‘I’m sorry, Mr Vigourman.’ I called him Hector normally but sitting up on his paper pile he had the distance of a magistrate. ‘I’m sorry for what has happened. But I have strong feelings for Donna. Very strong.’
‘Nonsense. You’ve given over to your urges instead of your decency.’ He shook his head as if I must be a halfwit not to recognise such obvious wisdom. He voice lowered to a confidential register. ‘We all have urges. If we live with the same woman for a number of years we get urges. But that doesn’t mean we go tomcatting. There are ways and means to satisfy yourself without fouling your own nest. You take a business trip to Melbourne. Do I have to spell it out? You take your urges to Melbourne. There are places you go to. There are ladies who are professionals. You take care of your urges that way and keep your home life intact.’
‘You’ve done that… professionals?’
‘Did I say I had? I said no such thing. I’m simply telling you: there are ways and means.’ He took a sip of tea. ‘Tell you what I’m going to do. I’m willing to treat this escapade of yours as a one-off. You were temporarily bewitched by a loose female, someone who had lost her husband and was not in her right mind from grief. I am aware that sacking you also punishes your good wife. She needs a provider for a husband, not a jobless so-and-so.
‘Therefore, here’s what you do. I suggest you go to Tilda, get down on your hands and knees and beg to be taken back. You do the right thing by her and I’ll do the right thing by you. Poor woman’s up in hospital this minute, bawling her eyes out despite sedation. Dr Philpott fears the trauma of all this could kickstart her cancer. What a terrible, terrible thing to have on your conscience.
‘As for Mrs Wilkins—let’s never speak of her again. Do I make myself clear? These are new conditions to your employment. So, what’s it going to be? You can go to Watercook and be with that…that widow if you want. But if you do, I wipe my hands of you. And don’t think you’d find work in Watercook either. Not Watercook or anywhere the length and breadth of the Wimmera Plains. I will see to it that your name is mud. Understand?’
Chapter 78
I am glad I never gave Vigourman the pleasure of replying, ‘I understand.’ Saying ‘I understand’ was the same as saying ‘You’re right, Mr Vigourman. It was all urges and nothing more. Not love. Not a shot at joy. Just the equivalent of professionals in Melbourne.’ He could threaten me all he liked but my feelings for Donna were greater than worries about being called mud could ever be. Greater than any job with a Commodore. Greater than a bad conscience. What’s conscience when you’d rather die than beg to a woman you no longer loved?
Donna was another story. Her I could beg to if needed.
I left Vigourman to his smug tea-sipping; turned my back on him, breathed my chest and stomach out so they made a spinnaker of their own. I limped from the storeroom without a word. Donna was my priority. I went to my desk and couldn’t care less if Vigourman eavesdropped. I was going to speak to her like a man speaks to his loved one. I dialled. Her phone was working again. She picked up immediately.
‘Donna, sweetheart. Are you all right? You fine?’
‘Physically, yes. But rattled. Extremely rattled.’
‘Sweetheart, don’t be rattled.’
‘Why not? I’ve never had someone say they want me dead. I thought she was going to do it, kill me. I held Ruth and I thought: How do we defend against this kind of hatred? Abuse over the phone is one thing, but to come to my home and stand at my door screaming she will kill us. Try to set us on fire. Ruth was so terrified. I have to keep her in my arms or she shakes.’
‘I wish I could just fold you in my arms.’
‘I tried to lay charges. I was told: bed-hopping disputes aren’t why police are paid. You made your bed, you can lie in it, they said. I feel dirty. I feel I have made a dreadful mistake. And I have a child shaking in terror.’
‘Let me come to you right now. I will need to organise transport…’
‘No.’
‘The train to Ballarat leaves here at noon…’
‘No.’
‘From there I’ll get a connecting bus.’
‘No, I said.’ A sharp no with a wet growl in it.
‘But I want to.’
‘Let’s have a break. Let’s do that. Let’s have a break from each other.’
‘A break?’
‘I need to take stock of things.’
‘A few days’ break?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘A week? How long?’
‘I need to get Ruth back to normal. I want just her and me and a wholesome feeling back.’
‘How long a break?’ I was aware of being weak in voice suddenly. I was starting to beg. I bent forward over my desk, hand cupped around the mouthpiece so only Donna could hear. ‘How long a break?’
‘Indefinite.’
‘That sounds more than a break.’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you saying forever?’
‘I’m sorry, Colin.’
‘Are you meaning the end?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Why don’t we say a couple of weeks? Let’s say a month while you get over this.’
‘What then? Looking over my shoulder for Tilda? Looking over Ruth’s shoulder? I can take on small baggage. But this is not small.’
‘Let me hang up now and call you tomorrow.’
‘Please, no calling.’
‘Or a few days. Have a rethink and I’ll call you in few days.’
‘No.’
‘Please.’
‘I’m taking Ruth out of here tomorrow. We’re staying with friends interstate to get away from this and feel safe.’
‘Whereabouts? How can I reach you?’
‘No. No calls.’
‘Donna, please.’
‘I have to go.’
‘Donna.’
I said I loved her. I said, ‘Remember our Neutral Motor Inn; remember our happiness there.’ I was pleading so loud I didn’t hear her hang up. There was just silence and the seashell noise of air through the phone wires.
I called back straight away. No answer. I tried again. Same thing. I envisaged her standing at her phone, fists clenched against the temptation to answer it, against reconnecting our voices, our lives: No more of this man I may love but who is too much trouble.
I waited a few minutes, dialled but got nowhere. She must have unplugged the line. This did not put me off. She would have to plug it in eventually. I spread the latest Wheatman edition on the desk and thumbed through it to look occupied, reading headlines aloud as if testing their petty poetry:
Vigourman was washing his cup at the staff sink. He dried it and put it on the tray beside the taps. He whistled a few notes with trills in them as if that would soften his officious mood. He kept whistling all the way up to me, scratching his sideburns. He complained how growing whiskers made a man itch. He leant close, put a hand on my shoulder.
He said, ‘Shouldn’t you go up to the hospital, to see Tilda? Don’t you think that’s your first priority?’
I bent down and rubbed my ankle. ‘My foot hurts.’
‘I’ll drive you.’
‘I’ve got a call to make.’
I dialled, delaying pushing down on the last digit until Vigourman had retreated. All I reached was the seashell static but pretended I had made contact.
‘Hello?’ I said. ‘Hello.’
I motioned to Vigourman that I’d go with him soon. I bowed my head, closed my eyes and rested that way a minute, stopped my life from anything more happening just yet.