The Wounds of War. Gary Blinco
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— that it often took years to reach a level of true companionship. At least the physical aspect of the relationship was intense, and they made love everywhere, and anywhere, even in a hammock near the swimming pool while the other patrons slept upstairs. But after each session she always lay back feeling strangely alone as he drifted off with his private thoughts, thoughts of which she never really felt a part.
After the honeymoon they had rented a small flat near the Enoggera army base and quickly settled into the new routine of marriage. She liked the routine. The thought of being married and setting a course in life that would involve a family and stability appealed to her, and it fit neatly into the image she had of her life. After all, most of her friends were already married or engaged, or they had at least taken a philosophical stand on the issue. And her parents were delighted with the union. They were both very fond of Gary and had welcomed him to the family without reservation.
Then, after only four weeks of marriage, she was shattered when Gary came home one night and said he was being posted back to Vietnam. ‘But your two years National Service is over’, she had cried. ‘You have already done an extra six months to complete the last tour. Surely they won’t send you back over there after only four months at home.’ She was speechless when he told her he had signed on for another year on condition he could get a posting to Saigon. ‘But we have just gotten married’, she said incredulously. ‘How could you do such a thing? Don’t you care about our marriage at all? After just one month!’
‘It’s only for a year’, he said passionately. ‘Don’t you see? The army is the best long-term career prospect for me now. This posting takes me to sergeant, and then, when I get back, we can get a cushy posting to one of the training units. Maybe even here in Queensland so we can be near our families.’ He had held her in his arms then, his eyes pleading. ‘Please be happy for me, Leanne’, he whispered, selfishly she had thought at the time, mainly because he had not shared any deeper reasons for his actions with her. ‘A year will go very fast.’
‘And what if you don’t come back at all?’ she said sharply, squirming out of his embrace. ‘What then? Am I to be a wife and a widow in one sitting?’ She was becoming angry because this was a voluntary action he was taking. The enemy was not about to storm across the Australian coastline after all. His contribution was not critical the freedom of the land and she could not understand his motivation at all.
‘This posting is to Saigon, for Christ’s sake’, he said, growing impatient at her short-sightedness. He was not used to having to explain his actions to anyone. But even as the words passed his lips he knew he had no intentions of staying in Saigon. ‘The biggest risk I will face is from being run down by a bus, the war is miles away from Saigon.’ She had given up then, surprised to learn that she did not really care as much as she felt she should. Perhaps she was the selfish one, after all, he was trying to be practical and plan their future beyond the present. Perhaps she was expecting the deeper emotional connections to happen too fast, and perhaps a period of separation would push the physical aspect of their lives aside so that they could develop in other ways.
In the end his posting was changed and he finished up back at the Australian Task Force Headquarters at Nui Dat, right back near the centre of the action. Strangely, to her at least, he seemed very happy about that.
She moved back in with her parents the day she drove him to the airport to return to the war. Now they carried on their marriage by letter, physically disconnected, like pen pals. She wondered if he had not simply wanted to establish a new family before returning to the war, one to replace the father he had lost during his last tour of duty. Maybe he was just being a good soldier, simply setting up his firm base before going out on patrol. Somehow, perhaps unreasonably, she felt used, but resolved to make the best of the situation and try hard to make the marriage a success when he returned. She resolved to be supportive and use the year to build a stronger foundation for their lives beyond the tour.
Leanne mused over these incidents from her short married life with Gary as she guided the gold coloured Kingswood into the shopping centre carpark. The car radio played, ‘I’m leaving on a jet plane’, a song that had become the unofficial theme for the Vietnam War. Leanne turned the radio off, her lips drawn into a tight line with suppressed bitterness. She was meeting her mother for lunch, having lied that she had a day off from work as a reward for working overtime on a recent project.
She worked as the editorial assistant to the general manager of a small but successful publishing company, a job she had held since completing high school. She had worked on a number of manuscripts during her eight years with the company; but her most successful venture had been on an autobiographical book called, No Way Back. She had selected the work from the numerous piles of unsolicited manuscripts that came into the publishing house, she alone seeing some strange quality in the roughly written work. It took her a long time to convince her boss to let her work with the author to develop the book, but in the end he had agreed. The author was an old man, a World War II veteran and a bushie who spent much of his time on the booze or wandering in the outback. But Leanne saw beauty and feeling in the book and, after nearly a year of hard work, it had been ready for publication. The work became a bestseller, first in Australia, then overseas, the appetite of the reading public perhaps fuelled by the conflict in Vietnam. Now the film rights were being negotiated and she was confident of success in that area as well. She was very proud of the work and it had won her some modest acclaim within the industry. She was now well regarded by her employers, even to the extent that she had felt cheeky enough to apply for a newly created job as the editorial director, though she did not really expect to get the role.
But today she had to tell a white lie about the real reason for her day off. If her mother knew she had been to see a doctor the questions would be endless. ‘I won’t say anything about the baby to anyone for now’, she said aloud to herself. Her own voice sounded strange in the car, breaking the spell of her daydreaming. ‘Not to mum, not even to Gary, he has enough on his plate with the war.’ She left the car and walked briskly into the shopping centre, wondering what were her real reasons for the deceit.
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