The Turning Tide (33 page)

‘I’ve just returned from a visit to Alan in Sydney. You remember, Johnny’s Alan.’

‘How could I ever forget?’ she says dryly. ‘Lena told me he was still around – some odd story about him fathering your stepchildren. Heavens, there’s such a lot we haven’t talked about yet.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘We will.’

She looks surprised and I laugh. ‘We will, I promise. But I’m happy right now because I’ve had some wonderful news. In Sydney I met a few of the boys from the old days in Timor. And they told me about some of the locals – people I’d thought were long since dead, and dead because of
me
, well, it turns out they’re not.’

‘Heavens. Alive and well after all?’

I nod. ‘And prospering. It’s amazing. I can’t express it. I’ve carried round the sense of having let them down for forty years. Didn’t even realise. And now it’s like a weight off my shoulders.’

‘I can see that.’

I look at her. ‘And there’s something else. I was so eaten up with regret at having failed Betty, bitterness about losing Marion, I couldn’t think straight. But Alan said something out of the blue, changed my view completely.’

‘What was that?’

‘He said I didn’t fail Betty at all, I brought her joy in those few years we had, joy when she would have had none. I couldn’t see it then, but that’s exactly what I did. And it’s as if I can hear her now, laughing and agreeing. Does that sound crazy?’

Helen shakes her head slowly. ‘No, not at all.’ She adds quietly, ‘And Marion?’

‘I was a stupid, selfish, work-obsessed fool. I didn’t put nearly enough into the marriage, I just took her for granted.’ I grimace. ‘She should have left me years before, found someone who deserved her. It was I who betrayed her. I have nothing to be bitter about. Nothing.’

‘It sounds like you’ve been through a rather extraordinary time,’ Helen says. ‘And do you still feel cold and uncaring?’

‘I feel like a newborn baby. I nearly wept with joy at the post office when someone said, “Lovely day.”’

Helen smiles politely. ‘That’s wonderful, Mike. I’m very pleased for you.’ She uncrosses her legs and I see her toenails are painted pearly pink. They make me feel like weeping with joy too. She drinks the last of her tea and stands.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, ‘but I’d better get back to work.’

‘I haven’t finished yet. Please …’

She remains standing and gazes at me. The tiny brown dot in her blue eye may be the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.

‘You said I was so good at hiding my feelings. Well, I’m not anymore. I’m going to tell you the truth.’ I take a breath. ‘When we spoke that evening, I said I used to love you long ago. But I was lying.’

‘Oh,’ she says, flinching a little.

‘Jesus, no, I mean, the long ago bit!’

She puts her head to one side.

I stand up, looking desperately for inspiration at the shimmering waters of Corner Inlet. I turn to her. ‘I’ve been so lucky, Helen, with marriages to two amazing women. And I gave myself to them as best I could, I wasn’t looking for anyone else. But
always
, deep in the background, like a heartbeat, like my own pulse, there was you. Always you.’

She slowly takes hold of the back of her chair and stands very still.

‘I loved you long ago, Helen. I love you now. Whatever’s happened in my life I never stopped loving you.’

She’s staring at the vase of flowers. A long silence follows. She takes a deep breath. ‘I lied too. I said I would have loved you if I’d understood. But after I’d sent you away I understood. Too well, too late. I loved you then, Mike. Then and always.’

I stand there, shocked with happiness, speechless. Her face is calm but her eyes are slowly brimming with delight. I reach out and take her hands in mine.

‘Oh sweetheart, for God’s sake, come here and let me kiss you.’

I gently draw her close and put my arms around her and nuzzle her hair. ‘There,’ I sigh. She looks up and whispers ‘There,’ and pulls my face slowly down to meet her mouth.

I breathe the scent of her skin and am filled with a great joy, as if I were about to glimpse something wonderful, something I’d never thought possible, something I’d wanted, without even knowing, all the long years of my life.

I murmur, ‘You don’t happen to have a large desk handy? We could find out what we’ve both learnt since 1941.’

Barely a week after that amazing day, Helen and I are still discovering everything about each other: our desires, our responses, our fears. She likes to have the bedroom in dimness, afraid I won’t find her beautiful now she’s older. She’s wrong, of course. I can see her in her swimsuit lying now beside me and she couldn’t be more wrong.

It’s one of those final, hot glorious days of autumn and we’ve all come to the beach at Tidal River for a swim. I’m in the shade of an umbrella, with a T-shirt on. My skin can’t take the sun like it used to. Doesn’t seem to bother Ian, Suyin and Lena, splashing in the water. Yesterday we shyly told them we’re together, but our relationship seems to have been accepted, even anticipated, by everyone. Only Helen and I are surprised.

I’m leaning back against a boulder and little Jessie is sleeping on my lap. She’s over a year old now, a sweet kid. I gaze at her small round face, her fine dark hair, her faint eyebrows like feather strokes, as Betty’s once were.

If Betty and I had ever had a child, she might have been like Jessie: two worlds united in one small body. I gaze at her petal-soft skin and tiny hands and quietly sigh. My life has played out as it had to, Lord knows, but I think I’ll always secretly wish I’d had a child of my own.

I hear Lena call out in glee as she’s playing in the waves. It’s been two years since I first met that darling girl, two years since we first walked together along this beach. I smile, thinking of how she teases me and trusts me as if we’ve known each other all our lives. Such a spirit of curiosity, wit, kindness. She’s like my mother that way.

I see Ian swirling Suyin around in the water and hugging her. He’s a bloody good lad. Been through a lot these last
two years, like me. But his frown is gone now; he’s reassembled his fractured life, repaired his bonds with Lena, created a new family.

Baby Jessie stirs on my lap and rolls onto her tummy, murmuring. I think of her father when he was a small fair boy and I must say I’m unashamedly glad I was able to mete out a little justice to his tormentor.

I look up at the great boulders of Little Oberon lifting through the scrub. My mates always called me Broome, but really, ever since I first saw blue-green South Gippsland, I’ve loved it. Of course I love Broome too – who wouldn’t? – but this is my home now. I’ll live all my days here, and if I have any choice in the matter this is where I’ll die.

But one day, sometime soon, I’ll take Helen to meet Liam in Broome and Anna in Perth. It’s been too long since we’ve seen each other and I know they’ll like her. And I’ll catch up with Sue and Terry too. I’ve been a fool letting us all drift apart.

The water shimmers. I remember the boys, splashing and chiacking in the surf so long ago. Such beautiful, heedless, glittering creatures we were, blinded by our own youth and optimism. And pathetically ignorant, too, of the forces poised to use us as pawns in their contemptible games.

But those of us who survived their special hells are a lot less ignorant now. Before I left Sydney, the boys and I made a pact: we won’t abandon the East Timorese. The latest bunch of invaders can’t hold that land forever. We’ll put pressure on the government and we’ll tell the world what we owe those brave people.
Your friends do not forget you
.

Jessie murmurs again and I gaze at the sleeping child. Her singlet has slipped up and I ease it down again, over
her tiny shoulderblades and a scattering of freckles and, in the small of her back, a faint brown triangular birthmark.

That’s rather like a sail, I think. The stars of the universe wheel around me and come to a halt.

Suyin comes back from her swim and sits down, rubbing herself dry with a towel.

‘Oh good, she’s still asleep,’ she says. ‘Thanks for minding her, Mike.’

‘No trouble at all,’ I say calmly. ‘Suyin, may I ask you a medical question?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘What are the odds a woman could become pregnant, then have a period, then carry the child to term? Surely it’s impossible, isn’t it?’

‘Good heavens, no, Mike. It’s not common, but sometimes hormones have prepared the body for a period, so it can still happen in the first month, despite conception.’

‘Oh. Thank you.’

Helen sits up slowly, taking off her sunhat with a puzzled look. ‘I’ve never heard of that before.’

‘It’s a fairly recent understanding,’ Suyin says. ‘Everyone used to assume women had simply got their dates wrong. Mike, why –?’

‘Would you take the baby, Suyin?’ I pass over a yawning Jessie.

‘Oh dear, you need a change, young lady,’ says her mother. ‘We’ll just go up to the car and get a fresh nappy.’

When Suyin has gone, Helen says, ‘Mike?’

‘Sweetheart,’ I say, at peace with the world, ‘When Ian was little did you ever notice a birthmark on his back, a small triangular one?’

She nods. ‘And on Lena too. I used to wonder if it came from my family or Johnny’s.’

Sorry, Johnny old mate, it’s got to be said. ‘Might be neither.’

She laughs. ‘What on earth –?’

‘This may help.’ I take off my T-shirt. ‘See my back? Almost the same.’

Helen stares at me, eyes wide. ‘Does that mean you … and Ian …?’

She puts her hands to her face. After a time she makes an odd noise, her shoulders heaving.

‘Oh, love,’ I say, reaching over to her. Then a thought hits me. ‘Helen, are you laughing or crying?’

She looks up, tears on her cheeks, but she’s laughing and shaking her head.

‘Both. I’ve never seen your back properly, I didn’t know something like this was even possible.’ She pauses, then whispers, ‘Oh, Mike, I’m so
sorry
. Ian was yours all along and I didn’t know! And now you’ve both missed out.
Oh
…’

She begins to cry and I put my arms around her.

‘We can’t know for sure, love,’ I say. ‘We probably never will.’

‘But if
only
–’

‘No if onlys. No regrets. It’s just a smudge of pigment after all, could be a pure coincidence.’

She wipes her eyes and kisses me. ‘Do you believe that?’ she asks.

‘I don’t know. When I met Frank that evening at the bottle shop he kept snickering, looking from Ian to me. I thought he was just being a creep, but now …’

We sit, holding each other, dazed with wonder.

After a time Helen sighs deeply and says, ‘Oh, Lord. How could we have been so amazingly stupid? Ian is yours, of course he is. That smile, the green eyes. The red in Lena’s hair. Of
course
.’

I nod slowly. ‘I think I’ve loved them both since I met them.’

‘And they you.’ She laughs softly. ‘Mike, how are we going to tell them what really happened?’

‘Don’t know, sweetheart,’ I say, content. ‘But here they come. I reckon it’ll be all right.’

I see them running towards us across the sand: a son with the teasing grin of my father, a granddaughter with my mother’s curiosity and grace, and I wonder, could anyone on earth be as blessed as I am today?

Acknowledgements

I first saw the Prom from the sea in January 2009 while on
Enterprize
, the beautiful replica of the schooner that settled Melbourne in 1835. On a nine-day passage to Hobart we woke on the first morning to see the beach at Little Oberon lit up by the sun through a low mist. Since then, green South Gippsland has become my home. My thanks to
Enterprize
and all who sail in her.

For bringing this book to life, I am deeply grateful to my agent Brian Cook, publisher Louise Thurtell, editor Ann Lennox, copyeditor Julia Stiles, and the many people at Allen & Unwin who have assisted along the way. My WOFL friends, Gillian Clarke, Alison Shields, Ruth Carson and Lynn Atkinson helped clarify drafts of the manuscript with wit and perception.

I first learned of Timor’s history while writing
Redbill
.
Despite extraordinary support from the Timorese in wartime, Australian governments acquiesced to the Indonesian occupation of 1975 to 1999, during which more than one hundred thousand people were killed or starved to death, just off our prosperous prawn-on-the-barbie shores. I acknowledge the courage and tenacity of the people of Timor-Leste.

Among many essential references, I was inspired by Joseph Murakami’s translation of
Letters from the End of the World
, Peter Pinney’s superb
Signaller Johnston’s Secret War
, editor G.E. Lambert’s history of the 2/4th Australian Independent Company,
Commando: From Tidal River to Tarrakan
, Alan Clifton’s
Time of Fallen Blossoms
, and the thoughtful report by Captain James Ellwood on the Lagarto mission (National Archives of Australia). My thanks to Foster Historical Museum, AbeBooks and the Internet, and the wonderful resources of Australian libraries and archives.

I am grateful to my mother Margaret Lance, who carefully edited a draft of the manuscript, and to Donna Karp, Tony Hill, Jane Keany, Mayu Kanamori, Kevin Karp, Mike Biber, Yetta Krinsky, Dick Budzienny, Diet Ostry, Daisy Searls, David Lance and Peter Lance for helpful conversations. Finally, my thanks to sons Alex and Joe, and whippets Polly and Mickey, for love and perspective.

About the Author

C.M. Lance grew up near Newcastle, New South Wales, and went on to study physics at London University then astronomy at the Australian National University. Since the late 1980s she has worked in Internet technology.

The author of two award winning non-fiction books,
Redbill: From Pearls to Peace
and
Alan Villiers: Voyager of the Winds
, her writing has a strong grounding in maritime and military history, focusing on human experience during extreme events.

She has two adult sons and lives in Victoria, near Wilsons Promontory.