Homecoming

by Adib Khan

  ‘Remember how delighted we were as we boarded the ship on our way back?’ Ron recalls. ‘The lucky ones! Able to walk, limbs intact, no serious injuries. Off to new lives.’ He shakes his head. ‘But home wasn’t the same.’

  ‘We weren’t the same. Another one?’ Martin picks up the empty tumblers and escapes to the bar. The visit to the hospital has chastened them into drinking mineral water and orange juice.

  It is too early for the regular patrons of the pub. At the bar, two men have been drinking beer. Their faces flushed, they eye a solitary couple at the table under the darts board. Whispers. Then they burst into raucous laughter.

  ‘G’day,’ one of them greets Martin. ‘I’m Nathan.’

  ‘Jim,’ the other man in the grey jumper and jeans grunts, his eyes fixed on the dark-haired woman who appears to be in her early twenties.

  Martin nods stiffly. His look discourages any further exchanges. He pays for the drinks and walks back to the table. Ron’s demeanour makes him wonder how much they have been affected by Colin’s illness.

  ‘Why us?’ Ron demands. ‘There are others who have done well and not been damaged. Didn’t Ken look good? Tanned and relaxed. Just back from a holiday in Cairns. Successful furniture business. Happily remarried. Two healthy kids. He even offered me a job. “Any time for an old mate,” he said.’ Ron frowns, as if something has belatedly occurred to him. He leans forward, elbows resting on the table. ‘You didn’t say anything to him. Not even hello.’ He stares suspiciously at Martin. ‘Thank God Ken came along. At least I had someone to talk to. The way you and Col carried on about books, I might as well not have been there.’

  At the bar, Jim stands up and mutters an obscenity. Nathan laughs and blows a kiss at the girl. Her companion glares at the two men.

  ‘Got an attitude problem, mate?’ Jim drawls, addressing the slightly built Caucasian man. His thumbs are hooked into the pockets of his jeans and his chin is thrust out provocatively. ‘Would you like a drink with us, lady? Where are you from, the Philippines? Hey! Don’t get all snooty. I’m only trying to be sociable. Making a polite move.’ He leers and caresses his lips with the tip of his tongue. ‘Quite classy if you ask me. We could have lots of fun.’

  ‘Steady on, fellas!’ The bartender, a beefy man with a boyish face, intervenes.

  ‘Fuck it, Joe! Stop being a wet hen!’ Nathan snaps. ‘What’s wrong with her having a drink with us? Aren’t we good enough for Asians? Jesus! You’d think Jim asked for a date on the moon.’

  ‘Leave her alone.’ Casually Martin walks up to the men and confronts Jim. It could almost have been a polite request if he had added the word ‘please’.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ Jim mimics. ‘Or what? Huh? You trying to be a cowboy? What if I don’t, old man?’

  Nathan’s laughter is short-lived. There is a thudding sound of bone smacking against flesh.

  ‘No!’ Ron shouts, slow to get up from his chair.

  Jim flails his arms and legs in an effort to get up off the floor. He wipes a hand across his face. The stickiness on his fingers makes him whimper.

  ‘Leave her alone.’

  Ron grabs Martin from behind. ‘Don’t be stupid! That’s assault!’ he whispers. ‘It’s not our concern!’

  ‘Sounds familiar,’ Martin mumbles, blinking at the man on the floor. There is no anger in him. It was something he was compelled to do.

  The injured man screams. ‘My nose!’

  Ron turns apologetically to him. ‘Look, mate, my friend’s a bit uptight at the moment.’

  ‘He’s fucking well broken my nose!’ Jim staggers to his feet and backs away towards Nathan, who has ordered a couple more beers but makes no move to help his friend. The front of Jim’s jumper is streaked with blood. ‘You’re a bloody lunatic!’

  The bartender calmly comes around with an ice pack and towel. ‘Give us a look.’ With the tips of his fingers he feels Jim’s nose, which is already swollen and purple. ‘Nothing broken,’ he announces with authority. ‘Here, hold the pack against your nose.’

  ‘All a bit of a mistake.’ Nathan is conciliatory. ‘No great harm done. You okay, Jimmy?’

  ‘Do you want me to ring the police?’ the bartender offers. Martin is unable to comprehend his grin.

  ‘No, no! She’ll be right,’ Nathan says hastily.

  The men down their drinks and head for the door. Suddenly Jim stops and turns aggressively to Martin. ‘You’re a fucking maniac! They should lock you up!’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to call the police?’ Joe asks loudly.

  Nathan shoves his friend roughly out the door.

  ‘The things we don’t want revealed!’ Joe looks cheerfully triumphant. ‘Same again, gentlemen? This time it’s on the house.’

  ‘Might have a couple of beers, thanks,’ Ron decides, sounding relieved.

  ‘Thanks,’ Martin echoes meekly, feeling contrite and foolish. He notices that the table under the darts board is no longer occupied. The woman…he didn’t even see her properly.

  ‘What was all that about, Martin?’ Ron explodes angrily.

  ‘A couple of blokes with too much beer in them. All right, they were being unpleasant. But that’s no reason to deck one of them.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’ve never seen you lose your cool like that.’

  ‘Bit of an overreaction,’ Martin admits, avoiding Ron’s stare. ‘Guess I’m more upset about Colin than I realised.’

  ‘We all are. But that doesn’t mean…Ah, forget it. Drink up!’ Ron dismisses the incident with a wave of his hand. ‘We need to go out and have some fun.’

  ‘Go camping, perhaps? Up in the high country near Rose River.’

  Ron is astounded at the suggestion. ‘In bloody winter? Sitting in a tent shivering isn’t my idea of fun.’

  ‘There’ll be no one there. Just the trees and the calmness to help us forget all this for a few days.’

  ‘It’ll be freezing! Snow. Rain. Wind. Everything damp and wet. Nothing calm about that. Within a few hours we’ll be cursing each other.’ Ron grins slyly. ‘I had something else in mind to help us relax. A bit of recklessness won’t do us any harm. We’re not responsible to anyone but ourselves. What do you reckon?’

  ‘Whatever.’

  Martin is unable to shake off the silhouette of a young woman’s face frozen in surprise. Instead of a darts board, there are tropical trees and flimsy huts.

  HE STOPS AT A street corner to check his wallet. Thirty-five dollars. In his trouser pocket he has another one dollar twenty in coins. The lights change and he hurries across. The triumph of reason over instinct. He remembers Oscar Wilde: The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

  All he has to do is turn back. About seventy metres and then a right turn. Warmth and dim lights. It is a seductive comfort zone. Flashing lights, the jangle of coins and the anticipation of a slice of luck coming his way. One in a hundred thousand? In a million? Why couldn’t he be the one? The cashier and the girl at the bar are always friendly. There is the opportunity of striking up a conversation with whoever is next to him. He can nurse a drink and play cautiously to make the money last for almost an hour. In that time something wonderful and unexpected could happen. Busy fingers and neutral mind. The dazzle of coloured numbers and symbols breathing life into dreams. He has become too tied down by routine, Ron observed. It is not as if there is a fortune to be lost. Thirty-five dollars. He determines to set a limit of fifteen. But the next ten bucks could make a difference…Martin pockets the wallet then turns.

  Once inside the building he walks between the rows of poker machines. There is a bewildering variety to choose from: Black Rhino, Money House, Enchanted Forest, Bamble Boys, Phantom Pays, Coral Riches, Wild Cougar, QT Bird, and—he pauses—Sweet Hearts. Images of greasy hair, tight pants, pointed shoes and Elvis.

  At the cashier’s booth the man in front of Martin slides a hundred-dollar note across the counter. He receives a plastic tumbler full of one-do
llar coins. Self-consciously Martin extracts a five-dollar note from his wallet. It is hardly worth the trouble. He fishes out another five dollars. The cashier smiles. She is young and trained to look polite. In her private moments does she ever question the rightness of what she is doing, Martin wonders.

  ‘I think I might have another ten dollars’ worth of one-dollar coins, please,’ he says without thinking. He is determined not to go home broke. Even a small win will justify his loss of self-discipline.

  ‘Certainly, sir.’

  Martin has played all the machines, except one. Because of its very name, he has avoided Sweet Hearts. The Roy Orbison song comes into his mind and he hums snatches of ‘Only the Lonely’. Fleetingly he thinks about a recent telephone conversation with one of the hostel staff. Nora has had several tantrums. She insists on seeing Martin. No, she is not ill. They are unaware of any major problem. Only her behaviour has become more erratic. Aggressive. She hurled a box of tissues at the doctor. Physically her progress has been excellent. Could Martin find time to visit her? Yes, he had agreed wearily. Yes. Sweet Hearts. It’s worth a try today, he feels.

  He sits on the stool and looks to his right. No one is gambling on Money House. On the other side…He looks again and recognises his young neighbour from across the street. She is leaning forward, her eyes fixed on the screen of Coral Riches.

  ‘Oh, hello!’ Martin greets her.

  She turns irritably. There is a flicker of recognition on her face. She looks tired. ‘G’day.’

  ‘Any luck?’

  ‘Nah.’ She drops a coin in the slot and pushes a button. An impatient sigh. She brushes past him and heads for the door.

  Martin pushes all his coins throught the slot and chalks up two hundred credits. He bets two credits and plays one line. Instant success. A modest gain. He presses the red card button. Another win. He plays three lines twice. The credits drop rapidly until there are none left. Martin imagines Colin’s emaciated face and recalls his friend’s bemused words: ‘I am one of life’s prolonged failures reduced to the bare essentials—skin, bones and watery soup. I should wear a tag labelled “The Minimalist”.’

  COLIN HAD GRINNED from his bed and extended his right hand. ‘Welcome again to the mortality chamber.’

  ‘Brought you some flowers, mate,’ Martin said awkwardly, placing the bunch of camellias on the bedside table. ‘And some more books.’

  Colin had blushed with pleasure and murmured his thanks. He took the books and clasped them to his chest. He was wan and thin, but did not look anxious. Before the silence could become an embarrassment, he spoke.

  ‘Let me save you the obligatory question. I am no worse than when you saw me the other day. The cancer hasn’t spread any further. But I feel weak—and miserable—you know, the tests and chemotherapy.’ He was distracted by the titles of the anthologies. ‘Pain is much more bearable when it’s in printed words, and being experienced by someone you don’t really know, isn’t it?’

  Martin sat on the edge of the bed and gripped his friend’s forearm. On his previous visit, his account of his academic failure and the meeting with the tutor had made Colin chuckle. There had been an element of dark humour in that conversation, with an emphasis on their mutual limitations. This time they talked about books and politics.

  They were interrupted by a knock on the door. It swung open in a wide arc. Ron Morris and an out-of-breath Ken Davis walked in with a large basket bulging with fruit. ‘How are you, mate?’ they greeted Colin. Ken was boisterous, as usual: ‘I rang to see if you were interested in writing a speech for me. I had to ask your sister where you were. Brilliant worker, that Brenda. I’ve never regretted employing her. And look! Just ran into Ron in the lift.’ The air of camaraderie deserted him though when he turned to face Martin. He nodded stiffly. ‘Martin.’

  A cold emptiness spread inside Martin. His demeanour changed. Slowly he wandered over to the window to watch the traffic in the street below.

  ‘Ken’s looking well, isn’t he?’ Ron sounded cheerful, attempting to cover up the awkwardness of Martin’s rebuff. ‘Must be all that money you’re making, mate!’

  Ken laughed at the flattery. Clearly it pleased him that his prosperity was evident. He wore a new woollen suit, silk tie and leather shoes. He was also overweight—puffed cheeks, saggy jowls and a potbelly that couldn’t be hidden by the loosely tailored jacket.

  But there appeared to be another kind of change in Ken. Martin had to admit it. First impressions though, he cautioned himself. Ken’s laughter was soft now, his voice low, modulated in concern over Colin. Despite the differences, there still had to be the other and more powerful Ken lurking somewhere behind the facade of sophistication.

  Martin wanted to remember the lean and tanned soldier who had prided himself in his role in a uniform. A believer in the rightness of a cause. He could almost feel the cauterising heat of that afternoon. There was Ken, leading them towards the village. He was grim-faced and cold-eyed, surveying the landscape for revenge. He did not need an immediate reason. Life itself—here and at home—was being relentlessly cruel: a seriously ill mother in Melbourne; two friends badly wounded in a mortar attack. The war had entered one of its stagnant phases. There were attacks and counter attacks without significant shifts in territorial control. The heat and the insect-infested camp had sharpened everyone’s frustration. That afternoon there had been a signal to spread out and encircle the village. In the distance, a dog’s bark shattered the silence.

  HE SITS DELIBERATING about the paltry sum left in his possession. MAKE A BET: the sign flashes, teasing and nagging him. Eight dollars will buy him a hundred and sixty credits or half a barbecued chicken and chips. He gets a discount from Leon. But there’s bread and cheese at home. A couple of tomatoes and Hungarian salami. He can cash a cheque tomorrow.

  He decides to play Sweet Hearts again. Loss. Win. Win. A rush of adrenaline. His fingers tense. Come on, sweetheart. One big one. He jabs the buttons in quick succession. Loss. Loss. Loss!

  One final game. He can only play one line.

  The night is swathed in mist. Martin walks slowly, stopping to stare at shop windows. Clothes always look more elegant on dummies. The cakes are inviting. He loiters on the footpath, dreading the prospect of entering his cold house. Silence itself is a kind of noise that grows in the mind. A whine that changes its pitch and volume until it reminds him of the absence of spoken words. Perhaps the consoling company of Brahms tonight. And Blake. Martin rarely watches television.

  It begins to worry him that this afternoon he had agreed to go out with Ron. Tomorrow! Distracted and disturbed by Colin’s condition and Ken’s presence, Martin only had a hazy understanding of what Ron proposed.

  He is startled by a hand on his arm. A woman has emerged from the darkness of an alley. She whispers at him.

  ‘No, thanks.’ Firmly he shrugs her off.

  She tries again, this time at a bargain rate. Whatever adventure he desires. Martin quickens his steps. Footfalls and a hissed obscenity. Would she have accepted the offer of a drink and a chat? But even that’s not possible. His money has been gobbled up by Sweet Hearts. He thinks of Nora and the times they walked this way. He felt warm as she clung to his arm. He was a patient listener.

  NORA HAD A KEY to the house. Martin would return home and find the lights on, the lounge warm and the aroma of a roast or a casserole wafting along the corridor. They had drifted into an unusual relationship by then. Nora had never showed the slightest qualm about his embarrassing failure in the bedroom. If there were consequences for her, they were debated quietly within the privacy of her mind.

  ‘You are a gentle person, Martin,’ she had once said to him since. ‘Dependable. I feel safe with you.’

  ‘Such boring qualities,’ he had responded wryly. ‘That is, if I do possess them.’

  ‘I am not twenty any more,’ Nora reminded him. ‘Way past the age of thrills with bronzed hunks.’ She looked at him mischievously. ‘You’re not the sort to let
anyone down.’

  He winced.

  Nora laughed, sure she had flustered him.

  Martin sensed that the violence in her marriage had turned Nora away from the memory of her past, and there was little that she would want to remember. By now though, she had told him about her childhood, and the life of her parents. They had been strict church-going people who treated the ordinariness of everyday living as though it were a precious gift beyond which nothing else mattered. The only passion that Jack and Emily shared, it seemed, was moving house every couple of years. They had been undemonstrative about their feelings, and after Nora’s mother died Jack Hare lived as if he had never had a partner. If he experienced grief, it remained hidden from his daughters. He worked long hours as a builder, kept his accounts in impeccable order and spent his spare time tinkering with his car and bicycle in the garage.

  Martin had ignored Nora’s hints that they might live together. But one night, when her patience had exhausted itself, Nora broached the subject directly.

  ‘You know the problem,’ Martin said awkwardly. The visits to the doctor, the herbalists and the psychotherapists had been counter-productive.

  ‘That isn’t important,’ Nora was quick to insist. She never asked him about Vietnam. ‘It’s the time together, the routine, the familiarity. The sharing. Is the thought of being close to someone too threatening for you?’

  Martin did not say that it was his crippling sense of inadequacy that determined the distance he wanted to maintain between them. He remained convinced that, at some future time, Nora would want to move on, beyond what he had to offer. And an amicable parting, without the inevitable friction over ownership and the carting out of personal belongings, was his preferred way of ending an association. Martin himself had no intention of initiating a breakup. He liked Nora more than he cared to admit, and he missed her on the days she did not come.

  In his own way, he tried to please her with gifts and outings to the movies and the theatre. What he could not really grasp was her appreciation of his patience and the way he never lost his temper with her. If they quarrelled he simply fell silent, or avoided contact with her for a few days.