33

I wake up early the next morning. I can tell from the light that it is just after dawn. I have had a fitful sleep with so much on my mind. Why was what happened to Emily kept such a secret? Why was there shame around her being raped? Why was there silence about her suicide? Is that why my father decided not to come back here? Why did he feel the need to protect me from what had happened? Why did he think I was not capable of understanding the truth?

Now, awakening, I am even more agitated. How could he cheat on my mother? She had been the best of wives to him. How could he be so selfish, so indulgent to have an affair? How could he throw away everything Mum has given him?

I am furious and can no longer lie in bed. I tiptoe to the phone in Nan’s living room and dial Dad’s mobile. It rings several times and I am about to give up when he answers.

‘How could you do what you’ve done to Mum?’ I demand.

‘Simone?’

‘Yes, it’s me. And I want to know how you could treat Mum the way you have?’

‘I’m not happy about this situation either.’ His voice has the thick sound of being woken from a deep sleep. ‘Your mother wanted me out of the house.’

I am taken aback a little. Mum had said it was a mutual decision and I had assumed Dad had left her. But I think of the embrace I caught him in with Rachel. I think of the times he would bring his friend Liz along to the movies with us. My anger boils again.

‘Well, you must have deserved it.’

He is silent and I wonder whether he is still on the line. Finally he speaks, ‘I am not at all happy about things between me and your mother and I understand why you’re upset about them.’

What could he know, I think to myself. Could he know how betrayed I felt when he used me to cover for his infidelity? Could he know what it must be like for Mum who was always there for him but now is discarded for someone younger than her daughter? How could he know these things?

‘I don’t understand you,’ I say. I mean it as an accusation of his failure to understand how his actions have affected me and have injured Mum.

‘Well,’ he pauses. There is tiredness in his voice. ‘I don’t understand myself either sometimes.’

Dad’s openness about his misery startles me. I expected him to be defensive, to hide, to blame someone else. In his candour, I can see that he is unhappy and that he knows that he is the cause of it. Seeing him so bereft is unexpected and I find, not forgiveness, but sympathy emerging for him in my heart. My anger towards him lessens. But I still have questions.

‘Dad, I need to ask you something. Not about you and Mum. About something else.’

There is silence. I can feel him bracing himself and I know that he will not be expecting me to move from interrogating him about Mum to asking questions about Emily. But I sense that now, with his guard down, with his frankness about his flaws, it might be the best time to ask him about the secrets he has tried so hard to hide. I need to understand why her death was so hard for him to face and why he had to hide the truth from me.

‘I have found out that Aunt Emily killed herself. And I just want to know why you never told me.’

He takes a moment to answer. I sense his discomfort but I give him no ground and wait until he finally speaks. ‘It was a very unhappy incident in my life. When someone you love takes their own life you are left with a lifetime of wondering what you could have done to have stopped it. There may have been a part of me that wanted to protect you from such unpleasant events but it has always been a very hard thing for me to deal with. That’s why I never talk about it.’

My father sounds defeated. I’m unsure of what to say next. It is the first time he has revealed so much of himself to me. Until Professor Young’s death I had known no one who had committed suicide. It must be one thing to deal with a death that is accidental but different to deal with one that is intentional. Did that explain the anger I had seen in Professor Young’s daughter at the memorial service? Did it go some way to explaining why his family did not want his book of poetry? Death must always bring with it grief, sadness and regrets. Wondering what could have been done to prevent the death of someone you love must be a terrible burden. Death draws a curtain down on everything. There is no time to say what is unsaid.

I remember the scrapbook that Patricia had shown me with the newspaper clipping of the interview where, when asked how he would spend his last night on earth, my father said it would be with me. My anger ebbs away completely.

‘Dad?’

‘Yes?’ He sounds wary, as if readying for another assault from me.

‘Are you okay?’

He sounds surprised. ‘I’ve been better. But I’m doing all right under the circumstances.’

Nan has stirred. She walks past me towards the kitchen.

I look at Emily’s photograph. Even in the dimness of early light I can see how much she looks like my father. And at this moment, I no longer feel like judging him.

‘I love you, Dad.’

‘I love you, too.’ He sounds confused. Perhaps relieved. But I know he means it.

I hang up and walk to the kitchen.

‘I made a cup of tea,’ Nan says. She’s sitting at the kitchen table, a cup in front of her. An empty cup sits beside the pot for me. ‘I know he’s not perfect but I love him. Even with his faults he is a good man. And I’m not just saying that because I’m his mother.’

‘I know, Nan,’ I say meekly. I sit down next to her. ‘And I’m not just saying that because I’m his daughter.’

‘I understand why you’re mad at him. I want to give him a kick in the pants most of the time myself.’ She smiles and I grin back at her. ‘But,’ she becomes more serious and points a finger at me, ‘despite that, he does deserve your respect. We can’t abandon him just because he’s not perfect.’

‘I think I am starting to understand that too, Nan.’

A week and a half later, when I leave Nan’s for the long drive home, I pass through the town but instead of staying on the highway I find my way down to the river, near the weir. I park in the meadow and follow the well-worn path down to the riverbank.

I look around and I wonder where it happened. There is no one around but there is plenty of movement. The wind plays with the leaves in the tall gum trees. The birds chatter and fuss. The cicadas and crickets sing in the stifling heat.

I sit down on the long grass. I listen and wait. I don’t know what I am hoping to find. You need time to feel a place, to know what it’s telling you. I’m at a disadvantage because the land speaks differently in the day to how it speaks in the night. It has a different spirit. In the light, it bustles with intention. It moves at night too, but it is more thoughtful. Places that seem peaceful in the day, you can almost hear them weeping in the dark.

But I do sense something unsettling. Much would have happened here. Although I am the only one here at this moment, I know all sorts of things go on at places like this along the river - children playing, fathers and sons fishing, girls sunbaking, flirting with boys, people falling in love, having first kisses. But then, in the dark, there are the evil spirits, the mi-mi men, Nan would call them. And somewhere here there are parts of Emily, a part of my father, my grandmother, perhaps even myself, left here because of the events of that one night.

Patricia Tyndale had been right. I felt renewed after my three weeks with Nan. Even with my parents’ separation, I feel a serenity I have not felt before. As I leave the town, the loose gravel of the roads crunching under my tyres, I am grateful that there’s a nine-hour drive back to the city. Time to collect my thoughts. To think. To enjoy the silences.