Yearning (22 page)

After finding out about him, her parents had swept her away and the affair with her. They made sure her daily presence wouldn’t remind them of the shame she’d almost wreaked upon their household. In the years that followed, when she saw them during school holidays, it was as if it had never happened. Her mother welcomed her warmly, invited her old friends over, fed them roast lamb and lemon delicious pudding and gossiped endlessly. Her father ignored her.

Sometimes she wondered if she’d imagined it. The way her parents behaved, Solomon may as well have never existed. But the images were there, hidden in the folds of her memory, a vivid dream she secretly brought out
to marvel at. She’d begun to understand that this secret yearning for Solomon was the real reason why she’d been unable to make any relationship work. How could she love someone else when the image of another man’s touch lived under her skin and his name was written in shining silver on her heart?

*

More than three hundred kilometres away, unaware of her daughter’s imminent arrival, Jude closed the door of the study against the relentless drone of her husband’s snores. Another sleepless night plagued by memories and regrets. She poured herself a small glass of brandy and smiled as she caught sight of herself in the mirror above the bar. Soft wrinkles didn’t detract from the beauty of her face. There was still something of the girl of her youth living behind her thinning veined skin.

She unhooked a silver key from the chain around her neck and moved to her writing desk. With a quiet click the lid unlocked and she slid it open, baring the contents to the golden light of the desk lamp. She pulled up her chair and drew a bundle of envelopes from the drawer. She took a sip of brandy before flipping off the thick rubber band and letting the envelopes fall loosely into her lap.

The pleasure of this private ritual flooded her. It was a sentimental indulgence she allowed herself. Each time she held the envelopes she remembered a tall man with grey at his temples and a crooked smile opening a car door for her, his hand in the small of her back. She pulled out a yellowing letter. As she read, she felt the decades dissolve
and she returned to her twenty-year-old self, replete with longing and youthful desire.

If I could touch you, even just for a moment, would the universe resonate with your sigh?

My heart sings so deeply when I see you. You inspire me to be all that I can be, all that I am. You reach in gently and touch me in a place that is hurting and give me rest from my pain.

My love for you reaches beyond the boundaries that separate us. You are balm to my soul. I am rested, peaceful and happy in your presence.

Come away with me, Jude. Please.

The signature, in beautiful cursive letters, was not her husband’s.

*

White lines, white lights.

Weary now, she pressed her foot down on the accelerator, wanting to put distance between herself and the mess of a marriage she’d left behind. The car climbed up the last hill to overlook a smattering of white street lights blinking innocently through the trees. Her home town. She breathed deeply, preparing for her parents’ reception.

The tyres crunched on the gravel as she pulled into the driveway. The study light was on and she frowned as she glanced at the clock in the car. It was just before five o’clock, early for her mother to be up. Leaving Joshua asleep in the car, she stumbled up the dark steps to tap quietly on the door.

‘Mum. Dad. It’s me. Open the door.’

Slippered foorsteps. Her mother’s anxious voice. ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s me, Mum. I’m sorry. I need to stay for a few days.’

Amid sounds of surprise and concern she heard the locks click. The door swung open to reveal her mother’s shadow, dark against the light of the study.

‘What in the world are you doing here at this hour? Where’s Josh and Max?’

‘It’s all right, Mum, Joshie’s asleep in the car.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Things aren’t so good at home. Can you make up a bed for Josh?’

‘Where’s Max?’

‘Home. I need to get Josh out of the cold.’

‘All right. I’ll get your father. Put the kettle on, will you?’

Lingering smells of cinnamon made the kitchen feel more welcoming than usual. Her mother was a fastidious housekeeper. Obsessed with bare benches and shining surfaces, she wiped away all warmth and comfort leaving a cold functional place in her wake. She filled the kettle to the cranky sounds of her father being disturbed from his sleep. In the spare room her parents spoke in hushed, irritable whispers as they made up beds and her stomach tightened. She took a deep breath in, willing herself to stay calm.

While the tea brewed she went to check on Joshua. She could hear her parents bumping about, opening cupboards and the sound of sheets being thrown out over a mattress. She walked down the hallway and peered out through
the front door to the car. He was still snuggled safely under the blanket, his sweet mouth shaped in an O and clutching his teddy close to his chest. Tenderness swept over her and she rubbed her belly, sensing new life fluttering inside her.

Walking back towards the kitchen she glanced into the study and noticed a pile of envelopes lying in a patch of amber light on her mother’s writing desk. The desk was never left open unless her mother was sitting at it. The desk was a forbidden place, a place of mystery and smacked hands. Now, standing quietly in the semi-darkness, she felt years of curiosity burning through the taboo of childhood. She glanced over her shoulder. Her parents were bickering over pillows. She shuffled through the old envelopes, listening intently for footsteps, and pulled out a short letter.

Jude,

Ah, to be your breath. I imagine rushing to fill your lungs with life.

Ah, to be your breath, to pass within you, to be that which sustains you. How I long for that brand of intimacy.

It isn’t merely love that binds me to you, it’s something much greater. It’s a natural force, the inspiration of God. As necessary as the rain, as nourishing as the sun, as dangerous as a hurricane. It is all these things and more.

An unfamiliar hand, an unfamiliar signature. Not her father’s. Shocked, she quickly looked into other envelopes. More letters. More passionate declarations. The same handwriting. The same signature.

‘What are you doing?’

She jumped and the letters in her hand tumbled into the pool of light on the desk. She turned to gaze at her mother in confusion. Jude stood glaring at her. A brief moment of understanding passed between them, woman to woman. She wanted to speak, to ask, to reach out to her mother, but there was nothing solid between them. In that moment, held by her mother’s defensive stare, she realised there never had been. Their relationship was unanchored, a wrecked vessel washed up with bits of broken love scattered like driftwood around them.

Her mother moved brusquely to the desk, the moment broken. ‘Josh’s bed is ready. You’d better bring him in before he freezes.’

She felt her childhood instincts to obey stir under her mother’s implacable stare and retreated in a daze. As she left the room she could hear her mother gathering up the letters and pulling the desk-lid sharply shut.

Outside by the car she tried to make sense of what she’d just read. Could it be possible her mother was having an affair? Her straitlaced, black-and-white, no-nonsense mother? But the letters were yellowed and old. They weren’t recent. Her mother must have had an affair sometime. It was unbelievable.

Joshua grizzled and cried as she lifted him gently out of his seat and carried him inside to the spare room. She returned to the kitchen to find steaming mugs of tea waiting expectantly on the kitchen table. She pulled up a chair and chewed on a piece of Vegemite toast her mother offered her, trying to gauge her mood as she bustled about the kitchen cleaning up toast crumbs and emptying the
teapot. Her father was slumped, bleary-eyed and brooding, in the chair opposite her.

‘So, what’s going on? Where’s Max?’ her father demanded.

She was silent. Her mother refused to look at her. She was dependent on their generosity and she’d stuffed up with her prying. She couldn’t be sure of her mother’s sympathy now, and she needed it in the face of the man sitting in front of her, fixing her with his bloodshot gaze.

‘You’ve left him, haven’t you? God help you, I hope you have a good reason.’

She stared into her mug. What could she say? How could she explain the strain of two years of abuse to a man who expected women to put up and shut up? How could she explain leaving Max when she was expecting another baby? Skin thick as night and just as dark grew over her heart. She felt battle-weary and tired.

She sighed, searching for some words that he might understand. ‘Dad. Mum. Things are bad at home.’

Her father’s gaze was unforgiving.

‘Max drinks too much. He’s angry all the time.’

Her mother quieted. She stood at the sink, staring out of the window into the winter darkness.

‘He’s horrible to me. He slapped Josh tonight. He’s not good for either of us.’

Her parents remained silent, her mother’s body still as the breathless night. The kitchen clock ticked and paused and ticked again. Disappointment descended on the room.

‘That man was the best thing that ever happened to you. What have you done to him?’ said her father.

‘Done to him? What about what he’s done to me?’

‘I’m going back to bed,’ her father said, dismissing her question with a glare. He shuffled out of the kitchen without looking back at her.

She watched his slight limp, the slant of his shoulders, the way his head hung between them, as though the weight of it was too great for him. She was stuck with her mother in the brightly lit kitchen. Through the window she could see leaves glittering grey with frost in the first light of morning. She shivered. The world was held in a cold pause. A bird began to twitter. Sunrise wasn’t far away.

‘There’s more, Mum,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m pregnant.’

She watched her mother’s body sag against the bench. There was something in the slump of her shoulders she recognised. A weariness she’d seen when she was sixteen and told her mother she was in love with Solomon.

‘Mum . . . ?’ She faltered. ‘I’m sorry about before. I didn’t mean to pry . . . ’

Her words faded into the emptiness between them. Her mother drained her mug and placed it gently on the sink. She still wouldn’t look at her. Jude put her hands to her face and rubbed her eyes.

‘We all make our choice. I made mine a long time ago and it’s none of your business. You’ve made yours tonight. I hope for your children’s sake it’s the right one.’

She turned away from her daughter and left the room. The study door closed with a thunk. She sat listening to the sound of her mother opening her desk. Always so much unsaid. The distance between them was a landscape neither knew how to cross, no matter how much they might want to. Her eyeballs and throat ached. As she sat in the kitchen facing a new future, the silence of winter crept into her bones.

*

It was ten past eight in the morning when the phone rang. Jude hurried her out of the shower.

‘Max is on the phone. He’s upset. Go and talk to him.’

‘No. I can’t.’

‘You must. This is your marriage. Talk to him.’

Looking at her mother she saw there was no point arguing. If she resisted she’d never hear the end of it. It would take a while for her parents to accept that she was serious.

‘We’ll take Josh for a walk. Give you some privacy.’

She dragged on a bathrobe before padding downstairs to the phone. Josh was laughing with his grandfather in the lounge. At least she’d done something right. She’d given him a grandson.

‘Be nice,’ her mother instructed as she hustled her charges out the front door.

Reluctant, she picked up the phone. ‘Hi Max.’

‘Hon? Hon, I’m so sorry.’ His voice broke. ‘You’ve left me, haven’t you?’

She sighed.

‘I’m sorry,’ he choked. ‘I’ve been a prick. I shouldn’t have hit Joshie last night. I’m so sorry. Such an idiot. Don’t leave me.’

‘Jesus, Max.’

‘I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s the booze, hon, it makes me crazy.’

He was weeping now, a whining sound, like a machine going too fast in low gear. But she couldn’t feel sorry for him. Her compassion for him had emptied long ago.

‘Max, I’ve had enough. You do this all the time. You drink, you go crazy, you say and do horrible things, then you want me to forgive you just because you’re sorry. I can’t do it anymore.’ The sound of his sobs infuriated her. He was acting like he was the victim.

‘I know, hon, I know. I don’t want to lose you and Joshie. What will I do?’

‘God, Max, like I care right now! I can’t put up with your shit anymore!’

‘Hon, I’m so sorry. You’re my only chance. I’ll change, I promise.’

‘Yeah, sure you will, Max.’

‘No, I mean it. I will. I don’t want you to leave. I love you. And I’ll love the new baby too. Just wait and see.’

‘I don’t believe you, Max. Why should I?’

‘Because it’s the truth. Because I know I’ve been a shit and I’m sorry. I don’t want a life without you guys in it. I don’t want to be alone.’

She sighed, exasperated. ‘Max, I’ve heard this all before.’

He sniffed. ‘I’m giving up the booze today, as of now. It’s gone. I’ll get help. I’ll do whatever it takes. You tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it. I’ll be there for you and the baby. Please give me another chance.’

Her foot twitched with frustration. She hated it when he begged. He always sounded so genuine. ‘Look, I’m really not up to this right now. I’m tired and I’m fed up. I need some time out. Give me a couple of days. It’ll do us both good to have a break.’

‘Okay.’

‘And don’t call me. I’ll call you when I’m ready.’

‘Hon? I love you. I’ll change, believe me.’

She hung up on him. Her eyes burned. It would be so much easier if he just stayed angry, then she wouldn’t feel so damned guilty. A thick wave of nausea overcame her and she ran to the bathroom to vomit. When the retching had passed she rested her forehead against the cool of the porcelain cistern.