Homecoming (12 page)

The Battle of Hastings was packed several days ago. It took him the better part of an afternoon to wrap the individual pieces in tissues. The bare board had looked desolate once all the pieces were removed. A battlefield after the mayhem. The dead had been buried and the wounded taken away. The trees were destroyed and the bird life had fled. There was only the imagined sound of a wailing wind and the distant howl of foxes.

He stands for some time in front of the board before carrying it to the ute. Now that it’s going, he feels loss. The game was his last vestige of an uncomplicated youth.

Martin showers and changes. Flannel shirt, jumper and overalls. Woollen socks and boots. Near the door, a small
suitcase is crammed with clothes, a pair of street shoes, medicine and toiletry items. He switches off the power points, checks and tightens the water taps. In the spare room there are two parallel streaks of dust on the table where the Battle had stood. He grabs a rag but then changes his mind about wiping them off.

It’s cold but the sky is cloudless. A frost covers the ground like tangled masses of spider webs. Martin puts the suitcase on the passenger seat and switches on the ignition, allowing the engine to run and warm up. The ute has been fixed and he marvels at Pete’s skills.

Glenda appears at her kitchen window. The binoculars sweep across an empty house. She’s heard the ute, Martin thinks, having already forgotten that he will be away for several days. Perhaps she intended to bake a cherry and almond cake and bring half of it in to him later this afternoon.

Martin replaces the hinges on a gate and straightens the frame. He scrapes surface dirt from the track and sweeps away leaves and stones. The gate swings open smoothly in an arc, without the bottom striking the ground. Nearby Frank digs the last of the holes for the treated pine posts that will be part of the repaired fence. They have driven around the property, stopping to clear areas where the grass was thick and long. The barbed-wire fence around the land is in good condition, needing only slight tightening where it sags.

On his way to Daylesford, Martin had listened to the weather forecast: rain predicted later in the day. This influences their decision to work outside until the weather closes in. Maria is staying in the house to do whatever she can without aggravating the backache that has been bothering her.

They work for nearly two hours without speaking. The silence becomes a shared space for their perturbations to unfold. The uncertainties of a territorial shift are no longer a
prospect that belongs to a future. At different times, both Martin and Frank pause to look around them as though they need to be reminded of a new reality in their lives. There is a confronting starkness about the open countryside. Under the dome of blue, the tracts of land on every side are sparsely dotted with trees and sheep. No streets or traffic in sight. This calmness appeals, but Martin wonders if Frank will miss the cosmopolitan diversity of Melbourne. He feels the ache of ordinariness for his son’s new life. But he knows that the sheer routine of professional life has contributed to Frank’s discontent.

With a grunt of accomplishment Frank finishes digging the last hole. Thoughtfully he looks up at his father. Martin smiles. There will be no more spontaneous meetings at the pub. The comfort of knowing that they’re both in the same city is gone. But Martin was moved when Frank turned to him, this morning, and said with quiet urgency, ‘It’s just over an hour’s drive, Dad—no more time than it takes to get to Melbourne from the outer suburbs.’

But Martin wonders about the emotional distance. Attitudes and priorities and the rhythm of living…

Over breakfast in the cafe on Vincent Street Martin had been enthusiastic about the tranquillity of the landscape coming into Daylesford. As he drove, the early sun had filtered soft light into the morning mist curled around the houses like neatly tied ribbons. Smoke slid from the chimneys. Martin could imagine the unhurried pace of breakfasts. It would be a contrast to the time-saving grab for cereal and toast he experienced on a working day. He could almost smell the smoky aroma of bacon sizzling in cast-iron
frying pans in those country kitchens. Fresh eggs and grilled tomatoes. Thick slices of white bread spread with generous portions of butter. No doctor-induced caution and pangs of guilt. Homemade jam and marmalade. Pots of tea. Delightful, careless, easy-paced living.

Martin straightens his back.

‘Coffee?’ Frank senses that his father is tiring. He drops the shovel between two holes and takes out a thermos flask from his backpack. They sit on a large log by the side of the gate, pleased with what they have achieved so far.

‘Well, what do you think?’

‘Pretty part of the country,’ Martin says laconically.

‘What about the property?’

‘Good buy I reckon.’ Martin surveys the landscape with admiration. ‘And the house doesn’t need as much work as you made out!’

‘There’s quite a few houses for sale around Daylesford.’ Frank looks meaningfully at his father and offers him a biscuit. ‘You know, I can respond to life here instead of reacting to it.’

‘How do you achieve that?’

‘By giving up any idea of the perfect life. I mean, look at this place. Okay, we want to live here. But we won’t have everything our way. There are problems with the house. The money we’ll have will restrict what we can do. But it can only work if there is an acceptance of limitations.’

Martin smiles. If nothing else, Frank is clear about his intentions.

Frank moves past Martin’s silence. ‘Did you know there’s an ashram near here, in a place called Rocklyn?’

‘No.’

‘Maria and I are driving over there this afternoon. Want to come?’

‘Oh…No, I’ll begin painting the rooms.’

Frank isn’t surprised. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.’

‘Sure.’

‘Does it bother you that Maria is Vietnamese?’

‘I thought she was born on the boat in Australian territory.’

Frank looks sharply at his father to see if he is joking. ‘You know what I mean. The way she looks, the colour of her skin—’

‘No,’ Martin interrupts firmly. He feels compelled not to be limited to a monosyllabic reply. ‘It might have once.’

‘Why?’

‘Because there was a time when I couldn’t look at life with, ah, soft eyes.’

‘You sound like a Buddhist.’

‘I can assure you I am not.’

‘Soft eyes?’

‘“Seeing the world in all its breadth and letting it go on its own way without interfering or being judgemental,” Andrew Gribble said to me once.’

‘Can you be sure it’s not indifference?’

‘Acceptance, I hope.’

Frank offers his father more coffee. At no stage in Martin’s marriage to Moira had they walked away from each other in hostility. There were only prolonged periods of silence. In their domestic life they had operated with a
mechanical efficiency always, even in their worst uneasiness about each other. In the end Moira had left, taking Frank and a couple of suitcases. After a fortnight Martin received a letter from Brisbane. Moira was living with her sister, Pam, and her husband. They had employed her in their hardware business. Later she sought a divorce. Martin was scrupulously fair about the settlement and he did not fight for custody. But he’d needed Andrew to help with the depth of his feelings in being separated from Frank’s development. Yet here his son is, looking affectionately at a balding grey-haired man whose commitment to anything is always in battle with a reluctance to involve himself with people.

‘Do you know what Mum said to me once when I asked why the two of you broke up?’

Martin stares into the distance beyond the house. The openness is strangely attractive. Here he could easily lead a frugal life in his own company.

‘She said that you were like a locked room. She couldn’t tell how much or what was stored inside.’

Martin stands up. ‘I might check the roof and replace any broken tiles. That was good coffee.’

He hands the mug to Frank and trudges off towards the house.
A locked room.
He wonders where the key is.

AFTER HE RETURNED
from Vietnam, Martin hurled himself into his job as a carpenter, satisfied with the simplicity of long and uneventful working hours. His father had sold his business at a loss, after suffering two heart attacks, and his
mother had died of leukaemia. Simon was bad-tempered and bitter. His son had returned from a war that was still raging, leaving Australia on the losing side. Some evenings Simon launched into the heroic feats at Gallipoli. ‘The diggers never gave up! Never! Theirs was the true Australian spirit!’ he thundered, glaring at Martin.

‘It’s a different type of war,’ Martin would begin to explain. ‘The moral issues—’

‘Weak!’ Simon whispered fiercely. ‘Weak!’ He rose from his chair and limped to the bedroom.

It was not until Simon’s death that Martin and Moira married. With his sisters married too and living in Western Australia, Moira was all the family he had left.

The day after Frank was born Martin slipped into an unpleasantly flustered state without knowing why. Both Moira and the baby were doing well. He had recently been promoted in the joinery. That night he gave up wondering and went to bed early, after taking a sleeping tablet. Half-awake, he dreamed of one day taking his son to the local playground to kick a football. The entire area was deserted, except for an old woman sitting on a bench with her back towards them. A stray kick and…the footy hit the woman on her shoulder! Frank giggled and Martin went over to apologise. He heard her speak even before he saw her face.
‘The angry eyes of the dragon are rings of white fire…’

Martin woke with a start. Instinctively his hand reached across to touch Moira. He felt the coldness of the sheet on her side of the bed. He rang the hospital. The night nurse assured him that both his wife and child were asleep.

There was no explanation for this feeling of vulnerability.

He spent the rest of the night reading. Occasionally he was distracted by images that burst to the surface of his mind, despite his efforts not to see them. Burning huts.

MARTIN FINDS THE
spare tiles in the shed behind the house. He envies the storage space here and the size of the workbench. On it he has placed the board and the boxes with the pieces of the war game. ‘I’ll clean them all,’ Frank had told him proudly, ‘replace the felt on the board and set it up in the lounge as a showpiece.’

Martin strays away from the shed, stopping to examine what has obviously been a vegetable garden. There are two fenced areas of compost. The ground is furrowed, and a single row of silverbeet is all that’s left. He bends down to touch the soil. Rich and moist. He spies a shovel leaning against the fence.

He yields to a sudden urge to turn the compost over and dig it into the ground. The thought of this work, this enriching of the earth, gives him a peculiar feeling of satisfaction—as though it will be his personal way of atoning for the shrivelled plants, dead trees and scorched land of a different place and time. He wishes that he had some seeds with him. He pictures a garden with cauliflower, broccoli, pumpkin and zucchini. He thinks of his own backyard and the boxed plots of raised earth where his vegetable crops grow, carefully rotated so as not to deplete the soil of its nourishment.

The eagerness of the morning hours has dissipated and the warmth of the sun makes Martin lethargic. He dawdles on
the rooftop, admiring the view as he replaces broken tiles. One last check, then he climbs down the ladder to go inside the house.

Maria is preparing lunch. He stands near the kitchen door, apprehensive about his ability to sustain a conversation. There are questions he can ask, about her parents and her health. About the future and her work. Marriage…No, that’s likely to be a frictional issue! Martin curbs his anxiety. Soon they will be better acquainted.

She greets him warmly. ‘I’ve made quiche. Won’t be long.’ Then she senses his awkwardness and offers him a drink.

Except for several boxes of kitchenware, a large esky, four folding chairs and a card table, the kitchen is bare. Maria has removed the curtains from every room. Now the windows are covered with white sheets. The suitcases have all been shoved into one room. A van will deliver the furniture.

As he sips mineral water Martin notices a copy of
Time
magazine on the table. It is not the face of Bob Kerrey, the former US Navy Lieutenant turned senator, that catches his attention as much as the caption:
Ghosts of Vietnam.
He stands quietly, his eyes locked on the words.

‘You know the barbecue we’re planning?’ Maria peers through the oven door, which is streaked with burnt fat. ‘In a few weeks, when we’ve settled down a bit…would you like to bring Nora?’

Martin scowls. He wonders what Frank has said about Nora. It has never occurred to him to take her out of the hostel, and now he realises that he resents this suggestion coming from a comparative stranger.

‘I…you might know she is incapacitated.’ He pauses, uncertain about how much he should say. ‘Her behaviour can be, ah, unpredictable.’

‘That won’t bother anyone,’ Maria says quietly. ‘It’s only family and a few close friends.’

Martin worries about how Frank will react to this. Has Maria said anything to him? Frank had been angry when he first found out about Nora. The assumption that a single parent was sexually dysfunctional, and that loneliness was an easily surmountable condition, could have prompted Frank’s lengthy period of hostility, Martin had surmised. Perhaps, he thinks humorously now, Frank is among those who believe that anyone over forty and divorced can’t possibly escape genital atrophy and the neutralisation of their passions.

‘It’s not like that,’ Martin had pleaded back then, desperate to defuse the rising tension.

‘Like what?’ Frank had burst out. ‘You created huge problems for Mum! You might as well know that, out of some misplaced sense of past loyalty, she never speaks about whatever happened. But it must have been pretty bad for her—us—to leave. And now this…
arrangement.’

Later Frank had apologised and they never spoke again about Nora, not until after her stroke.

Maria and Martin turn as the front door slams.

‘I’m
hungry,’
Frank calls. He walks in, whistling cheerfully. ‘That was a good morning’s work.’ He notices Martin staring at the magazine’s cover. ‘That’s awful, isn’t it? Have you read the article? Vietnam is like an archaeological dig. The deeper you go, the more you unearth.’

‘You sound Freudian,’ Martin says faintly.

Maria speaks quickly. ‘I asked Martin if he would like to bring Nora to our barbecue.’

Frank glares at her. ‘Oh—yes. Well, sure, if Dad wants to. Do you still see her?’

‘Frank!’ Maria snaps.

‘What?’

‘It’s all right,’ Martin intervenes. ‘Yes, I still see her.’

Lunch eases things. Slowly they relax again, over beer and mineral water, discussing last-minute changes to kitchen renovation plans. Martin refrains from making suggestions but offers to come back and add the finishing touches once the electrician and the plumber have done their jobs.

‘Well, I’ll get started then, painting the lounge,’ he says at last. ‘I might take a break later and go into town.’

Having the house to himself when the others go out is a relief to Martin. He picks up the magazine and wanders through the rooms, checking the cracks on the walls and the ceiling. The lounge room is a faded shade of blue. Impulsively he sits on the beige-coloured carpet in the middle of the room. The emptiness around him is disconcerting. He is aware of the gentle pattern of his breathing. Here he can believe in almost anything. Recovery. Redemption. Even Sebastian.