The jacket came her way several years after he died. The parents were moving and reducing the amount of their belongings. The father didn’t wear the jacket, and couldn’t bear to think about his son no longer being alive to wear it, so he decided to give it away. It was, after all, still a good jacket.
The girl, now a young woman, was thrilled to have it. She wore it in winter, going to see bands at pubs in the inner west of Sydney, because she felt cooler in that jacket than in anything else she owned. And she wanted to be cool. After hard years at school, leaving with no friends, being cool seemed to be a way to become accepted.
She met her first boyfriend while she was wearing the jacket. Once she started staying over at his place – a share house near the university they both attended, where she was studying science – she left it in his closet so they could each wear it when they felt like it. Because it was a man’s jacket, it looked good on him, and leaving it at his place was a way of cementing a connection with him, even as she suspected he didn’t want that. But it was what she thought she was meant to do: give up parts of herself to a man, like an offering, so he might choose her.
After five months, this boyfriend chose someone else – a taller, longer-haired, prettier young woman who was studying a degree with fewer campus hours than science. The girl left the jacket in his closet. She didn’t have the heart to wear it again. Years later she would regret it, because the jacket had belonged to that young man whom she missed, the only young man who had ever shown her kindness.
Since then, the jacket has passed from person to person and op shop to op shop. It is still in good condition and is waiting for its next owner.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Adelaide had thought she was past the point of learning anything new. When a person has been on Earth for a while, travelled the globe a few times, lived in different cities with different languages, met all sorts of people, she can be inclined to think she has seen it all, heard it all, if not done it all.
What she has learnt over the past few days, though, is this: she should never have taken her friendship with Daphne for granted. More than that, she should never have betrayed her all those years ago simply because she desired someone she could not have but deluded herself into thinking she could.
She remembers that she once believed Hector would leave Daphne for her, and at the time she also believed the fact that he hadn’t was evidence that the course of true love was not running smooth. Like many a young woman indoctrinated by stories told by others, she believed that true love was the acme of her existence and she should strive for it, setting aside all other concerns. If that meant she had to take something – someone – belonging to another, so be it. That was the price of true love.
Oh, the folly of youth. She and Daphne had been friends for a few years by that stage, but Adelaide hadn’t been alivelong enough to realise how significant the connection was. Once she was older, and Daphne stayed in touch by writing letters that found her wherever she was, Adelaide came to appreciate that Daphne was steadfast. A true friend.
So far from Australia, Adelaide was even able to tell herself another story: that the betrayal hadn’t been that big. It was so long in the past. The child, her son, was now part of someone else’s story. She and Daphne could continue to be friends and nothing would get in the way.
The truth will out, though. Adelaide has studied enough ofThe Merchant of Venice, and most other plays in Shakespeare’s brace, to know that the Bard knew what he was talking about. Therefore she should have known not to ignore the ending ofRomeo and Juliet; to remember that the fates are against star-cross’d lovers, not in their favour.
Not that Adelaide can avoid her own agency in what happened. Hector was in the position of power, yes – any man in any situation tends to have more power than the woman involved – but she was not coerced. She was willing. And she set in motion the end of her friendship with Daphne the second she succumbed to Hector.
Now she has to manage the consequence of that: the loss of Daphne, which seems permanent. Adelaide cannot blame Daphne for that.
She has stopped trying to contact Daphne. No calls. No letters. She has avoided the frock shop, and hasn’t returned to the house – how could she? So Daphne is lost, and Adelaide has only one dear person left: her brother.
Although she would say she is close to Louis, they don’t talk often. While she lived overseas he didn’t send her many letters, and she didn’t send him many either. The bond of family felt strong enough to rely on.
Now she is going to test it again because she has to talk to someone about Desmond. The secret has been hers for so longand now it feels like it’s bursting open, and she doesn’t know how to manage everything she is feeling. Everything that is changing.
Desmond wants to see her again, and this is the part Adelaide is struggling with: what to tell him about Hector. Whether to actually try to arrange for him to meet Hector – which, she knows acutely, would involve talking to Daphne, or Janet, and cause yet more pain.
Going back and forth about it in her head is causingherpain, so she wants to talk about it with someone she trusts. With Daphne gone, Louis is the only candidate. So she has called him and asked if she could come over.
The old family home is on the high side of Musgrave Street, which means climbing stairs. These days Adelaide has to gear up to climb stairs. She has done it, though, and rung the doorbell – and now Louis is opening the door and smiling that affable smile he’s always had. The one that suggests everything is fine, and even if it’s not you won’t know.
‘Hello, my dear.’ He kisses her once on each cheek, something he was doing well before she lived in Europe, where it is practised widely.
‘Hello,’ she says, and she feels bashful now that she’s in his presence and about to reveal something so serious.
On her way over here she considered which Louis might consider the greater offence: the son himself or the lie about him.
Having experienced Daphne’s reaction, she thinks it may well be the latter. Which makes her think that for most people, most things on this earth can be managed if they are just brought into the light and not stuffed into the dark, especially not for decades. The longer the lie has continued, the greater the injury to the lied-to party.
Although how can anyone know? If Daphne had been told about the affair at the time, and about the baby, would that have made it easier? She had children of her own to consider.
Oh god, Adelaide is feeling that now – the peril she put them all in. She and Hector. And the peril may not be over yet.
‘Is Prue home?’ she asks.
Louis’s wife has an active social life, so she’s rarely home according to him.
‘Art class,’ he says, standing back for Adelaide to precede him into the front sitting room, where she finds a decanter full of whisky and two tumblers on the coffee table.
‘That’s serious business,’ she says, pointing at the set-up.