by Tony Parsons
“I thought you’d want me to sleep with you.”
He looked at her and noted her flawless skin, soft green eyes and tawny blonde hair, but mostly her full red lips that he still remembered as being so very warm and soft. It was hard to distance himself from such an attractive a woman who was so ‘available’, but Steele knew that it had to be done. He couldn’t in all conscience have a physical relationship with Gillian then decline her offer.
At that instant, Gillian knew that she’d lost Clayton Steele. They might remain friends because of Clem, but that was all they’d ever be.
“If that’s the way you want it, Clay.”
“That’s the way I want it, Gillian.”
Though she hoped to change his mind, Clay didn’t retreat from his position. He was unfailingly courteous to her and spent time with Clem. They went for a drive to the coast and had picnics, but it was a sexless sojourn for Gillian. She could see that Clay wasn’t interested in her, if he’d ever been. She wondered if he’d ever been truly interested in any woman. And when she turned her mind to what might have been the outcome if she’d married Clay, she knew that she wouldn’t have been satisfied to live at Jerogeree. Lovely and all that it was, Jerogeree wasn’t the place to bring up her son. If he was to turn out as she hoped and expected, he needed to be close to the institutions that could give him the education and finish that Clay had received.
It seemed to Gillian that the person who was most pleased to see her was Billy. He’d come home from a singing engagement but was living with his mother and Tess now. The first morning back, he came down to see Steele to report on his ‘gigs’. He kissed Gillian and shook hands with Clem.
“Billy, I hardly know you; you’ve grown so much,” Gillian said to him as they sat on the front veranda over morning tea. “I’ll bet the girls are ooh-ing over you now.”
Billy looked at Steele and smiled. “Some,” he said. “Mr Clay says you’ve been fishing with him,” Billy said to Clem.
“And looking for craybobs, too,” Clem said in his quiet fashion.
“I used to fish in that creek and look for craybobs.”
“Clay caught a shark when we went fishing at the coast,” Clem said.
“A shark, eh. Well, that’s one less to worry about?”
“How’s the composing these days, Billy?” Gillian asked.
“I haven’t done much composing lately. Been too busy. Mr Clay’s been writing all my new songs.”
“I want to hear some more of your songs, Billy. I’ll be disappointed if you don’t compose some. Just one big new one would do for starters,” Gillian said.
After Billy left them, Steele told Gillian that he was worried that success had gone to Billy’s head. He’d received so much adulation for his singing that he hadn’t bothered to work at developing any new songs. “It seems he’s been playing up a bit, too.”
“What exactly do you mean by ‘playing up’?”
“Too many parties, too many girls and a little too much drinking.”
“I suppose you had a good hard talk to him about those things before he left you?”
“Oh, yes. I even went with him to some of his first gigs. But I can’t hold his hand forever. He’s a big boy now and he has to make a life for himself without me beside him every step of the way.”
Gillian nodded. “Yes, he does.” And it wasn’t just Billy she thought of as needing to build a life that didn’t centre around Clayton Steele.
Gillian stayed for a week before deciding it was time to leave. There was nothing for her at Jerogeree. She’d hoped there might be, but it was clear that she wasn’t on Clay’s agenda. She would always be welcome as a friend and because she was Clem’s mother but she would never be close to Steele, or ever intimate with him again.
“You must come and visit me in Sydney, Clay. And you can see Clem as often as you wish. I could send him up to you on the plane if you’d prefer to have him here on his own,” Gillian said before they left.
Steele nodded. “You’ve done a good job with him, Gillian. Clem’s a fine boy. If anything, he needs to loosen up a wee bit. He’s a very serious fellow. Maybe he needs to play a bit of sport.”
“I suppose I’ve been a bit too protective of him. He’s very precious to me, Clay.”
“I can understand that. Call me if you need any help with him… or with anything else,” Steele said.
“Thank you. I’d better get moving, Clay. Thanks for looking after us. Say goodbye to Glenda and Debbie for me when you see them.” She kissed him and Clem shook hands with his father and then, they climbed into Gillian’s smart red car and drove away.
As she drove, Gillian thought back to the discussion she’d had with her university friends all those years ago about the feasibility of a person remaining hidden from society. The major subject of that discussion had been Clayton Steele who’d disappeared and no one knew where he’d gone. It had been only by chance that she’d heard his name referred to in relation to a country and western song. It now seemed incredible that she’d located Steele and that on her second visit to him, they’d made love with the result that she’d had a child to him. It was what she’d planned; a ‘no strings attached’ child was what she’d told Steele. She realised now that it would be preferable to be married to Steele, certainly for Clem’s sake, but that wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t going to get uptight about it because marriage wasn’t part of the arrangement she’d made with Steele. She looked back at Clem from the rear-view mirror and grinned. Half a loaf was definitely better than no loaf at all. There were plenty of single mothers raising well-adjusted children alone and it didn’t carry the stigma it used to. Unless Steele ever married, Clem might be the only child he ever produced. A man who could knock back the opportunity to go to bed with her took some understanding.
Gillian thought of the lovely Deborah who wanted Steele too, yet had managed to go nowhere with him either. What on earth was Steele looking for in a woman? More to the point, was he looking for a woman at all?
“Why are you crying, Mummy?” Clem asked from the back seat.
“I thought we might be staying a little longer, Clem. I thought your father would want us to stay longer,” she answered.
“Didn’t Daddy like me?”
“He liked you a lot, Clem. I think he was upset because it took me so long to let him meet you. I mean, to bring you to him. I wanted him to see you as a boy, not a baby,” Gillian said.
“I thought he was a nice man. I liked fishing with him.”
“That’s good. You go on thinking he’s a nice man. I’ll send you back to him when you’re a bit older. You can stay longer next trip. That’s if Clay agrees. You see, Clay writes books and when a writer is working on a book, he or she doesn’t like being interrupted. Maybe you’ll be a writer, too, Clem,” she said.
“It’s a very nice place, Mummy. Not the house so much but the garden and the creek. And the birds. So many pretty birds. Wasn’t it nice the way the coloured ones perched on us? And I liked it that Daddy could pick things from his garden. It was good the way the water came up out of the ground. It was nice water too, so cold,” the boy said.
“One day, your dad might tell you what happened at Jerogeree when the first white people came to the district. I could tell you because he told me, but he could tell the story much better,” she said.
“So they’ve gone.” Steele had rung Glenda and asked her to come to dinner and now they sat in semi-darkness on the front veranda, with light from the interior of the house streaming across half the bare wooden boards.
“Yes, they’ve gone,” Steele said.
“And Gillian wanted you to marry her, mainly to give Clem your name?”
“That’s about the size of it,” he said.
“How did that strike you?”
“When Gillian asked me to father a child for her, she gave me a solicitor’s letter that absolved me of any responsibility for the maintenance – in any shape or form – of any child she produced
for which I was responsible and that the child’s upbringing was to be borne entirely by one, Gillian Brooker. She was quite happy for the child to have a single mother then. But now that Clem is growing up and Gillian has him booked into Shore, she can see that it’d be preferable to be married, both for her and for Clem,” Steele said.
“A perfectly reasonable point of view.”
“Perfectly. That’s if I want to be married to Gillian, which I don’t. We discussed the ethical concerns of producing a child back then, but Gillian brushed my concerns to one side. Perhaps I was wrong to give her what she wanted but she so desperately wanted a child of her own. But it took five years for Gillian to bring Clem to see me, which was hardly reasonable. Gillian’s an intelligent young woman but to some extent, she’s a loose cannon and will always act in her own best interests. I suppose I was flattered that she thought enough of me to want a child by me. She did what she did because she sincerely believed that Debbie and I would get together and then it wouldn’t be possible to have any part of me. As that didn’t happen, she thought that perhaps I’d now look more favourably at marrying her. The fact is that I’m now more opposed to marrying Gillian than I ever was. She wouldn’t be happy living here and she’d want to be back in Sydney where Clem will be going to school. But that wouldn’t matter to Gillian because she, and Clem, would bear my name. I don’t need that kind of complication in my life, Glenda, and neither does Clem. And if you’re wondering if anything happened while Gillian was here, it didn’t. I’d have been a hypocrite to take what she was offering while knocking her back on marriage,” Steele said. “Mind you,” he added, “it wasn’t easy to resist her. Mind doesn’t usually win over flesh.” He smiled at her and quite suddenly, she felt young again.
“We’ll have to do something to make up for your sacrifice.”
“What do you suggest, Your Worship?”
“I suggest an immediate date with your double bed.” Steele’s eyebrows lifted. “That’s the kind of legal decision I can live with.”
“There’s more validity to it than you imagine,” she said.
Steel’s brow furrowed. “You’ve got me there. Please explain,” he said.
“Another time. Right now, there’s a more pressing matter to attend to. Give me a few minutes and I’ll see you in the bedroom.”
Later, as she drove home, Glenda felt deliciously sleepy and had to concentrate hard to stay awake. Lovemaking with Clay was enjoyable but much more taxing on one’s frame than it had been in her younger years. A regular diet of Clay and she’d be asleep half the time. She hoped that Debbie had had an early night so she could have a luxurious bath and then slip quietly into bed. But this was not to be because she found her daughter still working at her thesis.
“You’re keeping late hours, Debbie.”
“How did it go?”
“It appears that nothing, and I mean nothing, happened. Clay told Gillian he wasn’t disposed to marrying her. It seems that before Clay did the deed that produced young Clem, Gillian provided him with a legally drawn up letter absolving him from any responsibility for Clem’s upbringing because the decision to have a child was hers alone and she, Gillian, would bear all the costs and responsibilities involved in his upbringing. At that time, Gillian wasn’t concerned about being married. Not a scrap. But with Clem booked into Shore, apparently, she can see the advantages of him having a legal father and Clay’s name,” Glenda said.
“So, apart from showing Clay his son, which she’d waited five years to do, Gillian’s visit was unproductive,” Debbie said.
“That’s about the size of it.”
“How do you know nothing happened?” Debbie asked.
“Clay told me. And I believe him because he’s never been anything but frank with me and absolutely truthful. And believe me, Debbie, I have more than a nodding acquaintance with the truth,” Glenda said.
“I’m happy to concede that point, Mother. So, Clay has given Gillian and her son, who is his son, the flick. What does he do now? Live on his own while he writes immortal prose?”
“What you should understand is that some men simply don’t want the complexities of a relationship. It’s his writing that’s so very important to him. A relationship rates lower on his list of priorities. I recognise this and I’m happy that Clay considers me a friend. I’m also happy to share whatever it is that he wants to share with me. Gillian opted for a child. Love takes many forms, Debbie,” Glenda said.
“Are you telling me that you love Clay?” Debbie asked quickly.
“Yes, I do love him. If I’d been younger when I first met Clay, I’d have been after him like a shot. As it is, I love him enough to want what’s best for him. I also love him enough not to stand in his way if he should prefer a younger woman… like you or someone else,” Glenda said.
“That’s very big of you, Mother. I’m finding it hard to match your standards. For a start, I don’t have all your years on the bench. I’m an environmental scientist who’s concerned about what people are doing to this country.”
“My years on the bench don’t have anything to do with it. If you love someone, really love someone, you want what’s best for that person. In Clay’s case, if I can support him, I will… and have,” Glenda said.
“That’s a very strange attitude for a fiery feminist, Mother. And I’ve looked through your scrapbooks and read accounts of the days when you were a fiery feminist,” Debbie said.
“Being a feminist, fiery or otherwise, doesn’t mean that you give up on men. It simply means that you push as hard as you can for equality with men in areas where women have been discriminated against. Not so many years ago, there wasn’t a female magistrate in the country and not many female police officers either. Now, we have female police commissioners. There are women in all the armed services and many of them have husbands and boyfriends. Feminists are not against men, only against men continually being given preference over women. Clay doesn’t ask anything from a woman. You simply feel you want to make things better for him. That’s the essential female coming out in me,” Glenda said.
“Maybe I should go back out there and offer Clay the essential me,” Debbie said with a weak laugh.
“Forget it, Debbie. Clay has other things on his mind. He’d only send you packing again. Like I’ve told you before, you can’t make people love you. They either do or they don’t, and sometimes, it’s because of mutual respect or mutual understanding of the other’s point of view. I understand that Clay is a unique personality, much different from the usual run of men and that he has an agenda that doesn’t include a wife and children. He gave in to Gillian because at heart, he’s an essentially kind person. She desperately wanted a child and he wasn’t being asked to have a role in her child’s upbringing. When Gillian changed tack and tried to get him to marry her, he pulled the plug on her because that wasn’t what he’d agreed to when she asked him to father her child. What you should understand is that some men don’t want or even need women beyond the occasional romp in bed.”
“That’s all very interesting, Mother, but it doesn’t alter the fact that I’ve wanted Clay since I was seventeen and I’ve kept myself for him. But how do you deal with a man who prefers the mother to her daughter?” Debbie said bitterly.
“That’s not fair, Debbie,” Glenda protested.
“Isn’t it? Deny that you’ve slept with Clay. You have, haven’t you?” Debbie asked passionately.
“I refuse to answer…” Glenda began.
“It doesn’t make me feel great to know that Clay prefers your company to mine.”
“I can’t help that, Debbie. I realise that stacked up against you, I’m an ancient female, but Clay and I have a kind of mental compatibility and that’s an important factor in a relationship or even in a friendship. If we do have a relationship, it’s certainly more mental than physical because Clay makes no demands on me in regard to the latter,” Glenda said.
“There would be plenty of the physical if you retire early
and go live with Clay. Daddy always said you were hot stuff in bed. He said it was the only decent part of the marriage. He was three parts blotto when he said it, but I suppose he meant it.”
“There’s nothing to be gained from dredging up what your father said. He was a total loss as a husband and the only thing I can thank him for are you and Donna. You could have taken after him, which would have meant that the marriage was a total disaster. I suppose the fact that Clay and Hugh are so different, accentuates Clay’s appeal. Feminist or otherwise, I’d be very satisfied to end my days in a worthwhile relationship. It would probably be presuming too much to imagine it could be with Clay, but in the meantime, I’ll take what I can get and be thankful for it because I don’t consider myself over the hill as a woman.”
“That’s all very well but I find it hugely depressing that Clay takes no notice of me. I’ve entertained the idea that I’m not a bad sort of female. Plenty of men have said so, but the man I want doesn’t want me. Can you imagine how I feel?”
“I believe I have some idea, Debbie. And I sympathise with you. I really do. If I thought that removing myself from the scene would aid your cause, I’d do it, but I know that it wouldn’t. You mustn’t expect Clay to feature in your life,” Glenda said.
“He hasn’t, for all practical purposes, but he’s there just like the Min Min light, a beacon that’s there but you can never get close to. I suppose I can thank him for my Masters and for the PhD if I get it because they’ve kept me occupied rather than feeling sorry for myself.”
