A Distant Land

by Alison Booth

  At this point the Reverend put down his notes. Gripping the sides of the pulpit, he began to deliver his own unscripted oration. ‘Permit me to explain why our involvement in the Vietnam War so saddens me,’ he said. ‘Permit me to explain why we should get out of this futile war. This American War, as the Vietnamese call it. This war that is claiming the lives of so many of our sons. Young men like James Cadwallader, not yet in the prime of their lives before being struck down. Young men like James Cadwallader who are still losing their lives unnecessarily in a war that should never have started.’

  George flinched as if he’d been struck and might have cried out if he hadn’t heard Ilona’s words: ‘He’s forgetting where he is.’

  ‘He’s picked the wrong speech,’ Peter whispered. ‘This is way too political.’

  Before the Reverend could continue, there was an eruption from the front pew on the other side of the aisle: Mrs O’Rourke had leapt to her feet, her face red and crumpled. Now she was struggling past the people sitting next to her and stumbling down the aisle towards the exit. For a moment the Reverend Cannadine looked puzzled. He inserted a finger inside his close-fitting dog collar, as if to remind himself he was a clergyman and not a campaigner, or perhaps the collar was simply too tight. Having recollected himself, he thanked God for the blessing of James Cadwallader’s life.

  Eileen stood. For an instant George wondered why she hadn’t warned him, with the usual jab of her elbow, that he was supposed to get up. Then he realised that she was the only person on her feet. Purposefully she marched across the worn green carpet to the pulpit. She paused in front of the white and green floral arrangement, illuminated still by the shaft of sunlight. Surely she wasn’t going to speak too. She hated public speaking and anyway the service was nearly over. George noticed for the first time that her black dress was too loose, and the way the ugly black hat sat skew-whiff on her head made him ache with compassion for her.

  The Reverend Cannadine descended awkwardly, too large for the narrow steps. At the bottom he stepped to one side, as if to allow Eileen access to the pulpit. But she didn’t mount the steps. Instead she stopped immediately in front of him. Swinging her black patent-leather handbag to one side, she drove it straight at the Reverend Cannadine’s head, delivering a blow that would have coincided with his face if he hadn’t turned the other cheek.

  A soft thud, a quick intake of breath, a stunned silence before Daphne Dalrymple bashed again at the organ. Slowly Eileen turned, slowly she returned to her seat. In the meantime the congregation began to sing. George held Eileen’s shaking arm with one hand and searched for the words of the psalm with the other. Only by the last verse were the Cadwalladers able to join in.

  Goodness and mercy all my life

  Shall surely follow me;

  And in God’s house forevermore

  My dwelling-place shall be.

  Both of them were crying now.

  Chapter 19

  No body. No ashes even; they were in Cambodia, never to be returned. Why that should still hurt so much Zidra couldn’t understand. Jim’s death was the ending, and where the remains were was of no importance.

  He was dead; that was the inescapable truth and all that mattered.

  The last words of the service hung heavy in the air and she struggled to breathe. Too much emotion, too many people. People who would be looking for chinks in her armour, generous with their sympathy when none was wanted. You had to be alone to come to terms with what had been lost, and this might take years.

  Or a lifetime.

  The exposed necks of Jim’s parents in front of her were more than she could bear. Their vulnerable heads were bent to take the blow that fate had dealt them.

  She wanted to skip the reception in the church hall next door. Skip the niceties.

  And skip the post-mortem on Cannadine’s misplaced words about the Vietnam War. Sure, it was a war they shouldn’t have gone into, but there were boys from this area who’d died in Vietnam, including Roger O’Rourke, and it was crass insensitivity to tell the town their sons had died for some futile cause. Her mother spoke highly of Cannadine, and so too did Mrs Cadwallader, but his comments today had been misplaced.

  Yet who would have thought that Jim’s mother had it in her to assault anyone, least of all a clergyman? Zidra’s journalistic instincts might have seen a story there if her nerves hadn’t felt so lacerated that she could have screamed with the pain. Opening her handbag, she pulled out the red lipstick and slashed it across her lips. If she left off the make-up, even for a moment, the wounds beneath would be revealed.

  Aware of Lorna’s scrutiny, Zidra avoided her eyes while whispering, ‘I’m skipping the do in the hall. See you back at the car in an hour or so.’

  ‘Where’re you going?’

  ‘To the beach. Tell Mama.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Her mother leant forward.

  ‘I need to get away for a bit. Just an hour or so.’

  ‘Come to the wake. For George and Eileen’s sake.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please, Zidra. If George and Eileen can do it, so too can you.’

  There was no arguing with her mother when she was in one of these moods.

  Through the people crowded into the church hall, Zidra followed her mother. She was looking for Bernadette O’Rourke. Eventually they found her, sitting by herself on the outside stair leading from the kitchen to the back lawn. You might have thought she was supervising the children running around if you hadn’t seen that her eyes were blinded by tears. Ma didn’t say anything when she sat on the step next to her; didn’t even look at her.

  Zidra perched several steps above them and watched the children fly across the grass. One of them was the youngest of the O’Rourke tribe.

  After a few moments Mrs O’Rourke clicked open her handbag and there was a trumpeting as she blew her nose. Then she said, ‘I’ve been thinking of the day two men from the army came to tell me about Roger.’

  Zidra had been at Jingera Primary School with Roger, had shared a desk with him one year, one of those old-fashioned desks with an inkwell and graffiti all over the top that they had to sand down at the end of each term.

  ‘I’ll never forget that loud knocking on the front door,’ Mrs O’Rourke said. ‘And when I opened it, I knew right away.’ She hesitated and twisted the handkerchief in her fingers. ‘I’d been expecting it for months, you see. Can you understand that, Ilona?’

  ‘Yes, I can.’

  ‘Every time I heard on the news that an Australian soldier had been killed, I imagined it was Roger. Every time there was a knock on the door, I thought it would be the army people. When they came, all I could think of to say was, “Have you got news for us?” As soon as I’d caught sight of them, I’d begun to shake like a leaf, but I invited them into the kitchen. Theresa, she’s my firstborn, and the little ones were in the lounge room watching telly, and I didn’t want them to hear. There was a stew simmering on the stove and I turned it off. “Yes, I have got news,” the chaplain said. “Is it bad news?” I said. “Yes,” he said, “it’s very bad news.” I sat down on a chair then. The chaplain said, “I’m afraid your son’s been killed by a landmine.”’

  Mrs O’Rourke’s voice broke and she blew her nose again before continuing. ‘Theresa took the news worse than me. She’d come into the kitchen without my noticing and she immediately started screaming. I tried to keep calm so the kids wouldn’t get upset. Theresa was screaming so loudly that I almost couldn’t hear what the notification officer was saying. Then I saw the chaplain picking up the knife I’d left lying on the kitchen table after I’d cut up the vegetables. That brought the news home to me all right. You see, he thought we might damage ourselves. It was only then I noticed the words Theresa was shouting. “I’ll kill them,” she was yelling. “I’ll kill them.”

  ‘The chaplain
tried his best to comfort us. But how could we find comfort? Roger’s passing left a great gap that can never be filled.’

  At this moment there was a loud squawking as a pair of dark grey cockatoos flew over the backyard and swooped around the fir tree, their calls drowning out Mrs O’Rourke’s words. A great gap that can never be filled. That was what Jim’s death had left too. The pair settled in the topmost branch and their cries stopped as they began to crunch on the pine cones.

  Mrs O’Rourke continued. ‘After a few weeks, Roger’s battalion commander wrote to us. We took a copy that we keep with Roger’s things but I always carry the original with me.’ She opened her handbag and took out an envelope. From it she extracted a worn-looking sheet of paper, which she handed to Zidra’s mother.

  ‘Shall I read it out?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘“It is not a duty obligation which occasions me to write to you but a knowledge of the great sense of loss you must feel. To say that your son was a good soldier would be far from sufficient. The degree of esteem in which he was held by his friends has been movingly demonstrated. His loss to them had a dramatic effect. I realise words alone cannot ease the pain of this tragedy for you. However I would ask you to accept the heartfelt sympathy of the members of the Fourth Battalion.”’ Ilona paused before saying, in an octave higher than normal, ‘It’s a beautiful letter. About your beautiful son.’

  There was an ache in Zidra’s chest and she hoped she wouldn’t cry again.

  ‘It means a lot to me.’

  Ilona cleared her throat before saying, ‘I can understand that.’

  ‘I thought you would, you losing your parents and all.’

  ‘Those words are from the heart, Bernadette.’

  ‘You think so? I do too. But my hubbie thinks they’re from a book.’

  How many such letters had the battalion commanders had to write? Hundreds, Zidra had read somewhere.

  Now Mrs O’Rourke took back the letter and folded it carefully before restoring it to the zippered compartment inside her handbag. Then she adjusted her hat and said, ‘I should go and wash my face. I look a mess and I don’t want to keep you both from Eileen. I know you’re good friends with her, Ilona.’

  Zidra hesitated. Somehow Ma had managed to breach the barrier of sound obstructing the entrance to the hall. Words from the mouths of fifty or sixty people ricocheted like bullets off the hard walls and ceiling. Zidra took a deep breath but it was no help. Feet glued to the floor, she remained immobile, until Ma returned and placed an arm around her shoulders, propelling her forward. ‘There’s Eileen,’ she shouted. ‘With the Reverend Cannadine, on the other side of the hall, see?’

  Grim-faced, Mrs Cadwallader was nodding her head while the Reverend appeared to be talking continuously.

  ‘We must rescue her, Zidra. You get two glasses of wine and so will I. Eileen usually never touches a drop, but I’ll bet she can use some today.’

  Conversations surged around them. Zidra took little notice of what was being said until they reached the group of men in which Mr O’Rourke was standing. Pausing to let someone pass by, her attention was caught by the words of Ian Harrison, who worked for a logging company and had the shoulders to prove it.

  ‘The brown envelope,’ he was saying. ‘I’ll never forget that day when the brown envelope arrived. Bob was nineteen when he was called up for National Service and when he opened it he was really pleased, like he’d won the lottery. The funny thing was, I was pleased too. I thought of it then as a career rather than a ticket to Vietnam.’

  Zidra knew that even the army had been against conscription when it was introduced in 1964, but the government had gone ahead anyway. Few people had guessed how the difficulties in Indochina would escalate.

  ‘My son Roger was balloted in a year later,’ O’Rourke said.

  There was a moment’s silence for Roger O’Rourke. The death of Roger had turned his father’s hair white. You’d never guess now that the O’Rourke children had inherited their lustrous red hair from him.

  Mr Harrison coughed, before continuing. ‘That’s eight boys from this area conscripted so far.’

  Shuddering, Zidra remembered how she’d always thought Jim was one of the lucky ones who hadn’t been called up. He’d led a charmed life in every way until that awful day in Cambodia.

  ‘Only seven went off to Vietnam, but.’

  ‘Only seven! That’s a bloody lot when you think of a town this small.’

  ‘It was more than that from Burford.’

  ‘No, it was less, and Burford’s a lot bigger than Jingera.’

  ‘What’s happened to the Cadwalladers’ second son, do you know?’

  ‘Andy? He’s still with the Third Battalion. Those boys’ll be on their way home soon.’

  At this point Ian Harrison noticed Zidra and her mother standing by his elbow. ‘Oh, sorry, didn’t see you two standing there. Do you want to get by or would you like to join us? That was quite some service, wasn’t it? You read that poem nicely, Zidra. It moved the ladies to tears.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Zidra took a large gulp of wine from one of the glasses she was carrying.

  ‘Mrs Cadwallader put on quite some show,’ Ian Harrison continued. ‘I’ll bet the Reverend got a bit of a shock, eh?’

  ‘Eileen is very upset,’ Ilona said. ‘I’ve got this wine for her.’

  ‘She doesn’t normally drink but who knows, she might be glad of it today. Must be pretty bloody hard to take – oh, excuse me, Mrs Vincent – pretty tough on both of them. And Jim such a brilliant young man, by all accounts.’

  Yes, such a brilliant young man, Zidra thought, choking slightly after too large a swig of wine. A brilliant man whom I’d hoped I would one day marry.

  ‘Follow me,’ her mother bellowed so loudly into Zidra’s ear that she jumped. ‘Eileen has already been alone with the Reverend too long.’

  ‘I’m so pleased to see you both,’ the Reverend said as soon as Zidra and her mother reached him and Mrs Cadwallader. ‘You read that Judith Wright piece beautifully, my dear.’ A beacon of benevolence, he twinkled at Zidra, and for a moment she thought it would be impossible to escape a benediction. Instead he turned to her mother and said, ‘Now, Ilona, I’ve just been conveying my deepest apologies to Eileen. I don’t know what came over me. It was really insensitive. I got carried away with my anti-war sentiments, without thinking about how offensive that was on this occasion.’

  ‘I’m sure Eileen will understand,’ Ilona said soothingly.

  Zidra glanced at Mrs Cadwallader. Forgiveness wasn’t one of the emotions flitting across her face. A quivering vulnerability, a trembling of the lips, a tic around the right eye, all replaced by a grim expression when she glanced at the Reverend Cannadine.

  ‘I’ve brought you something to drink, Eileen,’ Ilona said. ‘It’s only wine. You might enjoy it.’ She handed the glass to Mrs Cadwallader, who knocked it back as if it were a soft drink.

  ‘Would you like this?’ Ilona offered the second wine glass to the Reverend Cannadine.

  ‘Thank you, but I’m just about to leave. There’s a service in Burford that I have to attend.’

  At this moment Zidra felt a touch on her elbow and turned to see Lorna. ‘Go for a walk on the beach if you’ve had enough. You look drained.’

  ‘I’ve had more than enough.’

  ‘I’ll come and get you in half an hour.’

  ‘We’ll see you both back at the car in an hour or so,’ Zidra’s mother said. ‘I think that might be long enough for us all.’

  ‘Drop in to see us before you go back to Ferndale, Zidra,’ Mrs Cadwallader said. ‘And now I’ll take that second glass of wine if you don’t want it, Ilona.’ A bright pink spot decorated each of her cheeks and her eyes were glittering. ‘And perhaps, Zidra, I’ll take that spare one yo
u’re holding too.’

  After chatting with Peter Vincent, George had spent the past hour wandering through the crowd, a word here, a word there. Never too long with anyone, although these were all folk he knew well: customers and old friends, or children or parents of old friends. He nodded and smiled and felt he was just about succeeding in holding himself together. The kindness on people’s faces comforted him; the pity did not.

  There were folk of all ages here: elderly, middle-aged and young. There were no kids inside though; they were all out the back of the hall, doing what kids always did at such functions, be they funerals or memorial services or weddings or christenings – running wild.

  He’d noticed the Reverend Cannadine talking to Eileen and was glad of it. He’d warmed to the cove after he’d sought him out earlier to apologise. Although Eileen was mortified by what she’d done with her handbag, and in a church of all places, George felt proud of her.

  At last people were starting to take their leave and the hall was emptying. By the time George caught up with Eileen, she was just finishing a glass of wine. ‘This is my third one, George,’ she said, her words slurred. She handed it to Ilona, as if she were the waitress positioned next to her for that very purpose. ‘And now I want you to take me home, and I’ll make a pot of tea.’ Several plump tears trickled down her flushed face. ‘I’m afraid alcohol doesn’t agree with me. It’s starting to affect my solar plexus.’