One Saturday morning early in spring she was sitting on the front veranda of the cottage looking toward the beach, where Tim was standing just at the water's edge staring out across the wide river. What did he see? Was he looking for his mother, or was he looking for the answers she had failed to give him? It was her failure with Tim which worried Mary more than anything else, for she sensed that she herself was one of the main reasons for his odd withdrawal. Ever since the night she had returned to the cottage after that week Ron and Tim had spent there alone, Mary was aware that Tim thought she had failed him. But talking to him was like talking to a brick wall, he seemed not to want to hear her. She had tried more times than she could count, approached the subject by casting out what used to be infallible lures, but he ignored them, almost spurning her. Yet it was such an intangible thing; he was his normal polite self, he worked willingly in the garden and about the house, he voiced no discontent. He had just gone away.
Ron came out on to the veranda with a tray of morning tea, and set it on a table near her chair. His eyes followed hers to the still, sentry-like figure on the beach, and he sighed.
"Have a cuppa, Mary. You didn't eat anything for brekkie, love. I baked a real nice seed cake yestiddy, so why don't you have a bit now with your tea, eh?"
She dragged her thoughts away from Tim and smiled. "My word, Ron, you've developed into quite a cook these last few months."
He bit his lip to still its sudden quivering. "Es used to love seed cake, it was her favorite. I was reading in the Herald that in America they eat bread with seeds in it, but they don't put seeds in cakes. Barmy! I can't think of anything worse than caraway seeds in bread, but in a nice, sweet yellow cake they're the grouse."
"Customs vary, Ron. They'd probably say exactly the opposite if they ever read in their papers that Australians never put caraway seeds in bread but eat them in cake instead. Though, to be honest, if you go to one of the continental bakeries in Sydney you can buy seeded rye bread these days."
"I wouldn't put anything past them bloody new Australian wogs," he said with the old Australian's innate contempt for the new European immigrants. "Anyway, it don't matter. Have a bit of the cake, Mary, go on."
Half her slice of cake eaten, Mary put her plate down. "Ron, what's the matter with him?"
"Gord struth and little apples, Mary, we've squeezed the last juice out of that subject weeks ago!" he snapped, then turned to press her arm contritely. "I'm sorry, love, I didn't mean to bite your head off like that. I know you're only worried about him, I know that's the only reason you keep on asking. I dunno, love, I just dunno. I never ever thought he'd take on so after his Mum died, I never thought it'd last half so long. It's enough to break your heart, ain't it?"
"It's breaking mine. I don't know what to do, but I've got to do something, and soon! He's going farther and farther away from us, Ron, and if we can't pull him back we'll lose him forever!"
He came and sat on the arm of her chair, pulling her head against his meager chest and cradling it there. "I wish I knew what to do, Mary love, but
I don't. The worst thing is that I can't make meself care the way I used to, it's sort of as Tim's not me son any more, as if I can't be bothered. That sounds awful, but I've got me reasons. Wait here."
He let her go abruptly and disappeared into the house, emerging a moment later with a flat portfolio of papers under his arm. He threw it on to the table beside the tea tray. Mary looked up at him, puzzled and upset. Ron got another chair and pulled it over until it faced hers, then he sat down and stared directly into her eyes, his own glittering queerly.
"That's all the papers about Tim," he said "Inside there is me will, all the bank books and insurance policies and annuities. Everything to make sure Tim's financially secure for the rest of his life." He looked behind him toward the beach, and Mary could no longer see his face.
"I'm dying, Mary," he went on slowly. "I don't want to live, and I can't seem to make meself live any more. I'm running down like a clockwork monkey-you know the ones, they beat a little drum and march up and down and then it all goes into slow motion and then it all stops, the feet stop marching and the drum stops beating. Well, that's me. Running down, and there's nothing I can do about it.
"And oh, Mary, I'm glad! If I'd been a young man I wouldn't have felt her going like this, but age makes a big difference. She's left a great big hole I can't fill with anything, even Tim. All I want is to be lying there with her, under the ground. I keep thinking she must be awful cold and lonely. She couldn't be anything else, not after sharing her sleep with me all those years." His face was still turned away from her toward the beach. "I can't stand the thought of her so cold and lonely, I can't bear it. There ain't nothing left with her gone, and I can't even make meself care about Tim. That's why I went to me lawyer this week and got him to make everything all right.
"I'm not leaving youse anything but trouble, I suppose, but somehow right from the beginning I always felt that you was terrible fond of Tim, that you wouldn't mind the trouble. It's selfish, but I can't help it. I'm leaving Tim to you Mary, and there's all his papers. You take them. I've given you a power of attorney in Tim's financial affairs for as long as you live. I don't think Dawnie will make any big trouble for youse, because Mick doesn't want Tim around, but just in case I've left a couple of letters in there, one for Dawnie and one for the shirt-lifting bugger Mick. I gave me notice at work, told the boss I was retiring. I'm just going to stay at home and wait, except that I'd still like to come up with Tim on weekends if you don't mind. It won't be too long now, anyway."
"Oh, Ron, oh, Ron!" Mary found herself weeping; the slender shape on the beach melted in a shimmer of tears, and she reached but her hands to Tim's father.
They rose and clung together hard, each the victim of a different kind of pain. After a while Mary discovered that he comforted her more than she could ever comfort him, that it was exquisitely peaceful and healing to stand there within his arms and feel his tenderness and compassion, his intensely male protectiveness. She held him more tightly, her face pushing into the sagging folds of his skinny neck, and closed her eyes.
Suddenly something alien intruded: a shiver of dread passed down her spine, and she opened her eyes with a start of fear. Tim was standing several feet away staring at them, and for the first time in all the long months of their friendship, she saw him angry. He was shaking with rage; it flared in his eyes and turned them as dark as sapphires, it spasmed his muscles into tremor after furious tremor. Terrified, she let her arms fall and stepped back from Ron so abruptly that he staggered and had to grasp at the roof post. Turning, he saw Tim; they stared at each other for perhaps a minute without speaking, then Tim twisted away and ran down the path to the beach.
"What's the matter with him?" Ron whispered, aghast. He made a movement to follow his son, but Mary pulled him back, clawing at him.
"No, no!"
"But I gotta see what's the matter with him, Mary! What did he do? What made youse jump like that and look so frightened of him? Let me go!"
"No, Ron, please! Let me go after him, you stay here, please! Oh, Ron, don't ask me why, just let me find him by myself!"
He yielded reluctantly, stepping away from the edge of the veranda. "Well, all right, love. You're good with him, and maybe he needs a woman's touch more than a man's. If Mum was alive I'd send her, so why not you?"
There was no sign of him on the beach as Mary sped down the path; she stopped on the fringe of the sand and shaded her eyes to peer up and down the whole length of the bay, but he was not there. She turned into the trees, heading for a little clearing where she knew of late he liked to go to be alone. And he was there; gasping with relief, Mary sagged against a tree trunk and watched him silently. His terrible misery and grief struck her like a blow from some gargantuan hammer; every long, achingly beautiful line of him spoke of inarticulate suffering, the pure outline of his profile was knotted into pain. It was impossible to stand aloof, but she came up to him s
o quietly that he was not aware of her presence until she touched him on the arm. He flinched away as if her fingers burned and her hand fell to her side, useless.
"Tim, what is it? What have I done?"
"Nothing, nothing!"
"Don't keep it from me, Tim! What have I done?"
"Nothing!" He almost screamed the word.
"But I have! Oh, Tim, I've known for months that I've failed you somehow, but I don't know what I did wrong! Tell me, tell me!"
"Go away!"
"No, I won't go away! I won't go away until you tell me what's the matter! It's been worrying your Pop and me out of our minds, and back there on the veranda you looked at us both as if you hated us. Hated us, Tim!" She came round to face him and put her hands on his upper arms, her fingers digging into his skin.
"Don't touch me!" He wrenched away and turned his back on her.
"Why, Tim? What have I done that I can't touch you?"
"Nothing!"
"I don't believe you! Tim, I never thought you'd lie to me, but you are lying to me! Please tell me what's the matter, oh, please!"
"I can't!" he whispered despairingly.
"But you can, of course you can! You've always been able to tell me everything! Oh, Tim don't turn away from me and shut me out any more! You're pulling me into little pieces, I'm so beside myself with worry and fear for you that I don't know what to do!" She began to weep, and wiped the tears away with the palm of her hand.
"I can't, I can't! I don't know! I feel so many things that I can't think out, I don't know what they mean!"
He spun round to face her, goaded and harried beyond patience, and she backed away; a stranger glared at her, there was nothing familiar in him to reach for.
"I only know you don't like me any more, that's all! You like Pop better than me now, you don't like me any more! You haven't liked me since you met Pop, and I knew it would happen. I knew it would happen! How could you like me more than him when he's the full quid and I'm not? / like him better than me!"
She put out her hands. "Oh, Tim! Oh, Tim! How could you think that? It's not true! I like you as much as I always did, I haven't stopped liking you for one little wee minute! How could I ever stop liking you?"
"You did when you met Pop!"
"No, no! It's not true, Tim! Please believe me, it's just not true! I like your Pop, but I could never like him as much as I like you, never! If you must know, most of the reason I like your Pop is because he is your Pop; he made you." She tried to keep her voice calm, hoping it would calm him.
"You're the one who's lying, Mary! I can feel things! I always thought you thought I was all grown up, but now I know you don't, not now, not now I've seen you and Pop! You don't like me any more, it's Pop you like now! You don't mind if Pop hugs you! I've seen you, hugging and comforting him all the time! You won't let me hug you and you won't comfort me! All you do with me is tuck me into bed, and I want you to hug me and comfort me, but you won't. But you do it with Pop!
"What's wrong with me, why don't you like me any more? Why did you change after Pop started coming with us? Why am I always left out? I can tell you don't like me, I can tell it's Pop you like!"
Mary stood absolutely still, yearning to respond to that despairing, lonely plea for love, but too aghast at its suddenness. He was jealous! He was furiously, possessively jealous! He regarded his own father as a rival for her affections, and it was not entirely the jealousy of a child. There was a man in it: primitive, possessive, sexual man. The glib words of reassurance would not come; she could find nothing to say.
They stood staring at each other, stiff and with hackles raised, then Mary found that her legs were trembling so much they scarcely supported her. She groped for a nearby hillock and sat down without taking her eyes from his face.
"Tim," she said hesitantly, trying to choose her words with extreme delicacy, "Tim, you know I've never lied to you. Never! I couldn't lie to you, I like you far too much. What I'm going to tell you now is something I couldn't tell a little child, I could only say it to a man grown. You've assured me that you're all grown up, so now you have to take all the hard, painful things which go along with being a man. I can't properly explain why I let your Pop hug me and won't let you, but it isn't because you're a little child to me, it's because he's an old man. You've got it the wrong way round, don't you see?
"Tim, you have to be ready to take another shock like your Mum's death, and you have to be strong. You have to be grown up enough to keep what I tell you an absolute secret, especially from your Pop. He must never know I told you.
"Do you remember a long time ago I explained to you what happened to people when they died, why they died, that they just got too old and tired to keep going, that they ran down like a forgotten clock until their hearts stopped beating? Well, sometimes a thing happens which makes the wearing out go much faster, and it's happened to your Pop. When your Mum died he began to run down faster and faster, he got more and more tired with each day he had to live without her."
He was still standing over her, trembling as he listened, but she did not know whether this was an aftermath of his rage or a reaction to what she was telling him. She labored on doggedly.
"I know you miss your Mum dreadfully, Tim, but you don't miss her the way he does, because you're young and he's old. Pop wants to die, he wants to lie under the ground next to your Mum sleeping, just the way they did each night when she was alive. He wants to be with her again. They belong together, you see, he can't get along without her. Just now, when you found me comforting him on the veranda, he had just told me that he knew he was going to die. He doesn't want to go on walking and talking any more because he's old and he can't learn to live without her. And that's why I was holding him. I was saddened and I cried for him; actually it was Pop who was comforting me, not the other way around. You mistook it entirely."
An abrupt movement from him made her look up, and she lifted her hand in command.
"No, don't cry, Tim! Come on now, you've got to be very brave and strong, you can't let him see that you've been crying. I know I've given a lot of time to your Pop that you think rightly belonged to you, but he has so little time left, and you have all your life ahead of you! Is it wrong of me to want to give him a wee bit of happiness to lighten what days he has left? Give him those days, Tim, don't be selfish! He's so alone! He misses your Mum terribly, dear heart, he misses her the way I'd miss you if you died. He's walking around in a half-lit world."
Tim had never learned to school his features to impassivity; the emotions chased each other across his face as he stood staring at her, and it was all too plain that he understood enough. Making Tim comprehend was largely a matter of familiarity, and he had known her a long time now, he had little trouble with the words and phrases she used. The nuances were beyond him, but the truth was not.
She sighed wearily. "I haven't found it very easy either all these months, with two of you to look after instead of only you. There have been many, many times when I've longed to have you to myself again. But when I've caught myself wishing that I've been ashamed of myself, Tim. You see, we can't always have things the way we want. Life is so seldom ideal, and we just have to learn to put up with it. During this time we have to think of Pop first. You know what a good, kind man Pop is, and if you're fair to him you'll admit he's never treated you like a baby, has he? He's let you go out into the world on your own, make your own mistakes, he loves to share his time at the Seaside with you, he's been the best and truest mate you've ever had; he's taken the place of the mates your own age you've never had the chance to find. And yet he's led his own life, too, but not because he's selfish; he's always had you and Mum and
Dawnie there in his mind, ail sort of warm and comforting, rounding out his life. You're very lucky, Tim, to have a father like Ron, so don't you think we ought to try and give him back a little bit of what he's given you so ungrudgingly all these years?
"From now on, Tim, I want you to be very good to your father, an
d very good to me. You mustn't worry him by going off by yourself the way you've been doing, and you mustn't ever let him know I told you what the matter is. Whenever Pop is around I want you to sing and talk and laugh as if you're happy, really happy.
"I know it's hard for you to understand, but I'll sit here and go over it with you until you get it all straight."
Like rain and wind and sun the grief and joy mingled in his eyes, then they dulled and he burrowed his head into her lap. She sat and stroked his hair and talked to him softly, tracing the outline of his neck and ear tenderly with the tip of her finger, round and round and round.
When he lifted his head at last he looked at her, trying to smile and failing. Then his expression changed, the lost look came into his face and the bewildered eyes retreated behind their veil of sad exclusion. Along the left side of his mouth the little crease became very pronounced; he was the tragic clown of every comedy, he was the unwanted lover, he was the cuckoo in the lark's nest.
"Oh, Tim, don't look at me so!" she pleaded.
"At work they call me Dim Tim," he said, "but if I try really hard, I can think a little bit. Ever since Mum went away I've been trying to think of something to show you how much I like you, be-cause I thought you liked Pop better than me. Mary, I don't know what you do to me, I only feel it and I can't tell you because I don't know the words. I never can find the words. . . . But in the movies I see on TV the man hugs the girl and then he kisses her, and then she knows how much he likes her. Oh, Mary, I like you! I like you even when I thought you didn't like me any more, I like you, I like you!"
He snatched at her shoulders and pulled her to her feet, his hold inexpertly strong as he put his arms about her back; her head came up, seeking air. Not knowing how to find her mouth, he pressed his cheek against hers until he fumbled to her lips. Completely taken off guard, for his last words and his action had been too swift and startling for immediate comprehension, Mary fought frantically to free herself. Then somehow it no longer mattered, there was only the feel of that beautiful young body and anxiously experimenting mouth. As inexperienced as he but intellectually much better prepared, Mary felt his need for help and reassurance. She could not fail him in this too, she could not bring herself to crush his pride, humiliate him by rejecting him. His hold slackened enough for her to free her hands; they went immediately to his head, smoothing his brows and closing his open eyes, exploring the silkiness of his lashes and the hollowed curves of his cheeks. He kissed her the way he imagined it was done, his lips pressed firmly shut, and it dissatisfied him; she pulled away from him for a moment and pushed her thumb against his lower lip caressingly, slightly opening his mouth, then her hands went up to his hair and drew his head down. He was not dissatisfied this time, and his shivering delight transmitted itself to her.