by Kim Kelly
‘Gordon. I speak to him yesterday. Is he there yet?’
‘No.’ But I give her the benefit of the doubt. ‘You actually spoke to him?’
‘Yes, he called me, on the telephone.’
‘Oh?’ This is not real. I’m hearing voices. ‘Where was he calling from?’
‘I don’t know, he didn’t say where he was. I will check with the telephone people. I didn’t ask him at the time. I was busy – I tell him your stupido plan. He said, I’m leaving now. He is not there?’
‘No.’ And I make a very firm decision with this: ‘He’s got till Tuesday to get here. I’ll be on the next train back to Sydney. I’m coming home.’
Mrs Lockhart hugs me on the platform. ‘Don’t leave it too long. I don’t want you to go at all, my darling.’
I’m stiff as a board in her arms. All my self-control twisted around not spluttering out at her what a humiliation this departure is. Don’t have to tell her, though; she’s dealt it to me. Still, it’s Mitch I’d like to slap. Just one slap of the lion jaw, for leading me on. Letting me go on living in his house for all that time, doing Hughie knows what to my reputation. Ha! Leading myself on. And anyway, whatever the Lockharts have done to slight me, it’s nothing personal; it’s business. Hard people. Hard life. One the likes of Jenny Fitzgerald is more suited to. They can fly off the back of horses together, and perhaps I’ve only got the kick in the pants I deserved, and needed. I was going to settle for a man because, out of the corner of my eye, he reminded me of someone else.
‘I’ll telephone when I’m in.’
‘Please.’ Mrs Lockhart’s tear is squeezed out of guilt as much as love. She says: ‘It’s about time you went and enjoyed being an authoress, though, isn’t it?’
‘Oh yes,’ I laugh: tinny, hollow, bitter. I’ll go and burn all those pages I wrote in Hell. I won’t, there’s a story somewhere in there I do want to tell. Oh, but Hughie, there won’t be a bloke called M in it, will there. I’ll be spending a bit of time imaginatively incinerating him, and wondering how I’m ever going to escape Gordon.
Why say I’m leaving now from Adelaide, as Mrs Zoc discovered easily enough, and not turn up at all? It doesn’t take four days to get from Adelaide, unless you’re going equestrian class. Or not coming.
No phone call. No nothing.
I think I know why.
He’s made his decision too.
As I have made mine, more firmly with each day that’s passed. I’m going back to Sydney, telling myself I told you so the whole way: should have stayed a spinster all along, shouldn’t I.
GORDON
‘Of all the irresponsible, reckless things that you could do – what did you think you were playing at, Brock?’ Major Gibbons is doing his block. With every reason.
I am supposed to be in charge. I am supposed to be in the field inspecting pitchblende for death rays. It’ll be all right. It’s going to take a few weeks to get the ore out at any quantity by camel train anyway, and the road grading won’t start for another month or so to speed it up. By which time I should have been released from the Royal Adelaide. But I don’t say that. Major Gibbons is expecting an answer, for everyone to hear, across the general ward.
‘Were you drunk?’
‘No. I …’
‘Who’s this Bernie character? Some mate of yours? Some mate.’
‘No. I …’ It doesn’t matter what the story is. I’ve stuffed up. I’ve failed in every conceivable way. I’ve destroyed my father’s ute. I’ve lost Bernie for good. And almost killed another farmer’s wife turning up on her doorstep at dusk and vomiting blood all over her front verandah. The Aerial Medical Service had to come from Broken Hill to get me and fly me back to Adelaide. I am suffering more embarrassment than I know what to do with, and it’s worse than my ribs and my hand put together.
‘Was that your mother yelling at you on the phone the other day?’
‘No. I …’ I can’t believe I’ve destroyed the ute. The only thing of value Dad ever owned. He bought it for a hundred and seventy-five pounds second-hand in ’37. Cash, harder earned than I’ll ever know. And I’ve destroyed it. Left it for scrap on the Sturt Highway. Dead dog up a hill backwards, and I am the dog.
‘You don’t have much to say for yourself, do you, Brock? Are you the right man for this job?’
That makes me sit up. ‘Yes I am.’ And not let him see that hurts quite a bit. ‘I made a mistake, over a girl. It won’t happen again. It’s over.’
It’s definitely over. I’ve seen the X-rays, thrown up again. It’s over.
Ask him: ‘Did someone pick up my rifle and my swag?’
‘Least of your problems, Brock,’ he says, walking away.
Stuff you too.
‘Poor sweetheart.’ Glyn comes in five minutes later to bring me down some more: ‘Well, this’ll hold things up a bit.’
‘Not holding anything up. Not now.’
‘What do you mean?’ She touches my face.
‘I’m not doing that again.’ Please, get your hand off me.
She leaves it there. ‘Oh. I see. But Gordon, don’t be like that. Won’t help things, you know. Flesh and bone heals, but hearts don’t tend to fare as well – are you sure you’d want to give up that easily? I’d be rather flattered if a man crashed a car into a sturdy farm animal for me.’ She’s trying not to laugh.
‘I’m not giving up,’ I tell her, not finding this entertaining at all. ‘I’m giving in.’ And sensibly. Bernie’s nearly killed me. Twice, if you think about it. It’s becoming scientific law.
‘If you say so.’ Glyn kisses me, just long enough to get one extra embarrassment from the situation. ‘I’ve got to go, flight to catch,’ she says. ‘Look me up in Sydney sometime?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Too right you will,’ the old bloke in the bed next to me winks.
But I won’t do any such thing. I look at my hand, black and blue, not resembling much of one. I busted it the first time over Jenny Fitzgerald, and this time … The doctor’s going to have another go at getting the jigsaw back together this afternoon. Fix it with some silver wire. Doctor Wilson, it is. Doctor Marjorie Wilson. Christ, and then I’m never going within cooee of a woman ever again.
BERNIE
‘But he did say he was going to come to you, Bernadetta. Bernadetta, please. He said, I do my best. Something has happened. Don’t look at me as if I am a stupido old woman.’
I’ve barely got my bags in the door and she’s chasing me with a tin of almond shortbread.
I say: ‘You are not a stupid old woman, Mrs Zoc. I love you, but you are a study of unfounded hope in denial of cold fact. There won’t be a happy ending for us just because you happen to want one.’
‘You!’ Mrs Zoc whacks the biscuit tin down on the hall table. ‘You are a bad girl!’
That’s me.
There’s a letter sticking out from under the biscuit tin, which she’d have brought in too. Handwritten address, quality envelope, looks personal. I whip it out and start to open it, but stop to shake out the cramp in my hand that’s been annoying me all the way here; must’ve cricked a nerve, holding too much in my fist.
‘You are a rude girl!’ Mrs Zoc slams the door on her way out.
I kick Good Companion across the boards and into my room. Look at this old forget-me-not wallpaper. Blawch. It has to go. Years of fragrance of lamb fat ingrained in every room, no comfort any more. It’s all got to go. Tomorrow. Mum’d be wanting to spruce the place by now at any rate, and I’m going to spruce it all right. Take to it with Dad’s paint scraper, viciously, and swear a lot.
Go back to opening the letter. It’s a card, elegant ivory, embossed with a butterfly in the top right corner.
Dear Miss Cooper
Just a brief note of congratulation and appreciation. Too Much to Lose is by far the most exciting novel I’ve read in ages, and I read a lot. I’m a devotee of Mrs Ellie Jacobs’s book club at the Ginger Jar. I hope to run into you there one day.
<
br /> All the best
Nerida Wesley
Isn’t that a timely slip of niceness. Thank you, Nerida Wesley. Funny it’s found me here, though; she must have looked me up in the phone book. Knew there was a reason I kept that subscription going. To receive this sweet note, telling me: Bernie Cooper, it’s time for you to face the music.
I’ve written a novel. One that people truly do seem to like. That is truly exciting. It’s time to start promising myself that I will believe it is exciting. Soon.
Five weeks later, I’ve barely set foot out of the house, apart from to go down to the shops under the Aquarium for sustenance, and up to the Spot to buy five pounds’ worth of paint I can’t really afford with my now dwindling finances. Attacking the walls of Arcadia with the scraper has felt therapeutic, while I’m avoiding everyone and everything, including apologising to Mrs Zoc. I’ll do that when she gets back from Townsville and I can swallow the idea that her Tony and Arthur have been returned to her, merrily poisoning the neighbour’s mangoes and awaiting Manny’s imminent release, while it remains that I have no one. And nothing but painting a house that should have my parents in it, and cursing Hughie for a mean and miserable Scot. Put a cork in it, Bernie, see if it floats. I’m going to start sprucing in the kitchen and work my way up to the front of the house. I’ve chosen cream with bottle-green trims for the cupboards; Mum would love it: crisp and smart.
I’ve just got the lid off the cream when the phone starts up. It’ll be Mrs Lockhart to pester me about eating properly or some blither. ‘Hello?’
‘Bernie, is that you?’ Man’s voice: urgent.
‘Yes, who’s that?’
‘Abe Jacobs,’ he growls. ‘You didn’t tell me you’d come back to Sydney.’
‘Oh, well, I’ve, ahhh, been flabbering about with this next story.’ Lying my pants off.
‘Oh, well, ahhh, that’s good,’ he teases. ‘I’ve been arranging another reprint of that other one – you know, that old thing? That’s six thousand copies now. Don’t you think it’s about time we met in person so that I can shake your hand?’
‘Wowee. Six thousand copies?’ Six thousand little paper birds flutter out of my chest with some sort of thrill at that figure.
‘Six thousand copies, yes, and that’s without a review, not even a mention in any of the women’s magazines,’ he says. ‘You understand that?’
‘Yes.’ Six thousand copies word of mouth. I worked in advertising long enough to know what that means. I can probably stop worrying about the price of paint.
‘Why don’t you come down to the Ginger Jar, this evening – no occasion, just dinner. Come and meet my wife Ellie and a couple of friends. Seven o’clock. Please.’
‘All right.’ I’ve got six hours to find an excuse. I don’t want to face this music at all, put my hand up to six thousand and say, yep, that’s me, the girl who lost her G. Lost everything. Can’t my story just be, without me? It’s not a novel; it’s my life. My heart. Part of me wishes I’d never written it. Substantial part. ‘Mr Jacobs, I’m sorry, I–’
‘Don’t you think it’s about time you started calling me Abe? We’ll see you at seven. No excuses accepted.’
I’ll find one.
Three kitchen cupboards later I find a letter in the post box when I go out to check, to get away from the paint fumes. Handwritten one, on cheap, lined paper.
Dear Miss Cooper
I have never written a letter to an author before and so I hope you don’t find it presumptuous my writing to you. Your book, Too Much To Lose, has made a profound impression upon me these past weeks that it has taken me to read it. I lost my boy, my son, Steven, in October last year, and although I’m sure your book is about a lost lover, the way you have worded things put me very much in the mind of the way I felt about my boy when he was a little fellow. I loved him with such a great ferocity, and I always will. You have reminded me that these emotions will never have an end and nor should they. In this way, I believe your words have helped save my sanity in my grief, perhaps given me a rope to hold on to in this lonely sea, to know that someone else feels as I do. Thank you, Miss Cooper.
I hope the future treats you kindly and that your life is filled with as much love as you have so given outwards of yourself to the world.
Yours sincerely
Mrs FA Barry
Well.
There’s what you’d call a gentle shove: pull yourself together, Missy. Piccoli meows around my ankles: that’s correct. Little blobs of paint on my nails concur.
When I can move again, I go back inside. Open my wardrobe. My rainbow trove of pretty dresses I haven’t worn for years. Close your eyes and pick one. Get out of here.
Into Kings Cross. I’ve never been to the Cross. It’s only two minutes from Taylor Square, but I was never allowed to come here, Mum and Dad both terrorising me off any curiosity with tales of the cutthroat sly-grog razor gangs doing the bidding of brothel madams with guns. Now it’s overrun with Americans, as I step off the tram.
‘Hey cutie.’ With a real Yankie drawl. Hundreds of American servicemen. Saxophones bellowing all up the road. Why did I come on the tram? I should have got a cab. It’s dark now, quarter to seven, and ‘Hey, wanna come dancing, baby doll,’ translates into wanna be assaulted and thrown naked into a ditch? The atmosphere, the massed drunkenness, is panicking me. This isn’t Sydney. But then I haven’t been out of an evening in Sydney, anywhere, for about five years. I quicken my steps, almost running: look like I know where I’m going, in heels that no longer seem to belong to my feet.
But now I see it, the Ginger Jar: a sunburst leadlight over the name, windows either side filled with cakes, and I can smell the coffee beans from here. How long has it been since I’ve had a proper cup of coffee? Last time I had lunch with Yoohoo, I’d guess. A million years ago. A friendship that got away, too long ago. I just about fall through the door of this cafe, and I find I’ve fallen into the safety of plush, cosy calm. Nothing for the soldier in here. It’s just a nice Continental cafe, people chatting over their meals.
‘Is this Bernie?’ I hear the growl and I turn to my left to see a man that matches the voice. He’s a great big bearded bear.
‘Abe?’
‘It is!’ He laughs like a bear. ‘Wowee.’
The bear is shaking my hand in both of his, and I’m being introduced to Ellie, his wife, who’s as tiny as he is huge, and then there’s Ray Someone, the typesetter, and Rose Someone, about a dozen of their friends, all friendly faces, but this is not what I would call just dinner. I’m wondering how I’m going to keep my hands from shaking at the table as we all start sitting down.
‘Miss Cooper, I’m Nerida,’ says the voice next to me. ‘Nerida Wesley. You might have got my note … ?’ She’s about my age, but there’s something both distracted and accomplished about her, unruly auburn curls pushed back by a headband, and I just know she’s been to university.
Nerves creep up my throat. ‘Pleased to meet you, Nerida. Do call me Bernie.’ Who do I sound like? Princess Primula of Primland.
But Nerida smiles, then blushes. ‘Silly, I’m so wound up meeting you, though it feels as if I know you.’
‘Yes, it’s a bit odd, isn’t it?’ Please don’t talk about the book, please don’t talk about the book.
Her hand shakes as she picks up her napkin: good. She’s not going to say any more; but then she does; she says: ‘Oddly enough, a friend of a friend, Glyn Kay, knows your G too. Small world, and how glad of it I am, that I can meet you. I was shocked to hear about the car accident, though.’
Did she just say car accident? ‘Car accident?’
Nerida Wesley goes fuchsia with it. ‘You don’t know?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I just assumed–’
‘Tell me, please, what accident?’
‘He had a crash, driving out of Adelaide, I think she said.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘Well, I can’t say I know. G
lyn said he was in a bad way, with the Flying Doctor having to go out to pick him up. Quite the drama by the sounds of it. She’d just been to see him in the hospital when I spoke to her and–’
‘When was this?’
‘Oh … four or five weeks ago.’
‘Oh.’ That would explain why he didn’t make it to Hay.
He’s had a car accident. And it’s my fault.
I stand up at the table.
The universe spins, and then disappears altogether.
Ellie Jacobs brings me a bowl of soup. ‘Here darling, just have some of the broth if you don’t want to eat.’
I don’t want to eat. I don’t know where I am. Down the road at the Jacobs’s apartment in Elizabeth Bay, wherever that is. I don’t want to breathe until Abe Jacobs gets off the phone, first from this Glynis Kay, and then Adelaide Hospital, to tell me: ‘Well, he was discharged last Thursday as fit to leave. This is good.’
If you can call a month in hospital good. A month to contemplate how much he despises me for hurting him – quite comprehensively, by the sounds of it. Why else didn’t he call? Why didn’t he let Mrs Zoc know? Too hurt to call … was he? I don’t know. The gulf between us seems to stretch and stretch and stretch our tracks apart.
‘Writers,’ Abe growls, but not unkindly. ‘I should have known there’d be a real boy somewhere.’
‘Don’t Abe,’ Ellie chides him and reassures me, rubbing my hand: ‘We’ll find out where he is in the morning. I know someone at the university down there and Glyn said that’s who he’s working for, the Geology Department, it’ll be easy.’
But it’s not.
Adelaide University has no record of him as ever having worked there.
Gordon Brock. Not a real boy but a phantom in this six-penny gone wrong.
And I’ve had enough of this merry-go-round. I’m getting off. I’ve got the message. We’re not meant to be together. Never were. The end.
GORDON
‘This must be real special medicine.’ Tim’s looking at my hand, asking me why I would drive up from Adelaide looking like I should be on the cover of a pamphlet for war-industry safety. I’ve asked for him to come up and meet me here, beyond the yard of the pub at Hawker. A place he can’t come to without police permission. That’s just not right.
