Homecoming (7 page)

He decides to play Sweet Hearts again. Loss. Win. Win. A rush of adrenaline. His fingers tense. Come on, sweetheart. One big one. He jabs the buttons in quick succession. Loss. Loss. Loss!

One final game. He can only play one line.

The night is swathed in mist. Martin walks slowly, stopping to stare at shop windows. Clothes always look more elegant on dummies. The cakes are inviting. He loiters on the footpath, dreading the prospect of entering his cold house. Silence itself is a kind of noise that grows in the mind. A whine that changes its pitch and volume until it reminds him of the absence of spoken words. Perhaps the consoling company of Brahms tonight. And Blake. Martin rarely watches television.

It begins to worry him that this afternoon he had agreed to go out with Ron. Tomorrow! Distracted and disturbed by Colin’s condition and Ken’s presence, Martin only had a hazy understanding of what Ron proposed.

He is startled by a hand on his arm. A woman has emerged from the darkness of an alley. She whispers at him.

‘No, thanks.’ Firmly he shrugs her off.

She tries again, this time at a bargain rate. Whatever adventure he desires. Martin quickens his steps. Footfalls and a hissed obscenity. Would she have accepted the offer of a drink and a chat? But even that’s not possible. His money has been gobbled up by Sweet Hearts. He thinks of Nora and the times they walked this way. He felt warm as she clung to his arm. He was a patient listener.

NORA HAD A KEY
to the house. Martin would return home and find the lights on, the lounge warm and the aroma of a roast or a casserole wafting along the corridor. They had drifted into an unusual relationship by then. Nora had never
showed the slightest qualm about his embarrassing failure in the bedroom. If there were consequences for her, they were debated quietly within the privacy of her mind.

‘You are a gentle person, Martin,’ she had once said to him since. ‘Dependable. I feel safe with you.’

‘Such boring qualities,’ he had responded wryly. ‘That is, if I do possess them.’

‘I am not twenty any more,’ Nora reminded him. ‘Way past the age of thrills with bronzed hunks.’ She looked at him mischievously. ‘You’re not the sort to let anyone down.’

He winced.

Nora laughed, sure she had flustered him.

Martin sensed that the violence in her marriage had turned Nora away from the memory of her past, and there was little that she would want to remember. By now though, she had told him about her childhood, and the life of her parents. They had been strict church-going people who treated the ordinariness of everyday living as though it were a precious gift beyond which nothing else mattered. The only passion that Jack and Emily shared, it seemed, was moving house every couple of years. They had been undemonstrative about their feelings, and after Nora’s mother died Jack Hare lived as if he had never had a partner. If he experienced grief, it remained hidden from his daughters. He worked long hours as a builder, kept his accounts in impeccable order and spent his spare time tinkering with his car and bicycle in the garage.

Martin had ignored Nora’s hints that they might live together. But one night, when her patience had exhausted itself, Nora broached the subject directly.

‘You know the problem,’ Martin said awkwardly. The visits to the doctor, the herbalists and the psychotherapists had been counter-productive.

‘That isn’t important,’ Nora was quick to insist. She never asked him about Vietnam. ‘It’s the time together, the routine, the familiarity. The sharing. Is the thought of being close to someone too threatening for you?’

Martin did not say that it was his crippling sense of inadequacy that determined the distance he wanted to maintain between them. He remained convinced that, at some future time, Nora would want to move on, beyond what he had to offer. And an amicable parting, without the inevitable friction over ownership and the carting out of personal belongings, was his preferred way of ending an association. Martin himself had no intention of initiating a breakup. He liked Nora more than he cared to admit, and he missed her on the days she did not come.

In his own way, he tried to please her with gifts and outings to the movies and the theatre. What he could not really grasp was her appreciation of his patience and the way he never lost his temper with her. If they quarrelled he simply fell silent, or avoided contact with her for a few days.

‘It is possible for a couple to live in a partly built house,’ Martin said one day when he sensed her irritability. Silently Nora continued to coat the lamb cutlets with flour seasoned with salt and pepper, beaten egg and breadcrumbs.

‘Without a couple of walls, some missing doors and windows, one can live with more freedom,’ he continued lamely, discouraged by her lack of response.

‘What are you afraid of, Martin?’ she asked. Her tone softened. ‘Perhaps I know the answer to that. Are you scared that I might be fickle? Can’t you even
pretend
that you are capable of loving? Do you fear that it might make you vulnerable? Is it too dangerously romantic?’

It was his turn to retreat into silence. Nora had an uncanny ability to make him question his decisions. She had led him towards forbidden territory. He was afraid. But he would not perpetrate any deception between them. He lacked the will and the imagination to change and adapt to her needs. And now he also resented her ability to probe his shortcomings with such accuracy. He shifted uncomfortably on the chair.

After he had come home from Vietnam, Martin had never once told Moira that he loved her. There was no strength of feeling left inside him. Only a hollowness that echoed his shame of the war. And Moira had not seemed to mind the changes in him. They married dutifully because it was proper to formalise a relationship they had developed before he went to Vietnam. But was he incapable of loving?

What could Nora know about the way he cared about his son? As for loving a woman—how could he say with any certainty, given his condition? He did feel intensely for Nora, and the loss would be hurtful if she left him, but not for an instant did he doubt his ability to survive and eventually restore the routine of a solitary life.

Nora maintained her composure and finished preparing the meal. They ate quietly, and tentatively began to plan a weekend at Lorne. Martin knew a builder who owned a beach house that could be rented cheaply at that time of year.

Nora enjoyed the seaside in the winter months. The
emptiness of the beach was almost sacred to her and seemed to have a calming influence. In inclement weather she could walk on the shore for hours.

By the time the meal was finished, they had agreed to leave for Lorne the following Friday.

‘Will you stay the night?’ Martin asked, immediately regretting his impulsiveness. Although it was not unusual for Nora to stay overnight, this was the first time he had asked her so directly.

‘Yes,’ she nodded, concealing her surprise. ‘I’ll put up with the winter’s wind that will blow in through a partly built house.’

Later, the trundle bed was rolled out into the lounge room. As always, he offered to sleep on it. And, as always, she refused.

Martin felt an odd sensuality floating over them as they made the bed.

‘We are a strange couple,’ he murmured.

Nora smoothed the bed sheet and spoke gently to him. ‘We don’t know what obstacles others may face. You know, Martin, sometimes I think that a lasting relationship is…ah, one in which both people have learned to hide the cracks. Without accusation or blame.’

The sheet he’d creased stretched flat under her hand, and the spell lifted.

IT WAS NEARING
dawn the next day when Martin realised that he was upright in bed, sweating profusely. Nora was sitting next to him, her left arm around his shoulders. With her other hand she held a wet towel to his forehead. He trembled,
hating himself for this uncontrollable demonstration of fear. Although the images of agonised faces and burning landscapes had disappeared, it was as though bits of the nightmare still stuck to him like viscous filth.

He tried to speak, explain, apologise. But with calm authority Nora placed a hand on his mouth. She comforted and instructed him, as if she wasn’t startled by his behaviour. ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered repeatedly. That was what Moira had said too.

Nora stroked his back and rubbed his face with the towel. ‘It’s okay. The past comes back to claim us all.’

‘What did I say?’ He finally managed to speak.

She held him tighter.

That was the first time they simply lay in bed together, like awkward teenagers but without the anxiety of pleasures ahead. And Nora was still alert when Martin began to snore.

WHEN HE AWAKENED
, Nora had just gone. Martin felt the warmth on her side of the bed. A single strand of hair curled across the whiteness of her pillowcase. He moved across to her side.

He would call her. He would ask her to move in with him.

‘I do care for you, Nora,’ he whispered to the ceiling, ‘incomplete as I am.’

HOME AGAIN
,
MARTIN
stops in front of the wrought-iron gate and sticks his hand in the letterbox. There is a bundle of mail
held together by a rubber band. Bills, he guesses. Maybe a couple of cheques. He wants to buy Frank and Maria a present to celebrate their move to the country—but he has no idea what.

The thought of a gift reminds him of the Colt .45 that he has promised them. Frank is concerned about Maria and the isolation of the farmhouse. ‘She feels a little unsafe,’ he had explained to his father. ‘I hate gun clubs, but I’ve joined one just to learn how to use a firearm properly.’

The revolver is in good condition despite the fact that Martin has never fired it. Once in a while he takes it out of its wrapping, cleans and oils it before putting it back in the glove compartment of the ute. The Colt was a gift from an American soldier, Stan Guest. A GI, Stan was drunk and lost in an alley behind a Saigon bar when he accidentally staggered across Martin urinating on a garbage heap. The American had been robbed and beaten up by a bunch of local youths. Martin helped him to the military hospital and waited until Stan was released.

They had met the next day and exchanged home addresses. Then Stan presented Martin with the revolver and two boxes of cartridges. The gun had originally belonged to Stan’s grandfather and had never been fired. ‘It’s been like a good luck charm in the family,’ Stan explained. Within weeks Stan was ripped open by a land mine and died instantly.

Martin had figured that Stan was maybe young enough to be living with his parents. He took the chance and addressed a letter of condolence to Mr and Mrs Guest. He carefully mentioned the revolver and offered to return it to them. Stan’s father wrote back. His grieving was all there in the
tone and content of the letter. But there was also a note of graciousness: he thanked Martin for his thoughtfulness in writing to them; the revolver was his to keep as a token of remembrance of their son.

Martin detects a movement on the concrete path leading up to the front door. He peers into the darkness.

The shadow takes a shape and finds a voice.

‘Hi, Martin.’

Droplets of rain cool the burning sensation in Martin’s face. Consciousness is a fusion of the past and present, he reflects. I cannot let go of what has been. He has an urge to crawl inside a bunker, curl up and sleep. There are times when he still waits for someone to tell him of a long period of hibernation. Of strange dreams and apparitions. Of a war that never really happened.

‘It’s been a long time.’

The darkness is merciful. ‘Who gave you my address?’ Martin demands. Then he recalls that Ken employs Brenda.

‘You don’t mind my coming here?’

‘I do,’ Martin says bluntly, walking to the front door.

‘Colin doesn’t look too well.’

‘You didn’t come here to talk about Colin.’ Martin removes his hand from his trouser pocket. Taking out the house key might give Ken the wrong impression.

‘You weren’t very friendly at the hospital today.’

‘We aren’t friends.’

The amiable mask is immediately discarded. Ken takes a step towards Martin. ‘One isolated incident! Isn’t that what it was? A few minutes of error one lousy afternoon decades ago when we stopped thinking. And you insist on holding it against me for the rest of our lives?’

‘A life is not just an incident. At least not to me.’

‘For Godsakes, Martin, ordinary soldiers aren’t trained to think! We react! It was in the middle of a war. You get the entire parcel, old son. There’s no choice. The worms and the rats and the snakes all come tumbling out from inside. They
are you.’
Ken peers into the dark for a response from Martin. ‘Okay, what happened that day in the village was wrong. I have regretted it. Who should I apologise to? A memory? A pile of ashes? You? God? Do you
know
the impact it had on the others?’

Martin stares at the silhouette of the tree on the opposite side of the road.
What about the impact it had on me?

‘Chris, Graham and Ross?’ There is an urgency in Ken’s voice. ‘I tried to trace them about ten years after we came back. Ross had disappeared. He was living with his brother, Paul, who said that he left the house one day without a word or a note. Just like that! The police never found him. Paul thought he might have gone back to Vietnam. For what, Paul couldn’t say. And Graham? He became an alcoholic and lived in the bush. I went to see him once. He spent his days at the pub in the nearest town. He had become intensely religious. Very weird. Rambled on about the war between Christ and the Devil. He kept flipping a coin to decide whose side our platoon was on. Didn’t bat an eyelid when I walked into the pub. “Call, Ken!” he greeted me. And before I could say
anything he’d tossed the coin high in the air. “You lost, Ken Davis! We all did!” He doubled over with laughter, got up and brushed past me onto the street. A few weeks later he drove his car into a tree. Died instantly.’ Ken scrapes the toe of his shoe on the pathway. ‘Yeah…Then Chris. He went north. I traced him in Queensland. He was living in a shack by the sea. Filthy place! You wouldn’t have recognised him. Long dirty hair. Matted beard. He spent his time staring at the waves. I stayed one night and slept on the beach. Towards dawn I was woken by a crackling noise. There was Chris, with his back towards me, lighting fires with bits of bark and twigs. “The last rites,” he kept repeating when I asked him what he was up to. “Must do the right thing and cremate the dead. Otherwise they won’t sleep properly. And neither will we.” He must have lit at least ten fires. He didn’t even look at me when I left. Haven’t heard from or seen him since. That was nearly twenty years ago. We were
all
affected by what happened.’

Martin doesn’t detect regret in Ken Davis, only aggression, self-justification. Force. ‘Why did you come to see me?’

‘You…’ Ken shuffles even closer. He is a big man who can intimidate with his physicality. ‘You haven’t told anyone, I hope. Seeing me today isn’t going to make you do anything foolish, is it?’

‘I haven’t said anything. But not because there is an obligation to protect you. My silence is just so’s I don’t expose myself as a coward.’ Martin fumbles for his keys.

‘I’ve had to rebuild everything!’ A menacing tone creeps into Ken Davis’s voice. ‘I’d hate to think that anyone might spoil that for me.’

‘Where’s the proof? It would be my word against yours. You’re not likely to own up. Besides, who the hell would care after all these years?’ Martin asks bitterly. ‘It was a loser’s war. Best forgotten. What’s one life among millions? An Asian kid.’

‘Yeah, right. So I’ll square with you. I’m thinking of going into state politics.’ Ken tries to gauge Martin’s reaction. ‘I’ve got the dark suit and the polished shoes. I’ve done the right things—community service, charity work, fund-raising for Vietnam veterans, the committee for the Australian-Vietnam Association. So, unless there’s a scandal…What the hell’s so funny?
What?’

‘So it’s atonement time? For a purpose, of course! Did you also play Santa to Vietnamese children last Christmas?’

‘I’ve moved on,’ Ken says stonily. ‘Made a break with the army days. Haven’t you found anything better to do with your life?’

‘I would like you to leave.’

‘You wouldn’t be foolish enough to stir up the past just because you insist on carrying it with you…? Look, if there is anything I can do to help you—’

‘Now,
please!’

‘Find yourself a life, Martin. Don’t be such a loser. We already lost hugely once. Isn’t that enough?’

Ken limps to the gate and then turns. ‘Just remember what I said about not being foolish. I won’t say I’ll see you later. And I won’t either, unless…’

The gate squeaks open. Martin waits until the footsteps cannot be heard before opening the front door.

THE CORRIDOR IS
dark and sterile. It’s like walking into a morgue. He sits in the kitchen without bothering to switch on the lights. He is shaken.

It has never occurred to him that even after three decades he might be a source of concern to others for something he had witnessed and never revealed. He had been passive then, and ever since. Martin had always excused himself on grounds of loyalty to his mates, the soldiers from his own regiment. But self-preservation had been his dominant motive. Had he spoken up then and there, he would have almost certainly been branded a traitor in the inner sanctum of the troops and treated as though guilty of a heinous act of betrayal. There would have been ostracism, snide remarks, pilferage of his personal belongings, threats, slogans smeared on his pillow and bedsheet, even an accident in the jungle.

Once he was back home, what niggled him was the thought that he might have intervened had the village victim been white and Australian. He had never considered himself a racist, even when the ethnic population of Australia began to diversify and grow rapidly. But indifference was not synonymous with tolerance. He realised that there was no specific thought pattern, overbearing attitude or demonstrative action that determined racial bias. It was the unwillingness to make an effort to help someone ostensibly different in a moment of crisis that often revealed entrenched prejudices.

Such thoughts had festered inside Martin since his Vietnam days. They created ripples of uncertainty about his moral framework. Should he at least have made a gesture, even acted more decisively, given that in those crucial moments he was the only soldier not otherwise preoccupied and with a gun in
his hands? The others had abandoned all restraints. They had indulged in primeval behaviour, a brutal ritual of supremacy and revenge. It was a vindictive attempt to overcome the helplessness of being trapped in someone else’s war.

So did his silence stem from the selfish desire not to entangle himself in a court-martial, or was it a genuine lapse of moral judgement under strenuous circumstances? Could he attribute his inaction to a paralysis of will induced by the dangerous situation they found themselves in? That humid afternoon clung to his memory in every detail. The passing years had merely served to sharpen the focus of his despair.

Over time Martin had assessed himself more harshly, progressively dropping the excuses for his apathy. Gradually he admitted to an intrinsic darkness within himself. He had evaded the kind of responsibility that defined the essence of humanity. Although he found much truth in Kierkegaard’s assertion that
life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards,
there was little consolation to be had from the knowledge. Understanding had deepened his despair and made him even more uncertain of his worthiness as a human being.

IT MUST BE TIME
to eat. Martin scrounges around in the cupboards and fridge. The best he can do is canned sardines and smoked cheese on toast. There are messages on the answering machine. A woman would like to have the taps in her kitchen and bathroom fixed. The installation of a clothesline. Someone urgently requires broken tiles to be replaced on the roof of her unit. A painting job and the
replacement of two fly-wire screen doors. Martin scribbles down the phone numbers.

He flicks through the mail, setting aside a large brown envelope. He opens the other letters. One of the universities has sent him information on Comparative Religion. He is disappointed that there is no reading list. There are brochures from a telephone company. That must be Frank’s effort. They have argued about the convenience of owning a mobile phone.

‘It’ll be good for your work,’ Frank insisted.

‘More expense,’ Martin grumbled. ‘Besides, I like to know there are times when I’m not available to anyone.’

‘It can always be switched off,’ Frank said.

Silent resistance was the most effective antidote whenever Frank sounded Martin out about any kind of change to his lifestyle.

Gas and electricity bills. Nothing from the bank. They have been decent enough not to send him another letter. He sits down at the kitchen table with the unopened A4 envelope.

Not long before, Martin had located several experts still researching the effects of the Vietnam war on Australian troops. He had toiled for several days to write a carefully worded letter to Dr Arthur Blanc hard, requesting specific and up-to-date information on the research that the academic had undertaken for fifteen years.

Now he balances the envelope on the palm of his hand. It’s bulky. There’s an insignia on the top corner. He is impressed—this is a prompt reply.

Inside there is photocopied material—a haphazard compilation of various reports which do not follow any
sequential order. Martin sits, quietly sorting and reading. Once again he sees how in the years between 1963 and 1969, more than 100,000 tons of chemicals 2, 4, 5-T and 2, 4-D as well as dioxin were sprayed over most of the provinces of South Vietnam. Martin knows this. Six million acres of forestation were devastated. Dioxin, in particular, was deadly to human populations, even when it was used in the smallest of quantities. During most of the 1960s, nearly 130 kilograms of that chemical had been dropped over the country.

Statistical facts: numbers and percentages. Dr Blanchard has been thorough. Unpronounceable names of chemicals. Non-committal observations. There is a detailed discussion about the
possible
effects of Agents Blue and White, malathron and dieldren. Even in the photocopy Martin can tell there has been an obvious cut-and-paste effort in the account of the spraying in the Phuoc Tuy province, which had been under the operational control of the Australian Task Force. Several pages summarising the findings of the Royal Commission are attached.

Martin becomes increasingly irritated. These pages contain little that he does not know. In disappointment he turns to the academic’s covering letter. The concluding paragraph is the most interesting:
As you are probably aware, depression is a condition that afflicts people beyond those Vietnam veterans who have been traumatised by their war experiences. There is no definitive evidence to link their exposure to chemicals with physical abnormalities in their offspring or mood swings and erratic behaviour. Currently, depression affects a large number of Australians whose family members have never been to war. There is much more research that needs to be undertaken and, at this point in time, I can only
speculate that the causes of depression have a great deal to do with both social and environmental factors within our community.

The report is roughly what Martin had expected. Realistically, what else could the academic possibly say without compromising his own objectivity? Yet Martin is unable to curb his frustration and bitterness. He throws it all in the bin.

Restless later in the lounge, he is tempted by the prospect of Valium-induced sleep. One tablet after six days is not excessive. He envisages Andrew’s disapproval. Half a tablet is a fair compromise. No sea adventures with coffins tonight, he hopes. A sleep without remembered dreams. There are parked cars on both sides of the street. The house opposite is brightly lit up and, despite the cold, there are people drinking in the front yard. He can hear muffled noises. The rhythmic pounding of drums. The volume is turned up sharply. ‘Love me, love me…’ It could have been Nora’s song.

Resolute now, Martin picks up the notepad from near the telephone and takes it to the kitchen. Near the top of the page he scribbles the word Bank with an exclamation mark after it. Underneath, he adds Estate Agent. At the bottom he writes Bills, Shopping and Andrew. Reluctantly, he scrawls Nora’s name. Immediately he feels the burden of association. Impulsively he crosses out Estate Agent. He crumples up the paper and begins again. ‘Priority,’ he mumbles. ‘Priority.’ This time Nora is first. Frank goes in second. Then Colin. Estate Agent is restored as the last item, and with a question mark.

There is no one with whom Martin can discuss the peculiarity of his situation with Nora. The supervisor who calls him from the hostel is informative but distantly tactful.
When one report suggested that there was ‘accumulated anger that she harbours inside her’, Martin had tried to call Nora’s sister in Darwin. But she could not be located.

Colin would be sympathetic and analytical, without venturing into heterosexual territory. Martin guesses, though, that there would be no practical suggestions. The intricacies of problems, not their resolutions, interest Colin. Frank knows about Nora but chooses not to be inquisitive. He seems to assume that, years ago, his father had worked out some kind of loose arrangement with her without committing himself to a live-in relationship, and that Martin is in control now. When Frank was a young teenager living in Queensland with Moira, Martin had often thought about his son. He had missed Frank and resented the influence Moira was inevitably having on their boy. Every time Frank returned to Melbourne for the holiday, he appeared to have changed. He was wary of his father, as though he expected to discover a stranger behind the facade of familiarity. He was guarded about what he said to Martin and their conversations were strained and superficial, often dominated by trivia. Even now, despite Frank’s closeness to him over the past decade, Martin can never allow his son anywhere near the core of his personal life. He thinks about the discoveries that children sometimes make about their parents, and how often they are followed by feelings of betrayal and outrage, as though the unearthing of desires and common flaws is akin to the detection of heinous crimes. What is permissible behaviour for children of any age is, it seems, rarely condoned in parents.