"Well, I hope it turns out all right, but I can't see that happening unless she breaks her ties with us, Ron. She's not going to like it, but I think we must gradually edge our way out of her life after she's married. Let her carve a spot for herself in their world, because that's the world she'll have to raise his kids in, ain't it?"
"You're dead right, old girl." He stared at the ceiling, blinking hard. "Tim's the one will miss her. Poor old bloke, he won't understand."
"No, but he's like a little kid, Ron, his memory's short. You know how he is, poor little coot. He'll miss her the way a little kid does at first, but then he'll sort of forget her. Just as well he's got Miss Horton, I reckon. I daresay she won't be around forever either, but I hope she'll be around long enough to tide him over Dawnie's marrying." She patted his arm. "Life never works out the way you hope, does it? I'd sort of thought at one time that Dawnie wouldn't marry at all, that she and Tim would end up their days sharing this old house together after we're gone. She's so terribly fond of him. But I'm glad she's taking the plunge, Ron. Like I told her lots of times, we don't expect her to sacrifice her life for Tim. It wouldn't be right. And yet ... I still think she's a wee bit jealous of Miss Horton. This engagement's so sudden. Tim finds himself a friend, Dawnie's nose is pushed out of joint a bit because Miss Horton's taken the time to teach him how to read and Dawnie never did, and the next thing, boomp! she goes and gets engaged."
Ron reached over and switched out the light.
"But why this one, Es? I never thought she liked him."
"Oh, but he's a lot older than she is, and she's real flattered because he picked her after all those Lady Mucks he could have had. Probably she's a bit scared of him too, a bit bluffed by his background and the fact that he's her boss. You can have all the brains in the world and still not be any wiser than the silliest coot in Callan Park."
Ron wriggled down until his head found its natural dent in the pillow. "Well, love, there's nothing we can do about it, is there? She's over twenty-one, and she never took much notice of us, anyway. The only reason she's stayed out of trouble is that she's so bloody smart, horse-sense smart, like." He kissed her on the mouth. "Night-night, love. I'm tired, aren't you? All this flaming excitement."
"Too right," she yawned. "Night-night, love."
Eleven
When Tim arrived at Mary's house in Ar-tarmon the following Saturday he was quiet and a little withdrawn. Mary did not question his mood, but put him in the Bentley and got on the road immediately. They had to stop at a nursery in Hornsby to pick up a lot of plants and shrubs Mary had ordered during the week, and the business of getting them all in the car occupied Tim so much that she told him to stay in the back seat when they started out again, so he could watch the plants and make sure none of them fell over or stained the leather upholstery.
At the cottage she left him to unload the plants and went through to his room with his case to unpack it, though these days he kept a small wardrobe there permanently. The room was changed; no longer bare and white, it sported a thick orange carpet, pale yellow walls, crome yellow drapes, and Danish modern furniture. His suitcase disposed of, she moved on to her own room and tidied herself up before returning to the car to see how Tim was doing.
Something was wrong with him, he was not himself at all. Frowning, she watched him closely as he finished taking the last of the plants out of the trunk. She did not think his problem was a physical one, for his skin was its usual healthy gold and his eyes were clear and bright. Apparently whatever plagued him was a happening in his personal sphere, though she doubted that it had anything to do with her, unless of course his parents had said something about her which had upset or puzzled him. But surely not! Only the other night she had spoken at length with Ron Melville, and he had been brimming over with enthusiasm about Tim's progress in reading and calculating.
"You're so bloody good for him, Miss Horton," Ron had told her. "Whatever you do, don't give him up as a bad job. I wish he'd known you years ago, I really do."
They had a silent lunch and went out to the garden with Tim's problem, whatever it was, still un-mentioned. He would tell her in his own good time; perhaps it was better if she acted as though nothing was the matter, if she went ahead and made him help her plant all the new acquisitions. Last weekend they had had such fun over the garden, wrangling about whether they should have a bed entirely of stocks, or whether they ought to mix larkspurs and snapdragons in with them. He had not known the names of any of the flowers, so she had taken out her books and shown him pictures of them; he had learned about them with delight, and walked around muttering their names over and over to himself.
They worked silently all afternoon, until the shadows lengthened and the sea breeze came gust-ing up the lofty river canyon to warn of the coming night.
"Let's build a fire in the barbecue and cook on the beach," Mary suggested desperately. "We can go for a swim while the fire's getting itself to the right stage for cooking, and then we can build another fire on the sand to get dry over and warm us while we eat. How does that sound, Tim?"
He tried to smile, "It sounds lovely, Mary."
By this time Mary had learned to love the water and could even swim a few strokes, enough at least to be able to venture out where Tim liked to frolic. She had bought a black grosgrain swimsuit with a fairly long, full skirt on it for modesty's sake; Tim thought it was gorgeous. Her skin had darkened now that she exposed herself to the sun, and she looked better for it, younger and healthier.
Tim was not his usual high-spirited self in the water; he swam about quietly, forgetting to dive-bomb and torpedo her, and when she suggested they should go out onto the beach he followed her at once. Normally getting him out of the water was a battle royal, for he would stay in until midnight if she let him.
She had tiny baby lamb chops and big fat sausages to toast over the fire, two of his favorites, but he picked half-heartedly at a chop for a while without reducing its size very much, then pushed the plate away with a sigh, shaking his head wearily.
"I'm not hungry, Mary," he said sadly.
They sat side by side on a towel in front of the second fire, warming themselves comfortably in the teeth of the wintry wind. The sun had set, and the world was in that half-dark stage when everything was bled of its vividness but was not yet dimmed to black or white or gray. Above them in the clear vast sky the evening star glittered against an apple-green horizon, and a few more high magnitude stars struggled to overcome the light, appearing for a moment and then disappearing. Birds twittered and screamed everywhere, bedding down for the night in querulous fussiness, and the bush was full of mysterious squeaks and rustles.
Mary never used to notice such things, had been quite indifferent to the world around her except when it intruded itself, but now she found that she was intensely aware of the surrounding sphere, the sky and the land and the water, its animals and plants, all so wonderful and beautiful. Tim had taught her that, from the moment when he had shown her the cicada choirmaster in her oleander tree. He was always coming to display some little natural treasure he had found, a spider or a wild orchid or some tiny furry animal, and she had learned not to jump away in revulsion but to see them as he did for what they were, perfect, as much a functional part of the planet earth as she was herself if not more so, for sometimes what he brought her was rare.
Worried and upset, Mary wriggled around on the towel until she sat looking at his profile, etched against the pearly rim of the sky. The cheek toward her was faintly outlined, the eye sunk invisible into a darkened socket, the mouth at its saddest. Then he moved slightly, and what light there was left collected itself into a sparkling row of tiny droplets on his lashes, glistening all the way down his cheek.
"Oh, Tim!" she cried, her hands going out to him. "Don't weep, my darling boy, don't weep! What is it, what's the matter? Can't you tell me, when we're such very good friends?"
She remembered Ron telling her that he used to cry a lot, and like a small
child in noisy, hiccoughing bellows, but that of late he had stopped crying so. On the rare occasions these days when he was moved to tears, he cried more like an adult, Ron said, quietly and into himself. Just the way he was weeping now, she thought, wondering how often he had wept today without her noticing, when she had not been there or when she had been too busy to see.
Too upset to question the wisdom of her own conduct, she put her hand on his arm and stroked it softly, trying to soothe him as best she could. He turned toward her at once, and before she could jerk away he put his head down against her chest, drawing himself in against her like a small animal in need of a place to hide, his hands clutching at her sides. Her arms seemed to find a natural resting place across his back, and she dropped her head until her cheek rested on his hair.
"Don't cry, Tim," she whispered, smoothing his hair back and kissing his brow.
She sat back on her heels cradling him, all else forgotten save the reality of being able to give him comfort. He needed her, he had turned to her and hidden his face as if he thought her empowered to shield him from the world. Nothing could ever have prepared her for this; she had not dreamed life could give her a moment so infinitely sweet, so bounded with pain. His back under her hand was cool and slippery, like satin; the unshaven cheek resting just above her breasts scratched her skin like fine sandpaper.
Awkwardly and hesitantly at first, she gathered him closer, hugging one arm gently but strongly around his back, her other arm protectively about his head, its fingers buried in his thick, faintly salty hair. The forty-three empty, loveless years of her life were canceled out of existence, payment extracted in this one small flake of time. With this at their end they did not matter, and if there were forty-three more just as empty still to be endured, they could never matter either. Not now.
After a while he ceased weeping and lay absolutely motionless within her arms, only the slight rise and fall of his breathing under her hand telling her that he lived. Nor did she move; the thought of moving terrified her, for instinct told her that once either of them shifted even the smallest bit, he would withdraw or she would have to draw away herself. She pressed her mouth further into his hair and closed her eyes, profoundly happy.
He gave a deep, sobbing sigh and moved a little to get more comfortable, but to Mary it was the signal that her moment was over; gently she eased herself slightly away from him, so that he still lay within her arms but could lift his head to look at her. Her hand in his hair tugged at it until he was forced to raise his face, and the breath caught in her throat. In the faint light his beauty had a fey quality about it, he was an Oberon or a Morpheus, unreal, other-worldly. The moon had got into his eyes and sheeted them with a glaze of blued silver; they stared at her blindly, as though he saw her from the other side of a filmy curtain. Perhaps indeed he did, for what he saw in her no one else ever had, she reflected.
"Tim, won't you tell me what's making you so unhappy?"
"It's my Dawnie, Mary. She's going away soon and we won't see her very often. I don't want my Dawnie to go away, I want her to keep on living with us!"
"I see." She looked down into the unblinking, moonstone eyes. "Is she getting married, Tim? Is that why she's going away?"
"Yes, but I don't want her to get married and go away!" he cried defiantly.
"Tim, as you go on through the years you'll find that life is made up of meetings, knowings, and partings. Sometimes we love the people we meet, sometimes we don't like the people we meet, but knowing them is the most important thing about living, it's what keeps us human beings. You see, for many years I refused to admit this, and I wasn't a very good human being. Then I met you, and knowing you has sort of changed my life, I've become a better human being.
"Ah, but the partings, Tim! They're the hardest, the most bitter to accept, especially if we loved. Parting means it can never be the same afterward; something has gone out of our lives, a bit of us is missing and can never be found or put back again. But there are many partings, Tim, because they're as much a component of living as meeting and knowing. What you have to do is remember knowing your Dawnie, not spend your time grieving because you have to part from her, because the parting can't be avoided, it has to come. If you remember knowing her rather than grieve at losing her, it won't hurt so much.
"And that's far too long and complex and you didn't understand a word of it, did you, love?"
"I think I understood a bit of it, Mary," he answered seriously.
She laughed, dispelling the last of the moment, and thus inched him out of her arms. Standing upright again, she reached down her hands and pulled him to his feet.
"Mary, what you said, does that mean one day I'll have to see you go away, too?"
"Not unless you want me to go away, or unless I die."
The fires were quenched, thin tendrils of steam curling up between the grains of sand, and the beach was suddenly very cold. Mary shivered, hugging herself.
"Come, let's go back to the house, Tim, where it's warm and light."
He detained her, staring into her face with a passionate eagerness normally quite foreign to him. "Mary, I've always wanted to know, but no one will ever tell me! What's die, and dying, and dead? Are they all the same thing?"
"They all relate to the same thing, yes." She took his hand in hers and pressed its palm against his own chest, just over the left nipple. "Can you feel your heart there beating, Tim? Can you feel that thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump under your hand, always there, never stopping for a moment?"
He nodded, fascinated. "Yes, I can! I really can!"
"Well, while it beats, thump-thump, thump-thump, you can see and hear, walk around, laugh and cry, eat and drink and wake up in the morning, feel the sun and the wind.
"When I talk about living that's what I mean, the seeing and hearing and walking around, the laughing and crying. But you've seen things get old, wear out, break apart? A wheelbarrow or a concrete mixer, perhaps? Well, we, all of us with beating hearts under our ribs-and that's everyone, Tim, everyone!-we get old and tired, and wear out too. Eventually we begin to break apart and that beating thing you can feel stops, like a clock that's not been wound. It happens to all of us, when our time comes. Some of us wear out faster than others, some of us get accidentally stopped, if we're in a plane crash or something like that. No one of us knows when we'll stop, it isn't something we can control or foretell. It just happens one day, when we're all worn out and too tired to keep going.
"When our hearts stop, Tim, we stop. We don't see or hear ever again, we don't walk around, we don't eat, we can't laugh or cry. We're dead, Tim, we are no more, we've stopped and we have to be put away where we can lie and sleep undisturbed, under the ground forever.
"It happens to us all, and it's nothing to be frightened of, it can't hurt us. It's just like going to sleep and never waking up again, and nothing ever hurts us while we're asleep, does it? It's nice to be asleep, whether it's in a bed or under the ground. What we have to do is enjoy living while we're living, and then not be frightened to die when the times comes for us to stop."
"Then I might die just as easily as you, Mary!" he said intensely, his face close to hers.
"Yes, you might, but I'm old and you're young, so if we go on as people usually do, I should stop before you. I'm more worn out than you are, you see."
He was on the verge of tears again. "No, no, no! I don't want you to die before I do, I don't want it like that!"
She took his hands in hers, chafing them urgently. "There, there, Tim, don't be unhappy! What did I just tell you? Living is to be enjoyed for every moment we're still alive! Dying is in the future, it isn't to be worried about or even thought about!
"Dying is the final parting, Tim, the hardest one of all to bear, because the parting is forever. But all of us come to it, so it's something we can't close our eyes to and pretend it doesn't exist.
"If we're grown-up and sensible, if we're good strong people, we understand dying, we know about it but we
don't let it worry us. Now I know you're grown-up and sensible, I know you're a good strong person, so I want you to promise me you won't worry about dying, that you won't be frightened of it happening to me, or to you. And I want you to promise that you'll try to be a man about partings, that you won't make poor Dawnie unhappy by being unhappy yourself. Dawnie is alive too, she has as much right to find her own way of enjoying living as you do, and you mustn't make it hard for her by letting her see how upset you are."
She took his chin in her hand and looked into the clouded eyes. "Now I know you're good and strong and kind, Tim, so I want you to be all of those things about your Dawnie, and about all the things that will happen to make you sad, because you mustn't be sad a minute longer than you can help. Promise?"
He nodded gravely. "I promise, Mary."
"Then let's go back to the house. I'm cold."
Mary turned on the big space-heater in the living room to warm it up, and put on some music she knew would make him light-heartedly happy. The treatment worked, and he was soon laughing and talking as if nothing had ever happened to threaten his world. He demanded a reading lesson, which she gave him gladly, then declined another form of amusement, curling up on the floor at her feet instead and sitting with his head resting against the arm of her chair.
"Mary?" he asked after a long while, and just before she opened her mouth to tell him it was time to go to bed.
"Yes?"
He twisted around so that he could see her face. "When I cried and you hugged me, what's that called?"
She smiled, patting his shoulder. "I don't know that it's called anything very much. Comforting, I suppose. Yes, I think it's called comforting. Why?"
"I liked it. Mum used to do it sometimes a real long time ago when I was just a little shaver, but then she told me I was too big and never did it again. Why didn't you think I was too big?"
One hand went up to shield her eyes and stayed there a moment before she dropped it onto her lap and clenched it tightly around her other hand. "I suppose I didn't think of you as big at all, I thought of you as a little shaver. But I don't think how big you are is very important, I think how big your trouble is is much more important. You might be a big man now, but your trouble was much bigger, wasn't it? Did it help, to be comforted?"