Tim Read online

  He was delighted, not with the reference to her son, which he didn't understand, but with the hug. "You comforted me!" he caroled gleefully. "You comforted me, Dawnie! I like being comforted, it's the nicest thing I know!"

  "Now, Tim, go out to the front gate and watch for the cars like a good boy," Es instructed, wondering whether she would ever think straight again, and trying to ignore the silly little pain in her side she had felt sometimes of late.

  Dawnie was handed into the leading limousine with her father, the lone maid of honor got into the second one, and Es herded Tim into the third with her.

  "Now sit still, Tim, and try to be a good boy," she admonished, settling herself onto the luxuriously padded back seat with a sigh.

  "You look lovely, Mum," Tim said, more used to the feel of an expensive car than his mother, and taking it completely for granted.

  "Thanks, love, I wish I felt lovely," Es replied.

  She had tried not to overdress, sensing that Dawnie's grand in-laws would not be impressed with the usual garb of mothers of the bride in the Melville circle. So, with a sigh of regret she had abandoned her delicious dream of a mauve guipure lace dress, coat, shoes, and hat with a corsage of lilies dyed to match; she chose instead a dress and coat of subdued pale blue silk shantung with no corsage to speak of, just two modest white roses.

  The church was crowded when she and Tim found their pew in the front on the bride's side; all the way down the aisle Es was conscious of the stares people gave Tim from the groom's side, gaping, she told herself, just as if they were low-class nothings. Mrs. and Mr. Harrington-Smythe were looking at him as though they could scarcely believe their eyes, while every female under ninety fell madly in love with him. Es was devoutly glad he was not going to the reception.

  He behaved beautifully during the ceremony, which was not a long one. Afterward, while the photographer's camera flashed and the usual congratulations were under way, Es and Ron quietly led Tim jout to the wall near the front gate of the church, and made him sit on it.

  "Now you wait here for Mary like a good boy, and don't you dare wander away, do you hear?" Es said firmly.

  He nodded. "All right, Mum, I'll wait here. Can I turn around and watch Dawnie come down the steps, though?"

  "Of course you can. Just don't wander away, and if anyone comes over to try and talk to you, answer them politely and then don't say anything at all. Now Pop and me have to go back to the church, because they want us for the photographs, heaven help them. We'll see you again tomorrow night when Miss Horton brings you home."

  The bridal party and the wedding guests had been gone ten minutes when Mary Horton drove down the street. She was vexed with herself, for she had got lost in the maze of small streets around Darling Point, thinking St. Marks was a different church closer to New South Head Road.

  Tim was still sitting on the low stone wall in front, with the autumn sun filtering through the leafy trees in soft gold bars that danced with dust. He seemed so lost, so alone and lonely, staring helplessly at the road and obviously wondering what had happened to her. The new suit fitted him perfectly but it made him seem a stranger, very handsome and sophisticated. Only the pose was Tim, obedient and quiet, like a well-behaved small boy. Or like a dog, she thought; like a dog he would sit there until he died of starvation rather than move on in order to survive, because his loved ones had told him to sit there and not move.

  Ron's words on the phone about Tim dying of a broken heart still plagued her; obviously Ron believed she was in his own age group, getting on toward seventy, but she had not disillusioned him, curiously reluctant to air her true age. And why did I do that? she asked herself; it was needless and silly.

  Could anyone really die of a broken heart? Women did, in those old romantic tales so much out of fashion at the moment; she had always assumed the heroine's demise to be as much a figment of the writer's fevered imagination as the rest of the lurid plot. But perhaps it truly was so; what would she do herself were Tim to depart from her life forever, taken away by irate parents or, God forbid, by death? How gray and empty life would be if it held no Tim, how futile and useless it would be to continue in a world without Tim. He had become the nucleus of her entire existence, a fact which several people had noticed.

  Mrs. Emily Parker had invited herself over not long before, as, she explained, 'T don't never get to see youse at the weekends no more, do I?"

  Mary muttered something about being very busy.

  "Ha ha ha!" Mrs. Parker leered. "Busy is right, eh?" She winked at Mary and poked her in the ribs good-naturedly. "I must say you've taken quite a fancy to young Tim, Miss Horton. Them old busy-bodies up and down the street have their tongues wagging something scandalous."

  "I did take quite a fancy to young Tim," Mary replied calmly, beginning to regain her equilibrium. "He's such a nice fellow, so anxious to please, and so lonely. At first I gave him the gardening because I gathered he could do with the money, then as I got to know him I began to like him for himself, even if he isn't the full quid, as everyone calls it. He's sincere, warm, and utterly lacking in deceit. It's so refreshing to encounter someone with absolutely no ulterior motives, isn't it?" She stared at Mrs. Parker blandly.

  Mrs. Parker stared back, outwitted. "Um, ah, I suppose so. And you being on your own the way you are, it's real company for youse, ain't it?"

  "Most certainly! Tim and I have a lot of fun together. We garden and listen to music, swim and picnic, lots of things. He has simple tastes, and he's teaching me to appreciate simplicity. I'm not a very easy person to get on with, but somehow Tim just suits me. He brings out the best in me."

  For all her nosiness, the Old Girl was kind-hearted and generally uncritical. She patted Mary on the arm encouragingly. "Well, I'm real glad for you, duckie, I think it's nice you've found someone to keep you company, you being so alone and all. I'll soon put you right with them nasty old biddies up and down the street. I told them you wasn't the sort to buy yourself a boyfriend.

  "Now how about a cuppa tea, eh? I want to hear all about young Tim, how he's getting along."

  But Mary didn't move for a moment, her face curiously expressionless. Then she looked at Mrs. Parker in wonder. "Is that what they thought?" she asked sadly. "Is that really what they thought? How absolutely disgusting, how despicable of them! It isn't myself I care about that much, but Tim! Oh, God, how sickening!"

  Mary's boss Archie Johnson was another one who had noticed the change in Mary, though he was not aware of the reason for it. They were eating a hasty lunch together in the staff cafeteria one day when Archie broached the matter.

  "You know, Mary, it's none of my business and I'm quite prepared to be put in my place, but have you branched out a bit lately or something?"

  She had stared at him, bewildered and caught off her guard. "I beg your pardon, sir?"

  "Oh, come off it, Mary! And don't call me 'sir' or 'Mr. Johnson'! We're on lunch break."

  She put her knife and fork down and looked at him calmly. He and she had worked together for more years than either of them cared to count, but their relationship had always been severely restricted to business, and she still had trouble unbending sufficiently during their infrequent but obligatory social encounters.

  "If you mean have I changed lately, Archie, why don't you say so? I won't be offended."

  "Well, that is what I mean. You've changed. Oh, you're still a terrible old bitch and you still frighten the living daylights out of the junior typists, but you've changed. By God, how you've changed! Even the other inhabitants of our little world have noticed it. For one thing you look better than you used to, as if you've been out in the sun instead of living under a rock like a slug. And I actually heard you laugh the other day, when that idiot Celeste was clowning around."

  She smiled faintly. "Well, Archie, I think it can best be summarized by saying that I've finally joined the human race. Isn't that a lovely phrase?

  As solid and respectable a client as one could possibly hope
for."

  "What on earth made an old maid like you join the human race after all those years? Got a boyfriend?"

  "Of sorts, though not what I'm sure everyone is thinking. Sometimes, my dear Archie, there are things which can benefit an old maid much more than mere sexual gratification."

  "Oh, I agree! It's being loved that works the miracles. Mary, it's that wonderful feeling of being wanted and needed and esteemed. The sexual business is just the icing on the cake."

  "How very perspicacious of you! It's no wonder we've worked together so well for so many years. You've got lots more sense and sensitivity than the average businessman, Archie."

  "Great steaming impossibilities, Mary, but you've changed! And for the better, I might add. If you continue improving I might even ask you out to dinner."

  "By all means! I'd love to see Tricia again."

  "Who said Tricia was invited?" he grinned. "But I might have known you hadn't changed that much! Seriously, I think Tricia would love to see the change in you for herself, so why don't you come to dinner one evening?"

  "I'd love to come. Tell Tricia to call me and I'll put it in the book."

  "All right, now, enough evasion! What's the source of your new lease on life, dear?"

  "I suppose you would have to say, a child, except that he's a very special kind of child."

  "A child!" He sat back, immensely pleased. "I might have guessed it would be a child. A sea-green incorruptible like you would soften far faster under a child's influence than a man's."

  "It isn't as simple as that," she answered slowly, amazed that she could be so relaxed and free of self-consciousness; she had never felt so comfortable with Archie before. "His name is Tim Melville and he's twenty-five years old, but he's a child for all that. He's mentally retarded."

  "Holy man-eating toads!" Archie exclaimed, staring at her; he was addicted to coining unusual, if benign, expletives. "How on earth did you get into that?"

  "It just crept up on me, I suppose. It's hard to be defensive with someone who doesn't understand what defensiveness is, and it's even harder to hurt the feelings of someone who doesn't understand why they're being hurt."

  "Yes, it is."

  "Well, I take him to Gosford with me at weekends, and I hope to take him to the Great Barrier Reef this winter for a holiday. He genuinely seems to prefer my company to anyone else's, except his parents. They're fine people."

  "And why shouldn't he prefer your company, you old fire-eater? Swash me buckles, look at the time! I'll tell Tricia to arrange a date for dinner, then I want to hear all about it. In the meantime, old war-horse, back to the grind. Did you hear from McNaughton about the Dindanga exploration concession?"

  She had been glad in a way that both Mrs. Parker and Archie had accepted her friendship with Tim so casually, had been so pleased for her. The promised dinner date with Archie and his equally volatile wife had not yet happened, but she found herself looking forward to the meeting for the first time in twenty years.

  When Tim saw the Bentley cruising down the street his face lit up with joy, and he jumped off the low stone wall immediately.

  "Oh, Mary, I'm so glad to see you!" he exclaimed, wriggling into the front seat. "I thought you'd forgotten."

  She took his hand and held it to her cheek for a moment, so filled with pity and remorse over being late that she forgot she had resolved never to touch him. "Tim, I wouldn't ever do that to you. I lost my way. I got St. Marks all confused in my mind with another church and lost my way, that's it. Now sit there and be happy, because I've just decided to go to Gosford."

  "Oh, goody! I thought we'd have to stay at Ar-tarmon because it's so late."

  "No, why shouldn't we go anyway? There's plenty of time for a swim when we get there unless the water's too cold, and we can certainly cook our supper on the beach no matter how chilly it is." She glanced sidelong at him, savoring the contrast between his smiling happiness now and the despairing solitude of a few minutes before. "How did the wedding go?"

  "It was beautiful," he answered seriously. "Dawnie looked like a fairy princess, and Mum looked like a fairy godmother. She had a lovely light blue dress on, and Dawnie had a long white dress on with lots of frills and a big bunch of flowers in her hand and a long white veil on her head, like a cloud."

  "It sounds marvelous. Was everyone happy?"

  "I think so," he said dubiously, "but Mum cried and so did Pop, only he said it was -the wind made his eyes water, then he got mad at me when I said there wasn't any wind in the church. Mum said she was crying because she was so happy about Dawnie. I didn't know people cried when they were happy, Mary. I don't cry when I'm happy, I only cry when I'm sad. Why should you cry if you're happy?"

  She smiled, suddenly so happy herself that she was close to tears. "I don't know, Tim, except that sometimes it does happen that way. But when you're so happy you cry it feels different, it feels very nice."

  "Oh, I wish I could get so happy that I cried, then! Why don't I get so happy that I cry, Mary?"

  "Well, you have to be quite old, I think. One of these days it might happen to you too, when you're old and gray enough."

  Perfectly satisfied now that he had been reassured, he sat back and watched the passing view, something he never seemed to tire of. He had all the insatiable curiosity of the very young, and the capacity to do the same thing over and over again without becoming bored. Each time they went to Gosford he acted as if it was the first time, as stunned with the scenery and the parade of life, as delighted to see the cottage at the end of the track, agog to discover what might have grown a little bit larger or burst into flower or withered away.

  That night when Tim went to bed Mary did something she had never done before; she came into his room and tucked the blankets around him, then kissed his forehead.

  "Goodnight, Tim dear, sleep well," she said.

  "Night-night, Mary, I will," he answered drowsily; he was always half-asleep the minute his head touched the pillow.

  Then, as she was closing his door softly, his voice came again.- "Mary?"

  "Yes, Tim, what is it?" She turned around and came back to the bed.

  "Mary, you won't ever go away and get married like my Dawnie, will you?"

  She sighed. "No, Tim, I promise I won't do that. As long as you're happy I'm here, I'll be here. Now go to sleep and don't worry about it."

  Fourteen

  In the end Mary.could not get away from her job to take Tim on- the promised vacation. Constable Steel & Mining bought a mineral-laden piece of territory in the far northwest of the continent, and instead of going to the Great Barrier Reef with Tim, Mary found herself accompanying her boss on an inspection tour. The trip was supposed to be for a week, but ended up lasting over a month.

  Usually she enjoyed these infrequent jaunts; Archie was good company and his mode of travel tended to be very luxurious. This time, however, they went to an area which lacked roads, townships, and people. The last stage of the journey had to be made by helicopter, since there was no way to get into the area from the ground, and the party camped in an unseasonal rain, perpetually wet, plagued by heat, flies, mud, and an outbreak of dysentery.

  Most of all, Mary missed Tim. There was no way to send him a letter, and the radio telephone was restricted to business and emergency calls. Sitting in her dripping tent trying to scrape some of the gluey black mud from her legs and clothes, with a dense cloud of insects flocking around the solitary kerosene lamp and her face swollen from dozens of mosquito bites, Mary longed for home and Tim. Archie's exuberance at the results of the ore assay was hard to bear, and it took all her customary composure to seem even civilly enthusiastic.

  "There were twelve of us in the party," Archie told Tricia when they were safely back in Sydney again.

  "Only twelve?" Mary asked incredulously, winking at Archie's wife. "There were times when I'd have sworn there were at least fifty!"

  "Listen, you bloody awful old bag, shut up and let me tell the story! Here we are jus
t back from the worst month I've ever spent, and you're stealing my thunder already! I didn't have to ask you to spend your first night back in civilization under my roof, but I did, so the least you can do is sit there nice and quiet and prim the way you used to be, while I tell my wife what happened!"

  "Give him another whisky, Tricia, before he has an apoplectic seizure. I swear that's the reason he's so crotchety on his first night back. For the last two weeks, ever since he licked the last drop off the last bottle of scotch we had with us, he's been unbearable."

  "Well, how would you be, love?" Archie appealed to his wife. "Permanently soaked to the skin, bitten alive by a complete spectrum of the insect world, plastered with mud, and with nothing female closer than a thousand miles except for this awful old bag? And how would you like it having nothing to eat but canned stew and then the booze running out? Sweet Bartlett pears, what a bog of a place! I would have given half the flaming ore content we found for one single big steak and a Glen Grant to wash it down!"

  "You don't need to tell me," Mary laughed, turning to Tricia impulsively. "He nearly drove me mad! You know what he's like when he can't have his rich foods and his twelve-year scotch and his Havana cigars."

  "No, I don't know what he's like when he can't have his little comforts, dear, but thirty years of being married to him makes me shudder at the very thought of what you must have had to put up with."

  "I assure you I didn't put up with it for long," Mary answered, sipping her sherry luxuriously. "I took myself off for a walk after a couple of days of listening to him moaning, and shot some birds I found wallowing in a swamp so we'd at least have a change from that eternal stew."

  "What happened to the supplies, Archie?" Tricia asked curiously. "It's most unlike you not to pop in a few little tidbits in case of emergencies."

  "Blame our glamorous outback guide. Roughly half of us were from headquarters here in Sydney, but the surveyors I picked up in Wyndham along with said guide, Mr. Jim Bloody Barton. He thought he'd show us what sterling stuff bushmen are made of, so after assuring me that he'd take care of the supplies, he stocked up with what he usually eats himself-stew, stew, and more stew!"