The Turning Tide (29 page)

Fiercely focused on my work, I still played my part in Marion’s household, but in some primitive way I no longer thought of it as mine: I was, after all, just the stepfather.

Chapter 27

The plump agent visits and loves the house, so I go to see my solicitor about the contract. I climb a steep flight of stairs off Sydney Road, then sit in the waiting room as trams rattle past outside. He shakes my hand and we go into his office and sit down. He reads through the contract then looks up.

‘Pretty straightforward, no nasty surprises. So you’re moving on. Where to?’

‘Not sure. I’ve been looking at other places near the uni but nothing much interests me so far.’

‘You could always rent for a while. Keep your options open.’

‘Yes. Starting to think that might be best, too.’

‘You realise one condition is you have to leave in sixty days if the buyer wants?’

‘Sixty? Jesus. I’ll have to get busy with packing. But it won’t go that fast, will it?’

‘In that street?’ He laughs. ‘I’d buy it myself tomorrow if I could. Look, we can change the clause, make it a longer settlement.’

‘No. I want to get moving. Itchy feet.’

And he’s spot on. The house sells in two weeks and I’ve got sixty days to pack and get out. I courier off the good furniture and books to the children and organise a second-hand dealer to take the rest when I move. I pack the paintings, sending the Arthur Boyd to Alan and Marion’s collection to the kids for them to argue about.

I pack my own paintings too and find myself sitting on the floor, gazing at the one Liam gave me years ago, the one he called
Mike in Timor
. My eyes follow the lines of white buildings, sweeping green hills, the suggestion of peaceful eyes. Poor old Bullock, I think with a sigh.

I marvel again at Liam’s perception and talent. I might be Professor Whalen around the uni, but everywhere else I’m simply Liam Whalen’s brother and proud of it. He eventually moved back to Broome with Jenny and was living there, still hale at seventy-one. It turned out Jenny had Aboriginal relatives and they’d helped him understand his own heritage. It had illuminated his art.

I pick up another of his paintings, a flurry of pink and orange flowers with glimpses of turquoise sea between the leaves, and think, That’d be a nice gift for Lena’s birthday. I put it to one side and tape the packing carton shut. Oh, God, still so much to do. I make a cup of tea and ponder what’s next.

I rinse the cup then go upstairs and stand for a moment outside the smallest bedroom, Marion’s office. It was where
I found her, over four years ago now. I’d come home with a funny bit of news about some friends and bounded up the stairs saying, ‘Darling, you won’t believe …’

She was lying near her chair, unconscious, and died a few hours later in the hospital. It was a stroke, probably from her smoking, the doctor said dourly. She’d always planned to give up, I said, dazed. I sat for hours that night in the lounge room, wanting to tell her about this strange and terrible day but, shockingly, she wasn’t there to tell.

Once we sorted Marion’s legal papers I never needed to go inside the office again. Now I open the door. The room is musty and I lift the old window to get some fresh air. I look around. There’s only a desk and chair and a couple of bookshelves with a few lever files. Her business was bought out, so most of the work-related material has gone.

I start opening the old files and throwing papers into a garbage bag I’ve brought upstairs with me. Then I tackle the desk drawers. I’m halted for a moment by the sight of a comb she’d use to hold back her thick auburn hair, then sigh and put it in the bag. There are pens and pencils and paperclips, which go in a small box for Terry’s school.

The second drawer, manila folders and writing pads, into the box. The third drawer, packs of envelopes, into the box too. Then I feel something else jammed at the back of the drawer.

Bending over, I wriggle it loose and sit down on the chair to see what it is: a big envelope full of papers. I pull them out. They’re letters sent to Marion at her business address. I recognise the writer’s name and sit for a long time gazing at them.

I know I’m suddenly at one of those moments when the future and the past meet and pivot irrevocably. I spread the letters and notice the dates on the stamps: from the months before Marion died. I feel as if I’ve been punched in the gut.

I’d kept in touch over the years with Betty’s family in Japan and was pleased when her young brother Tomeo came to Melbourne in the 1960s to do postgraduate studies in biology. He was a lovely kid and stayed with us often. Marion was welcoming, but I knew any reminder of my first wife caused her pain.

She was a passionate woman, inventive and playful, and loved my erotic response to her. Yet she needed constant reassurance about her desirability, her hold on me, her hold on any man. She was fiercely jealous of my interest in anyone else, no matter how harmless, yet I often sensed she had her own intense fantasy life that had nothing to do with me.

It wasn’t the easiest of marriages but there were plenty of good times too. Marion and I tickled each other’s senses of humour, we had a family to raise, a household to run and careers to relish. Throughout the sixties we partied and made friends and watched society go wild and hemlines rise and, yes, we inhaled and dropped the occasional tab and enjoyed every minute of it.

But eventually the children grew up, the parties became fewer and our friends turned away to their own lives. I was always a hard worker and became even more so, spending a lot of time in my office. Susie left home in 1971 and
Terry was poised to go too. That year Marion and I both turned fifty. It didn’t much bother me, but Marion became insecure, convinced it was the end of her femininity.

There was a man, an art buyer – let’s call him the Prick – who started pursuing her, flirting with her, complimenting her. It wasn’t that I didn’t flirt or compliment, but he had the advantage of novelty. Still, she remained faithful, I believe, at that time.

In the middle of 1972 we went to Perth for a few weeks. It was wonderful to see my parents, who still seemed extraordinarily well – Mum was eighty-one and Dad eighty-nine. They’d still play music together, and every day they’d slowly stroll to the shops or down to the foreshore, content in each other’s company.

While we were visiting, Dad became ill with a chest infection. All of our concern was for him until, shockingly, one night at dinner, Mum stood up to get something from the kitchen and collapsed beside her chair. She died from a heart attack within a few hours: even now I can’t dwell on the memory. Although grateful we’d been there at the time, I was sick with anguish.

Dad seemed to recover from his illness and a few days after the funeral I spoke to him, wondering what he wanted to do.

‘I’ll stay here, son,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere.’

‘But I hate to think of you by yourself, Dad,’ I said, a knot of pain in my throat.

‘I see your sister and her family often enough. The youngsters are always a pleasure.’ He nodded. ‘Don’t worry, my boy. Things are as I’d hoped.’

I’m stunned. ‘As you hoped? You wanted Mum to …’

He shook his head. ‘I wanted her to go before I did.’ He smiled gently at me. ‘Mike, a long time ago I left her alone, unfairly, for far too long. I never wanted that to happen again, to leave her by herself.’

I was shaken but it made a kind of tragic sense. Then, only a few days later, Dad went to sleep one night and never woke up, as if he simply could not remain alive without Mum. I found the two bereavements, one after the other, an unbearable blow.

Perhaps it was a little easier on Anna, with her big family, or Liam, whose essential nature seemed to comprehend love and loss without despair. But I was knocked sideways. When Marion and I returned to Melbourne I fell into a depression without the slightest understanding of what was happening.

Everything seemed to reinforce my feeling that the world was a grim, sad place. It was midwinter, which didn’t help, but events around me – bombs in Northern Ireland, napalm in Vietnam, genocide in Burundi – seemed to crowd in and weigh me down and, finally, crush me.

Almost anything could move me to tears, even a greeting from a cashier in a shop. Nothing gave me joy or hope. I could no longer make love to Marion, no longer make her laugh. I could barely speak to her or to anyone. I had to take leave from work.

Death seemed all around me. I relived the pathetic waste of Johnny’s life, the tragedies of the Timorese, the torments of Hiroshima, the catastrophe of losing Betty. In the peaceful twenty years since then I’d almost forgotten. Now I understood we were balanced, always, on a razor’s edge.

Liam wrote, ‘Mikey, for every death there’s life, there couldn’t be new life without the old passing away. It’s just a cycle like the tides. It’s sad but not a disaster. Please come out of these depths, little brother, and see what beauty there is around you.’ But I could see no beauty.

Marion energetically canvassed everyone she knew and found a psychiatrist who specialised in depression. I saw him often and told him some of my waking nightmares and slowly, slowly began to recover.

It took close to two years to emerge, and during that time Marion suffered too. She sympathised with my ordeal but could not stop herself feeling abandoned and unbeautiful and unloved. The Prick circled like a shark and took her when she was most vulnerable.

Then, even from my depths, I could see the light in her face and the joy in her body. I didn’t begrudge her that happiness, I could bring her none. I ached, impotently, but it was simply another pain among the multitude.

But slowly I surfaced. I began to talk, to work, to smile and, finally, to make love once again. One agonising night Marion confessed her affair but said it was over. I could see her light was now diminished. Yes, it was over. We’d both suffered, but we promised each other we’d rebuild our life together.

And we did. We worked, we travelled, we took holidays. But deep in my heart I felt superseded, and deep in her heart Marion felt abandoned. A caution grew between us, a middle-aged coolness. I knew it didn’t have to be that way – I’d seen a lifetime of passion between my parents – but there seemed nothing I could do to change it.

I spent too much time working. Our lovemaking became less frequent, the occasional failure on my behalf making us both even more insecure. And that was the state of our marriage – careful kindness – when Marion died.

I’m shaking, looking at these hidden letters from Marion’s old lover. They were sent in the months before her death, a time I thought she was completely my wife again. What the hell was going on?

Part of me cries
Don’t
as I open the first, but I can’t stop. I try not to read too closely but affectionate, obscene phrases leap out at me. Another letter, responding to one from Marion, urging her to meet him. Another, post-coital and content. Another, more sly teasing, begging her to come and live with him, to leave her empty life behind.

And the last: I look at it with loathing. How persuasive, how erotic, how delighted he is she’s agreed to go away with him. The date is only a few days before her death and now I know. If Marion had lived, she would have left me.

I crumple the letters and throw them into the garbage bag. I go downstairs and pour a large glass of red. I drink, rage growing slowly, viciously inside, and suddenly slam my fist against the wall. It hurts, satisfyingly. Fucking women. Fucking
bitches
.

I was a good, faithful husband but still not good enough for Marion. I loved Helen to the depths of my soul but she wanted someone else. I left everything behind to be with Betty but she abandoned me to loneliness. I rage in agony to myself: I’m not enough of a man for any woman to love, to share her life with. I’m a fool. Betrayed. Humiliated.
Alone
.

Next morning I recover my wits enough to feel shame at my tantrum of self-pity. Betty had no say in her dreadful fate. Helen, and even Marion, had their own heartfelt reasons for whatever they did. In the end I was simply not the man for them.

Not the man for anyone, I think. There seems to be a rock in my chest. I feel cold to the core.

I move from the old house in late November, into a nice, white, rented apartment not far from the uni. Most of my things, apart from a few pictures and books, are in storage. It’s a relief to be surrounded by so little.

Life goes on: exams to mark and end-of-year functions. At a departmental party I’m grimly amused to see a woman I once rather fancied making it clear she rather fancies me in return. No way, I think. No way.

Still, I’m relieved to find I can still care for friends, for Lena and Ian and Suyin. I’m not completely cold. I’ll go to Lena’s birthday party as promised. My fear of meeting Helen again is gone: I see the whole ludicrous situation clearly now and know it won’t be a problem.

In mid-December I drive the familiar route down the South Gippsland Highway to Foster and book into the motel. Later that evening I shower and dress, then put Lena’s present under my arm and start on the short walk over to her mother’s house. Near the Exchange a ute pulls up and I see Ian getting out.

He gives me the big familiar grin and says, ‘Heya Mike. I’m just going to the bottle shop for drinks for the party.’

I put Lena’s present in the ute and say, ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

Ian pays for the order. ‘Didn’t think there’d be so much. Good thing you’re here,’ he says, hoisting a carton of beer onto his shoulder and grabbing a plastic bag of clinking soft drinks. I pick up a box of wine and another bag of bottles and there’s still more waiting on the counter.

We load up the ute then go back to the shop for the rest. Coming out with the last carton, I hear someone call my name. There’s a bloke by the bar door, wrinkled, scruffy, drunk.

‘It’s you, Whalen, isn’t it?’ he says.

‘Yeah, that’s me. Sorry, I’m not sure –’

‘Oh, come on. You haven’t forgotten your old mate Frank, have you?’

I stare. He’s decrepit, not the young policeman I remembered, the man who’d gone on to marry Helen and torment vulnerable little Ian.