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Trio Page 9
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It was the January 26 and people all over the place were bidding the other: Happy Straya Day! This sort of thing in her opinion had to be laid at someone else’s door, probably California’s. An unnecessarily patriotic show would have once been seen as unseemly: blowing your own trumpet. It had got underway as the new millennium was cranking up. She was probably feeling and showing her age, being uncomfortable with this new national pride – yet until now has been pleased enough, say, when abroad, to identify herself with her country of birth. Were people congratulating each other on their good fortune in accidentally being born here? Or celebrating their joy in being far removed from global strife. She considered other dates: she was not embarrassed to say: Merry Christmas in December. Was she then happier to see herself as a Christian than as an Australian? Actually she didn’t care much at all to be described as a Christian, yet more or less pursued Christian values without thinking of it too much. But no, there was no interest in the Happy Australia Day thing because she was not altogether sure what Australia represented in 2000, whereas there wasn’t much doubt what Christianity stood for.
She once expressed these thoughts to Mickey and he practically accused her of being a phoney, this leaning towards then staggering back from Catholicism – someone with ‘double standards’ was how he put it! It started because Celia had asked a neighbour how her sick mother was. The woman replied, smiling, clear of brow:
‘Oh, she has gone to heaven.’
And where exactly is that? Celia, nodding, wanted to know, but didn’t ask, nonplussed by this intelligent woman’s firm conviction that there was a God and an eternal reward in some place where one’s heavenly Father resided. Celia continued smiling at the neighbour, extending her hand to a shoulder. She didn’t really think that the woman had such an infantile idea of Paradise. The old myth must be code for a deep, inner faith that is beyond words, that passeth all understanding.
‘Why didn’t you ask it?’ said Mickey. ‘Do you not think it’s phoney to agree with all that stuff?’
‘I don’t think it’s phoney to be polite when people say something like that and you try to go along with it,’ she said. But how was it so, she asked him rhetorically, almost thinking it to herself, that educated persons could put their faith in a Being so perverse as to pick and choose favourites in meting out indulgences or catastrophe? Indeed it was the good people who seemed to suffer punishment of one kind or another here on earth. The Church naturally saw the chink in this obvious injustice with its potential questions, and so gave it out that God burdened with undue punishment those he loved! What warped thinking was this? she wanted to know.
Moreover, why pray for something to someone who is not there? she asked.
This was a reasonable question, wasn’t it?
‘How do you know there’s no one there?’ This was Mickey playing devil’s advocate.
‘No one has seen him.’
‘But we can feel his presence. People will say.’
Celia was staring at him.
‘Ah,’ Mickey continued, to her astonishment: ‘more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.’
‘Lord Tennyson or whoever said that was either guessing or being presumptuous,’ she said. But she didn’t want a quarrel, nor wished to hear these old saws taking over from a serious conversation.
But Mickey went on the attack, thinking he had her down, and countered: ‘If it’s all hocus-pocus, why then do you dip your hand in the holy water font when you enter a church, I’ve seen you, then make the sign of the cross and genuflect to the altar? That’s not being polite, that’s being a hypocrite.’
‘I’ll tell you why.’ She was ready for this. ‘I do it out of courtesy to the church rather than to the Church. I do it to honour human endeavour, for the artisans who did believe and so painstakingly created this splendour; I do it out of nostalgia for the small child I once was who had faith in such things as everlasting life, and who had been told of this omnipotent, all-seeing, all-forgiving deity.’
She didn’t mind, she said, going along with the rituals and entering into the spirit of it. Even a passing glance at the congregation, she went on, nurtured in her a consciousness that we had to believe in something good outside of ourselves or the whole human race would be in even worse straits than it already was. The great European cathedrals enthralled her because she liked to consider the mortals who had manifestly created these wonders of light and beauty ‘to the glory of God’. Yet at the same time she wondered: was God so vain, so proud and beside himself with hubris that he needed the continual wheedling and ingratiating conduct from his flock? She’d had no truck with it for a long time. Nevertheless. You had to think of this. Nevertheless. Just one corner of any church showed months, years? of the craftsman’s labour, and she knew it was churlish to infer that such long and loving accomplishment kept them occupied, their minds off killing each other and abusing women. Such devotion had to be seen as standing alone and laudable, even if the faith behind it defied reason.
‘And finally, you may not believe me, but I want passionately that people have religious freedom, but not to invoke God’s will to justify their own despicable conduct. Soviet Russia didn’t allow its citizens to honour their God, by denying the Church to them. When that regime fell, people moved back to their religion, showing that bullying, known as oppression, doesn’t work.’
‘So,’ said Mickey, shifting his backside, ‘you think that faith defies reason but you’re happy to go along with devotion to it because you believe in humanity. You believe in the nobility of work. That’s what you’re saying. If you ask me, you’re a humanist.’
‘And what is a humanist?’
‘Someone who sees us, people, and our achievements as the cause of celebration. But seeing humankind addressing itself to accessible goals.’
She sat there thinking, gathering her wits again.
‘You think I’m a sham, false-hearted.’
‘I think you’re a darlin’ girl.’
She smiled. ‘Now, this is where I say Don’t patronise me! Doesn’t being a humanist involve allowing other people to have their faith without sneering.’
‘Certainly it does. Sneering is unkind and unnecessary.’
He was sipping at his drink, for a change, rather than larruping it up, nodding away at her. He played at baiting her but in fact didn’t want to be too bothered taxing his emotions with it any further and went back to his book and his drink. And she was left wondering whether he lacked the energy, the testosterone – that male energy that so incensed her – to have a good lusty stoush.
MARCIA
7
Perth, 2000
The pupil gave the teacher a shrewd look as they reached the end. He could have been sizing up Marcia’s intellect.
‘Do you know philosophy?’ he asked. She inclined her head a bit and gave him one of her serious answers:
‘A little. It’s a big subject.’
He looked wise and world-weary, having to explain it to her.
‘Ouf, it’s big all right. There are at least seven kinds of philosophy: there’s your logic; there’s your criticism …’ But it was altogether too big for both of them and he gave up on it, gathering his things together to leave.
Funny chap. ‘I’ll see you next week, Luke,’ she said respectfully, though not without authority. And took up the money he placed on her dining room table. ‘Thank you.’
‘Right, Marcia,’ he said, standing up, his voice taking on the customary timbre of civility that she’d first thought, a year ago, bespoke a man of substance, which of course he was. Luke was thirty, a man-child, studying for his third year high school certificate. It was his voice that had made her think he was like everyone else. And his manner: he hovered rather than thrust himself forward. But it was the cadence in the voice that marked of an undeclared talent, only seen in the holding back.
Saturday – the longest teaching day of the week. Just two sessions to go. Lazy overfed Andrew first. I
n he came, sat down and indeed had brought a piece of paper to write on today. She made preparatory noises. Futile probably to expect a completed essay from him. He stretched, looked at his watch and yawned on a large scale.
‘Kindly cover your mouth or else turn your head away,’ she snapped. How she had changed. No longer the accommodating girl of long ago.
‘Sorry,’ he said, straightening. She forced herself to bring a more agreeable tone to the lesson by offering him a mint, smiling.
Early in her life Marcia had discovered the benefits to be gained by smiling and using her voice. She possessed from nature, as Celia had pointed out quoting James Joyce, one of the most beautiful voices that had ever been put into a throat. Without thinking about it at first, then purposefully, Marcia had cut a swathe through the worst accents she heard around her – affected mouthing, the rolling and whining of regional varieties – then settled on her own style, much in the way that some people look around and hit upon the kind of clothes that suit them. This was in England of course, where the choice was endless and where her father had leased a pub, for a short while. Helping behind the counter, she got into the habit of sorting out the range of idioms, serving the customers, pulling pints. She soon realised that she could mimic anything, anyone; it was a matter of choosing the diction she liked most for everyday use. That was probably the beginning of her acting career. Her best friends were the books she read plus her dictionary; the best outings – the theatre, in cheap seats.
In any event, here she was now, in Australia, and her house had become a place of learning. She made a little face to herself, at the thought. As well as being a place of learning this rambling old house was her sanctuary. A reign of silence prevailed now that Andrew was gone; it was like a library or a church – no never a church, but my God how your life changes.
Finally David Li arrived, smiling and deferential. So strong was his resolve to do well for university entrance she could see and hear it. Success was etched all over his studious head and graceful body. Before anything however he had to come to grips with Macbeth and Conrad.
‘What have we got today, Impending Doom and Symbols?’ she asked, making a comical face over her spectacles. They both rolled up their eyes and their sleeves and went to it. Teaching him was beyond a joy, more like the working on a script with a fellow thinker or an actor from another time. They considered two recent films of the play they had watched independently and talked about the possibilities in the extraordinary actions of the Earl of Thane and his lady wife. Marcia held that everyone, all around them in contemporary life, made wrong decisions and forced extravagant tyranny upon themselves and their close ones, but David disagreed: to him the Macbeths were larger-than-life people whose psyches had to be analysed in a particular, specific way. The lesson ended, they parted thoughtfully, each with eyes full of the mists and fierce vendettas of Scotland.
She tested the pasta as it cooked; she’d curb her appetite until it was al dente. Nearly there. A less than quiet belch escaped her. The various small muscles that were about her body and which had given her loyal support for all these years were beginning to abandon ship, leaving her with unseemly exhalations here and there. The pain under her arm she chose to ignore. And the quiet of the place clamoured for her attention so that, even now, she had to turn around just to check that she was alone. She looked at the massive living space; in commemoration of the Daglish house she had knocked out the walls with fervour. Any minute she might come upon a reincarnation of Mickey sprawling there, drink in hand, reading a script, and Celia sketching down one end, near the window.
The sojourn in Daglish, where the three of them had settled, if it could be called that, lasted for, let’s see, five years? And how could anyone have known that their threesome had only that span before it fell apart. James’s presence next door had helped, what could you say? diffuse their relationships, perhaps. A fellow artist next door was a bonus they hadn’t counted on and in hindsight James had exercised more tact than Celia or Mickey had given him credit for.
He was semi-retired even when they first met him, and in time gave fewer lessons. You wouldn’t say he threw parties so much as musical evenings, soirées, for selected friends.
She only had to half-close her eyes and she could see their house, that place of splendid isolation: Celia putting down her pencils, offering Mickey a dry biscuit, wondering out loud about preparing a Middle-Eastern concoction with chickpeas or sesame that wasn’t generally eaten then.
‘It’s a very thin biscuit this, almost like a wafer, isn’t it?’ Celia said.
‘As fine as the Host on your tongue,’ Mick replied.
They talked, Celia and Mick, failed Catholics both, like a priest and a nun, of the irreverent way that people received Holy Communion these days – according to hearsay – recipients clutching the Host in their own fingers, the body of Christ.
‘Things have gone downhill,’ said Mickey, pouring them more red wine.
‘Do you ever think you’d go back to it, Mick?’ Celia asked, taking a gulp.
‘It?’
‘Sure, the faith.’
‘Would the Pope ask you out on a date?’
Marcia, still thinking about the sacred Host, noted at the time how Celia had shifted her position. She still wondered about this pull people like Cele had towards the spiritual, the religious, the supernatural: saying what mumbo jumbo it was but almost secretly going into churches and gazing at the statues, lighting candles and making the sign of the cross. Oh yes, Marcia had seen her too! How anyone so earthbound could be drawn into the metaphysical. It was the romantic in her, Marcia decided, the attraction of something solemn and enigmatic that no one could understand, that had the power to enthral.
The people next door on the other side to James had an open-day party one Christmas and had invited their three neighbours in for a drink. They were easy-going folk with a large extended family that came and went all day. By mid-afternoon someone had set up a kero tin wicket in their backyard and Geoff the host commandeered his son’s bat. Marcia, wearing a caftan with a sunhat and dark glasses, volunteered to score. Celia, suntanned and slim, was in bare feet and a white mini skirt, with a sleeveless skimpy shirt, and Mickey for the occasion was wearing a purple sarong someone had given him, because he said, he was tired of having his crotch encased in trousers. The teams received enthusiastic if spasmodic encouragement from onlookers and Marcia kept calling out ‘Oh, well played, sir!’ and such phrases, as if she was on the village green in Yorkshire. Geoff, she remembered, made several attempts to kiss her as he poured more beer for everyone but Marcia was taking her pencil and paper very seriously, in between sips. The cricket ball was in fact a tennis ball and Celia was the first to hit a six, with such gusto that the ball sailed way over the garage roof to the house next door. For her next ball the force of her swing sent her into a complete spin on the spot; she’d completely missed the ball and was clean bowled. A slight wind came up and the bowling was kind but Mickey was still able to swing his bat into his skirt with some style, but no coordination whatever, Celia remarked with surprise from the sidelines.
‘Well, cricket isn’t a game that had any place in his childhood,’ Marcia said, watching him walk away quickly from the crease, the way he’d seen the vanquished do it on telly. Dear Mickey.
8
Perth, 2000
Marcia’s small weatherboard house was in Fremantle, over the crest from the sea, within walking distance, if she had known, from Celia’s place. The salty scent was a daily reminder of the vast ocean on her doorstep, slapping in to shore and sucking away just as energetically. In the old Daglish house all those years ago, there had been a parade of pals who’d shared her meals and her life in rumbustious parties and shenanigans. She had kicked over the traces of Celia and Mickey’s defection. But it was they, and no one else, who still crowded out other memories. Oh, the talking that went on between the trio, the clowning around and pranks (Mickey), the yearning for elusive goals (Celia).
In all of those conversations she wondered whether any of them had in fact asked the others if they had a long-term objective. Or did they simply drift through their days. How many years ago had it all ended? More than a dozen. Mickey decided, on a whim it seemed, to return to England. Though you don’t do a long trip like that on a whim, she thought. And within a year, or was it more? Celia had upped sticks and returned to London, saying – when she was having a particularly bad day – that she’d never return to this bloody backwater.
Marcia’s neighbours had moved away and people grew older; respectability had, against all the odds, gained the upper hand in her street. For a while she had taken in overseas students, one at a time, to help with the rent. She had considered living in the hills of Perth, or maybe the inner city, and finally decided to find a place in the port town. Even James had gone to live in north-western Australia for a few years to have sun or at least warm weather all year round. As time limped by to the hit-and-miss beat of her solitude she put her mind to making some money doing something she liked. One day at her kitchen table she had sat up straight and thought of her past. Why not have a go at teaching English literature? After all, she had been Portia and Cordelia hadn’t she? In English provincial rep and also here.
Having made the decision she’d put an ad in the paper and calmly waited, often working or reading in her front garden. She enjoyed listening to the conversations of others. Young people hardly looked at her now. A casual glance would have merely revealed an average-looking woman with a pale complexion and a few small freckles scattered across her nose and waif-like features, who now wore her hair cut short, and who favoured loose flowing skirts and sometimes long-hanging shirts with trousers. A languorous air went with this style. Men felt it and thought they saw an insouciance that could be an invitation. So she had affairs occasionally in these later years, short flings she never talked about. Whether they were important or necessary to her was not shared knowledge with anyone.