Томас Кенэлли - The Widow and Her Hero

How do I know that? Well, that resulted from the Hidaka visit too.

We had drunk our tea and I could see that Hidaka was as pleased as I was that the visit had got this far without too much discomfort. Before they left, Lydon said, he would like to show Hidaka the garden and the view from it. Laurie jumped up, happy to show him around, and Lydon and I followed. Hidaka was impressed by our jacaranda, by the roses, by the nectar-producing grevilleas which attracted rainbow lorikeets. We were on the gravel path, looking over Middle Harbour, the acres of blue water surging in through Sydney Heads. The day was warm, and it was humid too, though nothing like Singapore. Hidaka, saying ‘Very beautiful’, was suddenly gone, vanished from my eyeline. I turned to see him lying flat out on the path, and Laurie and Tom Lydon kneeling to attend to him. As soon as Lydon saw him stir, he lifted the little man in his arms and propped him on the seat of the garden bench.

My husband went and got some iced water, and Hidaka revived with a rasping dollop of breath, but kept his eyes down as if he had shamed himself in front of us. Maybe to his generation a collapse in front of others from heat or the vagaries of blood pressure was a cause of disgrace. We got him into the house and laid him on the sofa. Tom took Hidaka’s shoes off. Laurie suggested we send for our friend the local GP, who even in these days would make a call to the house if he was needed. Lydon relayed the offer to the clenched-eyed Hidaka. The old man shook his bony head. Driven by his frank human friability, I made him green tea, and he sipped it, then he joined his hands, opened his eyes, rose to a sitting position and bowed to me. Then he muttered to Lydon, and Tom turned to us.

He wants to visit you again, Tom said. And he apologises one more time. But he has something to give you.

His eyes lowered, the old man declared, It is not a long visit. I wish to give you something.

Maybe it was another doll. Lydon had brought me one back, a bland, ageless, child-woman doll in the kimono style of some region of Honshu. Its smirk was the smirk of Salome. I had it in a cupboard somewhere. I could not say I wanted to see Hidaka again. The answer caught in my throat, so at last my husband, just out of politeness, said, Of course. When would you like to call in, Mr Hidaka?

I felt angry at my husband, who couldn’t have said anything else in any case. My widowhood had grown primal again, and I just wanted Hidaka to go. But it was organised Lydon would bring him back the following afternoon. This was done with very little more input from me than nods and choked assent.

From early the next day I was gripped by dread. It seemed to me that people required a repeated disinterment of Doucette’s men, Leo not permitted his quiet grave, and I deprived of a fixed and stable widowhood. I always feared that if I confessed this to Laurie, he would despise me. Or if he didn’t, he would know too much about me. He knew repeated reference to Leo hurt me in some way that he was willing to take account of and honour, but he probably thought my secret reactions were nobler than the squalid panic I felt. He never complained of the mystification I brought to the whole business. In the afternoon, Laurie dutifully put the china out again. He visited a patisserie in Mosman and brought home cakes and petits fours – all just in case anyone had an appetite. When they rang the bell at three, I watched from the living room as Laurie opened the door to them. They both looked strangely hangdog, Tom Lydon as well as Hidaka, whose head was down like a penitent’s. From the hallway, Lydon said to Laurie, and over Laurie’s shoulder to me, Mr Hidaka does not wish to stay for long. I hope you haven’t gone to any trouble, Laurie.

No, said my husband. No, Tom… always a pleasure.

Mr Hidaka wishes to apologise, Lydon explained.

Please, said Laurie. Come into the living room.

It was only with a lot of nudging from Lydon that Hidaka came into the core of the house. He bowed deeply to me and I stood up, and before I could invite everyone to sit again, I saw he had an aged folder in his hands and held it out to me. I’m very sorry, Mrs Waterhouse, he told me carefully.

Lydon said, He showed me this last night – I swear it was the first time I knew it existed.

Still stooped, Hidaka opened the manila folder and held it two-handed, like a dish he was offering me with the most sincere apologies of the house. It contained a series of brown, square slabs of paper connected up at their top left-hand corners with a ring of twine.

Hidaka said, Captain Waterhouse asked me to give.

Tom Lydon explained, It’s a journal Captain Waterhouse wrote in pencil on slabs of toilet paper. You see, if it was in danger of being discovered, he could just dump it in the nearest waste bucket or latrine.

Hidaka bowed even lower, like a man inviting punishment.

This is the diary Captain Waterhouse asked me to give you. I was shamed by it and I did not give it until now.

He’s had it for some years, Lydon told us. I think it’s psychologically understandable… Now, he has emphysema and wants you to have it.

Hidaka closed the folder and pressed it more insistently on me. I took it. I saw his suppliant shoulders. I began howling and punching him on both shoulders with my free hand. His deep bowing to me was too easy a gesture, and I wanted to show him that. If he was a man, I thought like some bigot I would normally have hated to meet, he would look me in the eye now. I was punishing him both for having retained the grubby squares of pages for so long, and for presenting them to me now, years after I had hoped everything had been settled.

Until stopped by Laurie, I went on beating the neatly made Japanese man in a raw-boned, tall Caledonian Australian fury. Arthritic problems which normally inhibited the proper making of a fist were not an issue now. Anger made me a harridan. My husband moved in and clasped me by the elbows. I realised I had no breath, but it returned as I settled.

Get him out, I ordered Lydon, and don’t bother me again. Get him out. I’m sick of witnesses. I’m sick of new evidence. Everyone who comes to me is self-interested!

Tom Lydon’s face had gone a terrible, abashed red. I assure you, Grace, I didn’t know it would cause you… I have your best interests…

I cut him off. Best interests? Best interests of the Memerang men? They’re all dead. I bet you looked through the file as soon as he gave it to you.

No, said Tom. No, Grace. I won’t say I wasn’t tempted. But it wouldn’t have been right.

Just take him back to his hotel! I roared.

Tom and Laurie tended to the old man, whose face was covered with tears and who needed to be restored with water. Given Hidaka’s weakness he and Lydon went very briskly, and I felt the deepest shame I could, knowing Leo would not have approved of my behaviour. Laurie said, Grace is understandably upset.

He saw them to the door, and muttered something conciliatory I wouldn’t have approved of to Lydon and Hidaka as they went. I’ll be in contact, Tom, he called. Then he came to where I stood shaking frantically in rage and shame, and he embraced me.

Now I’ll have to apologise to Tom and Hidaka, I said.

Laurie kissed my forehead. No, he said, let it slide. They understand well enough.

It was from these pages written in pencil on Japanese toilet paper that I ultimately learned that while they waited in the garden for the sentence, Jockey Rubinsky said to Leo, At least they didn’t hear us beg.

From the Outram Road Prison journal of Captain Waterhouse.

When it happened, it was a bloody calamity. It was the last afternoon, and we were at a fever pitch and ready to go. Very ready to go. The Boss had already sent two of the blokes ahead to watch Singapore from NC1. When we got there, they’d be able to brief us on the day’s shipping news and naval movements. From the junk Nanjang we could see through the binoculars a lot of naval shenanigans way out in the Phillip Channel to the east of Singapore – Rufus reckoned it looked like exercises. He said we’d better stick close into shore. The bow waves of destroyers could just about sink an old junk like this.