These thoughts tumble from me as I speak even though they had not been clearly formed until now. Every time Professor Young asks a question it somehow prompts me to think about things in a way that I hadn’t before.
‘Nabokov shows that law and morality are a bad fit,’ he observes.
We talk about the difference between legal wrongs and moral wrongs. ‘The message in Lolita,’ I say, ‘is that it is immoral if we do not understand how our actions affect others. Failing to understand the effects of our actions on the people around us is not against the law but in the moral sense, it’s a crime.’ I notice I have started twirling my hair with my fingers as I have answered. I do this sometimes when I think. Suddenly conscious of it, I place my hand back on the closed notebook that rests in my lap.
Professor Young gives me a contemplative smile. I might have bombed on my thesis topic but I’m acing Nabokov.
‘I think you’re absolutely right.’ He swivels his chair so that he is at right angles to me. His gaze drifts out the window. ‘The only redemption we have is when we understand the way we have affected other people’s lives.’
Despite his slight smile, I sense a sadness, a private sorrow that I do not understand. I love watching the expressiveness of Professor Young’s face as he speaks but I can always tell when our conversation is at an end. He turns back to me, looks at the clock on his desk then nods at me. He stands and walks me to the door, ushering me out. ‘Good luck, Simone. Just drop in if there is anything further you wish to raise with me.’ I no longer feel like the favoured child; I feel like he will not think of me again until my next briefing note arrives in his in-tray in a month’s time.
As I walk home I think of how much I loved Lolita. It’s a story of seduction. Not just the seduction of Lolita, but of the reader, of me. Humbert Humbert tries to persuade us with his tale and the minute we see it as a love story, we have succumbed to his charm, have fallen into his trap.
My meetings with Professor Young give me not just clarity about my thesis but a new way to look at the world.
When I was younger, as we sat in the kitchen my father would tell me how he saw the world. He would talk to me as he peeled vegetables, turned sausages, or stirred soup. He would stop and wave his cooking utensils to emphasise his points. ‘There was no treaty with Aboriginal people, the first people,’ he would say. ‘You show me where we ever handed over our land.’
Dad would give moral arguments. But Professor Young can give the legal arguments as well. He’s the one who brings out the best in me now. There’s a sadness in outgrowing your parents but I guess it happens to everyone.
2
As Professor John Young sat back behind his desk, he whispered the words again. ‘The only redemption we have is when we understand the way we have affected other people’s lives.’ His nerves pulled within him.
When his daughter Lucy had died seven long years ago, John had felt as though everything was swimming in a different direction to him. His grief had spun around him and against this swirling tide he had failed to be an anchoring strength for either his wife, Louise, or his elder daughter, Jessica. Lucy had been eleven. The senselessness of her death swallowed him; his grief was an abyss.
After Lucy’s death he had, by chance, met Charmaine and left Louise to be with her. Since then he’d been estranged from his only other child. Jessica was stubborn and unyielding. She never forgave his abandonment of her after Lucy’s death and she nurtured a bitter resentment that he was now too frightened to face. He never blamed Jessica for taking her mother’s side. And now, in dark moments, he admitted to himself that her unrelenting hatred of him was justified.
He recalled Simone’s comment: ‘Failing to understand the effects of our actions on the people around us is not against the law but in the moral sense, it is a crime.’ And Jessica kept coming to mind.
When he met Charmaine she’d seemed the only way he could save himself. He was selfish, possessed with such consuming grief, but Charmaine had been renewing, bringing freshness and hope back into his life. They planned a future together, a new beginning. He’d wanted more children desperately - another Lucy - and had thought when he married Charmaine that she did too. That’s what she had said to him and he had believed her. She would lie curled up in his arms and he would tell her how beautiful she’d look when she became pregnant. She would tell him the names she liked - Jasmine, Tara and Chanel if it was a girl; James, Jackson or Jason if it was a boy. She would look at the Barbie dolls and children’s clothes when they went shopping. ‘So adorable,’ she would squeal.
But so many things turned out to be illusions that, once exposed, left only the dust of disappointment. Her promises of giving him a child now seemed like a hollow lure. The sanctuary he’d felt in his marriage throughout its first four years had vanished in the last two. She seemed as disinterested in him as he was with her and, with no children, their large creaky house felt cold and empty.
The spark of rescue that Charmaine brought to his life was now gone. He could no longer bring to the surface the inspiration to write poetry, his once beloved release. The words that slipped onto the pages from his hand now were merely the groans of an older, bitter man. He would crumple the thick white paper, feeling vacant, as though icy hands had dipped inside him to crush everything warm and breathing.
Shafts of late afternoon sunlight were coming through the window of John’s office, the warmth momentarily comforting him. If he closed his eyes he was back under the clear Italian summer sun, having just turned eighteen, falling in love. In those summer months he had felt immortal, fearlessly jumping from tall blonde cliffs into an endless turquoise sea. But as he reopened his eyes he felt as though he had always been acidly cynical, older than he really was in years, and the sun, no matter how hot it might get, did not seem enough to properly warm him.
In Simone he’d seen that enthusiasm so lost in himself, especially in the way she glowed when they talked about literature. He’d loved Lolita too, the lyrical way that Nabokov used language: Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
He had forgotten until Simone had reminded him. She was animated, her face alive. Seeing that light in Simone made him want to reach out to her. ‘Don’t lose this,’ he wanted to say to her. ‘It’s far too precious. Once it’s gone, you might as well be dead.’
He had first glimpsed that shimmer when he read a paper Simone had submitted for his class. Her writing had been optimistic, original. When she made an appointment to see him, he matched the name on the paper to the face of the young woman who wore so many bangles to class that she jingled when she walked. She had stood out, with her long dark hair and dark features. He had assumed she was Spanish or Italian and was surprised to find that she was an Australian Aboriginal - the first he had ever met. He had felt flattered when she had sought him out, had wanted him to work with her. He felt paternal pleasure as he saw her develop her strong, sharp mind. He smiled as he thought of the way she would twirl strands of her hair around her finger when she was deep in thought.
John looked at the photograph of his wife framed in embossed silver. Her long dark hair and exquisite tulip-petal lips. Even though his love for her felt crushed, he could not deny her beauty was breathtaking. He turned the frame over, placing it face down on the desk. Exhaustion seeped into his muscles. He had not been sleeping well, lucky to catch more than a few hours a night, which left his days stained with fatigue. Once he had been frantic, untamed ideas spurting into his head. He scrambled to capture each shard of thought, prolifically writing his observations and opinions about law, power imbalance, injustice. He had been heralded as a genius by the age of twenty-five with the publication of two critiques of the legal system that had secured for him a meteoric rise within the elitist realms of his chosen profession. At the same time he had found a space - a creativity - away from the law in which he could
compose his poetry. Now that man seemed forever lost. A ghost.
John looked through the papers in his in-tray - an invitation to a round-table discussion on Fellini and fascism, requests for talks, comments, references, advice. ‘Please read this’, ‘please give your comments on that’ - he left them all. Collecting his coat and scarf, he started the half-hour walk home.
It was getting dark earlier and the air had a suspended bite to it. He felt the light wind sweep across his face as he walked through the university yard, past the large brick chapel that was crowned with white columns and arches. For so many years it had seemed unchanged, he thought. John had gone through the ornate doors into the otherwise austere building on his first day as a student almost thirty years ago and it was as strong and solid now as then. He was the one who had aged from the athletic, understatedly handsome man he once was. His face still retained its boyishness but it was now carved with lines around his mouth, forehead and eyes; and the grey was seeping through his hair.
‘Thirty seasons have come and gone since I first came here,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Almost thirty times I have seen these trees watch their leaves burn and fall to the ground, stand naked in the snow, scratching the sky, until budding with life again in the spring. A pity we don’t spring to life again, renewed. A shame we only get one cycle and that we decay in the process.’
When John finally stepped through his front door, the large house was still. He took off his coat and scarf, hung them by the door and trudged to the kitchen. He opened the fridge and looked at the wrapped scraps of food. He did not know where his wife was but, if he was honest, he didn’t care if she never came home. He grimly closed the refrigerator door, no longer hungry.
3
When I arrive back to my small apartment, I pour a glass of wine - Australian sauvignon blanc, a little piece of home. Instead of writing up the notes from my meeting with Professor Young, I check my email. There is a message from Tanya Randall, my best friend. Her picture sits above my computer. She has her arms around me, her dark eyes are dancing and her curly long hair is flicked over onto one side. The photograph was taken at a community awards night that had honoured both our fathers. We are in evening dresses, laughing.
Hi Sim,
Can’t sleep. Terry didn’t come home last night. I am sure I’ll get another lame excuse. What has happened to me that I put up with this crap?
Tan x
I never liked Terry. I’m not just saying that because Tanya is my best friend and I think no one is good enough for her. First of all, ‘Terry’ sounds like someone who would wear knitted vests. It reminds me of ‘Terry towelling’ and gold chains and comb-over hair, the sort of man who would use his dead wife’s frequent flyer points to take his new wife on a holiday. Terry. Terence. Terrible.
I was with Tanya the night she met Terry and I didn’t like him from the start. We were at a fundraising event and he spent the whole time chatting to Tanya. At about two in the morning, when she went to the jillawa, I heard Terry tell his friend that he was going to call his wife. It was a good lesson in why women should never go to the toilet in pairs. You would think that would have been the end of that but a year later he was moving in to Tanya’s flat. To my mind it’s bad karma to steal a person from someone else. If a man will leave his wife for you, it won’t be hard for him to move on to someone else.
But there was no telling Tanya. She was smitten. And she looked so happy. None of us had the heart to burst her bubble with our doubts. Now that his behaviour had become suspicious, none of us was feeling smug about being right. In fact, it only made me dislike him more.
Dear Tan,
Just ask him. Then you will know. Even if he doesn’t tell you the truth, you will see it in his face.
Sim x
I’ve been friends with Tanya my whole life. Her father, Arthur, and my dad had both grown up in the same country town. They’d gone to the Tent Embassy together and Arthur was even with Dad when he first met Mum. I don’t have much family, or much that I see regularly. Mum has rare contact with her sisters; her parents passed away long ago. Dad’s sister died before I was born and now it is just Nan who comes to visit from time to time. So Tanya, being the same age as me, is like a sister.
We’d both get sent away to Wallaga Lake mission for school holidays and we would have to make our own fun. Living for a time with other Aboriginal people who had so little made us appreciate what we did have. I felt the loss of our privileges more than Tanya over those summers but she could always make sure we were never bored. One time she had the idea that we take the inflatable dinghy out to the island in the middle of the lake. We exhausted ourselves blowing up the rubber boat then seriously miscalculated how much we would weigh and had tried to get on board too close to shore. It wasn’t until we were halfway to the island that we realised that our manoeuvrings had caused the rubber bottom to graze across the oyster beds, causing a slow leak. We had to abandon ship and swim back to shore. I still smile when I think of it. And how I laughed when I told Jamie about it.
Jamie.
I jolt as soon as his name slips into my thoughts. Once again I have broken my promise to myself not to think about him. I break this promise too often. There are times when I walk across the neatly trimmed lawns of the university and feel the tradition and privilege that seem to emanate from the stone walls and know that I have made the right decision. But there are other times, in the half-light of a restless night, when I feel the dread of having made the wrong one. My whole body aches for the lightness of Jamie’s touch but I whisper to myself, ‘Enough. Enough. Enough.’
I read somewhere that it takes half the length of a relationship to get over it. It has now been fourteen months since Jamie and I broke up after two years of being together and I still haven’t moved on. According to the formula, I should have stopped moping four months ago. I’ve been on several dates - nice meals, a drive to see the leaves changing - since moving to Boston but my indifference always showed. It’s hard to pretend your heart is in something when you have lost it a long time ago.
Jamie and I broke up not because we were angry at each other or wanted to be with other people but because I decided to study overseas. There was no conclusion, no end, to how we felt about each other. And every time I feel the dam breaking inside me yet again, I admonish myself. ‘Enough.’
The next morning I wake with a wave of homesickness and there is only one cure. I call my mother. I know that it will be late in Sydney, after 10 pm, but like most children, even adult ones, I am sure that my parents will be glad to hear from me even though they are likely to have gone to bed.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ my mother answers cheerfully. ‘How’s my girl?’
She tells me how the literacy program she runs in Silverwater prison is going and I tell her about my latest meeting with Professor Young.
We talk a while. And then I ask to speak to Dad.
‘He’s not home from work.’
There is silence. I can think of only one thing that keeps Dad out at strange hours and it is the same thing that kept Terry out as well.
All my life I have been asked, ‘Aren’t you Tony Harlowe’s daughter?’
‘Yes,’ I’d say. Then an enthusiastic person would gush and I’d hear all about how my dad was an inspiration, had spoken at a rally or visited their school on a day that they were learning about Aboriginal history and culture. How they had read his political speeches and they changed their life. Once I’d be filled with pride. But as I grew older, there were times when I’d been tempted to answer ‘no’. Just like I’d be tempted if someone asked me now.
*
I fell in love with Jamie because he was as unlike my father as I could imagine someone to be. Dad’s a Scorpio. The Scorpio Man is magnetic, mysterious, shrewd, jealous, possessive, vindictive and self-destructive. Martin Luther King Jr, ‘Lucky’ Luciano and Charles Manson were all Scorpios. By contrast, Jamie is a Cancer. The Cancer Man is intuitive, sensitive, domestic, timid,
insecure and needy. Harrison Ford, John Cusack, Giorgio Armani and the Dalai Lama were all born under the sign of Cancer. You can say what you like about astrology but it sure seems to have figured out my father and my Jamie. Jamie. You can tell by his name - the softness of the syllables - that he is special.
So, how was it that I came to be so far away from this man that I still love? Two words. Patricia. Tyndale.
Patricia Tyndale is a close family friend. She has known my parents since the Tent Embassy days and I have always looked up to her, even if she still scares me a little. She’s a formidable woman. When I first told her I wanted to go back to university to do some post-graduate study, she pretty much commanded me to apply to study overseas in a way that could not be brushed off. ‘You need to get that experience. See the world from a different place. Learn the things you can’t learn here,’ she had said firmly.
Jamie agreed and they both had encouraged me to apply to graduate programs in the United States. I wasn’t as sure as they were that I would be accepted but before I knew it I was on my way to Boston with a scholarship in my pocket. But what I didn’t have was Jamie.
‘You have to do this,’ he’d said. ‘If I stop you from going, well, you wouldn’t be the person I love. You may come to hate me for holding you back. I would hate myself if I did that.’ While he encouraged me to go, he also pulled away from me. ‘But, Simone, I can’t feel like I am in the back seat of the car. I would resent you. I have to do my own thing.’
So despite my protests, despite my pleas that it would work (there’s email, trips home, he could come and visit), despite my insistence that I only wanted him, and even in the face of my threats not to go to Boston at all if it meant we could not be together, Jamie stood firm. It was fate that I should go, he’d said. I had to do it because I was a role model. He wouldn’t stop me but he didn’t want to have a long-distance relationship. ‘It wouldn’t feel right, after we’ve been so close,’ he would say. ‘It would feel like it was a second-rate version of what we’ve had and I don’t want that.’
Legacy Page 2
