Bough in Hell

By Dymphna Cusack

Vulnerable and uncertain of herself, Roslyn is a woman who needs people needs to feel that people need her. But her husband Rod, an officer in the Australian Navy, is often away at sea, and her daughter -- grown up and preoccupied with her studies and her boyfriend -- comes only rarely to see her. Imagining slights where perhaps none exist, and feeling herself shunned by the tenants in her Sydney block of flats, Roslyn starts drinking to console herself on her lonely evenings at home, unaware that what is at first only a harmless temporary escape from barren reality will grow into a need, and then into an overpowering obsession.

• Language: English
• Publisher: House of Books
• Release date: Sep 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781742699882

Book preview

EIGHT

PART ONE

SHE leaned as far as she could from the bay-window and waved as the car turned round the bend. She saw the flash of their hands in response in an oblique ray of the sun that ricocheted off the dent in the boot where she had reversed into the back of the garage. Her heart swelled with immoderate joy. How she loved them both, husband, daughter. How good they were to her. Rod had never said a word to her about that dent, nor about many other things of which he might have complained. She must be more careful in future.

Smudgy leapt on to the window sill beside her and turned his topaz eyes to the light. She smoothed his ears, sooty above a grey face and ran her hand down his back. He purred throatily at her caress.

A low ray of sunshine hung dusty-golden across the Park, sculpturing the Moreton Bay figs, turning the withered grass to amber, emphasizing the ugly solidity of the high-rise block that cut off their view of the Harbour. When she could watch the water in its multiple enchantments – silky-grey at dawn, scintillating blue at mid-day, a wonderland of fairy lights at night, she had felt closer to Rod wherever he was. Now, all she could see of it was the ominous superstructure of warships along Garden Island, filling her with chilly foreboding. Tomorrow morning they would sail and Rod with them.

The familiar anguish at his going began to enshroud her like a rising fog. No matter how often it happened she could not reconcile herself to it. Less now than ever before. Then she had Gwen. Now Gwen had gone too.

She reproached herself for her morbidness. Gwen was leaving the nest as birds do. No one could blame her for that. If she was clever enough to win a Women’s College scholarship then she should be encouraged to take it. Let her student years compensate for her ruined childhood.

The Angelus began ringing from the convent on the ridge, the overtones of the bells clanging back from the skyscrapers that mushroomed on the hillside. Though she had never asked its significance she loved the sound. Yet even it had changed in the twenty years they had been there. Once it floated clear and far across King’s Cross and Rushcutter’s Bay with little to impede its aery flight. Only Rod had not changed. On this last leave he had come back to her.

Their fortnight on the mountains had been a dream. She thought he had begun to take her for granted, but there, where they had spent their honeymoon, they had relived its ecstasy with the ripeness of twenty shared years. With not even Gwen to remind her of the years between. She had thought it was cruel of Gwen to go to a conference during her father’s leave, but it was the best thing that could have happened. For the first time in many of Rod’s recent leaves, her own capacity to respond returned to her. Maybe it was because she had successfully fought her own devil for two months before he came home. With his two months at home that made four: two of them a constant, grim, unremitting battle; two of them a paradise with the old Rod beside her from morning to night, night to morning, husband and lover in one.

And Gwen had come back a different girl, no longer pushing between them as though to make sure she was first with both of them. Gwen had her first boy friend. For the first time she ceased to demand her father’s undivided love and her mother’s undivided love as though they were her right as well as her refuge; she was independent, gayer, carefree, giving without restraint, taking without monopolizing either of her parents or thrusting her way between them.

Dear, dear Gwen! May she stay happy. She deserved it as much as she needed it.

At the thought of her own happiness Roslyn’s soul seemed to expand, take flight like the gulls cutting the air with their scimitar wings. The perfume of the frangipani tree in the narrow garden drifted up to her – a fragrance as intoxicating as ... She stopped. She must not use that word. It meant too many things she did not wish to remember. Not now! Not when all that was past and done with.

She picked up the cat from the window sill and squeezed him to her in spite of his protests. ‘Mudder’s darling,’ she whispered, burying her face in his fur. ‘Now I’m sure of them, I’ll never do it again. I swear it! No matter how often they go away, nor for how long. Do you hear me, Smudgy?’

Smudgy angrily clawed his way out of her arms and leapt back to the window sill to lick his ruffled fur.

‘You believe me, Smudgy?’ she demanded urgently.

Smudgy miaowed loudly and she sighed with relief. ‘This time I really and truly mean it. Never, never, never again!’

She turned into the living-room, whirling in a fantastic dance. Smudgy followed her, miaowing expectantly.

‘Oh! If you knew what it is to be free! Free, free, free, after all these years.’

Smudgy miaowed again, rubbing himself against her legs. She swept him into her arms and danced out into the hall, humming a tune that was the rage when they were first married – she always thought of it as ‘their’ song, though she had long since forgotten the words.

She put the cat down by the kitchen sink and took his meat from the refrigerator. ‘All right! All right! I’ll give you your dinner before the party starts, you unsociable creature. Then you can go and hide in the broom cupboard until they’re gone.’

‘Gone!’ The word tolled like the death bell. The guests would be gone, but that meant that Rod, too, would be gone. Back to the sea that took him from her for such interminably long months. And Gwen would be gone – back to the university college with its absorbing interests that were as relentless as the sea.

She slammed down Smudgy’s dish. This time she would not let their absence do to her what it had done increasingly over the years. She would not skulk in the house rousing herself only for Gwen’s weekly homecomings.

She would find something to do. Learn something. It didn’t matter what, so long as she could break out of the social ring of naval wives waiting for the return of the husbands who were Rod’s colleagues. They had more or less let her drop over the past year, ever since that awful card-day when they thought she cheated. She hadn’t of course. Her mind was simply in the daze that followed one of her bouts. She couldn’t explain that. Still, when the ship was in port, they had been nice enough to her at the inevitable round of parties as though they had forgotten it.

She would forget it, too. Make the most of tonight. She had everything ready. She checked on her fingers: The half-gallon of ice-cream in the freezing compartment; the cold chicken, the ham; the oyster patties to be put in the oven; the curry to be heated; the rice to be boiled only at the last moment. The other wives would bring along their contributions: sweet-sour pork, chicken and almonds, fried rice – and the other exotic dishes she could never learn to make.

A wave of exhaustion suddenly swept over her. She felt incapable of going through the evening without ... No! She wouldn’t do it. Always at this stage she had taken the drink that made the coming party bearable. No! and again No! Never, never, never!

She must get dressed. As she turned to the bedroom she heard the familiar three hoots from the car as it turned into the garage. They were back, Rod and Gwen, the two people in the world who held her life in their hands. She wondered, as she had often wondered, if they realized it.

She stood with a hand on the latch, listening to their footsteps coming into the entrance, to the duet of their voices, their laughter, her heart beating ridiculously fast, waiting for the moment when she opened the door and they became a trio.

She flung open the door. Rod stood there, tanned and robust against the white of his summer uniform, Gwen, equally tanned, in her light cotton shift; both of them tall and dark, so incredibly alike. Groaning, Rod put down the canvas bag of bottles, their clink both music and temptation. Gwen leapt in with her light, uneven tread, swinging a large cardboard box. ‘Mummy, this ...’ she cried and stopped. ‘You tell her, Daddy!’

Rod took over. ‘First, into the living-room,’ he ordered.

Gwen grabbed her mother’s hand and they went together, like two children, Roslyn laughing without knowing why at Gwen’s infectious giggle. She put the box on the table and began to fumble with the string, pulling this end and that ineffectually.

Rod laughed boisterously. ‘You women!’ With a rapid movement he broke the string, and raised the lid on a froth of tissue paper.

Almost with awe Gwen lifted out a dress of the hydrangea-blue that was Roslyn’s favourite colour. Such a dress as she had forgotten even in her dreams: the bodice like a Grecian robe, long full skirt falling in pleated folds of fine chiffon So lovely, she scarcely dared touch it.

‘Like it?’ Rod asked. And Gwen added uncertainly: ‘It’s just your colour.’

Roslyn felt her throat swell and tears stung her eyes. She choked. Rod put an arm around her shoulders. Gwen hugged her.

‘Try it on quickly, Mummy, I can’t wait.’

Roslyn pulled off her cotton tunic and slipped the dress over her head, its silken lining a caress to her skin.

‘Phew!’ Rod whistled, as she smoothed it gently.

‘Lovely!’ Gwen cried, ecstatically.

Roslyn turned slowly, feeling the swish of the skirt against her bare legs.

‘Like my old girl,’ Rod said. She looked at him adoringly, feeling the rush of emotion. So he still saw her like that.

‘There! Didn’t I say it was her dress?’ Gwen demanded triumphantly. ‘As soon as I saw it I knew.’

Roslyn’s heart sank. So it was Gwen who had thought of it. A tear splashed over her lids.

‘Hey! Stop that!’ Rod ordered, wiping it off her cheek. ‘Instead, give your daughter and hubby a kiss and say Thank you nicely for making you look like yourself again.’

Roslyn choked over the words as she kissed them.

‘And now I must fly,’ Gwen insisted, dropping a kiss on her mother’s head. ‘If I don’t get the next bus I’ll be late for Roger and the lecture. No! You stay here, Daddy, and help Mummy get things ready.’

‘I’ll take you to the bus, Baby.’ Rod took out his wallet and handed her a dollar bill. ‘And let’s go all admiral, and take a taxi from the top. Can’t have you late for your young man, eh?’

Gwen giggled.

Roslyn heard them clatter down the steps, watched them run up the road, saw Gwen wave, Rod turn and walk briskly back.

‘Oh, God!’ she prayed, gripping the window sill. ‘Help me to be worthy of him.’

*      *      *

When she was dressed for the evening, Rod turned and twisted her round as though he was marvelling at the frail loveliness of a youth the dress miraculously restored. He kissed her shoulders (too thin for exposure, she knew without caring). He kissed her throat, her eyes, her mouth. ‘I hate leaving you more than ever this time,’ he murmured against her hair. ‘Think of a whole year away!’

She dared not. Without him she was too vulnerable.

*      *      *

The party was terrific. The word was Rod’s and he should know. Now, as the clock struck eleven he stood by the bar, flushed, exuberant, serving out the drinks. Roslyn stood by the window where the breeze ruffled the curtains, pretending to laugh at something Dickie was saying, though it wasn’t at all funny. ‘Flatterer,’ she said, dodging his arms.

She had never had so many flattering remarks made to her as tonight. Never dodged so many outstretched arms; never so many bibulous kisses. It must be the dress, she decided. After a few drinks men found anything female pretty and desirable. Dickie got amorous around his fourth glass. His wife never minded. ‘The more he has in, the less demanding he is in bed,’ she said.

Now Roslyn escaped his fumbling hands and slipped out of the bay. She detested this meaningless patter and petting. Never, even in her dreams, did anyone ever take her except Rod.

She smiled stiffly at Melinda’s loud: ‘You’re positively a menace tonight, Ros,’ wincing as she went on: ‘I always say there’s nothing like a long skirt to give anyone glamour – like the fairy queen in the pantomime.’

‘You’re jealous, Melly darling,’ Dickie jeered, ‘Just because our little Ros has stolen your thunder.’

Melinda looked at the long skirt of her mu-mu in flamboyant cotton. ‘You think so?’ She flipped her lashes at Dickie as he patted her hips, muttering: ‘What you do to me, Melly, long skirt or no skirt ...’

‘Shucks!’ Melinda gurgled. ‘You’re a dirty old man.’

‘Dirty, I hope. But not old. Let me prove it.’

Dickie made a grab at her. Melinda fended him off. Melinda was more sophisticated than the rest of them, having spent years in Hawaii. She could carry her drink. She was always in the limelight; always in the fashion. Always ready with the quip that was just off-colour; with the comment that cut to the bone.

Roslyn was frightened of her. So were the other women: always touting for her praise; always trying to anticipate her criticism. Tonight, however, they had enough drink to care little about either. They showed thighs too plump to be shown in skirts too short. Varicose veins threading their calves went without comment. They were all pretending they still had the youth that had worn out unused while their men had grown younger in adventures in foreign ports.

Roslyn knew she was lucky – Rod was a man’s man.

She tried to slip through the groups but all the women had some comment to make, amazed, admiring, as they had admired in amazement since they had first arrived. It was as if she had come back from the dead.

She shivered at the thought and looked beseechingly at Rod where he stood at the bar with his usual whisky in his hand. When he wanted to, he could keep it like that all night.

Rod! she called silently.

Surely he would rescue her.

He waved, calling: ‘Come and have another bitter-lemon, honey. You look as though you need it.’

‘And I need it, too.’ Dickie clamoured at her ear, slipping an arm around her waist. He led her through the crowded room where plates and dishes were scattered on every spare spot and used glasses crowded the mantelpiece.

‘Any more of that wonderful coffee, darling?’ Luella asked.

Roslyn slipped expertly from Dickie’s encircling arm. ‘Gallons,’ she said. ‘I’ll just run into the kitchen and heat it up.’

None of the women came to help. As she set the coffee on the stove and lit the gas, she realized that no one wanted to be alone with her. It was different when they arrived and crowded in with their fireproof dishes: that was a demonstration of naval-wife solidarity. Now she felt the gulf of loneliness waiting for her. With Rod gone she never need see them. Yet they had been part of her life. And what a life; what a useless life. She did not want to go back to it.

She was tired; desperately tired. More than anything she needed a drink to keep her going for the rest of the evening. If she had her way, there would never be one of these last-night parties.

She put a hand on the refrigerator door, let it rest, then pulled it away savagely. What was the use of four months’ abstinence if she gave in now? What were her resolutions worth if she yielded just because she was tired? The party couldn’t last more than another hour. They all had to be up early. Just time for the long-drawn-out singing toasts with which they always ended. Then to bed, with Rod her own and she his. ‘Rod, Rod. Save me!’ she prayed.

She watched the coffee cream around the edges and poured it into the coffee pot he had brought her from Indonesia.

In the living-room, Sybil took it from her, saying with unexpected kindness: ‘I’ll pour it. You go and have that bitter-lemon Dickie’s been keeping cold for you while Rod looks over his sticky past.’

She did not know what Sybil meant but picked up the glass gratefully, saw the slice of lemon bobbing on its yellowish surface, heard the ice clink against the rim. Dickie lifted his rum and Coca-Cola with an elaborate bow: ‘Down the hatch, fair lady.’

She felt the ice against her teeth, the slice of lemon against her lips and drank.

Her mind stopped, her body froze as through the innocuous tartness of bitter-lemon, the tantalizing sweetness of gin struck. Her throat closed for a fraction of a second then swallowed thirstily. Her nerves reached out parched tentacles. Her stomach retched once, then purred as the seductive comfort it had been waiting for so long trickled into it.

She drained the glass. She threw it down so hard that it cracked on the bar. Stricken, she stood with a hand to her mouth. Dickie was laughing a drunken hysterical laugh. Melinda beside him was smiling with feline satisfaction.

They had done it deliberately, the beasts. They knew! They knew!

She turned and ran to where Rod stood looking at snapshots Andy was passing round. He was laughing and took no notice of her demand for protection; for salvation! All her body was crying out its need for him to stand between her and the thing she dreaded. He only laughed again when Andy passed over a photograph to her, hennying: ‘Take a dekko at this, Roslyn, and see what your old man gets up to when you’re not there to keep an eye on him.’

She looked. Felt her stomach heave. Looked up at Rod for denial. He went on laughing with the sheepish grin of a man caught out.

Dickie looked over his shoulder and snorted: ‘Half your luck, boy. Whacko! What a pair of anti-aircraft guns she’s got!’

They all roared the meaningless laughter of the mess room.

How could they laugh like that, Roslyn asked herself despairingly. It wasn’t funny.

‘Tell me, Rod,’ Melinda coo-ed: ‘Did you take her home or did she take you in?’

More laughter. Karen clutched Andy. ‘Stop it, or I’ll die laughing.’

Let them die, Roslyn said to herself as she pushed her way through the unheeding group. She might be a ghost for all the notice they took of her. They were too busy laughing.

Back to the bar. Back to the cocktail cabinet. While they continued to laugh uproariously in the centre of the room, she poured the rest of the bitter-lemon into a large glass and, unnoticed, filled it with gin. She tossed it down. Oh, unutterable bliss! All her body quivering with exquisite fulfilment she was proof against all they said and did. She filled the glass again. Let them all die and she with them.

She was scarcely conscious of their going after the last noisy chorus; scarcely registered the moist lips of the men against her cheek nor felt the arid pecks of the women saying goodnight.

Rod’s arm was around her so tightly that it hurt. Staggering, she tried to break away. He pulled her to him again and kissed her so long and hard she thought she would suffocate. She strained away from him in loathing as he lifted her off her feet.

*      *      *

The noise dragged her out of oblivion. Clamorous. Insistent.

Church-bells jangled through the half-sleep, to which she clung.

Remorselessly the iron tongues pounded her aching head. Too close, too loud. Wakefulness beat in on her with metallic blows.

They ceased, and their clanging was taken up by the droning of a blowfly, more painful still because it was closer.

Roslyn stirred but something pinned her down. She opened her eyes reluctantly against the glare and saw Rod’s heavy body beside her, his face buried in his arm, his leg across hers.

The bristles on the cheek pressed into the pillow were bluish in the light, the hairs on his shoulder dark with sweat. Ugh! How hot and clammy his body was!

How could she have ever wakened to his nearness with a leap of the blood? Pressed closer to him, waiting for the moment of ecstasy when her quivering presence communicated itself to him through his sleep?

Queer, he’d sleep on after one of those farewell nights till she woke him, while she slept badly and woke early. Perhaps it was because he had a steward to depend on at sea, while she always had to crawl out and get Gwen off to school however she felt. Men had the best of everything.

Her sweat prickled her skin as she tried to extricate herself before he woke up. If she didn’t, the pattern of all the last mornings before he joined his ship would repeat itself, and she couldn’t bear that. Anyway, from past experience he’d probably taken all he wanted last night. She couldn’t remember, for she had fallen into bed exhausted and nearly insensible.

The blowfly settled on his nose. It ran along his lips. He rolled over. Inch by inch she drew her leg from under his, at last turning hers over the edge of the bed. Tense, she sat listening to the breathing that was nearly a snore.

In the back of her mind something flickered, reviving the resentment that was partner to her irritation. She’d pay him out! What she was paying him out for she couldn’t remember, but the spark flared. Like a balloon on a string she strained away from the solid body in the bed, tiptoed across the carpet, unsubstantial as thistledown. Why should something light as she be tied to that inert mass?

The melody of Mrs Hall’s chiming clock flowed up from below. Heavens! It was already half-past seven. She’d let him sleep to the last minute. That’d teach him! What it would teach him she didn’t know.

She picked her way along the hall, the carpet tickling her bare feet. The bathroom tiles struck cold as she leaned against the wall, feeling suddenly faint. She sat on the toilet till the faintness passed. How foul her mouth tasted! Like the bottom of a bird-cage, as Rod used to say vulgarly after one of these parties.

Damn him! he’d get up and eat a huge breakfast she would have to cook, putting her condition down to misery and grief at his going. Unobservant as ever, he thought she still drank lemonade or bitter lemon. Easy enough with gin. And at the thought of it she dragged herself across to the bathroom cabinet, took out the bottle marked ‘Peroxide’, up-ended and drained it in that first drink of the day she simply must have if she was to get going at all.

She splashed her face with cold water and gargled her throat with a mouth-wash. That was better.

In the act of brushing back her hair, she paused. What was it happened last night that had upset her to the point that she had sworn she’d never let Rod touch her again?

She frowned in the effort to recall. Whatever it was, she had wakened with her mind as sour as her stomach.

Taking down her housecoat from behind the door, she pulled it on and searched for a safety-pin to hold it together where a button had fallen off. She groped for her mules. They were behind the pedestal. What on earth were they doing there?

Mrs Hall’s clock chimed the three-quarters as she finished.

Rod would have to be awake by eight. She giggled to herself as she thought how she would trick him. Take his breakfast in on a tray. He loved breakfast in bed when he was on leave. But NOT on his last morning. She’d ‘spoil’ him this last day in more ways than one. He’d have to catch the nine o’clock bus and there’d be no chance for him to do anything but swallow his breakfast, get ready, and run.

In the kitchen she averted her eyes from the clutter of the night before and hurried to prepare his favourites, though her stomach heaved at the sight. She could never cease to wonder how men could gulp down more liquor than she would drink in a week and come up bright and smiling to an enormous breakfast. She set out the tray. An avocado pear (a luxury she bought only for him). Two soft-boiled eggs – ship’s eggs were never like those he got at home. Wholemeal toast – Better than the fresh rolls on board. Half-and-half coffee. (Ah! that fresh milk!)

The clock was chiming eight as she kicked open the bedroom door and called loudly: ‘Time to wake up, Roddy, or you’ll miss the boat!’

Rod rolled over, blinking up at her stupidly.

‘You’ve just got time to swallow this, darling,’ she gushed as she set the tray down beside him, ‘and fly!’

He looked at his watch. ‘Good Lord! Eight o’clock! Why didn’t you wake me earlier?’

‘Because I didn’t wake myself,’ she lied, hanging the new dress in the wardrobe.

‘Damn it!’ he muttered as he pulled the tray to him. ‘My last morning. I’d rather have gone without breakfast. You know that.’

The spark flared into malicious pleasure as she lowered her lids coyly lest he should see the satisfaction in her eyes.

When he got out of bed she rushed around with genuine haste laying out his clothes: the routine she knew by heart. Collecting his shaving gear, his after-shave lotion, his brush and comb as he finished with each of them. Finally – coming up to him the perfect stiff-upper-lip naval-wife – as he emerged from the bedroom in his starched white jacket and shorts, his white shirt and black tie, his knee-length white socks and white shoes. The naval man in all his summer glory!

He put his arms around her and drew her to him grumbling: ‘This is a nice sort of farewell to the sailor – one eye on your wife and the other on your watch.’

‘Everything’s ready. You won’t be late,’ she said defensively, feeling the weight of his arms pinning her.

‘I don’t doubt it, but when I married you I wanted a wife not a stewardess.’

‘I’m sorry if you’re not satisfied with me.’ Her voice had tears in it.

‘I’m satisfied with you and you know it only too well, you silly honey-bunch. But sending your hubby off like this at the end of his leave without so much as an early-morning cuddle seems pretty tough.’

She pulled away petulantly. ‘Now of course it’s my fault you didn’t wake up.’

He held her from him: ‘What’s wrong with you, Ros? You’re so touchy these days.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’

Frowning, he stared at her: ‘You look such a wreck this morning that I’d accuse you of having a hangover if you weren’t such a wowser.’

‘I’m all right,’ she muttered, staring down at her feet.

‘You’re not all right. You’ve lost your sense of humour. You’ve got thin. You’re forgetful. And what’s worse, sometimes you make me wonder if you love your old hubby any more.’

He rested his chin on her head and caressed her neck.

‘Oh, Rod.’ She pressed her cheek against the pocket of his white uniform and the sobs came up in her throat.

‘Now none of that, honey,’ he said, pushing her hair away from her face and holding her to him. ‘You mustn’t put tear-stains on my coat. Besides, it’s unlucky for a sailor to see his wife cry before he leaves for the Seven Seas.’

‘Sometimes I think you’re glad to go,’ she sniffled.

‘What on earth gives you that stupid idea?’

‘Just that you’re always nagging me when you’re home.’

‘I nag you?’ He held her from him in astonishment.

‘About me not looking nice and the flat being shabby.’

‘For Pete’s sake! That wasn’t nagging, honey. All I said was to get yourself some new