap.

  Syd was in his room; fortuitously, Mrs McAlister had nipped up the road to Mrs Anderson’s to discuss the flower roster for the church. ‘Marie!’ he said, his face breaking into a grin when he opened his bedroom door. ‘Did you get a dress?’

  ‘I can’t do it, Syd,’ she said, starting to cry again.

  ‘Can’t do what, darling? What can’t you do?’ He took her in his arms, kissing the top of her head.

  ‘I can’t marry you,’ she said. She dare not yield; she dare not risk giving up her hard-won self.

  He laughed. He actually laughed! ‘Which bridge do I have to jump off this time, Marie Arene? The Story Bridge? The Sydney Harbour Bridge? London Bridge? I’m going to run out of bridges.’ She smiled. She was crying, smiling, laughing, and then he took her hand and led her inside, shutting the door. For an hour Marie lay beside him on his bed in the dark room, in a sick, miserable fever, talking and talking, caught in the long unbroken breath of her unburdening, and, as she talked, Syd did not laugh anymore and soon his eyes grew dim from seeing.

  EIGHTEEN

  The good doctor

  ‘Is she all right?’ Jonathan said. ‘Quick, Pete, lay her on the floor.’

  Gordie, drunk, took a big swig of water before standing up. ‘The first law is: don’t panic. Stand aside, please, doctor coming through.’ He hoped he sounded more convincing than he felt, having drunk far too much for his own good, let alone anybody else’s.

  When he reached Marie, he took her pulse, which was steady, strong. ‘Have you a torch, Jonathan?’ he said, already thinking that she might have suffered a stroke. Then he noticed the red welt spreading down the left side of her face; feeling around the bone of her eye socket with gentle fingers, hidden in her eyebrow, he found a swelling. She was sweating; her lymph nodes were enlarged.

  Jonathan handed him a torch. He gently prised open each eye: everything seemed perfectly normal. She was certainly a good-looking woman. ‘You’re all right, Marie; don’t try to sit up,’ he said as she returned to consciousness. ‘Penny, can you please move away?’

  The daughter was hovering, looming uselessly over them, looking drunk, trying not to cry and failing. ‘Is she going to be okay? Gordie? Is she okay?’

  ‘If you give me a little space, I’ll be able to tell you,’ he said. ‘Buck up, now. There’s a good girl.’

  Obediently, she sat back on her heels, like a child.

  ‘Penny?’ Marie said.

  The daughter sprang forward. ‘It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here.’ They moved her inside to the long red couch in the lounge room. Gordie propped her up with cushions and as soon as she was upright she vomited, copiously, spectacularly, all over herself and the lounge. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so embarrassed! Penny! Please take me home.’ She made to get off the couch; collapsing backwards as soon as she attempted to stand. ‘Penny!’ she said, her voice rising in panic. ‘Penny!’ But Penny had rushed off to the kitchen, looking for paper towels, tissues, cloths, anything that would erase the embarrassment she knew her mother would be feeling.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere for the moment,’ Gordie said. ‘At a guess I think you’ve got a nasty spider bite.’

  ‘A spider bite? Should we take her to the hospital?’ Penny asked, wiping up the mess. ‘What sort of spider? Does she need antivenom?’

  ‘This might be our cue to leave,’ said Celia. ‘I’m afraid I’m a little too tiddly to drive to hospital. You could always call an ambulance.’

  ‘I haven’t drunk anything,’ said Rosanna. ‘I’m happy to take her.’

  ‘Have you got a dress she could borrow please, Celia? An old nightie will do,’ Penny said, swaying, trying not to slur her words, knowing the first thing her mother would want to do would be to change out of her soiled clothes.

  An expression of distaste passed across Celia’s drunken face; clearly vomit was not on her dinner-party agenda.

  ‘I’ll make sure she’s had a shower before she puts it on,’ Penny said, because she could not help herself. ‘And I’ll get it dry-cleaned before it comes back.’ Vomit, shit, death, decay—all the things no-one cared to talk about, Penny wished to shout about them all. Did Celia think a pair of fucking Christian Louboutin shoes could save her? Possibly Celia was too drunk to notice that Penny’s promise was not meant kindly, because she and Glen headed out the door, Celia promising to come straight back.

  ‘Oh, what bad luck,’ said Anna, crossing the room with a glass of water for Marie. ‘You poor old thing.’

  Marie visibly stiffened. ‘I’m perfectly well, thank you,’ she said. ‘Penny, could you help me up?’

  Penny looked at Gordie helplessly. ‘I should think a little trip to the bathroom to clean up would be feasible, if you can make it,’ he said.

  Jonathan and Gordie stood respectfully on each side of Marie to help her up. The front of her dress was sopping wet from Penny’s hapless cleaning.

  ‘Ups-a-daisy,’ said Gordie.

  ‘That’s enough of the ups-a-daisies, thank you,’ said Marie. ‘I am not a witless child.’
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br />   ‘I think your mother is feeling restored,’ said Gordie, smiling. He liked the woman’s spirit.

  The two men led her down the corridor, two courtly gentlemen, each holding an arm. Penny followed, hoping like Christ that Celia would get a move on with that bloody nightie. As they reached the bathroom, she heard Glen come in with it; Anna thanked him and rushed down the corridor to hand her a dress (Penny hoped it wasn’t couture).

  Inside upon the luxurious bathroom, furnished like a Japanese emperor’s, Marie collapsed on the toilet seat. ‘I have never been so embarrassed in my life,’ she said. Penny saw the effort of standing up and walking had been too much for her; she looked yellow, waxy.

  ‘Stop talking now,’ she said. ‘Let’s get you cleaned up.’ And the daughter washed the flesh of the mother, as the mother had once washed hers.

  In the lounge room, Gordie was discussing with Jonathan what was to be done. ‘I’m inclined to wait until the morning,’ said Gordie. ‘The poison will flush itself out. She’s not going to die.’

  ‘What if it was a funnel-web?’ Jonathan said.

  ‘She’d be dead. I’d say it was a red-back,’ Gordie replied.

  ‘I thought they killed you,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘Rarely. Usually they just make you sick. She’ll be right as rain after some paracetamol and possibly a dose of antibiotics.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Anna. ‘It’s always exciting coming back to Australia. I thought poisonous snakes and spiders were an exotic fantasy encouraged by the tourism board.’

  She was in the kitchen with Rosanna, making coffee.

  ‘Anyone want tea? Herbal?’ called Rosanna.

  ‘No thanks, we’re going to shoot through,’ said PP. ‘Thanks for the nice night’s entertainment, Jonathan. Never a dull moment at your joint.’

  ‘Thanks, Jonathan,’ said Cheryl. ‘Let me know if I can do anything.’

  If he was meant to read anything into this, Jonathan declined. He got up, shook PP’s hand and kissed Cheryl politely on the cheek.

  Penny and Marie were taking a long time in the bathroom. ‘Well, she can’t walk home,’ Rosanna said. ‘Can I borrow your car, Jonathan? I’ll drive them.’

  ‘No problem. I’ll pick it up tomorrow,’ he said.

  ‘Staying put would be a better idea,’ Gordie said. ‘Her life’s not in danger and she’d be better off going straight to bed. Have you got any Panadol? That will ease the pain.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Jonathan. ‘I’ll make up a spare bed.’

  ‘Better make one up for Penny, too,’ Gordie said. ‘They seem to be joined at the hip.’ As a person who had chosen to save his own skin, pulling away from everything that had made him in order not to be the person who stayed, he had a keen eye for dutiful children and for children who kept one eye on the door. Gordie had chosen salvation over enslavement, failing to visit his mother during her last illness, failing even to attend her funeral, having left Scotland by then to live on the other side of the earth. If he had acted wrongly, he was ashamed, but he was still not sorry.

  After a long while, Penny emerged from the bathroom without Marie. She shut the door behind her. When she was decently out of Marie’s earshot she said in a low voice, ‘Look, she’s really embarrassed. Can I borrow your car, Jonathan? I’ll sneak her out the side door to the garage if you all move back out onto the veranda.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ said Gordie. ‘I’ve seen more vomit than you’ve had hot breakfasts.’

  ‘Yuck, Pa,’ said Anna. ‘Vomit and breakfast is not the most wonderful conjunction of images.’

  Jonathan smiled at her.

  ‘Anyway,’ Gordie continued, ‘as the only medical man here I’m advising her to stay put. Jonathan is making up a bed as we speak.’

  Jonathan jumped up and raced down the hall.

  Penny picked up an empty glass and poured herself some water from the jug. ‘She’ll never stay here,’ she said. ‘Not in a million years.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ Gordie said, standing up and walking purposefully towards the bathroom, where he paused to knock on the door. Marie must have replied; they couldn’t hear what she said, but he opened the door and went in.

  A few minutes later the door opened and, instead of turning left and joining them in the lounge room, Gordie took Marie by the arm and led her down the corridor to a bedroom where a bed had been made up with expensive Egyptian cotton sheets of many threads.

  ‘Well, I never,’ said Penny. Why could unrelated people say things that people related to them could never say?

  ‘I made up a bed for you too, Penny,’ said Jonathan. The implications suddenly struck him. ‘Gordie thought it was the best thing to do,’ he added.

  She didn’t have a toothbrush, or any make-up remover, she didn’t even have her handbag, which at least contained the faint hope of a tube of lipstick. There was a moment, when she was young, when she looked beautiful any time of the day, make-up or no make-up. Now, she decided she wasn’t going to take her make-up off; with a bit of luck, it might hold until morning. She was tired, and growing older and sadder by the minute. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll crash now.’

  He led her to the bedroom. At the door, he motioned her in. She turned; there was a pause, both of them unsure of the etiquette.

  They stood for a moment, facing each other, before Jonathan leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek at the same moment she awkwardly leaned forward to kiss him. Their noses knocked.

  Lying in bed, Penny realised she was still drunk. The room tipped and, unbidden, her life came crashing down around her head. Her poor mother! Poor Scarlett! Poor Pete! And poor her, lying amid the ruins of her mistakes. She had made her own trap. She felt something in her rise, something she might once have called her soul, a cry from deep within. The noise of life was drowning her, suffocating her; reeling, she sat bolt upright.

  ‘That’s enough excitement for one night,’ Gordie said in the lounge room. ‘Coming, darling?’

  ‘You’re welcome to stay for a nightcap,’ Jonathan said. What the fuck was a nightcap? Even to his ears, this sounded idiotic.

  ‘I’m dead on my feet,’ Anna said, ‘but thanks for the offer.’ She stood up. ‘The couch looks fine, by the way.’

  He did not care about the couch.

  ‘How long are you staying?’

  ‘As long as it takes,’ she said. ‘As long as it takes to sort my head out and work out what comes next.’

  ‘She’s welcome to stay as long as she likes,’ said Gordie, ‘although Bites considers her a rival for my affections.’

  ‘Poor Bites,’ he said. ‘Tossed over.’

  Anna laughed; her teeth were white and even; he glimpsed the red, wet gleam inside her mouth. He could hardly ask her out in front of her father.

  When Anna kissed him goodbye, she kissed him full on the lips. There was no mistaking her intent.

  PART

  III

  NINETEEN

  A girl of air

  It appeared that weddings with all the trimmings were the order of the day. Evelyn instructed Marie in the idea that hers was to be a society wedding, covered by the Courier-Mail, which would not only record how many individual seed pearls covered the hem of her wedding gown, but how many guests came to the reception at Lennons Hotel, who the bridesmaids were (Evelyn and Wendy McCann, soon to become Wendy O’Brien) and where the newlyweds were going for their honeymoon (a first-class sleeping compartment on the new Sunlander train to a new hotel in Cairns).

  The engagement announcement, printed on 16 September 1955, read Mr Sydney Alan McAlister, son of Mrs Mary McAlister and the late Mr Alan McAlister, of East Brisbane, to Miss Marie Arene, formerly of London, England.

  Marie might have descended to earth on a cloud or been found in the bulrushes in a basket. ‘Seems fishy to me,’ said Min McAlister. ‘Even if her parents are deceased, why can’t we print their names?’

  Syd stood firm. ‘She has her reasons, Mum. We shoul
d respect them,’ he said.

  The notice set Brisbane society agog. She was a gypsy, someone said; someone else said they knew for sure she was an heiress whose parents, tragically, had been killed in a plane crash. There was talk that she had come from one of the displaced persons camps in Europe set up after the war; probably she had lived for years like a scavenging dog. Balts, reffos, dagos, wogs: there was one Europe, and there was another Europe, and opinion was divided over which Europe Marie Arene was from. She wasn’t Jewish, was she? What kind of name was Arene, anyway? It didn’t sound very French. The girl was certainly beautiful and she knew what a fish fork was; whoever Marie Arene was, with her fine-boned face and her dark skin and lovely deep brown eyes, Brisbane society had a good look, giving her the up-and-down, a thorough once-over. She had caught one of the most eligible bachelors in town, without any of them knowing, without any of the daughters and mothers among the communities of St Margaret’s, Clayfield College, St Aidan’s and Brisbane Girls Grammar getting a look in. What a shame for little Gwen Harris, who had tilted her hat at him! What a shame for all the other girls, just as pretty.

  Marie hated every moment of her wedding. She hated the old ladies coming at her with their false smiles and their big teeth and hats, the jealous looks of other girls. She hated walking down the long aisle, the feeling that she might faint, everyone looking at her. It was an endurance test, a chance for everyone to finally get an eyeful of the girl who had won the valuable heart of Sydney McAlister. The only thing that got her to the end of the aisle was kind Mr McCann giving her an encouraging pat on the arm as he walked her down it, and seeing Syd’s face waiting up ahead. He was smiling, looking hard into her eyes, willing her forward. She saw the intent, the will, the strength of the martyred feelings that had caused him to jump off a bridge. He was twenty-four years old, four years younger than her, but he did not care. He cared only about her, Marie, the stranger, and he cared enough to turn himself into a home.