Sydney, 1967
Mandy regretted her visit as soon as she walked into Joe’s kitchen. She shut his back door behind her and kept a grip on the handle.
“I won’t stop long,” she said. “Steve’s nodded off. I wanted to check you were all right.”
He was leaning uncomfortably over the sink, working at the tea stains on the inside of a mug with his good hand. Half a dozen dishes stood brightly upright in the drying rack, and several whisky tumblers, washed and rinsed, were drip-drying upside down in orderly rows. This is a man, she thought, whose wife is on her way home.
“Looks like you’re busy,” she said to his frowning profile.
“Thought it was about time I got the place cleaned up. It’s not as hard as it looks, once you get started.”
She noticed the faded purple bruising at his neck. “Look. My husband nearly killed you. I’m sorry that happened.”
“I’m fine, Mandy.” He looked at her distractedly. “It seems to have knocked some sense into me.” Beneath the soapy water, the gold band on his ring finger caught the light.
“I’m pleased to hear that.” She looked around her at the clean floor, the freshly wiped surfaces. “You turned over a new leaf, is that it?”
“I’m expecting Louisa back soon. And Isla. Don’t want them getting home to a filthy house.”
“That’s great news.” She kept her voice bright. “When do they arrive?”
“Louisa’s booking the flights today.”
“They’re flying back?”
“The boat’s too slow, what with Lou being pregnant.”
“Of course.” She reached behind her for the door handle. “I’ve missed Isla. Be good to see her.”
He wiped the suds from his hand onto his shirt. “All worked out nicely, didn’t it?”
“Did it?”
“I think so. My wife’s coming home with my daughter. Your divorce should come through soon. I’d say that’s a big success all ’round.”
She stared back at him. “What?”
“Don’t think I haven’t worked it out.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Last week. You let me think Steve was at work.”
“Did I?” She brought her hands to her face. “Oh God, I didn’t mean to do that. I lost track of how long he’d been out of the house.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Mandy. You must have known he’d be back anytime.”
“I forgot myself.” She flushed hot at the memory. “The last thing I wanted was for him to come home.”
“Is he giving you a divorce?”
“What? No.” She tried to make sense of his face. “No, we’re going to try and make a go of it.”
His eyebrows lifted. “He’s sticking around?”
“We’re giving it a go. I don’t want to divorce him. I swear to God, Joe. You got the wrong end of the stick.”
His eyes moved over her face. “Could have sworn you’d set me up. Grounds for divorce.”
“Don’t be daft.” She tipped her head, tried to soften him. “No need for anything like that. We were a comfort to each other, you and me, weren’t we? A port in a storm. Nothing serious.”
He swung on his heel, back to the sink. “Was there anything else? Don’t want Steve coming over here looking for you.”
“There was something—”
“Best you don’t come back over. Let things settle down.”
“Right.” She couldn’t catch his eye. “Joe, I—”
“I’ll be ready for him if he sets foot on my property.” He looked out the window to Mandy’s yard, pointing. “He’d better keep his distance.”
“He’s asleep, don’t worry. He was up in the night with William.”
He tipped the dirty water out of the bowl. “Who’s William?”
“The baby.” She cleared her throat. “I wanted to talk to you about that.”
He became still. “The baby I saw you with? Little black kid?”
“That’s him.”
“What’s that all about?”
She stared down at his linoleum and tried to get her thoughts in order. He was making her nervous. “I was hoping you’d keep it to yourself,” she said. “About the baby. Just for now.”
“Why’s that?” He turned and leaned back against the draining board, staring straight ahead.
“It’s easier that way,” she said. “We’re hoping to adopt him, but until then—”
“You want me to keep quiet about it?”
She nodded. “Please.”
He raked his fingers through the stubble at his jaw. “You want to implicate me in what you’ve done?”
She swallowed. “No. I mean.”
He turned to face her. “You realize it’s hell to have a child taken from you?”
She opened her mouth to reply but her mind was blank. He stood up straight and she took a step back.
“At least I know where my daughter is,” he said. “I know she’s safe, with people who love her.”
“William’s safe with us!”
“At least Isla wasn’t taken by a stranger.” He raised his voice, speaking over her. “At least she wasn’t taken from me, God knows where, by some bloke who thought he’d be a better parent than me. At least I have that to be thankful for, don’t I?”
She felt three inches tall.
“Don’t ask me to keep quiet.” He slammed his hand down on the counter and she yelped. “He’s not yours. You need to give him back.”
“It’s not that easy, Joe. He could be taken to one of the Homes if we don’t keep him.”
“Can Steve take his pick of these kids?” He gestured out at the yard. “Is that the way it works?”
“It wasn’t like that. He was—”
The telephone rang in the hall. They both turned to look at it.
“Hang on.” Joe crossed the room, glancing over his shoulder at her. “I need to get that,” he said.
Mandy stood in the kitchen, holding the door handle. She felt cold with shock. She was a fool for coming over here, expecting—what? She’d thought he might still want her, if she was honest. She’d thought she might have to let him down gently.
“Have you booked the flights?” she heard him say. His voice was loud and bright. “When are you coming?”
She stayed where she was and listened. His silence was ominous, it seemed to her. A long silence was always bad news.
“What?” She heard him swearing under his breath, and the flame of his lighter. “I thought you said you were going to book them.”
He picked the phone up and took it into the lounge room. Mandy trod across the linoleum and stood at the kitchen door.
“Louisa, listen. If this is about that night, about what happened, I swear to God it won’t happen again. I had more whisky than I should have. I want you to know, I’m cutting down on the drink. I’m going to make some changes.”
Mandy stood perfectly still. She thought of Louisa, the day she’d sat at her kitchen table, swatting at flies and talking about a down payment. And that Friday night she’d come over and cried into a glass of brandy. Maybe it wasn’t only homesickness she was running from. Maybe she’d been holding something back.
“It won’t happen again, Louisa.”
Mandy backed up through the kitchen.
“Louisa, don’t say that. Don’t go. Don’t hang up.”
She pulled his back door shut. She heard him shout, something angry and nonverbal. Then the metallic clamor of the telephone hitting the wall. Louisa wasn’t coming back, by the sound of it. She stood on Joe’s deck, looked across his yard, over the bright line of shrubs that separated the two houses, to where her husband stood with his arms folded, sending a dark shadow across the paving stones.
Mandy walked around to her own yard, conscious of Steve watching her. She could see how it looked to him. She felt guilty and ashamed, although she’d done nothing wrong.
“You look guilty as hell.” He stood on the back step, blocking her entrance to the kitchen.
“Let me in, will you?” She stepped up to the door, but he didn’t budge.
“I thought you might have had the decency to stay away from Joe Green.”
“I went to have a word with him, to ask him to keep quiet about William.”
He hit the doorframe with the palm of his hand. “You said you’d stay away from him! It’s what we agreed!”
“I’m sorry. I was scared he might dob us in.” William was waking from his nap; she could hear him, chatting and squealing to himself. “Let me get him,” she said, stepping up to the back door. “Let me go to him, before he gets cranky.”
He stood aside for her and she felt the anger in him as she passed. His chest revved with it like an engine.
“I’m not a fool, Mandy,” he called out. “I’m onto you!”
William smiled at the sight of her and lifted his head. She lay down on the bed next to him and messed his hair so his curls sprung up. Her breathing settled in time with his and she listened to his chatter, her hand on the small of his back.
“I ought to stick with blokes your age,” she said, her head next to his on the mattress. “The rest are too much trouble, d’you know that?” She lifted him under his arms and let him climb over her.
“We agreed you’d stay away from that bastard next door.” Steve was in the hallway, barely visible at the edge of the doorframe. “Why can’t you stick to what we agreed?”
She sat up, tried to see his face. “I’m sorry I went over there.”
“Not as sorry as I am.”
She ran her fingers over the soles of William’s feet. Steve moved to the side of the room and stood with his back to the window.
“It’s been a week, Mandy,” he said. “One week it took for you to go running to him. Maybe you’d have gone sooner if I’d turned my back.”
“He saw the baby, Steve. I wanted to explain—”
“I want you to avoid him like the plague. Do you hear me?”
She nodded, keeping her eyes on the baby. She’d messed up again, going over to see Joe. Steve had seemed a bit more like his old self these past couple of days and she’d stopped treading so carefully. It was early days, but. She’d have to give it time, be patient.
“If you see him in the street I want you to cross the road,” he said. “If you see him out in the yard I want you to look away.”
“He lives next door, Steve. I see him every day.”
He shifted from foot to foot, breathing noisily through his nose. He was less familiar since he left the force. He smelled of the house and the products they used around the place: bleach and carbolic soap. She wondered when he’d last gone farther than the backyard.
“I’ve been thinking. Maybe we should move away,” he said. “Away from him next door. Somewhere nobody knows us.”
She went to protest and thought better of it. “I love it here,” she said, as calm as she could manage.
“We could tell people William’s adopted if we moved away. People would accept it.”
She caught something in his voice. “Did you speak to Ray about William?”
“Not yet.”
“I think you should call him. The longer you leave it, it’s more likely he’ll get a call from the Home.”
“I can’t get hold of him,” he said, deflated. “I think maybe he’s mad at me for quitting the job. I left five or six messages and he hasn’t called back.”
“He’ll come good, won’t he? After all you’ve done for him.”
“But what if he doesn’t? What if he wants us to give William up?”
“You said he’d arrange an adoption!” She forgot to be calm. “You said it could all be arranged, we just had to ask.”
“That was before, Mandy. When me and Ray were on good terms.”
She pulled the baby into her lap, closed her eyes, and let him grab at her hair, her face.
“We’d be better off making a new start.” He said it firmly. “Maybe move south, to Victoria.”
“We’ve lived here since we got married, Steve. I feel at home here.”
“I know that.”
She kept her eyes shut. “I need to think about it.”
“You want to stay near Joe Green?” His voice rose. “You want to keep running over there every time I shut my eyes for half an hour?”
“That’s not it, Steve.”
“What, then?”
“My dad won’t know where I am if we move away.” She looked up at him. She could just make him out. He had a strange look on his face, like he despised her, like he was hard at heart.
“You could call him, Mandy. Pick up the phone.”
“I did. The line was disconnected. I wrote letters too but he never replied.” She felt his irritation. “You know how he is.”
“I know he’s never liked me. Can’t say I care too much if we don’t keep in contact.”
“He likes you fine.”
“I’m not good enough for his daughter, but.”
“That’s not true.”
“He as good as said so once or twice.”
This was true, although it wasn’t personal, it was just her dad’s way. He’d taken against Steve before she’d even brought him home. It had hurt him, watching her drift into Steve’s orbit, her loyalties tipping. It had been a dry summer like this one and she’d never been so happy or so sad. Steve had worn his police blues the day he’d proposed, nervous and uncomfortable but brave enough to stand on her veranda with all her brothers watching, to ask her dad for her hand. He’d taken a ring from his pocket and she’d loved him completely. She remembered the feeling. No one else had existed.
“He can’t help the way he is,” she said.
“You can write him with the new address, when we’re settled.”
She wouldn’t see her dad again. She had a feeling about it, that he was lost to her. When she thought of him, she thought of his hands, the way he’d cracked crayfish shells for her with his thumbs, lifting out the white pipes of meat.
“I don’t like to think of him on his own,” she said.
“It’s his choice, Mandy. Let the old bastard stew on it.”
She pedaled William’s legs and he looked up at her, uncertain, a whine in his throat. She lifted him up. It’s all right, she said to him, in her head. It’s only Steve, he’s not as bad as he sounds. The boy clung to her and stamped his feet in her lap.
“You’ll have to trust me again sometime,” she said.
“Don’t push me, Amanda. You’d be wise not to push me.” He moved past her into the hall. She thought he’d moved away when she heard his voice, softer than before. “Told you you’d make a good mum.”
She let that go. The TV came on in the lounge room and she heard Abigail Walker out front, shouting down the street for her kids to come inside for their tea. Mandy stood, shunted the baby up her hip, and walked with him through to the kitchen. It was getting dark in there, the yard was shady, and she couldn’t think how to fill the evening, what to do with herself. She made up a bottle and took William out to sit on the striped garden chair under the passion fruit vine. A light came on in Joe’s kitchen and his words returned from earlier: He’s not yours. You need to give him back. She knew it was true. And at the same time, it was unthinkable. It horrified her now, to think she might have to let him go.
For the first time in days she wanted a cigarette. She sat back in the chair and watched the boy drink his milk down, his fleshy limbs, the tightly packed life in him. When had she fallen for this child? It must have crept up on her, but she felt it in that moment like a shove from behind, unexpected and alarming.
She stood, held William tight against her, and took him back inside the house.