Tim Winton - The Turning

I understand.

But in the meantime I’m going nuts. Jesus, I thought rehab was tough. I’ve got Mum watching me like a hawk and Sky expecting me to piss off at any moment. And the old man desperately trying not to spew out all his resentment and scare me off.

I spose it’ll take time.

She sniffed angrily. Yeah. Time.

They came to his street and paused a moment.

You ever see any of the old crew? she said.

No, he murmured. To be honest I can hardly remember anybody else.

Scary.

He shrugged.

Well, she said. I’ll leave you alone. Don’t worry.

Dyson arranged his mouth to speak but found nothing to say.

Looks like I’m still trouble, she murmured. For you at least.

Did he imagine it or was there really a tiny twist of satisfaction to Fay’s mouth as she said this, a thread of pride in knowing that she had a lingering influence over him?

He mumbled goodbye and walked home in the same turmoil that he’d stewed in all night. How could you help someone like Fay? How could you trust her? If it wasn’t the drugs it was the old thrill of the power that she wielded. He just wasn’t strong or confident enough to battle it right now. Wasn’t his first responsibility to Ricky, to his own sanity? He had his own problems to deal with. Yet he felt like such a bloodless bastard and so disloyal to Don and Marjorie after all their years of kindness. He’d all but grown up in their home and here he was refusing to help their daughter. And that poor, wary little girl. How could he live with himself?

Rain fell all day. He sat inside with a fire burning, the household chores mounting up around him. It was the kind of day you could feel descending upon you, when you drag everything out and hash it over once again despite yourself. When you looked back at Sophie and the pregnancy, wondering what signs you missed. The precious time it cost after the birth before you realized something was badly wrong, before you finally spoke, acted, asked. And the dozens of times when you didn’t hear, when you reacted clumsily, said and did the wrong thing. The drowning weight of it.

There were times, even while she was alive, when Dyson questioned his attraction to Sophie. They met in his early years of teaching. She was a physiotherapist with dark, short hair and green eyes. Any stranger could take a look at Ricky and see what Dyson had seen in his mother. They shared the same smooth, olive skin and vanilla scent. Sophie exuded a seriousness of purpose that some people thought solemn. He loved her calm trust and the simple delight that lit up her face. Once, even before she got sick and everything began to seem forced and provisional, he allowed himself the bitter possibility that he may have fallen in love with Sophie from sheer relief that she wasn’t Fay Keenan. Because when they met he was still raw. And there Sophie was, pretty, considered, dependable, a sanctuary from the narcissistic and mercurial. He did love her. But it gnawed at him then, as now, that he might have loved the safety of her above all else. Maybe she knew it all along. It was a nasty thought, because if she did then he could not truly console himself with the doctors’ talk of chemical imbalance and postnatal depression. She would have had plenty to be miserable about, and he would have to wear some blame for her misery and maybe even her death. Even the weak are cruel in their way. You couldn’t cling to victimhood all your life.

The fire was so bright in the hearth that even at the brink of despair he found himself finally and mercifully anaesthetized before it. As he sat there into the afternoon it sucked the air from the room and danced before him like a thought just out of reach.

He woke to a banging at the door and when he staggered up from the couch Fay was at the window. He opened the door. Ricky stood looking up at him with frank curiosity.

Rick. Hell. I fell asleep.

So we see, said Fay wryly.

Damn. But thanks for bringing him, Fay.

I know the way, said Ricky.

Yes, mate. Course you do.

Dad, said the boy holding up a sheet of butcher’s paper. Look at my picture.

Dyson took the crumpled painting and held it away from him to see it. Jacky’s Bridge! he said.

Here’s me. Here’s you.

Of course. And what about Jared?

Aw, I forgot him.

Dyson smiled. He looked up and saw Fay smiling too. Then he noticed Sky standing out on the steps in the drizzling rain.

You’re all wet, he said. You better come in. Hey Rick, let’s get some towels.

The fire was almost out but the house was still warm. Dyson towelled his son dry and watched Sky submit to the care of her mother. It was painful, the selfconsciousness of it. Outside the rain intensified, the day darkened.

I can’t believe I slept through, he said.

Things happen, said Fay.

I’ll drive you home.

No, it’s okay.

It’s pouring.

Fay shook her head.

You’ll get drenched.

There were tears in Fay’s eyes. Dyson stood there confounded.

The kids wandered over to the kitchen window to see water spill from the iron tank outside.

He’s got a cubbyhouse, said Sky over her shoulder in a tone of accusation.

My Dad made it, said Ricky.

Dyson removed the booster seat so Fay could sit in the front of the car beside him. He made sure the kids were buckled up before he eased them all out into the deluge.

I had a blue with Dad, said Fay. He wanted to drive us, I wanted to walk. Well, I’d rather drive but I’ve lost my licence. Stupid, stupid.

Spose you just want some independence.

Life in a cleft stick, eh.

Dyson drove them out toward the beach where little weatherboard cottages seemed to cower under the downpour.

God, this rain.

Thought you hated winter, she said. What a joke, coming back here, then.

Over the tin roofs the sea was steely-smooth and the Norfolk Island pines rose like a stockade against the south.

That painting, Fay said. That was our bridge, right?

He nodded. They coasted in to the Keenans’ place.

I won’t tell them, she murmured.

Tell them what?

That you slept through.

Thanks for collecting him for me.

Can’t have them thinking you left a child in the rain.

Bye, Fay.

Already Marjorie was on the porch unfurling an umbrella in preparation for their rescue. He could imagine old Don out there trolling the streets for them right now. He honked the horn as he pulled away.

On Saturday morning Dyson drove out along the coast with a pair of binoculars to show Ricky the humpbacks coursing their way towards the tropics, and for a while they stood on a headland as a whale and her calf lolled in the clear, sunlit water at their feet. The boy was enchanted. Vapour and spray rose around them. The crash of tails whacking the surface resonated in their own skin and hair. They hooted like sportsfans until the show was over. Heading homeward, with Ricky still euphoric, Dyson thought about the whaling station, now a museum, on the outskirts of town. He figured he’d let that keep a while. For now the boy was alight with wonder. Why dash that excitement with cold, nasty history right at the outset?

As they came back into town Ricky spotted the football oval and rose in his seat.

Dad, can we kick the footy?

The sun was out, there was a ball in the back of the car. Dyson wheeled them in to park beside the other cars around the boundary. A junior game was in recess so they dashed out to the western goal square and punted the ball up and back between the posts. While Ricky capered solemnly around the turf, Dyson took in the twelve-year-olds in their team huddles on the flank. Nothing had changed in thirty years — the coach’s harangue, the half-sucked orange quarters on the grass, the fat and hungover parents nursing their breakfast meatpie and fag.