The hand holding the teapot trembled; tea slopped onto the table. "You've changed your mind, right?"
"No. I won't do that, Ron, unless you don't like my solution to our problem." She folded her hands together in front of her cup and managed to .look at him steadily. "Tim and I have always had a very special relationship, you know that. Out of all the people he's ever met he likes me best. I don't know why, and I've given up even wondering about it. It isn't far wrong to say he loves me."
"No, it isn't. He does love you, Mary. That's why I want you to be the one to take him after I'm gone."
"I love him, too. I've loved him from the first instant I ever saw him, standing in the sun watching the concrete truck emptying cement all over Emily Parker's oleanders. I didn't know he was retarded then, but when I found out it didn't change anything, in fact it only made me love him more. For a long while I never attached any importance to the difference in our sexes, until first Emily Parker and then your daughter gave me some pretty rude shocks on the subject. You've always kept Tim sheltered from that sort of thing, haven't you?"
"I had to, Mary. With Es and me being so old, I knew there was a pretty good chance we wouldn't be around when Tim grew up, so we talked over what we oughta do while he was a little bloke. Without us to watch over him, and him being as handsome as he is, it seemed as though he was likely to get himself into a heap of trouble if he ever found out what women were for while he was still young and the urge was strong. It was easy until he got old enough to work, but once he started with Harry Markham I knew it would be hard. So I went and had a talk with Harry, made it clear that I didn't want any of his blokes getting Tim into trouble or trying to wise him up about the birds and the bees. I warned Harry that if they tried anything I'd put the police on to them for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and a minor who wasn't the full quid into the bargain. It was the only thing I asked, and I suppose they got their fun from tormenting him about other things, but f must say they was good about the sex business, even used to watch out for him and keep the women away. Bill Naismith usually comes most of the way to and from work with Tim, because he lives at the top of Coogee Bay Road. So between one thing and another, it's turned out fine. We been lucky, of course. There was always the chance that something might happen, but it never has."
Mary felt the prickling march of blood suffuse her face. "Why were you so adamant about it, Ron?" she asked, desperate to delay the moment of confession.
"Well, Mary, you've always got to weigh the pleasure agin the pain, ain't that right? And it seemed to Es and me that poor old Tim would end up getting more pain than he would pleasure from playing around with women and sex and all that. Mum and me thought he'd be better off ignorant. It's terrible true that what you never know you don't miss, and with him working so hard laboring it's never been a burden to him. I suppose it might seem cruel to someone on the outside, but we thought we was doing the right thing. What do you reckon, Mary?"
"I'm sure you acted in Tim's best interests, Ron. You always do."
But he seemed to interpret her answer as noncommittal, for he hurried into a further explanation.
"Lucky for us, we had a good example right under our noses while Tim was growing up. There used to be a simple girl down the street from us, and her Mum had awful trouble with her. She was much worse off than Tim, only about fourpence in the quid, I reckon, and ugly too. Some rotten bugger took a fancy to her when she was fifteen, pimples and fat and slobber and all. Some men will hump anything. And she's been pregnant off and on ever since, the poor little dill, had one cock-eyed, hare-lipped ning-nong of a baby after the other, until they put her away in an institution. That's where the law's wrong, Mary, they oughta have some provision for abortion. Even in the state home people kept getting at her, and in the end they tied her tubes. It was her Mum told us whatever we did, not to let Tim get ideas."
Ignoring Mary's soothing murmur, he got up and paced the room restlessly, it was painfully apparent that the decision taken all those years ago continued to worry him.
"There are blokes and sheilas who don't care if a kid is simple. All they're after is a bit of fun, and they sort of like the fact that they don't have to worry about the kid, because it isn't smart enough to chase after them and give them a hard time when they're sick of it. Why should they care? They reckon that the kid's so dill-brained it can't feel anything the way us ordinary people do. They'd kick it the way they'd kick a dog, smirking all over their faces because the silly ding comes back for more, wagging its tail, belly on the ground.
"But dill-brains like Tim and the girl down the street do feel, Mary, they ain't that far off the full quid, especially Tim. Good Christ, even an animal can feel! I'll never forget when Tim was a tiny little bloke, about seven or eight. He was just starting to talk as if he knew what the words meant. . . . He come in with this chewed-up kitten, and Es said he could keep it. Well, not long after the kitten turned into a cat, it started to swell up like a balloon, and the next thing we knew, kittens. I was hopping mad, but lucky for me, I thought, she'd had them behind the bricked-up chimney in our bedroom, and I decided I'd get rid of them before Tim knew anything about it. I had to knock out half the bricks to get at her, I dunno how she got in there in the first place. There she was, all covered in soot, kittens too, and I had Es breathing down me neck laughing her head off and saying it was just as well she was a black cat, you'd never notice the soot. Anyway, I grabbed the kittens, took them into the backyard and drowned them in a bucket of water. And I've never regretted doing anything so much in all me life. The poor little bugger of a cat walked around the house for days, crying and howling and looking for her kittens, turning her head up to look at me with them big green eyes so full of trust, like, as if she thought I could find them for her. And she cried, Mary, she cried real tears, they rolled down her face just like she was a human-being sort of woman. I never thought animals could cry real tears. Jesus! For a while there I wanted to put me head in the gas oven. Es wouldn't talk to me for a week over it, and every time the cat cried, so did Tim."
Pulling his chair closer to the table, he sat down again with hands outstretched. The old house was so quiet, Mary found herself thinking while Ron got himself together. Just the ticking of the old-fashioned kitchen clock and the sound of Ron swallowing. No wonder he hated it when he had known it so different.
"So you see, Mary," Ron continued, "if a cat can have feelings, so can a dill-brain like Tim, and more feelings, because Tim's not all that bad. He mightn't set the world on fire with his ideas, but he's got a heart, Mary, a great big warm heart just full of love. If he started in with a woman he'd love her, but do youse think she could love him, eh? He'd just be a piece on the side to her, that's all, and him just brimming over for her. I couldn't take it.
"Tim's got a real pretty face and a real pretty body, and there's been women-and men!-after him since he was twelve. After he was dumped, what do you think would happen to Tim? He'd look at me the way that poor bloody little cat did, as if he expected me to get his girlfriend back and couldn't understand why I wasn't even trying."
A silence fell. Somewhere inside came the noise of a door slamming; Ron looked up and seemed to remember that Tim was in the house with them.
"Excuse me a minute, Mary."
She sat listening to the loud monotonous clock until he came back, grinning to himself.
"Typical Aussie, that boy. Can't get him into more clothes than necessary, and if he has half a chance he'll wander around mother-naked. He has a bad habit of coming out of the bathroom after his shower and walking all over the place without a stitch on, so I thought I'd better make sure he didn't come out here for something." He looked at her sharply. "I hope he behaves hisself when he stays with youse? No complaints?"
"He behaves himself perfectly," she answered uncomfortably.
Ron sat down again. "You know, it's a real blessing we're just working-class people, Mary. It's been easier to shelter Tim than if we'd belonged w
ith the likes of Dawnie's man Mick. Them stuck-up snobs is harder to spot, more cunning like, men and women, but men especially, I reckon. Instead of drinking with dinkum blokes in the public bar at the Seaside, he'd be sitting in some pansy lounge with all the idle women and all the lisping fairies in the world. Our class has things better organized than that, thank me lucky stars. Black is blacker and white is whiter, and there ain't so much gray in between. I do hope youse understands, Mary, why we did it."
"I understand. I really do. The trouble is that Tim's woken up, courtesy of the television set. He watched the love scenes and decided it was a good way to show me how much he liked me."
"Oh, God!" Ron sat down abruptly. "I thought we'd frightened him off it, I thought we'd scared the living daylights out of him so much he'd never try it."
"You probably did a good job of scaring him off, but you see, he didn't really associate what he was doing with what you scared him away from. It didn't start off in his mind as a carnal thing. He just wanted to show me how much he liked me. In the process, unfortunately, he also found out how much he liked it."
Ron was horrified. "You mean he raped you? I don't believe it!"
"Of course not! He kissed me, that's all. But he liked it, and it's been preying on his mind ever since. I managed to convince him that between us it was forbidden, but he's awake, Ron, he's awake! It only happened once, I wouldn't ever let it happen again, but how can you or I blot it out of his mind? What's done is done! While there was no truth to what Dawnie or Emily Parker or anyone else thought it didn't matter, but ever since Tim kissed me I've nearly gone crazy wondering what on earth I'm going to do with him if anything happens to you."
Ron had relaxed again. "I see what you mean."
"Well, I didn't know where to turn, who to talk to about it. That was why I took Tim to see John
Martinson tonight, I wanted him to meet Tim and then to give me his frank opinion on the whole situation."
"Why didn't you talk to me, Mary?" Ron demanded, hurt.
"How could I possibly talk to you, Ron? You're Tim's father, you're too close to everything to be detached. If I'd talked to you first I would have nothing to offer you this moment beyond the facts, I'd have no direction to go and no solution. If I'd talked to you first we'd probably have come to the conclusion that there was nothing to be done save separate Tim from me. I went to John Martinson because he's had a great deal of experience with mentally retarded people, and he's genuinely concerned for them. I thought that out of all the people I know he was the only one capable of thinking of Tim first, and that's what I wanted, someone capable of thinking exclusively of Tim."
"Okay, Mary, I see your point. What did he say?"
"He offered me a solution, and the way he presented it made me see that there's no doubt of it being the wisest thing to do. I told him that I thought you'd agree after you heard it, but I confess I'm not so sure in my own mind about that as I sounded when I reassured John Martinson.
"Whatever you say or think about it, I assure you I've already said or thought it, so nothing you can say will surprise or hurt me." She held out her cup for more tea, anxious to have something to do. "I'm forty-five years old, Ron, old enough to be Tim's mother, and I'm a plain, dowdy woman without any sort of physical attraction for men. What Tim sees in me is totally beyond me, but he sees it all the same. John Martinson says I ought to marry Tim."
"Does he?" Ron's face was curiously expressionless.
"Yes, he does."
"Why?"
"Chiefly because Tim loves me, and because Tim's a man, not a child. When he told me what he thought I should do, I was flabbergasted, and believe me I argued against it. It's like mating a thoroughbred with a mongrel, mating Tim's youth and beauty with me, and I told him so. Forgive me for saying this, but he answered that there were two ways of looking at it, that mating my intelligence with Tim's stupidity was just as bad. They weren't his words; he said, 'If you're no fit partner for Tim, he's no fit partner for you.' His point was that neither Tim nor myself is any marital prize, so what was so appalling about it? I still opposed the whole idea, chiefly on the grounds of the big difference in our ages, but he threw that aside too. It's me Tim likes, not the girl next door or the daughter of one of his workmates.
"What convinced me that John Martinson was right was something that hadn't occurred to me at all, and I'm sure it hadn't occurred to you either. We're both too close to Tim to see it." She shook her head. "Tim's a grown man, Ron, in that respect he's perfectly normal. John was quite brutally frank about it, he took me by the shoulders and shook me until my teeth rattled because he was so angry at my lack of insight and sympathy for Tim. What was the matter with me, he asked me, that I could deny Tim his right to be a man in the only way he can ever be a man? Why shouldn't Tim get as much out of life as possible?
"I'd never looked at it that way before, I'd been so concerned with what other people would think, how they'd laugh at him and tease and torment him because he'd married a rich spinster old enough to be his mother. But I'd completely overlooked the fact that he's entitled to get as much out of life as he can."
Again she fell to exploring the chipped cup with her fingertip: Ron was concealing his reactions well; she had no idea what he thought, and as if to confuse her more he picked up the teapot to refill her cup.
"We've all heard of reverses. I remember once being very angry because one of the girls in our office fell in love with a paraplegic who refused to marry her. Archie knew the girl well enough to be sure she was a one-man woman, that there'd never be anyone for her but this man. He went to see the fellow, told him not to throw their chance of happiness aside because he wasn't a man in that one sense. And we all agreed that Archie had done the right thing, there was no reason why the girl shouldn't have married her man in a wheelchair. There's more to life than that, Archie told him.
"There is more to life than that, Ron, but what about Tim? How much is there to Tim's life, and how much could there be? Now that the opportunity has presented itself, have we any right to deny Tim everything he's entitled to as a human being? That's the crux of John Martinson's argument."
"He really laid it on the line, didn't he?" Ron pushed his hands tiredly through his hair. "I just never thought of it that way."
"Well, I admitted the truth of his argument, I had to. But why me, I asked? Surely Tim could do better than me? But can he? Can he really? Whatever I am, Tim loves me. And whatever Tim is, I love him. With me he'll be safe, Ron, and if in marrying him I can round out his life as much as it can ever be rounded out, then I'll marry him in everyone's teeth, including yours."
Her feeling of teetering on the brink of a precipice had gone entirely as she talked; Ron watched her curiously. Several times he had seen her shaken from habitual calm, but never quite like this, so ringingly alive. One could not call her mousy in any mood, but mostly her plain good face was distinguished only by her strength of character. Now she seemed lit with a fleeting beauty that would disappear the moment her zeal died; he found himself wondering what marriage to Tim would do for her. Older and infinitely more worldly than Mary, he knew there was never an easy answer.
"Women normally live longer than men," she continued eagerly, "so there's every chance that I'll be with him for many years to come. I'm not so much older that my predeceasing him is a major consideration. He's not going to go off looking for some pretty young thing because his own wife is old and faded. I'm old and faded now, Ron, but it doesn't worry him at all.
"I thought about simply living with him, because in the eyes of most people that would be the lesser sin. But John Martinson is right. Marriage is better. If I marry him I have full legal authority over his life; Dawnie can never take him away. You see, Dawnie's been worrying me for some time. I don't think it's occurred to you how easily she could remove Tim from my custody the moment anything happened to you. Why should it occur to you? She's your daughter, and you love her dearly. But she doesn't love me at all, and she would nev
er admit to herself that I'm better for
Tim than she is. Your letters to her and Mick, your power of attorney, all those things mean nothing if Dawnie really wanted to make trouble. Upon your death Dawnie would become Tim's legal guardian in the eyes of any court in the land, no matter what sort of directives you left. I'm no relation, I haven't even known Tim very long, and our association is highly suspect.
"When you first asked me to take Tim, I didn't think beyond the fact that you trusted me so magnificently, but I think you're detached enough to see Dawnie in her true light. She loves Tim, but she hates me just that much more, and Tim would become the victim on her altar. John Martinson wasn't aware of the magnitude of Dawnie's enmity, but he hit on the only feasible solution in spite of it. I must marry Tim."
Ron laughed wryly. "Ain't life funny? You're right about one thing, Mary. People would understand it if you just lived together much quicker than they will your marrying. It's one of them queer situations where marriage is a crime, ain't it?"
"That's exactly the word I used to John Martinson. Criminal."
Ron got up and walked around the table to put his arm about her shoulder, then he bent his head and kissed her. "You're a fine person, Mary. I'll be real glad to see you marry my son. Me and Em couldn't have wished for a better answer, and I reckon she's cheering youse on.
"But it had better be soon, Mary, real soon. If I'm there to see it and I leave a testament to the fact that I approve, there's very little Dawnie can do. Leave it until after I'm dead and you don't have a leg to stand on. I oughta seen it for myself, but a man's always a bit blind about his kids."
"That's why I had to bring the matter up tonight. I'm going to have to go into the hospital for a few days to see to it that it's impossible for me to have children, but I think the marriage ought to take place as soon as possible."
"Right you are! We'll go into town next Monday to get the license, then youse can be married at the end of the week, I think."