Gallipoli Street (38 page)

‘Well I do know this one,' he said, playing the introduction. Pattie perched herself on the piano, her long legs crossed, and swung her hair over one shoulder in a dramatic pose causing Katie and May to giggle and Mick to whistle and applaud as he and Pete returned to the room. Then she began to sing and the words washed over them as Pattie's sweet voice caressed the tune, enriched by a note of yearning as she forgot to make fun and the words touched her heart.

‘Oh how I need someone to watch over me,' she sang as her eyes found Mick's. His earlier smile was absent, replaced by something else. Veronica realised to her amazement it was longing.

Mick reached up and held her waist as she slipped off the piano, never taking his eyes from hers until Katie giggled once more and the spell was broken.

‘Cake, anyone?' Catherine said smoothly, leading the children out, the adults following, all except Pattie and Mick.

Veronica cast a quick glance their way and felt a pang of memory: the two of them seemed oblivious to everyone else, obviously just waiting for the chance to be alone. She remembered those feelings, long ago, before the war took its hold on her Jack. Closing the door quietly she decided she was not feeling up to facing her family, so she slipped through the side door and went out to the back through the kitchen. She walked along the fence to the nursery paddock as she'd done over thirteen years earlier, on the day of the mass, when she'd stood there with Pattie.

The day Pete was born.

She thought about Pattie's grief and her new happiness and felt a deep sense of gratitude that she could find a second chance at love. And her dear, dear brother. If anyone deserved Pattie it was Mick. Instead of giving in to his own despair he'd dedicated his life to the veterans, bringing hope to everyone else as they watched a fellow cripple defy the tag and its implications. But the laughter had been missing. Veronica could see that Pattie was bringing it back, helping to fill the enormous hole left in Mick after Tom's death. Mick likewise was filling some of the emptiness left in Pattie's heart when Clarkson died. Much like his cousin he was capable, dashing, larger than life, and she realised that Pattie positively glowed under his adoring gaze.

She wondered how long Mick had been in love with her and, looking back, realised he'd written to Pattie more than anyone else in the past few months and, come to think on it, hadn't taken his eyes off her all afternoon. As for Pattie, Veronica mused, it was anyone's guess, although she had been very excited about this party, constantly chatting about it and wearing her new red dress for the occasion. Veronica had just thought she was finally getting sick of greys and blacks after all these years, never guessing there was another reason for it. Especially not a male reason.

She wondered if the laughter would ever come back into her relationship. It was the thing she missed the most, those moments shared when nothing seemed impossible as long as they had each other. Back when there was hope inside her husband.

Lost in her thoughts, she jumped as Iggy spoke nearby.

‘Thinking of adding to your brood, little mother?'

Veronica gave him a look of welcome then shrugged, taking in the new calves suckling on their milk. ‘If only it were that simple. I think we humans have outsmarted ourselves sometimes.'

‘How so?' He came to stand beside her, rolling a cigarette.

‘Oh we get caught up in the complications. Too busy being clever, not enough time spent just existing. I think the cows have it.' She tried to smile but didn't quite manage it.

‘
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man
,' Iggy quoted.

She let out a short laugh at that. ‘Yes perhaps we do imitate the beasts sometimes, though we do a poor job of it.' She turned to face him. ‘Who said that? Shakespeare?'

‘Yes, good old Bill. Had all the answers but still lived a man's life after all.' Iggy glanced at her. ‘He had a son you know, Hamlet, but the poor little mite died. He never recovered, so they say. Too much death…it can make life too hard, even for the most excellent of men.' He paused, lighting his cigarette.

‘And what about you? You've faced too much yet here you are…successful, functioning, happy. How is it you have escaped?'

‘Oh I wouldn't say I have, Vera. We all have our secret sorrows.' He smiled, adding, ‘Except Tom. Now there was a man who seemed to hold all the answers.'

‘Yes, the good die young,' she said. ‘I never thought I'd hear Mick laugh like that again but now…'

‘He seems to have finally worked out that the perfect girl is right under his nose. Blind Freddie saw that one years ago.'

‘How did I not know about it then?' she said. ‘Lord I must have my head in the sand half the time. When did you figure it out?'

‘A man doesn't go through a war with another man without learning a few home truths about him,' he said, dragging on his cigarette. ‘Not too many secrets that you can hide from each other.'

‘Did you hide yours?' she asked, shaking out her hair, which was coming loose in the wind that promised rain, and pinning it back up again.

‘Not very successfully,' he admitted, watching her. ‘Mick knows me well but Jack even better. He knows pretty much everything about me. That I hate sand but I like the sun, that I cried like a baby over my horse, that I was so hungry in the desert I killed and ate a lizard, that I once let a girl dress me up in skirts and a wig so I could win a bet…'

She giggled at that.

‘That I'm in love with his wife.' Veronica felt the air leave her.

‘Always have been,' he said softly. The wind carried the words and she felt them touch her, bringing tears to her eyes in the afternoon light as the storm clouds rumbled towards them. ‘Everything about you,' he continued, seeming unable to stop. ‘The way you are with your family, the kind things you do for other people, for your children…and yet you still find time for the orphanage, for God's sake. What is that? It's torture,' his eyes bored into hers, ‘to love someone who is an angel, because no one can ever compare to her. My wife…my wife was a good woman and we were happy enough for that short time but she deserved more than me because I could never give her everything. Not when so much of me belongs to you.' He moved to stand close.

‘I love you, Vera. Every beautiful inch of you; every part. And I…I want you. I know I can never have you and neither of us could ever do that to Jack, despite what he's done. Besides, I'm just a cripple–'

‘Don't ever say that.'

‘ –and I shouldn't even be telling you: I know that too. But I just need to, before we grow old and it's dead and buried with us, Vera. Just this once. I love you, Veronica. I love you. And although I can never be with you, I just…had to say it.'

He held her face as if to kiss her, then dropped his hands as she shook her head, tears falling.

‘I…I'm not worthy of this. I'm not this perfect person…'

‘Don't. Don't tell me who you think you are,' he whispered. ‘You're an angel to me.' She tore her eyes from his handsome, earnest face and looked down, ashamed to realise she actually wanted to kiss him. What perfect angel thinks such thoughts?

‘Do me one favour?' he pleaded. ‘Bring him back to us. It's bad enough not being able to love you, but it's worse when he's doing such a poor job of it.'

‘Iggy,' she cried out as he limped away and he stopped. ‘I…I love you too. I just can't…love you.'

‘I know.' He didn't turn, his back hunched against the rain that had started to fall as he left.

Veronica turned her face to its lashing, her hot tears mingling with the cool. The cattle called to their calves nearby, and she felt keenly the pain of man.

The sun rose behind a wet and grey world next morning and, parting the curtains, she saw her husband wielding the axe in the rain. She guessed he was venting the shame he felt from the night before, when he had to be half carried home by his father and Mick. What good did it do? She sighed. The shame was never enough to stop him from doing it again.

Lying back down she thought of Iggy, allowing herself to imagine a different ending to last evening. She pictured him taking her to his bed, kissing her, holding her, unleashing years of longing, his talented fingers stroking her body, his face above hers. Yet, try as she might, she couldn't bring herself to stay there, feeling disloyal to Jack to be thinking such things, even though she knew he probably didn't deserve loyalty. She wondered if he was taking women to his bed when he was in town; after all they rarely made love any more, mostly because he was hardly there and then, when he was, because he was too drunk. Or she was too hurt for anything to eventuate. She hated the thought that he might.

Sighing, she gave up on her fantasising and went out to the kitchen where Eileen had set up breakfast before heading back over to Highview to do the same. Soon the children would be up and the house would be filled with chaos until Millie arrived to help her with James while she got the other two off to school. Hopefully Jack would be gone before then. His temper was always frayed when he was nursing a hangover and she didn't want to give him any opportunity to take it out on the children. As it was he'd been threatening military school for Pete with greater regularity these past months and the last thing she wanted was for her son to be separated from her right now.

Pouring the tea, she picked up the local newspaper, reading the headline that Cowpasture Lane was to be renamed. It was to be called Gallipoli Street ‘
in acknowledgement of our brave men, who served with honour. Lest we for
get
'.

Veronica stood and looked out the window, the rain distorting her view of Jack as he swung the axe, then out to the road beyond. She looked at the homes along the lane, the Dwyers, the Murphys, Highview, and thought of the tears shed by the families who lived there. They hardly needed to bother with the name. Tracing the path of the road on the pane with her fingertips, she mused that it was already their address, carved into every family that lived there. Gallipoli marked the beginning of a road they couldn't seem to leave as they struggled along, dragging the memories behind them.

Lest we forget? How about lest we remember? she thought bitterly, for if Jack could only forget, they might stand a chance at happiness.

Jack wielded the axe, splitting the logs with precision, noting to himself that at least he could say he was good with a blade these days. Too good. It felt freeing somehow to do something physical rather than sit inside his head as he usually did, worrying that he'd get stuck in the room in there where the dark thoughts plagued him. He wished with all his soul that the room could be blown away and his mind cleared of it forever, but the door continually creaked open and he battled with two choices as to how to close it: fix it shut or block it out. Fixing it required facing what was in there, which he couldn't seem to do, so he blocked it out with work, socialising, his family, even manual labour like now. Inevitably, though, it would require the bottle to lock the doors back in place.

He had become its slave, trapped in a cycle he could not break, and all because the room held a terrible secret he could not share: he was a killer, a beast, a machine designed to end life. Dozens of men were dead at his hands, hands that were now asked to hold babies and sign cheques, drive a handsome car, make the sign of the cross at mass and hold a pretty wife. But they were killer's hands.

People applauded him, threw streamers on Anzac Day and cheered. Captain Jack Murphy, the hero. Glorified remnants lay under the bed in a box, decorations of war; medals from battle and his Captain stripes placed inside the old tin with the bullet dent that saved his life. Often Jack took out that box, laying out the contents that were wrapped in a commemorative silk scarf the Australians had each been given by King George. Trinkets of death, representations of bravery that only caused him shame and self-disgust. Blood traced into the fibres of each one.