Eloquent Silence (35 page)

At seventy she couldn’t manage to do as much as she used to around the place but she still handled the washing and ironing for the family. This consisted of Conrad, Girda and their two teenaged daughters, Lilli and Wendy as well as Girda’s daughter from her first marriage, Sophia.

Okay, well enough said about her, the old girl, Conrad thought as he returned to contemplating his navel. She had to pay to have her own granny flat put onto the house. Added significantly to the value of my property, he reminded himself. Forces a man to keep a civil tongue in his head in case she should want out and that would be a pretty kettle of fish.

Selling and dividing would be difficult in the extreme. Best mind my manners, I suppose. Bit of a drag. But best be a bit congenial when I run into her in the garden. Avoidance is the answer to that knotty little problem but I’ll have to run her down and put the screws on her for help with the rates, at least.

He was forced to continue musing on his mother-in-law, aware that she had to do something to earn her keep. Can’t afford to have her here for nothing. Don’t have to feed her. Own kitchenette. Own phone and electricity meter. I’ve got to pay the rates for the whole place, though and that’s not on any more. Man’s not a bloody charity! The old girl will have to chip in for those costs. That’s what he’d told Girda and she had agreed. Good like that, was Girda. She knew that he’d slogged his guts out for years and that money doesn’t grow on trees. Fundamental truth, that was, if ever he’d heard one.

His mind ran from subject to subject like a babbling brook, taking him back to the early days of his twenties when Annie and the children had been part of his life. Unfortunate Annie. Pain in the bloody neck, for sure with conflict flaring between them early in the piece when he had tried to show Annie who was boss. Tried to defend herself, defend her children, so she said. Defend herself and the kids against what? Bit of bad temper and a clout or two or three. Against the onslaught by a .303 or a .22? Ha ha. Man can’t have impeccable behavior all the time. Got to lash out here and there, work off a bit of steam.

Then to Girda, who had stepped into the breach left by his first wife. Bane of his existence. Annie. Not Girda. She was aware who was at the helm of their existence, was Girda.  He could give her that withering look he had perfected over the years and she would pull herself into line quick smart. Not like the other one who would tell him after every dust-up that he had reached a new low in her estimation. Who cared about that? What was her estimation worth? Diddly squat.

Never submissive to me no matter what I said or did. Bloody women’s rights, she used to sprout about. Feminist crap. Equality. Huh? Let them get out and sew a couple of hundred wheat bags and we’ll soon see who’s equal. Drive a tractor for fourteen hours straight. Incapable of that, no doubt. Where’s the equality between the sexes then? Nonexistent!

Thinking in a roundabout way of Girda reminded him yet again that she hadn’t come home. When the devil would she be home to start preparing the dinner, he wondered irritably? Why did she insist in running around with the girls on Saturdays to sport and so on? She needed to hurry herself along. She wasn’t giving herself much time. Haven’t the strength to get up and try to find out where she is, he thought to himself wryly.

Suddenly he was full of smothered rage. His eyes snapped as he pondered the possibilities of Girda’s behavior and the memory of Annie’s. Second class citizens, all of them. Hope David realized this by now. Tried to instill the fact into him as a little kid. Hope it stuck.

Hope Girda’s not playing up on me. Any likelihood of that and I’d put a stop to it quick smart. Man like me is a prize. Best husband any woman could hope for and that’s a fact. Steady, reliable, good provider. Back to a self-satisfied smile. That’s better. No need to feel inadequate in any way, a fundamental truth if every there was one.

Conrad felt he had no need to work these days, what with Girda working and his business interests and investments bringing in sufficient income for him to be enabled, at forty-four, to be semi-retired. Well, almost virtually retired. He yawned and stretched comfortably, tiredly. There remained something steely in his face, an element of his determination to hold the whole world in the palms of his hands before he was through.

Wonder how much it would take to put an in-ground pool in out the back there just under that big shady Moreton Bay fig tree? Be nice to have a pool to have a dip in the summer. Have to look into that. Who would look after it when it was installed, though? Chemicals cost a fortune, as well. Lot of work involved with a pool, too. Have to see who can be conned into keeping it clean. Dithering Grandma Goring? Add that to the list? He gave a short, humorless laugh; Ha ha. Can’t expect to just come along for the ride, old girl.

By crikey, Conrad told himself, it’s a hard life, all right, and wandered over to turn the television set on. Biggest set money could buy and the best. He prided himself on buying size and quality. Nothing but the best for the old boy, he told himself warmly. Fifteen minutes until the football game. He settled into the leather chair and put his feet up on the coffee table, soon dozing, glass in hand and alternately staring at the unimaginative children’s programs on the television screen, unseeing then dozing, drifting off for a few minutes.

He jumped to with a start as he automatically changed the channel on the TV set to the right one for the football, barely comprehending that he had done so. Snapping into full consciousness to the loud cheering as the teams ran out onto the football field, he took a swig of his drink and prepared to enjoy the game.

Back’s bad. Chiropractor Monday. Expensive, though but I deserve to be taken care of whatever the cost. Hard life if you don’t weaken. A cushion placed behind his lower back, he took a deep breath and then another, relaxed and dozed again. Back’s bad too often. Too much hard work as a young fellow. Slogged my guts out for years.

Now where’s the remote? Lost it again. And the grog? That’s all the paraphernalia I need to enjoy the afternoon. Guess the world’s pretty much my oyster these days. Got to enjoy life while I can. These are a bloke’s prime years, when he’s made a lot of money and got the whole world at his feet, by crikey. Always knew I’d end up loaded.

Funny, never thought I’d outlive my twenties, coughing up blood from the grain and dust I had to deal with. Thought my days were numbered but I’m still here, large as life. Can’t keep a good man down, as they say. Guess Annie was hoping I’d vanish from the face of the earth when I coughed up blood in my twenties but I wasn’t going to be got rid of that easily. If she wanted rid of me she had to do it the hard way, that was for sure. Had to prove cruelty, which she said wasn’t hard to do.

Conrad contemplated the football game, attention only half on it, the better half of his mind browsing on himself as usual and his success as a family man. He felt like quite the patriarch these days. Maybe even a Godfather, something after the Brando style.

Yes, he could definitely see a physical resemblance between himself and Brando.  How tall was the film star, though? Perhaps taller but with the same round face, bloated neck and receding hairline, stocky build. The same tight, stretched skin all shiny and colorful. Nose getting a little red and bulbous. That’s me, alright. Colorful kind of bloke. Oh, well, can’t help good luck.

He saw himself as kind, straightforward and not at all dictatorial, with a happy knack of pouring love onto little children. He could not quite bring himself to lavish endearments on them, though, judging that to be sissy, a kind of poofter way to treat youngsters. Now that was a breed he did not like or approve of—poofters were beyond anything he could tolerate.

Never let one of his kin come to him with the news that they were poofters. Probably shoot them and put them out of their misery. This was reprehensible as far as he was concerned and he would not condescend to mix with these types of people. There had been a whisper in the air that one of Annie’s cousins was of this breed. Conrad had never wanted to meet him in case he might do the cousin harm and this would cause a furore which Conrad did not want to be part of in case there should be any untoward outcomes.  Like jail. That would be full of the buggers.

For his own behaviors, Conrad knew no boundaries. He could express himself on any given subject in any company and not care if he trod on the toes of people who had greater sensitivity than he. If indeed such a person existed, Conrad thought, considering himself to be one of Nature’s Gentlemen who would never put a foot wrong.

He smiled quietly to himself as his thoughts continued to drift back to himself over and over, liking the image, impressed with his success as a business tycoon, (in a modest way, of course), and a family man. Wanting his family to see him as interesting-looking as he thought himself to be, he tried different forms of smiling, settling on a rather lopsided grin that he judged to be a little enigmatic but friendly. Coy, almost. He continued to look into the mirror at his murky blue assassin’s eyes, liking what he saw, a man not to be tampered with by the likes of Annie.

The thought of Annie brought a considerable coldness to his gaze. Bloody Annie, yet. Conflict had flared between them early in the piece. Could almost be called mortal combat sometimes between him and Annie, not that he could ever admit that to a soul. Tried to conquer her, conquer her will and never could. Never succeeded in making her beg. Not normal for a woman to be so stubborn in her will never to be emotionally beaten into the ground. What kind of a woman was that?

There were times when he was almost sure he had succeeded but the bitch would rise up and keep going against all odds. Those opinions of Annie’s were one of her less endearing traits. Goodness only knew where she got her ideas from. All those bloody books she had her head in, probably. Swore she had been born knowing women were as good as men, equal in intellect, equal in capabilities. Huh! Such garbage.

He jutted his chin out aggressively, mind ticking over about ways to get back at Annie as thoroughly as possible even at this late stage. Stop her little gallop before I’m done, he promised himself, lip curling. He did not envisage himself as an embittered man, nor as a thwarted victim of his own unfortunate nature. Only as a man who had endured the misfortune of marrying a woman who would not buckle under to him.

She had quietly held to her own opinions on the rights of women and children to peace in the home, a fair share of the household’s financial income, the right to medical and dental treatment, the right to interact with family and peers and the right to safety.

––––––––

P
lenty of comfort here in this spacious home and having the money to provide it shows. Wealth speaks for itself. Shows class. That’s me, as well. Classy, big time. Got to be careful how you spend the old spondulix, though. I worked for it, so it goes for my benefit and comfort. Bloody good show. Don’t want too much of it lavished around on extracurricular activities for those kids. I never had any so why should they?

Wasn’t going to give any more than necessary to Annie and those kids of hers when they pissed off and left me. They went, so they could fend for themselves. Bloody well hurt to have to give $5 a week for each kid, though. By Christ it hurt when she was the one who shot through on me.

With an overblown sense of his own intelligence and importance, he laughed low in the back of his throat at the thought of how well he had come out of the divorce, really, when it was all boiled down. Annie had never had the ways and means to buy a home after rearing three children and had always had to live with her parents while she raised the children. Yet here he was, virtually in the lap of luxury. Them’s the breaks. Can’t help good luck.

––––––––

T
he phone rang, a soft, low burring noise and he reached out to pick up the receiver. This would be one of his pals to make the final arrangements about the fishing trip tomorrow; or one of his kids.

They would all be coming tonight with the exception of his step-daughter, Sophia, who was spending the weekend with her own father. Her absence wouldn’t cause Conrad too much stress. Luckily, she had been able to work part-time to finance her own university education and her biological father had tossed in a few bucks. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Conrad knew that better than anybody. If she wanted to go to University she would have to kick in and so would her old man. Not running a charity here, with the old girl living on the premises and all.

It was Conrad’s son on the other end of the line. Only boy I’ve got, he thought to himself. You’d think Girda would have been able to produce a son. She’s clever, smart, real bright. Told that stupid Annie she wasn’t woman enough to give me a son when Sarah was born. Should have been a boy, that damned Sarah. Slackness on Annie’s part, naturally.

Next time the stupid creature got it right. Only son, he mused. When the marriage to Annie had fallen apart the bitch had taken David away with her and the girls. Only son, five years old.

My God, he thought when he contemplated David and the barbecue that night, that boy’s mother has caused me some problems. Don’t quite know how but I’ll get her yet, got to get me some revenge. Over fifteen years since we parted and still she goes along hanging onto the kids, but I’ll get her. I’ll get even with her if it’s the last thing I ever do, and teach her a lesson she’ll never forget in this lifetime, the bloody creature.

Conrad hung up from his conversation with David, poured himself another rum and concentrated on his ex-wife, Annie, bloody Annie, scourge of his life, pain in his neck, behind closed lids. How to get at her was the unanswerable question.

Not that he ever saw her much these days except at Sarah’s wedding to Gordon, and David’s wedding to Stephanie. He had refused to go to his eldest daughter’s Ruth’s wedding to Dan. Damned if he could remember why now.

But it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Ruth had asked him if he wanted to give her away. He didn’t. No bloody way! Didn’t even want to go to the wedding. Oh, well, a man has got to take a stand and that would have shown them where he stood. Now why was that again?