The Turning Tide (32 page)

‘Not really. A few chats, that’s all. Fact is,’ I clear my throat, ‘you were saying I looked a bit wound up. I had something of a shock late last year. Cleaning up the old house I found some letters to Marion. From a lover. If not for the stroke, she was going to leave me.’

‘Jesus. Are you sure?’

I nod. ‘We’d grown apart in the previous few years. I wasn’t that surprised – it had nearly happened once before. But I couldn’t give her the support she wanted. Could hardly find my own way to the door most days.’

‘I knew it was bad but I didn’t realise how bad. Sorry, fella.’

‘But leaving me? That was the last thing … The shock seems to have …’ I shake my head. ‘I don’t understand. I’ve gone cold, Al,
cold
. I don’t trust anyone now, don’t trust myself. It’s all tangled up in my head with the war, with what happened to Betty. What I did. What I didn’t do. What I screwed up.’ I shrug hopelessly.

‘Christ, Mike. You weren’t to blame for what happened to Betty.’

‘Sometimes I think it was all my fault. If I’d realised what was going to happen I’d have given her a better life, been a better husband. Done
something
. Saved her somehow.’

‘How could you have given her a better life? Mike, your letters from those days – happiness seemed to glow from the pages. You gave her joy. If you hadn’t found her, what sort of God-awful loneliness would she have faced for years before dying? Silly bastard, loving Betty was the best thing you ever did in your life.’

I can’t speak. I put a hand over my stinging eyes.

Alan sighs. ‘You poor bugger. No one could have saved her, Mike, that’s the honest truth. Look, I think this sounds more like post-traumatic stress, what do you reckon?’

My voice husky, I say, ‘Come on, Al. It’s been forty years since the war. Nothing lasts that long. I’ve had nightmares – jeez, we all have them – but I’ve never felt that aggro they talk about.’

‘Jan studied it. He thought it was different for our blokes, we had less anger than the Vietnam boys, we had it easier getting back to normal life. But he was seeing a lot of men our age who’d been fine for years, then something would trigger depression, numbness …’

I nod, rub my eyes. ‘Sounds about right. But what the hell can I do about it?’

‘He said sometimes talking about it, getting a different view helps. Or there’s a sort of key, a resolution. The thing is to face it, not blame yourself.’

‘I’d bloody face it if I knew what it bloody was.’

He murmurs sympathetically. ‘Come on, old mate. Go and have a sleep. The party isn’t for hours yet and you really look like you need a rest.’

I wake in the evening some hours later, feeling calmer. I get up, have a quick wash and shave and change my clothes. I can hear voices along the corridor and glasses clinking. When I enter the lounge room, already half-full of people, the first person I see is Kanga.

‘Broome,’ he roars. ‘Come and get a drink, you old bastard.’

He gives me a beer and I say, ‘Kanga. You’re looking good.’ He is too. Prosperous, portly, silver-haired, the same long nose.

‘That’s Judge Kanga to you, mate,’ he says.

‘And Professor Broome to you, mate,’ and we laugh at the old joke.

‘But really, Kanga – judge?’ I say.

‘Too bloody right. Went into law when I got back. I was going have a crack at politics but, dunno, I just loved that legal deviousness.’

I laugh in baffled admiration. Kanga puts his arm around a thin, dark man and pushes him forward. ‘And you won’t guess who this is.’

‘Jesus. It’s not … Whippet?’ I say. ‘Whippet, mate, how are you? What are you doing with yourself nowadays?’

Whippet shakes hands shyly. ‘On the wharves, Broome. Union rep, Painters and Dockers.’

I look from Kanga to Whippet. ‘Hope you didn’t meet up again in professional circumstances.’

Kanga guffaws. ‘We did, actually. Bit of the usual waterfront mayhem. Whippet was a witness, he didn’t do it – well, I don’t think he did. You didn’t, did you, mate?’

Whippet grins with tobacco-brown teeth. ‘Hey Broome,’ he says. ‘Davo’s over there.’

And he was too, nice little Davo, the sniper. More handshakes and back slaps of welcome. Davo, bald now, is a famous interior designer. And there’s Bill the cook, with his own restaurant, and signalman Jake, who works a camera for the ABC.

It’s a wonderful night. We all get pleasantly drunk and end the evening in Alan’s glossy white kitchen, eating grilled cheese on toast.

Looking contentedly up from his plate, Kanga says, ‘You heard a bunch of us went back to East Timor, Broome?’

‘Flynn mentioned it. So when was that?’

‘Oh, ’73. Amazing time but hard work. Those mountains were twice as high as I remembered, the old knees could barely cope. Later on we raised money, sent tools, clothes, useful stuff. Can’t go there now of course, fucking Indonesians.’

There’s a grumble of agreement around the room.

‘Did you know, Broome, in ’44 the brass dropped leaflets all over the place?’ says Davo. ‘They said,
Your friends
do not forget you
. Can you
believe
it? Look at the craven pollies today. Can’t forget ’em fast enough.’

There’s another grumble of agreement.

‘Did you find anyone from back then still alive?’ I ask.

‘My oath we did,’ says Whippet. ‘Met up with some of our
criados
again.’

‘What, they survived?’

‘They certainly did,’ says Davo. ‘Clever little sods. My lad Alfredo, he’s done well, village chief now. Big fifty-year-old for Christ’s sake. I used to be able to lift him with one hand.’

‘I met your boy Jorges, too, Broome,’ says Whippet, rolling tobacco expertly into a cigarette.

‘
Jorges?
’

‘Yeah. He did well for himself after the war. Got into the Porto administration, worked as a translator.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Honest to God,’ says Whippet, lighting his roll-up. ‘Said the English he learnt from you got him his first job. Mind you, he had it hard in the war, they all did. But he survived, doing well. Nice wife and a couple of grown-up kids.’

‘Jorges,’ I say in wonder. ‘He was an orphan, a helpless child. Had nothing. I was certain I’d left him to die. My God. Thanks Whippet. That’s bloody good news.’

‘We met a hell of a lot who remembered us,’ says Kanga. ‘They’d come along the roads to meet us, talk about the old battles, ask us what happened to our boys. Heard some amazing stories.’

I sit there as tales are swapped and memories recalled, the chatter fading for a moment as I think, Jorges, you brilliant little kid. I didn’t destroy your life after all. I’m
weak with relief, as if I’d been holding my breath ever since I’d left him behind on that beach.

I come back to attention as someone mentions my name.

‘It wasn’t Broome, couldn’t be, too goody-goody,’ says Jake.

‘Yeah, I reckon it was,’ says Davo. ‘Broome, did you have a girlfriend in one of the villages?’

‘A girlfriend?’ I laugh. ‘Only in my dreams.’

‘No, come on, one of the native women. Name of Ada.’

‘Ada? Ada? Oh … You mean Aida? Tiny, just up to my shoulder?’

There’s a chorus of lewd guffaws and I say, ‘Wait, wait, shut up, you noisy bastards. Davo? Tell me.’

‘Ah Broome, you sly fucker,’ Davo says with satisfaction. ‘She’s a pretty little middle-aged lady now, very respectable, kids, grandkids, husband an official. But I got this through the translator – she said Tuan Mike gave her a mirror, saved her life.’

‘Yeah, I gave Aida a mirror,’ I say, puzzled. ‘But I didn’t save her life.’

‘She said when the Japs came, one was going to kill her. She showed him the mirror and he was looking at it and she shoved a knife in him and escaped. She’s still got the mirror, she says.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding, Davo, that’s unbelievable,’ I say, laughing.

‘Telling you, Broome. That’s what she said. You saved her life.’

I stop laughing, my breath catching, and I’m suddenly sobbing, my head in my hands. In my mind, Aida had
ended up as the tragic little corpse I’d seen that dreadful day with Bullock. But she’d lived and prospered, exactly as I’d hoped.

Alan gives me a handkerchief and I blow my nose. I shake my head in astonishment. ‘That’s a
shitload
of good news. Jorges all right. Aida all right. You blokes keep going this way, we’ll soon have world peace.’

There’s laughter and kindness. They’ve all broken down some time or another, there’s no shame in it. Then there are more stories and reminiscences but it all washes over me in a hum. I can’t think, can’t speak. I’ve woken so often through the years sobbing from nightmares, helpless to protect those good people from unspeakable horrors. But knowing me was what saved them, not doomed them. I’m overwhelmed with joy.

Turns out Alan’s girlfriend Elise is a therapist. She explains this isn’t the end of it, that there’s probably a few more hard times ahead. But I seem to have brought to the surface a few things from Timor I’d been quietly agonising over for decades. She gives me the name of a bloke in Melbourne I can go and see later on if I want. Think I will. I’m surprised at how good it feels to talk to someone about it at last.

The last morning of my visit I lie on my side in bed and stare out the window at the tops of the trees outlined against the blue sky. I awoke puzzling over Alan’s words from the day I arrived. It’s strange, for all the memories of Betty that have haunted me over the years, I’ve never seen our time together the way he does.

‘If you hadn’t found her, what sort of God-awful loneliness would she have faced for years before dying? Silly bastard, loving Betty was the best thing you ever did in your life.’

Oh, my darling. I remember the sorrow in your velvet brown eyes as you told me about the day that changed, and ultimately took, your life. I’ve never thought deeply about the suffering you would have faced if I hadn’t gone to Japan to find you. You’d have known only pain, lovelessness, the humiliations of an atomic maiden. And you would have met your end in a lonely hospital cot, not the embrace of our warm bed.

I clench my fists. But I
did
go to find you and give you happiness and a home and, by God, I loved you truly, Betty. Heart, body and soul. I didn’t let you down after all. Your life may not have been long, but I gave you the best one I possibly could.

I roll onto my back, staring at the ceiling, and for a moment I seem to hear her laughing softly at me, the way she used to, saying, ‘Oh Maiku my love, of course that’s how it was.’ It’s as if a great weight lifts from my chest. I take a long, deep breath, suddenly at peace. Of course that’s how it was.

I lie there, my mind crystal clear, and slowly a thought emerges. Marion. With brutal clarity I see for the first time that Marion never failed me: it was I who failed her. After losing Betty I couldn’t let myself love deeply again, and Marion knew it right from the start, as I did not.

That kind, quick-witted woman understood how constrained my feelings were, yet still she gave me decades of her life. And then, after so long unnourished, she turned
to someone who could love her fully, free from my unseen ghosts. The betrayal in our marriage went far beyond infidelity. The betrayal was entirely my own.

After a time I drift into deep, dreamless sleep. When I awake I feel astonished, untethered. Not healed, of course, but as if something has shifted. Something fits that never fitted before in the great curving stream of my experience.

Chapter 30

After I get back from Sydney I go down to Foster. Next day I’m standing in front of Helen’s door with a big bouquet of flowers. She lives a few minutes out of town, up a steep road with a view of the Prom.

Helen answers my knock, wiping her hands with a cloth that smells of turps.

‘What lovely flowers,’ she says. ‘Come in, along here, I’m cleaning some brushes in the studio and can’t leave them half-done.’

I follow her to a large bright room with windows on the north showing rounded green hills lined with trees, and more on the south looking down towards the Prom.

‘Wow,’ I say. ‘Must be an artist’s paradise, all that light.’

‘Did you know I ended up teaching, after all?’ Helen says, looking over her shoulder as she’s swirling brushes in
jars of turps. ‘Once Ian was old enough I did my training and taught art at the high school for twenty years.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. You liked it?’

‘Very much. But I wanted some time to myself, so I took early retirement.’

‘Lena said you go camping at Alice Springs each year, painting with Aboriginal women. Are you teaching them new techniques?’

‘Oh Lord, no. There’s nothing I could ever teach them! I go there so they can teach me. They’re very tolerant of my shortcomings.’

‘I’ll introduce you some time to my brother Liam,’ I say. ‘I think you’d get along well.’

I look around the room. Paintings stacked along the wall vibrate with colour; semi-abstract landscapes, still lifes. The canvas on her easel has the sense of an early-morning scene, in green and lilac and blue.

‘That’s beautiful,’ I say. ‘Is it for sale?’

‘I’m having an exhibition in a couple of months. It will be.’

‘Good.’

She dries her hands and rubs cream on them. It’s a warm day and she’s barefoot, her hair in a ponytail, wisps around her face. She’s wearing jeans and a big paint-daubed man’s shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

I realise I’m still holding the flowers. ‘Have you got a vase for these?’ I say.

‘Come into the kitchen. Want a cup of tea?’

Soon the flowers are in a vase on the kitchen table and we’re seated holding mugs, looking out onto another spectacular view of the Prom.

‘This place is higher up than mine,’ I say. ‘Feels like you’re swooping down. You can see more of the inlet too.’

‘You house has a more enclosed feel about it,’ says Helen. ‘Grounded, safe.’

‘They’re both nice. I guess anywhere you can see the Prom’s got something good going for it.’

She gazes at me. ‘Mike, what on earth’s happened? I haven’t seen you like this since, oh, a long time ago. You’re almost radiating light.’