Tim (29 page)

One night Mary wakened from a deep sleep in the sand and lay for a moment wondering where she was. As thought came back she knew, for she had to accustom herself to sleeping clasped in Tim's arms. He never let her go. Any attempt to move away from him woke him at once; he would reach out until he found her and pull her back again with a sigh of mingled fear and relief. It was as if he thought she was going to be snatched away by something out of the darkness, but he would not talk about it and she never insisted, divining that he would tell her in his own good time.

Summer was at its height and the weather had been perfect, the days hot and dry, the nights sweetly cooled by the sea breeze. Mary stared up at the sky, drawing in a breath of awe and wonder. The massive belt of the Milky Way sprawled across the vault from horizon to horizon, so smothered with the light of the stars that there was a faint, powdery glow even in the starless parts of the sky. No haze conspired to blot them out, and the leaching city lights were miles to the south. The Cross spread its four bright arms to the winds, the fifth star clear and sparkling, the Pointers drawing her eyes away from the still, waxy globe of the full moon. Silver light was poured over everything, the river danced and leaped like cold, moving fire, the sand was struck to a sea of minute diamonds.

And it seemed to Mary for a still, small space of time that she heard something, or perhaps she felt it: alien and thin it was, like a cry teetering on the edge of nothing. Whatever it was, there was peace and finality in it. She listened for a long time, but it did not happen again, and she began to think that perhaps on a night like this the soul of the world was liberated to throw itself like a veil over the heads of all living things.

With Tim she always spoke of God, for the concept was simple and he was uncomplicated enough to believe in the intangible, but Mary herself did not believe in God; she had a basic and unphilo-sophic conviction that there was only one life to live. And wasn't that the important thing, quite independent of the existence of a superior being? What did it matter whether there was a God if the soul was mortal, if life of any kind ceased on the lip of the grave? When Mary thought of God at all it was in terms of Tim and little children, the good and uncorrupted; her own life had driven the supernatural so far away that it seemed there were two separate creeds, one for childhood and one for full growth. Yet the half-heard, half-felt thing coming out of the night disturbed her, there was an other-world suggestion about it, and she remembered suddenly the old legend that when the soul of someone who had just died passed overhead the dogs howled, lifting their muzzles to the moon and shivering as they mourned. She sat up, clasping her arms about her knees.

Tim sensed her going immediately, waking when his gropings did not find her.

"What's the matter, Mary?"

"I don't know. ... I feel as if something's happened. It's very strange. Did you feel anything?"

"No, only that you went away from me."

He wanted to make love to her and she tried to divorce herself from her sudden preoccupation long enough to satisfy him, but could not. Something stalked in the back of her mind like a prowling beast, something threatening and irrevocable. Her half-hearted cooperation did not disconcert Tim; he gave up trying to rouse her and contented himself with wrapping his arms about her in what she always thought of as his Teddy-bear hug, for he had told her a little about Teddy, though, she suspected, not all there was to know.

"Tim, would you mind very much if we drove back to the city?"

"Not if you want to, Mary. I don't mind anything you want to do."

"Then let's go back now, right this minute. I want to see Pop. I've got a sort of feeling he needs us."

Tim got up at once, shaking the sand out of the blanket and folding it neatly over one arm.

By the time the Bentley pulled up in Surf Street it was six o'clock in the morning, and the sun had long been up. The house was silent and seemed curiously deserted, though Tim assured Mary his father was there. The back door was unlocked.

"Tim, why don't you stay out here for a minute while I go inside and check by myself? I don't want to frighten or upset you, but I think it would be better if I went in alone."

"No, Mary, I'll come in with you. I won't be frightened or upset."

Ron was lying in the old double bed he had stared with Es, his eyes closed and his hands folded on his chest, as if he had remembered how Es was lying the last time he saw her. Mary did not need to feel his cold skin or search for a stilled heart; she knew immediately that he was dead.

"Is he asleep, Mary?" Tim came round to the other side of the bed and stared down at his father, then put out his hand and rested it against the sunken cheek. He looked up at Mary sadly. "He's so cold!"

"He's dead, Tim."

"Oh, I wish he could have waited! I was so looking forward to telling him how nice it is to live with you. I wanted to ask him some things and I wanted him to help me pick out a new present for you. I didn't say goodbye to him! I didn't say goodbye to him and now I can't remember what he looked like when his eyes were open and he was all happy and moving."

"I don't think he could bear to wait a moment longer, dear heart. He wanted so badly to go; it was so lonely for him here and there was nothing more to wait for once he knew you were happy. Don't be sad, Tim, because it isn't sad. Now he can sleep with your Mum again."

All at once Mary knew why his voice had seemed so remote over the phone; he had begun his death-fast the moment Tim left the house in Surf Street forever, and by the time Mary came home from hospital he was already weakening badly. Yet could it be called suicide? She did not think so. The drum had stopped beating and the feet had stopped marching, that was all.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Tim got his arms under his father's back and lifted the stiff, shrunken form into his arms tenderly. "Oh, but I'm going to miss him, Mary! I liked Pop, I liked him better than anyone else in the whole world except for you."

"I know, dear heart. I'll miss him too."

And was that the voice in the night? she wondered. Stranger things than that have happened to more staunchly doubting people without swaying their doubt. . . , Why shouldn't the living cords which laced a being together flick softly against a loved one in the very moment of their unraveling? He was all alone when it happened, and yet he had not been alone; he had called, and she had woken to answer him. Sometimes all the miles between are as nothing, she thought, sometimes they are narrowed to the little silence between the beats of a heart.

Twenty-eight

Mary hated Ron's funeral, and was glad she persuaded Tim not to come. Dawnie and her husband had taken charge, which was only right and proper, but as Tim's representative she had to be there and follow the little cortege to the cemetery. Her presence was clearly unwelcome; Dawnie and Mick ignored her. What had happened when Ron told them she and Tim were married, she wondered? Since the wedding she had only spoken to Ron that once, and he had not mentioned his daughter's name.

After the sod was turned on Ron's coffin and the three of them moved slowly away from the graveside, Mary put her hand on Dawnie's arm.

"My dear, I'm so sorry for you, because I know you loved him very much. I loved him too."

There was a look of Tim about his sister's eyes as she stared at Mary, but the expression in them- bitter and corroded-was one she had never seen in Tim's.

"I don't need your condolences, sister-in-law! Why don't you just go away and leave me alone?"

"Why can't you forgive me for loving Tim, Dawnie? Didn't your father explain the situation to you?"

"Oh, he tried! You're a very clever woman, aren't you? It didn't take you long to delude him as completely as you did Tim! Are you happy now that you've got your pet moron by your side permanently and legally?"

"Tim's not my pet moron, you know that. And anyway, does it matter as long as he's happy?"

"How do I know he's happy? I've only got your word for that, and your word's not worth two cents?"

"Why don't you come and see him and find out for yourself what the truth is^"

"I wouldn't soil my shoes by entering your house,
Mrs. Tim Melville/
Well, I suppose you've got what you wanted, you've got Tim all to yourself with the conventions nicely taken care of and both his parents out of the way!"

Mary whitened. "What do you mean, Dawn?"

"You drove my mother to her grave, Mrs. Tim Melville, and then you drove my father after her!"

"That's not true!"

"Oh, isn't it? As far as I'm concerned, now that my father and mother are both dead, my brother's dead too. I never want to see or hear from him again! If you and he want to make a public spectacle of yourselves by flaunting your sick fancies under society's nose, I don't even want to know about it!"

Mary turned on her heel and walked away.

By the time she got from Botany Cemetery to her house in Artarmon she felt better, and was able to greet Tim with a fair semblance of serenity.

"Is Pop with Mum now?" he asked her anxiously, twisting his hands together.

"Yes, Tim. I saw him put in the ground right next to her. You needn't worry about either of them ever again, they're together and at peace."

There was something odd about Tim's manner; she sat down and examined him keenly, not alarmed exactly, but puzzled.

"What's the matter, Tim? Aren't you feeling well?"

He shook his head apathetically. "I feel all right, Mary. Just a bit funny, that's all. It's sort of funny not having Pop or Mum any more."

"I know, I know. . . . Have you had anything to eat?"

"No. I'm not very hungry."

Mary walked across and pulled him up out of his chair, looking at him in concern. "Come out to the kitchen with me while I make us some sandwiches. Maybe you'll feel like eating when you see how pretty and dainty they are."

"Little wee ones with all the crusts cut off?"

"As thin as tissue paper, little wee triangles with all the crusts cut off, I promise. Come on now."

It had been on the tip of her tongue to add "my love, my darling, my heart," but somehow she could never bring herself to utter the wild endearments which sprang to mind whenever, as now, he seemed upset or lost. Would she ever find it possible to treat him wholly as the lover he was, would she ever manage to lose that rigid, shrinking horror of making a total fool of herself? Why was it she could only relax completely with him when they were secluded at the cottage or in their bed? Dawnie's bitterness rankled, and all the curious, speculative glances she and Tim got as they passed down Walton Street still had the power to humiliate.

Mary's courage was not the unconventional kind; how could it be? Having nothing as her birthright, her entire life up to the moment of meeting Tim had been designed to achieve material success, earn the approbation of those who had started out much better endowed. It could not come easily now to fly in the face of convention, sanctified by the law though her union with Tim was. While she longed passionately to forget herself, smother him with kisses and endearments whenever the impulse came, his inability to encourage her in a mature way made it quite impossible if there was the least chance of their being disturbed. Her dread of amusement or ridicule had even led her to ask Tim not to chatter about his marriage to anyone not already aware of it, a moment of weakness which she had regretted afterward. No, it was not easy.

As usual, Tim wanted to help her actively as she set about making the sandwiches, getting out the bread and butter, rattling the china noisily as he searched for plates.

"Would you find the big butcher's knife for me, Tim? It's the only one that's sharp enough to cut crusts off."

"Where is it, Mary?"

"In the top drawer," she answered absently, spreading a coat of butter on each slice of bread.

"Ohhhhhh! Mary, Mary!"

She turned quickly, something in his cry filling her with heart-stopping fear.

"Oh, my God!"

For an appalled second it seemed as if the whole room was blood; Tim was standing quite still by the counter, staring down at his left arm in unbelieving terror. From biceps to fingertips it ran pulsating rivers of blood, the outflow of a fountain spraying from the crook of his elbow. With the regularity of a time-piece the blood spurted in a vicious jet halfway across the room, tapered off, spurted again; a thin lake of it was gathering about his left foot, and the left side of his body glistened wetly, dripping its share onto the floor.

There was a roll of butcher's twine on a spool near the stove, and a small pair of scissors hanging on a cord near it; almost in the same instant that she had spun around, Mary ran to it and hacked off a piece several feet long, doubling and quadrupling it feverishly to make a thicker cord.

"Don't be afraid, dear heart, don't be afraid! I'm here, I'm coming!" she panted, snatching up a fork.

But he didn't hear; his mouth opened in a thin, high wail and he ran like a blinded animal, bumping into the refrigerator, caroming off the wall, the gushing arm flailing about him as he tried to shake it off, throw it away so that it no longer was a part of him. Her cries blended with his; she lunged at him and missed, pulled up short and tried again. Spinning in fear-crazed circles, he saw the door and made for it, plucking at his arm and screaming shrilly. His bare feet splashed into the pool of blood on the floor and he slipped, crashing full length. Before he could rise Mary was on him, holding him down, beyond any further attempts to calm him in her frenzy to tie off the blood supply to his arm before it was too late. Half sitting, half lying on his chest, she grasped the arm and wrapped her string about it above the elbow, knotted it securely and put the fork underneath to twist the cord until it almost disappeared into his flesh.

"Tim, lie still! Oh, please, please, Tim, lie still! I'm here, I won't let anything happen to you, only
you must lie still!
Do you hear me?"