The Divorce

Time, irrevocable in its passing, jostled my thoughts along, a confusion of what may, or may not have been ... what was, nothing of the future.

Saw little beyond the iridescent days ... Sunlight stretching through the sombre sanctity of Epping Forest, soft carpet of leaves, crooked trees ... Silence, other than for our voices, drifting.

Ruth, her bareness hidden by the tall grass, insistent, demanding. We had fallen out of touch with reality, asking nothing, other than to be left alone.. together.

I had my own private reservations about this, it appeared far too good. Our game of hide and seek with the World one day would come to an end. Knew I had reasons to believe this but pushed them to the recesses of my mind, having no wish to disrupt the rhythm of our lives hanging by the shoe string of fate, precarious.

Ruth no longer talked about her family. her father, her mother, as if having forgotten them. Gradually it began to dawn on me that everyone had something that they wanted to erase from their own, personal tape, but the passing of time in no way can blunt the clarity.

Refused to dwell on what was happening to the children. Certain words no longer existed for me: House, Australia, children.


Ruth insistent I buy a house, but I was unable to come to terms with the idea. Desaumarez Street had destroyed all those particular cells. Instead, for the same money as a broken down country cottage, four hundred, I bought her an 'engagement ring' as a further means of postponing any ideas in that direction.

The horse had been 'Lucky Ruth'. I had a straight ten on the nose at 33's. It strolled down the course without the jockey looking once back to see any opposition. One or two concerted shouts at this blatant 'fix'.
My prophecy about things catching up with me and Ruth's demand for 'wedding bells' came up in one hit.
There had been a knock at the door below. Looked out from the window.
A stranger ... collar, tie, the business. Completely off guard, without thinking, such was the state I had lulled myself into, rambled down the six flights of stairs and opened the street door.
'Mr. Ridgley?'
Naive enough to say, 'Yes'.
Rather like a magician he whipped out an affidavit.
Virginia was demanding that I appeared in court. She wanted a divorce.
Slowly closed the door, trying to marshal my forces, this, totally unexpected. Unreal of me perhaps, nevertheless, never considered the possibility of this happening. Hardly knew what I did think of that far off situation. Difficult for me to accept that time had passed for them too, children no longer children, fighting each other over nothing and battered toys.

I had persisted up to this moment, everything would remain exactly the same, maybe some day returning 'home' and taking up precisely where I had left off, the adventure over. My mind had long seized in this position. Unable to accept that they and the past had expanded away from me ... me from them. The long silences I choose to ignore, had to ignore… clinging to the illusion, refusing to accept any other thing in its place, the complete package stored in the more inaccessible parts of my brain.
Too dazed, not quick enough to simply tell Ruth that it had been the 'Jehovah's Witnesses'. But she was very quick ... very quick ... suddenly alert, alive, taking the papers from my hand, sitting down on the bed, lighting a cigarette, eyes never leaving the words.
She put the document slowly on the bed beside her without saying anything at all. Looking directly at me, waiting.
The moment had arrived for me to vindicate all my intentions, all my assurances, to activate all my promises.

I remained silent, an abyss in front of me, there was no way back. Never had been since the moment I drove off, leaving the kids with a 'Mars' bar apiece, leaving the eldest holding the youngest.

Virginia not in sight on that overcast, intensely humid day, up at the wooden shack house, overlooking Magill ...

Always told myself Virginia would, one day, say 'come back', not exactly 'all is forgiven'. totally convinced of this. As the years eased by, this paradox established itself firmly in my mind.

I saw the garden, orange trees, the bougainvillea , the gum tree overhanging the white house with the green glass walls. Mr. Ridgley's 'other Eden' .. a World in which one day I would walk again, not one where I had been alone, isolated, not where the Sun beat into my brain.. Virginia, the epitome of everything I always wanted in a woman, turned into something else.

No, the hairline cracks that had crept through my consciousness in Australia had not in any way healed. Had not been able to overcome the complete smash up. The cracks, now yawning gaps, reality, here, now. The room that I stood in, the Post Office Tower, Sunlight on the gold wallpaper, the lorries shunting in and out the pill factory ...
Ruth staring at me ... cigarette hanging between her long, manicured nails. Blue smoke hanging in the yellow afternoon.
"Are you feeling alright?"
Concern spread across her face ... my double existence at an end.
"Shall I ring dad?"
I, no doubt, looked bad, but I felt much worse. She reached for the 'phone. I was not able to say or do anything, only aware that she was talking to her father, demanding that he came over immediately.
"What's the matter? ... Why are you so upset? ... This is what we have always waited for, isn't it?"
She was looking at me very carefully ...
"At last we can make plans to get married now!" ...

She was momentarily hesitant, not wanting to believe that her suspicions had become a reality ... That my distorted mind had never let slip what I was thinking, never giving her an opportunity of a glimpse into myself, never giving her intellect the chance to take me to pieces ... not all at once ... but by a slow, unyielding process of deduction.

Duly, presented myself at the Law Courts in the Strand, surprised at the amount of controversy that had been stirred up by my acquiescence to society and a woman's whim, all those years ago ... so many people, apparently, had taken it upon themselves to be concerned at what had happened between two people ... so far apart, so far away.

Ruth had inveigled one of her relatives, who happened to be a barrister, to represent me. He and I talked for about four minutes, people pushing their way between us. In those few moments, evidently expected of me to convey my life's story, and my reason for running.
Thoughts scattered ... wheat on the wind. Tried to concentrate desperately, knowing the man was doing Ruth one big favour. I , as usual when the stress hit me, incoherent, the words stumbling over themselves.
The man had a pained expression, my apparent lack of co-operation ... the profit and loss.
"Why did you leave?" ... "What was your reason?"
Heavy rain, dark clouds over Saint Paul's pushing their way up Fleet Street. Dampness crept into the building. Umbrellas wet and limp ... Who were these people? ... What did they want of me? ... What is so imperative to them? ... What could I tell them? ... What was there too tell !!
The man looked at his watch. "Time to go."

He took me by the arm, wheeling me along. Had the feeling that he would have liked to have shaken me by way of getting words through my lips. Very little had come out from the locked cloisters of my brain.
My only thought, a conspiracy to take from me the last vestiges of myself. Virginia had evidently made quite sure that I would never hear or see the children again, which accounted for the silence. She had moved to Queensland, the equivalent of disappearing off the face of the earth.

Whatever remained would be taken from me within a few moments.

The rain fell down, hammering on the arched windows ... echoing on the high, vaulted roof.

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