style="font-size:15px;"> Veronica’s parents were English by birth, and there never seemed to be any relatives on her side living in Australia at all, or if there were she had never met them. Now, apart from Derwent, she had no family of her own, and she could never envisage becoming a close part of his. They treated her with the same studious indifference as they did their own offspring.
Their honeymoon night had been wonderful she remembered. Derwent seemed so shy and uncertain as they climbed into bed, his lack of confidence somehow adding to her own. She eventually had to lead him a little, although she had no previous experience of sex. When they finally got started he became insatiable, leaving her alone only after she protested that she was too sore to continue. He relented then and fell asleep in her arms. She lay awake stroking his dark locks, feeling happy but confused with this new intimate arrangement. The emptiness of the cottage suddenly seemed reduced; she had a new family now and she drifted off to sleep smiling with pleasure as she contemplated her new life.
The first few months were very special and she felt fulfilled in every sense, in her work at the bank and in her personal life with Derwent. He seemed to want her constantly, carrying her to the bedroom as soon as he came home from the brick factory, not even waiting to shower first, sometimes not even bothering to carry her to the bedroom, taking her in the kitchen or on the lounge room floor. It was exciting at first, but she felt that she needed more time to become aroused and that he was not aware of, or sensitive to, her needs. She felt sometimes that he was driven by some insatiable inner need for love and this frightened her. She began to reject his advances, asking him to be gentler, more romantic. He retreated into silence, becoming sullen and withdrawn. He saw her requests as an attempt to take control of and direct their lovemaking, which undermined his fragile grip on his manhood.
As the months passed he seemed almost to lose interest in her, as if he had gorged himself on her in the beginning and now was faintly repulsed by her. She began to wonder if he had somehow, perhaps unconsciously, inherited his father’s mood and manner, that it was true after all that a man modelled himself on his father. Derwent had never been a drinker, but he began to arrive home late in the evenings, often a little the worse for wear, with the stale smell of beer on his breath. Then one night he arrived home well after midnight, very drunk and despondent. When she protested about the hour and his condition, he told her in loud tones that he had been sacked for punching the foreman at the factory.
‘I hit him because he was givin’ me the shits, like you do sometimes,’ he yelled.
‘Whatever do you mean?’ she cried, her eyes wide in shock, wondering how this man she loved, and whom she thought loved her, could speak to her in such a way.
‘Because you expect too much of a man, that’s why,’ he said loudly, but there was a catch in his throat, like a chastened child. ‘The boss wanted too much from me, it smothered me. I had to get away from it so I punched him, flattened him right out. Then he sacked me.’
‘You got the sack?’ she said, incredulous. ‘Yeah!’ he spat.
‘An’ I don’t care. They wanted too bloody much from me, just like you do.’
‘But I don’t, Derwent,’ she protested. ‘I don’t make any demands of you, do I? And if you hated the job so much, why didn’t you just say something?’
‘You don’t make demands in so many words,’ he said, flopping on the bed and cradling his head in his hands, ‘It’s just that I know what you expect; and there aren’t too many friggin’ jobs about here, or so you would have told me. Why whinge about the one I had.’ He looked at her with one eye closed so he could focus through the effects of the drink.
‘You want me to be your mother and father; to bring home the bacon like good old dad did, and I can’t … I feel smothered by it all.’ She moved to sit beside him on the bed, suddenly sobbing as he pushed her away roughly.
‘Give me some room, for fuck’s sake,’ he said hotly, ‘Just leave me alone.’ She returned to his side, hoping to console him. He pushed her again, harder this time and she fell to the floor, giving a frightened little cry as she came to rest sharply against the bedroom wall. Derwent rolled over on the bed, covering his head with the pillow and moaning softly. He was unconscious in seconds.
She sat and stared at him for a long time. He looked so young and vulnerable as he slept heavily, the anger gone from his face as he snored softly. She wondered if she had been unconsciously demanding, if she really did have an unspoken expectation that he would replace the parents she had lost. Her mind raced as she tried to remember what she might have said, or what she may have done that caused him to be so threatened, so unhappy in his new life.
She wondered why it had taken a belly full of grog to give him the courage to cry out as he had done. She sat on a chair in the darkened room and thought about both the past and the future for a long time. Perhaps the time had come to move away from this little cottage with its friendly ghosts. Perhaps the only way this marriage could succeed would be if they left this town and struck out on their own somewhere, away from the ghosts of her parents and the clutches of his overbearing father. What Derwent had said in his drunkenness was true enough. She had assumed that she could continue her life as it had been, with a new family the only difference. He had not been consulted in her plans; she just assumed he would fall into line. She smiled at last, the bones of a plan firm in her mind. She undressed and climbed into the bed beside him.
* * *
The next day Derwent was contrite and repentant, apologising for his drunken behaviour, or the parts of it he remembered. ‘I’m glad you got it off your chest before it festered any more,’ she said airily as they sat over breakfast. ‘I think we need to get out of this place and now seems like a good time to do it. You have lost that rather awful job, and I can leave the bank any time I like, and I think I like now.’
‘But what can we do? We need money to live on, you know,’ he said, suddenly more responsible without the abandonment that comes from drunkenness. ‘The few bob I get from the band won’t pay the rent and feed us, and I won’t even have that if we move away from here.’
She smiled at him over the rim of her teacup. ‘I have a bit of money now’, she said. ‘Mum and Dad left me a bit, and probate on the will came through two weeks ago. We can set ourselves up pretty well.’
He looked at her evenly. ‘I didn’t know you were left any money,’ he said slowly. She realised suddenly that she had not told him, had not even discussed her inheritance with him at all. Somehow it had not occurred to her that he should have been told, that sharing everything was an integral part of marriage.
‘Of course not,’ she laughed, deciding to try to keep the moment light. ‘I wanted to be sure you were not just marrying me for my money.’ She fell serious as he squirmed a little at her words. ‘I, no we, have about 900 pounds. We can buy a small truck, something big enough to cart the stuff we need to set up a little home wherever we go. I want to keep the things mum and dad left me, at least some of them. We will still have a bit of back-up money in case it takes a while to find work somewhere.’
He had raised his eyebrows at the amount and she could see dark clouds deep in his eyes, but he seemed excited by her suggestions. ‘I know where we can get a truck like that,’ he said eagerly. ‘I can trade the old bike in as well, then we can just take off.’ He smiled widely, like an excited child who had been let out of school early.
‘Good,’ she grinned. ‘Now let’s finish our breakfast
