Goodbye Sweetheart

by Marion Halligan

  I don’t think she thought much at all, really.

  It’s a game, William said to her. Life’s always a game. Not often fun, though.

  I don’t think he thought his life with you was a game, Ferdie said. It was the serious thing.

  You reckon he slept with her the way some men take up golf? I always wondered that he didn’t take up golf.

  Ferdie realised that this was a joke, and laughed gently.

  Well, I didn’t really, of course. I knew William wasn’t the golfing type. And I suppose I did know he was the fucking type.

  Lynette still spoke softly, not even emphasising her words, their bitterness in their meaning, not their iteration. Had you not known her, you would not perhaps have caught the sarcasm of her words. Ferdie had never heard her say ‘fucking’ before.

  I’m so tired, she said. I’ve got to go to bed. She put her wine glass on the sink, and opened her arms to Ferdie and Aurora. My dears, she said.

  Our lovely wicked stepmonster, said Ferdie. Lynette looked startled. Ferdie said, Not. Well, lovely. But otherwise, not.

  They all laughed.

  Ferdie said, I know it’s probably not the time, but don’t we have to start thinking about the funeral?

  No, said Lynette, it’s not the time, and no we don’t have to start thinking. When the autopsy’s done, that’ll be plenty of time.

  Oh yes, said Ferdie.

  Funerals can happen very fast, said Lynette.

  Ferdie decided he liked being PA to Lynette. It kept him busy, and required his intelligence, though it wasn’t at all intellectual. It was straightforwardly useful, in a way that writing a PhD wasn’t. He liked helping Lynette, and he’d always been fond of her.

  Often he tried to think of Berenice. Berenice and her constellation of hair in the sky. It didn’t really work. His talismanic image of her white body in its olive-green sheets had started slipping; he couldn’t hold it. The wrong words attached themselves. They’re Jimmy Choo you know, said her bare foot. Her mouth opened wide like a cat yawning, her small white teeth glistened, she meowed: Great Pan is dead. Perhaps he was, out here. Had never been alive. Perhaps that great groan that had reverberated around the ancient world had not reached the antipodes, had not needed to. But he didn’t believe that. Oh, he didn’t construct Sydney Long pictures of his native landscape, with satyrs stalking long-legged against sunset skies, under trees off a Royal Doulton painted plate. Pan in this country would be different, he wasn’t sure how. One day he would think about it; for now it was one of those ideas that simmered away in the depths of his brain, not needing his attention until it was ready.

  He could have emailed Berenice. He often had occasion to use Lynette’s laptop, he could have sent her a message. But he didn’t. He’d written a postcard, one he’d found in William’s desk, an etching of a Picasso bull, with curling hair and delicate horns; his mild black eye might have had Europa in its sights. Wish you were here, he wrote. But I doubt you would. It had seemed quite witty until he posted it, but he shuddered when he remembered it. Crass, it had been.

  Aurora got up early at Flavia’s and worked on her computer; when he asked her what she did she said it would be nearly as boring for her to explain it as it would be for him to hear, and neither would understand it. When he said he didn’t think that was true she said, You know how when you’re learning a language at school they tell you, one day when you’re really good you’ll be able to think in it? Well, what I do is its own strange language, I can think in it but I can’t translate it.

  Yeah? he said.

  Yeah.

  She came round late in the morning, at the hour when Lynette had to have her coffee, and after that she wanted to go out for lunch. She was out of touch with Canberra restaurants, she wanted to catch up. Ferdie said he couldn’t afford it. I’ll pay, said Aurora. Lynette sent them down to Manuka to pick up some goodies to eat at home. They rode the bikes, it was exhilarating going down but rather a slog riding back.

  He was having third and fourth and fifth thoughts about the postcard. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Lynette had said, Use anything you need. Just make yourself at home. When he asked could he telephone Pepita in England she said, You don’t need to ask, Ferdie. Just do whatever you think needs to be done. The postcard was one of a pile in the drawer. Now he imagined Berenice offended by the beefy qualities of the bull in the picture; he remembered it as quite essentially dumb, if friendly. Now he had a thought: he would send Berenice a postcard every day. Just little messages. If one seemed strange, it would be all mixed up in the messages of the others. He found one of the designs by Marion Mahony Griffin for Canberra, lovely linear shapes she’d painted gold silk, breast-shaped cupolas, arches, arcades charmingly reflected in a myriad pools. This is what the National Capital ought to look like, but doesn’t, he wrote. This seemed a good cryptic solution to the problem of communicating.

  He turned William’s computer on, googled Berenice in southern skies. To see if she was visible. A lot of responses came up, but they were difficult to work out. The answer seemed to be yes, but only for more advanced and instrumental observers, that is, not to the naked eye. And only in autumn. Berenice’s long amber hair was in the deep sky fields. Inaccessible to mortal eyes. Idly he wished he could talk to an astronomer.

  He checked his emails via the internet, then thought he should take a look at William’s. Maybe there was something that would need attention. He didn’t know how it happened, what key he’d touched; suddenly he was in a slideshow of satyrs. They began as sculptures, bronze and finely carved, and metamorphosed into flesh, muscular and tanned. Interesting such flesh for mythical beasts. They paraded across the screen like giants, their goatish hairy thighs curling brown, white, black, walking on long downward-curving cloven hooves, displaying long upward-curving cloven erections. The noise of their march reverberated like drumbeats, the scene shimmered faintly in their echo. Nymphs appeared, buxom girls out of a Norman Lindsay etching, lying back and demonstrating their private parts. When the satyrs fell upon the nymphs Ferdie tried to get out of the slideshow but it wouldn’t let him. It took him deeper and deeper into more orgiastic images. He knew the theory of such things, how they drew you in and you couldn’t escape; trying to quit didn’t work. It made him feel frantic. Aurora came in and he got her to help; she’d learned strategies to cope with such things, she said.

  When they’d finally got rid of it she gave him a quizzical glance.

  All your own work?

  Not at all. Purest accident.

  Yeah? All William’s work, then?

  I don’t know. Maybe it was a trap for him, too.

  Pornography waiting to pounce.

  I hear it’s proactive, said Ferdie. I was trying to call up his emails.

  Maybe that was an email.

  Do you think our father . . .?

  Our father. What do we know of our father? He’s still springing surprises from beyond the grave. Don’t you think he gets more mysterious by the minute? That woman, that mistress . . . when we thought he was happily settled with Lynette. Getting it right after getting it wrong with our mothers. And Lynette so calm about her.

  Not really calm, said Ferdie. That wasn’t natural. I think she’s in shock. He tried to repeat his earlier actions on the computer. I think I am, in shock I mean. And bloody computers, they’re still pretty foreign bodies to me.

  This time emails came up. Aurora scrolled through. Nothing that looks urgent, she said.

  I don’t think we need to say anything to Lynette about . . . the other, he said.

  God, no.

  It started off with marching satyrs, said Ferdie.

  Satyrs. That’s Pan, isn’t it? Your field. Maybe he was trying to keep up with you.

  Well, we’ll never know, will we, said Ferdie with a kind of anger. William may have known nothing about it. Or it was straightforward research gone wrong. Or he was an ardent pornographer.

  Does it matter? said Aurora. There�
�s William, we knew him and didn’t know him. We love him, in our way. He’s dead. I wish he wasn’t. All the rest doesn’t matter.

  You don’t mean that, said Ferdie. You want to know about him too.

  I’m too clever to want things I know I can’t have, said Aurora. She looked at him sideways. Most of the time.

  Ferdie laughed. After a few seconds she did too. At least I’ve got a big sister now, he said.

  You always did.

  Ah yes, but it’s not what you have, it’s what you know you have.

  Aurora turned and put her arms around Ferdie. He held her tight. He’d thought of her as a slender woman, but she was tight with muscle. The new woman, with her biceps and built-up shoulders, even in so tiny a package as Aurora.

  I was thinking about Pan, said Ferdie. And those Sydney Long creatures . . .

  What’re they?

  He painted all these satyrs. Black silhouettes against sunsets. Like art deco plates, with enlacings of eucalyptus boughs along the top edge. Playing Pan pipes.

  As they do. Maybe you conjured them up. Typed in satyrs, or something.

  Without noticing? Maybe. Maybe, as you say, William was researching satyrs and they were lying in wait.

  Here we go again. I think it’s Lynette’s coffee time.

  Lynette swirled the coffee in her cup. This thing of darkness . . . Ferdie, what’s that? she said.

  This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine . . .

  And what’s it about?

  It’s Prospero, talking about Caliban. The Tempest. You know how Caliban is a monster, always playing cruel tricks, trying to damage people. But when Prospero says this it suggests that Caliban is the bad side of his own self. A sort of alter ego, maybe.

  It kind of popped into my head. I think I’m channelling William. The apt quotation is his thing, not mine. Except I’m not doing it very well. Only scraps.

  Channelling’s always imperfect. Getting stuff from the spirit world is like a mobile phone with bad reception.

  Maybe I should go up on a mountain, said Lynette. It might come through loud and clear.

  Ferdie started thinking of his mother. This thing of darkness . . . the light going out of her life with William, and any that was left absorbed by those black clothes. It made him sick to think of this. He was unpacking the dishwasher and the sickness made him clumsy. He dropped one of the tulip-shaped wine glasses; it smashed on the terracotta tiles of the kitchen floor. Lynette was making minestrone, she thought they needed some hearty food. She stopped and looked at the shards of glass. Ferdie stood appalled. I’m sorry, he said. I’m sorry. The beautiful glass. I bet it’s a set and I’ve ruined it.

  Lynette made a vague gesture with her hand that was holding a big cook’s knife. I did that once, she said, making a chopping motion, when I was holding a knife like this, and chopped up a glass. Into fragments. She stood looking at these pieces in a kind of trance and then shook herself out of it. Doesn’t matter, she said. What’s a glass? Plenty more where that came from. A glass. In the context. The death of the glass.

  Ferdie got the dustpan and brush and, using their glitter to find them, swept up the shards.

  Put it in the bin, she said. Not the recycling, they don’t seem to like drinking glasses.

  This thing of darkness . . . she muttered, chopping the soup vegetables.

  What made you think of it?

  I don’t know. That’s why I reckon I’m channelling William. Darkness, of course, there’s no surprise there.

  We all go into the dark . . .

  You’re your father’s son, Ferdie, no doubt.

  Darkness be my friend . . .

  What’s that?

  Dunno. Maybe William again.

  I can see it could be good fun, popping out with other people’s phrases. They’re thinking for you.

  Once they’ve got in there.

  I think it’s a song, said Lynette.

  What?

  Darkness be my friend. She made an attempt to hum a tune.

  A bright little sparkle in a corner caught Ferdie’s attention. A missed fragment of glass. He picked it up and a line of red dots ran along his finger. He hid it so Lynette wouldn’t see. Of course his mother wasn’t a thing of darkness. He knew people that were like black holes, who sucked all the energy out of a situation, or a relationship, but not his mother.

  Ferdie rang Helen up. He was feeling bad about having left her. She’d pushed him to do it, insisted, but thinking about it now he could see that it wasn’t what she wanted. He rang her up because he knew she wouldn’t ring him. It was Lynette’s phone and she didn’t ring Lynette.

  Ferdie! How lovely. How are you, dear?

  Very well. Busy. There’s a lot to do, with a death in the family. When are you coming down?

  Ah, yes. I’ve been meaning to ring you. I’ve decided not to come. Yes, I know. But William wasn’t my husband, better to leave things to Lynette. Nobody will worry if I’m not there.

  Ferdie, through his shock, listened to her voice. It wasn’t plaintive, or complaining, in fact it sounded unusually cheerful. It didn’t sound as though she wasn’t coming in order to punish someone.

  I’m really quite busy here, Helen went on, and I’d rather not miss school if I can help it. She didn’t say, considering that I will have already had several days off.

  Ferdie thought he was probably quite pleased she wasn’t coming. He could give his attention to Lynette. She’d always treated him as a child of the house, not particularly demanding of him but making him free of all the household had to offer, including her affection. Helen had never observed this; it seemed a good idea not to start now. On the other hand, why had she changed her mind? It didn’t seem to be because of any painful reason. She hadn’t sounded fragile or racked on the phone. He supposed he’d find out when he got back to Sydney.

  William wasn’t my husband, she’d said.

  That was new.

  LYNETTE HAS DINNER WITH JACK

  Lynette said, I’m having dinner with Jack. I want to talk to him.

  Sounds good, said Ferdie. Where will you go?

  Oh, just his motel. I’ve ordered in some food. That way we won’t be interrupted. She was packing a French market basket—available in the shop for a high price but that didn’t seem to be a problem, people kept buying them—with a bottle of white wine in an insulating sleeve, two bottles of red, a six-pack of designer beer, two of the tulip glasses, some large linen napkins and some plates.

  That should cover all eventualities, said Ferdie.

  I think so, said Lynette.

  And of course I’m driving you.

  I thought you might, said Lynette. One way. I’ll get a taxi back. Oh Ferdie, it’s so good having you here. It’s such a limbo time. You’re a comfort.

  I suppose when you’ve got a date for the funeral it’ll be less of a limbo. Or anyway, a finite one.

  Maybe, said Lynette. I’m not thinking about it. Remember?

  I suppose by definition a limbo can’t be finite, can it? Doesn’t it just go on?

  How would I know?

  When they pulled up outside Jack’s motel, Lynette glanced at it and rolled her eyes. He hasn’t gone for glamour, she said.

  Maybe it’s comfortable.

  I wouldn’t lay any bets.

  Lynette kissed him. Don’t wait up, she said. She picked up the basket and went inside. In the lobby she avoided looking at herself in the mirror. She’d checked her appearance before she left home. She’d worked on it, wanting to look as pretty as possible, but not frivolous, not making much of the widow thing but not denying it either. Now, well, it had worked or it hadn’t; she didn’t want to know.

  Jack seemed pleased to see her. He’d bought some wine too, a bottle of white, a New Zealand sauvignon blanc, which was thoughtful of him, she said.

  The food should be here in half an hour, said Lynette. I thought we could have a drink first.

  Maybe we should talk first. What was it in particular?


  Oh, nothing in particular. Everything in general, you might say.

  He looked so puzzled she laughed. She took his hand. Come and sit down.

  Jack was being rather slow at drinking beer. This is a good sav blanc, she said.

  She’d ordered a lot of oysters. They were small Sydney rock oysters from Batemans Bay; Jack said they were great.

  Lynette served the hot food. She poured the wine, she tried to persuade Jack to take a little red. She helped him to special morsels, touching his hand lightly from time to time. She worked on getting him to do the talking, asking after his boat, the vegetable garden, the stranger from the belly of the whale. It wasn’t very easy.

  I’m not much of a talker, he said.

  Saying that’s a sign that you are.

  Somehow, with Rosamund, there wasn’t much need. And now, well, it’s the blokes in the pub. They yap on but not much gets said. Not like Bill. He was the talker.

  She wished he wouldn’t mention William. She hadn’t intended to talk about William and yet he seemed to keep coming up, as though Jack’s mind was so full of him that talking about him was a kind of default mode, and he couldn’t stop reverting to him.

  Lynette sighed. You two were such good friends, she said. As boys, I mean. She knew that as adults they’d hardly seen one another. Though there were those yearly letters. She slid her fingers across the back of his hand.

  He was a good brother to me. Jack picked up the hand she was stroking and rubbed his head. I remember once . . . we used to play on this old railway line. The Gully line, I think it was called. Never any trains on it. Built up on a sort of embankment. There were culverts under it, all full of prickles, lantana. You could push your way in but they were sort of scary. Because of the way they smelt, I think. Dead things. A lot of rubbish. You kept thinking you might find something useful but you never did. Bill had this game, you had to walk along the line in a kind of pattern, between the rails and the sleepers; I dunno, I wasn’t any good at it, couldn’t concentrate, kept forgetting the numbers, when it was the rail, when the sleeper. If you got it wrong you had to do a dare the other person made up. This day I was trying hard not to forfeit. Bill was ahead, he was a whizz at it, and then he suddenly starts yelling and waving his arms and jumps off the rails on to the embankment. I can’t work out what he’s doing, I stop to stare at him. Maybe he’s trying to make me lose my step. He’s running back. Then there’s a whistle, one of those tooting steam whistles, and when I look around there’s an engine coming. Bill’s running along the embankment, shouting. I’m kind of stuck, you see. Like a possum in the headlights, I’ve thought since. Bill gets close enough to grab me and pull me out of the way. Nick of time. My foot hits some bit of the edge of the engine, but I didn’t get run over. Thanks to Bill.