The Last Candles of the Night. Ian Bedford
more useful, she took Nursing as a TAFE course. This was untrue. But to cast her as useful was profoundly true.
The women greeted Philip sincerely, though without exuberance. He was, to them, a well-mannered, rather distinguished-looking man of seventy-six, still a husband – for Jenny had never spoken of any divorce. Jenny, in fact, had barely spoken to them at all about Philip. Here he was: not fully a member of the household, as they all knew. But they knew it had been his house. They smiled and looked up.
“Kate’s returning to work,” said Jenny. “She can’t stand to be retired. They’ve had the retirement party, now it’s the back-to-work party.”
“All finger-food, Monte Carlos and instant coffee,” said the retired head nurse.
“No, we won’t hold it at the hospital. We’ll hold it at the Sailing Club. Dance music.”
“And men,” said the younger nurse, who could not have been more than thirty. No-one laughed, no-one cheered. There was a silence, which allowed Philip to put in, “I’m sure men would turn up.” His wife stared lightly over the yard where Patch, the fox-terrier, had once dug for bones.
“Too true. Good for men. I’m not agin men,” said the retired head nurse, in her level tones. “Men would be all the rage, along with the biscuits, at a back-to-work party.”
2
Another occasion. Again the passage door opened, and Philip emerged from within the house. Jenny looked up. He did not know these people, and she wanted him to learn how things stood.
“Philip” – no mention of ‘husband’ – “this is Father Mercer. Father Mercer, Philip. Deirdre, this is Philip. Philip, Deirdre. Milo, Philip. Philip, Milo. Milo is the church organist. Deirdre looks after the children’s services.”
He won’t remember them, so I’ll stop at that. Jenny left several people unintroduced. There were too many for the hexagonal table, and no chair for Philip.
She watched him intently, willing him to be on his way. Philip scrutinised the faces for kindness – eight altogether. He decided on Milo. “You’re the organist.”
“Yes, I am.”
“What do you play? Hymns, mostly?”
“Hymns. Interludes. Processionals – for the service.”
Jenny said brightly, “But your window is safe,” and Father Mercer spoke up, on cue, “It’s a fine window. We had to take it down, but it’s stored on a shelf of its own, in the lumber room. When we negotiated for the building, we forged an understanding with the Uniting Church that nothing would happen to your grandparents’ window. That’s not in writing, but we’ll keep to it.”
“You took it down,” said Philip. “Why was that? Was it theologically inappropriate?” He spoke with a levity which freed them to pass on to other topics. Philip stayed. He fetched an armchair from inside – which meant a struggle – and propped it in the doorway he had just opened. Ignoring Father Mercer, he befriended Deirdre, then relapsed into silence.
Jenny cleared the tea things to the kitchen, signalling that she required no help. In her mind she composed a fierce eulogy to the Catholic Church, and to the people who took her in without attempting (except at the beginning) to convert her to their faith, to their sense of their faith. She was, and remained, a Hindu, as anyone could see (though no-one did see) who penetrated the house to her bedroom and beheld the shrine to the goddess Parvati in one corner of the room. Not Jim, not Vinta, not her daughter, followed Jenny to her own bedroom. Her attachment was secret. In the ‘table’ room, where they sat, there were no holy pictures or calendars, Hindu or Catholic, no bleeding hearts, meek and mild Jesuses or plump baby Krishnas – she set no store by such things. That must be why she had taken so readily, forty-odd years ago, to the Uniting Church. Were Philip to enter Jenny’s room (as if that could happen!) he would find, all the same, something of upper-caste India: a formal, well-dusted room with too many elaborate wood chairs, wall furniture and the shrine, of course. Her Parvati would surprise him, but so would the chairs.
3
The passage door opened and Philip emerged, gradual as always. He found Jenny alone. The room was empty of callers. The indelibly stained tablecloth was back in place, the carpet was worn and the sideboard within reach. Jenny this time was more wary and vigilant than her former husband, scooping flyers and booklets from the table-top and burying them in a drawer. Her composure was breached.
Philip prepared his breakfast under her eyes. He had bought wrapped parathas from the Fijian Indian store in Merrylands. He greased two pans in the kitchen, frying the parathas in one and an egg in the other. “Was Jim here?”
“You’ve spent a long night in your room. If you’d come through earlier, you could have talked with him.”
“I’ll talk with you.”
“Hasn’t it all been said?” Jenny sat without moving at the queen table in the house that was hers. Let him talk – not any old talk, but talk that meant something. Home for good. What did that mean?
“Fresh start, today,” he said. “New people, new suburbs. Sydney is all new suburbs. Or new suburbs is where the Indians live.”
“More Indians. Didn’t you leave India to escape them?”
“I find one right here.”
“Is Indian what I am? That does me some credit. After all these years in Australia,” she said, “if I’m still an Indian, I’m a very determined one.”
“After all those years in India,” countered Philip, “I’m still an Australian, which is why I came home.”
This, precisely this, kind of thing, she meant to discourage. Words that spoke themselves. Home, home in Australia, because I’m an Australian. Home because of the whistle-y-bob. That would make as much sense. Her roving eye had fallen on one object from Philip’s era that remained in the house, not because Philip prized it but because the girls, who grew up in the house, had prized it, and her grandchildren knew it for what it was: the whistle-y-bob. When callers remarked on this strange, festive object, a kind of wire cage padded with wool (long since discoloured) and dangling strips of cotton, Jenny would say, without further explanation, “That’s the whistle-y-bob.”
Using the egg-slice for both pans, Philip assembled his meal, took the first bite standing up, in the kitchen, then, like a delinquent facing the music, carried his plate to Jenny’s table. He repeated the journey there and back, returning with a glazed scenic table-mat of cows in a field. She watched him eat. “You talk with Jim a lot. All about India, I suppose.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Which days in India?”
“Early days.”
“Why them?”
“Jim’s twenty-three,” said Philip at once, “and I was twenty-three. It’s all his doing. I keep a lot back. There was Hyderabad and, right at the beginning, there was Bastar. I don’t believe I’ve told you about Bastar.”
“Once you did.”
“No, I don’t think I did.” When Philip had eaten he washed up plate, pans and cutlery, drying them and replacing them in the wrong cupboards. Jenny merely watched. “I’ll shower, and be gone,” he said. “In a month, I’ll be out of your hair. I won’t stay in the house forever.”
“Stay as long as you like.”
“As soon as I find work, paid work – I’ll be off. I’ll still visit, of course.”
“Paid work, what does ‘paid’ matter to you? Paid or unpaid. That’s not the point, is it? You’ll just have to get used to Nora.”
“She comes every day.”
“I can’t stop her coming, she’s my daughter. And I can’t stop …” I can’t stop you staying.