The Turning Tide (23 page)

‘I’ll take the risk.’

‘But don’t forget, you won’t be able to take her home with you, not for years, maybe not ever. You’ve got to be prepared to make Japan your home.’

I nodded. ‘I can do that too.’

‘Yeah. I think you can. You’re a strange one, Mike. Always were. Can I come to the wedding?’

Chapter 21

Ian Erikssen rings and asks if he can buy me a drink after work. I agree to meet him at the Royal Oak. I’m thinking as I walk, What kind of mood will he be in tonight? Johnny’s boy is a fiery lad, no question, but despite everything he makes me laugh and I find I’m liking him more and more. I wonder, not for the first time, how it must have affected him, growing up without a father.

He’s in the lounge in one of a pair of comfortable chairs near the fire. On a small table are two whisky glasses. I sit down and Ian hands me one.

‘Since words appear to fail me, I thought this might do as an apology instead,’ he says.

I say, ‘Cheers,’ and swallow, tasting silky fruit, spices, smoky oak. I close my eyes as the warmth spreads through my chest.

‘Mmm. That’s the nicest thing I’ve tasted in years. Apology accepted, with pleasure.’

‘I asked for their best single malt. Not bad.’

‘Here’s to – what? – young Lena. How is she?’

‘Fine. Bit shaken at the time, knows it might have been worse. But fine now. Thanks.’

I take another sip. It really is good stuff. ‘Have you moved to Foster yet?’

‘In a few weeks. Still got some loose ends to tie up in Hong Kong.’

‘I suppose little Jessie makes moving a bit of an endurance test.’

He chuckles and says, ‘Aye, there’s that.’

‘You know, you sound just like my old Irish dad. You’ve even got the eyebrow wiggle to go with it.’

‘I had an Irish mate once. Probably learnt it from him.’

The light has gone from his eyes.

‘Dead?’

He nods. ‘Our ship was shelled. Friendly fire.’ He laughs mirthlessly. ‘A Yank F4 Phantom somehow thought a three-thousand-ton destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin was an enemy helicopter. No one knows why or how. All swept under the carpet.’

He takes a gulp of whisky. ‘Two men were killed. A friend of mine was one of the wounded. He was evacuated, hospital, medical discharge, lost his hearing. Three months later, perfect weather, he rides his motorcycle off a bridge. I checked it out when I was on leave. No way it was an accident.’

‘Probably not,’ I say. ‘And what happened to you?’

‘Oh … woken by an incredible noise, a million windows shattering at once. Jumped up, raced to battle stations. Then the second and third shells hit. Noise so loud you could hardly hear it, if that makes any sense. I was lucky, nicked by shrapnel, nothing more. But the noise – couldn’t get it out of my head for years and years. Any sudden sound would trigger …’ He takes a deep breath. ‘Anyway. My time was up and I was glad to go. Didn’t realise at the time what it had done to me. But Liz and little Lena realised. I was so bloody angry.’

My eyebrows lift.

‘No, Mike,’ he shakes his head. ‘Didn’t hit them, not ever. But I’d get into fights in the pub, gamble money away, snarl, slam doors, give everyone the silent treatment. I don’t know how Liz coped for so long. Then one day she didn’t.’

I nod. There’s nothing I can say.

‘So I went to a shrink. She was good, really helped, saved my life.’

‘A female shrink? I’m having to revise my views of you on a moment-to-moment basis here.’

‘I’m not a total fucking dinosaur, Mike.’ He laughs. ‘Challenged my assumptions big-time for a while there, though.’

I drink some more of the excellent whisky, smiling, watching the fire.

‘Anyway, the shrink did me good but by then years had passed. Liz had another partner, Lena was happy.’ He shrugs. ‘I was already spending a lot of time working in Hong Kong, so I settled there, met Suyin and you know the rest.’

He looks at me. ‘What about you, Mike? Did your blokes get that kind of post-traumatic something –’

‘Stress,’ I say. ‘I think so, but it was hidden away better. There were so many of us, it was practically normal behaviour. Drinking too much, depression, not talking about it. It hit Alan, a mate of mine. After a seven-year marriage and two great kids, he just took off.’

‘Not your poofy friend Alan?’

‘Ian,’ I say patiently. ‘Are we going to go another cycle of you being a fuckwit, then apologising, then being civil, then being a fuckwit again? I’d really like to enjoy the civil phase, and this excellent dram, for a little while longer.’

After a long pause he says quietly, ‘I can’t get my head around it, that’s all. He was my father, for Christ’s sake.’ He swallows. ‘I asked Mum – Helen – if it was true.’

‘And?’ I hold my breath.

‘She said she thought it was, but when you tried to explain it to her she got angry at you.’

I grin wryly. ‘Angry? I reckon they measured it at 9.5 on the Richter scale.’

‘But he was a
commando
, Mike, not some pansy. A real man.’

‘Did you know, in the greatest regiments of ancient Thebes the soldiers were required to be lovers? So they’d protect each other on the battlefield.’

‘Come on. You’re kidding me.’

‘Look it up.’

‘What, in some journal of psychopathology?’

‘Just history, mate,’ I say. ‘History for grown-ups.’

‘But I can’t believe he’d do those things … you know … with another man.’

‘Whatever they did, it was their business. The same way it’s no one’s business what goes on between any couple. Between you and Suyin, say.’

He’s surprised and says slowly, ‘Too bloody right.’

He thinks for a while, looking at the fire through his glass, then says, ‘But what about discipline? Morale?’

‘Johnny once told me his fighting men just wanted mates who’d keep them alive, they didn’t care if he fucked pumpkins. I told him he was a good mate even if he was a pumpkin-fucker.’

‘What did he do?’

‘Tried to thump me. In a friendly sort of way.’

Ian laughs aloud. After a moment he says hesitantly, ‘You said it was like they were married …’

‘They couldn’t show openly what they felt. But sometimes I’d see a look between them, like people who’ve been together for years, trusting, intimate.’

He sighs and drains his glass.

‘Ian,’ I say gently, ‘it wasn’t easy for me to understand either. But they were my friends. We were in mortal danger and all we had was each other. Believe me, they were real men.’

Yoshi’s religion was Shinto, Mary and Betty’s, Catholic. There were a few Catholic priests in Hiroshima who’d survived the bombing. I asked one to marry us but he refused, not wanting to antagonise the Allied authorities.

Yoshi’s Shinto priest was horrified at the prospect of a good Japanese girl marrying a barbarian. (‘She’s Australian,’ I said through clenched teeth.) When Japanese people
married, he said, the woman’s name was erased from her family’s register and entered in her husband’s. That was the official requirement. As a barbarian I had no family register to be able to legalise Betty as my wife. I could not marry her.

We seemed to have hit a wall, until a few weeks later Betty and I were driving past one of the many small temples dotted around the countryside.

‘Stop the car,’ she said. ‘I’ve had an idea.’

I pulled over. ‘But the Shinto priest says we can’t marry.’

She smiled. ‘Oh Mike. It’s a Buddhist temple. Can’t you tell the difference yet?’

I couldn’t, but followed her through a courtyard into a dim hall with a gold and red statue of Buddha at the end.

‘Okay, I see now, but won’t a Buddhist be as unhelpful as a Shinto priest?’

She shook her head. ‘They’re different, not so nationalistic. Let’s ask.’

There were only a few people in the hall – two elderly women praying in front of the Buddha and a man kneeling on a cushion to one side. A shaven-headed monk in black robes over a white kimono was near the altar. He was middle-aged, with long grooves around his mouth. He approached us and bowed and we bowed in return.

Betty said quietly, ‘Sensei-san, this man and I have been friends since we were children and now we wish to be married, but we cannot find a priest willing to marry us. Will you help us?’

He looked from Betty to me and back to her again, his eyebrows thoughtfully raised. Then he said, ‘Yes, of course. Are your witnesses here?’

‘Not today,’ said Betty. ‘May we come back next week?’

He nodded gravely and we thanked him, delighted.

We were married in the autumn of 1947, when the trees around the temple were aflame with red and gold and copper. Betty’s mother Mary looked elegant in traditional dress, as did her tiny, dignified great-aunt, Kiyo. Yoshi, too, was impressive in his formal clothes. I felt absurdly honoured.

Betty wore an embroidered silk kimono – a family heirloom – her hair ornamented, her lips red, her face classically pale, her scars smoothed by makeup. I wore full-dress uniform and had Kanga along as my witness. Yoshi brought the head of the local farmers’ cooperative, Mr Tanaka, as Betty’s witness. This seemed an odd choice but I was too distracted to think much about it.

Before the Buddha we made our vows and lit incense. We drank water purified by the monk and we sipped three times from three tiny cups of ritual wine as our pledge. I put a ring on Betty’s finger and the monk gave each of us a set of prayer beads made of polished wood with tiny silken tassels.

We held a small reception at an inn – the one I’d stayed in at the start of the year, where the wife had helped me find Betty’s family. Kanga got happily drunk. He said, ‘You never told me what a stunner Madame Butterfly is. Finally, something you’ve done makes sense, Broome.’

‘That’s Madame Whalen to you now, mate, but yeah,’ I said, nodding. ‘Makes a lot of sense to me too.’

Yoshi and the head of the farmers’ cooperative had more than a few cheerful cups of rice wine, then disappeared.
They came back an hour later, walking unsteadily, and Yoshi handed me a document.

‘Maiku, we went to see the mayor,’ said Yoshi, laughing. ‘He is Tanaka-san’s brother-in-law.’

The head of the farmers’ cooperative nodded. ‘We have registered your marriage. After all, I witnessed it, there could be no question. My brother-in-law has issued you, as head of your household, with a new family register.’

I opened the scroll: the legal document of the family Weiran, Miyoko and Maikeru. I hugged Yoshi and Tanaka-san and anyone I could reach, even Kanga. Maybe I’d had a bit too much to drink too.

They waved us off at the station in the afternoon. We were going into the mountains, to an inn. Betty and I settled in our seats with a sigh; it had been a long day. I took her hand and said, ‘So how are you feeling, Mrs Weiran?’

She chuckled and snuggled against my shoulder. After a couple of hours we reached a town then took a bus up the mountain. It was dark when we arrived at the inn but I could see it was old and timbered. Our room was upstairs with a balcony looking out into the night.

We went to the communal bathhouse and scrubbed each other clean before getting into the near-boiling water. I knew by now a bathhouse was not the place for erotic play, but I couldn’t take my eyes off my wife. My beautiful wife.

Now, warmed up and with our feet comfortable in the room’s brazier pit, the innkeeper brought us a fine meal. Afterwards he cleared it, then said goodnight. We were alone.

Betty rose and went to the cupboard. She pulled down the bedding and arranged it on the floor. She lit candles and
turned off the ancient electric light. She loosened her dark hair and undid her kimono and slipped under the bedcovers.

She said, her eyes sparkling in the candlelight, ‘Maiku, my husband. You are required, here. Now.’

I obeyed my wife.

We had three glorious days at the inn. From our balcony we could see a small lake between the pine trees, and in the quiet lovely night, moonlight rippled on the water.

I returned to work at Ujina but spent weekends at the farm with Betty. A few in my unit guessed I had a woman stashed away, as did some of them, but I kept the news of my marriage to myself.

In early 1948, after a hard winter, Yoshi and Mary said they’d decided to sell the farm and move into Hiroshima. An elderly aunt of Mary’s had died and left her some money, so they thought, after a lifetime of labour, they could retire.

The farm sold quickly and I helped them move in spring. Their new house was solid, newly built and close to the camp at Ujina. Betty and I were given a bedroom a good distance from anyone else, which was thoughtful of her parents.

Soon it became clear the British–Commonwealth occupation mission was winding down, unlike that of the Americans, who were happily settled in and changing the face of Tokyo. (Not to say they hadn’t already changed it pretty permanently with incendiaries, said Kanga. He had a Japanese girlfriend now, a nice woman who’d been a teacher with Betty.)

The British, who hadn’t much wanted the mission in the first place, would soon be gone, along with the Indians and
New Zealanders. Twelve thousand Australians had been there when I’d arrived, but by mid-1948 they were down to half that, with fewer every month. Still, my job was safe for now, which was a relief. I often worried how I’d support myself in Japan without the army – Betty and I couldn’t return to Australia as the ban on Japanese wives continued.

I’d written to my family, of course, when we got married. My parents were pleased for us both: our closeness had worried them when I was too young to settle down, but they’d always liked her. They’d understood, too, when I left for Japan, that if I found her we wouldn’t be parted again. In contrast, Anna’s letters were brief and cold, even though she and Betty had grown up together. I felt we were drifting apart and wondered if it would be permanent.

Good old Liam was simply happy and sent us an exquisite painting. It seemed to depict a marriage without containing a single identifiable marital element. I couldn’t figure out how he’d done that but I loved it anyway.

The next few years with Betty drifted by in contentment. Hiroshima itself was being rebuilt by the resilient Japanese. Trees were growing, fewer people were dying. Food supplies were expanding, children were being born.