Her hands were shaking; she stilled them by clasping them together in her lap. "Apparently during this period when he thought I liked Ron better than I liked him, he was so perturbed that he sat down and worked out a way of proving to me that his own liking for me was genuine and undying. Television gave him his answer; he reasoned it out for himself that when a man liked a woman he showed her by kissing her. No doubt he also noticed that in movies such an action usually results in a happy ending." She shivered slightly. "I'm really to blame. Had I been more on the qui vive I might have averted it, but I was too obtuse to see it in time. Fool!
"We had a really dreadful scene, during which he accused me of liking Ron more than I liked him, and so on. I had to explain to him why I was paying so much attention to Ron, that Ron was dying. As you can imagine, he was shattered. Neither of us was our emotional self, we were upset and very tense. When the shock of learning about his father wore off a bit, it dawned on him that I still like him better than Ron. He sort of leaped to his feet and grabbed me so fast that I didn't realize what he was doing until it was far too late."
She stared at John Martinson pleadingly. "I didn't know what to do for the best, but somehow I couldn't bring myself to humiliate him by repulsing him."
"I understand that very well, Mary," he said gently. "So you responded, I take it?"
She had flushed in embarrassment, but she managed to speak calmly. "Yes. At the time it seemed the best thing to do, that it was more important to make sure he suffered no rejection than it was to push him away. Besides, I-I was in too deep myself, I couldn't seem to help it. He kissed me, and luckily I didn't have to contend with anything more serious than that, because we heard Ron calling us and it gave me an excellent excuse to break away from him."
"How did Tim react to the kiss?"
"Not quite as I imagined. He liked it too much, it excited him. From then on I could tell he was seeing me differently, that he wanted more of this new sensation. I explained to him that it was bad, that it was forbidden, that although it could happen between lots of people it couldn't happen between us, and superficially he understood. He really did grasp the fact that it was forbidden, and he cooperated splendidly. It's never happened again, nor will it in the future."
A sudden scream of laughter came from the house; Mary jumped in fright, momentarily losing her train of thought. Plucking at the clasp of her handbag, she sat voiceless and white-faced.
"Go on," he said. "It's never happened again, nor will it in the future."
"I suppose for Tim it must be like opening a door into a whole new world and then discovering that you can't enter. Yet all the time you know this, the door is still open and the new world is green and beautiful. I feel so sorry for him, and so helpless to heal him. I'm the cause of his misery. He won't do it again, but neither can he forget the time it happened. Ron had kept him absolutely ignorant about matters of a physical nature, and never having heard of it, let alone known of it, he didn't miss it. Now he's had a small taste, and it's gnawing at him without mercy."
"Of course." He sighed. "That was inevitable, Mary."
She looked past his head and fixed her eyes on a tiny spider crawling down the wall, unable to meet his gaze. "Naturally I couldn't tell Ron what had happened, and yet at the same time everything is changed. How can I take him when Ron dies? If Ron knew he'd never ask it of me, I'm sure. I can't take him now, it would drive me mad! At the moment I manage, I can keep Tim occupied and happy two days a week, especially with Ron there. But how can either of us contend with living in the same house together all the time? Oh, John, I just don't know what to do! If I thought there was any chance Tim might forget it would be different, I'd find the strength somehow. But I know he won't forget, and when I catch him looking at me, I. . . Tim isn't one of those unretentive simpletons, you see; he has the ability to absorb and cement memories if they make a big enough impression or he repeats them enough. Every time he looks at me he remembers, and he isn't clever enough to hide it. He's angry and hurt and very resentful, and though he understands it can't happen again, he'll never really understand why."
"Have you thought of a solution, Mary?"
"Not really. Is there some sort of hostel perhaps, where people like Tim who are adults physically but still children in mind could stay when they're all alone and have no family? If he lived in a place like that I could have him on weekends. I could manage that."
"Anything else occur to you?"
"Not seeing him again. But how can I do that, John? It wouldn't help him to hand him over to Dawnie-or is that simply selfishness on my part? Do I really mean as much to him as I think, or is it only self-delusion? I suppose it's possible that he might forget me once he's installed in Dawnie's house, but I keep seeing her and her husband living their lives with Tim as an afterthought. She has more important responsibilities, she can't devote herself to him the way I can!"
"There is another answer, you know."
"There is?" She leaned forward eagerly. "Oh, if you only knew how much I've yearned to hear you say something like that!"
"Why don't you marry Tim?"
Mary gaped at him, so dumbfounded that it took her a few seconds to say "You're joking!" The chair was suddenly too hard and confining; she got up and paced the length of the room once, then came back to face him. "You're joking?" she repeated pitifully, turning it into a question.
A pipe lay on the work table; he picked it up and began to fill it, tamping the tobacco down slowly and very carefully, as though by doing so he could concentrate on remaining calm. "No, I'm not joking, Mary. It's the only logical answer."
"Logical answer? Heavens above, John! It's no answer at all! How can I possibly marry a mentally retarded boy young enough to be my son? It's criminal!"
"Utter twaddle!" He sucked on the pipe furiously, teeth biting down on the stem. "Be sensible, woman! What else is there to do but marry him? I can understand why you didn't think of it for yourself, but now that the idea has been put into your mind there's no excuse for throwing it aside! To do so would be criminal, if you like the word. Marry him, Mary Horton, marry him!"
"Under no circumstances!" She was stiff with anger.
"What's the matter, frightened of what other people will say?"
"You know I'm not! I can't possibly marry Tim! The very idea is straight out of cloudcuckooland!"
"Stuff and nonsense! Of course you can marry him."
"No, I can't! I'm old enough to be his mother, I'm a sour, ugly old maid, no fit partner for Tim!"
He got up, went over to her, took her shoulders, and shook her until she was dizzy. "Now you listen to me, Miss Mary Horton! If you're no fit partner for him, he's no fit partner for you, either! What is this, noble self-sacrifice? I can't abide nobility, all it does is make everyone unhappy. I said you ought to marry him, and I mean it! Do you want to know why?"
"Oh, by all means!"
"Because you can't live without each other, that's why! Good lord, woman, it sticks out a mile how besotted you are for him, and he for you! It's no platonic friendship, and it never was! What would happen if you chose the second of your two alternatives and stopped seeing him? Tim wouldn't survive his father more than six months, you know that, and you'd probably live out a full span of years like a shadow of your former self, in a world so gray and full of tears that you'd wish you were dead a thousand times in each and every endless day. As for your first alternative, there isn't any such place because what places there are have waiting lists literally years long. Tim would never live long enough to make it in the door. Is that what you want-to kill Tim?"
"No, no!" She groped for a handkerchief.
"Listen to me! You've got to stop thinking of yourself as a sour, ugly old maid, even if that's what you really are. I defy anyone to explain what one person sees in another, and as for you, you shouldn't even dare to query it. Whatever you think you are, Tim thinks you're something quite different and much more desirable. You said you didn't know what on earth h
e saw in you, that whatever it was you couldn't see it yourself. Be grateful for that! Why toss it away in an excess of self-sacrifice and pride? It's such useless, pointless self-sacrifice!
"Do you think he'll change, grow tired of you? Be your age! This isn't an exquisitely beautiful, sophisticated man of the world; this is a poor, silly creature as simple and faithful as a dog! Oh, you don't like my saying things like that, eh? Well, right at this moment there's no room for euphemism or illusion, Mary Horton; there's only room for the truth, as plain and unvarnished as the truth can get. I'm not interested in why Tim should have fixed his affections on you; I'm only interested in the fact that he has. He loves you; it's as simple as that. He loves you! As improbable, impractical, inexplicable as it may be, he loves you. I don't know why any more than you do, but it is a concrete fact. And what on earth is the matter with you, that you can even contemplate throwing his love away?"
"You don't understand!" Mary wept, her head in her hands, her fingers wreaking havoc upon the orderly strands of her hair.
"Oh, I understand better than you think," he said, more gently. "Tim loves you, with every corner of his being he loves you. For some reason, out of all the people he's ever known, he fixed his affection on you, and with you it will stay. He's not going to grow bored or jaded with you, he's not going to throw you over for a younger, prettier woman in ten years' time, he isn't after your money any more than his father is. You're certainly nothing to write home about now, so it's not as though you've got any beauty to lose, is it? Besides, he has more than enough beauty for the two of you."
She lifted her head and tried to smile. "You're nothing if not honest."
"I am because I have to be. But that's only the half of it, isn't it? Don't tell me you've never admitted to yourself that you love him every bit as much as he loves you?"
"Oh, I've admitted it," she answered wryly.
"When? Recently?"
"A long time ago, before his mother died. He told me one night that I looked like his picture of Saint Teresa, and for some reason his saying that knocked the wind out of my sails. I'd loved him from the first moment of seeing him, but it was then I admitted it to myself."
"And are you likely to grow tired of him?"
"Grow tired of Tim? No, oh, no!"
"Then why can't you marry him?"
"Because I'm old enough to be his mother, and because he's so beautiful."
"It isn't good enough, Mary. All that appearance business is crap, and I'm not even going to be bothered arguing with you about it. As to the age objection, I think it's worth discussing. You're not his mother, Mary! You don't feel like his mother and he doesn't think of you as his mother. This isn't an ordinary situation, you know; this isn't two people fully grown in mind and body but with a disparity in age casting doubt on the genuineness of the emotional ties between them. You and Tim are unique in the annals of man. I don't mean that a spinster in her middle forties has never married a man young enough to be her son before, even perhaps a mentally retarded one, I mean that you're a completely odd couple from every standpoint and you may as well accept your uniqueness. Nothing holds you together except your love for each other, does it? There's the difference in age, in beauty, in brain, in wealth, in status, in background, in temperament-I could go on and on, couldn't I? The emotional ties between you and Tim are genuine, genuine enough to have transcended all of these innate differences. I don't think anyone on earth including you yourself will ever be able to discover the reason why you fit together. You just do. So marry him, Mary Horton, marry him! You'll have to endure an awful lot of sniggers, leveled fingers, and conjecture, but it doesn't really matter, does it? You've had a fair bit of that all along, I'd say. Why not give the old biddies something really worthwhile to talk about? Marry him!''
"It's-it's indecent, it's almost obscene!"
"I'm sure that's what everyone will say."
Her chin went up. "I don't care what other people say, I'm only concerned with its effect on Tim, how people will treat him if he marries me."
John Martinson shrugged. "He'll survive speculation a lot better than separation, I assure you."
Her hands lay clenched in her lap, and he put his own over them strongly, eyes glittering.
"Think about this one, Mary. Why shouldn't Tim marry? What's so special about Tim? You can protest all you like that you think of him as a man, but I disagree. The only times you've thought of him as a man, you've almost died in horror, haven't you? That's because you've made the mistake everyone makes with mentally regarded people. In your mind, Tim is fixed as a child. But he's not a child, Mary! Like normal people, retards are subject to the growth and change which comes with maturation; within the limited scope of their psychic development, they cease to be children. Tim is a grown man, with all the physical attributes of a grown man and a perfectly normal hormonal metabolism. If he'd been injured in the leg he'd walk with a limp, but because his injury is to the brain he limps mentally, and that kind of handicap doesn't prevent him being a man any more than a maimed leg would.
"Why should Tim have to go through life deprived of the opportunity to satisfy one of the most driving needs his body and his spirit know? Why should he be denied his manhood? Why should he be sheltered and shielded from his body? Oh, Mary, he's already deprived of so much! So much! Why deprive him of yet more? Isn't he, a man, entitled to his manhood? Honor the man in him, Mary Horton! Marry him!"
"Yes, I see." She sat silently for a while, thinking. Then she lifted her head. "All right, then, if you think it's the best thing under the circumstances, I'll marry him."
"Good girl!" His face softened. "You'll both get more out of it than you think, you know."
She frowned. "But it's so fraught with difficulties!"
"His father?"
"I think not. No, I imagine Ron will be pleased, though he may well be the only one. But Tim and I, we're equally inexperienced in this, and I'm not sure I'm competent to deal with all the problems involved."
"You're worrying unnecessarily. The trouble is you're a thinker, you try to contend with things that have a habit of solving themselves when the time comes. Where Tim's needs are concerned you're very well attuned, I'd say."
Suppressing her urge to squirm, Mary managed to appear composed. "I shouldn't have children, should I?"
"No, you shouldn't. Not that Tim's deficiencies are hereditary, it doesn't seem there's much chance of that. But you're getting into an age group where it's possible that you won't live to see any offspring through to their maturity, and Tim's condition precludes him from fulfilling your role should anything happen to you. Besides which, you're more than old enough to repeat his mother's misfortune, and if you did that it would be life's greatest irony. Statistically speaking, if you start having children past the thirty-five mark your chances of having a normal child go right down, and the farther you are past thirty-five when you begin, the lower your chances get."
"I know."
"Do you think you'll regret not having children? Is it likely to color your life with disappointment?"
"No! How could it? I never expected to get married, or yearned to get married. Tim is more than enough for me."
"It won't be easy."
"I know."
John put down his pipe and sighed. "Well, Mary, I do wish you all the luck and happiness in the world. It's up to you now."
She rose, gathering her bag and gloves together. "And I thank you very much, John. You've put me deeper than ever in your debt, and I give you my word that I'll work to help your cause in whatever way I can."
"You owe me nothing. The pleasure I'll get from just knowing Tim is happy is more than enough reward for me. Just come and see me from time to time."
Instead of simply dropping Tim off in Surf Street, Mary came in with him. Ron was sitting in the living room with the television blaring a late-night sports roundup.
"G'day there, Mary! I didn't expect you'd come in this late."
She sat down on the s
ofa while Tim busied himself putting her bag and gloves in a safe place. "I wanted to have a talk with you, Ron. It's rather important, and I'd like to get it over and done with while I've still got the courage."
"Right you are, love! How about a cuppa tea and a bit of fresh cream sponge?"
"That sounds nice." She looked up at Tim, smiling. "Do you have to work tomorrow, Tim?"
He nodded.
"I don't want to push you off, then, but I think it's bedtime for you, Charlie. Your Pop and I have something to talk about, but I promise I won't keep it a secret from you, I'll tell you all about it this weekend. All right?"
'All right. Night-night, Mary." He never requested her to tuck him up in Esme's house.
Ron spread cups and saucers and plates on the kitchen table while the kettle heated, watching Mary keenly out of the corner of his eye. "You look real done-ih, love," he observed.
"I am, rather. It was an exhausting evening."
"What did the teacher bloke say about Tim?"
Her cup was chipped; she sat rubbing her fingertip back and forth across the pitted rim, turning ways to tackle the subject over in her mind. When she looked up at Ron she seemed old and tired.
"Ron, I wasn't exactly truthful about why I took Tim to see John Martinson tonight."
"No?"
"No." Round and round the cup edge her fingertip moved; she lowered her eyes to it, unable to continue speaking while she looked into those wide blue eyes, so like Tim's in form and so unlike Tim's in expression. "This is very difficult for me, because I don't think you have any idea of what I'm going to tell you. Ron, did it ever occur to you that it's going to be hard for me to take Tim if anything happens to you?"