Absence Makes Read online

  In the meantime, he trod water, feeling frustrated and discomfited and often despondent.

  According to prevailing wisdom he lived in a Lucky Country. A land of opportunities and space and endless summers where class counted for little and a man, if he willed it, could rise from the humblest of origins and make good. Sounds terrific, he thought. But once you made good – with the wife, the kids, the house and the quarter-acre block in a suburban sandpit – what next? His countrymen, those at the post-aspirational stage and baked for nearly two hundred years under an Antipodean sun, had birthed a new phase in human evolution. In so doing, they gave deeper meaning to the word ‘laconic’ as the ethos of ‘she’ll be right’ gripped the Australian consciousness. She’ll be right. The philosophical standpoint of the entire nation, leaving no room, as far as Ross could see, for you to complain or be miserable. An ethos that left you at an emotional dead-end. How could he reconcile such utopian positivity with the roots of his restlessness and a debilitating lack of purpose and direction? As he curled up on the settee, these thought clusters thrust their way forward, momentarily filling his awareness before the new clamoured over the old, erasing in an instant what he attempted to grasp yet repeatedly failed to possess.

  His eyes closed. The thoughts continued, magnified by the darkness, each demanding his attention. He shook his head as if to ward off an unseen evil, a maleficence corrupting his soul in a way he could neither explain nor comprehend. The heat of the day weighed upon him, compounding his inertia. His unfinished coffee had gone cold, and the water jug remained inside on the counter. Licking his chafed lips, he began to think about June.

  Seven years earlier they met at high school. ‘A bloody redhead,’ muttered the gangly lad on his left as she entered the classroom for the first time. Indeed she was, burnished locks cascading in waves on either side of a slightly freckled face and a gumnut nose that suggested curiosity and perhaps a streak of adventure. He gaped at her white blouse and navy blue skirt blending into tight black stockings and clunky shoes. When the dry-blown English teacher beckoned, she moved towards him without hesitation. Only a quick sideways glance at the class betrayed a hint of embarrassment.

  Old Rowlands directed her to a seat near the front. If he turned his head to the right, Ross could catch a portion of her profile as long as intervening students were engrossed in their books and not impeding his line of sight. Beyond these covert glances there was nothing. Outside the classroom, boys mixed with boys and girls with girls. Schoolyard games and sporting activities tended to be segregated. Most kids hung out in small groups. This was their final year at high school and allegiances were firmly cemented.

  Ross formed his own clique but his attention was often elsewhere. Even before June’s arrival his eyes roamed the yard, taking in other groups and the teachers on duty. He felt compelled to keep on the lookout for signs of disturbance and a stealthy buzz shot through him if he encountered something odd – like a teacher swearing within earshot or a bunch of girls loudly declaiming the physical attributes of their favourite movie stars. If a situation led to friction, the thrill factor increased as long as he was in no way involved. He was privy to the cold, unresolved quarrels between his parents and he avoided conflict as best he could.

  When he watched June in the playground, he did so surreptitiously. Ben and Jacob, his comrades-in-arms, were cool to be around but he knew they would pull him apart if he showed too much interest in one of their female classmates. Neither had girlfriends and nor did he. They filled the breaks with an alternative passion. Music. At every opportunity they gathered on the lawn to compare tastes and debate the merits of the latest releases and the various bands around town, and to extol the virtues – and the known vices – of sundry musicians they aspired to emulate. In a way, these animated discussions were a progression of his primary school friendship with Barry. But Barry, not viewed as academically-blessed, had been despatched to Wesley College in the hope, misplaced as it transpired, a private school education would turn him around.

  Barry’s company, Ross thought, had always been a bonus. By the age of twelve, they talked long and hard about girls. At primary school they made lists of their ‘specials’, an enduring fad specific to their age group. Both of them rated Katie Woods as their Number One. Towards the end of their final year, spin-the-bottle in the shed drew more adventurous kids away from the cricket pitch and the netball court. Where were the teachers, Ross now pondered? The cane came out for misbehaviour or insubordination but these pre-pubescent activities attracted no prohibitions.

  In a thicket of bamboos near the foreshore, a group of them progressed beyond the kissing games. A bit of show-and-tell with what’s-her-name and her chirpy friend. Barry was the instigator, a role he adopted when sharing intricate details of the sexual narrative including the furtive pleasures of masturbation.

  Ross had looked up to Barry who was taller and more developed. At that stage, girls would still talk with you. In his faltering recollection, any gawkiness was minor. Now, living in Graylands, his connection with the foreshore was tenuous, although, when visiting his parents, he would sometimes swing by his old haunts. Katie Woods. I’d like to go down on the Woods today, Barry would warble, though never in her presence. He could still see her clearly. She’s probably married to a Como butcher, with four kids and a mortgage.

  Ross smiled to himself as he remembered those comparatively innocent days. What if he had married Katie Woods? Would she have been easier to live with than his wife? Probably. No one could match June’s capacity to wound. She exhibited an inbuilt flair for the searing one-liner. Until he knew her better, he figured she must spend hours devising these arrows just for his benefit. In the unlikely event she kept her tongue, she could still manufacture a withering glance, the force of which implied he should simply crawl under the nearest bush. It was inconceivable, he thought, any other woman could have that effect on him. Then again, he was not exactly Richard Burton or a lizard Lothario like the majestic Michael Jagger. To put it mildly, his experience with women was limited.

  Marriage, as he stole admiring glances during that last year of high school, was neither on the agenda nor even a dream. He felt stuck. Marooned in a desperate love and unable to initiate contact. Helpless to bridge a puberty gulf that swamped him from the time those first lower hairs emerged. A chasm that kept him gasping for clean air whenever an alluring young female appeared on the radar. To compound his agony, a recurring thought bruised his brain, much as a sequence of waves smashes against the rocks. No one could possibly think about sex as much as I do – and get so little! This mental grenade undid him and depressed him. When he looked around, many of his classmates were developing liaisons of one sort or another. Word filtered back of fleshy exploits. A hushed rumour that so-and-so and so-and-so were having it off with one another.

  Retreating further into the music, he and Ben and Jacob pretended to ignore the scuttlebutt. Jacob bought a guitar. After school, the trio spent hours hamming it up and attempting Clapton riffs. These interludes diluted Ross’s suffering but it returned in spades on a Friday gym session when he saw one of the reputed school studs making a play for June. Though the drill hall contained allocated spaces, a boy could more-or-less accidentally find himself in an area set aside for girls. With teachers otherwise occupied, it became an accepted challenge to cross the line, engage in a bit of by-play and then whip back into the designated zone. Ross clenched his teeth as June responded to Pete Silver’s flirting. The words were inaudible but he sensed she played the coquette to perfection. He stared at them both, and at the medicine ball in his hand. Had it been lighter he might have let fly. As it was, he could only look on as Silver – the Silver Stud they called him – pirouetted in a provocative arc and resumed his work on the beams.

  Then the unimaginable happened. He caught June’s eye. She winked and – for his benefit he was in no doubt – turned her head and made a face in the direction of the departing Silver. Her expression told him she was no
t fooled by this confident hunk.

  Ross swallowed and felt his face flood with heat. Involuntarily, he looked away. What, he thought, is she trying to signal?

  Over the weekend, he had his answer. It was mid-November. True summer was yet to emerge and the beach lay almost deserted. Ross sprawled on his towel and pulled his hat over his face.

  ‘How come you’re not studying?’ The familiar voice contained playful overtones, at once chiding and gently mocking.

  Ross jerked off his hat. ‘What are you doing here?’ A body length away, crouching on her haunches, June surveyed him with an air of calm. Apart from a blue bikini, a bag and sunglasses she appeared to be alone.

  ‘Would you like the paper, Mr Moncur?’

  Baxter flexed as if jabbed with a needle. ‘You startled me.’ He recognised Angela’s lilt as she approached from behind. Twisting on the bench he gestured for her to sit down.

  ‘It can’t be tea time yet. Did you get a leave pass from Thompson?’

  ‘She told me about your adventures last night. Were you really at Joan Baez?’

  ‘I was indeed. And what about you?’

  She clapped her hands. ‘I was there. What an amazing lady.’

  ‘I thought you went for that Dylan fellow.’ He did not look at her directly, staring instead at the ground near her feet. She wore black sandals and he noted flecks of purple varnish on her toenails.

  ‘He’s one of my heroes. But it gives me goose pimples to see a woman give a performance like that.’

  He wondered what she meant and looked up. ‘You have a good voice. Do you want to be like her?’

  She laughed. ‘No way. I can listen to myself in the shower and drive them crazy in the office. But I couldn’t do what she does.’

  Uninvited, an image arose of Angela under the shower. With it came a memory from his time in the country. It was not a comfortable memory and he looked down again.

  ‘Is it true you met some hippies and they gave you a ticket?’ She wanted his version of the story.

  ‘That’s what happened. They even gave me a lift.’

  ‘But you came home in a taxi.’

  ‘Yes, I was feeling rich.’ He did not mention his fall.

  She was silent for a moment. He felt the heat rising from the ground. On the river below he could make out a few motionless yachts. There was no breeze. Overhead, a casual assortment of clouds drifted slowly. He noticed some were dark, verging on black.

  ‘Do you think it will rain?’ She had read his thoughts.

  ‘Maybe.’ He’d heard on the radio a cyclone was approaching Onslow. ‘We might get a thunderstorm. I hope so. We could use the rain.’

  ‘I’d better be getting back.’ She began to rise. ‘Will you be around for afternoon tea?’

  ‘Now where else would I go on a day like this?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She was teasing him. ‘You may go off gallivanting again.’

  He was tempted to continue the banter. But while Thomson could dish out the rope she had no compunction about hauling it in. ‘Go on then. We don’t want to be upsetting the matron.’

  After Angela left, he stood and stretched. He’d forgotten his cushion and the slats of the bench left indents in his back. It’s not going to rain, he thought.

  Above, in the sugar gum, a couple of wattle birds commenced a raucous chorus. Their duet cut through the dead air, bouncing off the trees and nearby buildings. He tried to pick them out but the branches obscured his view. Birds were his love, always had been. The grounds of the institution were scattered with native trees and shrubs, a legacy of funding issues in the gardening budget rather than any conservationist vision. He was grateful for that. Plane trees and the ubiquitous Queensland Box dominated adjoining suburbs. On his rambles, he observed with dismay the replacement of old gums and peppermints with tropical palms, as the owners of new mansions enhanced their views and engaged landscaping consultants who seemed to have learned their craft in Miami. Baxter blamed television – he blamed television for a good many things. The birds, he thought, are never consulted when someone decides to obliterate their homes and their larders. Here, despite the internal greyness of the institution, the grounds afforded a haven for his favourite honeyeaters and robins. He never fed them but merely watched with the curiosity and fascination that had been with him since he was a small boy. The birds congregated around the patch of grevilleas near the decaying outhouses. He loved the flashes of colour and movement, particularly in spring when activity was at its most frenetic. Paterson, the gardener, knew of his fondness and the grevilleas usually escaped his ruthless pruning.

  The clouds had gone and with them the shade over his bench. Baxter picked up the paper and headed towards his quarters.

  They lay face down on their towels. Apart from a few desultory remarks they’d hardly spoken. She told him she needed a break from her study and spotted him as she came down the ramp. Ross wondered why she had not taken the opportunity to pretend otherwise and avoid him. At school their contact had been minimal. He could only recall the end of a geography lesson where he muttered something in passing, trying to claim her attention if only for a moment. She did not answer directly but half-smiled and moved on. Their only real exchange, one he would later recognise as intimate, occurred that day in the gym. Her face, when their eyes met, bore a message. A message he was unable to decipher. But now, as they lay elongated in parallel, separated by a thin expanse of air, he came to believe there had been promise in her eyes, or at least a suggestion of promise.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’

  Her question caught him off guard. ‘Just school and stuff.’

  ‘Just school and stuff?’ His answer did not satisfy her.

  ‘Yeah. What about you?’

  She turned her head. He felt himself redden.

  ‘You’re blushing.’

  ‘Am I?’ he parried, searching for the right thing to say. ‘It must be the sun.’

  She let it go at that. They discussed school, zeroing in on their likes and dislikes. History interested her while he preferred English, even if it meant having to suffer old Rowlands. Tentatively at first and, as their confidence grew, they began to pull apart their teachers. He saw she possessed a wicked humour; a deft feeling for the ridiculous that was more than a match for his own.

  ‘What do you think of Tate?’

  ‘He’s a bit up himself,’ he ventured.

  ‘More than a bit. Have you seen the cufflinks he wears?’

  In his recollection Ross had not. But he’d noted how Tate concentrated on the girls. This did not bother him, especially if it meant complicated maths questions did not come his way.

  ‘What about Miss Adams?’

  He started. ‘What about Miss Adams?’

  ‘Her French is hopeless.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ He was puzzled.

  ‘I have a tutor. When I show him the exercises we get at school, he says they’re full of mistakes.’

  At the mention of a male tutor Ross felt a stab of jealousy which he attempted to ignore. He wondered why June needed tutoring. French was a useless subject. Nobody would ever use it. The only benefit of French, in his not-so-humble opinion, was that, every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, he could discreetly focus upon Miss Adams’ breasts. But he did not share this with the girl by his side.

  ‘Let’s go in the water.’ She was already on her feet. The sand had heated up and their awkward efforts to stroll nonchalantly gave way to a mad rush into the surf. She plunged straight in, neglecting to scream and mince in what seemed an obligatory ritual for other teenage girls. They swam out beyond the swimmers and beyond the small breakers. With leisurely side-stroke, facing each other, they circled the bay, avoiding the shallow edges of the reef. He watched the outlines of her body under the water. Occasionally she rolled onto her back, spreading her arms and legs and closing her eyes. Though he hankered to continue the visual feast, he resisted and turned over to float as she did. Supported i
n the cool green water, they floated. When Ross opened his eyes, she was swimming away. He caught her with ease, and they splashed one another. He wanted to touch her. To hold her close but he held back.

  Remembering it now, more than six years later, he could barely believe how alive he’d felt.

  After leaving the water, they stood in the shade near the kiosk. She needed to go back to her study.

  ‘Aren’t you worried about the exams?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ he admitted.

  She shrugged. ‘Well, I have to pass. If I don’t go to uni my parents will kill me.’

  They’d spoken to each other about parents. She said hers were generally okay but her expression suggested otherwise. There’s more than meets the eye, he thought.

  ‘Will you go to uni?’ She was checking him out. Perhaps it was important. His mind contained only the barest of skeletons when it came to life beyond high school. When asked what he’d like to do, he was always lost for words. Nothing attracted him. Plenty of things repelled him. Accounting, for one. Teaching, for another, though that had been suggested by someone at school. And law, even if he was good enough. Not law. He would not emulate his elder brother. Jeffrey was destined for law from an unseemly young age. It could have been about money. But Ross, having seen his brother at close quarters, felt it was more about power. Jeffrey wanted to be in control. He made sure his brothers knew this, and he practised his skills on them and his mother. With his father, Jeffrey had less luck. Instead he learnt to be strategic, accumulating a toolbox of manipulative assets that would serve him nicely when he joined a law firm on the Terrace.

  ‘You are planning to go to uni, aren’t you?’ June repeated the question.

  ‘Probably. If I pass.’

  ‘You’ll get through.’

  He was surprised by her certitude. She had noticed him in class and formed an opinion. What else had she noticed?

  ‘There’s my bus, see you.’ She sashayed across the road, avoiding the pedestrians on the cross walk.