Томас Кенэлли - The Widow and Her Hero

Grace and I were pleased to get away from the house and drive amongst the melaleucas and she-oaks on the sandy road to Flinders. I was not an accomplished driver, but Grace wanted me to drive. This was a little adventure we both could cherish. She was silent for a while. It was almost superstitious. We both wanted to get well away from the house before we started talking full voice, as if we were afraid of waking the Boss, though I knew that wasn’t it. I was edgy about what impression everything we’d seen had had on Grace.

The sandy back road met some bitumen and took us into the village of Flinders. I got out and made the call to Foxhill, who said, Oh dear! and promised to send another car the next day.

I got back in the car and started the engine. But Grace put a hand on top of mine as I reached for the gear-stick.

Will you be going on any more operations with that man? she asked.

I said, He’s just a bit ill at the moment. He’s not like that when we’ve got something to do. They’re just messing him about, that’s all. The Americans and the desk boys.

It seems as if he ought to be in hospital.

No, I said, look, he’s found out about his wife and the little boy, and he feels pretty powerless about that too. I know how he feels. I have the occasional bad dream about my old bloke. And as well as that everyone’s been frustrating him, trying to scale things down…

Grace grabbed my hand harder. But it wasn’t in her nature to be sharp like Dotty. She said, I hope they scale him down all the way, to be honest. I don’t like sending you off far with a man like that.

I begged her to suspend judgement. I told her that he was a different man when we had something on. His face shone. He never touched liquor then, even if it was available. It was the first time though that I thought I’d need to go along next time, whether it was Memerang or the Great Natuna plan, to keep an eye on the Boss, instead of doing things under his gaze.

As Rufus and Leo had promised, Doucette came back to his best. Charming at parties, he was again forthcoming with the ukulele, and sang ‘When I’m Cleaning Windows’ in a range of regional accents. Uncertainty was over for him now, and a course had been set. Leo devoted a lot of energy to persuading me that what came next would be the climacteric of clever endeavours, beyond which we would have earned the right to breed children and live tranquilly.

One Saturday that winter, Leo was given two tickets to the stand at the Melbourne Cricket Ground for an Australian Rules game between Carlton and Collingwood, which the newspapers said would be the game of the season. Under a severe Melbourne sky we went off on the tram, carrying all that had happened and what was to come on our shoulders with apparent ease. I was unversed in Victorian football, and so to an extent was Leo, but he reacted to the contest between leaping and kicking men with an excitement that flowed into me when he grabbed my shoulder as if to protect it against the cold at moments of high sporting tension.

A chill wind was dimpling the surface of the river when we got home. Coming inside, we found a very sombre Foxhill drinking with the Mortmains. We could see the traces of tears on Dotty’s cheeks, so that at first we thought there might have been an almighty row between her and Rufus. Foxhill rose. Leo, he said.

Dotty and Rufus had also risen. Dotty said, Please, Foxy, let us get out of your way. And she and Rufus disappeared to the interior of their side of the flat. I felt a distinct pulse of fear at that moment. What could be so bad that Rufus and Dotty needed to make a space for it?

Foxhill said, Jesse Creed has access to a lot of information, you understand, Dig.

But we knew that already. How do you mean? asked Leo.

Well, you’ll be getting notification from the Red Cross. But I’m afraid your father… he’s been killed, Leo. After he was taken prisoner in Honiara they shipped him to a camp in the Philippines, and a month ago he was put with 200 others on a ship for Japan, the Terasao Maru . It was torpedoed by an American sub. The only survivors were a handful of crew members. Both Japanese and Red Cross sources concur.

I felt that primal convulsion of grief and the surge of tears, and began clumsily hugging Leo, trying to make hard contact with his flesh despite the fact that he was sheathed in an army overcoat still.

We have independent confirmation of it, Foxhill told us, to ward off any argument of hope. Of course, the American sub commander had no idea the ship was full of POWs.

Leo had not shed a tear but his mouth was open as if he was pathetically rolling probabilities around in his jaw.

Let’s sit down, he said. I insisted I take his coat off, as if that would ease the hour. Then we both sat down. I held him. Foxhill fetched him some whisky.

They were all below, of course, Leo reasoned with himself. The prisoners. The sub commander couldn’t have known.

Foxhill said, That’s right.

So he’s with my mother now, said Leo with a sort of primitive faith. Foxhill nodded earnestly, encouraging this sudden theology in Leo. That’s right, Dig. That’s exactly right.

Well, said Leo, blinking. He was a very skilled man. Never got over my mum dying like that. It changed the whole direction of his life.

The thing would have been sudden, I guess, Dig, Foxhill insisted. The commander said the thing just exploded amidships. One great explosion, no, two actually. The ship went up and then settled in an instant.

The sub commander said that? asked Leo.

Pretty much, said Foxhill. Just one thing – we can’t say anything yet, or have any public memorial service. I mean, for the moment can you just keep it in your own circle, Dig? It shouldn’t be in the paper or anything.

Leo looked at him, but dully.

What I mean is, said Foxhill, we’re not supposed to know about this yet. The Japanese don’t know we know. You understand, Dig? After the Red Cross tells you officially, by all means go ahead. But I suppose you’ll be off… on your adventure by then. If you’re up to it.

Leo shook his head. No, of course I’m up to it. No. This alters nothing.

But my fear was that it might alter a great deal, not least in Leo himself.

Eventually Dotty and Rufus reappeared. Foxhill informed Leo, I did tell the Mortmains why I was here. I hope that you don’t mind that, Dig.

Leo stood up to receive Dotty’s embraces. This bloody, bloody war, she said.

Yes, said Leo. But it will end, you know, Dotty.

Rufus muttered, a sort of melodious condolence, and poured more drinks. We all sat down. Leo began speaking spontaneously about his father. He had a hard life, you know. We have a good farm, but dairy farming’s tough. We were better off than most. Landed gentry.

He laughed at the idea.

Bush aristocrats. Seven hundred good acres. Flood plain. An educated man, too, my father. An agronomist. So when my mother died, he turned the farm over to his sister, my Aunty Cass, and her husband. And he took this job with the British administration in the Solomons.

But what was he like? I wanted to ask. This man I had never known. I did not even know if he was gregarious or reserved, loud or quiet. Leo had lapsed into deep thought in our midst. We were not going to find out much more.

That night as I held him, he said, He wasn’t without his faults, you know. I wouldn’t want to say that. He started drinking too much in the Solomons. But everyone did. And he let me run wild, and he had a woman. My nanny. Delia. A great, full-bodied Melanesian woman. A really jolly sort of person. I loved her. I didn’t quite understand that he did too. I can see now why the colonial wives were sniffy about him. Anyhow, most of them probably died on the ship, and Delia’s probably still on Guadalcanal, getting by.