by Adib Khan
TWO
The compulsion to eat in large quantities is often indicative of stress, the doctor keeps telling Martin. It suggests lack of harmony between the body and the inner self. Bruce Campbell is a new-age medico, keen on prevention rather than cure. He is an advocate of herbal therapy, open-minded about the merits of naturopathy, reluctant to prescribe antibiotics too readily, enthusiastic about meditation and interested in Oriental philosophy.
Martin pops an antacid tablet in his mouth. On the way back home, he had stopped to gorge himself mindlessly on a hamburger, a bucket of chips and a quarter of barbecued chicken, washed down with a couple of beers. He topped off the meal with a double scoop of vanilla ice cream in a chocolate-coated cone. He imagines Bruce admonishing him in his mild-mannered way with another lecture on weight control. More rice and vegetables, fruits and bread. Fish, at least twice a week. Fewer takeaways and no more than two standard drinks of alcohol per day. All this information is, of course, laced with details about the damage that can be caused by trans-fatty acid, the necessity of avoiding hydrogenated oil and the benefits of HDL, the good cholesterol.
Martin feels bloated but unrepentant about the ‘overindulgence’—in his mind, an acceptable euphemism for gluttony. So he occasionally shortens his life by a few hours perhaps. Mortality on the fast track. He should never have taken his son’s advice and changed doctors. Old Doctor Richardson had the right ideas. Plenty of pills and few restrictions on eating and drinking. Martin chews another tablet, pleased about the absence of guilt. After all, he had merely rewarded himself for what had been an exceptionally difficult day.
HE HAD SPENT THE morning in the house in a state of heightened nervousness, mumbling what he might say to Melanie Charles. And even before the road rage incident, the afternoon had not passed without incidents. On his way to see the tutor, the ute had stalled twice. Then Martin was delayed by the lift getting stuck somewhere between the fourth and fifth floors of the architecturally uninspiring building. But the interlude had given him the opportunity to reflect on the current phase of his life. Between the desire for change and the anxiety to retain the familiarity of routines lay the tension of middle-aged living. It was a point of stasis that paralleled his predicament in the lift.
There was something sacrosanct about the lack of motion, his unexpected zone of calmness, bare and without the discordance of noise. Martin imagined a blown light fuse to enhance the insularity. There was ambiguity in the silence of darkness. Therapeutic comfort for the body and yet the fear of what the mind could regurgitate about a deeper darkness, which he had known.
He wondered if someone had alerted the maintenance staff. There were always those who were eager to keep the tools of civilised life efficiently functional. In the meantime—momentarily he shut his eyelids—these slivers of time belonged exclusively to him. No obligations. Nothing that warranted his attention. The space around him was like a patch of cleared land, a life swept clean of accumulated junk.
Suddenly he felt a slight jolt. The lift began to glide upwards again. The afternoon had been incapacitated for a few minutes and drained of its vitality. Martin deliberated about the crowded world outside, its frenetic pace and ceaseless ego-jostling. At times the sterility of emptiness was not such an unbearable alternative after all. Reluctantly he continued to contemplate how he would explain to Melanie Charles his failure in the unit on Ethics.
His tentative knock brought a cheerful, ‘Come in!’
He fingered the doorknob. His breathing was laboured. He considered walking away. A traceless disappearance would have been so much simpler.
Throughout his chequered and uneventful tertiary endeavours, Martin had never seriously considered writing assignments or taking examinations. It wasn’t that he objected to the academic ranking system, but for him, a mark or a grade had no meaning. A degree was irrelevant. He was in his fifties and without any hankering for respectability or conventional employment. He had listened, discussed, read and learned. The purpose of education had been served.
Melanie Charles smiled brightly as Martin shuffled in. As always, his eyes wandered to the unframed print stuck on the wall behind her table. The colours had faded. The edges were curled and torn. He was drawn to the clarity of the solitary face with the oval-shaped mouth wide open in an agonised cry of recognition of the darkness of one’s soul.
What was worse, thought Martin, than the despair of turning inward and trying to know oneself? At best there were shards of images, transient and distorted. Faces depersonalised and sexless, whipped along by the feverish urgency of time. What was it that Heidegger had said? We are ourselves the entities to be analysed. And the end result of such scratchy attempts, Martin had concluded, was anxiety caused by the discovery that life was turbulent and confused.
He wondered if his apology to the tutor sounded genuinely contrite. He had not submitted any of the written work prescribed at the beginning of the semester.
‘Martin, you obviously read everything on the reading list,’ she observed. ‘That’s unusual. So why…? You haven’t been ill?’
He shook his head.
‘I thought you enjoyed the course.’
‘Immensely,’ he assured her hastily. ‘And I learned a great deal from you.’
Melanie Charles was visibly flattered.
‘It was something you quoted from Nietzsche that really lifted my interest in ethics. It was in the very first tutorial.’
She was unable to recall what she had said.
‘The bite of conscience is indecent,’ he reminded her.
‘Oh, I don’t remember what I was referring to then,’ she said stiffly. ‘Anyway, whatever it was must have made an impact for you to remember.’
He always veered away as soon as the connection surfaced in his consciousness: land-mined zone. Vietnam. Life and nature abused. He dropped the shutter on hideous memory.
‘I’m not much good at writing,’ Martin explained. ‘Exams make me resentful. I find written work to be an imposition.’
The tutor nodded. ‘But with minimal preparation you could have passed. You know much more than most students who receive credits.’
Martin did not respond immediately. He had no wish to sound as though he was making excuses. Then he said slowly, ‘I know what I have learned, and if I can apply that to my life then that is meaningful education. For me.’
Melanie looked at him as if she were envious. ‘What will you do now?’ The question did not seem intrusive or patronising.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Enrol in another course somewhere else. Next year, after I’ve saved some money. Mind you, I’ve run out of places that will accept me.’
‘What other courses have you taken?’
‘Modern Australian Literature. Renaissance History. Politics. Psychology.’ He looked at her sombrely. ‘Failed them all.’
The revelation was so casual and devoid of self-pity that it had overtones of dark comedy. The tutor threw back her head in astonished laughter. ‘Pardon me, but you sound as if failure is a natural progression in life. What will you study next?’
‘Comparative religion,’ he replied seriously and without hesitation. ‘I’d like to know more about the different forms of our greatest creativity. I want to explore what Mallarmé said in one of his letters.’
‘Which was?’
‘That we are merely empty forms of matter, but we are indeed sublime in having invented God and our soul.’
HE SHIVERS AND clasps his hands together to prevent them from trembling. The evening returns to haunt him. Those two men in the Falcon brought out in him a primate’s instinct for survival. For a moment he had felt as if there was no one else in the world. Fear snakes through him like a current. A cry escapes his mouth. Overwhelming panic, as depicted in Munch’s painting. Thick wavy lines of reddish-orange and yellow flash in front of him. He blinks. Meandering brown, like tree snakes. Or is it lava grey? The world on fire. Hands press against the sides of the head. ‘It’s in the p
ast. The past!’ he whimpers. The pain of loneliness. So human. In entrapment and paralysis of will. Fragmentation. The mind in the picture is a gigantic prison chambered with crowded cells and unlit corridors echoing with menacing footsteps. That is how he is.
‘Did you by some miracle of the imagination transport yourself to the twenty-first century? Did you manage to see the future? What was your vision, Edvard Munch, that enabled you to paint like that?’ Martin whispers. He speculates about the possible answers. Art, after all, is visual philosophy. It is one of those times when he flatters himself with the fanciful notion that the picture was specially painted for him.
Gradually he calms down. He leaves the door open to rid the spare room of its musty smell. He has already rummaged through several boxes and selected four volumes of poetry for his friend, Colin Gear. He commends himself for the diversity of choice—Rilke, Neruda, Lowell and Paz. No one could possibly accuse him of being a narrow-minded advocate of literary monoculturalism. He has deliberately avoided selecting anything local. More than likely, Colin has read everything that Martin possesses in his collection of Australian poetry.
He feels guilty about not having visited his friend for several weeks. By way of compensation he selects two more volumes of poetry. But this time, I won’t ask him about the manuscript. I won’t even mention it, Martin determines; given the opportunity, Colin talks at length about his memoir of the war. ‘There are already too many books about Vietnam,’ Martin had said when Colin couldn’t find a publisher. Colin had become indignant. ‘It’s soul writing!’ he declared. But is it encapsulated in a body, Martin wanted to ask. That was necessary for a publisher to survive. Instead he remained tactfully silent. After all, Colin had refused to let him read the manuscript.
He sits now on the frayed carpet, surrounded by boxes that have never been emptied. They are crammed with books and newspapers dating back to the Vietnam War. Martin leans back against a leg of a large dining table, the only remaining furniture from his married days. Under the unevenly spread tablecloth is a large model of the battlefield where the Normans and the Saxons clashed in the decisive battle of 1066. He remembers the hours he devoted to the model, and his father’s inability to understand such intense passion for history.
MARTIN LEFT SCHOOL after Form Four. His final subject reports were ordinary. The only exception was History, for which he received the highest mark in his class, along with a glowing commendation from his teacher.
‘You’ll never be a scholar, Martin,’ his father commented dryly after reading the reports. ‘And the one good one…for a useless subject.’
‘History is not useless.’ It was brave to contradict his father. Simon Godwin had a quick temper and was intolerant of views that varied from his own.
‘Won’t get you anywhere. Far better to do something useful. Something practical. You could join the army. Become a plumber or an electrician. A few honest quid to be made there, eh? But it’s also hard work, mate.’
Simon Godwin was a powerfully built man who towered over his wife and children. This licensed his authority over the patriarchal domain. It was a vast territory that kept extending. He assumed the prerogative to determine which activities his family members would enjoy in their leisure time. Martin, for reasons of gender, was encouraged to go fishing and play cricket and football. The two girls, Erin and Gail, were guided towards ballet and music lessons—not that Simon particularly valued such cultural pursuits for their own sake, but in his scheme of things these were suitable activities for his daughters. Visits to family and friends and the occasional night at the cinema sufficed for his wife, though Simon also tolerated Megan’s once-a-month card night with her friends. A week at the beach in early January rounded off what he deemed to be a contented familial life.
In the summer months and in early autumn, Simon, accompanied by his son, regularly drove north towards Goulburn Valley. They turned right between Glenburn and Yea to fish in the Murrindindi River. Sometimes they headed for the coast, southwest to Lake Elingamite or Hopkins River. On these trips there was little communication between them. Long stretches of silence were broken by comments on the effect of the weather on the landscape. Occasionally Martin asked questions about fishing equipment that did not require elaborate replies. There was a mutual respect for each other’s privacy, as though they had figured out that they lived in separate worlds that were irreconcilably different. When Simon stopped the car and pointed to a specific spot where he wanted to fish for the day, Martin jumped out with unconcealed relief. He knew what had to be done while his father scouted around for deep holes under overhanging trees or among the growth of weeds where the best trout were to be found. Martin was responsible for unloading the Holden—fishing gear, rugs, a picnic basket with white bread, cheese and ham sandwiches, thick slices of fruitcake, bottles of lemonade and beer, and a thermos filled with tea.
Simon had taught him where to dig for worms and Martin prided himself on his expertise in filling a jar with the fat wriggling bits of bait. Then there was the camping equipment, in case Simon felt disinclined to return to Melbourne on the same day. Once Martin had completed the chores, he dutifully accepted a fishing rod and spent the rest of the day hoping that they might go home emptyhanded. Rarely was his wish fulfilled. His father was a skilled and patient fisherman.
In the middle of April 1958, Simon decided to fish at Merri River. At Crowe’s Bridge he reeled in four brown trouts within half an hour of their arrival. As he cast a line again, his son could not restrain himself.
‘Don’t we have enough?’
Surprised, Simon turned to look at the boy. ‘Enough? Enough for what?’
‘We can’t possibly eat all that!’ Martin pointed to the fish that lay glistening in the late morning’s sun.
‘Fishing only for the sake of eating isn’t the point of coming here!’ his father retorted testily. ‘It’s a sport. It relaxes me. Any problems with that? Besides, I can always give away the extras.’
‘How can killing be a sport?’ Martin blurted, moving back a few paces. Defiance welled inside him as he watched a gulping trout thrashing on the ground, its eyes open.
Simon took his time to light a cigarette. He avoided looking at the boy. ‘So you think I am wrong to enjoy fishing?’ He sounded uncharacteristically subdued.
‘No.’ There was a tremor in Martin’s voice. ‘But you should catch only what we can eat.’
There was no continuation of the argument. A troubled look shadowed Simon’s face, as if he had suddenly confronted a dimension of life he had never previously envisaged. He held a cigarette between the index and middle fingers of his left hand and scratched his chin with the tip of his thumb.
Early that afternoon, storm clouds rolled in from the sea and gave Simon the excuse he needed to return home. He did not speak to his son on the way back. Several times Martin glanced furtively at his father’s face in an effort to determine the intensity of his anger. But Simon seemed almost lifeless. He was hunched over the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.
That night Martin dreamed of falling into a fast flowing river. As the currents swept him towards several large boulders, the strands of wool on the back of his jumper caught on a fishing hook. ‘I’ve a big one here?’ His father’s voice was both faint and reverberative. Martin twisted and struggled. His body was bruised and he was dragged in the water until he found himself wedged between two jagged rocks. The riverbed was slimy. Under him were struggling human bodies. Slowly the water changed colour. He felt an upward heave. ‘This one wasn’t meant to get away? His father’s voice again, louder and triumphant.
Martin woke with a start. He was cold and covered in sweat. He knew then that Simon would never take him fishing again.
SIMON’S SCEPTICISM ABOUT formal education pressed Martin into an apprenticeship in carpentry. Although he was an able worker and a quick learner, by the end of the first year he was bored. He wanted to return to school. But he knew Simon would be enraged if he qu
it the apprenticeship.
So Martin went to the local library. There he located the history section, and he began to read in his spare time. A book on famous battles started his interest in troop formations and the strategies of great generals. He read about the development of weaponry and the consequences of war. He immersed himself in the biographies of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Rommel and Patton. A fleeting reference to Freud led him to Civilisation and Its Discontents. Martin struggled to understand parts of this essay. The theory of the death instinct disturbed him. And Freud’s observation that it was diverted to the external world and manifested itself in aggressive and destructive behaviour made him still more uncomfortable. At school he was shy and avoided confrontations. He sidelined himself during the fights and scuffles that broke out near lockers and during sports. Now he was reading about the human capacity for destruction.
But the monumental events that had unfolded in England during and after 14 October 1066 intrigued Martin. He had been influenced by his father’s reverence for all things associated with the ‘old country’. Simon made it an issue to remind his children of their ties with Great Britain. ‘Great in every sense!’ he would proudly point out. ‘And we are a part of it.’
One of the few photographs in the Godwin household was a framed black-and-white picture of Queen Elizabeth II. It hung in the small dining room, as if the monarch was presiding over the family meals. Quite accidentally one evening, Martin discovered that it upset his father to find the picture hanging at an angle. Deliberately he began surreptitiously tilting the frame whenever the opportunity presented itself. After a few months, other invisible hands made it an even more frequent occurrence. One night when Martin came in first for dinner, the photograph was hanging upside down. The words Queen of Down-Under had been scrawled on a piece of paper and stuck to the frame.
