Tim (10 page)

Ron grinned. "Except when she's lacing into me. Nasty old bat you are, Es!"

"What else can a drunken old sod like you expect?"

They all laughed. Es poured the tea, milk in the bottom of each cup and then a brew of tea on top of it that was as black and strong as coffee dregs. The resulting drink was dark brown in color and opaque because of the milk; they all sugared their cups liberally and drank the steaming liquid straight down. Only when seconds were poured did they resume their talk.

"What was it you wanted to tell us, Dawnie?" her mother asked.

"I'm going to get married."

There was a startled silence, broken by Ron's cup landing noisily in its saucer.

"That's a bombshell!" he said. "Gord struth and little apples, what a bombshell! I never thought you'd go and get married, Dawnie. Gripes, the house'U be empty without youse!"

Es looked at her daughter gently. "Well, love, I knew you'd up and tie the knot one of these days, and if it's what you want, I'm glad for you, real glad. Who's the bloke?"

"Mick Harrington-Smythe, my boss."

They stared at her blankly.

"But isn't he the bloke you never got on with because he reckoned women belonged in the kitchen, not in the research lab?"

"That's him, that's my Mick!" Dawnie replied cheerfully, and grinned. "I suppose he decided marrying me was the only way he'd get me out of the research lab and back into the kitchen where I belong."

"A bit hard to get on with, isn't he?" Ron queried.

"Sometimes, but not if you know how to handle him. His worst fault is that he's a snob. You know the sort I mean-school at King's, home in Point Piper, ancestors who came out with the First Fleet-only they weren't convicts, of course, or if they were the family's not owning up to it now. But I'll wean him away from all that after a while."

"How come he's marrying the likes of you, then?" Es asked acidly. "We dunno what our ancestors were, except most likely they were thieves and cutthroats, and Surf Street Coogee isn't exactly the poshest address in Sydney, nor is Rand-wick High the poshest girls' school."

Dawnie sighed. "Oh, Mum, don't worry about it! The important thing is that he wants to marry me, and he knows exactly where, what, and who I come from."

"We can't afford a big expensive wedding for you, love," Es said sadly.

"I have a bit of money saved myself, so I can pay for whatever sort of wedding his parents want. Personally I hope they'll decide on a quiet one, but if they want a big, splashy affair they'll get a big, splashy affair."

"Youse'11 be ashamed of us," Es quavered, tears in her eyes.

Dawnie laughed, stretching her hands out until the slender muscles rippled under her beautiful brown skin. "Not on your life, mates! Why on earth should I be ashamed of you? You gave me the best and happiest life a girl could ever have asked for, you brought me up free of all the hangups, neuroses, and problems everyone else my age seems to have. In fact, you did a darned sight better job bringing me up than Mick's parents did him, let me tell you! He likes me and my family or he lumps us, that's all there is to it. It must be the attraction of opposites," she went on more thoughtfully, "because we really don't have a thing in common except brains. Anyway, he's thirty-five and he's had his pick of all the blue-bloods Sydney's had to offer in the last fifteen years, but he ended up picking good old common, garden-alley Dawnie Melville."

"A point in his favor, I reckon," Ron said heavily. He sighed. "I don't suppose he'll ever want to meet Tim and me for a beer or two at the Seaside. A scotch and water in some pansy lounge is more the style of that sort of bloke."

"At the moment it is, but he doesn't know what he's missing. You just wait! At the end of a year I'll have him meeting you at the Seaside."

Es got up abruptly. "Leave everything, I'll clear it up in the morning. I'm going to bed, I'm tired."

"Poor old Dawnie, she's in for a miserable time being married to a prawn like that," Es said to Ron as they climbed into their comfortable old bed.

"It don't pay to step out of your class, Es," Ron replied sternly. "I wish she'd had less brains, then she would have married some ordinary bloke from around the next corner and settled down in a fibro Housing Commission house in Blacktown. But Dawnie don't like ordinary blokes."

"Well, I hope it turns out all right, but I can't see that happening unless she breaks her ties with us, Ron. She's not going to like it, but I think we must gradually edge our way out of her life after she's married. Let her carve a spot for herself in their world, because that's the world she'll have to raise his kids in, ain't it?"

"You're dead right, old girl." He stared at the ceiling, blinking hard. "Tim's the one will miss her. Poor old bloke, he won't understand."

"No, but he's like a little kid, Ron, his memory's short. You know how he is, poor little coot. He'll miss her the way a little kid does at first, but then he'll sort of forget her. Just as well he's got Miss Horton, I reckon. I daresay she won't be around forever either, but I hope she'll be around long enough to tide him over Dawnie's marrying." She patted his arm. "Life never works out the way you hope, does it? I'd sort of thought at one time that Dawnie wouldn't marry at all, that she and Tim would end up their days sharing this old house together after we're gone. She's so terribly fond of him. But I'm glad she's taking the plunge, Ron. Like I told her lots of times, we don't expect her to sacrifice her life for Tim. It wouldn't be right. And yet ... I still think she's a wee bit jealous of Miss Horton. This engagement's so sudden. Tim finds himself a friend, Dawnie's nose is pushed out of joint a bit because Miss Horton's taken the time to teach him how to read and Dawnie never did, and the next thing, boomp! she goes and gets engaged."

Ron reached over and switched out the light.

"But why this one, Es? I never thought she liked him."

"Oh, but he's a lot older than she is, and she's real flattered because he picked her after all those Lady Mucks he could have had. Probably she's a bit scared of him too, a bit bluffed by his background and the fact that he's her boss. You can have all the brains in the world and still not be any wiser than the silliest coot in Callan Park."

Ron wriggled down until his head found its natural dent in the pillow. "Well, love, there's nothing we can do about it, is there? She's over twenty-one, and she never took much notice of us, anyway. The only reason she's stayed out of trouble is that she's so bloody smart, horse-sense smart, like." He kissed her on the mouth. "Night-night, love. I'm tired, aren't you? All this flaming excitement."

"Too right," she yawned. "Night-night, love."

Eleven

When Tim arrived at Mary's house in Ar-tarmon the following Saturday he was quiet and a little withdrawn. Mary did not question his mood, but put him in the Bentley and got on the road immediately. They had to stop at a nursery in Hornsby to pick up a lot of plants and shrubs Mary had ordered during the week, and the business of getting them all in the car occupied Tim so much that she told him to stay in the back seat when they started out again, so he could watch the plants and make sure none of them fell over or stained the leather upholstery.

At the cottage she left him to unload the plants and went through to his room with his case to unpack it, though these days he kept a small wardrobe there permanently. The room was changed; no longer bare and white, it sported a thick orange carpet, pale yellow walls, crome yellow drapes, and Danish modern furniture. His suitcase disposed of, she moved on to her own room and tidied herself up before returning to the car to see how Tim was doing.

Something was wrong with him, he was not himself at all. Frowning, she watched him closely as he finished taking the last of the plants out of the trunk. She did not think his problem was a physical one, for his skin was its usual healthy gold and his eyes were clear and bright. Apparently whatever plagued him was a happening in his personal sphere, though she doubted that it had anything to do with her, unless of course his parents had said something about her which had upset or puzzled him. But surely not! Only the other night she had spoken at length with Ron Melville, and he had been brimming over with enthusiasm about Tim's progress in reading and calculating.

"You're so bloody good for him, Miss Horton," Ron had told her. "Whatever you do, don't give him up as a bad job. I wish he'd known you years ago, I really do."

They had a silent lunch and went out to the garden with Tim's problem, whatever it was, still un-mentioned. He would tell her in his own good time; perhaps it was better if she acted as though nothing was the matter, if she went ahead and made him help her plant all the new acquisitions. Last weekend they had had such fun over the garden, wrangling about whether they should have a bed entirely of stocks, or whether they ought to mix larkspurs and snapdragons in with them. He had not known the names of any of the flowers, so she had taken out her books and shown him pictures of them; he had learned about them with delight, and walked around muttering their names over and over to himself.

They worked silently all afternoon, until the shadows lengthened and the sea breeze came gust-ing up the lofty river canyon to warn of the coming night.

"Let's build a fire in the barbecue and cook on the beach," Mary suggested desperately. "We can go for a swim while the fire's getting itself to the right stage for cooking, and then we can build another fire on the sand to get dry over and warm us while we eat. How does that sound, Tim?"

He tried to smile, "It sounds lovely, Mary."

By this time Mary had learned to love the water and could even swim a few strokes, enough at least to be able to venture out where Tim liked to frolic. She had bought a black grosgrain swimsuit with a fairly long, full skirt on it for modesty's sake; Tim thought it was gorgeous. Her skin had darkened now that she exposed herself to the sun, and she looked better for it, younger and healthier.

Tim was not his usual high-spirited self in the water; he swam about quietly, forgetting to dive-bomb and torpedo her, and when she suggested they should go out onto the beach he followed her at once. Normally getting him out of the water was a battle royal, for he would stay in until midnight if she let him.

She had tiny baby lamb chops and big fat sausages to toast over the fire, two of his favorites, but he picked half-heartedly at a chop for a while without reducing its size very much, then pushed the plate away with a sigh, shaking his head wearily.

"I'm not hungry, Mary," he said sadly.

They sat side by side on a towel in front of the second fire, warming themselves comfortably in the teeth of the wintry wind. The sun had set, and the world was in that half-dark stage when everything was bled of its vividness but was not yet dimmed to black or white or gray. Above them in the clear vast sky the evening star glittered against an apple-green horizon, and a few more high magnitude stars struggled to overcome the light, appearing for a moment and then disappearing. Birds twittered and screamed everywhere, bedding down for the night in querulous fussiness, and the bush was full of mysterious squeaks and rustles.

Mary never used to notice such things, had been quite indifferent to the world around her except when it intruded itself, but now she found that she was intensely aware of the surrounding sphere, the sky and the land and the water, its animals and plants, all so wonderful and beautiful. Tim had taught her that, from the moment when he had shown her the cicada choirmaster in her oleander tree. He was always coming to display some little natural treasure he had found, a spider or a wild orchid or some tiny furry animal, and she had learned not to jump away in revulsion but to see them as he did for what they were, perfect, as much a functional part of the planet earth as she was herself if not more so, for sometimes what he brought her was rare.

Worried and upset, Mary wriggled around on the towel until she sat looking at his profile, etched against the pearly rim of the sky. The cheek toward her was faintly outlined, the eye sunk invisible into a darkened socket, the mouth at its saddest. Then he moved slightly, and what light there was left collected itself into a sparkling row of tiny droplets on his lashes, glistening all the way down his cheek.

"Oh, Tim!" she cried, her hands going out to him. "Don't weep, my darling boy, don't weep! What is it, what's the matter? Can't you tell me, when we're such very good friends?"

She remembered Ron telling her that he used to cry a lot, and like a small child in noisy, hiccoughing bellows, but that of late he had stopped crying so. On the rare occasions these days when he was moved to tears, he cried more like an adult, Ron said, quietly and into himself. Just the way he was weeping now, she thought, wondering how often he had wept today without her noticing, when she had not been there or when she had been too busy to see.

Too upset to question the wisdom of her own conduct, she put her hand on his arm and stroked it softly, trying to soothe him as best she could. He turned toward her at once, and before she could jerk away he put his head down against her chest, drawing himself in against her like a small animal in need of a place to hide, his hands clutching at her sides. Her arms seemed to find a natural resting place across his back, and she dropped her head until her cheek rested on his hair.

"Don't cry, Tim," she whispered, smoothing his hair back and kissing his brow.

She sat back on her heels cradling him, all else forgotten save the reality of being able to give him comfort. He needed her, he had turned to her and hidden his face as if he thought her empowered to shield him from the world. Nothing could ever have prepared her for this; she had not dreamed life could give her a moment so infinitely sweet, so bounded with pain. His back under her hand was cool and slippery, like satin; the unshaven cheek resting just above her breasts scratched her skin like fine sandpaper.

Awkwardly and hesitantly at first, she gathered him closer, hugging one arm gently but strongly around his back, her other arm protectively about his head, its fingers buried in his thick, faintly salty hair. The forty-three empty, loveless years of her life were canceled out of existence, payment extracted in this one small flake of time. With this at their end they did not matter, and if there were forty-three more just as empty still to be endured, they could never matter either. Not now.