Mary stood in the center of the living room with her hands limply by her sides, two bright patches of color flaring in her cheeks. The tears trickled down her face in mute protest at the appalling accusation; she was so shocked and devastated by it that she could do nothing to justify herself; she had neither the energy nor the will to fight back. Ron had begun to shake, clenching his hands together so tightly that his knuckles showed as bloodless splotches. Tim had gone to his chair and collapsed on it, his upturned face swiveling from the accuser to the accused. He was confused, anguished, and strangely ashamed, but the reason for it was quite beyond him; he could not fathom it. It seemed as though Dawnie thought it was wrong for him to be friends with Mary, but why was it wrong, how could it be wrong? What had Mary done? It didn't seem fair for Dawnie to scream at Mary like that, but he didn't know what to do about it because he didn't understand what it was all about. And why did he want to run away and hide himself in some dark corner, as he had the time he stole Mum's tennis club cake?
Ron shivered, trying to control his anger. "Dawnie, I don't never want to hear you saying things like that ever again, do you hear? What in God's name is the matter with you, girl? A real decent woman like Miss Horton! Struth and little apples, she don't have to stand here and listen to scut like this! You've disgraced me, you've disgraced Tim, and you've disgraced your poor dead mother, and at a time like this! Oh, God, Dawnie, what makes you say things like that?"
"I say them because I think they're true," Dawnie retorted, huddling herself on the sofa within Mick's arm. "You've let her filthy money make you blind and deaf!"
Mary passed a trembling hand across her face, wiping away the tears. She looked directly at Dawnie and her husband. "You're very, very wrong, my dear," she managed to say. "I understand how shocked and upset you are by all that's happened in the last few hours, and I'm sure you don't really think any of the things you're saying." She drew a shuddering breath. "I didn't deliberately conceal my age, it just never seemed that important, because I never thought for one moment that anyone would interpret Tim's and my relationship on such a basic plane. I'm very deeply attached to Tim, but not in the way you're implying. It isn't very complimentary to me; I'm old enough to be Tim's and your mother, you know. And you're quite right, too: if I wanted a man I could afford to go out and buy a gold-plated gigolo. Why indeed should I employ Tim on such a project? Can you in all honesty say that you've seen any evidence of sexual awakening in Tim since he's known me? If it had occurred, you would have seen it immediately: Tim's far too transparent a creature to conceal anything as deep-reaching as that. I've enjoyed Tim so much in, if you'll pardon my hackneyed choice of words, such a pure and innocent way. Tim is pure and innocent, it's part of his allure. I wouldn't change that in him if I had ten thousand carnal demons gnawing at my flesh incessantly. And now you've spoiled it, spoiled it for us both, because if Tim can't understand, he can at the very least sense change. It was in its way so perfect, and I use the past tense deliberately. It can never be so again. You've made me conscious of something I hadn't considered, and you've made Tim feel uncomfortable when he extends normal affection to me."
Mick cleared his throat. "But surely, Miss Horton, you must have had some inkling of what other people were bound to think. I find it hard to believe that you, a mature and responsible woman, could go on month after month spending all your free time with a young and extremely good-looking man without so much as a passing thought as to what other people must be thinking?"
"So that's it!" Ron roared, dragging Mick off the couch and holding him by his lapels. "I might have known my girl Dawnie didn't think of all that muck-raking bullshit without some help from you! You certainly are a fast worker, mate! Between answering the door to Miss Horton and her coming into this room ten minutes later you managed to plant your filthy suggestions in my daughter's mind so bloody well that she's shamed and disgraced us all! You cocktail drinking shirt-lifter! Christ, why couldn't Dawnie have married a din-kum bloke instead of a simpering, stuck-up pansy like you? I oughta kick your teeth in, you miserable, rotten, fucking arsehole!"
"Pop!" Dawnie gasped, grabbing at her waistline. "Oh, Pop!" She burst into tears, drumming her heels on the floor.
Then Tim moved, so suddenly that it took the rest of them several seconds to realize what had happened. Ron and Mick were separated, Mick put back on the sofa and Dawnie and Ron thrust into chairs, all without a word. Tim turned his back on Mick and touched his father lightly on the shoulder.
"Pop, don't let him get your goat," he said earnestly. "I don't like him either, but Mum said we had to treat him real well, even if we don't like him. Dawnie belongs to him now, that's what Mum said."
Mary began to laugh in shivering, gasping gusts; Tim went to her side and put his arm about her.
"Are you laughing or crying, Mary?" he asked, peering into her face. "Don't take any notice of Dawnie or Mick, they're upset. Why can't we go now? Can't I pack my case?"
Ron was staring at his son in amazement and dawning respect. "You go and pack your case, mate, you go and pack it right this minute. Mary will come and help you in a half a tick. And you know something, mate? You're the grouse, the real, dinkum good oil!"
Tim's beautiful eyes shone, his smile flashed out for the first time since they had come home to discover Es. "I like you too, Pop," he grinned, and went to pack his case.
After he had gone there was a strained silence; Dawnie sat looking everywhere but at Mary Horton, and Mary continued to stand in the middle of the floor, not knowing what she ought best to do.
"I reckon you owe Miss Horton an apology, Dawnie," Ron said, staring his daughter down.
She stiffened, her fingers curling into claws. "I'm buggered if I'll apologize!" she spat. "After what's been done to us here I reckon Mick and I are the ones owed an apology! Manhandling my husband like that!"
Ron gazed at her sorrowfully. "I'm real glad your Mum's not here," he said. "She always said you'd change, that we'd have to get out of your life, but I know bloody well she never thought you'd go all twitty like this. You're too big for your boots, my girl, and you could take a few lessons in manners from Miss Horton here, not to mention your flaming snotty husband!"
"Oh, please!" Mary exclaimed wretchedly. "I'm terribly sorry I've caused all this unpleasantness. If I'd known what would happen I assure you I would never have come. Please don't quarrel on my account, I'd hate to think I caused a permanent breach in Tim's family. If it wasn't that I think Tim needs me now, I'd willingly getout of all your lives-including his-and I give you my word that as soon as Tim is over his mother's loss I'll do just that. I'll never see him again or cause any of you further pain and embarrassment."
Ron got up from the chair Tim had thrust him into, his hand extended. "Tommyrot! It's just as well this all came out, it would have eventually. As far as me and Mum are concerned, Tim's the only one who matters, and Tim will always needs youse, Miss Horton. The last thing Mum said was poor Tim, do the right thing for Tim, poor Tim, poor Tim. Well, I'm going to do just that, Miss Horton, and if that pair of gits over on the couch can't see it my way, then it's too bloody bad for them. I gotta honor Mum's wishes, because she ain't here any more." His voice broke, but he lifted his chin toward the ceiling, swallowed several times and managed to continue. "Mum and I wasn't always polite to each other, you know, but we thought a lot of each other for all that. We had some bloody good years, and I'm going to remember them with a smile and a lift of me beer glass. He wouldn't understand"-a jerk of his head toward the sofa-"but Mum would be real disappointed if I didn't give her the old toast in beer every day at the Seaside."
It was with difficulty that Mary restrained her impulse to go to the gallant old man and comfort him physically, but she knew how much his control meant to him, so she kept her arms by her sides and tried to tell him with her tear-dimmed eyes and lopsided smile that she understood very well.
Nineteen
Tim sat silently in the car all the way to Artar
mon. He had not slept in her Sydney house very often, and the room he always occupied there did not have the same sense of belonging about it as his room at the cottage did. He did not seem to know what to do when she prepared to leave him to change his clothes and rest; he stood in the middle of the floor fiddling with his hands, looking at her pleadingly. Never proof against that particular expression, Mary sighed and came to his side.
"Why don't you change into your pajamas and try to sleep for a little while, Tim?" she asked.
"But it's not night time, it's the middle of the day!" he protested, the pain and fear he was suffering revealing themselves in his voice.
"That's nothing to worry about, love," she replied, her throat aching. "I think you'd manage to sleep if I closed all the blinds and made the room dark."
"I feel sick," he said, gulping ominously.
"Oh, poor old Tim!" she responded instantly, remembering how he dreaded being chided for making a mess. "Come on, I'll hold your forehead for you."
He began to vomit just as they reached the bathroom entrance. She held his brow in the palm of her hand, crooning softly and stroking his back while he writhed and gagged wretchedly.
"Finished?" she asked softly, and when he nodded she sat him on her padded bathroom chair and ran warm water into the bath. "You've made rather a mess of yourself, haven't you? I think you ought to just get out of those clothes and hop into a nice bath, don't you? You'll feel much better the minute you're soaking." She wrung out a washcloth and cleaned the worst of it from his face and hands, slipped his shirt off and folded it in on itself carefully, then used it as a rag to wipe the splattered floor. He watched her apathetically, white and trembling.
"I'm soh-soh-sorry, Mary," he gasped. "I made a meh-meh-mess and you'll be mah-mah-mad at me."
She smiled up at him from where she was kneeling on the tiles. "Never, Tim, never! You couldn't help it, and you tried so hard to get to the bathroom in time, didn't you? That's all the matters, dear heart."
His pallor and weakness alarmed her; he did not seem to be recovering as quickly as he should, so she was not surprised when he fell on his knees in front of the lavatory and began to retch again.
"I think that's definitely it," she said when he was quiet once more. "Now how about that bath?"
"I'm so tired, Mary," he whispered, clinging to the sides of the chair seat.
She dared not leave him; the chair was straight-backed and armless, and if he fainted he would never stay on it. The best place for him was the lukewarm bath, where he could stretch out supine and warm himself through to his bones. Shutting
Dawnie's bitter words out of her mind and praying that he would never mention it at home, she got him out of his clothes and helped him into the bath with one arm firmly around his waist and his arm about her shoulders. He sank into the water with a grateful sigh; relieved, she saw his color begin to return, and while he relaxed she finished cleaning the floor and the lavatory. The sickish smell was horribly pervasive, so she opened the door and the window to the windy autumn air. Only then did she turn back to the bath and look at him.
He was sitting like a child, hunched forward and smiling faintly as he watched the tendrils of steam smoking off the surface of the water, his thick gold hair curling damply. So beautiful, so beautiful! Treat him like a child, she told herself as she picked up a bar of soap; treat him like the child he is, don't look at him and see him as a man. Yet even as she said it, her eyes fixed on the full length of his body in the clear water, for he had lain back again suddenly with a murmur of almost voluptuous content. Nudity in a book was, after all, a far cry from Tim's reality; in books it had never possessed the power to move or excite her. She forced herself to look away, but involuntarily her gaze crept back, furtively, until she discovered he had closed his eyes, then in a kind of wondering but disciplined greed, not so much a carnal hunger as a tangled and confused one.
Some change in him made her glance toward his face, to find that he watched her wearily but curiously; the blood felt so hot beneath her skin that she half waited for him to comment, but he did not. With a crablike motion she sat on the edge of the bath and rubbed the soap into his chest and back, her slippery fingers sliding over the flawless skin which was like oiled silk, casually straying every so often to his wrist to check his radial pulse. But he did seem better, if still listless, and he actually laughed when she threw water over his head and made him bend far foreward to wash his hair. She did not let him linger, but made him stand up the moment he was washed thoroughly, then she let the water out of the tub and turned on the shower. It amused her to see his naive pleasure in the huge towel she handed him when he stepped on to the floor, but she managed to listen gravely while he assured her he had never seen such an enormous towel before and what fun it was to be completely wrapped up like a baby.
"That was beaut, Mary," he confided, lying in bed with the covers drawn up to his chin. "I think Mum used to bathe me when I was a little shaver, but I don't remember it. I like being bathed, it's much nicer than bathing myself."
"Then I'm glad," she smiled. "Now I want you to roll over on your side and go to sleep for a little while, all right?"
"All right." He laughed. "I can't say night-night, Mary, because it's the middle of the day."
"How do you feel now, Tim?" she asked, drawing the blinds and plunging the room into semi-darkness.
"I feel all right, but I'm awfully tired."
"Then sleep, love. When you wake up you can come and find me, I'll be here."
The weekend passed fairly uneventfully; Tim was quiet, still not himself physically, but Mary saw little to indicate that he was as yet actively missing his mother. On Sunday afternoon she made him sit in the front of the big Bentley, and drove back to Surf Street to pick up Ron. He was waiting on the front veranda, and when he saw the car draw up he ran down the steps two at a time, suitcase in hand. How old he is, Mary thought, twisting around to open the back door. In spite of his neat, wiry physique and his boyish way of moving, not a young man at all. The sight of him worried her; all she could think of was Tim left utterly alone, bereft of both mother and father. After Dawnie's outburst on Friday there seemed little likelihood that she could or would compensate; her husband had gained the ascendancy. A good thing for Dawnie perhaps, but it boded ill for her erstwhile family. And how on earth could she, Mary Horton, possibly take in Tim if anything happened to Ron? It seemed that everyone thought the worst now, so what would they think and do if Tim came to live with her permanently? The very thought appalled her. Only Ron, Archie Johnson, old Emily Parker next door, and Tim himself thought the relationship was a good thing. She shrank from even imagining what Dawnie would say, and what she might do. Certainly there would be a scandal, maybe a lawsuit as well; but whatever happened, Tim must be shielded from harm and ridicule. It didn't really matter what became of her, or Dawnie, or their lives. Tim was the only one who mattered.
In spite of his shock and grief, Ron was amused at Tim's behavior on the trip to Gosford, how he glued his nose to the window and stared raptly at the passing scene, fascinated. Mary caught him looking at his son when her eyes went to the rear-vision mirror, and she smiled.
"It never palls, Mr. Melville. Isn't that a wonderful thing, to know that he enjoys every trip as much as the first one?"
Ron nodded. "Too right, Miss Horton! I never realized that he enjoyed traveling so much. From what I remember of the few times we tried to take him out in a car, he hurked over everything. What a mess! And terribly embarrassing, because the car wasn't ours. If I'd known he would grow out of it, I would have bought a car and taken him round a bit. Makes me mad I didn't try later on, seeing him now."
"Well, Mr. Melville, I wouldn't be upset about it. Tim is always happy if everything is going well. This is just a different sort of happiness for him, that's all."
Ron did not answer; his eyes filled with tears, and he had to turn his head away to gaze out of his own window.
After she settled th
em into the cottage, Mary prepared to return to Sydney. Ron looked up, dismayed.
"Crikey, Miss Horton, are youse going? I thought you was going to stay here with us?"
She shook her head. "Unfortunately, I can't. I have to be at work tomorrow; my boss has a week of very important meetings and I must be there to support him. I think you'll find everything you might need. Tim knows where things are, and he'll help you if you have any problems in the kitchen or around the house. I want you to make yourselves absolutely at home, do exactly what you like when you like. There's all sorts of food, you won't run short. If you find you have to go into Gosford, the number of the local taxi service is in the telephone notepad, and I insist that you charge it to me."
Ron stood up, for she was drawing on her gloves, ready to go. He shook her hand warmly and smiled.
"Why don't youse call me Ron, Miss Horton?
Then I can call youse Mary. It seems a bit silly to go on calling each other Mister and Miss."
She laughed, her hand resting on his shoulder caressingly for a moment. "Yes, I agree, Ron. Let's make it Ron and Mary from now on."
"We'll see youse when, Mary?" Ron asked, not knowing whether as a guest he ought to see her off her own premises or just return to his easy chair.
"Friday night sometime, but don't wait supper for me. I may have to stay in town and eat dinner with my boss."