by Tess Evans
There was a room for me too; a cavern of pink, with rosebuds and teddies and fanciful mobiles, twirling above the cradle.
Poor Grandad. Inhabiting the past, dreaming of the future, he negotiated the present with suspicion and at times bewilderment. He obediently attended, but failed to engage with the various activities offered by the occupational therapist and in the end found his own niche when he made a fourth for canasta. He was asked to join by Mad Mollie, an octogenarian who had been admitted when she was seventeen and not at all mad. Well, she was boy-mad, but what seventeen-year-old girl isn’t? Her family, of august lineage, were at their wits’ end, trying to keep her under control. When she was found skinny-dipping in the family pool with the Minister for Customs and Excise and the auxiliary bishop of a regional diocese, it was obvious to her relieved family that she was mad as a hatter. That’s what they said—‘Mad as a hatter’—and had her locked away. She obligingly wept and ranted and tried to kill herself. ‘There,’ they said with relief: ‘Totally and utterly mad.’ She still enjoyed a game of strip poker, but over the years, that invitation had lost its appeal to prospective opponents, and she philosophically turned to canasta and self-gratification. She lived in hope and chose her companions carefully.
Apart from the distinguished looking Hal, there was Lennie, an autistic young man who never spoke, but had a phenomenal memory for cards. ‘Lucky Len’ would have been thrown out of any casino, so skilled was his card counting. The other member of the Canasta Crew, as they were called, was ‘Skeeter’ Bolan, a tousle-headed leprechaun with merry eyes and a murderous heart. Mollie always partnered Lennie. She may have been mad, but she was no fool. They sat in the dayroom when the weather was inclement and outside in the rotunda when they could, happily gambling away their pensions in the guise of matchsticks.
That was what happened when their good days collided and their stars were aligned.
Hal’s life follows the seasons and years trudge by barely noticed. It’s 1997 and he is seventy-nine weary years old when the letter arrives for Sealie, informing her of her father’s impending return home. He is unaware of his daughter’s frantic efforts to keep him where he is, but if he did know, he wouldn’t feel rejected. He’d be happy—if happy is a word you can apply to Hal.
Overwhelmed by the need to cope with her father and brother all at once, Sealie has conspired with Will and Scottie to take Zav away on a fishing trip. Zav can’t get out of the house quickly enough. The other two men determinedly talk about the weather, the fish they might catch, the football, and Zav is pitifully grateful.
Meanwhile, Sealie sits in her little blue Corolla in the Aradale visitors’ car park, gathering her resolve, while Hal skulks in the dayroom, ostentatiously ignoring the bags waiting by the door. Sealie rests her head on the steering wheel for a moment then gets out of the car and heads for the office. She is met by the charge nurse and, for the last time, makes her way down the tiled corridors to where her father is waiting.
‘It’s time, Dad.’
Hal looks up. ‘I don’t want to go.’ His tone is as reasonable as he can make it, but Sealie detects panic just under the surface. Her father’s face is a landscape of perplexity.
He looks at the nurse. ‘I can’t leave the tree. You know that.’
‘We’ve talked about this, Dad.’ Sealie turns to the nurse. ‘Can we go by way of the tree?’
It is mid-autumn and the massed brown leaves are dance-ready. Hal steps into their welcoming ambit and turns to his daughter, extending his hand with a courtly bow. She touches her hair, hesitates, then joins him under the broad canopy. Together they waltz through the whispering leaves. Sealie whirls on the feet of memory. She hasn’t danced in years.
‘I’ll bring you back to visit your tree, Dad.’
Hal’s shoulders slump, the joy draining from his face like blood from a wound. ‘I’m coming.’ He looks at Sealie. When had his little princess become so careworn? There are still traces of beauty, but sadness has nibbled away at her strong, clear features, leaving them frayed and drooping.
‘I won’t be any trouble,’ Hal says humbly.
Book III
Nineteen-ninety-seven. The year Hal came home. It was the year that a princess, and a Belgian nun working in India died within weeks of each other. The princess got more flowers. A sheep called Dolly was cloned, then died of old age. In Cuba, Che Guevara’s remains were buried with full honours. The Hale-Bopp comet made its closest approach to earth and twenty-four of the optimistic dead were whizzed into space by a rocket called Pegasus. Imagine! A rocket full of corpses. As one of the dead, myself, I have to say there’s some style in an exit like that.
In Australia, a man called Stuart Diver managed to survive for sixty-seven freezing hours after being buried in a landslide. At last. A survivor. With all the dead princesses, space burials and whatnot, you might have thought I was becoming morbid.
One more thing—Hal, the science fiction fan, had read Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Nineteen-ninety-seven was the year that HAL, the Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer was activated. In nineteen-ninety-seven the signs were everywhere
Against these world-changing events, however, there are the small happenings that alter the course of individual lives. What if the Minister for Social Services hadn’t been ticked off by the Finance Minister for exceeding her budget? What if her daughter had brought home a straight A report instead of straight Ds? What if the Minister’s new shoes hadn’t been killing her? Would she have been more compassionate if there had not been that unfortunate confluence of events on the day she received Sealie’s letter of appeal? We can only speculate. As it was, her colleague in Finance was acerbic, the daughter unrepentant and a nasty blister had formed on the ministerial heel. So Hal found himself despatched, with what he felt was unseemly haste, to his former home.
1
AS THEY LEAVE THE FREEWAY, Hal sits in the car, taking in a streetscape at once familiar and strange. That large block of flats. Wasn’t that where the glove factory had been? Parker Street. Bob and Rose lived down that street when they were first married. But there used to be a corner shop—a milk bar. It’s no longer there. Or perhaps he has the wrong street. It might be Porter Street he’s thinking of. It’s so confusing. Look at all the cars on the road. He isn’t sure he’d want to drive in traffic like this. He is shocked to see a large hoarding dedicated to erectile dysfunction and slides an embarrassed glance in Sealie’s direction. Thank goodness she seems not to have noticed. He is relieved to see the old tennis courts, and St Theresa’s, its bluestone bulk reassuringly solid and familiar, keeping watch over the playing children.
They are turning now. One more corner and they’ll be home. Home. Hal tastes the word and finds no lingering sweetness. Not even the bitter sweetness of nostalgia. His tongue shrinks from something dank and mushroomy. Overwhelmed by the desire to bolt, he grabs the door handle.
‘Dad!’ His flight is arrested as Sealie puts a steadying hand on his arm. It’s too late now. The car is pulling into the driveway and the house that he built for Paulina, the still-beautiful house he left so long ago, sails into view.
Sealie stops the car and Hal is home at last. It appears to him exactly as it was when he left, carrying me in my Moses basket on his way down to the river. He had turned back that day, to look at his house, never dreaming that it would be nearly thirty years before he would see it again.
Now, he winds down the window, and looks at his house with eyes of love. He doesn’t see the exhaustion evident in the discoloured paintwork, the cracked concrete paths, the prison griminess of the windows. He sees rather the fine bones of its sweeping architecture; the roses and lavender that have been cut back for winter; and best of all, the trees . . . He looks for the magnolia, bare now, but grown strong and wide.
‘I’d like to visit the magnolia before we go inside,’ he says.
‘Of course.’ Sealie waits as he fumbles his way out of the car. She stands back a littl
e, watching him approach the tree and reach out to touch it with the tips of his fingers. He senses the sap, the nascent flowers, the curled leaves, all waiting. You appear dead, now, but you’ll bloom again in time. Hal remembers how, with the children, he had dug and mulched the soil before placing the fragile sapling in the earth. Zav and Kate were married under this tree. Poor Kate. A sweet girl. He had loved her and had ruined her life as well as Zav’s. He realises now that no-one understands the pain and loneliness that pave the hard road of duty. He straightens his shoulders. Now he’ll have to face his son. Explain that he had no choice, and ask, not for forgiveness, but for understanding.
‘We should go in now.’
Sealie takes his arm and they walk together up the steps.
As he crosses the threshold, Hal is visited by more memories. His mind recoils, but images and sounds wheedle their way into his consciousness. He sees his strong, young self, carrying his bride of two months through this very door. It was raining that day, and her hair clung damply to her laughing face. Her stocking caught on his watchband, (stockings were still rare after the war, he remembers) but Paulina continued to laugh her surprisingly full-bellied laugh. Later, he had carried their babies through this same door; Zav, red-faced and squalling, Sealie sleeping profoundly, rugged up against the frost.
Hal looks at Sealie uncertainly. Though familiar, the house belongs to another part of his life. He feels like a guest.
‘My room. Can I take my things up to my room?’ Anxious not to do the wrong thing.
Sealie has been wondering about this moment. What room did he want? Was it the bedroom he had shared with Paulina, or the little guest room he’d taken after her death? She had aired both rooms, made up the beds, but the poster was now part of the wall, part of the structure in the lonely hermitage he had left. She had put a photograph of Paulina in the master bedroom, hoping it would be enough should he choose that option.
‘Just take your case. I’ll bring the rest up later.’
‘Zav. Where’s Zav?’ Hal peers up the stairs as though his son might come bounding down any minute on his way to football practice.
‘He’s gone away for a few days. With friends. Fishing.’
‘I never took him fishing, did I?’
‘No—no you didn’t.’
‘He had a lot of energy, that boy.’
‘So he did.’ Long, long ago. Sealie blinks back tears. ‘I’ll get dinner ready while you unpack.’
Hal goes straight to the smaller room. It isn’t locked now, of course. He goes inside and shuts the door behind him. Relieved to have that settled, Sealie hurries out to the kitchen to prepare their evening meal.
Hal puts his case on the floor and sits on the bed. The cell-like room feels safe. It’s not much bigger than his room at Aradale and the furnishings are similarly functional. He stares at the old-fashioned poster on the wall, where blurred grey shadows dance on a stage the years have all but obliterated. No longer flesh and blood, the dancers have metamorphosed into mist, into fog, into air. Hal absorbs this evidence of disintegration with equanimity. Medication has dulled the pain, hushed the voices, and he can feel only a lingering sadness.
Opening his case, Hal begins to put his clothes in the drawers. He hangs his shirts and pants in the wardrobe, then picks up the book, which is hidden in a scarf at the bottom of his case. He brings us home between the pages of our old favourite, I, Robot. He takes out the faded photographs of my grandmother and me and begins the old ritual—look, read, touch—and then the incantation, Keep them safe. When he has completed the cycle for both of us, he returns the worn cardboard folder to the book and rewraps it in the scarf, placing the bundle on the top shelf of his wardrobe, under the spare blankets. He needs to keep us safe a while longer.
Sealie is putting the roast in the oven when she hears footsteps and turns to see her father standing in the doorway.
‘It’s nearly five thirty,’ he says, frowning.
‘That’s right. Do you want to watch TV while we’re waiting for dinner?’
‘I’ll just wait here until dinner’s ready,’ he says, sitting in his old place at the kitchen table.
‘Dinner won’t be ready till after seven. Why don’t you watch the news?’
Hal’s face twitches, ‘I have to be in bed by seven. Dinner is always five thirty.’ He opens the cupboard and takes out two plates.
‘It’s a roast, Dad.’
‘Can’t wait for a roast—what else is quick?’ Hal’s face takes on a desperate, mulish expression. ‘Got to be in bed by seven.’
Sealie gives in. ‘Omelette?’
Hal nods and she makes a cheese omelette while her father looks on impatiently.
‘Me and Godown used to love Mrs Mac’s omelettes.’ Occasionally he surprises her with snatches of normal conversation. She is wary. Mrs Mac is banished, but Godown is waiting to visit. Best to respond normally.
‘You should like this one. It’s her recipe.’
Hal frowns. ‘Light and fluffy. That’s how I like them.’
In less than an hour and a half, Hal has eaten an omelette followed by peach pie, drunk his cup of tea and showered. He is in his pyjamas at five to seven and is sitting up in bed reading, when Sealie brings his medication.
‘They let me read most nights.’ He peers up at her. ‘It is okay for me to read?’
Sealie eats her roast, alone, at seven forty-five. So, she thinks, this is to be my lot. She has accrued leave and is taking six months off work in the hope that things will work out. She has a few days’ grace while Zav is off fishing—and then what? Her heart begins to beat uncomfortably fast. She could just grab a few things, jump in the car and go. Where? Somewhere far away from this wretched prison of a house. She actually stands up, then sinks back into the chair. She is bound here by complicated ties of obligation, of guilt. And love, too. She sighs and covers her face with splayed fingers; she is so weary. Tired of it all. Resentful. Zav has commandeered her life, but he has no life of his own. And now her father. So what’s the point of it all?
I pity her. I, too, am bound to these men—my father and my grandfather. I, too, resent the fate that keeps me here. I, too, have discovered that, try as I might, I can’t escape them. I need to see this story through to whatever end is in store.
The next few days take on a pattern. Hal is up and showered by seven and finished his breakfast by eight. The days are fine and he spends the morning walking around the garden, occasionally diverted to the magnolia, where he meditates a while before executing his little shuffling dance. After lunch he goes to his room and stares out the window until his evening meal at five thirty. A few chapters of his book, sleep, then another day, exactly the same. Sealie could weep with frustration.
After a few days of this, she rings Godown. ‘I think it’s time for a visit. He does nothing, absolutely nothing all day.’
Godown arrives for lunch and shakes Hal’s hand. ‘Nice to have you home, Hal.’
Hal, head on one side, offers his usual greeting, ‘You’re not getting any younger.’ He touches his own, balding head. ‘But neither am I.’
Sealie leaves them a lasagne and salad and says she is going to the shops. Over lunch with his old friend, Hal broaches the subject that always hangs in the air between them.
‘You understand the Bible, Godown. You’re the only one who can see I had to do it.’
Godown’s face registers the pain of memory, but his response is evasive. ‘God alone can judge,’ he says. ‘I’m just a sinful man.’ As always, Godown is careful neither to condone nor blame.
Hal reads what he will into this response and returns, contented enough, to his pasta.
After lunch, he prepares to go up to his room.
‘Hey, what about your visitor?’ Godown takes out a pack of cards. ‘We’ll just clear up here and play a game or two.’
‘In all my time at Aradale, they never expected me to do kitchen duty.’
‘I’ll do the dishes and then we’ll
play.’
But Hal has already bolted up the stairs.
Meanwhile, Zav, Scottie and Will are camping by the Murray River, a little way out of Tocumwal. None of them has slept in a tent since Vietnam, and they sit around the camp fire, each with his own thoughts. Will, who has counselled many veterans, is the most aware of this, and as darkness falls, begins to doubt the wisdom of camping.
He slaps his arm. ‘Bloody mozzies! Maybe we should see if there are rooms at that pub down the road.’
Scottie is relieved. His tour of duty had been longer than either of the others, and he has spent more time in the jungle. But before he can respond to Will’s suggestion, Zav dismisses it.
‘You’re a wuss, Will. Since when have you been scared of a few mosquitoes?’
That night, Scottie’s dreams are peopled with soft-footed shadows that flit malevolently through the eucalypts. He cries out—waking Will and disturbing Zav, who has been lying, wide-eyed, preternaturally aware of every rustle, every nocturnal scurrying, every creaking branch. The next morning, in unspoken agreement, they pack up their tent and move to the pub.
Standing at the bar, they could well be any group of ‘ townies’ who have come to the river to fish.
‘D’you reckon there’s any cod?’ Scottie asks a local.
The man scratches his chin. ‘Dunno, mate. I’m not a fisherman. More into the golf, m’self. Pete’ll know.’
Pete comes over and he and Scottie discuss types of bait and the cunning of Murray cod while Will and Zav argue football with their new friend, who introduces himself as Stringer.
Zav becomes quite animated. ‘You can’t tell me that Sanderson’s a patch on McLaughlin. Sanderson couldn’t kick his way out of a paper bag.’
‘What about the semi last year? Four goals against the best full-back in the league.’ Stringer plonks his elbow on the bar with the proprietary air of a man vindicated.
