Hong Kong
It’s cool and dull as the ferry ploughs across the harbour at the mercy of the wind and choppy waves. Polly turns up the collar of her coat, tightens her grip on the rail, and watches their progress towards the city. I don’t have to make a decision now, she thinks, I could go home and then tell him what I feel when I’m back there. But in her heart she knows she’s made her decision, and there is little point in keeping it to herself.
‘I could do with some caffeine,’ Leo says. ‘How about we try that little place we saw last night?’
‘Fine,’ she nods, unsure how to say what she has to say. Should she do it here, or in the café, or back at the hotel over dinner? Their last dinner because tomorrow morning they will be saying goodbye at the airport and she really doesn’t want to do it then.
‘You okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ she says, still watching the city. ‘Just thinking about tomorrow, about the airport and saying goodbye.’ She looks up at him now. ‘It’s been so lovely.’
‘It has,’ he says. ‘I’m not looking forward to the goodbyes.’
‘Leo,’ she hesitates. ‘I . . . well . . . I wasn’t sure and now I am.’ She sees his expression change, his eyes narrow. ‘I do love you, I do feel we belong together – even if we are going to be apart for a lot of the time.’
His expression lightens, and he pulls her towards him.
‘I think I was sure when we got here, maybe I was even sure when I almost called you and turned back at St Pancras. I’ve just been fighting it because . . . because of not wanting to be hurt again.’
‘I know,’ Leo says. ‘I understand completely. I won’t let you down. I’ll be there to catch you if you fall.’
She looks into his face and sees a future. She loves his confidence and his competence, the way he strides through the world. She loves the excitement of being with someone so smart, with whom each conversation seems to open up new knowledge and ideas. Brilliance is so seductive, she thinks, like a drug, and she is always wanting more of it. And she knows that he really means it when he says he will always be there for her; that if she needs him he will come from wherever he is, that he is watching her back. It’s a cliché, she knows that, but the power of the cliché is that it is true, ordinary, reliable and assured. This really is what I want, she tells herself. I’m sixty-three, and I have this last chance at love, a last chance to get it right.
‘I do love you,’ he says.
‘I know,’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t be standing here now if I didn’t believe that.’
*
Mac is in the shed, working on Joyce’s rocking chair, with Charlie stretched out on a roll of hessian beside him. The dog’s legs are twitching, and he makes soft yelping noises in his sleep. Mac looks down at him, smiling, and stoops to pat him. ‘You go get ’em, mate,’ he murmurs.
He’s loving his time here; the solitude, the freedom to do what he wants when he wants, his only domestic responsibilities those of his own making. He’s learned that he can happily go for days chatting only to Charlie, eating when he feels like it. But he’s also enjoyed catching up with Carol. They often bump into each other on the beach, although it’s mostly too cold to swim, but they walk there sometimes, early in the morning, with Charlie bounding alongside them, plunging in and out of the waves in pursuit of his ball. I must mention it to Joyce, he says aloud to the dog, who promptly leaps to his feet and bounds off towards the gate, barking. Mac looks through the shed window and can just see a man leaning over the gate talking to Charlie. He puts down the sander and goes to the shed door and sees, to his amazement, that it is Dennis.
‘Bloody hell, mate,’ Dennis calls, ‘he frightened the life out of me.’
‘He’s all noise,’ Mac says, striding towards him. ‘He’s an absolute wuss. This is a surprise, what brings you here?’
‘Just thought it was time we caught up,’ Dennis says.
‘It is indeed,’ Mac says, ‘come on in.’ He opens the big gate and Dennis gets back into his car, drives in, gets out again, and stands looking around.
‘Must be ten years since we were last here,’ he says.
‘More, probably,’ Mac says. ‘At least fifteen since you and Helen and Joyce and I had a break together down here. Is this a flying visit or are you staying?’
‘Thought I might stay a couple of nights if that’s okay,’ Dennis says. ‘If it’s a problem I can always get a berth somewhere in town.’
‘No way,’ Mac says, slapping him on the shoulder as they walk down to the house. ‘You’ll stay here. Helen kick you out, did she?’
Dennis stops in his tracks. ‘You haven’t heard then?’
‘Heard what?’ Mac leads the way into the house, opens the fridge and takes out a couple of beers.
Dennis clears his throat. ‘I’ve left her.’
Mac laughs. ‘Well obviously, I realise she’s not with you or she’d be first in the door, checking up on the standard of my housework!’ He gets a bottle opener from the kitchen drawer, flips the tops off the bottles and hands one to Dennis. ‘Here’s looking at you,’ he says, swigging from his beer. ‘Come and sit down. Have you had anything to eat, can I make you a sandwich?’
Dennis shakes his head as he follows Mac across the room, and flops down on the sofa where Charlie immediately joins him. Dennis puts his beer on the coffee table and strokes Charlie’s head and the dog looks up adoringly. ‘He really is a wuss, isn’t he? I’m fine, thanks, I got a pie and a coffee in Mount Barker,’ he says.
‘He’s a cracker,’ Mac says, putting his feet up on the coffee table. ‘So come on, to what do I owe the . . .?’
‘Like I said, I’ve left her,’ Dennis cuts in. ‘Left Helen. I told her on Thursday. We’re selling that bloody awful place and splitting the proceeds. Didn’t Joyce tell you?’
Mac takes his feet off the table and sits up straight. ‘No. Does Joyce know?’
Dennis shrugs. ‘Not sure. Helen asked me not to say anything to anyone yet, but I thought she’d probably have gone running to Joyce, even if she didn’t tell anyone else. But maybe not. She’s on her way to Dubai right now.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Nothing really. I mean nothing new or different. I just got to the end of my tether. I never wanted that move, you know that. I hate the place, seems Helen hates it too. But something changed when we moved there, or maybe it was before that, and it was the reason we moved.’
‘I’m so sorry, Dennis,’ Mac says. ‘I’d no idea. And she’s gone to Dubai for how long?’
‘I don’t know. I got home from the wheelchair workshop on Thursday and she’d organised this surprise,’ he takes a swig of his beer, ‘a trip to Dubai business class for our forty-second anniversary on Wednesday. And I looked at the tickets and knew I couldn’t do it. So I just told her I couldn’t live with her, and that we should sell the apartment.’
Mac nods and leans forward, hands clasped, elbows on his knees. He thinks that Helen is not the only one who’s changed. Dennis himself looks different, sad certainly, and obviously cautious about how he, Mac, is taking the news, but also somehow lighter.
‘Helen’s never been the easiest person to get on with but soon after we got in there, she sort of turned on me. Everything that happened was my bloody fault. Even when there was that big storm and her car got damaged by the hail, that was my fault. Well, I said to her, I’m not bleedin’ god, y’know, Helen, I don’t control the fucking weather . . .’ He stops, looks down at his feet, then turns to stroke Charlie’s ears.
Mac waits for him to go on.
‘And it just got worse from then on,’ Dennis says, ‘day by torturous day. Everything I do is wrong. A few months ago she threw a saucepan at me.’
Mac’s jaw drops. ‘Really?’ And a memory of Dennis appearing at the door one morning to borrow some tools floods back. He was looking a bit sheepish and had a large plaster on his forehead. ‘Helen hit me with a frying pan,’ he’d said, laughing, when Mac asked him what had happened. But of course he hadn’t taken it seriously and Dennis clearly hadn’t intended that he would.
‘Look, mate,’ Dennis goes on, ‘I’m probably a boring old git, and Helen’s younger than me, but we’ve jogged along together pretty well over the years. But recently she seems dedicated to pulling me to pieces. And the thing is now, well, I just can’t be around her. Don’t want to be in the same room, not even in the same house with her. So when she came up with these tickets and the plan for our anniversary, I couldn’t go along with that. Know what I mean?’
Mac nods slowly. ‘I do know. I’m sorry. I’d no idea, you should have said something before.’
‘Wouldn’t have been fair to her to do that.’
‘I suppose not. How did she take it?’
Dennis shrugs. ‘She went very quiet, didn’t say anything at first, just stared at me. Then she just said – “Are you sure about that?” Yep, I said – nothing to discuss – and she just went and got a bottle of wine out of the fridge, poured two glasses, gave one to me and took the other off into the bedroom.’
‘She said nothing? That doesn’t sound like Helen.’
‘I know but there you go. Bit later we had a chat about selling the place and she said she was still going to see Damian and Ellie and that I should get going with putting the place on the market. So she’s gone off to Dubai and I was wondering, driving down here, if maybe it was a relief to her too. Maybe I did something she couldn’t bring herself to do.’
They sit in silence for a moment. Mac studies the pattern on the rug at his feet. He feels an enormous sadness for Dennis and for Helen too. She has, he thinks, always been somewhat unpredictable and abrasive, but once he’d grown accustomed to that he’d become fond of her, admired her forthrightness, even when it wasn’t all that comfortable to be around. And he had always had a deep affection for Dennis. Their friendship as couples goes so far back and it had been a huge wrench when Helen and Dennis had moved away.
‘What will you do when the apartment’s sold?’
‘Not sure yet,’ Dennis says, shaking his head. ‘I wouldn’t mind moving nearer to the workshop. I’ve made friends there, it’s satisfying, knowing those little kids can get about in their chairs, and they wouldn’t have them without us. It’s kept me sane the last few years. The other blokes are all pretty good, and so are the women who come in to do the lunches and the morning tea. Everyone’s friendly, we have a laugh together. I feel so much better there than I do at home. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being Helen’s punching bag.’
‘No, I understand that,’ Mac says. ‘And you think you’ll be all right on your own?’
‘I’ll be bloody marvellous. I can ask the other guys around whenever I want. Helen won’t have them in the house.’
‘Why not?’
‘Lord knows, there’s nothing wrong with them and if there was she wouldn’t know, because she’s never met them.’ Dennis leans back on the sofa. ‘Sorry to land on you like this, mate, but I needed to talk to someone, and I didn’t want to take it all into the workshop with me. It’ll only be a couple of days, but as I said, I can find somewhere else to stay.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Mac says, getting to his feet. ‘You’re staying here until you’re ready to go. You can help me with the fences, they need patching up.’ He walks over to Dennis’s side and puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m so very sorry, mate . . .’ he says again. But he sees that Dennis’s eyes are closed and it’s as though he tries to open them and can’t. Mac takes the beer bottle from his hand, puts it on the table and fetches the doona from the spare bedroom. Then he pushes Charlie gently off the sofa, lifts Dennis’s feet onto it and half lifts him by the shoulders so that he is lying down. He can tell by the weight of him that Dennis is so exhausted that he has suddenly let go and fallen instantly and soundly asleep. Mac puts the doona over him, and stands looking down at him for a moment. Dennis looks so old, so tired; his face seems to have crumbled, and Mac feels an awful sadness for him and for Helen. Who could imagine that people of their age would split up, the whole edifice of more than forty years suddenly dismantled? Is Dennis right? Had Helen also wanted this? And how will she cope with being alone? Mac sighs, pats Dennis’s shoulder again, then picks up his phone and goes quietly out of the door to call Joyce.