Oriel enjoyed caring for her husband, washing and ironing his clothes, cooking his meals, and cuddling up to him in bed on the winter nights. In return Clive was a good and responsible partner, selecting just the right present for her birthday – buying her gifts even if there were nothing to celebrate – his only vice being to spend Sunday morning drinking with his pals whilst his wife cooked dinner. Oriel did not complain that this extended the hours of solitude she had endured through the week, for she wanted him to be happy and besides she had every evening in which to enjoy his company.
During those first light-hearted months of their marriage they went out frequently – never dancing, for Oriel had given up that pleasure when they had met – but they would go to the cinema, and at other times to visit family and friends. Apart from Dorothy these were all acquaintances of Clive’s – not that they were unpleasant to Oriel, they were most of them extremely amiable. But she began to suspect that she alone was not enough for the gregarious Clive, that he needed more companionship than he was granted at home, and so one night she put this to the test by asking, ‘Could we spend an evening on our own sometime? Not go out anywhere, just stay in and talk?’
He gave a pleasant laugh. ‘But you don’t talk to me!’
‘Yes, I do.’ She frowned.
‘No, you don’t, not really.’
Oriel supposed he was right in one respect – they never indulged in any deep conversation – but after her first intimate disclosures had met with incomprehension she had decided not to open her heart again.
Seeing that she looked despondent, he told her fondly, ‘It’s not that I don’t love you. I do. It’s just that, well, you know I like to talk and because we’re together all the time I suppose we don’t have much news to tell each other. That’s the only reason I like to go out so much. Anyway, I thought you liked my friends.’
Oriel replied that she did, when in fact she gained little stimulation from them. She, too, craved companionship but the type she desired could not be provided by her husband. However, the fault lay in her, not in him, it must do, for everyone liked him, and Oriel wanted to be a good wife. Hence, for his sake she continued to be dragged around places she would not otherwise have gone.
But then an insidious change occurred. One particular Saturday afternoon Oriel obliged Clive by accepting an invitation to his friends’ house for tea. She had not met the friends, Billy and Jean, before and was therefore taken aback when Billy asked Clive to go for a beer and he accepted.
‘You girls don’t mind if we nick to the pub, d’you? Just for the one.’ So Oriel found herself saddled with Jean, with whom she had absolutely nothing in common and who rambled on all afternoon about her children when she knew very well that Oriel didn’t have any.
Had this been an isolated occasion she could have forgiven Clive, but it began to happen quite regularly. After being left in this fashion yet again, Oriel complained to Dorothy on one of her regular visits.
‘He’s always sloping off and leaving me with some boring woman who harps on about babies all night.’
‘Oh, thanks.’ Dorothy laughed and patted her own baby’s back.
‘I didn’t mean you! I love coming here, you know that. At least I get a decent conversation, but there hardly seems any point in my going out with Clive if he’s going to desert me.’
‘I sometimes wish Cuddy would go out more – not that I don’t love him.’
In Oriel’s opinion this was said rather too quickly but she made no comment.
‘He’s just a very demanding person to live with.’ Dorothy rocked back and forth, more from habit than any attempt to soothe the baby, who was very placid. ‘D’you still not want any children?’
Oriel shook her head adamantly. ‘Apart from anything else I couldn’t stand the pain. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool coward. I haven’t even been to the dentist for years.’
‘You forget all about it afterwards,’ vouched the young mother. She gave a self-mocking chuckle. ‘I’m having another one. Yes, already!’
Oriel congratulated her friend but could think of no worse position to be in. ‘I’m sure my mother would love a grandchild.’
She went on to tell Dorothy of the letter she had received from her mother shortly after coming back off honeymoon, in which Bright said that they had found a place to settle and were in the process of buying a house. There were pages of detail extolling the virtues of the area and what a wonderful place it was for children, with its animal- and birdlife, which Oriel took to be her mother’s way of hinting that perhaps her daughter should start a family.
‘But motherhood’s not for me,’ she finished, then wrung her hands and looked at the floor. ‘I’m beginning to think that I’m no use at marriage either. Maybe he’s too good for me, Dot. I mean everyone likes Clive – I’ve never heard a bad word about him – what’s wrong with me?’ She felt such a failure. ‘I know he’s right when he complains that I never talk to him and that’s why he seeks other company, but I ask you, what’s the point in wasting one’s breath on someone who could be from another world?’
‘But you still love him, don’t you?’ The dark sloping eyes held anxiety.
‘Oh, yes.’ Oriel repeated it as if to prove to herself that it were true. ‘Yes. But I’m not really happy and I don’t know why.’
* * *
Perhaps, she thought, it’s better if I don’t go out with Clive so much, just let him seek the company he desires, then be here for him when he comes home. But when she made this proposal, her husband exclaimed, ‘I can’t go out on my own!’
‘You do on a Sunday.’
‘But all the blokes do that! It’s different through the week. People’ll think I’m neglecting you.’
‘No they won’t. I don’t mind. We can go out together a few evenings but I’m really too tired to go out every night.’
‘I’ll stay in with you then.’ He didn’t look too enthusiastic. ‘I’d feel too guilty leaving you by yourself.’
For a week or so the arrangement worked satisfactorily, the pair going out one or two evenings and spending the remainder of the week with each other, but in the end Clive simply could not resist the urge to invite company, in the form of a middle-aged bachelor from a neighbouring street, to join them. Clive made friends very easily and Fred, a lonely man, idolized his new pal. When it was mentioned that some alterations needed to be done in the kitchen, Fred was able to reciprocate the hand of friendship by offering to undertake the work.
He would accept no gratuity, saying that the young couple’s friendship was enough. If he could have the pleasure of their company from time to time then he was happy.
Things continued quite amicably for a while, with Fred coming round occasionally, and on Sunday after Clive had returned from his grog session he and Oriel would visit his mother and father of whom, in her own parents’ absence, she had grown very fond. For the rest of the week Clive would stay in with his wife.
He detested being cooped up in the house, she knew, and she guessed he was only doing so for her sake. When, through a lack of stimulation, he began to fall asleep well before bedtime Oriel recognized that there was no point in this and, with things of her own to do, said he could go out one or two nights on his own if he really wanted to. ‘Just because I don’t want to go out doesn’t mean you can’t.’
‘But why don’t you want to go? Are you ashamed of being seen with me or something?’ He sounded peevish.
‘Of course not! I just don’t feel like going out. But I don’t want to stop you enjoying yourself. I don’t mind if you go, I really don’t.’
‘You’ll have me thinking you’ve got somebody else coming round.’ He laughed but there was a tinge of insinuation to the remark. ‘All right, I’ll go if you want to get rid of me.’
The trouble began when Clive’s two nights out extended to three and then five, creating a fresh problem for Oriel. Whenever Fred came to call, her husband would be out and she was the one who had to give him a cup of
tea and make conversation and apologize to the poor man that Clive was not in yet again. Oriel was annoyed at her husband. It was he who had accepted the man’s work for nothing, but she was the one made to feel responsible when Fred’s expression showed that he felt he had been used, and he eventually stopped coming.
‘I didn’t ask him to do all the work,’ complained Oriel to Dorothy. ‘Clive did. I would’ve preferred to pay someone to do it. Why then do I feel so humiliated when I see the poor blighter coming down the street and have to cross the road to avoid him even though I know he’s seen me? I could kill Clive for making me feel like that. And it doesn’t seem to bother him that he’s let Fred do all that work for nothing then virtually dumped him. That’s what I’ve noticed about him: he’ll see people for six months at a time, then he’ll suddenly come home talking about a new lot.’ Dorothy said they had not seen much of Clive lately either, forcing Oriel to apologize for him. ‘He doesn’t appear to have one really good friend like I have you, just loads of acquaintances.’ Feeling that she might be complaining too much, she issued a guilty shrug. ‘But then if he’s happy…’
* * *
With Clive continuing to rely on these acquaintances to meet his needs, Oriel grew more and more bored and miserable in her marriage. It was of her own making, she realized. She should never have entered matrimony. She wasn’t cut out for it. Poor Clive. He was much too good for her. She knew it. Everyone knew it. But if he was everyone’s friend why, then, had Oriel become reacquainted with the terrible loneliness that, upon her marriage, she had thought never to see again? Only Dorothy’s companionship prevented her from sinking into greater despondency, and the letters from her mother and Melinda – though the latter’s correspondence was usually full of grumbles about the hard life Daniel had chosen for them and how Melinda wished she were nearer so she could see Oriel in person. Reading about the dust and the droughts and the plagues of grasshoppers that defied Daniel’s best efforts, Oriel had a vivid image of the pioneer, seeing the sweat trickling down his brow as clearly as if he were standing before her.
Overwhelmed by a great inexplicable longing, she wrote a letter of her own, telling Melinda that she too was missing her friend’s company and suggesting that perhaps she and Clive could go for a holiday. But months passed and the letter had still not been answered and so the unhappiness of her own life remained.
However, in mid-December amongst the parcels and cards that arrived from Queensland, another letter came. Oriel’s heart leaped when she saw that it bore Melinda’s writing – perhaps it contained an invitation to visit at Christmas! Already she was laughing at Daniel’s jokes – though a glance at the postmark made her frown and she hurried to open the envelope.
‘Oh no!’ Seated at the breakfast table, she bit her lip and told Clive, ‘Their farming venture’s collapsed.’
He showed genuine sympathy, but, being forced to leave for work, said she would have to read the rest to him when he came home. He bent to kiss her, receiving only half her attention, then left the house.
Reading on, Oriel learned that Melinda and Daniel, at last considering themselves beaten by the harsh Mallee, had returned to the forested slopes of Melbourne’s hinterland and had taken up residence at Yarra Junction to be nearer her family, who lived in a neighbouring stretch of timber country. Daniel had got a job at a sawmill. ‘So we’ll be a bit nearer now if you and Clive want to visit us,’ the letter ended.
Discovering from a map that it was hardly more than forty miles away, Oriel could scarcely contain her delight. Though her responding letter was full of commiserations she wrote of her gladness that her friend was to be within easier access and she could not wait to visit her and Daniel.
Alas, she was to learn from Clive that this must be obliged to wait until the New Year of 1922, for her husband’s annual fortnight holiday had already been used up by their honeymoon.
‘We could go when you break up for Christmas,’ she suggested. It was only a week away. ‘I know it’ll be a bit rushed but—’
‘I think we have enough family to visit then, don’t you? We’ve got Mum and Dad on Christmas Day, then Thora’s invited us on Boxing Day, Dorothy and Cuddy – we’d be better waiting a few weeks till I can organize a proper holiday. Tell you what, we’ll spend a whole week up there, do some mountain walking. There’s a nice hotel at Warburton. It’ll do us both good.’
To Oriel, hungry for contact, any wait would be a nightmare, not to mention that she was annoyed with Clive for reminding her that he had a family to visit whilst hers was thousands of miles away. ‘Maybe I could go for a quick trip on my own while you’re at work,’ she suggested.
The look on his face told her otherwise. Clive said he didn’t like the idea of her going by herself.
Oriel was about to point out that he went by himself to meet his friends, when he added: ‘You might get blokes pestering you on the train – course, you might appreciate that.’ He shrugged and tried to sound reasonable. ‘But you do what you like.’
Faced with this thinly veiled show of possessiveness, Oriel decided not to force the matter. Feeling her high spirits descending like lead, she replied, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter, I can wait until January.’
With Christmas in between there was at least something to look forward to – or so she had hoped. In reality the opening of the presents from her distant parents only served to exacerbate her loneliness, whilst she dreamed of a reunion with the one who was close to her heart.
As the day of her trip grew nearer she became sick and nervous with anticipation, like the child who fears he will get measles on the morning his seaside holiday is due. But at last the day came to pack the car and here she was, driving towards the city and out the other side, heading east, joining the mass weekend exodus from Melbourne in a haze of exhaust fumes, one thought to carry with her all the way – I’m going to see him!
During the forty-mile journey she shared little conversation with the driver of the car, gazing at the undulating scenery but hardly noticing it… Lilydale… Seville… Woori Yallock… Launching Place – at last they were almost there.
Having agreed to Clive’s suggestion that, initially, they drive straight through Yarra Junction and deposit their luggage at the Mountain View Hotel at Warburton, Oriel was forced to satisfy herself with a glimpse of the small but thriving country town where her friends lived. Its roads carved out of a hillside, the buildings were higher on the right than on the left. Railway timber yards flashed past, blacksmiths, farriers, feed merchants, saddle and harness makers, livery stables, their customers in Sunday mode today, tails twitching the bush flies from bay and chestnut flanks, patient Clydesdale, high-stepping mare with her two-wheeled sulky carrying the vicar and his children, lady on a bicycle, her umbrella held aloft against the sun.
Within minutes the town had gone and they were driving through a tortuous stretch of forest, blinking at the intermittent glare of the sun through the trees and coasting the miles to the next small town. Hidden amongst a blanket of trees, trestle bridge spanned forested gorge, the surrounding mountains enlaced by a network of tramways, some wood, others steel, enjoining one timber mill to the next, carrying supplies into the bush and the logs out.
The Wesburn Palais came and went, Millgrove, a post office store and a blacksmith, another stretch of perfumed forest and then at last Warburton.
After lunch at the hotel, Clive suggested that instead of wasting time they make the most of the day by going on a forest walk, and see Melinda and Daniel tomorrow.
But Oriel was eager for a reunion. ‘I didn’t come to get stuck with a load of tourists, I’ve come to see Mel. Tell you what, we’ll have a picnic made up, then go fetch her and Daniel back here and all go on the walk together.’ This agreed, they made the chugging thirty-minute drive back along the forest road to Yarra Junction.
Melinda was as lively as ever, but was embarrassed at Oriel seeing her modest home. ‘Look at you in your flash car! All dressed up to go dancing.’ Her f
riend was in a very chic white outfit trimmed with black, and a neat little hat to match. ‘I don’t know what you must think to us.’
‘You both look wonderful.’ Oriel kissed her friend, then smiled at Daniel, and had the feeling of being immersed in warm water. ‘It’s so good to have you back.’ An afterthought struck her. ‘This is Clive, by the way.’
‘I’m only here to carry the luggage.’ The remark was issued with a smile but Oriel felt its barb.
Melinda laughed at the joke. ‘How yer going, Clive? Meet Dan.’ She watched the two men shake hands then, after showing off her little vegetable garden, invited everyone into the weatherboard cottage where two infants played on the rug. ‘You know Alice – hasn’t she grown? She’s nearly three. But you haven’t met Angus, have you? He was born around the time of your wedding. You must’ve been married about eight months now? So, how you enjoying wedded bliss?’
Both smiled and issued little mutterings and gestures that could have meant anything. But Melinda said, ‘Yeah, good isn’t it?’ and linked arms with her own husband.
‘What d’you do for a crust, mate?’ asked Daniel, his free hand offering the other man a cigarette.
‘Oy, I think Oriel smokes too, don’t yer?’ Melinda instructed her husband as he withdrew the packet.
He apologized and extended the offer to Oriel, who took one with smiling thanks. ‘So, where d’you make yer living, Clive?’
‘Myers. I’ve been there nearly seven years.’
Daniel unlinked his arm in order to light their cigarettes and nodded through the eddying smoke. ‘Should think that’s a safe enough bet. Hang on to it. Reckon you heard about my bit of strife in the back block, did yer?’
A Complicated Woman Page 32
