The Memory Tree (28 page)

Zav completed his shave and only then looked at his face properly. Without the heavy growth it looked thinner,
was
thinner. His dark hair, with its short, army haircut, was stuck to his scalp. He could actually see the dust. His mouth was grim, with newly etched trenches from nose to chin. The skin around his eyes was stretched and bruised. He met his own gaze and looked away quickly. He was nowhere near ready for that.

He spent a long time in the shower, relishing the dense, cool spray and sweet-smelling soap until he had washed away all the dust and mud and sweat he had brought back with him. Drying himself with thick, soft towels, he was surprised to find that he didn’t break into an immediate sweat. In Vietnam he was never totally dry. He took longer than necessary to dress, dreading the violence of grief beyond the door. Shamed that he couldn’t offer to mingle his own.

Zav sat on the edge of the bath and slowly buttoned his shirt. His father had killed his baby girl. His daughter was lost to him forever. Where was the horror, the revulsion, the gut-wrenching pain he knew he should be feeling? He sensed its presence but access was denied. He had simply run out of space for any more horror or pity. His head was crowded with images of war and this tragedy of peace was too fragile to fight its way to the surface.
Better she never lived than to know what I
 
know
, Zav thought. But he knew that was unnatural.
One day I’ll have the space to mourn
, he promised me softly.

While tears of grief were beyond him, anger flourished. He strode around the house muttering curses and shouting diatribes against his father. Kate, too, hated Hal, but her focus was on her child. She tried to teach Zav about the daughter he had known so briefly.

‘Come and sit down,’ she implored the pacing Zav. ‘I want to show you the photos.’ She took out an envelope and touched each one gently before passing it into her husband’s reluctant hands. He held them limply as though they were someone else’s tedious holiday snaps. His eyes refused to focus.

‘Here she is with the fairy wings Sealie gave her.’

Zav tried. ‘Look at that. A little fairy.’ Already reaching for the next photo.

‘Here she is in her bassinet. There’s teddy.’

‘She liked her teddy?’ He knew so little about her. ‘What’s this one?’ Zav held up a photo of Sealie and me with a roughly torn edge.

‘Your father was next to Sealie in that one. I tore him off.’ She had done this to all the photos that included Hal. Then cut him into tiny pieces which she burned in the ashtray.

‘That murdering bastard. That fucking shit.’ It seemed that the only thing that could ignite Zav’s passion was hatred of his father. It scared Kate. The vein in his temple throbbed and his face turned dark red. She was afraid he might have a stroke. And even more afraid that Hal’s violence might also be latent in his son.

When the story appeared in the newspapers, Godown went to visit his flock. Despite his own sorrow, he still had a strong sense of duty. Knocking on Jockey’s door he was confronted by a frowsy woman in hair rollers and a floral dressing-gown. ‘He’s gone,’ she responded in answer to his question. ‘Left early this morning. Didn’t want the newspapers nosing round his affairs again.’

‘Thank you, ma’am. You don’t happen to know where he went?’

‘You tell me. He owes me two weeks’ rent.’

Godown fished in his wallet for twenty dollars and handed it to the woman who grabbed it eagerly. He squared his shoulders and went next door to Bert and Beryl’s. In contrast to Jockey’s house, theirs was neat as a pin, with carefully pruned roses and a minuscule lawn. ‘Emoh Ruo’, the brass plate announced. The venetian blind twitched and Bert opened the door.

‘Sorry, Pastor,’ he said, before Godown could speak. ‘Beryl and me are no longer members of your church.’ And he closed the door without another word. It was the most definitive action Godown had ever witnessed from that timid little man.

The dry cleaning/electrical repair shop was open when he got there. Helena and Spiros were standing together, right on the border, behind the counter. They looked up from their conversation as Godown came in, their brows heavy with concern. Over the years their black hair had turned a dark grey; Spiros’ springing up in tufts over his ears, while the middle revealed a shiny olive scalp.

‘We can’t have you here anymore, my friend,’ Helena said regretfully. ‘It’s not you, you understand.’ She looked at her husband for support.

‘It’s the business,’ Spiros explained. ‘We can’t afford to lose customers.’

‘I do understand.’ Godown turned to the door. ‘I brought the station wagon. Do you mind if I collect my things?’

‘Wait. We owe you some money from the lease.’ Helena began to scrabble in the cash drawer.

‘Keep it,’ Godown said wearily. ‘I don’t need it.’

He walked down the familiar path to his church. Down the familiar path to the shed. He unlocked the door and switched on the light. In the harsh glare of the naked bulb, the corrugated iron walls and the stacked storage boxes were suddenly and painfully visible. In the past, Godown had seen a church, a sacred place made beautiful by its purpose. Now he saw it for what it really was—a cluttered storage shed in an overgrown backyard.

There was pitifully little to take. He took the box of tea things to the car. Charity shop for those. He gave a wry smile. Beryl was an uncharitable woman but her gift for sponge making was God-given. He returned to the shed and put the few texts, the cross and the hymn sheets in a box. He couldn’t be bothered with the lectern. Finally he took up the small case where he kept his stoles. He remembered Hal’s gleeful anticipation as the parcel was unwrapped, his pride at seeing the pastor wearing his gift while preaching the word of God. What could he do with these? He knew he would never preach again, but felt the need for some symbolic gesture, some final ceremony before the Church of the Divine Conflagration was laid to rest.

Godown returned to the shop where Helena and Spiros were sitting uneasily on either side of the line.

‘I have a gift for you,’ the big man said simply. A stole was draped over his outstretched arms. ‘Green is the colour of hope. I wish you well.’

They took one end each. ‘Thank you, Pastor.’

In accord for the first time in years, they watched as Godown left, closing the door carefully behind him.

‘That trip back home . . .’ Helena began.

‘Could be time.’ Spiros turned the door sign over to ‘Closed’. ‘Let’s have a drink and talk about it.’

Helena crossed the line, took his hand and they walked together into their home behind the shop.

Godown’s next stop was the little terrace house. Chloe answered the door and ushered him in to where her sister was waiting.

‘I have a gift for you,’ he said. ‘But you must choose.’ He laid out the remaining stoles and stepped back.

The moment had come to pass.

Ariadne chose violet, ‘For penance.’

Chloe chose black, ‘For mourning.’

Godown was puzzled at their choice, even a little resentful. ‘Surely I’m the one should be mournin’. The one who needs to do penance.’

‘You gave us a choice. We have chosen.’

Godown left with the red and white stoles. The white one he lay on my grave. He kept the red one. Blood and martyrdom. It seemed fitting.

They had postponed the funeral until my father came home. Dazed and reeling with fatigue, he held my mother close as the Mass of the Angels was celebrated at St Theresa’s. Grief had liquefied her bones. If it were not for my father’s supporting arm, she would have collapsed on the cold terrazzo tiles and evaporated like the quietly dispersing incense. She desired this. The sorrow was too great to bear. Her mother, holding her other arm, grieved not only for her granddaughter, but for her own child, whose pain she felt deep in her womb.

Sealie sat on the other side of Zav, her face still white with shock. She had been there when they found me, and the police diver, tears and river water streaming down his face, placed me in her appalled arms, where she rocked me and crooned to me in my dreamless sleep. Now there were no tears left to cry, and her mourning was hard and bleak, including as it did, her father, for whom she felt alternately a profound hatred and an even more profound pity. How could she not have known? She had been so eager to go off and start her new life. To leave her father. To allow him to deteriorate unchecked. She knelt and bowed her head so that she would not have to see the little white box.

‘Holy Mother Mary, take the hand of our little angel. Keep her safe with you in heaven.’ Mrs Mac prayed for me and then for Hal. ‘Forgive him, Father. He wasn’t himself. He loved little Grace—you know that, Jesus.’

Godown bowed his head and spoke to the God he had served faithfully most of his life. ‘Accept this spotless lamb who’s comin’ home to you. Take care of her, Lord. And take care of Hal. He was sick and troubled but he sought to serve you well.’

Bob was used to more formal prayer. ‘Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord . . .’ He suddenly remembered Hal praying that same prayer when Zav was lost on the mountain. ‘It’s you who’s lost now, old mate,’ he murmured, and paused before returning to the austere tolling of the
De
 
Profundis
.

Chloe and Ariadne, their eyes brimming with sea-tears, found that words eluded them. So they prayed with their hearts. In the end, there were no words.

Godown sang.

In the sweet, bye ’n’ bye

We will meet on that beautiful shore.

In the sweet, bye ’n’ bye

We will meet on that beautiful shore.

They didn’t sing my song. ‘Amazing Grace’ was forever entwined with Grandfather Hal, my tragic, loving murderer.

3

M
Y GRANDFATHER, FOUND UNFIT TO
plead, was detained at the governor’s pleasure.

Chemically subdued, he sat in the back of a van, between two male nurses, listlessly staring at his hands. Houses and shops flew by unregarded. Farms came and went, their grazing livestock and spring plantings ignored. Mountains loomed in the distance but Hal saw only his hands. Or were they his father’s? They were slightly freckled, he noticed with interest. There were ropey veins and black hairs that trailed from his wrist. He flexed his fingers and spread them wide, frowning absently at the bitten nails.

As the van continued its journey, he began to doze. His nurses discussed the football, the war, the mystery of the Prime Minister’s disappearance. They wondered idly what it would be like to be a farmer. Decided it was too dependent on the weather. The cloud cover lifted. The ‘Welcome to Ararat’ sign appeared, but Hal was completely unaware of either his companions or the landscape. By the time the van slid to a halt, his head was a vast empty space.

Someone helped him out and he stood, bewildered, arms hanging by his side. At that moment, he became aware of the Voice.
Bide your time
, it said softly.
Bide your time
.