Season of Hate (10 page)

Our Christmas school holidays only had a few weeks to run. Since our arrival in town, Con's Chicken and Hamburger Takeaway opened, construction had begun on a second bank and a small block of four flats – the first in town. A motel was in the early planning stages as well. It caused a lot of interest, because it was going to have a swimming pool – another first for the town.

More often then before, Doug and Barry would take off by themselves. They'd either go to Barry's and play board games or scale the rocky outcrops that lined part of the creek, three miles upstream. Every now and then I'd join them, with either Snotty or Raymond, but mostly I preferred to stay around the house reading or playing school teacher. Dad had let me use the fibro walls of the shed as a blackboard, provided I cleaned off the chalk each day. Honey sometimes would act as my class of pupils, happily agreeing to stay put on the old fruit crate I had placed at the front of my class in the sun. She'd curl up and sleep for several hours at a time.

Around lunchtime one particular day, I had run out of things to teach a sleeping dog and was just carrying Honey back home when along the road came one of the two town taxis. It stopped in a cloud of red dust right outside our gate. A slim lady in a white dress with big red roses printed over it, got out and went up our front steps. She wore a white turned-down brim straw hat obscuring her face, with matching white handbag, shoes and gloves. As the taxi turned and headed back to town, I could see Dad's car coming down the road with Susan inside. Most days they'd both come home for lunch.

I dumped Honey quickly on her verandah and raced back to the side of the road and waited for them. Nan had already answered the lady's knock at the door by that time and was having a heated exchange. Doug got out of the back seat. Dad had picked him up while he was walking home for lunch. Susan alighted from the front passenger seat and headed for her house. Carrying a patient's payment of a dead rabbit on some string Dad, followed by Doug and me, walked up the front steps. Across the road, Susan lingered on her verandah, looking over from time to time before going inside.

"Harry, there's someone here to see you," Nan announced with a twist of lemon in her voice. The lady turned and faced us. Nan, all five foot nothing of her, stood behind her, barring the doorway with her hips almost touching its sides. Her arms were folded resolutely in front of her.

"Hello Harry," the woman said in a husky tone.

"Claire!" Dad looked surprised but pleased, as he reached behind her and handed Nan the rabbit.

"Boys, do you know who this is?" Dad smiled. We shook our heads. I noticed Nan heading back inside muttering to herself. The lady leaned her head forward as she unfastened a hatpin. Her light brown hair fell to her shoulders in soft curls as she removed the hat. Though beautiful, she appeared very pale and tired.

"This is your mother." Dad and she looked at each other as she proceeded to remove her gloves and awkwardly shake our hands. Her fingernails were long and matched the bright red of her lips and the roses on her dress. Both Doug and I were wide-mouthed, speechless. My only memory of her had faded to a featureless shadow in a doorway. Dad tried to kiss her cheek, but she shied away. Doug and I looked at each other. We were owed an explanation.

"It's good to see you, Claire."

"Likewise," she replied with a nervous self-consciousness. "I can't stay long."

"Please come inside."

"I think under the circumstances it might be best …" She indicated Nan now hovering inside near the front door.

"Please have a seat," Dad offered as he went inside to talk to Nan. We sat down opposite her on the cane furniture.

"Well boys, it's good to see you looking so well."

Nan's raised voice could be heard over Dad's whispers.

"I won't have that woman in my house."

"Keep your voice …"

"I won't shoosh! You tell me what sort of mother walks away from a marriage when there's kids involved. And the sooner you stop carryin' a torch … I don't care whether she hears me or not. What she want anyway? Turnin' up here like a bad penny after all these years. Why she's nothing more than a tramp."

"Now that's enough!" Dad exploded. We could see Nan's words had registered heavily with Mother. She fidgeted with the red bangles on her left arm, distracted by the commotion inside. Dad came back out and took a seat beside her.

"I think it best we have our sandwiches out here."

Doug couldn't hold in his thoughts any longer.

"You told us she was dead. You lied!" he spat out. It could have been me stating the very same.

"No son, I didn't lie. I never said your mother was dead. I said something like 'your mother's no longer living with us'. Not dead. I'm sorry if I ... All this time you thought ... Oh fellas, I'm so sorry. I was trying to explain as best I could to two three year olds what had happened between your mum and me. I should have put it better. I'm sorry."

"Look I don't want to stir up any trouble, Harry. I just came back to …"

"You came back," Dad smiled. "That's a start." She looked away and took a packet of 'Craven A' cigarettes from her handbag and lit one nervously as Dad disappeared inside again. We all just sat there with nothing much to say, Doug and I staring at her face through puffs of smoke. I felt awkward sitting there. This was our mother, but we didn't know her at all.

"You're very pretty," Doug ventured. My thoughts exactly.

"Why thank you," she smiled coquettishly with a tilt of her head. "But time and the weather are a woman's worse enemies. So tell me, how are you doing at school?" she faltered, looking around while trying to make small talk.

"I topped the class in spelling and arithmetic," Doug boasted. I looked at him but said nothing to destroy his lie. She gave him a dimpled half smile.

"That's excellent. And you, Pat?"

"I topped it in writing and social studies." I hadn't but wasn't about to let Doug get away completely with big-noting himself, without adding my own fabrication. But as I finished speaking, a smirk came over Doug's face. She saw it too.

"Oh I see. I don't know whether I'm talking to two geniuses or a couple of wise guys," she smiled. And we smiled back. We couldn't think of anything else to say so we just sat there looking at her as she puffed on her cigarette. To us she was strange and exotic, like some star in a Hollywood picture.

After a while Dad returned with a tray of mixed quartered sandwiches and four glasses of cordial. The three of us ate in awkward silence but she didn't even take a bite. Dad was the first to speak.

"You're looking well."

"You've done a great job with the boys."

"We've plenty of room if you'd like to stay."

"With her? Thanks, but I'm booked in at the Exchange. I'm leaving on the morning train."

"Tomorrow?"

Dad looked confused and she very uncomfortable, moving about in her seat as she stubbed out her cigarette on her plate before lighting another straight away. Nan would have been furious if she saw what she just did to her good plate. Doug noted it as well. Dad suggested Doug and I go inside so they could talk.

"I hope you will stay. Pat and I would like it if you would," Doug said as we got up.

Once inside, we got as close as possible to the window to hear what was being discussed, while remaining out of sight. Nan was already standing there. She didn't say a word, just put a finger to her lips and let us stand there with her, listening.

"Harry, the reason I came …"

"You're still as beautiful as …"

"Harry please. Just listen. I'm not coming back. Neither of us could make it work. And we both tried." There was a moment where neither of them spoke. I looked at Doug. We both felt an empty sort of … sadness, I guess. It would have been nice if she had said 'yes' and stayed, I thought.

"Things'll be different, I promise." There was an anxious plea in his voice.

"I could never be the wife you need or deserve. And I'd die out here."

"You'll never know, unless you give it a try. Please."

"I did that, remember? The old bag's right about one thing, you can't keep carrying a torch." Nan bristled, narrowing her eyes and setting her jaw.

"The boys need a mother," Dad argued.

"I've met someone." It went quiet again for a second.

"Who?"

"Richard. You don't know him. He owns the pub I work at. He loves me and wants to marry me." We were waiting for Dad to speak, but only she continued. "I only came because I didn't just want to post them without explanation. I've got these papers I need you to sign and lodge. I've also written out the details about the – well, you've got sufficient grounds. It's all in there. I'm not after anything from you. I'm sorry. I know you're strict Catholic, but a divorce is the only way for both of us to move on with our …"

"Divorce?" Dad sounded stunned. "Claire, I still love you. We can make …"

"And I loved you – once."

"What about the boys? You can't just waltz back into their lives, then – Claire, they need you in their lives." There was another pause. "So, if I sign and whatever, can they at least visit you from time to time, say school holidays?" There was another silence.

"Richard doesn't know about them. He thinks I'm single. He doesn't want kids. If he knew I had kids, I'd lose him. And I need
someone
. Someone who'll stay." Her voice trailed off.

I felt like I was going to blubber as I glanced over at Doug. He had a stony look on his face. Nan looked down at us and placing her hand on my shoulder, whispered very gently to us.

"You boys go and play in your room for a bit." We both walked slowly with our heads bowed to our room.

An hour or so later, Dad appeared at the door. We were both just lying on our beds gazing out the window through the branches of the jacaranda to the drained summer sky.

Dad began awkwardly.

"Your mother said she was sorry, but she had to go. I drove her into town."

"We heard. She doesn't want us," Doug mumbled, barely holding in his emotions.

"It's not that she doesn't love you, it's just that – well, your mother has got her own life, and..." We both just looked at him. No words could cover the fact she didn't want us. "Look, she left this for you both," he said, trying to give excitement to the words.

We watched as he searched through his wallet to find two five pound notes. Our mother had never sent us as much as a card on our birthday and now she wanted to give us each five pounds? The three of us knew she hadn't. Neither of us would take the money he was holding out. Doug rolled away on his side.

"What does divorce mean?" I asked. Dad paused in thought.

"Well, that's where um two people decide not to be married any more."

"I wish she
was
dead," Doug muttered as I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up. All I could do was look at the floor.

"You don't mean that, son."

"I do."

"Then that saddens me a great deal." Dad put the notes back in his wallet before quietly leaving the room and heading back to the surgery with Susan.

"I'm never gettin' married and never havin' kids. Never," Doug later proclaimed to me.

As tired as we were from the whole events of the day, we found it hard to get to sleep that night. Laying with our hands behind our heads we both just stared up at the dark ceiling.

"Doug, you awake?"

"Yep."

"You want to get in with me?" He didn't answer. "Can I get in with you?"

"No."

"Okay."

But it wasn't. And although we were best of mates and still did things together, that part of our lives Doug had outgrown before me. It made me unhappy for a long while, because I wanted everything to stay the way it was between us.

Around the same time, I started to get more involved with schooling and achieving better marks that put me only five desks away from assisting at Benediction. Doug, on the other hand, was always a day late and a penny short when it came to school work. He much preferred kicking a football around with mates rather than concentrating on lessons or doing extra work to better his grades. As a consequence, he stayed in the lower quarter of the class, and getting further and further away from me.

"Are ya mad at me or somethin'?" I asked once. "Ya never want to mess 'round any more."

"I'd muck 'round with ya, but most the time you've got ya nose stuck in some book." He was right. We were different and neither about to change – we couldn't. It marked the beginning of our independence from each other and the development of our own individual personalities – but we still remained close, just in a different way from before.