Tim (22 page)

He snatched at her shoulders and pulled her to her feet, his hold inexpertly strong as he put his arms about her back; her head came up, seeking air. Not knowing how to find her mouth, he pressed his cheek against hers until he fumbled to her lips. Completely taken off guard, for his last words and his action had been too swift and startling for immediate comprehension, Mary fought frantically to free herself. Then somehow it no longer mattered, there was only the feel of that beautiful young body and anxiously experimenting mouth. As inexperienced as he but intellectually much better prepared, Mary felt his need for help and reassurance. She could not fail him in this too, she could not bring herself to crush his pride, humiliate him by rejecting him. His hold slackened enough for her to free her hands; they went immediately to his head, smoothing his brows and closing his open eyes, exploring the silkiness of his lashes and the hollowed curves of his cheeks. He kissed her the way he imagined it was done, his lips pressed firmly shut, and it dissatisfied him; she pulled away from him for a moment and pushed her thumb against his lower lip caressingly, slightly opening his mouth, then her hands went up to his hair and drew his head down. He was not dissatisfied this time, and his shivering delight transmitted itself to her.

She had held him in her arms before, but as child, never as man, and the shock of discovering the man in him awed her. To lose herself in his arms, to feel his mouth, permit her hands to follow the planes of his neck down to the smooth muscular chest, was to discover in herself a need for this, an agonized pleasure in feeling his hands on her body. He found the cloth-shielded contours of her breasts without guidance, then his hand slipped under the collar of her dress and curved around her bare shoulder.

"Mary! Tim! Mary! Tim! Where are you, can you hear me? It's Ron! Answer me!"

She wrenched away from him and took his hand, dragging him after her into the shelter of the trees. They ran until Ron's voice had long faded behind them, then stopped. Mary's heart was pounding so hard she could scarcely catch her breath, and for a moment she thought she was going to faint. Panting and gasping, she clung to Tim's arm until she felt better, then moved away from him a little self-consciously.

"You're looking at a stupid old fool," she said then, turning to face him.

He was smiling at her in the old, totally loving way, but there was a difference now, an added fascination and wonder, as if in his eyes she had gained an entire dimension. It sobered her as nothing else could have done; she put her hand to her head, trying to think. How had it happened? How was she going to deal with it, how could she put them back on the old footing without hurting him?

"Tim, we shouldn't have done that," she said slowly.

"Why?" His face was alight with happiness. "Oh, Mary, I didn't know that was how it felt! I like it, I liked it much better than hugging you or being comforted!"

She shook her head vehemently. "It doesn't matter, Tim! We shouldn't have done it. There are some things people aren't allowed to do, and that's one of them. It's too bad we liked it, because it can't happen again, it must never happen again, not because I didn't like it as much as you did, but because it isn't allowed. You've got to believe me, Tim, it just isn't allowed! I'm responsible for you, I have to look after you the way your Mum and Pop would want, and that means we can't kiss, we just can't."

"But why, Mary? What's wrong with it? I liked it!" All the light had died out of his face.

"In itself, Tim, there's nothing wrong. But between you and me it's forbidden, it's a sin. Do you know what a sin is?"

"Of course I do! That's when you do something God doesn't like."

"Well, God doesn't like us to kiss."

"But why should God mind? Oh, Mary, I've never felt like that before! It was the closest I've ever felt to the full quid! Why should God mind it? It isn't fair that God should mind, it just isn't fair!"

She sighed. "No, Tim, it isn't fair. But sometimes it's hard for us to understand God's purposes. There are a lot of rather silly things you have to do without properly understanding why, isn't that so?"

"Yes, I suppose so," he replied sulkily.

"Well, when it comes to understanding God's purposes none of us are the full quid-you're not the full quid and I'm not the full quid and your Pop's not the full quid, the Prime Minister of Australia isn't the full quid, and nor is the Queen. Tim, you've got to believe me!" she pleaded. "You've got to believe me, because if you won't we can't be friends any more; we'll have to stop seeing each other. It isn't possible for us to hug and kiss, it's a sin in the eyes of God. You're only a young man and you're not the full quid, where I'm getting old and I'm absolutely the full quid. I'm old enough to be your mother, Tim!"

"But what does that have to do with it?"

"God doesn't like us to hug and kiss when there's such a big difference in our ages and mentalities, Tim, that's all. I like you, I like you better than anyone else in the whole world, but I can't hug and kiss you. It isn't allowed. If you try to kiss me again, God will make me stop seeing you, and I don't want to stop seeing you."

He pondered on it sadly, then sighed in defeat. "Well, Mary, I did like it an awful lot, but I'd rather keep on seeing you than kiss you and then not see you."

She clapped her hands together delightedly. "Oh, Tim, I'm so proud of you! That was spoken like a man, a real full-quidded man. I'm so very proud of you."

He laughed shakily. "I still think it isn't fair, but I like it when you're proud of me."

"Are you happier now that you know everything?"

"Much happier!" He sat down under a tree and patted the ground beside him. "Sit down, Mary. I promise I won't kiss you."

She crouched beside him and took his hand, spreading the fingers apart lovingly. "This is as much as we can do when we touch, Tim. I know you won't kiss me, I'm not at all worried that you'll break your promise. You have to promise me something else, too."

"What?" His free hand plucked at the few dusty blades of grass under his thigh.

"What happened, I mean the kiss, it has to be our little secret. We must never tell anyone about it, Tim."

"All right," he answered docilely. He was reverting to the child again, accepting his role with the peculiar sweetness and desire to please that were so much his alone. After a while he turned his head to look at her, and the wide blue eyes were so filled with love that Mary caught her breath, angry and soured. He was so right; it wasn't fair, it just wasn't fair.

"Mary, what you told me about Pop, how he wants to be asleep with Mum under the ground. I know what you mean. If you died I'd want to die too, I wouldn't like to keep walking and talking and laughing and crying, honest. I'd like to be with you, under the ground asleep. I won't like it if Pop isn't here, but I know why he wants to go."

She raised his hand to her cheek and held it there. "It's always easier to understand things when you can put yourself in the same position, isn't it? Listen, I can hear Pop calling us. Do you think you can talk to him without crying?"

He nodded tranquilly. "Oh, yes, I'll be all right. I like Pop an awful lot, next to you I like him best, but he sort of belongs to Mum, doesn't he? I belong to you, so I'm not worried nearly as much now. I belong to you now. Just belonging isn't a sin, is it, Mary?"

She shook her head. "No, Tim, it isn't a sin."

Ron's voice was drawing closer; Mary hallooed to let him know where they were, and got up to wait.

"Mary?"

"Yes?"

He was still sprawled on the ground, looking up at her in dawning comprehension. "I just thought of something! Do you remember the day after Mum died, when you came to our house to fetch me?"

"Yes, I most certainly do."

"Well, Dawnie said some horrible, nasty things to you, and I didn't know what she was so upset about. I tried and tried, but I didn't know what she was so upset about. When she was yelling at you I felt all queer, because I thought she thought we'd done something awful. Now I think I know! Did she think it was us kissing?"

"Something like that, Tim."

"Oh!" He thought about it for a moment. "Then I do believe you, Mary, I do believe we aren't allowed to kiss. I've never seen Dawnie like that before, and ever since then she's been real unfriendly to Pop and me. She had a big fight with Pop about me coming to stay with you a few weeks after that, and now she doesn't come to see us any more. So I do believe it's a sin, it must be a sin for Dawnie to carry on like that. But why did she think you'd let us kiss all the time? She ought to know you better than that, Mary. You'd never let us do anything wrong."

"Yes, she ought to know it, I agree, but sometimes people get too upset to think straight, and after all she doesn't know me nearly as well as you and Pop do."

He stared at her, strangely wise. "But Pop took your side, and he didn't know you at all then either."

Ron came through the trees, puffing. "Everything all right, Mary love?"

She smiled, winking at Tim. "Yes, Ron, perfectly all right. Tim and I had a talk, and straightened it all out. No big problem, I promise you, just a misunderstanding."

Twenty-three

But everything was not all right; the sleeping dogs had been wakened. Mary had good reason to be thankful that Ron was failing, for if he had been in his normal state of health and mind, he would have seen the change in Tim at once. As it was, the cheerful good humor which had come back to the relationship was enough to satisfy him, and he looked no further. Only Mary realized that Tim was suffering. She would look up to find his hungry, angry eyes on her a dozen times a day, and when she caught him looking he would go out of the room immediately, guilty and confused.

Why must things change? she asked herself; why can't something perfect stay perfect? Because we're all human beings, her reasoning self would answer, because we're so complex and flawed, because once a thing occurs to us it must recur, and in recurring it alters the form and essence of what has gone before. There was no way back to the first phase of their friendship, therefore only two alternatives remained; to go forward, or to stay still. But neither alternative seemed possible or workable. Had Tim been mentally normal she would have tried, but to go into the matter again would only have confused him, made him even unhappier.

It's stalemate, she thought, then shook her head in worried exasperation; too explosive to be a stalemate. Impasse, then.

At first she thought of talking to Archie Johnson, but rejected the idea. He was a brilliant and sympathetic man, but he would never understand all the nuances of the situation. Emily Parker? She was a nice old girl, and from its beginning she had followed Mary's relationship with Tim, keenly interested, but something in Mary shrank from exposing her dilemma to that florid embodiment of matriarchal suburbia. In the end she phoned John Martinson, the teacher of retarded children. He remembered her immediately.

"I've often wondered what happened to you," he said. "How is everything, Miss Horton?"

"Not very good, Mr. Martinson. I need to talk to someone desperately, and you're the only person I can think of. I'm terribly sorry to inflict you with my problems, but I just don't know what to do, and I need qualified help. I was wondering if I could bring Tim to see you."

"Of course you can. How about after supper tomorrow night at my house?"

Mary took the address, then rang the Melville residence.

"It's Mary here, Ron."

"Oh, g'day there, love. What's the matter?"

"Nothing, really. I was wondering if I might take Tim out to see someone tomorrow night after supper."

"I don't see why not. Who is it?"

"A teacher of retarded children, a wonderful man. I thought he might be able to assess Tim, give us some idea of what sort of pace we ought to force in his formal learning."

"Anything you like, Mary. See youse tomorrow night."

"Fine. By the way, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell Tim too much about it, I want him to meet this man quite unprepared."

"Sure thing. Hooroo, love."

John Martinson lived near his school, which was in the satellite town of Penrith, just at the foot of the Blue Mountains. Tim, used to heading north, enjoyed the drive out of Sydney in another direction; the Post Road flavor of the Great Western Highway kept his nose glued to the window, counting the brilliantly lit car salesrooms, all-night hamburger joints, and drive-in movie lots.

The Martinson house was big but very unpretentious, built of fibrous board painted pale pink, and it rang with the shrill laughter of children.

"Why don't you come through to the back veranda?" John Martinson asked Mary when he answered the door. "I've made it into my study, and we won't be disturbed there."

They were introduced to his wife and three oldest children briefly, and went straight through to the back of the house.

John Martinson's eyes rested on Tim curiously, and with keen admiration. He produced two quart bottles of beer and shared them with Tim while he talked, sitting easily in a big chair to one side of his work table. For half an hour Mary said nothing while the two men conversed comfortably over the beer. Tim liked the teacher and he relaxed at once, chattering about the cottage and its garden and his work with Harry Markham, quite unaware that he was being drawn out by an expert.

"Do you like TV Westerns, Tim?" John Martinson asked him at last.

"Oh, yes, I love them!"

"Well, I have some business to discuss with Miss Horton for a while, and I don't think you'll find it very much fun to stay here and listen to us. Why don't I take you inside to see my kids? There's a real beaut Western starting on TV in a few minutes."

Tim went happily, and as her host came back into the study Mary could hear Tim laughing somewhere inside.

"He'll be all right, Miss Horton. My family is very used to people like Tim."

"I'm not worried."

"What's it all about, Miss Horton? May I call you Mary?"