‘The train leaves in half an hour,’ Brian said. ‘Mother will be glad to see you. And Darlene.’
‘Your wife won’t be pleased to see me, Brian. She’s no fan of mine.’
‘She never thought you’d done those things, Will. She always said she couldn’t believe you had it in you.’
‘That’s because she’s drab and thinks everyone else is, too, not because she’s loyal.’
This was cruel, and did not need to be said, but I was in no mood to express gratitude for Brian’s presence. I knew that, despite his concern, he was happy to survey the wreckage of my career, and pleased to be escorting me home.
‘I won’t be staying in Melbourne long,’ I said.
‘Darlene and I are happy to look after Mother. No-one’s asking you to take over.’
This was a timely reminder that it was inadvisable to assume a lack of astuteness in my younger brother. I was not looking forward to travelling with him. He had heard a great deal from Peter Topaz, and had spoken at length with Annie and the rest of the troupe. They had been wary of him at first, as if being related to me was some kind of disadvantage. Annoyingly, they were soon quite taken with him. Several times over the past few days I had gone into the dining room at the George to find him laughing with Bill Henty, of all people, or Kevin Skakel, or Adrian Baden (God knows what he found to talk to him about). The conversation stopped when I entered. The estrangement from my troupe was irremediable.
There was no one to farewell us at the station. I half-thought that Mal Flint might turn up to have one last go at me. As the train left Maryborough I could not quite suppress a nagging and dull sensation of failure. Brian sat opposite me, reading that day’s
Chronicle
. He looked up.
‘How’s your arm?’ he asked.
‘Better.’
‘Darlene’s pregnant,’ he said.
‘Who’s the father?’ I asked.
He didn’t bite. I thought to myself that the chances of Darlene giving birth to a child were slim. Whatever emerged from her womb was more likely to require veterinary than paediatric care.
‘I like that Annie Hudson,’ he said. ‘She looks a lot like Greer Garson, don’t you think?’
I said nothing. He smiled at me and added, ‘She reckons I look a lot like Tyrone Power. What do you reckon about that, Will?’