The Turning Tide (22 page)

‘Yeah,’ I say dryly.

We get to Steve’s place, an old terrace house like mine. Unlike mine, his tiny front lawn has knee-deep grass and there’s a couple of over-full garbage bags on the veranda. I bang on the door.

Steve opens it, dressed only in underpants. He’s yawning, surprised. ‘Professor Whalen?’

Ian steps forward. ‘Where’s my daughter, where’s Lena?’

‘Lena? She’s not here. I don’t –’

‘Steve? What’s happening?’ a female voice says.

Ian pushes Steve out of the way and barges into the house. I follow.

There’s a girl at the end of the hall with a sheet wrapped around her. It isn’t Lena. We come to a halt, make apologies and leave. Steve is standing open-mouthed as we go.

‘Where’s that Angel girl’s place?
Angel
, I ask you. What a bloody stupid name!’ Ian fumes.

‘Next suburb. Not far.’

Angel’s house is another student terrace. It has a string of Tibetan prayer flags across the veranda and
Legalise It
posters in the windows.

‘Legalise what?’ asks Ian, puzzled.

‘Dope, mate. Surely you ran across it in Vietnam. Partook of it, even.’

‘Well. Yeah. But that was different.’

‘Hypocrisy, thy name is fatherhood.’

Ian chuckles. ‘Bloody right.’

He knocks loudly on the door. Angel, in an embroidered gown, opens it and doesn’t have time to say anything before Ian pushes his way in, calling ‘Lena!’

Down the hall I see a door open and Angel’s friend Greg pokes his head out for a moment. He slams the door shut but Ian slams it open again without breaking his stride.

Lena is sitting up in bed, unfocused and confused. ‘Dad? Oh, Mike? What …’

‘Are you all right, honey?’ asks Ian sitting beside her.

‘I’m fine, Dad. I was just too sleepy to get up.’

‘Lena, you’ve been gone for two days,’ I say.

She shakes her head in astonishment. Ian turns and sees Greg trying to blend with the wallpaper. He’s on him in an instant.

‘Okay, you creep. What have you done to her? What did you give her?’

‘Don’t push him round like that, you fascist!’ says Angel.

Ian ignores Angel and shakes Greg like a toy. ‘Tell me,’ he says with menace.

‘It was
her
fault,’ whispers Greg in terror. ‘I said, go ahead, have a brownie, then the phone rang. By the time I got back she’d eaten three. Three! Half an ounce of hash just like that.’

‘You let my daughter eat
three
hash brownies?’ says Ian. The temperature in the room drops several degrees.

‘She’s all right now,’ squeaks Greg. ‘She’s only been sleeping. I didn’t touch her. Really, I wouldn’t, Angel’s my Shakti.’

‘Your
what
?’ asks Ian, incredulous.

‘His divine feminine inspiration,’ says Angel smugly.

‘Okay, let’s get Lena out of here,’ I say calmly. ‘We can take her to a doctor to see if she’s all right.’

Ian abruptly drops Greg, who slumps to the floor, horrified. Angel goes to his side, glaring at Ian. ‘Pig,’ she mutters.

‘Dad, it’s okay. It
was
my fault,’ says Lena, yawning. ‘I was cranky because you carry on as if you don’t trust me, so I thought I’d just try some dope and see what all the fuss is about.’ She smiles sleepily. ‘And the brownies were great. Sorry, Greg.’

‘Let’s go, Lena,’ I say. ‘Can you walk?’

She gets up slowly. She’s dressed in rumpled jeans and a T-shirt. Greg says defiantly, ‘See, I didn’t touch her,’ but I stare at him coldly and he shuts up.

Ian helps Lena tenderly out of the room.

I look at Greg and Angel. I say, flatly, ‘Stay away from her. Now. Next week. Next year. Forever. Do you understand?’

‘What if
she
wants to see us?’ says Angel, flinging her hair back.

‘Then I’ll dob you in to the police. Okay?’

Angel goes to say ‘Pig’ again but thinks better of it.

I drive them to a doctor, who says Lena should recover with no ill effects, then I take them to my house to give them time to talk before Lena goes back to the Hall of Residence. I busy myself in the kitchen making coffee, while they murmur together in the lounge room. When I take the coffee in, Lena has tears on her cheeks and Ian is damp-eyed.

‘All right. You’ve sorted yourselves out, then?’ I say. ‘Here, have some coffee and choccy biscuits.’

‘Mmm,’ says Lena passionately. ‘Oh, that tastes
wonderful
. Have you got more biscuits? Or cheese? Or anything. My goodness, I could eat
anything
at all.’ She gets up and drifts serenely to the kitchen.

‘Young lady, you’ve got the munchies,’ Ian says with mock severity. Then he grins at me. ‘Ah, sweet memories.’

There’d been one further surprise for me at the farm. As I was about to leave I heard a child cry and Mary left the room. She came back with a baby in her arms and said,
‘We’ve had so much to talk about I forgot to introduce you to Betty’s little brother.’

At my startled look, she said shyly, ‘I became pregnant just after we arrived in Japan. I had thought my childbearing days were over, but it was not so.’

‘Oh Mary, that’s wonderful!’ I said. ‘Congratulations. A new life in the family.’

‘He cannot replace Ken, of course,’ she said, ‘but he is a great comfort.’

‘What’s his name? My goodness, he’s smiling at me.’

‘Tomeo. He can be Tom for English speakers, as Kentaro was Ken. It makes it easier.’

I looked at Betty, puzzled. ‘But you don’t have a Japanese name.’

‘Of course I do.’

‘When she was small she decided she would be Betty and that was it,’ said Mary. ‘She refused to answer to her real name – Miyoko.’

‘Miyoko?’ I said to Betty. ‘That’s lovely.’

She smiled. ‘That’s what my great-aunt calls me. My parents are too used to Betty to change now.’

As we were speaking Tomeo wrapped his tiny hand around my index finger and started chewing it. He had a couple of teeth so this was painful, but I was too charmed by his shiny button eyes and cheerful grin to care.

Whenever I could get away from camp I’d go to Yoshi and Mary’s farm. I helped with the harvest and any jobs that needed doing. Yoshi’s years as a pearl-shell diver had damaged his joints so he was glad of some help, and I enjoyed being a farmhand again. There was a bit of mockery at the camp about me fraternising, but my language skills were essential so it didn’t go any further.

Betty became more confident as time went by. It was almost two years now since the bombing and her scars had begun to fade, but in any case I barely noticed them. They were part of her; my friend, my companion and, gradually, my sweet love. If my feelings for Helen had been a magnetic compulsion, those for Betty were as gentle as a summer evening. I enjoyed the peace of it, the quiet certainty.

We’d kiss and caress of course, but we weren’t lovers. On weekends I’d stay at the farmhouse, but traditional Japanese rooms are separated only by sliding paper screens. The minimal privacy meant I had little hope of anything more.

One late-summer day after hay-cutting, we were walking back to the house in the warm twilight when Betty laughed her delicious laugh at some foolish comment of mine, and in a flush of joy I asked her to marry me.

She stopped walking and looked at me in consternation. ‘Mike, we can’t get married.’

‘I don’t care about your scars, Betty, they don’t matter. I love you.’

‘Oh Mike, that’s easy for you to say when you haven’t seen them all. But there’s something else, something worse. I didn’t talk about it before, but you need to know.’

‘Tell me then,’ I said gently.

She folded her arms around herself. ‘After the bombing … I had terrible bleeding. It went on for weeks. Then it stopped and I’ve never had a monthly again. This happened to many of the atomic maidens, it means something inside is damaged. I cannot have children. I cannot marry.’

‘Betty, this isn’t the Middle Ages! I don’t care if you can’t have children. It’s unfortunate, but it’s you I want to marry, not your child-bearing hips.’

She laughed sadly and shook her head. ‘You may say that today, Mike, but one day you’ll regret it.’

I put my hands on her shoulders and drew her close. ‘Betty, sweet Betty. Marry me. Who knows what will happen in the future? Let’s just be happy today.’

She wrapped her arms around me. ‘Mike, I want to believe you. I want to be happy with you –’

‘Then be happy. Marry me, Betty.’

She chuckled and nestled her head in my shoulder. ‘Let me think about it.’

‘Don’t think too long. Dear God, Betty, I’d love us to be able to be together.’

She laughed again. ‘Dearest Mike. We’ll see.’

Late that night I lay in my room at the rear of the farmhouse, unable to sleep. I saw a candle flickering in the corridor outside my room, then the screen slowly, quietly slid back. Betty entered and shut it behind her.

She turned and I could see her smile in the candlelight. Her black hair was long and loose and she was wearing a light sleeping kimono. She put the candle in a safe spot and knelt at my side and, with her finger to her lips, said ‘Shh’, very quietly.

I whispered, ‘Your parents?’

She murmured, ‘Fast asleep.’

She lifted my light bedcovers and lay down beside me. She put her head on my shoulder and her arms around me. I drew her close and kissed her mouth, her forehead, her cheeks, her neck. She was sighing, then she sat up, looking at me.

I whispered, ‘Is it all right? Did I hurt you?’

She grinned. ‘No, you silly,’ she breathed. ‘But I want you to see. Before. You must see first.’

She opened the kimono, sliding it down one shoulder, then the other. I stared, transfixed, at the golden curves of her dainty breasts, her brown erect nipples. I whispered, ‘God, yes I see.’

She laughed silently. ‘Mike, not them. This.’ She undid the kimono completely and touched her scarred side.

I sat up beside her and kissed her wounded shoulder, the wrinkled curve of one perfect breast, the rippled swell of her hip; the scars themselves smooth and lightly ridged under my tongue.

‘Yes, I see, I do, Betty,’ I whispered. ‘Lie down now.’

She did and I kept kissing: her hip, her belly, her rounded mound feathered with fine hair. I ran my tongue over and between, again and again, and she opened her thighs and held my head against her, moving her hips. After a time I sat up and threw off my own sleeping kimono and lay beside her.

‘It may hurt a little,’ I whispered. ‘Just at first.’

She nodded. ‘Please,’ she murmured, ‘now.’

I leant on my elbows and lay between her thighs and entered her very slowly. She moved against me, eager, and I had to hold back. I reached a point of tightness, then she gasped and I was full and deep inside. She started to move her hips in slow rhythm with me.

I bent my head and sucked her nipples and kissed her neck and mouth. She moved more quickly, her breathing fast, pressing hard against me, her hands on my hips, urging me against her. Then she whimpered, quivering, and tried to hold back a moan. I put my hand over her mouth to muffle the noise, then was caught up in my own pulsing
pleasure and had to bury my head in the pillow to silence my groans.

We lay there, damp, hot, breathing deeply. Suddenly I could feel her sobbing against my chest. I sat up, horrified, then realised she was shaking with laughter, not tears. I lay down and put my head against her neck and laughed silently too, and kissed her over and over.

Later she whispered, ‘If we get married, can we do that every night?’

I replied, ‘Every night for as long as we live, my love.’

‘All right then,’ she murmured, ‘I think I’d like that.’

‘Are you out of your fucking mind, Broome?’ said Kanga. ‘It’s one thing to go searching for your little Madame Butterfly, but marriage? To a Japanese?’

‘She’s Australian, Kanga,’ I said.

‘And her passport?’

‘Well, that’s a problem. She lost her papers the day of the bombing.’

‘Very convenient.’

‘Jesus, Kanga, you’ve only got to speak to her to know she’s Australian.’

‘Or a good mimic, that’s what they’ll say. And windbag Minister Calwell’s announced no Japanese women will ever be allowed into the country again.’

‘She’s Australian, you drongo.’

‘You can’t prove it, Broome. Look, the government’s getting a lot of mileage out of the Japanese. The more they keep people whipped up hating the Japs, the less they notice the government’s shortcomings. Very useful.’

‘You’re a cynical bastard.’

He shook his head. ‘Nah. Realistic. Our government and the Yanks and Brits are putting a lot of money and effort into dragging this country into the twentieth century. They think it’s worth it. But they’re not going to tell the electorate that. They want blood, not rebuilding.’

‘It’s understandable, though. Come on, Kanga. They were animals in the war.’

‘And we weren’t? The Yanks weren’t? I was in the East Indies after the surrender and couldn’t believe what our boys did to the Jap prisoners – new recruits who’d never even been to war! Some of them were barely this side of sane and I saw enough – I bet you did too – that still makes me wake up sweating.’

It was true. There were things I tried never to think about, things I’d seen, or heard from other soldiers late at night when they couldn’t keep it in anymore. And those at home like my sister, who loathed the enemy, had no idea what some of our brave little diggers were capable of; like the Japanese who, in turn, could not comprehend what we claimed their heroic lads had done in Asia.

I nodded slowly. ‘And the bombs as well. Nice and clean from up in the sky, but what people suffered on the ground … nothing we went through could compare with that.’

‘Better not let anyone hear you, Broome. They’ll think you’re a commie. Or worse, you’ve gone native. Oh, wait a minute, you have gone native. Silly me.’

‘That’s not helping, Kanga.’

He smiled. ‘I love the way I can say anything to you and you don’t give a damn. Look, if you won’t change your mind, here’s what you should do. Marry Madame Butterfly. You’ll be able to find a priest or whatever. Just keep
quiet about it and no one will care. If you tell anyone, you could get punished or even sent back to Australia.’