The Memory Tree (44 page)

After lunch, it’s customary for Hal to take a nap. Instead, he asks Godown to come with him and sit a while in the garden. Zav has gone to Will’s and Brenda is driving Sealie to her doctor’s appointment. ‘Mrs Mac’s gone shopping,’ Sealie tells Godown. ‘We’re meeting her at the coffee shop afterwards. Can you put on the roast at five if we’re not back?’

The two old men settle in their chairs and Godown tips his hat over his face. ‘Siesta time,’ he says, and is soon snoring loudly. Hal sits quietly, with his hands in his lap. He is not in the least tired. He looks at his watch. Not quite time yet. Glancing back at Godown, he walks over to the magnolia and settles himself with his back against the trunk, watching for the sleeping man to wake up.

‘Hal?’ Godown looks at the empty chair.

‘Over here.’ Hal waits while his old friend comes over, his face still blurred with sleep.

‘What you doin’ over here?’

‘Waiting.’

‘What you waitin’ for?’

Hal ignores the question. ‘Will you do me a favour, Pastor?’

Godown nods. ‘If I can.’

‘Will you sing for me?’

Relieved at such a simple request, Godown is happy to oblige. ‘What do you want me to sing?’

‘Can you sing “Amazing Grace” for me?’

Godown’s reply is barely audible. ‘I can’t, Hal. I can’t.’ The need in Hal’s eyes is so strong, that Godown has to look away. ‘I can sing somethin’ else.’
Anything else. Anything else.

‘I’ll never ask another thing of you.’

So Godown sings my song, his voice thick with grief.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost, but now I’m found

Was blind but now I see.

As Hal leans back against his wife’s tree, the old hymn penetrates his skin and flows along his veins until it is flesh of his flesh. Godown sings the second verse and then stops as Hal’s shaky tenor joins him.

Through many dangers, toils and snares

I have already come.

’Tis Grace that leads me safe thus far

And Grace that leads me home.

Hal stands up and brushes down his pants. ‘I’ll be off, then,’ he says. ‘God bless you, Moses. And thank you.’

‘You’re sure Hal?’

‘Very sure.’

‘Is it the voices?’

‘No. The voices are gone. This is me.’

‘It’s a sin, Hal. I’m bound to tell you that.’

‘Only if it’s done in despair.’

Godown kisses his old friend on both cheeks. ‘Peace,’ he says. ‘Peace be with you.’

Brushing away his tears, Godown watches as Hal walks out the gate and down the path to the river. He should stop him. It’s the final sin against the Holy Ghost. But Moses B. Washbourne has always served Hal’s will above his own, even above God’s.

As Hal rounds the corner out of sight, Godown raises his hand in a salute—or maybe it’s a blessing.

7

‘S
O YOU DIDN’T FIND A
letter?’ They all shake their heads. The detective doesn’t care.
One less nutter to worry about
, he thinks. There is a letter, though. Two, in fact. One for Sealie and one for my father. Neither of them has been opened.

‘No signs that he was planning to do himself in, then?’ They shudder collectively at the crudity of expression and shake their heads again. They had all known on some level, so they didn’t quite meet the detective’s eye. It’s family business. Nothing to do with this red-faced stranger.

‘The body is on its way to the Coroner’s office. We’ll be in touch.’ They stand, staring at him, until he says, ‘I’ll see myself out.’

They are alone again, and in silent agreement go to their separate rooms. Godown and Mrs Mac wonder about a letter. Neither Sealie nor Zav has told them yet. They haven’t even told each other.

Sealie’s letter is short. She opens it as soon as she’s alone.

Dearest Sealie,
(it says in strong black ink)
Dearest Sealie.

I hope you understand. I am setting us all free. You were my rock, my dear, dear child, but it’s time.

Your loving father

Heraldo Rodriguez

Sealie hasn’t been fully aware of the weight she has carried all these years. You get used to anything.
I am setting us all free
. Sealie reads and re-reads this sentence and instead of feeling grateful, she is overwhelmed by feelings of anger and abandonment. After all she has done for him, her father has left her. What meaning does her life have if he no longer needs her care? Conflicted and lonely, she sits on her bed, clutching the letter.

Grief is never simple. Within its net we find guilt, regret, fear, love and, in some dark corner, a shameful relief. Sealie grieves for what might have been. She grieves for what was. She grieves for her ‘real father’ and for the sad, deluded man who was driven to destroy all the things he loved best. Her tears are hot and silent. They constrict her throat with a hard, painful lump. She sits for a very long time.

She is honest with herself. As the night unfolds and there are no more tears to cry, she has to acknowledge that relief has become her dominant emotion. She’s free. They all are. Especially her poor, sick father. Sealie finally falls asleep feeling weightless and cleansed.

Zav prepares for bed and sits, turning the letter in his hand. Why was it addressed to him and not Sealie? It had been slipped under his door sometime between his last meeting with his father and Hal’s walk to the river. The letter crackles with intent and he resists its clamour. He could just destroy it. As likely as not, it’s the ranting of a madman. Putting it on his bedside table, he lies on top of the quilt, hands behind his head and tries not to think.

He wakes up feeling stiff and chilled. It’s three twenty-seven, hours before dawn, and he’s wide awake. The letter lies incandescent, next to the clock. Zav knows he has to read it, not for his sake but for Sealie’s. Surely his father would have some message for the child who stood by him. He fumbles for his reading glasses and opens the letter. There is one page of his father’s neat, square hand. Zav recognises the strange flourish on the Z.
ZZZZZZZZZed for ZZZZZZZZZZav,
his father used to say.
ZZZZZZZZav I’ll give you this chocolate frog if you can count to a ZZZZZZZZillion.
That was before his mother died. Maybe before Sealie was born.

One, two, three
, the little boy would chant.
Four, five, six . . .

Tell you what,
Hal would say
. You can have it if you get to ten.

Zav smiles in spite of himself and returns to the letter.

Dear Zav,
(he reads)

Dear, dear Zav. I’ll be gone by the time you read this. Perhaps you won’t read it and you’ll never know the things I need to tell you. I need to tell you because there are things you need to know. If you have been kind enough to come this far, please don’t stop now.

The first thing you need to know is that I love you. Always have. It’s hard, being the father of a boy. I tried to make you tough and independent but I lost you somewhere along the way. If we’re honest, we’ll agree that by the time you left for Vietnam, you were glad to get away. But I prayed for you every day you were there. Every night, too. I can guess that you probably have that pitying look you always had when I spoke of prayer. Don’t be too cynical. Prayer’s just another way of loving.

Zav is reading intently, turning to the lamp so he can see more easily. How he would loved to have known this as a boy. But how? What would he have said, at ten, say, if Hal had hugged him? Told him he was loved? He’d have squirmed away, embarrassed, because that’s what boys did. His father wasn’t so different from any other father in that respect. But other boys had a mother. Zav sighs with pity for his young self.

The next thing you need to know is that I have spent much of my life in the grip of mental illness.
(So what’s new? thinks Zav, reading on.)
There are moments of clarity. I’m writing this letter in what I hope is one of these moments, but I can never tell. I can’t be sure, but right now there are no voices and the world seems safe. There are times when I’m so depressed I can barely walk. Then there are the voices. How can I explain what it’s like when every waking hour, there are voices mocking you, shouting obscenities, poisoning your thoughts? They tell me who I can trust. There are so many people I can’t trust. The world can be a frightening place.

He’s right there
. Zav flashes back to the tropical heat, the sound of gunfire, the silent shadows flitting through the jungle.

I want to tell you about Grace . . .

Zav closes his eyes.
All this talk of love, of fear—so persuasive. But Grace—how can he even write her name?

I took Grace from you. I struggled with God, but his holy will was clear. At that moment, the evil voices were silent and I know that it was God speaking to me. She was too good, too pure and I had to save her. I argued with God. Pleaded with Him. But that’s because I was selfish. I wanted to keep her here, in our world, with us.

Zav groans, holding his head in his hands.

I want to give her back to you.

What the fuck is he saying?

Your daughter, Grace, was truly a gift of God. She had those huge grey eyes you all had, and she’d look at people quite steadily, as though she was working them out. I don’t know how else to put it. She smiled when she was just a few weeks old and her smile lit up the dreariest day. She had black hair, just like you, and chubby little cheeks. Her favourite games were This Little Piggy and Round and Round the Garden. She was so smart. As soon as you’d start Round and Round, you’d see the twinkle in her eye. She was only a baby, but she remembered. She loved the tickly bit. She’d giggle and wriggle and screw up her nose, just the way Kate did when she laughed. Poor Kate. I loved her too.

She really enjoyed her bath. She’d slap at the water and scream her head off when we got her out. I bought her a little yellow duck—she liked to watch it bounce. She wasn’t quite able to pick it up, but you could tell she wanted to.

She loved her teddy. Especially when I made him tickle her tummy. Sealie bought her fairy wings once. She looked just like a little fairy too, all smiling and cute. There’s a photo somewhere. Ask Sealie.

Zav puts a hand to his face and feels the tears that scald his cheeks. They have squeezed their way out one by one— painful, fat, unfamiliar drops, oozing, sliding, gathering speed. He wipes his eyes as a child might, using the back of his hand.

The photo
—Kate had left him a photo. He swings his legs over the bed and rummages in the top drawer—and finds me. I’ve been there all this time—waiting.

He peers at the photo. Yes—there’s the smile, the black hair, the crinkled nose, just as Hal had described. He touches the image of my toes.
This Little Piggy
. . . He doesn’t know Round and Round the Garden. He would have, given half a chance. He says my name aloud. ‘Grace—Grace.’ The sibilance slides into the surrounding dark.

My name. My father has spoken my name.

He is crying with abandon now. Great, wracking sobs shake his whole body. The faces of the dying and wounded turn mercifully away. The shut, fear-filled faces in the villages retreat. The silent rubber-shod figures fall back. They are not gone, but they give way to horror and grief on a human scale.

This is my moment. I have found the shore I’ve been seeking. As my father sobs in his rumpled bed, he finds space in his heart for me.

8

M
Y STORY HAS ENDED, BUT
I want to look one more time at my brave aunt Sealie, the woman who now, in middle age, finds herself all at once without an anchor. She has no compass to guide her, no reference point for the freedom she has been given. For so many years, there have been three men in her life: Hal, Zav and Scottie.

Now Hal has gone.

Zav is not going to stay either. ‘We’re free to do what we want now,’ he tells her. ‘I’m going to travel for a year or two.’ He smiles. ‘Time I found myself.’

Sealie, once so necessary to him, feels abandoned. (Honestly, who can blame her?) ‘When?’ she says, ‘Do you have to go straight away?’

Unused to considering other people’s feelings, Zav’s response is matter-of-fact. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll stay till we sell the house. And help you to find a place, of course. What? What’s the matter?’