No man ever knows what any woman is conspiring.

Jennifer became pregnant very easily, very quietly. Little was said to me, her innuendoes going over my head. I was, I think, 43 years old. It never occurred that I should become again a Father.

The last child I knew of was by Charlie and she never let on, not in words..... We had traveled overland, having disembarked at Naples after our run out on Australia. She had not wanted to go to England, wanted to go to her home in Dusseldorf, convincing me that it would be easy for us to hitch hike up the leg of Italy and so into Germany. It had not been easy at all, mainly because I was broke and fervently wished I had stayed on the ship to Southampton.
Charlie insisting that she had money due to her, simply a matter of her making an appearance. Bullshit all the way with her, from the very first day we met. Yet, she was a instrument of fate, totally absurd to condemn her lies and my gullibility. What had I known about anything, anything at all? just pushing thirty? .. Precisely. Swallowed her stories ... wanting to believe her, to give myself the impetus for getting away, for escaping from what I believed to be a prison, from a wife who had quite openly announced her intentions of having me certified.. What would any man have done? any woman, come to that, finding themselves so hopelessly stranded, so hopelessly alone, so hopelessly far from everything they knew and understood, stranded in a country where the Sun slowly burnt through to the brain, where the skin of a woman looked like a boiled prune, where summer is winter, winter is summer, the Sun stretches out, endlessly on, bleaching the Earth from its high perch in the clear, cloudless sky.


For my part, a matter of staggering into Germany, into Dusseldorf. On the way up we had called at what Charlie had told me was a relative, hardly know where. Her appearance greeted as one would a ghost, a mixture of disbelief and amazement. The most tremendous gabbling in her language. Suddenly I felt isolated again. Afraid to believe that she would draw away from me once she had fallen back into her world, the one she knew. But for some reason, we found ourselves out on the open road again after a couple of days, found ourselves hiking along the Rhine. My inquiries about the large amount of money due to her were met with silence. Our second stop, in Dusseldorf, more encouraging. Obviously, the couple waving to Charlie from the flat were very pleased to see her, we were pushed in, it looked promising, the place reeking of money. Charlie fell into her 'Foch Dobraolska' act, sitting on the bar stool, legs tightly crossed, calf showing, cigarette poised, really looked the business. Maybe, as she always insisted, she was a Countess.

We both had the most incredible colour, looking ridiculously healthy after our months of traveling. Evidently the geyser, thought too that Charlie looked fantastic, disregarding me, like so much baggage, his eyes never leaving her legs, her breasts, he devoured her, undressed her, screwed her, about every forty seconds.

A photograph of him, a very large one, mounted in silver. A Luftwaffe Pilot Officer, complete with all the medals on his chest. Wondered if by some twist, he who had cut his engine on that calm autumn morning and glided silently down, his sights on the old school house, with the children inside standing solemnly reciting the Lords Prayer, he who pulled the trigger of the Cannon guns.... not exactly an act of bravery….

Had never been in such a gaff before, huge oil paintings, set in dark, massive, rug strewn rooms, obviously solid silver cutlery, very large high back chairs round a table which took up most of the space... and I naive sufficiently to believe, as so many people, that we had won the War.

The war had become an irrelevance to these people, by the looks of their life style, something which had left an indelible blot on my mind... not on theirs. My childhood had been formed by Metro Goldwin Mayer, R.K.O. Pictures, Ealing Studios'. The unreal mixed with the reality of long nights in Air Raid Shelters. Maybe my wife had reason to believe something was wrong with me. My attitude, always mostly one of indifference, right and wrong to me being what suited. Had to form my own conclusions about life, never been anything tangible for me too hold on to, everything blown to bits... the Generation of Death.

Looking at these Germans, unmarked by War, their particular society remained intact, their whole attitude one of complete confidence.

Charlie too, after a few days, regained her self control, composure almost, perhaps, a touch of the old arrogance showing through. Remembered the way she had treated Ahmed, her waiter at the night club, clapping her hands for him and the others to run faster. Now I saw where she learnt such complete domination.

Why she had ever taken it upon herself to take such a great interest in me has always remained a mystery. She could have any man at the snap of her fingers; so far she had not snapped her fingers at this man so intent upon her body. Watched the situation with some interest, waiting for either one to make their move.

She must have given him a blank. Suddenly we were out, once again, on the street, out on the road... England... my Mother.

Charlie had fulfilled her promise of extricating me from Australia, returning me 'Home', a strange cross for a woman of her caliber to bear.

A month here, back in Lea View House ... at 241. Nothing had changed, my mother, just as brittle as ever, as if I had never been away, age had not mellowed her. Charlie disenchanted with the "Bleak House" atmosphere of England.

We parted at Victoria Station. She waved to me from the train window, until disappearing, out of sight. No tears... to me a profound sense of isolation Wanted to hide... after some weeks took to my bed were I was to remain for two years. Another two years of suffering for my Mother.

Time passed before we met again, a letter postmarked Sussex. Went down there. She lived in a smart house, but what impressed so much was the cleanliness.
Everything was polished, could see your face in the wooden floors. Married to a soldier... he was out, the child, very quiet, very intent. Looked at him, not hard to know where I had seen that face, that long, curly blond hair, before... the resemblance too great. I turned, Charlie watching me very intently, an odd smile on her face. She had no need to say anything. Never to see her, or the child from that day. Perhaps the child was her intention from the 'Off', from that very first meeting at Brighton Beach, at Edith Cutlack's beautiful house set back in the sand dunes, shaded by Palm and Blue Gum trees.

No man ever knows what any woman is conspiring.