The Watch Tower (19 page)

‘Oh. Yes.’ Clare stood still. ‘It’s my sister.’

Janet rolled her eyes at the car. ‘Whacko! I’ll have to pay to speak to you after this. G’night.’

She wandered off along the crowded footpath in the direction of transport.

‘Hullo, there!’ Felix said jovially, when Clare went to the side of the car, and Laura explained quickly, ‘We had to come to town this afternoon, so we thought we’d wait and give you a lift home.’

Clare stepped out of the world and into the car with the deadened responses of one whom nothing could surprise.

‘Look what I’ve been given!’ Laura said in a small coy voice, after adequate attention had been paid to
Felix’s feat of driving in the rush-hour. ‘Look!’ She half-turned and stretched out her right hand to Clare.

A diamond ring. A fierce cluster of diamonds. Clare looked at it and had no reaction at all. But these amazing people were waiting! ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’

‘It’s lovely.’

Felix jerked his head round enthusiastically. ‘I was darn lucky to get it. It came from some collection or other some rich old Hungarian brought over with him.’

‘It was probably a family heirloom,’ Laura said. Her hand was skeletal. The veins rose in blue welts from the milk-white skin. The heavy ring slipped on her finger and she straightened it guiltily, and pressed her fingers together. ‘But see how the stones are set, Clare.’

‘Yes, I see it.’

Felix said, ‘You’d never get work like that nowadays.’

‘The old man had it in the back of his warehouse, Clare, in his own private safe. He didn’t want to sell it, do you think, Felix? (He really loves jewels, Clare. Not because of their value!) I don’t think he’d have sold this to just anyone, do you? We were there for three hours. His nice girl brought us in a cup of tea and a little chocolate cake each.’

‘Maybe not. Maybe not. Oh, I’ve known old Schultz for—twenty years.’ Felix looked into their eyes
as if they might not believe this.

‘Really?’ Laura did sound quite surprised, though he had in fact told her this incredible news several times today.

‘Oh, yes!’ he assured her. ‘About twenty years—And so you think it’s pretty good, young Clare?’

‘It’s beautiful.’

‘So it ought to be!’

‘Try it on,’ Laura said generously, and Felix seconded her. ‘Yeah—’ He turned briefly to look at it on Clare’s hand. ‘How’s that, eh?’

‘It’s lovely.’

‘Be better if you didn’t bite your nails,’ he laughed.

‘It still looks beautiful,’ Laura said loyally.

What children were these who were killing her? Clare looked out of the windows as they drove across the bridge. Through a great mesh of grey girders and wire and piping she stared out and down at the incomprehensible harbour which, like all else, had deteriorated so, from being claimed, gloated over, by Felix. What children were these?

‘Yes, we had to go along to see that Dr. What’s-’is-name today,’ Felix said in his exaggerated drawl. ‘Your old sister hasn’t been looking too good. We’ve got to fatten her up. Under seven stone! So we had a talk with old Thingummy and he reckons I’d better take her up
north for a break.’

Clare looked at the familiar backs of their heads. There was a pause. She forced herself to say, ‘And are you?’

‘Yeah, I guess we will. Think we’ll take a little trip up to the Barrier Reef for a few weeks. See if we can’t put a bit of meat on her bones.’

‘So isn’t that lovely?’ Laura asked, half-turning again in her seat to look at Clare.

‘It is. Yes. It is.’ She took a breath consciously, like an old woman. ‘When are you going?’

‘Tomorrow.’ Felix gave a small-boy grin that showed his upper and lower teeth set together.

‘You’ll enjoy that.’ She took another breath. ‘This will be the first time you’ve been out of Sydney since you left school, Laura.’

‘Never been out of New South Wales?’ Felix marvelled. ‘I’d been all over the world by the time I was your age.’

There was a thinking silence. Fortunately, they were almost home.

After dinner Felix wrote some letters and then he sauntered out to post them.

‘He only went so that I could explain to you,’ Laura said, folding away the ironing-board. ‘Wasn’t it lucky I had everything clean? All our clothes are ready to go away.’

‘What?’ Clare looked at her. Laura had called her from her room in an unaccustomed wheedling tone of voice. ‘Explain what, then?’ Clare repeated.

‘We-ell—You’ve washed your hair!—Laura’s eyes remained somewhat elusive in spite of her desire for frank communication. They touched on the white-painted cupboard doors, the Vent-Axia fan that disposed of cooking odours, the bowl of fruit on the formica bench, and gave the regrettable impression that her deeper consciousness was even now absorbed in the problems of housekeeping: ‘
Well
,
we had a long talk this morning—about last night and the whole situation. And at eleven o’clock we went over to see Dr. Hope. After we explained what the position was, that something had to be done, he rang up the new psychiatric clinic for an appointment and the doctor in charge agreed to see Felix right away.’

‘Did he go? What happened? Did you go, too?’

‘No, I came on home. I wanted to go, because you can imagine the act Felix puts on even if he’s consulting an ordinary doctor about a cold in the head. As if he couldn’t think what he’s there for except to humour me! But they didn’t want to see me.’

‘Really? That seems odd. You’d think it would be fairly essential—’ she stopped. ‘Still. The main thing is—Felix went. How did he get on?’

Laura’s eyelids fell; her brows rose. ‘According to
him, the psychiatrist said drinking never did anyone any harm.’

Clare fell back in her chair. Her expression faded. Then she laughed.

Wryly, Laura nodded, meeting her eyes. ‘He said no one should be nagged for having a few drinks at night after work. Then they seemed to talk for several hours about some property he’s selling at Newport. In the end he said there was nothing wrong with Felix, but if anyone over twenty-five was mentally ill or alcoholic it was impossible to cure them. Almost always.’

Clare had been sitting, her left elbow on the table, her left hand covering her mouth and chin. She moved this now to grimace her dismay. ‘I hope he’s been misquoted.’

Laura never shrugged; it was against her nature, but she did shrug now and shake her head. ‘Anyway. Then he sent him back to Dr. Hope.’

‘Does the psychiatrist want to see him again?’

‘Evidently not.’

Clare felt the bone of her forehead meticulously as if her fingertips might discover something helpful there. She said, ‘Why did he have to go back to Dr. Hope?’

‘For a proper medical check-up. They rang me from the surgery to go back while he was there. When I saw him this second time, Dr. Hope agreed that Felix ought to give up drink for the sake of his health.’

‘I see. Thank heavens! It doesn’t
solve
whatever’s wrong, but—What about its effect on
your
health?’

‘He didn’t seem to think it should have any. He really wasn’t keen to ask him to stop it, you know. Still, he told us both to go away for a holiday, and he wrote out prescriptions—a tonic,’ she laid a hand on her chest, ‘and some new drug for Felix to help him—Then Felix took me to town and bought me this lovely ring, and made lots of arrangements for the trip. One of the representatives can stay in the factory while we’re away and take phone calls and do the wages. But he’s really turned over a new leaf, Clare. Everything’s going to be different from now on.’

‘That’s good. I hope so.’ Clare’s voice was expressionless.

‘I said to Felix,’ Laura went on cautiously, ‘that I thought you might be thinking of leaving the house after these last months, and he was horrified. He said what would be the use of trying to change if he’d broken the family up anyway.’

‘
Please
.’

‘What do you mean? Well, that’s what he said.’

As if it mattered, Clare bent her head to feel the dripping ends of her combed wet hair. ‘I looked at some rooms today at lunch-time. I took an extra hour off. I’ve rented one.’

Laura’s small white face swelled. ‘Clare! You didn’t! You wouldn’t spoil it all just when he’s doing everything
he can to show—I wasn’t going to tell you this. I wasn’t going to tell you because it’s a surprise, but he’s bought you a lovely gold bracelet and a big box of imported chocolates. He was going to give them to you in the morning before we went off. But if you’re moving out, I don’t suppose we’ll be going, so it doesn’t matter.’

A number of words came to Clare’s mind. She said nothing. She felt a sort of haggardness of the soul.

‘A beautiful gold bracelet. He took such a long time to choose it. He made poor old Mr. Schultz bring out every one in the shop. He is
trying
,’
Laura said angrily. She could not stop performing unnecessary tasks—filling the electric jug, pulling fresh green leaves off the innocent ivy plant.

A row of pictures, secret photographs, maps, was exposed to Clare swiftly in such a way that each passing square was only partially visible. It was swiftly withdrawn. On a single breath she tried to remember its fading message: there was no end to pity. That was part of it. There was to be no end to the pity she must feel for Laura.

Her heart hardened. She hated pity. She hated Laura. She hated her febrile strength, her placating smiles, her tentative movements. She hated her nervous headaches, her obsessive nature, her selfishness, her self-sacrifice, her martyrdom and masochism. She hated her because she clearly willed to think that a gold bracelet might have the power to influence anyone, and
had once known better. But above all she hated Laura for the contempt in which she held herself.

‘If you stay,’ Laura’s voice was peculiar, ‘I know he’ll try to be different. Why shouldn’t we all be happy and peaceful at last? Just when—Why should we all be separated as if we had no one to care about us? He only wants to do what’s right now. Are you going to be temperamental and ruin everything?’

Clare sat at the table looking and listening, her raw fingertips spread on its lemon surface. ‘Yes, I am,’ she said tonelessly.

Laura turned to her with a tremendous embattled searching look.

‘All right, then!’ She gave a wild glance about the kitchen, saw and seized a pile of clean dinner plates and crashed them with all her strength onto the black-and-white tiled floor. She seized another pile and smashed them before Clare could jump from her chair.

‘Laura!’

‘Let go! You’re hurting me!’

‘What are you doing? Stop it!’ She started to cry. ‘What did you do that for? Why did you?’ She let Laura tug her bandaged wrists and diamond ring away. ‘Why did you break your dishes? That was horrible! That was mean!’

They were only abhorrent to her as sharing the general disease of the house, but Laura had cherished them. Now to punish her, Laura had broken them at her.

‘Why did you?’ she cried, her mind turning on itself with frustration. She felt heartbroken. The innocuous dishes were smashed. No one spoke the truth. No one in the world was natural. There was no length they would not go to to keep her.

‘Well—’ Laura waited to say, looking defiantly at her and the havoc about her feet. ‘Well—’ She slid the toe of her shoe amongst the broken chips and breathed in, shame-faced and aggrieved. ‘I was—fed-up to think you were going to spoil it all.’

‘What?’ Clare screeched, catching her eye incredulously, brushing her own eyes and beginning to laugh. ‘Fed-up? You were fed-up?’

The colossal inadequacy of the word dawned on Laura and she, too, started to laugh.

‘It’s awful. It’s awful.’ Clare laughed. ‘It’s so stupid, such a waste, so unnecessary!’

Laura laughed with a sycophantic eagerness, picking up the broken china, laughing and nodding agreement to Clare’s every word.

‘It is stupid,’ she said with this same reasonable eagerness, still smiling broadly. ‘Of course it is!’ She turned to watch her sister.

Clare threw her arms out, raising her brows, laughing and crying, addressing herself to some invisible comrade, not yet encountered in life but
there
,
who knew what she meant. ‘Why should it be like this? There’s the whole world and millions of people.
Galaxies. Much more than—’ she indicated with one eloquent hand pity, fear, frustration, loathing and boredom. ‘There must—it must—’

‘Yes, everything’s going to be very nice from now on,’ Laura assured her with the lively non-comprehension of a salesman. ‘You’ll be a sensible girl, won’t you? You won’t go? You’d be kicking poor Felix when he’s down. He only wants a chance. He thinks the world of you. You’d ruin everything.’

Listening to this intently, Clare’s expression changed to what looked like wonder and delight. ‘
I
would?’ she said softly, laying her damaged fingers on her chest to be sure there was no mistake. ‘
I
would ruin everything?’ she asked hurriedly.

‘What happens now depends on you,’ Laura insisted, looking at her with the same animation and increasing confidence. Clare seemed to be crying again, but she was also half-smiling, so—‘I can’t stand any more unpleasantness, Clare. You won’t be silly, will you? You’ve sometimes said how sorry you feel for Felix.’

‘Yes,’ she admitted.

‘He’ll be back in a minute. If you did this now, it would be the end of everything. It isn’t as if there was anything to go for.’

‘No,’ Clare agreed, smiling thoughtfully while her eyes shed tears. By not a single word or gesture had the world shown any need of her. ‘Except that I want to,’ she added judiciously, as an afterthought.

‘If you do—’ Laura’s voice cracked and she stared into Clare’s eyes for some moments with an appeal so unabashed and calculating that Clare looked away for shame. ‘All right,’ she said, after a pause. ‘What does it matter?’

It is a wonder of the world to notice how fundamentally people change from one second to the next when they are given their own way.

Monica Ewart caught Clare’s arm as they pushed back along the narrow crowded footpath of Castlereagh Street to the office. ‘Look! Everyone’s staring at something.’