Ripples on a Pond (10 page)

Belted out another one while her coffee cooled, then five pages more before forcing herself away to the bedroom to dress. No bra. They were all too tight to tolerate. She pulled on her singlet top that didn't cover much, stepped into her stretch shorts that covered less, made a fresh coffee, then sat down to read what she'd written.

The Jessica character had lost her golden curls and become a brunette with long, straight hair, like Jenny of the dream; Myrtle – Martha
–
had retained her whipped puppy-dog eyes but lost four stone. And they worked. They were real people.

By six o'clock, she had twenty-two pages. Her back was killing, but time, a previously stagnant thing, had gone up in smoke. As did the following day and the following week. Engrossed in this, the final, final draft, she forgot to cross the days off her calendar.

A D
ISASTROUS
Y
EAR

O
n the fifth day of February, disaster struck her dogbox. She was typing up a storm when someone knocked on her door.

Her hands stilled over the keyboard. From time to time, a neighbour knocked. From time to time, religious fanatics came to convert her to their particular faith. Before Timothy had been born, Cathy had knocked at odd hours.

One thirty, according to her watch. She sat immobile, waiting for the knocker to give up, or for a voice that might identify him or her – not that she'd be opening her door no matter who was out there.

This time the knock was accompanied by a voice. ‘We know you're in there, poppet.'

Robert? Oh shit! Oh Jesus! Oh Christ!

‘We heard you typing, pet.'

And Myrtle. Shit, shit, shit, shit!

This was cold-sweating disaster. She had seven weeks to go. She could see the end of it. She had an appointment with the doctor on Monday week and was looking forward to the Geelong supermarket and fresh fruit, to a piece of fillet steak. She was not opening that door, not to Robert, Myrtle, God or the devil. And they couldn't prove she was in here anyway.

They could. She heard a key in the lock – and cursed herself for giving them that key, and cursed Myrtle who had never lost anything in her life.

The safety chain held, but Myrtle was pressing her face to the three-inch gap. Not a lot to that dogbox sitting room; and the majority of what there was visible through that gap. The television and its complex coat-hanger aerial, the heavy old desk, typewriter, and Cara, clad in her writing uniform – white stretch shorts in need of a wash, elastic riding comfortably below the bulge; breast-hugging, nipple-displaying singlet top, riding above the bulge.

Myrtle's face disappeared from the gap to be replaced by Robert's, slightly higher, though not much.

‘Remove this chain, Cara,' he demanded.

No more poppet. Poppet was popping out of her shorts. Poppet's navel had popped.

She removed her bulge from their vision, waddled to her bedroom to cover herself with her washed-out brunch coat.

‘Open this door, Cara.'

‘Stop pushing against it and I might be able to.'

They stopped pushing. She let them in, or not quite in. They stood side by side in the doorway, staring at the loose-fitting cotton gown, Myrtle's eyes leaking, Robert's expression suggesting he'd prefer to be out than in.

‘The bank finally foreclosed on you,' Cara said.

‘Why didn't you tell us?' Myrtle wept.

‘Where is your husband?' Robert asked.

‘What are you doing down here?' Cara said.

‘How long have you been home?'

‘I asked what you were doing down here.'

‘Cathy called. She told us that Morrie was flying in.' Myrtle had taken a step nearer. The handkerchief was out and mopping her round face. ‘We've never met him. Why on earth didn't you tell Daddy and me that you were expecting?'

‘I thought it was indigestion,' Cara said. ‘When is he flying in?'

‘This evening. Cathy didn't tell me that you were in the family way.'

‘You're doing a good job of telling the neighbours,' Cara said, reaching behind Myrtle to close the door.

Robert limped towards the kitchenette. Myrtle reached out to her. Cara evaded her arms, requiring only answers right now.

‘When did Cathy call you?'

‘On Sunday. She rang to ask when you'd be home. She thought you'd gone to New Zealand, that you were visiting your uncle. I rang Richard.'

That was how Cara's well-planned deception had disintegrated: big-mouthed Cathy and Uncle Richard, who Cara had never met – who wasn't her uncle anyway, just a male loosely attached to Myrtle; very loosely attached since Robert's previous bank loan had bought him out of his half-share of Amberley. Cara knew the story. Knew that three years ago, after learning Amberley had been divided into units, he'd tried to prove that pre-war sale invalid. After what had gone on back then, Myrtle had raised sufficient nerve to phone him?

‘Did you fly in together, pet?' Myrtle asked.

‘What?'

‘Is Morrie here?'

Cara shook her head and looked at her watch. He'd be here this evening. She'd had a key cut for him too! Shit, shit, shit.

Myrtle, having walked into a situation beyond her comprehension, was doing her best to handle it. Robert, shocked silent, had his back to the bench separating kitchenette and sitting room, where he stood staring at the bulge beneath his daughter's brunch coat.

Cara turned to him. ‘You drove down?'

He nodded.

Myrtle replied. ‘We stayed at Albury last night.'

Cara turned her bulge away from their view and went to her desk, where she started packing her typewriter into its carry-case. She rubber-banded a bulk of pages together before sliding them into a folder, then turned her television off at the wall and pulled out the plug.

They stood watching, Myrtle and Robert, glancing at each other while their daughter unhooked her wire-and-coat-hanger aerial from the curtain rod.

‘You shouldn't be reaching up like that, pet. The cord can get–'

God help you, Jenny Morrison, Cara thought, and disappeared into her bedroom.

Myrtle followed on her heels; watched the folder tossed into a case, watched it buried beneath the jumbled contents of her daughter's underwear drawer.

‘Your father has a room booked at a hotel tonight. He needs to sit down and put his foot up. His knee has been giving him trouble since we left Albury.'

‘Why don't you learn to drive?'

Cara was at her wardrobe, looking for garments that still went around her. Tossed her stretch slacks into the case, a handful of T-shirts, Morrie's white shirt. She was closing the case when Robert limped to the doorway. Today, he made no attempt to confiscate the case – as he had when she was fifteen and planning an escape to Sydney.

‘You might explain yourself,' he said.

‘I'll drive if your knee is bad,' she said.

The case placed beside the front door, she reached for a shopping bag, which she proceeded to fill with a can of peaches, a large jar of coffee, three packets of dry biscuits, cheese, a carton of cigarettes, two bags of nuts. Would have forgotten about Morrie's car had his keys not been on the bench beside her handbag. He was probably coming over here to ship that car home. She stood a moment looking at the keys, then went to her kitchen tidy for a cigarette packet she'd emptied last night. Found it beneath potato peelings, slid his keys into it, wrapped it in a brown paper bag and sealed it with sticky tape.

‘Have you been with him in England?' Myrtle asked.

Pen in hand, Cara was trying to remember Cathy's street number. They'd built a new house. Was it fourteen? Someone was number fourteen. Ballarat's postman would know where Gerry lived. She addressed the small parcel to
Doctor Gerard Jasper
, then offered the shopping bag to Myrtle. She took it.

‘Are you capable of carrying the case down, Daddy?'

‘What your mother and I require is an explanation,' he said.

‘We're going home,' she said.

She opened the front door, slid both handbag strap and the typewriter bag's carrying strap over her shoulder, and picked up her television. It had a form of handle but was barely portable. She got it out to the landing, slid her case out, then stood waiting to close the door.

They followed her downstairs, followed her to their car, where Robert refused to hand over his keys. Cara got into the rear seat. She directed him to her post office, but, not dressed for the shopping centre, gave Myrtle the small parcel and told Robert to double-park while Myrtle slid out. A tram behind them, a stream of traffic behind the tram, Robert drove on to the next traffic lights, where he turned left – and almost collected a pedestrian. That's when he gave up his keys. He didn't know Melbourne and had already battled his way through it once today. He gave up the front seat for the rear and, ten minutes later, after two turns around the block, Myrtle slid in beside him.

It took the best part of an hour to fight their way clear of traffic to Sydney Road, but once on the open road, Cara gave the five-year-old Holden its head.

‘There are speed limits,' Robert snapped.

‘Back-seat driver,' the speedster replied, but didn't ease off the accelerator. If Morrie was flying into Melbourne this evening, she needed to be far away.

*

Night was coming down when they drove into Wangaratta, the car gasping for petrol. Robert had been warning her for the past half-hour to find a service station. She pulled into the first she sighted and an attendant filled the tank.

‘We need to find a motel before nightfall,' Myrtle said.

‘You know where to find one in Albury,' Cara said.

They used the service station toilets; Cara had a smoke. Robert wanted to slap it out of her hand, she could tell, but that would mean approaching her. He kept his distance.

‘Smoking is harmful to the unborn baby,' Myrtle warned. She carried Robert's pills in her handbag. She dug a water container and mug from the loading area of the wagon and fed him two before they hit the road again. They stopped his nagging. He was asleep before they reached Albury. Myrtle didn't suggest they find a nice motel. The five-hundred-mile stretch between Sydney and Melbourne was possible in one hop. Cathy had done it in a Mini-Minor. At fifteen, Cara had done it in the rear seat of the old Morris. Robert's wagon appeared happy to keep on going so Cara kept on going.

She could thank Uncle John and his sons for the Holden. They'd talked Robert out of buying another Morris. The EH wagon was superior to the EJ, they'd said. Holden had got rid of the old grey motor with the EH. Cara knew nothing about motors, grey or red. All she knew was the EH Holden was a gem to drive, and on good stretches of the highway its speedometer crept too easily to eighty – and would have gone faster. She kept pulling it back to seventy and knew that if Robert woke up and saw she was doing seventy he'd have a convulsion. Fifty miles an hour was his limit.

He didn't wake, not until she stopped at the dog on the tucker box, needing a toilet again. Nerves maybe, or no space left for a full bladder. Robert demanded his keys. May have fought her for them had she not taken them with her into the ladies'. His voice pursued her.

‘You're driving like a mad woman.'

Myrtle, dishevelled and yawning, followed her in. ‘Give him his keys, pet.'

‘We're almost there,' Cara said.

‘We've got miles to go!' Myrtle wailed.

‘Give him another pill and shut him up, Mum – and you take one too.'

Drove on with the truckies, counted nine in convoy on one stretch of highway. No truck passed her. A few slowed her pace. On one bad stretch, she followed two trucks for fifty miles before she could pass them. Silence from the back seat, a movement from time to time, a sigh. Hoped she could find her way through to Amberley without their help. How many times had Robert followed the same route out of Sydney?

Didn't know what she was going to do when she got there. She'd had it all worked out; had almost done it. Now her plan had been shot to hell.

And why was Morrie coming back? She'd told him to stay on his side of the ocean until the marriage was undone. Probably for his car. Cathy should receive the keys in a day or two – and he'd have spare keys anyway.

Landmarks alter, and it's not easy to read street names at night when eyes feel as if someone has taken to them with emery paper, but Cara got them home. Not quite four when she parked the wagon in Robert's bay. He was awake, and when he roused Myrtle, she couldn't believe they were there.

Cara carried her television into Amberley's parlour, carried her case into her room then closed the door. Didn't want the morning, or what she'd be forced to face come morning, but the bulge was sleeping. She didn't disturb it. Slid into bed in her shorts and singlet top where she slept until noon.

N
IGHTMARES

‘
Y
ou're dreaming, Jim. Wake up,' Jenny said. ‘You're in bed.' She had a grip on the tail of his pyjama top, a dangerous pastime when he dreamed of war. There was a lot of length, a lot of strength, in Jim Hooper. She'd carried a bruise or two from his close combat with the enemies of his nights. He'd worn his own bruises before they'd moved their double bed in hard against the wall. By day he wore a partial artificial leg, but in dream he had two legs, and when he took off in pursuit of the Japs, or dodged their bullets, he went sprawling.

His bad dreams were rare these days and he woke more easily from them. ‘Sorry,' he gasped, pulling her to him. ‘Sorry, Jen.'

‘What were you dreaming?'

‘It's gone,' he said.

Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. By day or night he never spoke about his war.

‘If you could talk about it, you'd stop having those dreams,' she said.

‘It's the futility,' he said. ‘The same helplessness. When does it end?' He lay back on the pillow then, his arm beneath her shoulder.

The futility. She knew what he meant. Raelene was back in town, or out at the commune. She disappeared for months on end and they thought they'd seen the last of her, but she came back. Always came back.

They'd spent five futile years attempting to sort that girl out. For two of those years they'd driven her down to city psychologists, social workers, hoping one of them might be able to fix up her head. She was eighteen now, considered by society to be an adult and capable of taking charge of her own life.

She was in charge of their lives, of Trudy's too, she and her tattooed bikie.

Jenny had seen them go by two days ago, Raelene clinging onto the back of his oversized motorbike. Then last night, about to lock the house up and walk down to Amy and John's for dinner, and that bike came back. For the next two hours it had roared around and around the block. They'd aborted their dinner date, aware that if Raelene decided to get into their locked house, she'd get in – and get out with something saleable.

They'd phoned the constable at nine. He'd chased the bike out to Monk's gates, but when he'd come back, they'd come back. Just a game to them. Not to Jenny.

‘Sell up and move, Jim. We could buy in one of the outer suburbs.'

She'd move to Melbourne tomorrow. A month after she'd moved into Vern Hooper's house she would have moved. They'd got rid of the old wallpaper, had spent a lot on paint and drapes and carpets. They'd gutted the kitchen and refitted it from the floor up. They'd dug up the back lawn and turned it into a vegie patch, but it was still Vern Hooper's house, and to Jenny it would never be anything else.

‘We can't live like this. It's not good for Trudy to live like this.'

Jim kissed her face, but didn't reply. Moving was something else he refused to discuss. He'd found his old space waiting for him in Woody Creek, had found the Jim Hooper he'd been before the interruption of the war.

‘They like cities. They'll move on soon.'

‘And come back too,' Jenny said.

Florence and Clarrie Keating, Raelene's mother and stepfather, had sold up again and moved to God alone knew where. As a twelve year old, Raelene had been stealing from them and their neighbours. When she'd been released from the girls' home, she'd attempted to carry off one of her half-brothers, and if he hadn't possessed the sense to kick and scream, who knows what could have happened to him.

And who knew what she'd do to Trudy if given half a chance. Jenny didn't give her that half-chance. She or Jim drove Trudy to the school gate when Raelene was in town, and picked her up from the school gate – and that was no way for an eleven-year-old kid to live – or it wasn't the way Jenny had lived at eleven.

‘If we bought a place in Melbourne, Trudy could go to that school as a day pupil.'

‘Go to sleep, Jen.'

I was asleep, she thought.

Years ago they'd put Trudy's name down at the Methodist Ladies College. Jim's sisters had been educated there, which was no recommendation, but Paul Jenner, one of the wealthy farmers out Three Pine's Road, had sent his youngest daughter there. She was currently studying law at a university.

Trudy would start high school next year and, one way or another, Jenny would have to come to terms with sending her away to school – just thinking about it worried her. Jim and she had mollycoddled Trudy. She'd grown into a sweet-natured, gentle kid, and was too shy with strangers. She wouldn't handle being away from home.

Jenny eased herself up on her elbow to see the hands of the bedroom clock.

‘What's the time?' Jim asked.

‘Almost three.'

He rolled to his side to face the wall; she fitted her body against his, her arm over him, a slim protection against bad dreams. No protection for her. Her back was to the open door, and what was to stop Raelene from creeping in?

There were too many windows in this house and glass doors that led out to the eastside veranda. And the house made noises. Last week, she and Georgie had taken a chainsaw to a limb of the oak tree that had spent half of its life scraping against the veranda spouting.

Georgie, her rock of Gibraltar in a stormy sea, her mate, confessor and relaxation medication. She yawned, rolled over to face the door, bunched up the pillow to support her neck then put herself to sleep by imagining that Jim had agreed to sell and they'd bought a modern little house in Ringwood, close to Nobby and Rosemary's – a not-too-little house. There was a room in it for Georgie.

*

Saturday was Trudy's netball day. She'd never been into sport and didn't move around the court as well as some of the girls, but having spent too much time shooting goals alone in the backyard, she was a champion goalie, and tall enough for the job. Jim drove her to the courts, then stayed to watch the game.

Saturday was Jenny's baking day. She slid two trays of Granny's oatmeal biscuits into the oven then reached for plain flour and her large earthenware bowl. She'd promised to make Cornish pasties for lunch. Making flaky pastry was time consuming, but the game wouldn't end before one. She had an hour.

She was rolling the pastry for the third time when the wire door behind her opened and Raelene walked in.

Swung around to face the visitor who had crept up on her.

Unwelcome visitor. ‘You're not supposed to be here, Raelene.'

‘Twenty bucks will get rid of me.'

The sheet of pastry folded, placed on a plate to wait a while in the refrigerator, Jenny put her rolling pin on the sink bench then stood beside it.

‘Is he with you?'

‘Does it look like it?'

Flour wiped from her hand on a tea towel, she looked at the door, wishing she'd thought to lock it when Jim and Trudy had left. You can't think of everything, and she'd been in and out to her washing machine all morning and hadn't seen nor heard that bike in days – and you can't live your life behind locked doors.

‘Where is he?'

‘The bastard pissed off to Melbourne without me,' Raelene said.

Maybe he had. Maybe he hadn't. That girl had never told the truth if a lie would serve as well.

‘I need you to go, Raelene.'

‘I need twenty bucks.'

‘Jim carries the money.'

‘Liar,' Raelene said.

Such a pipsqueak, five foot two and a half of her at twelve, and she hadn't grown since. She'd had more weight on her bones at twelve, more breast too. Jenny hadn't been this close to her in months, and she looked half-starved and unclean. If he wasn't in town, she'd be shacked up out at Duffys'.

She'd been a doll of a baby, a pretty little girl, dark as a gypsy, big heavy-lidded eyes and a wide, laughing mouth. Amy McPherson had cast her as a pixie in one of the school concerts and she'd made such a perfect pixie. No pixie left, and not a lot of pretty. A hungry face, sharp-featured, her lifestyle beginning to show on it.

‘If you're hungry, I'll make you a sandwich, then you need to go.'

‘Shove your sandwich up your arse, you mean old bitch. My father left you a pile of money and it's more mine than yours.'

‘He didn't leave it for you and your boyfriend to shoot up your arms,' Jenny said.

‘He didn't leave it for you to spend on your gimpy bastard and his snivelling bloody worm either,' Raelene said and she walked into the passage.

Trudy and Jim had taken Raelene's place in Jenny's life – according to one city psychologist. She may have been right. Raelene loathed Trudy and hadn't spoken a word to Jim in years. He'd woken up to her lies, had given up on her, long before Jenny.

She was awake now. Glanced at her watch, flour on its face. She wiped it. It was after twelve. Georgie sometimes popped in when she closed the shop. She picked up the rings she always removed when she baked and slid them safe onto her finger before following Raelene.

‘You'll find no money.'

‘I need a shower,' Raelene said.

Her hair could stand a wash, a greasy black today. ‘Use the back bathroom then. I'll bring you in a towel.'

And the wire door squeaked open again and Jenny's heart lurched in her breast, knowing it was him, knowing she should have locked that door instead of worrying about her rings.

‘Anyone home?'

‘Lila. I'm in the passage. Come through,' Jenny called, and how long had it been since she'd been relieved to hear the voice of Lila Jones/Roberts/Freeman, pain in the backside to many, friend once to Jenny, back during the factory days in Sydney, long, long ago.

Raelene changed her mind about taking a shower. She turned on Lila. ‘You look like something the cat dragged in, you brainless old bitch.'

True enough. Lila followed every gimmicky teenage fashion fad, which on a woman of forty-odd looked ridiculous.

‘You look like something an alley cat wouldn't bother to drag in on a wet morning,' Lila countered, and Raelene left via the front door.

The women, watching her off the property, saw her aim a mule kick at the door of Lila's battered Holden, more rust than its original cream.

‘I hope you broke your toe,' Lila yelled. She walked down to the car, not to glance at her new dent but to remove her well-travelled case from the boot. ‘I hope I'm good for a bed for a night or two. I'm stoney motherless broke,' Lila said.

She was a Raelene deterrent, but difficult to move once she'd settled in. She was a good cook and cleaner, which left Jenny to do what she was good at. She made a classy ballgown for Mrs Browne – with an e – the wife of one of the wealthy farmers, and with her earnings, bought Lila a full tank of petrol. She moved on.

Jim was relieved. Lila flirted mercilessly with him and he didn't know how to handle it. Jenny returned to her vacuum cleaner and her kitchen.

It was a Friday, two days after Lila left, and Georgie, who had been dodging Lila, was coming to dinner tonight. She loved golden syrup dumplings, and Lila had used all of the self-raising flour.

Trudy was partial to syrup dumplings. ‘I'll get you some,' she said.

It was only a hop, step and a jump through the railway yards. ‘Grab my purse. It's in behind my shoes in the wardrobe. And get me a packet of Bushells tea while you're there,' Jenny said.

*

Trudy was on her way home when they came at her from behind the station's tank stand, Raelene and two of the Duffy girls. They half-circled her, bailed her up against the paling fence.

Trudy was no fighter. She'd never learnt how it was done. Taller than Raelene, armed with a string bag containing a heavy packet of flour, tea and the purse, another may have thought to swing it at the trio to keep them at bay. Trudy clutched it to her.

One Duffy grabbed a handful of her hair. Raelene grabbed the shopping bag, then they pulled Trudy's T-shirt up, and then off.

A group of twelve-year-old boys, playing cricket out the front of the railway station, stopped their game to stare. Trudy wore no bra beneath her shirt; her eleven-year-old body had barely begun to take on the shape of womanhood. She cowered, covering her tiny exposed breasts with folded arms while the trio balled the T-shirt, pitched it over the paling fence, pitched the flour and tea then ran with Jenny's purse.

Trudy ran the other way, blindly, ran into Mrs Dobson.

‘Trudy.'

Mrs Dobson picked up the string bag and its contents and turned around to follow the running girl.

Jim's front door was open. He was on the hall phone, speaking to the constable. He beckoned Mrs Dobson indoors.

‘Tell him I saw who did it, Jim,' she said.

Trudy, vomiting in the bathroom, had seen who did it. Jenny, kneeling beside her, holding back her long hair, wanted a rifle and a sack full of bullets.

‘Raelene,' Jim said to the constable. ‘She was with two of the Duffy girls.'

‘That thickset blonde and the one with the twisted face they call
Squish
,' Mrs Dobson said. ‘Tell him that he needs to clean out that rats' nest before a few of us start taking the law into our own hands.'