The Memory Tree (26 page)

After this painful ordeal, Godown staggers out of the police station as though he is drunk. It has been agreed with the news services that the details of the drowning will not be disseminated until Zav can be informed. Meanwhile, there’s Mrs Mac.

Godown stands looking left and right, his large hands opening and closing at his side. He has never felt so unsure, so insecure. How can he possibly tell Eileen? Together they had agreed to do nothing. To wait to see how things developed. And this indecision—the big man corrects himself—this cowardice, this moral failure has had consequences beyond anything they might have imagined.

The sun is setting and the promise of another hot day hangs in the still, dry air. The bitumen looks ready to bubble, its spongy depths reminding Godown of that black hole that Hal had described in the early days of their friendship. They’d shared so much since then and Hal is dearer to him now than his own sister and brothers. Godown has achieved contentment, a sense of belonging, in Hal’s house and in Hal’s company. He remembers his exhausted friend returning home with Zav after the escapade on the mountain. He remembers the night Sealie’s hopes for the ballet were dashed. On these occasions and on many others, he and Hal sat down with a beer. Sometimes they talked quietly. Other times they just kept each other company. And it wasn’t just in times of adversity. They shared a good few laughs, too, and little family jokes. They always referred to Spiros as ‘my husband, the pig’ and Zav’s room as ‘the tip’. Football, too. At first Godown couldn’t understand this strange game, but now he followed Fitzroy as though he’d been born to it and he and Hal were both proud to wear Mrs Mac’s hand-knitted scarves. Zav followed Collingwood. He always managed to be at odds with his father.

Zav
. Standing on the footpath outside the bland suburban police station, Godown becomes aware of a crisis of faith. The religion he has preached all these years, the God he has prayed to, worshipped, is distant and impersonal. No amount of praying had prevented this terrible event. All he had wanted to do was to help Hal through his dark hours and he had failed. He wipes away the tears with a crumpled handkerchief, suddenly aware that a woman is looking at him curiously. She steps forward, as if to speak, then turns away abruptly.

He stumbles down the street and hails a taxi.

‘Where to, mate?’ There’s a patch of sweat on the driver’s blue shirt and the upholstery stinks of stale cigarettes. Godown opens the window. He may vomit at any moment. ‘I said— where to, mate?’ And Godown finds himself giving an address two suburbs away. He isn’t ready to face Eileen McLennon. Not yet.

The journey takes about twenty minutes, and as he pays the driver, Godown wonders what has made him come. He looks at the two-storey terrace with its iron fence and tiny cottage garden. He has never been here before and isn’t sure how he’d remembered the address. He hesitates, then rings the bell. Its chime seems to echo in an empty house, but the door opens even before the sound dies away.

‘Poor dear Pastor, come in,’ says Chloe, and he’s drawn into the cool interior where she indicates a sofa. Sinking into its softness, he closes his eyes. Chloe and Ariadne watch him, their brows furrowed, their faces troubled. With some effort, he opens his eyes and attempts to focus. The two women swim before his vision in their flowing, grey silk dresses. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he says. He is confused and unable to continue for a moment. He has to remember how to move his lips, his tongue, so that he can form the words. The sounds he makes coagulate in the humid air. ‘It’s Hal. He—he drowned little Grace and I don’t know what to do.’

The twins sit beside him, stroke his bowed head. He can feel their pain throbbing through their fingers. Chloe leads them in prayer. They pray for me, for my grandfather, for the strength to face the coming days. Godown is too shattered to form the words, but the twins hold his hands as they pray and he is momentarily calmed.

When his hands are released, he returns reluctantly to the present, to the little room that, he now sees, is crowded with strange objects such as a sailor might collect. He hadn’t noticed them earlier and strangely, wants to stay to look more closely at the shells, pieces of coral, driftwood—and pebbles, smooth as pearls. He wants to handle them, glean their meaning.

‘You must go now, Pastor Moses,’ Chloe says, drawing him towards the door. ‘You have work to do.’ They regard him gravely. ‘We will be here when you need us.’

‘The church,’ he says. ‘I’ll see you at . . .’

‘The church is lost. We’ll be here.’ And they close the door, leaving him alone at the gate. The address he gives to the next taxi driver is Eileen McLennon’s.

Alice answers the door, wiping her hands on a tea towel. ‘It’s Moses,’ she calls over her shoulder. She turns back to Godown. ‘Come on in, Moses. We’re out the back. It’s cooler there.’

Godown follows her down the passage and onto the back verandah. It is overhung with Boston ivy, already showing flashes of red as it clambers over the railings and up the posts. A large liquidambar filters the sun’s last rays through its thick green foliage. Eileen is sitting on the lawn in a deckchair and struggles to her feet as Moses approaches.

‘Sit down, Eileen.’ He glances at Alice, who is going back into the house. ‘Stay, please, Alice—if you don’t mind.’ The two women look at each other in alarm. Something is very wrong. They can hear it in his voice.

Godown kneels beside the deckchair and takes Mrs Mac’s hand in both of his. He feels its bones; fine, like those of a small bird. He strokes her fingers, which he notices are slightly puffy from the heat.
He’s just nervous
. Then an unbidden thought
— Dear God! He’s going to ask me to marry him! Why is Alice hanging around? Honestly!
She tries to look meaningfully at her sister to no avail.
Well I might just say yes. He’s a good man.

‘Eileen?’

‘Yes. Yes, Moses.’

‘I have something to tell you—something about Hal.’

A twinge of disappointment, then—‘Hal? What’s wrong with Hal?’

‘He’s done something terrible. Something so terrible I can’t hardly say it.’

Alice moves to her sister’s side and puts a protective hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m here, Eil.’ She looks at Godown. ‘Just say it,’ she says. ‘Tell her straight, whatever it is.’

Godown holds Mrs Mac’s hand as the last of the sun burnishes the ivy. He smells the drifting scent of jasmine. Hears the harsh music of hidden cicadas. All is as it should be on a peaceful suburban summer’s evening. The very ordinariness of the beauty pierces him with a deep melancholy. For the first time in many years he regrets leaving his own country, his own people, to throw in his lot with strangers. He wants, more than anything, to be a boy again, sitting on the front stoop, feeling the smouldering heat of the dying day rising from the pavement. He wants to hear his mother’s voice, singing the old songs, and see Martha Brown, flour-covered arms leaning on her windowsill, calling to her eleven children. ‘Matthias, Luke. Time for dinner. Missy, Jonah, Aaron, Sarah, Micah. You come home. You hear? Sherman, Tecumseh, Bubby. Right now, I say. You too, Lorilee. You leave that no-good boy of yours and come home right now.’ Where were they all now? He’d been sweet on Lorilee once, but she said he was just a kid. And so he was. So he was . . . Now . . . Now he is an ageing man, on the other side of the world, bringing a sack full of heartache to an old and dear friend.

‘Eileen. Mrs Mac. Hal has . . .’ He couldn’t say drowned. ‘Hal has put little Grace in the river. He . . .’

‘In the river? She’s alright. Surely she’s alright.’ Eileen looks from Godown to her sister and back.

‘She’s not alright, is she?’ Alice says quietly.

‘She drowned, Alice. That little girl drowned in the river.’

Godown begins to cry and Mrs Mac puts a tentative arm around his shoulder. She has still not fully comprehended his message. ‘She’ll need dry clothes,’ she says. Then ‘Oh my God! Merciful Father. No!’

The three of them sit on the verandah, oblivious to the passing of time, until Alice becomes aware that the sun has slipped below the horizon, and they are immersed a soft, sad twilight.

She stands up. Shakes herself a little. ‘I’ll make us a cup of tea.’

Godown stirs. ‘Sealie will need me,’ he says. ‘I have to go.’

‘I’ll come with you.’ Mrs Mac makes the offer but when she tries to stand, she sinks back into the chair. ‘My legs won’t let me,’ she tells them, ashamed. ‘I should go with you, but my legs won’t let me.’

Godown looks at her with pity in his eyes. ‘Come tomorrow,’ he says. ‘You’ll need all your strength.’

Alice flashes him a look of gratitude and sees him to the door. ‘Take care,’ she says. She puts the kettle on and helps her sister inside.

Sitting motionless at the kitchen table, Mrs Mac thinks of all the other times she has drunk tea with her sister; all those conversations over the years—about Mrs R, Sealie and Zav. About the arrival of the stranger, Godown Moses Washbourne. About her employer—poor Mr R, who, until he had taken against her, had given her a home long after she was actually needed. ‘If only I’d done something earlier,’ she says, her voice struggling in her throat. ‘Deep down, I knew. And it only got worse. You were right all along. I should’ve done something.’

‘You can’t blame yourself. How could anyone have known something like this would happen?’

‘You did. You said—’

Alice interrupts her. ‘Eileen—stop. I’ll call Father Thomas, if you like.’ She covers her sister’s hand with her own. ‘Or maybe Dr Mason. You’ve had a terrible shock.’

‘No. No doctor. No priest.’

Alice goes to the sideboard, takes a bottle from a silver tray and pours two brandies. ‘Come on. It’ll do you good.’

Mrs Mac gulps the brandy, and closing her eyes, feels its mellowness spread through her body. Wordlessly, she holds out her glass.

‘Eil, you don’t usually . . .’ Alice shrugs and pours them both another measure. ‘If you’re going to get drunk, we’ll do it together.’

‘That poor little mite. Such a beautiful baby. Just like her dad and her aunt Sealie. Same big grey eyes, same dark hair. I think she was beginning to recognise me. I read to her, you know—she’s only a baby but I swear she loves that book about the puppy. Remember? The one we bought at the newsagents?’

Alice sighs. ‘I know. You said she cries—used to cry—when you put it down.’

Eileen pours herself a third brandy and with one movement, drains the glass. ‘Do you know what I had put away for her? For her sixshth birthday. You know what? The
Faraway Tree
books, that’s what. She’ll never know Moonfashe, or Shilkie,’ she mourned. ‘Or the Angry Pixshie.’ She looks into her sister’s face and tries to focus, but the familiar features are strangely fuzzy. ‘I can’t bear it. It’s too much to bear.’

I like the sound of the Angry Pixshie. He (or is it she?) sounds a lot more interesting than a Moonfashe. But then I could be wrong. I don’t have a whole lot to go on.

3

M
EANWHILE, WHAT OF MY FATHER?
Since my death, he had endured three more days of enemy bombardment. There was no pause in the Tet offensive to mourn one small, faraway loss. They were in death’s own territory, and couldn’t afford to give ground.

It was decided that Zav should be flown to the base at Nui Dat before he was told. The officers couldn’t predict his reaction, and didn’t want to take unnecessary risks in the midst of battle. When it was deemed safe, when there was space in a chopper, they explained that he was needed as an escort for the walking wounded.

Zav had mixed feelings as he watched the Medevac team strap stretchers to the sides of the helicopter
. To be out of this hellhole, even for a day . . . But how could he leave his mates? He couldn’t. Not in the middle of all this.

‘Request permission to stay, Sir,’ he asked the officer in charge.

‘Permission denied.’

‘But, Sir. They need me here.’

‘The war will continue regardless of your presence, soldier. Board now.’

Zav was wedged between a young man with his arm in a splint and an older man with a bandage covering one eye. They both appeared to be drugged, the young man looking like he was suffering from a hangover and the older one slumped so that his head was on Zav’s shoulder. It was cramped enough in the chopper but when Zav tried to move to a more comfortable position, the older man groaned. At the sound, Zav froze and sat immobile, hardly daring to breathe for the forty-five minutes it took to reach Nui Dat.