Legacy (5 page)

8

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

The front desk is deserted. No Carol Turner. Pity. She's funny, larger than life, predisposed to wearing large, bright flowers on her black clothes, always has lots of gossip to share.

I realise it's about lunch time and I should have rung Dad to make sure he would be here. But since I have driven over I decide I should at least check if he's in his office before I head off. His car was in his parking space. No harm in trying.

I walk down the long corridor, again stopping quickly to look at the poster of Patricia Tyndale - ‘We fought hard for our rights. It's your responsibility to exercise them.' Love it. She looks so defiant. So ‘Don't mess with me.' And she's the only person other than Nan who stands up to Dad. I've seen it in meetings when Dad is in full swing, thundering, ‘And we are not having these people come down here and tell us

what to do.' Patricia will sit quietly and then, when he takes a breath of air, say, ‘Have you finished, Tony? Yes? Good. You've had your say, now sit down and let the others have a go.'

Nan isn't aggressive like that but she is deaf and will get Dad on the phone and be raging at him about something and he can't get a word in edgeways because she can't hear him. Classic.

I get closer to Dad's office. The door is ajar and I can hear voices coming from within. I open the door slowly, too quietly for it to be heard. I see my father standing face to face with Rachel, the young Aboriginal lawyer, his hand up her shirt, resting on her breast. I can see where the fabric bulges from the shape of his fingers.

‘Bastard,' I say and he turns to look at me. He is frozen with shock. He does not even move his hand.

‘You are such a bastard.' And I give Rachel a withering glare for good measure.

I turn and march back down the hallway out into the fresh air.

9

I am so furious I'm shaking. I can't go home because Mum will know that something is up. I can't hide my moods from her and I certainly don't want to tell her what I saw.

I drive over to Tanya's. As she opens the door I brush past her. ‘I knew it. I knew it. He's a fucking bastard.' Tanya looks at me, puzzled, ‘Who? Jamie?'

‘No, not Jamie,' I stare at her, perplexed. And I see a fleeting look across her face but I am too determined to continue with my rage so I let it go. ‘My fucking bastard father. He just can't keep it in his pants. I knew he was up to something. Though I guess that was a pretty safe bet.'

When I turn towards the kitchen I see that Tanya is not alone. Her father, Arthur, is there.

‘Oh, Uncle Arthur! Hi! Sorry for the mouth.' I walk over and give him a hug.

He smiles at me, ‘Oh, I've heard worse at Land Council meetings.'

I grin back.

I've heard the story many times, of how Dad and Uncle Arthur, who had known each other all their lives, had left the old mission together, hitchhiking, sleeping by the road, until they arrived in Canberra. Uncle Arthur was a man of few words but reliable, kind. His quiet decency seemed to have always been eclipsed by Dad's raucous charisma, his flashiness.

‘Don't judge your dad too harsh,' is all he says and I put it down to his loyalty to Dad. ‘Anyway,' he adds, ‘I was just heading off.'

‘Oh, don't go. I won't say anything more about Dad.'

‘No. I was going anyway. And you two seem to have lots to talk about,' he says with a smile. He might not have Dad's charisma but I have always loved Uncle Arthur. Many times when Dad was pissing me off I would wonder what it would be like to have Uncle Arthur as my father instead.

He seems slightly frail when he stands and he walks slow. He sees me notice. ‘Those old football injuries seem to be reminding me they are there now.' He stops a moment and then adds, ‘Tell me, how's your mother?'

‘She's good. She's started a new literacy program and she is really proud of it.'

‘Your mother always had a good heart,' he says. And I am sure that I see a look sweep across his face, too quick for me to decipher it, and as I look more closely, it evaporates into the air between us. ‘And don't be too hard on your father, my girl.'

I love how he calls me ‘my girl'.

As Uncle Arthur closes the door behind him I turn to Tanya. ‘I love your dad. I didn't mean to scare him off.'

‘Well, you'd scare anyone when you are in this kind of mood. But he was leaving anyway.'

‘I'm ready for a cocktail.'

‘It's only two thirty,' Tanya replies.

‘I've already had a four martini day. And besides, it's midnight in Boston so it's a very respectable time for my body clock to start ingesting alcohol.'

‘Let's ring around the girls for a cocktail tonight but right now I'm going to make us some nice, nonalcoholic coffee with this espresso machine I don't really know how to work and we can have a chat.' When she has managed to make the coffee I explain to Tanya what I have seen.

‘Hmmm,' she concludes. ‘It's pretty hard to figure out how that was innocent unless he was giving her a breast examination.'

‘How can he do that to my mother?'

‘He is who he is.'

‘But that's just the thing. No one knows what he is like. All my life I have had to listen to what a hero he is. How he talks about the rights of the oppressed, gives them a voice. Do you know how sick I am of people telling me how wonderful he is?'

‘Almost as sick as we are of hearing about Jamie?'

‘What's that supposed to mean?' I am indignant, furious.

‘Nothing, nothing. It was a joke. A not-very-funny one.'

I start getting agitated with Tanya but it turns out that I am the only one in the mood for a fight.

‘I'll go get another coffee,' she says and our potential argument dissolves.

‘What was the other woman like?' Tanya yells from the kitchen.

‘About our age. Maybe a few years younger. But she looked smarter than to sleep with my father. It sort of seems like sleeping your way to the middle if you ask me.'

‘Come on, I told you he was attractive to women.'

‘Well, I don't want to be reminded of that. And seriously, he ought to know better. And he doesn't have to act on it.'

10

‘I can't sleep,' Patricia said, when Arthur Randall answered the phone.

‘How did you know I wasn't in bed?'

‘I didn't think you'd mind me waking you up if you were.'

‘That's very presumptuous of you,' he laughed.

‘It's my way,' she replied wryly.

‘That's the truth.' There was a pause before Arthur prompted, ‘What's up?'

‘You know, the usual. Too much on my mind. Were you in bed?'

‘No. Was just about to head off though. Was thinking about my girls.'

‘How are they?'

‘Apart from being the lights of my life? Good. Teresa seems to be enjoying her new job. She's settled down. Tanya has me worried. She just broke up with that fellow she was living with.'

‘I never liked him much.'

‘I bet I liked him less than you did.'

Patricia laughed. ‘You have me there. How's she coping?'

‘She has her moments. I went to see her today. Tony's girl came in while I was there.'

‘Simone?'

‘Yes. She was in worse shape than Tanya,' Arthur said with a laugh. ‘I suppose it's not funny but it sounded as though she caught her father in a compromising position.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, I didn't stay for the details but she said something about her father not being able to keep it in his pants.'

Patricia laughed. ‘So that's what the young people call it these days.'

‘I guess so. Just what we called it in ours.'

‘Actually,' Patricia said more seriously, ‘it would be hard for a daughter to see her father in a “compromising position”.'

‘I know. I told you it's not funny.'

‘It would be less funny if Beth Ann knew.'

Arthur was silent.

‘Sorry,' Patricia said and quickly changed the subject. ‘Hey. Thanks for being there.'

‘Anything for you. And you were always there for me when Sarah died.'

‘They were tough times.'

‘I still sleep on my side of the bed. Even after all these years, it doesn't feel right to take up the whole bed.'

‘You always were a softie. In a good way.'

‘Well, maybe. But the good guys always finish last.'

‘That's such a cliche,' Patricia scoffed dismissively.

‘It's a cliche because it's true.'

‘Well, I'm getting tired now. Think I might be able to get some sleep at last.'

11

Tony sat in the kitchen making small talk with Beth Ann as she cleared the breakfast dishes. She told him last night that Simone had called to say that she was staying at Tanya's. He'd been watching his wife closely, gauging her answers to see if she knew but he was certain now that Simone hadn't revealed anything to her mother about their encounter yesterday.

He'd been relieved. He needed time to concoct a story. He couldn't explain himself to Simone if she had confronted him straight away and he certainly couldn't say she was mistaken about what she had seen. Simone would be more aggressive if he told her she was wrong. When he added in Patricia Tyndale and Carole Turner, he had a lot of strong-willed, opinionated women in his life but he would rank Simone second only to his mother in levels of complexity.

He looked across the kitchen. Beth Ann's back was to him as she washed the dishes. Her body was in better shape now than it had been when he married her. She'd been doing yoga three times a week and her body was muscled and toned. Even now, with slightly more weight, with wrinkles creeping on her forehead and around her eyes, streaks of grey through her blonde hair, she looked so much like the woman she had been when he had first met her in Canberra back in 1972.

There had been hundreds, and on the weekend, thousands, of people at the Tent Embassy but when he spotted Beth Ann among the throng he knew immediately she was the one for him. Her blonde hair, her soft face - like an angel's, he had thought - and her gentle, tender heart. He had felt then and there that if she would have him, if he could make her his, he would be able to become the man that he wanted to be - strong, looked up to, respected. Back then he had been desperate for her, had persisted.

As Beth Ann busied herself with the drying, he thought of Rachel. She had begun working as a lawyer at the Legal Service in July and he had started sleeping with her two months ago after a lunch - that had stretched from day to evening - at a harbourside restaurant to celebrate her first successful appeal. He had just given her a necklace to mark the anniversary when Simone had walked in on them.

Now, even after twenty-nine years of marriage to Beth Ann, he still could not keep his instincts for searching out other women in check. There was a time, when they were first married, when he could not have imagined wanting anyone else, or any other woman being able to match her. Yet, just after Simone was born, he found himself tempted and the first time he actually gave in was the hardest. Since then he justified his trysts with a ‘what she doesn't know, won't hurt her' philosophy. He did feel guilty and each time swore - and genuinely believed - that it would never happen again. In these quiet moments of domesticity, when Beth Ann was engaged in those small tasks of looking after him, he felt the deep shame of his actions.

Beth Ann turned around to face him, as if she had sensed his thoughts.

‘Are you home for dinner tonight?' she asked, looking at the tea towel she was folding in her hands.

Tony lowered his eyes, glanced at the now folded tea towel. ‘I don't know yet, love. I told Geoff that I would drop around to the Land Council after work to go over a few things with him, sort some stuff out. I'll let you know.'

The lies slipped from him with the ease of practice.

‘Okay. Well, do let me know.' Beth turned to hang the tea towel on the handle of the oven. The kitchen was spotless. ‘You'd better get to work.'

*

Beth Ann waited until she heard the front door click and was sure that Tony was out of the house before she left her chores and sat down at the kitchen table. She could always tell. It was his attention to small detail, ensuring he had covered his tracks. His small displays of affection and attention could not mask his guilt and remorse. Yes. She could always tell.

Beth Ann knew she'd always been the kind of person that others overlooked or underestimated. Maybe it was her slight frame, her fair blonde looks, her ‘niceness'. She looked more fragile than she really was. People tended to tiptoe around her if they noticed her at all whereas Tony had such a ‘huge personality' he could capture the attention of the whole room. No wonder she had paled in comparison, been eclipsed by his light.

Being so often left alone Beth Ann had plenty of opportunity to observe other people - she noticed their body language, where their gaze travelled, the inflections or intonations of their voice. She looked for the nuanced glances and the underplayed exchanges that gave away so much more than they were supposed to.

She knew – from the way he couldn't look her in the eye when he was lying, his evasiveness yet overattentiveness - that Tony had always kept secrets from her and she had always suspected what they were.

She'd seen the first proof of his infidelity a long time ago, about twenty years now. One morning, after sending Tony off to work, just as she was leaving for her day of volunteering at the prison, the school had rung to say that Simone had fallen from the swing in the playground and had been taken to hospital to check for a suspected broken wrist. In a panic she had rung Tony at work, blurting out, ‘Tony Harlowe, please. It's an emergency.'

‘I'm sorry. He's off on holidays for two days. I don't know how to get in touch with him but I can leave a message for when he gets back on Friday. Or can someone else help you?'

Beth Ann pictured Tony leaving that morning, his chatter about a busy day at the office, of the meetings that would fill his time. He'd told her he'd see her that night since she could never ring from the prison. She hung up without revealing who she was and, in a daze, made her way to the hospital to take care of Simone.

That evening, Tony came home as though he had just come from work.

‘How was your day?' she'd asked as he walked into the kitchen, dropping his briefcase on a chair.

‘Busy as usual. Having trouble with the housing office again and that new assistant I have is hopeless …' And he continued with the details of an imaginary day as Beth Ann marvelled at the ease of his lies. Finally he asked, ‘Where's Simone?'

‘In her room. She had a fall today at school.'

‘Is she all right?' he asked, clearly panicked.

‘It's nothing serious but I think she's enjoying all the attention,' Beth Ann answered, a slight chill in her voice, observing that he hadn't asked ‘Why didn't you call me?' or ‘Why didn't you let me know?'

The next day he prepared for work, put his lunch in his briefcase and said he was heading to the office. ‘I'll be in meetings all day and too busy to catch. Best not to call but I'll see you at home tonight.'

He kissed her on the cheek, oblivious of how unresponsive she was.

She didn't confront him. As humiliated as she felt, Beth Ann kept silent. For many reasons. She knew how Tony would deny it, she knew how he would fight when he was trapped. He would get angry, indignant. And she didn't want to hear the layers of lies upon lies.

She'd never known how to argue with Tony and his denial would be a dismissal of everything she felt. He was so good with words, could dazzle people with his eloquence. She had no such skill. Tony advocated on behalf of his people; she couldn't even stand up for herself.

And, strangely, while it was left unsaid, unconfirmed, it somehow made her situation feel less real. She was deluding herself, she knew. So even though the hurt ate at her, she kept quiet. And she stayed - in the marriage, in their home. Even though her life felt less precious; even though she felt more worn, shabbier.

And on each occasion after that where she suspected, could smell, the infidelity - when there was elusiveness and secretiveness - she was crushed all over again, the wounds reopened. But still she chose to say nothing.

Over the years she had developed her own mechanisms for coping with Tony's unfaithfulness. She thought of Simone, what leaving the marriage, breaking up the family would do to her. Beth Ann would brutally evaluate her own behaviour. Had she been unattentive? Could she be more supportive? And through this self-reflection she would process her anger, suppress her grief, her shame and her distrust.

She wasn't the kind of person to go to a counsellor but she would do yoga or aerobics or pilates - some kind of activity that would give her time to reflect. She would think about all the good times she had with Tony. She would think about his good qualities – he was dependable, strong, made her laugh; he did love her. She would think about how much she had invested in him and their life together. She would think about what her life would be like without him, how difficult it might be with her lack of education and lack of skills to make a living to support Simone and herself. Tony would never be easy about a divorce that he didn't want. He could – and would – make life very difficult for her. And in the end, after weighing her desire to leave against the reasons to stay she would determine that her best option was to forgive Tony and persevere.

She did have moments when she raged. The anger would boil up inside her and she would let it go by throwing a cup or screaming out loud. She once even smashed her hand against the wall. Always when no one was watching. She was unanchored by the way her unyielding support, her unwavering belief in him, was still not enough to keep him faithful to her. But always closely tied up in her decision to stay was the admission to herself that somewhere underneath it all she still loved Tony. This was her life with him, for better or worse, and she had long ago resigned herself to it.

The one thing Beth Ann had always carefully done was to keep what she knew about her husband secret from her daughter. A part of her wanted to tell Simone, to let her see the man her father was but this was a fleeting, vengeful thought. She would never want to turn Simone against the father she loved so much. Whenever she spied them in the kitchen together, talking over politics and history, economics and law, she would feel deep affection for them both. Those moments when he was tender with Simone, she had loved Tony the most. Whatever his failings as a husband, he had few as a father.

Beth Ann made a cup of tea and opened the paper to the personal ads. Reading them had become part of her daily routine, not because she was interested in finding someone but because Tony would always take the front part of the paper and she would be left with little to read other than the sport, business section, crossword, comics and classifieds (which included the personals section). She got into the habit of reading the ads, a guilty pleasure, finding them pitiable in their desperation but strangely spirited in their optimism.

How brave some people are, she thought, to actually put themselves out in the public, to advertise themselves, like shampoo or luxury cars:

Woman professional, university educated. Bored by the earnest young men surrounding her. Back to square one in this Snakes and Ladders game of love. Bruised but still attractive.

Some she found funny, revealing the shortcomings that perhaps explained why the person placing the ad was so lonely.

Athletic male professional (doctor), not quite 30, seeks beautiful (preferably blonde) girlfriend. My luxury home, fast car and incredible personality await. Needs to have the qualities of a good wife and the proclivities of a whore. Women with flat chests and flat shoes needn't reply.

And often, Beth Ann reflected on how her own might read.

Woman worn dull with neglect seeks escape so she no longer feels insignificant.

It had been a long time since she had felt any optimism about love. To find the last time it had swept over her she would have to go back decades, back to the time when she had first met Tony.

How young she'd been then. So fresh, so heady with the freedom of having escaped an unhappy family life, of being caught up in the spirit of change, of being part of something that seemed to really make a difference, part of what felt like history.

She would tell the story of how Tony had courted her, had proposed. She had refused him once, and then refused him again. When he asked her a third time she relented. ‘You won't be sorry,' he told her, holding her tight. ‘I promise I will make you happy.'

But like most stories, there was much more to it than that.

Her father, Patrick Gibson, had married her mother, Virginia, in Stanwell Park on the coast just south of Sydney. He'd been a coal miner and she'd wanted a better life, one that didn't eventuate after she became pregnant with Beth Ann's oldest sister. Beth Ann was their third and youngest child – all girls. Her mother grew more resentful each time a new daughter arrived, as though each child sucked more life out of her. Her father had only wanted a son and pretty much as soon as they were born dismissed his girls as disappointments.

What Beth Ann's parents loved most was alcohol – her mother would become spiteful under its influence; her father, more melancholy, enjoying his wife's unhappiness, finding her misery amusing. These domestic dynamics made for a house that was full of bitterness and emotional cruelty. It was perhaps not surprising that as her sisters became older they sought attention elsewhere. Both were pretty with their blonde hair, blue eyes, sprinkling of freckles and sun-kissed tanned skin. Quintessential golden girls in a beachside town, they were both popular and, with little supervision from their parents, wilful and wild. ‘Those Gibson girls' her sisters were referred to in unflattering tones. Beth Ann was ‘the nice one', ‘the quiet one'.

Beth Ann had always felt uncomfortable with the stern glances from the older women in the town that her sisters would brush off with a flick of their hair. She was not as rebellious as them, was shyer with boys, avoided their company and attention. She would rather find a quiet place to read than sit on the beach and flirt. Over summer while her sisters painted their nails, went to parties and changed boyfriends, she would spend her time at the library and reading aloud to the elderly residents at the local nursing home. She became friends with some of them and her favourite was an old Aboriginal man named Murray Simms.