The Gilded Madonna by Garrick Jones (ebook reader for comics TXT) 📕

friends or partners in a marriage, depends upon open communication, the freedom to express tiny doubts, big issues, or even irrational thoughts. None of us are perfect—I said so to Harry this morning over breakfast.”

I could feel my cheeks burning. “Oh?”

“Yes, he stormed in the door last night and clomped to his bedroom like a pack of heavy-footed wild elephants and then came to breakfast this morning with a face like thunder. I gave him a good talking to … about friendships and freedom.”

“Freedom?”

“Clyde, has anyone ever mentioned you often speak or ask questions in single word utterances?”

It was my turn to laugh. “Yes, quite frequently as a matter of fact. I’ve been told it’s one of my least attractive qualities.”

“Let an old woman tell you that you have many more other attractive qualities that more than make up for your frequent spare use of the language.”

“Why thank you, Mary.”

She leaned over and patted the back of my hand.

“As I was saying: freedom. It’s important for Harry, and it’s something he seems to feel he’s not entitled to. When our daughter Sybil died, Harry threw everything in without asking us. His career in the army, whatever personal life and space he had, all terminated instantly. We really didn’t want him to come back home. It was his choice. We could have managed by hiring someone to look after us. Our house is far too big for two elderly people. We’ve space aplenty for a live-in nurse or housekeeper. But no, Harry always has to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.”

“Really?”

“You did it again, Clyde.”

“Oh, yes, sorry.”

“Arnold and I are delighted about your new joint business proposition and the fact he has a very close friend with whom he can go on holidays, or even, as you’re about to over the new year, spend time together away for weekends in the country. He’s no longer a child, and both of you have missed out so much of the period in your lives when you should have been out doing what young people do. Wars are such horrid things.”

“I like Harry, Mary.”

“And we like you, Clyde. I feel like you’re part of our family. You remind me so much of my brother, Percival, that it’s uncanny. The very first moment I met you on Australia Day at Parsley Bay, I wished you’d become one of our little group of Joneses, and now you have.”

Mary Jones was no one’s fool. She knew exactly what was going on between Harry and me. It was just impossible for any of us to talk about it openly. She’d given me her blessing without saying anything, so I leaned across and kissed her cheek.

“Harry’s been banned from the house for three days a week, Clyde. Arnold and I talked it over in bed last night when we heard him growling to himself in the kitchen while he made a cup of cocoa. The boy needs to get a life of his own, away from the regimented life he had in the armed forces and away from his parents. He fusses too much. To encourage him to flex his wings, we’ve arranged for one of Nurse Watson’s friends to stay from Friday to Sunday. She needs the extra income and she has a delightful little girl who Arnold and I both adore. They can sleep in Sybil’s room—there are twin beds. It will be lovely to have the sound of a child around the house again. And the bonus is she can drive too, so perhaps we might take a few outings.”

“Oh!”

“Don’t sound so surprised, Clyde. He may not show it, but I’ve seen the look on Harry’s face when he cleans Baxter’s bowls after we’ve been cat-sitting for you. My son loves Baxter too, just as much as I do. As he’ll be scolded for not spending the weekends enjoying himself, perhaps your spare room might find itself occupied more frequently. As long as you don’t mind visitors, that is?”

I could have cried, but I didn’t. I knew Baxter stood for something else that Harry loved; there was no need to spell it out. I bowed my head and bit my lip until the moment had passed and then spoke quietly, from the bottom of my heart. “Thank you, Mary.”

“No. Thank you, Clyde.”

*****

At the end of our meeting, our agenda complete, we signed off the minutes of the previous meeting, and Billy’s articled clerk—a young man whose name I could never remember—left us. I offered Mary a lift home, but she’d already arranged to have morning tea with some friends in the city before having her hair done at a salon in Double Bay.

“Billy …” I said, after she’d gone.

“Clyde?”

“That doctor you saw after the war, the one who helped you with your anxiety, do you still have the phone number?”

‘Is it that bad, Clyde? You seemed to have been relatively calm of late.”

“I had one of those dreams again, Billy. You’re the only one who knows. I never told Sam what they were about, but you were there.”

He sighed and then stretched his head back, stroking the base of his throat with two fingers. “I’ve managed to block it out, Clyde. I was there for five days sorting out those who could be saved and those who couldn’t. I don’t know how you survived three years of it to be honest.”

“You know I don’t like to talk about the war. None of us do. But I feel so angry of late, my emotions are running high, and I’ve found myself doing and saying things that seem to come out before I can stop them, losing my rag at the least provocation—”

“It’s because you’re in love,” he said. The pain in his eyes as he spoke those words saddened me beyond description. He’d been in love with me himself since we’d first met in the desert campaign in North Africa, but although I’d loved him in my own way, I’d never fallen in love