FOR WEEKS PETER Dixon has been wondering what his son Stephen will think of him when they meet. Other times he thinks this is nonsense. Stephen should be wondering what his father will think of him.
After all, if Bethany’s letter were to be believed, Stephen was initiating the meeting. Peter was not certain that he even wanted to see his son. Their two meetings in the last seven years had been spectacularly unsuccessful.
But there it was on the page — Stephen has come such a long way. He and I really enjoy each other’s company nowadays. His marks at school have been so good that I think I can almost count on him getting a bursary.
Bursary. And there had been a time when she didn’t hold out much hope of keeping the loud-mouthed brute in the schoolroom after his fifteenth birthday. It was amazing. Then, the letter progressed, I’m not promising wonders at prize-giving, even though he’s worked hard, I shouldn’t think he’s in line for anything major, but he’s wanted to see you for some time now, and it occurred to me that this would be the last chance while he’s still at school. Why don’t you come over? I realise it’s a busy time of year for you in December, but we wouldn’t expect you to stay long and, knowing you, Pete, I guess you can always wangle a bit of business in as well. How about it?
How about it? He had turned the question over a dozen times in his mind since the morning in spring when the letter came. Even now, standing in his hotel room and adjusting his tie and arranging his handkerchief in the top pocket of his suit, he could see himself standing on Alton Wharf waiting for the ferry and staring down into the water, trying to discover in its depths some answer to the difficult question of whether he should cancel three days’ appointments in order to go rushing off to New Zealand to his son’s prize-giving ceremony. Prize-giving. That in itself conjured up an archaic other-worldliness that he kept telling himself he had left behind long ago. Since his second divorce he had shifted to Mosman, leaving his ex-wife Patsy and their son Jason in the apartment at Rose Bay. Natalie, the woman he was living with, said she thought it was a silly idea, that the woman in New Zealand was so far in the past he should leave well alone. It was bad enough having Patsy on the phone every other day wanting something or other, especially now that she had a boyfriend of her own. Natalie was a dress designer and was planning to work at home for the day.
Irritated by the fact that he couldn’t have some room to himself to think about the letter, he resolved to put it out of his mind until he was cruising over the bridge, with a tape in the deck, just moving along with the tide of the traffic. Then she had said wasn’t he going to hurry if he was going to catch the ferry and he remembered her car was in the garage and that she had especially asked to borrow his because she was going to see important clients in the afternoon. So he was late, and missed the eight-thirty ferry and had to wait and was fraught with anxiety because he had his first appointment at nine-thirty and he made a religion of never being late. It was crazy not to have taken a cab, but it was such a splendid morning it seemed extravagant. There was a time when nothing seemed too great an extravagance, if that was what you wanted, but Patsy had made him rethink his finances lately. Natalie’s tastes weren’t cheap either.
As he leaned on the rail of the wharf, the matter of money seemed to answer his problem. He really couldn’t afford the trip. In the water, jellyfish, like sucking white parachutes, descended en masse towards the golden seaweed below. Ah, that was him, getting sucked down and down by all these women and children.
For the last thing in Bethany’s letter had been: You once offered to help me with Stephen. I’ve always felt proud of being independent and not asking for anything even in the sense of moral support. Looking back, I wonder if I haven’t been a bit selfish in that respect, for it may have helped Stephen through some of his bad times if I had been a bit more forthcoming. But, right or wrong, now that we are through it and things have come right, I wonder if I could ask for something — it is financial, but it would mean more than just the money, it would be a boost to Stephen’s confidence to know that you were prepared to help, so it is moral too, if you like. He would like to go to university (surprise, surprise, Peter, our son, maybe we weren’t so dumb after all) but even with a bursary it will be very hard for him living away from home. Holiday jobs are difficult to get and I don’t think he will be able to save enough to support himself properly, at least in the first year. I think he should go, and my pride really does seem misplaced if I can’t ask his father for something as important as this.
Sucked, he decided, as the ferry scuttled across the harbour towards them, and saw in the seaweed the gloss of Bethany’s lovely hair.
And saw his hands shake ever so slightly now, as he looked at his reflection in the wall-to-wall glass of his bathroom in the hotel, and prepared to leave for Bethany’s place. He tried to visualise Stephen as Bethany described him now and wished that she had sent an up-to-date photograph. If he had progressed so far, it was unlikely that he would look as he had two and a half years ago, with long, greasy hair and an earring and filthy unkempt clothes. But though it was Stephen he was consciously trying to conjure up, it was Bethany who kept swimming into view. Silly to have come. The last time he had seen her she had created a horde of ridiculous and ill-considered fantasies in his head, made him feel inadequate and lovesick at once, both quite inappropriate emotions. He and Bethany were over and done with, their lives together so long ago. Since he had seen her last, he had worked harder than ever before, been appointed to the board of directors, made new friends, ended his second marriage, given up smoking and got rid of the hint of a paunch that had been bothering him and made love to some of the most beautiful women in town. Most people had even forgotten that he was a New Zealander. Things were perfect with Natalie, too. She ordered his house for him, organised the cleaners, called in the caterers, was discreet about their shared lives and looked like a dream. She was as ambitious to succeed in her own right as Patsy had been determined to do nothing. And by this December evening even his bank balance had begun to look up again.
He manoeuvred the rental car into the driveway, wondering at its narrowness. It occurred to him that he could have made the concrete wider when he laid it but at the time the extra bags of cement had been beyond his means. For a moment, when he opened the car door, he wanted to lean down and pat the driveway. His concrete. But he was afraid she might be watching from the window. Besides, he was looking down at the spot where he had scratched the children’s names in the wet cement, Stephen and Ritchie. Oh God, that he should go in with tears in his eyes. Ritchie, dead. The one who might have been like him. He would have been nineteen. The bridge of Peter’s nose hurt as he pinched his nostrils inwards to stem the visible signs of his sorrow.
Another car was parked in front of him on the driveway, a large, handsome car. He wondered briefly if it could be hers, but saw a smaller car, slightly less battered than her last, but still old and showing incipient signs of rust, parked ahead under the carport. He hoped she didn’t have visitors.
When she opened the door he knew that in this he was to be disappointed, for behind her there was a light swell of voices. But it was still her, bright-eyed, the chestnut hair crisply streaked now with a band of iron grey and her wonderful breasts even fuller and slung lower than the last time he had seen her. A handsome middle-aged woman. When would he ever get over the surprise of her, each time he saw her again?
‘You’ve come at last,’ she said, and leaned forward to kiss him lightly on the cheek, an open, unabashed gesture, more relaxed and friendly than she had been in her greetings than in earlier years. Because she was not alone he handed her his gifts more awkwardly than he might.
‘Roses, Pete. Oh they’re delicious, what lovely tight buds. And — what is this… oh. Oh, Peter, you shouldn’t.’ Their eyes met and slid away from each other. He had stopped on an impulse at a record shop near the centre of town, and though he hadn’t the faintest idea what he was going to buy when he entered, as soon as he had seen the old Nat King Cole tapes done up under new labels and packed inside a long, slim packet he had known it was the right gift. How they had listened to the old seducer, night after night, as the records spun unevenly on their battered turntable.
‘You have got a tape deck? … I can change them.’
‘Yes, all mod cons now.’ She looked again at the long packet. ‘I thought they were chocolate almonds.’
‘Chocolate almonds. Nat King Cole.’
She laughed, raising her face to him. ‘You’d better meet my guests.’
A man and woman were sitting in the chairs on either side of the fireplace. The man stood up immediately and Peter could see how tall he was. He had thick, well-cut grey hair and his hands were delicate. His wife was dumpy and looked older than any of them, although she was dressed and made up with care. Peter guessed that she probably wasn’t as old as she appeared and, even before any of them had spoken, that if she was Bethany’s friend she was probably also an envious one.
‘Matt and Jill Hawkins, Peter Dixon,’ said Bethany.
Matt shook hands. ‘Drink?’ he offered, waving to an array of bottles, when they had exchanged greetings.
Peter flinched. ‘I think …’ He glanced at Bethany.
Matt laughed, an easy, comfortable laugh. ‘Silly isn’t it,’ he said. ‘Jill and I see such a lot of Bethany, you’ll have to forgive me for not remembering that you used to live here.’
‘Not at all,’ said Peter. ‘I’m pleased Bethany has constant friends. Scotch thanks. No ice …’
‘And just a drop of water,’ Bethany finished for him. Everyone laughed. Peter too.
‘I didn’t know you’d be so handsome,’ said Jill, with what he interpreted as coyness.
‘You mean Bethany didn’t tell you?’ He glanced sideways to see what effect this would have on Bethany, whether she would blush or make a rejoinder. She did neither, merely picked up Jill’s glass and handed it to Matt. Peter noticed that neither of them had asked Jill whether she wanted a drink. Matt poured a stiff measure of gin for his wife.
‘Shouldn’t we be getting along soon?’ asked Peter.
‘Five minutes,’ Bethany agreed.
‘Isn’t Stephen here?’
‘No, I thought he’d be back, but he’s with Anthony … Matt and Jill’s son, they’re best friends, you see.’ It was by way of explaining everything, the Hawkins’ presence, Stephen’s absence, the lateness of their departure. ‘And Abbie’s staying over with Molly, that’s their daughter, they’re friends too.’ The family permutations seemed endless.
‘He knows I’m coming?’
‘Yes,’ she said and he could see she was a trifle distracted.
‘Should you ring them?’ she said, appealing to Matt.
‘They’ll be all right. You know what it’s like on break-up night, parties all over the place.’
Peter did not know what it was like.
‘Anthony’s their third, you see,’ said Bethany, again for his benefit, as if she was redrawing a map in which he might discover his own location. Did he imagine it, or was her voice tinged with a small edge of wonder that he knew so little?
‘Perhaps a quick call? Just to make sure they’re on their way?’ Bethany said.
Matt dialled and waited. He was on the point of hanging up when it was answered. He spoke briefly, lightly to his son.
When he hung up there was a mild and barely detectable frown on his face which Peter might have missed if he were not a businessman.
‘Everything’s fine,’ said Matt. ‘They’re going to meet us there. Do you want to come with us, Bethany?’
‘I thought Bethany might like to come with me,’ said Peter, stirring himself. ‘If you’d like to … or would it embarrass Stephen?’
‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘I was going to take my own car actually, but, well, why not? Actually I think he’d like it.’
‘Oh, it’d be lovely for him,’ said Jill, her voice tripping a little. ‘So nice, his parents appearing together after all these years.’ She looked awkward then, as if she wished she hadn’t spoken.
In the car Peter said, ‘They seem like a nice couple. What’s his line?’
‘Matt? Oh, he’s a jeweller.’
‘Figures. I thought he could have been a dentist.’
‘Why?’
‘His hands. Very nice.’
‘You don’t miss much.’ She twisted a large turquoise ring set in heavy silver on her right hand. He hadn’t seen it before. Something stirred dangerously in him and settled again before he had time to dwell on it. They had arrived at the school gates.
‘Will he wait outside, do you think?’
‘I doubt it. You know how it is when they’re with their mates.’
‘No I don’t know what it’s like,’ he said more sharply than he had intended. She looked wounded. ‘I’m sorry. You and your friends seem so certain that I’ll know how things are, but I don’t. And to tell you the truth, I’m nervous about seeing Stephen. The last time wasn’t much of a success, was it?’
‘I know. It was awful. But it’ll be different, you’ll see. I wouldn’t have asked you if I thought it was going to be like the last time.’
‘I thought Abbie might have come with us.’
‘They were only allowed two guests each. The assembly hall’s not really large enough for these functions now that the seventh form’s so big.’
He was humbled that he had been chosen and said no more as he parked the car. His hands were sweating on the wheel and it took two attempts to edge the car into the position he had managed to locate. The school grounds were full, and parents and pupils in their green and black uniforms were pouring towards the assembly hall doors.
This would be the first time in the whole fourteen years since their parting that he and Bethany had made a formal appearance together. Again he glanced at her profile and his heart lifted. He was going with a beautiful woman to their son’s prize-giving ceremony. They were two mature, independent people who could choose to do this. They would go with pride. They had come a long way together.
They were handed a programme at the door and hustled up the middle of the hall to two seats on the central aisle. There was a buzz in the air, a muted, continuous excitement. On the dais, a table held ranks of cups. Was there any small chance that one of them might be for Stephen? Now that he was here, Peter realised how much he wanted his son to win a prize.
The orchestra was tuning up, fine whining and twanging emerging from their instruments. A man in front of him turned round and said, ‘Hullo, Peter, nice to see you,’ as if he had been away for a short holiday. Peter raised an eyebrow to Bethany after he had responded. ‘Gone but not quite forgotten. Who was he?’ he whispered.
‘Ssh, Dick Webb from the newspaper office.’
‘Of course. Yes. Should I talk to him some more?’
‘If you want to. You don’t have to ask me.’ She looked amused, turned and peered around behind her.
‘Can you see Stephen?’
‘No. I was looking to see if Matt and Jill had got a seat. I expect they would.’
‘Matt looks like a guy who can take care of himself.’
She said nothing; a teacher decked out in his annual prize-giving gown was calling for silence at the front of the hall. A hush settled over the assembled pupils and parents. Somewhere behind them a large fart erupted. A snigger swept through the crowd. Next there was a hiccup. Peter felt like giggling too.
‘Some poor kid’s got nerves,’ he muttered.
Bethany shushed him again. The teacher at the front looked annoyed and peered coldly out over the assembly before announcing that the processional was about to begin.
The orchestra struck up ‘Gaudeamus’ and the staff and distinguished guests, as the programme listed them, began to stream past them towards the dais.
Peter found himself singing away with them, feeling as if he was bursting with joy. ‘Gaudeamus igitur… you can echo zoo-oo moon…’ or that’s what it sounded like. He never had known exactly what the words were, and it didn’t matter. He couldn’t see to read them in the programme but he was singing his heart out anyway, for his son, for Stephen, who was cleverer than they thought and who was going to make it, in spite of everything.
But Bethany was glancing behind her again, and this time there was a startled, horrified look on her face.
‘What is it?’ he said against the music.
‘Nothing. Well, I just saw Stephen, that’s all.’ She tried to turn away but his eyes followed the point she had been watching and he saw his son’s face. It swam before him, better-looking by far than when he had last seen him. He had grown taller, his hair was tamed and gleaming under the lights, but he seemed to be leaning forward heavily on to the seat in front of him and his face was flushed.
‘Is he ill?’
‘I … I don’t know.’
The music had finished, and staff and guests were settled and the principal rose to speak. A voice shouted an obscenity and then there was another hiccup. Heads swivelled towards the source of the noise. It was Stephen.
One of the masters rose from the platform and strode quickly down the steps again. There was a sharp altercation, a short scuffle and then it was over. The principal began speaking again. Peter couldn’t look behind him for several minutes. When he did, Stephen’s seat was empty. Bethany’s face was silvered with tears. She sat very still and made no move to wipe them away or draw attention to herself. In a few minutes her nose started to drip and Peter gave her his handkerchief, trying not to disturb the air around them. She took it without looking at him and drew it across her face. Throughout the rest of the long ceremony she clutched it, her knuckles white and unrelenting. The students came and went to collect their prizes. People clapped. There was a strange little hiatus when the hockey stick for the school’s best player was presented. The principal said in a strained voice that it was for Stephen Dixon, who was absent, and passed on hurriedly to the next prize, but not before a gale of giggles had passed round the hall again.
Once Peter half-rose, thinking to leave, but Bethany touched his arm, restraining him. It seemed a long way to have come to witness (although he had not had the courage to look properly) his drunk son being carted out of his school prize-giving. Matt and Jill’s son Anthony was awarded the proxime accessit prize. ‘It means runner-up to the dux,’ Bethany whispered through the applause, moving from her rigid position of self-control. Peter couldn’t have cared less. Then she added with a fierce bitter note, ‘Anthony holds his drink better. It isn’t fair. It’s him that starts it, too.’
A blonde girl accepted the dux’s award as if she had won a beauty contest, and then it was all over and they were released into the night.
There were no lights on at the house when they arrived. They had driven back in silence. It was only then that she told him they were to have gone round to the Hawkins’ for a celebration. Her tone was flat, denying him access to her feelings. He put out his hand to touch her arm but she pulled away from him.
‘I’ll call you in the morning,’ she said.
‘Can’t I come in?’
‘Not tonight.’
‘What will happen when he comes back? Or will be come back?’
‘Nothing will happen. I’ll go to bed, that’s all.’
He thought to kiss her cheek but the surface was uninviting. She felt like a cold, deep lake beside him. He waited until she was inside and the light had come on, and then drove away, back to his hotel.
In his room he switched on the television to catch the late news and took a drink out of the rack of miniatures above the fridge. When he had finished two he picked up his key and walked out into the night again to his car.
Her house was in darkness, and he supposed that, as she had said, she had gone to bed and that nothing would happen. He decided not to go down the driveway in case he frightened her. He had not worked out what he could do, or why he was there. His watch showed midnight. The two hours since the prize-giving had slipped by, and he was stiff and dazed. He told himself he was crazy, sitting here outside his ex-wife’s house, the home of his drunken child, in the middle of the night. A light summer rain had begun to fall, trickling down the windscreen. ‘Damn them all to hell,’ he said out loud. He jumped, seeing his own ghost, as someone knocked on the window of the car.
It was Stephen. In the pale street light he looked wan and ill, though no longer incapacitated. Peter leaned across and opened the door. Stephen slid in beside him.
They sat in silence. ‘Well,’ said Peter at last.
‘I blew it,’ said Stephen. For an instant Peter thought his voice sounded humble. On second thoughts he decided that it contained more than the hint of a sneer.
‘Blew it!’ He knew he sounded shrill, but was unable to stop that, or what he said, ‘When have you ever done anything but blow it? I’ve never seen you unless you were in some sort of trouble or whining or demanding or bullying someone. I thought I was supposed to be seeing a transformation but all I get for a son is a drunken little slob.’ He heard himself going on and on, and did not understand what was happening. He had not travelled to such lengths of anger at least since the days when he lived with Bethany, the terrible days before the end, and leaving her and Stephen and Ritchie. Ritchie, who was now dead, and this boy sitting here beside him, this Stephen.
Pretty well all that was left, when you came to think of it. His thoughts seemed to be operating at two curious levels. He stopped, waiting for Stephen to go away, to make the final move. But the boy sat there. Peter wondered if his son might hit him. If he were Stephen, perhaps that was what he would do.
‘You’re right, of course,’ said Stephen.
Either he or I must be crazy, Peter thought, and yet he was sure he was not mistaken, there was some strange hint of joy in Stephen’s voice.
And suddenly Peter understood. This was the first time that he had said what he truly thought of Stephen, spoken without reservation, or careful tact, the language of an estranged father.
After a while Peter said, ‘You won the hockey stick.’
‘Did I really? I didn’t expect that.’
‘Fancy you being good at hockey. I used to play, you know.’
‘No, I didn’t. Where did you play? What position?’
‘On the wing.’
‘Go on now.’ The miracle of it overwhelmed Peter. He wanted to weep softly, here in the quiet, splattering dark.
‘What are you doing sitting here?’ Stephen asked.
‘I was worried about your mother,’ said Peter.
‘It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?’ said Stephen with fresh asperity.
He was entitled to that, Peter thought. ‘Why don’t we go in together? It might help her,’ he said.
Stephen was shocked. ‘You can’t go in there,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
Then he saw, parked on the edge of the road ahead of them, a car that he had not seen before through the rain. He recognised it as Matt’s.
Of course, he had known from the moment of his arrival, earlier in the evening.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Stephen, as if he wished that none of it were so, as if he would like to improve the lot of his parents but was powerless. Which he was, and always had been. If one dared reflect upon that, the meaning of tonight’s events might all come clear, but that was too difficult and deep to consider. Peter did not think he would ever be up to that.
‘Is she happy?’
‘You’d have to ask her,’ said Stephen.
‘Do you mind?’
‘Nah. It’s nothing to do with me.’ He reflected. ‘It’s not much of a deal for her. He gets all the bikkies, doesn’t he?’
‘Would you like to come back to Sydney with me tomorrow?’ Peter asked on a sudden impulse.
‘Do you mean it?’ asked Stephen, his face bright in the glow of the car’s interior light.
‘Of course,’ he said stoutly, though, even as he spoke, the logistics appalled him. ‘I live with a woman called Natalie. She’s a dress designer, she’s very nice, you’ll like her. The flat’s a bit small and she works there during the day sometimes, but we’ll work something out. It’ll be fine.’
Stephen was still. ‘I’d like to sometime,’ he said carefully.
‘You don’t want to come?’
‘Sure.’ But his tone was evasive.
‘I may not always live with Natalie, of course,’ said Peter. This had just occurred to him, but now he realised it was true. He might live with any woman forever. Once he had thought he would always live with Bethany, indeed he had vowed to cherish and protect her as long as they both should live. But that promise had failed and he would never be allowed to redeem it. And if he had been allowed to try, how well could the past be resurrected?
‘Can I take a rain check on it?’ said Stephen, meaning the invitation.
‘Sure, why not?’
‘Will you come in, in the morning?’ Stephen’s face was white and exhausted now from the effects of the alcohol.
Peter wanted to say he was damned if he would, but even that seemed vain and silly, like all the other things that had brought him and Bethany to this pass. ‘I’ll have to leave at crack of dawn,’ he said, cushioning his refusal. ‘Plane to catch. I’ll be in touch, okay?’
What did he expect? Suddenly to be called Dad? To be thanked for coming?
Or an embrace?
Yes, there might have been that. He would have liked that.
He slipped the car into gear, thinking that he would work on it.
‘Yeah, catch you, mate,’ said Stephen, and slid out the door, disappearing into the blackness.