Homecoming

by Adib Khan

  ‘Nothing that can be bought.’

  He stares at her. Sometimes she can sound so damn rational. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I would like you to stop moving backwards towards the door and stay with me. Will you ask me out for lunch? You could take me to a better place than Sebastian does. Then I could love you.’ Nora leans forward on the walker and squints at him. Then she becomes hostile. ‘You don’t really want to come here. I am only a tiny piece in the corner of your life! If you cared about me—’

  ‘Please, Nora!’ Martin does not mean to sound harsh. He refrains from adding, I’ve got a hard day ahead of me. That would sound so unbearably domestic. The uninterested overworked husband and the nagging wife locked in a cage built from the inside without a door.

  ‘I want a cigarette.’

  ‘You don’t smoke. Besides, residents aren’t allowed to smoke in their rooms.’

  ‘I’m not a resident. I’m Nora.’ She taps herself on the chest as she glares at him. ‘I want a fucking cigarette!’ Without flinching Martin matches her stare. Nora begins to inhale deeply and pretends that she is blowing out invisible rings of smoke. ‘No-ra wants a cig-a-rette! No-ra wants a cig-a-rette!’ The singsong wail rises sharply in volume, piercing him like the point of a knife. ‘Will you make love to me then? Ah, but you can’t!’ She cackles. ‘You are not a man! Mar-tin is not a man! Not a…’

  Something snaps inside him. He wheels around and walks out of the room. There is a pained howl. Martin hears his name. He forces himself to shut the door behind him.

  He walks fast down the corridor. Two female attendants smile at him and then seem to whisper darkly together. The greetings of other residents flash past.

  He runs out to the car park, panting audibly. There is no one else in sight. He leans against the ute, his hands pressing the sides of his head. His resolution to be patient and tolerant with Nora has collapsed in an instant.

  There are limited options.

  He can drive off or go back to her room. And if he chooses to return—what then? Additional haranguing? More punishment for what he has not been and what he has not done?

  ‘I was only late by about half an hour,’ he whispers bitterly, stubbing the slippery concrete with the toe of his right boot. ‘Thirty lousy minutes!’ He feels safe talking to memory. It never answers back or contradicts. At worst, it is a silent accuser of unfulfilled intentions.

  The snow continues to fall heavily in what is a rare winter’s day in Melbourne. Martin gets into the car and inserts the key in the ignition.

  HE HAD WORKED frantically for several days, painting the rooms. After much deliberation he had followed Nora’s advice and chosen pastel colours. Light beige on the walls and almond cream on the ceilings brought newness to the house. It cheered him and gave him confidence about changes and about his intentions. He had enough energy left to clean the carpets and tidy the kitchen cupboards.

  On Thursday afternoon, Martin took an extended lunch break and bought groceries and a bottle of sparkling wine. He stopped at the local butcher’s to buy a couple of steaks. Filet mignon. This would be a special meal.

  ‘Something on, Martin?’ the butcher asked laconically as he wrapped the meat.

  ‘For sure,’ Martin grinned. ‘Hopefully a different lifestyle, mate.’

  He drove home to unpack the shopping. He checked his new recipe book—yes, he had all the ingredients for the exotic salad he wanted to serve with the steaks.

  He was running behind schedule by now, and then the three other jobs booked for the afternoon took longer than expected. He had planned on having the salad prepared and the barbecue lit by the time Nora arrived. But then there was traffic. By the time he finally reached home, it was dark.

  There were lights inside the house. Nora must have let herself in with the spare key.

  The front door was unlocked. ‘Nora?’ He heard the sound of water boiling. ‘Sorry, I’m late.’ First he would shower, shave and change into something more appropriate. Then cook.

  Martin had rehearsed what he intended to say. He stopped near the kitchen door and mumbled the words again. No memory lapses. The moment of apprehension passed. If Nora responded unpredictably, he would have to be spontaneous. It was impossible to pre-determine her reaction, but there had been every indication that this was what she wanted.

  There was no sound of movement.

  ‘How about a drink?’

  He entered the kitchen and found her lying on the floor. Twitching. He saw swelling and bruising on one side of her head. Her eyes were open.

  ‘Nora?’ Martin whispered in disbelief.

  The door leading to the backyard was closed and the glass in the kitchen window was intact. She would spring up surely any moment, laughing.

  Martin convinced himself—there was a flicker of recognition in Nora’s face. But then she uttered faint and incoherent sounds. He rushed to the phone and dialled triple 0.

  He managed to remain calm, as he answered questions about the perceived nature of the problem, the evident symptoms and the address. Grabbing a pillow and a blanket from his room, he returned to the kitchen. Gently he lifted Nora’s head and slipped the pillow under. He covered her to the waist with the blanket. Her face felt cold.

  He sat next to her on the floor and held her hand as if he were minding something fragile.

  The entire evening sped past him then. The way it should have been. His suggestion that she move in here, her delighted acceptance, celebration with sparkling wine, dinner accompanied by a bottle of shiraz, talk—the warmth of knowing that they had taken a gigantic step forward in their lives.

  The water in the pot hissed and began to spill over. He stared at the steady blue flame of the gas burner.

  Within minutes the ambulance arrived.

  BY MID-AFTERNOON THE clouds have dispersed, leaving a freezing day. The morning’s jobs have taken less time than anticipated. Martin buys a pie and eats it sitting in the ute. He remains undecided about calling Andrew’s secretary for an appointment for the following week.

  He has had a disturbed night’s sleep. The voyage continued with a noiseless passage in darkness. He felt the sensation of movement. A sideways rocking motion as they ploughed forward. The man on the platform finally revealed himself to be the ship’s captain—a blind Aborigine who claimed to be over two hundred years old.

  ‘How can you navigate this ship?’ someone asked.

  ‘Instinct guides me.’

  ‘Why are we on this ship?’

  ‘So that you can discover what you do not wish to know.’

  ‘The coffin?’ Martin enquired. ‘Whose body is in the coffm?’

  ‘Could be someone close to you.’

  ‘How can I find out?’

  ‘Would you like to throw a dice?’

  He had wakened thirsty and shivering. The doona lay on the floor. It took him time to adjust to reality. The voices were not the ones he had heard at sea. Cars were driving away. Some honked. He had checked the clock: 4.32 am. He was still tired.

  Now he catnaps for about twenty minutes and then locates the Hawthorn address in the Melways. Empties the last half a cup of tea from the thermos. The previous Sunday’s newspaper is still on the dashboard. He had bought it to read about the Vietnam veterans. VIETNAM, 30 YEARS ON…Disabled veterans are living on the verge of the poverty line. The government has done nothing to soften the impact of inflation on their benefits. ‘Nothing extra for the losers,’ Martin murmurs sadly and continues to read. Deaf ex-gunners, high suicide rate among the children of the vets, lingering post-traumatic stress disorder. In killing someone you kill yourself: a vet talks about his guilt. ‘The timeless Aeschylean imperative: “Man must suffer to be wise,”’ Colin had said to him once. How much and for how long? Colin had grinned, as if he’d anticipated Martin’s thoughts and replied, ‘Aeschylus didn’t live long enough to figure it out.’

  Martin spots a garbage bin. He stuffs the newspaper into it savagely. He should call Ron and cancel thei
r evening. Have another night at home to brood and consider the choices. Read and think. Live in the mind and create a world of possibilities.

  That wouldn’t be a bad life if he could find permanent residence there! Category? A refugee from life. Application approved.

  The cold forces him back inside the ute.

  He is still disturbed by this morning’s visit to the hostel. He makes up his mind not to return the following week. He will call Sarah Dickson and say he’ll be away from Melbourne. It won’t exactly be a lie.

  It is quite possible that Sebastian will be forgotten in a fortnight, perhaps replaced by Antonio, say, or Carlos. Sebastian. Why had she chosen that particular name? But it’s a silly question. Martin has been emphatically told that the workings of Nora’s mind defy rational explanation. The GP’s reports consistently indicate that she is in reasonable physical shape. She has lost weight, but regular exercise has reversed the muscle wastage and strengthened her. Another twenty years…

  Great! Maybe twenty-five. Impossible to say. He begins to think of ways of opting out. I’ll continue to pay the bills and look after her finances. Do everything that I have done. But the visits will be less frequent. It’s too much of a strain. I need to distance myself from her for longer periods. It’s selfish, but…

  And then he imagines her hysterical confusion. Bewilderment. Hurt. His name whispered as a question.

  HE SAT ON HIS bed, sweaty and trembling. The noises were unbearable. Artillery fire, grenade explosions, screams and shouted commands. Slow descent into the pit of barbarism. The desertion of decency, of everything he had embraced as human.

  Naked, soulless and armed. All for the pittance of survival.

  Through the haze there was Nora. Calm and efficient. Wiping his forehead with a wet towel. She held him and spoke comfortingly. She was still up at dawn, watching him slip into an exhausted sleep. Months elapsed. He could not recall her ever being impatient.

  ‘It’s the entire person, flaws and all, that you learn to care about. The perfection that’s in the glossy magazines can only be temporary,’ she had said to him one day as they picnicked on the bank of the Yarra River.

  ‘But there will be a point when you’ll be fed up,’ he argued. ‘I’m not exactly behaving normally.’

  She shook her head as if his remark was abhorrent. ‘If you’re not there for me during calmer times I will understand. But if I’m in trouble, I expect you to be just as supportive—without flinching and without conditions. You must humour me and indulge my whims. For life, if necessary’ There had been a deliberate hardness in her voice: he was bordering on self-pity and she wanted to drag him to an acceptance of the way it was, without sentimentality. ‘I don’t have to be with you. But that’s what I want.’

  And she had been true to her intention.

  MARTIN SEES THE parking inspector sauntering towards the ute, stopping on his way to collect coins from the other machines.

  Suddenly, he feels the tide of temptation. It’s irresistible. He can squeeze in fifteen minutes of coaxing his luck after finishing the last job at Hawthorn. Ten dollars. Definitely no more. He will take the exact amount and leave his wallet under the seat of the ute. Quit when he’s ahead.

  He waves to the inspector and pulls out onto the road.

  THE RAPIDLY FADING twilight is bleak and soggy. More rain is predicted for the evening. Martin drives carefully past mudsplattered cars, two tow trucks and a police van. He negotiates the traffic in a jubilant mood, ignoring angry voices and the finger gestures at his slowness. He is more pleased with his self-discipline than with the extra hundred and twenty dollars in his wallet. He had tried a new game called Robin’s Booty. Jackpot on the third attempt. He collected the money and walked out of the hotel. Feeling buoyed and generous, he heads home.

  RON IS EARLY. He brandishes a bottle of scotch and carries a plastic bag. He looks different. It’s not just that he’s smartly dressed, in a woollen jacket, a matching shirt, a pair of jeans and black leather shoes. There is something else that Martin is unable to pinpoint.

  ‘We want to make this a long, pleasurable evening.’ Ron takes a tray of ice from the freezer. ‘Enjoyment at middle-aged pace. A slow stoking of the fire.’ He looks at Martin in mock disdain. ‘Don’t you have anything a little more up-market to wear?’

  Martin spreads his hands and looks down. ‘Freshly pressed trousers and shirt!’ He grins. ‘Okay, the jacket’s a bit out of shape, the body’s totally out of condition, but I can—’

  ‘Still feel and think!’ Ron completes the sentence with the words Colin so often uses to assert that he is still whole and well in those aspects of life that matter most.

  ‘Ice?’ Ron pours a generous quantity of scotch for Martin. ‘Well, so maybe we’ll go somewhere for the over-50s leftovers. Ooops! I meant to surprise you.’

  ‘Where exactly are we headed?’

  ‘Places. We certainly won’t be sailing to By…By…’

  ‘Byzantium.’

  ‘Thank you. God! Hasn’t Col tried to educate me about ageing, but I cannot understand a bloody thing about that old man. What’s he about?’ Without waiting for a reply, he waltzes through the house—‘Falling in love with love…’—and ends up in the spare room.

  ‘You’ve taken the cover off Hastings! Going into battle again, are we?’

  Martin follows him across the room. ‘Frank wants it. I’m going to pack up the pieces.’

  Ron locates a pair of dice between two fallen trees. He rattles them in the palm of his hand. ‘What are the odds on a massacre?’

  Martin smiles, picking up a housecarl and rubbing it with the sleeve of his jacket.

  Ron throws the dice across the board. A pair of sixes.

  ‘That will get you six of the enemy’s best. Stone dead,’ Martin informs him.

  ‘Become a hero, eh? Kill and be famous. Live to tell tales.’

  Ron picks up a Norman soldier between his thumb and middle finger. ‘My pretty lad…’ He turns suddenly to face Martin. ‘What were your exact feelings the first time you killed a Vietcong?’

  Martin is used to suddenness in this world. ‘Empty and cold. I tried to cover myself with my hands—as if I was naked,’ he reflects. ‘Alone. Survivor, soldier, killer, God, Devil, judge—all in the shell of a hollow chamber.’

  ‘The first one I shot was a boy.’ Ron’s fully there now. ‘His guts oozed out of a large hole in his belly. You know, I watched his pain with…curiosity. What was he thinking? How was he coping with dying? Was there anything being revealed to him?’ Ron pauses, and Martin makes the tiniest noise. Ron begins again. ‘I screamed at him. “Let go! Let go!” He held on more. He tried to reach for his knife! So I shot him again, in the crotch, and again in the chest, and then finally through the head.’ Ron swallows the rest of the whisky. ‘Then I turned around and threw up. I could have sworn that my head was melting. That fierce heat. Then I shot at the trees, in the air, at a wild pig—until the magazine was empty. Afterwards I sank on my knees and cried. Who for? The kid? There he was, a crumpled heap of flesh and bones, still bleeding. A dead alien. No, I think it was for my failure to remain human. A soldier is trained to achieve a state of controlled insanity in war. I was insane without the control.’

  Gently he puts down the wooden model on the felt surface. ‘Sometimes I see the boy’s face. There’s arrogance, hate, anger, pain, disbelief and finally a frightening blankness. Why did I shoot him so many times? Why?’

  Martin stays quiet, without any inclination to tackle Ron’s question. In his serious moments Ron can be articulate and insightful. But it’s like sending messages into space: there is no reply. Just the huge difference between what you think you are and the reflection of yourself you saw in combat. Depth but little meaning.

  ‘Why can’t we imagine it all away?’ This time Ron wants a reply.

  ‘Because the imagination can only create. It cannot erase what has happened.’

  Ron rolls the dice again. ‘Another two sixes
and I could take out half a dozen teen soldiers. Damn! A three and a two. Ever think of doing a board game on Vietnam? I could give you a hand. Only joking!’ He walks out of the room with a slight stagger.

  They sit in the lounge and continue to drink in silence. Ron slouches in the chair and begins to snore. Martin fetches a spare blanket and covers him. He turns up the heater and leaves the house. Outside it is snowing again.

  Ron is still asleep when he returns with a shopping bag. Although he has been pacing his drinks, Martin feels light-headed and sluggish. In the kitchen he breaks six eggs into a bowl and whisks them with a fork. He adds a mixture of milk and cream and a sprinkling of ground black pepper. It takes him several attempts to light a burner on the stove. In a cast-iron frying pan, he adds butter. A dab of butter. With a bit of olive oil, otherwise the butter will burn. God, you’re clumsy. ‘Not any more!’

  When the pork sausages are nearly done, Martin makes scrambled eggs, how heat. Stir it occasionally with a wooden spoon. Nora often stood behind him like a stern instructor, hands on her hips. He cuts thick slices from a loaf of white bread and arranges them in a small basket. He spoons the eggs onto two warmed plates, giving Ron the most. Two sausages each. Paper serviettes, forks and knives.

  ‘Nora…’ He realises his mistake. To his relief, Ron continues to snore. Martin shakes him awake.

  ‘Ah? What? Oh, look at the time! Sorry!’

  They eat in big mouthfuls. Ron concentrates on spreading a slice of bread with a generous layer of butter. They are quiet, dulled, and determined not to go back into that musty chamber of the past.

  Martin admires the way his friend has battled adversity without losing his enthusiasm for life. A broken marriage, the struggle to look after a handicapped child, the inability to find another compatible partner, several unsuccessful business ventures, and alcohol-related illnesses have not diminished his hope for a better future. Ron is full of grand plans and is rarely put off by their failure to be realised. ‘You must have a vision of the perfect life,’ he had once said to Martin. ‘Otherwise you end up by regretting what you are, what you have been. I’m never discouraged by my lack of success.’