Freedom Ride (21 page)

“You’re quiet,” said Dad, watching me push beef casserole around my plate. “Is your head still hurting?”

“I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” I stared at the brown lumps in the gluggy gravy. “Just not used to having you home Friday nights, I guess.”

Dad reached past me for the salt shaker. I raised my eyes and watched him sprinkle it over his meal. For the third time. He shot a glance at Nan.

Nan’s eyes widened and Dad looked away.

I took in the sagging skin around his jowls and bags, the colour of an old bruise, under his eyes. His hair was more grey than black. Had that happened in a week? He looked old. And alone.

Since last Friday, when I woke to voices and stumbled upon Dad’s car in the backyard, Dad was more zombie-like than ever.

Nan seemed to be on high alert. She watched everything Dad did – eat, smoke or read the paper – as though she was frightened he would disappear. I wondered if she spied on him while he slept and showered too.

During meals, she pushed him to eat an extra slice of meat or another serve of ice-cream. And she hadn’t had one of her headaches for a week.

“Is everything all right?” I wasn’t sure if I was asking one or both of them.

“Why do you ask?” The agitation in Nan’s voice spilled onto the table.

“No reason. It’s just been …” For half a heartbeat I toyed with mentioning what I’d seen last week. “Strange around here. Strained.”

“Any strain around here is due to that nonsensical student bus. Mark my words, they will only stir up trouble.”

At the end of the table, Dad nodded. No ranting and raving about commies, Abos or bloody students. Just a nod.

A dull throb crept up my neck and over my head to my eyes. I laid my knife and fork on the plate. “Can I be excused?”

Nan’s head jerked in my direction. “Finish your meal.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Actually, Nan, I have a headache.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line.

“Let him go, Mum,” said Dad.

“I’ll keep it for your dinner tomorrow.”

“Great.” I took the plate to the bench and kept walking to my room.

I lay uncovered on the bed, pyjama pants twisted from my tossing and turning. The throb in my head had eased. It wasn’t a pain as much as pressure from all that stuff shoved in too small an area. Then there was that parcel in the garage. It called me back to study the knots, feel the crispness of the paper, weigh it in my hands.

Students.

Toss.

Brown paper.

Turn.

Protests.

Toss.

I sat on the edge of the bed, as awake as I had been when I went to bed about two hours ago. I stared under the bedroom door. No glow to indicate Dad and Nan were watching television. I tip-toed to my wardrobe and slowly, so slowly, eased open the door. In the dark I fumbled through my T-shirt drawer for the torch Dad gave me one birthday. I held my breath and pressed the button, hoping the batteries still had life in them.

The globe flickered then glowed into the now tangled undies and socks. A few months ago, I’d have tidied them to avoid a Nan lecture, but tonight, I slid the drawer shut, turned off the torch and crept to the back door.

In the garage I peeled back the tarp and shone the torch beam onto the package. Mr Frank Bower, 5 Dunnington Street, Walgaree, NSW.

My skin tingled and my heart pounded against my chest bone.

The wooden garage doors, wide open behind me, felt like a monster’s maw, ready to devour me whole. I couldn’t close them without waking Nan and Dad and half the neighbourhood. But to sit here with them open …

The shed. Dad oiled the door hinges last Sunday and it had a light, a weak one, but a light.

Before I’d thought it through, I was in the shed, sitting on Dad’s old army trunk, door closed and parcel on my lap. The light glowed soft and golden.

I plucked the string. It twanged against the brown paper.

I knew all the reasons I shouldn’t open someone else’s mail, especially Dad’s.

The secateurs lay on the bench beside me. I snatched them up and sliced the string, my speed leaving no room for doubts. The string sprang free. I flipped the package over.

With a slow breath, I slipped my finger under the fold and ran it beneath the tape. The brown paper fell back to reveal another parcel, this one wrapped in red paper and tied with blue ribbon. Two cream envelopes had been slipped between the ribbon and the paper.

The larger of the two was addressed in curling handwriting to Frank Bower. I tried to imagine who had pressed their pen to the thick paper, licked the gum on the flap and pressed it closed.

I looked at the shed door for a second, then tore the envelope open. The paper inside matched the envelope.

Heart thundering in my ears, I read.

SD Worthington

73 Riverside Road

Inverell

23rd, January 1965

Dear Frank,

You have made yourself very clear, again. But, no matter what you say, I will continue to send mail to Robbie, in the hope that you change your mind and allow him to learn the truth about me.

I miss him, Frank. I miss his chubby little hands and his giggles. Sometimes at night, I can still feel his back snuggled against me, hear his soft breaths, smell his soapy skin, exactly the way he was the afternoon you took him from me.

I remember how you looked when you held Robbie. I know you have a heart, Frank. Find it in your heart to allow me to see our son.

As I keep telling you, I’m fully recovered. I’ve worked at the department store for five years and am now the manager of haberdashery.

I’ve moved out from Mum’s into my own little place near the bowls club. Doesn’t that prove that I am well? Functioning?

Please Frank, at least give him this parcel and let him decide for himself.

I will always keep trying to contact Robbie, Frank.

He is my son.

I am his mother.

Shirley.

The shed floor lurched beneath me. A rush of heat swirled from my stomach to the ends of my hair.

Alive.

She was alive.

And Dad knew.

All this time he’d been lying to my face.

My skin felt too tight, my bones too heavy.

I snatched up the other envelope. This one had my name on the front. I tore it open. Santa’s jolly face beamed at me. I flipped the card open.

Dear Robbie,

Here is a second Christmas gift from me this year. I know I already sent books, but last week a mother with two teenage boys came into the store where I work. While she fussed over buttons and rolls of material, I asked her sons about their Christmas. You should have seen their eyes sparkle when they talked about their new transistor radios, or “trannies” as the older one called them. After they left I thought about the books I sent you and though I think you will like Ian Fleming, I have a feeling that you’ll enjoy the transistor just as much. It takes batteries, which I’ve included. Just don’t play it too loud. I imagine your grandmother is just as picky as ever she was.

I miss you, Robbie.

All my love, always and ever,

Mum

“Shit.” I hissed. “Bloody shit.”

Not only was my mother alive.

She wanted to know me.

In a storm of swirling red, I tore Dad’s letter into tiny pieces. I pitched the secateurs against the wall and swiped the ball of string and can of oil from the workbench.

I turned back to the trunk and kicked it. Hard. The searing pain swallowed my rage. I slumped on the trunk and, hands covering my face, rocked back and forth.

The red mist cleared and my thoughts steadied. I reached for my mother’s card and read it over and over. It sounded – felt – so real.

I focused on that first sentence. “Here is a second Christmas gift from me this year.” A second gift.

Dad still had his first schoolbag packed away in his wardrobe. He wouldn’t throw away anything brand new. But where would he put it? His room? The garage? Or … He spent an awful lot of time out here.

I scanned the shed. There were boxes stacked under the bench, a pile of suitcases in the back corner on top of a tea chest and a cupboard where Dad kept the poisons. And there was the army trunk.

I started with the trunk, expecting it to be locked. It wasn’t. I flung it open and rummaged through the folded uniforms, the bundles of papers, letters tied with string and books, only stopping when my fingers scraped the bottom. I slammed it closed and dived like a hawk on the boxes under the bench. They were filled with rags – old pyjamas, towels and flannelette shirts. My eyes settled on the cupboard. Folded suits, photo albums and newspapers with headlines screaming success over “the Japs”. Underneath them in neat piles lay stacks of girly magazines –
Pix
and
Man
.

I dumped them on the floor and moved to the suitcases. Inside were picture books and school reports, all with yellowed pages, and all Dad’s. I emptied them onto the pile of girly magazines.

I slumped against the back wall.

Nothing.

Nothing that proved Mum was alive.

I went to move, but couldn’t. A nail from the tea chest had hooked my pyjama pants. I wrenched the material free. The sound of it ripping felt good.

I stared at the silver lining poking from between the sides of the chest and the cardboard that someone, probably Dad, had made into a lid.

With a grunt, I heaved the chest over. It fell on its side. The cardboard lid dislodged and stuff tumbled out. I stared, panting, at what had spilled onto the earthen floor.

Gifts.

Gifts wrapped in plain, Christmas and birthday paper, the sticky tape yellowing and curling.

And envelopes, most sealed, some with “Robert” on the front, others with “Robbie”.

A knitted teddy bear with a red bowtie and green overalls lay at my feet.

The red swirling mist wrapped around me again until I couldn’t breathe. I kicked and kicked the chest until my knee and toes screamed in pain. Exhausted, I tumbled to the floor. Head resting on the knitted teddy, I stared at the place where the shed wall met the floor.

When I woke, my body was cool, but the air thick. It took me a moment to realise I was curled on the shed floor. Outside, probably perched in that huge gum, a magpie warbled its morning song.

I stretched and sat up, holding the teddy to my chest. Scattered across the floor, under benches and against the lawnmower wheels, were books, suits, magazines and rags. And unopened gifts and envelopes. Pieces of Dad’s letter were scattered around them like confetti.

Sparks of pain exploded in my right foot when I stood. The toe was swollen and the toenail bloodied from last night’s rush of rage.

My fury had hardened into something more controlled, something that wrapped around me like a shell. Deep inside I burned, but my mind was clear and ordered.

The first thing I did was set the trunk upright, then I collected the cards and parcels and placed them in two rows.

With the magpie’s soaring voice for company, I tore open envelope after envelope. I read every Christmas, Easter and birthday card, trying to piece together a picture of my mother, and why Dad believed I was better off if I thought she was dead.

There were questions.

Did I prefer chocolate milk or plain?

Roast beef or lamb?

Cricket or tennis?

Had Dad taught me to swim?

What did I think of The Beatles?

Did I hate celery? She hated celery.

There was advice.

Don’t talk to your father in the evening until after he’s read the newspaper.

Don’t try to make jokes with your grandmother – she’s rather severe.

Never talk when the news is on the radio or the television.

Make sure you treat everyone you meet with respect.

Be kind.

And there were apologies.

She’d tried.

All she’d ever wanted was to be a mother, the perfect mother.

She wanted and loved me and didn’t understand why she’d been so sad.

That no matter what she did, she couldn’t snap out of it.

That she was sorry she wasn’t stronger, tougher, better.

Sorry she hadn’t stopped Dad from taking me.

Sorry that she hadn’t fought harder when they put her away.

And every single card was signed,
All my love, always and ever, Mum
.

I stacked the cards beside me and unwrapped each gift. Metal cars, a wooden box filled with a rainbow of pencils, a soft-sided suitcase, a toy fox and books –
Now We Are Six
,
Petunia
,
Tom’s Midnight Garden
,
Island of the Blue Dolphins
and
For Your Eyes Only
. Last of all I opened the gift I’d collected from the post office. Had that only been yesterday?

It was a transistor radio. The very one I’d hinted and hinted about to Dad.

I tried to order the gifts along the workbench. The line spanned thirteen years. Thirteen years of not knowing. Thirteen years believing she was dead.

Towards the end were a short-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Real jeans. I peeled off my pyjamas and changed into them. The shirt was a good fit. The jeans were a little big, but they’d do.

Everything else I packed into the case, with the cards and knitted teddy on the top. I marched out of the shed, suitcase in my hand.

Nan stood at the stove, apron over her housecoat, stirring a saucepan of scrambled eggs. Dad’s favourite breakfast.

Dad sat at the end of the table, pouring tea. The ABC news blared through the kitchen. The newsreader talked about the Freedom Ride, the students and how the bus was run off the road as it left Walgett.

I walked to the kitchen table. Nan didn’t look up from the stove. Dad stared at the cup in front of him, hand on the teapot. I guessed he was transfixed by the news.

I slammed the case onto the table. The cup and saucer rattled. Tea sloshed over the edges of Dad’s cup.