In the morning the rain had stopped, sunlight fell across the kitchen, fell into my lap where I sat at the table reading the form for Geelong, eating anchovy toast, drinking tea out of a bone-china cup. The cup and saucer were the survivors of twelve my wife Isabel and I had bought at an auction. Cup rising to the mouth, it occurred to me that this was the first time I’d used it since Linda became a feature in my life. After the bomb wrecked my floor of the old boot factory in North Fitzroy, I’d salvaged what I could, including the china cup and saucer, and moved to the stables. I’ll go back when the place is rebuilt, I kept telling myself.
But when the time came, Linda found good reasons why I should postpone moving back.
One morning, while considering the limitations of my wardrobe, I said, ‘It’s my home. It’s fixed. I want to go home.’
Linda was in the bathroom, brushing her teeth. I heard her rinse, swill the mouthwash. She came to the door, no makeup, handsome. ‘For me, Jack,’ she said, ‘it’s Isabel’s home.’
I compromised. An agent found a tenant on a six-month lease.
Was that why I hadn’t used the china cup? What did using it today signal?
Questions too deep. Questions too meaningless was more like it.
I thought about the big man in the car. Dave. The cocooning comfort of the car, the sounds of the city night around us, muted, the leaves blowing across the streetlight, falling onto the bonnet. Secret operations betrayed, all-powerful drug money, his knowingness. Convincing. This morning, sunlight in my lap as comforting as a warm cat, it had an unreal quality. What made him think I could find Gary? What more could Des tell me?
The phone rang. A tremor of trepidation.
‘Jack?’
Rosa. Relief.
‘About time you answered your phone,’ she said. ‘I’m here to tell you, just when I thought it was all over for me, this hunk, this absolute babe, has come into my life.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Bit early for this kind of conversation. How can a man be a babe?’
Long, languid sigh. ‘Where are you, Jack? Marooned in the seventies. You should mix with younger people.’
‘Tried that. Hasn’t done me much good. How old is this babe?’
‘Ah. The ear-kissing. I saw her on Rod Pringle’s television show the other night. Radiant. Very striking.’
‘How old is this babe?’
‘Jack, what does it matter? Two people resonate, that’s all that counts.’
‘Resonate? The point about resonance is lack of contact. How old?’
‘Hmm. Thirtyish. Going on.’
‘Little more precision, please. How old?’
‘God, you’re a bore. Twenty-four. Thereabouts. Very mature.’
‘At least one mature person in a relationship is a good idea. What does he do?’
‘He’s a sommelier. At Maquis in South Yarra. He’s so knowledgable about wine, he’s a wine authority, he…’
‘A wine waiter. Three-week TAFE course. You’re having it off with a wine waiter and you’re giving him about sixteen years claim. How do you manage to get these things so absolutely right?’
‘Fourteen. No soul. Not an ounce of poetry in your body. Many, many relationships of this kind are wildly successful.’ Pause. ‘Wildly. Wildly.’
‘Wildly? Who said that? Elizabeth Taylor? Zsa Zsa Gabor? Catherine the Great?’
‘Jack, why would Lucy feel guilty about Dad’s death?’
Changes of subject by Rosa were standard but this one caught me flatfooted.
‘What? How do you know she felt guilty?’
‘She says so. In her diary. I’ve got all her diaries and letters in a big box and sometimes when I’m in a good mood I read bits. I’ve just been reading the new diary she started after I was born.’
‘Diaries?’ I looked at the digital clock on the microwave. ‘Eight-twenty a.m. I thought you didn’t wake up before noon? Medication problem, is it? You can tell me.’
Light laugh. ‘Up for hours, walking on the beach, reading. Listen, I’ve got it here, she says, “Sunny afternoon. Dad drove me to the cemetery. I was quite composed while I was at Bill’s grave, but on the way back it was suddenly too much for me. Dad pretended not to notice the tears. What haunts me night and day is that I could have saved my darling. I will carry that to my grave.’’’
‘Just emotional,’ I said. ‘People get like that. Blame themselves for anything. He was in a fight.’
‘A fight? I thought he was attacked. She always talked as if he was attacked.’
‘He was in a fight outside a pub. Grandpa told me that. Many times.’
Sitting alone, sun on my legs, teacup in my hand, my father lost, unknown to me, no memory of a touch, my mother always keeping me at a distance, my first wife just packing up and leaving, my second wife murdered by one of my clients, none of that obscured the memory of my grandfather’s quiet voice, grating voice, each word a rake of gravel. I could see his eyes moving over my face, an examination, a search for evidence of something, brief rest on my hair, my forehead, a look into my eyes, examination of my nose, my mouth. Sitting in a captain’s chair in the sun, all the years gone, I could see that mouth, my grandfather’s mouth, mean, bloodless, disapproving mouth.
And I could hear him. He never called me Jack.
Irresponsibility. It can be in the blood, John. Your father’s blood. In you. You always need to guard against it. Bar fighter your father, labourer and bar fighter. That’s how he died. Fighting outside a hotel.
Rosa said, ‘Why would she blame herself…?’
I didn’t want to talk about it. ‘No idea. Lovely chat, apres wine appreciation, apres brief sleep, beach walk, diary reading, whatever. Unfortunately you find me at the beginning of a working day. I’ll have to say goodbye.’
Silence. ‘You resent happiness in others, don’t you, Jack?’ said Rosa. ‘Well, that’s perfectly understandable.’
I felt a coldness in my heart and I said, flippant voice, ‘It’s always nice to have one’s frailties understood and forgiven.’
She felt the coldness, it passed to her across the wire.
‘Jack, I didn’t mean that, Jack, listen, I meant…’
I said, ‘I’ve got to go. Miles to go. Promises to keep. Woods lovely dark and deep. Don’t accept any en primeur offers.’
‘En what?’
‘You pay now and get the wine later.’
‘I’m not sure brothers are worth the trouble,’ she said, a tremble in her voice. ‘They don’t seem to have any utility value.’
‘Except to tell you that they love you,’ I said.
I had never said that to her before. It had never crossed my mind to say it. Any more than it had occurred to me to be the one to offer the kiss on meeting or parting.
A long silence. ‘Is that so?’ she said, stronger voice now. ‘Well, perhaps they have some limited use.’