by Adib Khan
In a little while Nora tires. She moves to one side and pretends to cut the glare by shading her eyes with a hand. She looks up beyond the trees, as if expecting someone to appear. Her facial expression changes from anticipation to disappointment. The two performers circle around her, in harmony with the mood she has created. Slowly Nora drops to her knees. The men bend forward and droop over her from opposite sides with a billowy flourish of their robes like a flower closing its petals. The energy collapses and there is a moment’s stillness.
The audience murmurs and breaks into applause. The three performers rise in unison and bow. Then the men lead Nora back to the wheelchair. They kiss her hands and retreat.
People mill around Nora and flatter her with generous comments. She beams and looks up at Martin. He claps enthusiastically. ‘That was brilliant! Can you tell me more about that story?’
Nora concentrates on her fingernails and begins to hum.
‘What was it about? What did the movements mean? You looked up with a hand over your eyebrows…’ Martin checks himself. Too many questions were likely to confuse her.
‘It was a story about waiting.’
‘For what?’
‘Waiting,’ she repeats. ‘For whatever you desire.’
‘And do you think we always get what we desire?’
‘No.’ There is sadness in her voice. Martin strokes her head. It is a gesture of apology for being too preoccupied with himself, for not pursuing to know beyond the obvious, for not seeking to communicate about things that really matter.
They make their way to Southbank, where Martin buys some food. Nora draws his attention to the shop windows, occasionally pressing her face against the glass panes.
‘Would you like to walk?’
She stares uncomprehendingly at him. ‘Walk?’
‘Use the walking stick and go inside the shops.’
‘I’m not allowed to.’
‘Of course you are. You can go wherever you want.’ Martin remembers the conversation with Maria. He is surprised by his ready acceptance of what she’d said.
Nora takes a few steps and then pauses near the entrance of a jewellery shop. ‘Go on!’ Martin calls encouragingly. She takes another step before turning around and lurching back towards him. Her shoulders tremble and her hands feel cold. Martin waits until she stops shaking and then leads her into the shop. She clutches his hand and tries to hide behind him. The display of trinkets and costume jewellery attracts her though. She reaches out to touch a beaded necklace and looks in wonderment at the array of earrings, chains, bracelets and brooches. Then she picks up the string of turquoise-coloured beads again.
‘Do you like it?’
‘Yes,’ she whispers shyly.
Martin takes it from her hands. It’s been marked down and is not expensive. He goes up to the counter.
Outside, he unfastens the clasp and places the necklace around Nora’s neck. ‘It looks very pretty on you,’ he says awkwardly. Haven’t had enough practice at that, he tells himself wryly. Nora blushes and caresses her neck.
Martin wheels her back to Linlithgow Avenue. He takes a rug from the ute and then follows the path past the Myer Music Bowl and across the bicycle track. He struggles to wheel her to a gently sloping spot close to the river. Martin spreads the rug on the grass and helps Nora sit down. The afternoon is still and sunny, but more than likely the temperature will begin to drop within the hour. Nora eats with a voracious appetite, totally absorbed by the spread in front of her. She devours a salmon croquet and the sushi, and then reaches for the ham and cheese focaccia.
‘How is Sebastian?’
Nora does not stop eating. She picks up the orange juice and sucks noisily through a straw. Seeming unaware that Martin has not eaten anything he has bought, she picks up the remaining croquet and bites into it. ‘Not well,’ she mumbles, masticating the food vigorously. ‘That’s why he couldn’t take me out.’
‘Tell me about him. What does he look like?’
Nora pretends not to hear, instead blowing into the straw after the drink has finished. She flings away the carton and laughs as Martin gets up to put it in a bin. It occurs to him that he has never been really intimate with any of the three women in his relationships. In each case the creation of distance had been deliberate and of his own doing. Now he regrets his unwillingness to share with Nora thoughts about their inner lives. He should have spoken more often about his weaknesses and blunders, about his loss of potency and the shame and doubts, about anger, frustrations and guilt. Perhaps that would have made him more humanly vulnerable to Nora. And she might have opened up too, enough to create a mutual zone where their comfort would have been their understanding of each other and what they had endured. But an obsession with not indulging in self-pity and a quaint notion of manliness had prevailed and he remained self-contained and silent. Martin thinks now that he must have given the impression of being calm and self-disciplined and, more than likely, cold and self-centred.
How would she react if he told her now what he had planned on the evening she had suffered the stroke? Could the information possibly make any difference? Lessen her anger and frustration? Make her somehow understand that he valued her and that she was a worthy person? Martin figures that there is a remote possibility of finding a way through the debris of her collapsed mind, to a faint response.
But no. Nora is imitating him by plucking individual blades of grass and piling them on the rug. She waves to every jogger and cyclist. There is an energetic restlessness about her that demands a more robust form of entertainment. She looks disapprovingly at Martin and sprinkles bits of grass over his head. Then she giggles. ‘You look funny!’
Martin brushes himself with his hands. He had expected her behaviour to be much worse than this display of childishness. ‘Would you like to go home now?’
Suddenly she loses her playful demeanour. ‘I don’t have a home,’ she frowns.
‘I mean, go back to the hostel.’ He regrets asking and feels a pang of guilt. ‘It will soon be dark.’
Nora takes another pinch of grass and scatters it in front of Martin’s face. She stretches out on the rug, her face pointing upwards at the sky.
‘What do you want to do?’
‘Give you wings and a heart,’ Nora replies.
Martin looks away. She makes him sound dull and callous. But he is irritated by the wings. Secretly he reveres the concept of love, but apart from the extravagant hyperbole of his youth, those passionate meetings with Moira, he has never been able to speak of love. But he does remember a conversation with My-Kim, as they lay sweaty and naked on the bed in a darkened room. The unfamiliarity of silence outside had played on his nerves, more than any noise of shells or gunfire.
‘I hope we can continue to see each other. Keep things the way they are,’ Martin had said, avoiding her stare. He cursed himself silently for sounding so unconvincing.
She opened a packet of cigarettes he had brought for her and slowly lit one with a lighter that had been a gift from an American soldier. ‘You have time to hope?’
The question annoyed Martin. It made him sound naïve, as though he did not entirely grasp the complexity of the situation that had brought them together. ‘Don’t you?’
‘In war there is no hope. All I want to do is feed my children. I worry all the time. Who will look after them if I am killed or injured?’ She disengaged herself from his embrace and sat up. ‘A woman like me can never hope about other things…about men and love. You are here today, kind and full of promises. But tomorrow may be different.’ She shrugged her shoulders and blew rings of smoke aimed at the ceiling. ‘Look how quickly the smoke goes away,’ she observed, as though drawing a parallel with the transient nature of their association. ‘Some day I will wonder if you were really here.’
She was right, of course. Soon after, Martin had severed the tie, without even the courtesy of an explanation. Barry’s death had tainted him. That’s what it felt like. So he’d relegated My-Kim t
o the collage of memory and desire. Years later, Martin knew that he should have met her, and knew what he should have said. I don’t feel anything for you any more. I don’t know if I ever have. That would have sounded callous, but it would have been honest. My-Kim would have probably accepted this without a fuss. She had said once that only memories endure and the sadness and pain remain. But Martin had managed to remain morally aloof and non-judgemental until the day Barry was killed. And then he was left tottering on the edge of a frightful darkness and delusion.
He looks at Nora, at who she is now, and wonders whether My-Kim might still be alive in some remote village, wrapped up in memories as she accelerates towards old age. He tries to see her—hunched, wrinkled and slow. The dull reflection of untold stories in her eyes. She would probably be selective about what she told her grandchildren. Tales of heroism, courage and the way a foreign army had been defeated and forced to leave their land. But nothing about the club or the dark rooms where she collected gifts and earned her money. In all the minds of those who were there, those aspects of the turbulent years mostly languish, of necessity. He wonders if she is bitter. And—he can’t help it—does he ever figure in her recollections? As one of the enemies? Or simply as a faded face among the men she had known?
Martin concedes that Nora is right. He needs wings. He has been cold and selfish. Has been…is…
She lies with her eyes open. They have not shared this kind of closeness for a very long time and yet he can sense the emotional gulf between them.
He says softly, ‘I’m sorry.’ It is not quite what he means, but he wants to say that she has moved him.
A bare flicker of the eyelids indicates that Nora has heard him. ‘Sebastian can give me a baby. He can do anything.’
Martin feels an unreasoned resentment towards Sebastian. He is unable to figure out a way to dispel him. ‘Do you remember anything about the evening you had the stroke?’ He is uncertain about the appropriateness of the question or whether it has any significance for her.
‘You were late.’
‘Anything else?’
She thinks for a moment. ‘I put some water to boil. It made angry noises.’
‘Do you know what I had planned for that evening?’
Nora sits up and stares at the river.
‘We were to have a special dinner. Steaks, potatoes and salad, with a bottle of shiraz. I didn’t tell you why. It was a surprise.’ It strikes Martin that he has never opened that wine. The bottle lies buried somewhere in a cupboard. ‘I was delayed by the traffic.’ He is unable to judge if she is listening or making sense of what he is saying. Nora does not move. ‘After dinner, I was going to ask you to move in with me.’ The words sound hollow, as though he is retrospectively mocking his own intentions.
A canoe glides past. The rowers stroke smoothly as the oars dip into the water in silent unison.
‘They are going home,’ Nora observes. ‘To their children.’
‘They might be a little too young to have children.’
Nora glowers at him.
‘There is something else I have to tell you. Please try and understand.’ Martin dreads this.
She presses the palms of her hands against her ears and buries her face between her knees.
The feeling of helplessness returns. His thoughts wrap around the fixed image of a solitary woman at a window, gazing longingly outside, imagining and waiting.
Martin waits until Nora relaxes again. ‘You know my son, Frank.’ This time she listens. ‘He and his partner have moved to the country. They are expecting their first child.’
‘He doesn’t like me,’ she says dully. ‘Didn’t speak to me. Didn’t want what I had cooked.’
Martin thinks back. Yes—but so long ago—Frank had dropped in and pointedly ignored Nora. He had not expected her to be there. Brusquely he refused her offer to stay for tea. He gulped a beer, asked Martin some questions about a secondhand car he was interested in buying, and then left abruptly without saying goodbye to Nora. And, though angry, Martin had not confronted his son.
‘That’s not true!’ Martin protests now, half-heartedly. ‘They’ve invited you to visit them. Would you like to go? Maria would love to meet you.’
Nora nods cautiously. ‘I will be good. I promise. Did she say she wanted to meet me?’
‘She is very keen to see you.’
‘Really wants to meet me?’ Nora repeats incredulously.
‘Maria has an interesting background.’ Martin watches her closely. ‘Her parents are Vietnamese.’
‘I love the Vietnamese!’ Nora gushes extravagantly. ‘They are my favourite people. I am cold.’
‘Shall we go?’
‘Look! Another boat!’ In the fading light the solitary rower is little more than a silhouette. He steers his canoe in a straight line along the middle of the river. ‘He is journeying home,’ Nora observes wistfully. ‘Even shadows have homes.’
They watch until the canoe is swallowed up by the gathering dusk. Martin folds the rug and then wheels Nora back to the ute. They drive back to the hostel in silence.
Martin has been surprised by the way Nora adapted to the outside world, relishing the crowds. Her delight with whatever she encountered has left him feeling culpable. He blames himself for making a judgement of what is ‘normal’ and applying it to Nora as if she were to remain permanently disabled. It had not occurred to him to work more actively towards her recovery. Initially the doctors were non-commital about her long-term prospects, and Martin has not undertaken any futher enquiries. He is appalled by his insensitivity Were his flashes of generosity simply responses to the unease he felt about keeping her at a distance?
Finding a place for her was itself an achievement, given the waiting lists in most hostels. Martin could have continued to care for her at home, but had convinced himself that it wouldn’t be viable. Institutionalising Nora was convenient, and he had eagerly returned to a solitary life.
Perhaps—Martin hardly dares think it—perhaps Nora can live with him.
SEVENTEEN
Except for a solitary vehicle, the street is empty. Martin slows down, driving close to the edge of the footpath. He is almost near Glenda’s house before he realises that a police car is parked in front of his gate under the streetlight.
Both the policemen are tactful and solicitous. They have been unable to contact him by telephone. There has been an incident involving Frank. ‘Shall we go inside, sir?’
The exact details are not entirely clear. But Frank has shot himself.
Martin receives the news silently, his face shaping disbelief and then pain.
‘Your son’s okay,’ the sergeant hastily assures him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. ‘We can only assume that at the last minute he aborted a suicide attempt.’
Martin murmurs when they offer to make him a hot drink. He is numb, as if his entire emotional network has shut down.
He contacts Maria on her mobile number. She gives him the bare details. She is at one of the hospitals in Ballarat; her voice is toneless. Frank is in a critical but stable condition.
‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ he says. Sluggishly he searches for Moira’s number. When he calls her she is already at Brisbane airport, waiting for a flight to Melbourne. She will rent a car at Tullamarine. He can hear the strain in her voice.
After the policemen leave, Martin sits in the kitchen for a few minutes, focusing on what must be done, rather than imagine, picture, what might have happened. He reminds himself that Frank is alive.
Hurriedly he tosses some clothes and toiletries into a small suitcase and grabs a sleeping bag. On the way he stops at an ATM and a petrol station. The evening is cool, but without winter’s sharpness. For years Martin has not driven long distances at night. He has a reluctance to venture into unpopulated areas, a lingering fear of being out in the open in the darkness.
NIGHT WAS THE ultimate equaliser. The troops felt vulnerable and quietened down. The effectiveness of thei
r weaponry was largely neutralised by lack of visibility. They listened, wondered and locked themselves in their private worlds of hope and prayers. There were dreams of lives without violence, of events that did not require courage. They were sensitive to noises. A snake sliding over fallen leaves could make the same sound as an enemy soldier crawling on his belly. A cacophony of animals and birds could stretch the nerves a little further, making them tighten their grips on gun butts and triggers. Insects hummed carelessly and the darkness became deeper as night took over the terrain.
‘You can never tell how close they are or whether they are there at all,’ Colin had whispered to Martin one evening, peering into the blackness from behind the mound of sandbags. ‘They’re bloody good at the waiting game.’
Martin felt the familiar tightening of muscles under the rib cage. He hated night duty. The Vietcong preyed on their patience, teasing and mocking them with inaction. There was no established pattern of strategic behaviour. There could suddenly be a mortar attack or a burst of gunfire. Sometimes, nothing all night. They came stealthily and waited near the edge of the jungle and then left at dawn, having won the psychological battle.
MARTIN HAS DRIVEN cautiously on the highway, keeping to the left lane all the way and allowing other vehicles to overtake him. He does not seek to avoid what might confront him now.
At the hospital Maria’s parents hover around their daughter. She is in shock. Given her advanced state of pregnancy, the doctor on emergency is concerned and has instructed a nurse to stay near her. Martin embraces Maria and speaks to her at length before he makes his way to the Intensive Care Unit.
