The Turning Tide (28 page)

‘How’s it going then?’ I said coolly as we waited outside for the taxi he’d ordered to take him to the airport.

‘With Jan? Wonderful, completely wonderful. Everything I ever wanted,’ he said slowly. ‘But seeing the children …
They’ve grown so much, just a couple of months and I’ve missed it. Missed it forever.’ He cleared his throat.

‘Yeah.’

‘I didn’t mean Marion and the kids to suffer so horribly, Mike. I know it’s not fair.’ He sighed. ‘But I had to go – in my heart, in my guts, I had to go. Like there were Japs round the next corner. You must understand. I ran to save my life. It was that instinctive.’

‘You’d do it all over again, though, wouldn’t you?’ I said.

He looked at me and nodded slowly. ‘It’s worth that much to me. One day you’ll have love like it. Then you’ll understand.’

I grunted cynically. ‘Doubt it. Jan’s a nice bloke but it looks like he’s taken.’

Alan laughed, tired. ‘You know what I mean, you sarcastic prick.’

‘I had it once, Al, but it’s gone now. And I’d settle in a minute for what you threw away without a second thought.’

He grasped my arm. ‘It wasn’t without a second thought, it bloody wasn’t.’ There were tears in his eyes. ‘But it’s done and I had to do it. I’m so sorry, sorry for everyone. And for leaving you to pick up the pieces, Mike, I’m sorry for that too.’

There was silence for a long time then the taxi stopped beside us in a crunch of gravel.

I looked at Alan and wearily held out my arms. ‘Come on, you old bastard. Give us a hug and fuck off back to your love nest.’

The end of 1956 arrived. Fran got sick of me spending so much time with Marion and, despite my protests it was just platonic, threw me over.

I was starting to wonder if it really was just platonic; lately I was finding Marion surprisingly attractive. I told myself she wasn’t my type – my type being Betty – but with less and less conviction. I liked the scent of her; I liked her springy auburn hair and her freckled hands and her courageous laugh.

She held a small Christmas party. Now that her social circle had been reduced to her true friends it was all the better for it. The party was easy and amusing; we got gently tipsy instead of raucously drunk and I was content to see Marion so happy.

Afterwards I stayed to help her clean up as usual. She went to put a bowl away on the top of a cupboard, standing on tiptoes, giggling, and said, ‘I give up, can’t bloody reach. Mike, help?’

I stood behind her and lifted the bowl into place. I could smell her perfume and when my arms came down I put my hands lightly on her shoulders. She leant her head to the side and sighed and moved her cheek slowly against my hand. I folded my arms around her from behind and held her quietly against me, my face on her hair.

‘Did I tell you Fran’s dropped me because she believes we’re having an affair?’ I said.

She laughed quietly. ‘My friends do too. They think that’s why you stay behind to clean up.’

‘Don’t they know I’m just naturally tidy?’ I said, turning her around.

Her eyes were half-closed. She put her hand on my face and caressed it. ‘I told them over and over and they just wouldn’t listen,’ she whispered.

She drew me hard against her and kissed me and my knees buckled with pleasure. She murmured, ‘I think my bedroom needs a good tidy. Anyone you’d recommend?’

Chapter 26

Waiting for our orders in the cafe, I say to Lena, ‘My stepson’s only thirty. I could have had a daughter your age.
Granddad
.’ I shake my head in mock disgust.

‘Why didn’t you, then?’

‘What, have more kids? Oh, flat out with Marion’s two, I suppose. And in our mid-thirties by then, bit too much to take on. Second marriage was hard enough as it was.’

‘What happened to the first marriage?’

I hesitate. ‘My wife died.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mike. I didn’t know.’

‘No. I don’t mention it very often. My wife, Betty, was Australian-born Japanese. She was in Hiroshima when they bombed it. She died seven years later. Leukaemia.’

Lena nods slowly. ‘We’ve been doing radiation physics and physiology. It’s amazing, but very different when you
run across someone who’s suffered in real life. I’m awfully sorry, Mike.’

I say gruffly, ‘Speaking of studies, young lady, what are you doing hanging around estate agents’ offices when your third-year exams are looming?’

‘Oh, they’re under control. Appearances to the contrary, I spend a fair bit of time studying. And, anyway, I’m going to get a job in the holidays with one of the Foster agents, so there’s method in my madness.’

The waiter brings our coffees and cakes.

Lena says, ‘Wow, they look sensational.’

After a few minutes I say, through the crumbs, ‘Have you thought about what you’re doing next year?’

She nods. ‘I’ll do Honours. I think I’d like to do some postgrad studies then, but I’ll wait and see.’

‘You don’t necessarily have to jump into it straightaway, though it’s sometimes better if you do. Different in my day. I had, oh, twelve years between my degree and doctorate.’

‘What was your topic?’

‘
Hybrid Integrated Circuits Utilising Transistor Voltage Amplification and Vacuum Tube Output
. If you ever need a good night’s sleep, the introduction’ll do it. The rest of it’s suitable for general anaesthesia.’

She chuckles and says, ‘You remember I said you tell terrible jokes?’

‘That’s the usual consensus, yes.’

‘No. You’re just too quick for most. Definitely not terrible.’

‘Good God, you’re alone in that opinion, kid. But come to think of it, Betty always liked my sense of humour.’

‘And my dad. He says you’re, quote, a funny bastard.’

‘That’s an improvement.’

‘Actually, it is,’ she says. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so content.’ She looks at her watch. ‘I’ve got to go, lecture in ten minutes. Here, you take these,’ handing me the brochures, ‘and find your dream home. And there’s the sales contract, see what your solicitor thinks.’

‘All right. Thanks, Lena, you’ve been a big help. I’d still be sitting in the agent’s like a stunned mullet otherwise.’

‘I thought that’s how you always looked,’ she says, dimpling, flinging her red scarf over her shoulder. ‘Granddad.’

The reason Marion and I hadn’t had children wasn’t quite as I’d implied to Lena. The habit of concealment was always strong in me and my training at the Prom had only amplified it. Sometimes I wondered if I’d ever tell another human being all the truths of my life: whether I was capable of it, whether there was anyone I’d trust enough to tell.

Marion and Alan were divorced on the grounds of adultery. They arranged for him to be discovered with a woman in a hotel room. It was, of course, out of the question he be discovered with a man. Marion and I married in late 1957, when Susie was six and Terry four. We were earning good money so we bought the house in Carlton. We were both thirty-six then and, though we’d never discussed it, I assumed we’d try to have a child of our own.

To my surprise, Marion insisted we keep using contraception. But after a bottle of wine one night we fell into bed with careless lust, and a few weeks after that she was frantic. I was surprised. Didn’t she want a baby? I knew
by now it was something I’d like but Marion refused to talk about it. I thought, given time, she’d probably come around; she was an extravagantly affectionate mother to Susie and Terry.

One night she said she was going to visit an old schoolfriend in the country for the weekend; she was exhausted and needed a break. The kids and I had a good time, lighthearted meals, games in the park, a trip to the beach in the mild spring weather.

Coming home from work on Monday evening I bought Marion a great bouquet of flowers. Her mother was there, minding the children. We got along well, but the look she gave me was puzzling. Not unfriendly, I thought, bounding up the stairs, bouquet in hand. But odd.

Marion was in bed, the curtains drawn, her back to me. I sat down, put the flowers on the bedside table and stroked her arm.

‘Hello, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘Feeling better now?’

There was silence. She rolled over towards me and turned on the bedside light. There were dark rings under her eyes, her freckles stark against her pallor.

‘Marion, what’s wrong?’ I said, shocked.

She pushed herself up, carefully, against the pillows.

‘The baby,’ she said. ‘It’s gone. I’ve been in hospital. I had my tubes tied.’

I stared, confused. ‘You lost the baby? Oh, darling.’ But it didn’t make any sense. ‘Why did you have your tubes tied? I don’t understand. We could have tried for another.’

She looked at me, expressionless. ‘No, Mike. I can’t have another. I don’t want another. I had to do it.’

‘You had … an abortion?’

She nodded slightly.

‘But we’re married. We can have a baby if we want.’

‘But I don’t want, Mike. I told you. I don’t want.’

Part of me thought, so that’s what they mean by a stab to the heart. I shook my head. ‘But it was my baby. Our baby. You didn’t talk to me …’ I couldn’t finish.

She looked at me with pity. ‘I’m sorry, Mike, but I had to. I couldn’t, not again.’

I stood, stiffly. I took the bouquet and said, ‘I’ll put these in water.’

Downstairs I found a vase, filled it and arranged the flowers. They were beautiful.

I said to Gran, ‘I’m going out now,’ and took my coat and keys and left. I got into the car and couldn’t think where to go. I sat there, in the cool night, watching leafy branches moving against the streetlights, trying to make sense, any sense, of it. After a while I stopped trying. Later I saw Gran drive away.

Much later I got out of the car, locked it and went inside. Marion was sleeping, the bedside lamp still on. I lay beside her and stared at the ornate plaster on the ceiling until it was almost dawn.

I dressed quickly and left next morning while Marion pretended to be asleep. When I entered the house that evening I was shocked to see her, pale, serving the children’s dinner.

‘Go back to bed, for God’s sake,’ I said. ‘You need to rest. I’ll do that.’

I took the plate from her and ushered her to the hall. She looked at me, large-eyed, then slowly climbed the stairs.

‘Is Mummy sick from the relaxing holiday, Mike?’ said Susie.

‘Yes, she’s not well. Keep the noise down tonight, kids.’

Later I took her some sandwiches. I put the tray beside her, then, suddenly exhausted, sat down heavily on the end of the bed.

She leant up against the pillows and after a long silence said, ‘I’ve never told you much about my childhood, have I, Mike?’

I shook my head, wordless.

‘My father left us when I was ten. Abandoned my mother with five kids. She cleaned, worked her heart out every day and still we went hungry.’

‘Didn’t know. Sorry.’

‘I got a job with an art dealer, built a career. When I was twenty-eight I met Alan and at last I felt safe. We told each other everything, I thought I understood about Johnny. Our marriage was a joy.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Then, in an instant, it was gone. I felt like a terrified child again.’

‘What’s that got to do with our baby?’

She looked at me, her eyes despairing. ‘Life was back on track, our marriage good. I didn’t think what would happen if I became pregnant …’

‘But I’d have helped with another child.’

‘And if you’d left me too, Mike?’ she burst out. ‘Everyone else had. Why not you? How could I survive, how could I bring up three children by myself?’

‘I
married
you, Marion. I wasn’t going to leave.’

‘Alan married me too. It didn’t stop him leaving.’

‘I’m not bloody Alan!’

‘I couldn’t take the risk. I felt like a beast in a trap chewing off its paw. I had to do a terrible thing to escape.’

‘Terrible. And brutally unfair.’ I looked at her, suddenly furious. ‘
Jesus
, Marion. I can almost understand the abortion, but getting sterilised? I just can’t understand that.’ ‘No, I don’t expect any man could,’ she said quietly. ‘Men can’t understand. Periods, pregnancy, birth … exhaustion, pain, unending,
unbelievably
hard work. Mere words to a man, not real. But they’re real enough to me.’

‘Every other woman seems to cope!’

She looked at me, appalled. ‘No they don’t. They don’t at all. They simply endure because they know no one – no man – is going to hear what they say. But I’m fed up with enduring. I’m not a machine to make babies.’ She took a deep breath. ‘So I made certain I couldn’t anymore.’

‘But I wanted a family with you. I wanted
our
child.’

‘Mike, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise until this happened what I’d feel. What I’d need to do.’

‘No. Nor me,’ I said.

Between the demands of children and home and work, the rift in our marriage slowly scarred over. I began to observe the women in couples we knew, couples I’d believed happy, and saw their situations with wiser eyes.

After losing Betty I knew even the most extreme sorrows could eventually heal, or at least be sealed away enough from everyday life to make it worth living.

Sometimes I’d look at Susie and Terry playing and think, they’re enough. Who knows what sort of complications another baby would have brought us? But it’s an irrational thing, wanting a child. The yearning had quietly grown in me, until this shock, but now it was
fading away. As a result, perhaps, the marriage no longer held my entire focus.

The idea of further study surprisingly took root in my mind and after working through our finances I decided to take the leap. I applied to enrol in a postgraduate course at the university. Marion was supportive. Perhaps she felt she owed it to me.

It was almost unheard-of then for someone as old as me – thirty-six – to return to study. Some of the staff were horrified and said I’d never stand the pace of new ideas. Others pointed out my years of experience as a bonus. I was asked to sit an entrance examination and after that there were no more arguments. I can say, without self-flattery, they were delighted to have me.

A few years passed in contentment. It was a joy to withdraw from the world, to ignore politics and gossip and history, to simply explore and assemble a small part of a vast and beautiful puzzle. After my doctorate was awarded I worked at a research institute for several years, then returned to the university in a junior teaching position.