Ripples on a Pond (38 page)

‘You can read it when it's done,' she said.

It was done in six weeks, or a first draft was done, and when she wrote that final overdose scene, she felt cleansed.

Dumped three hundred pages beside Robert's breakfast plate. ‘Edit it for me, then give it a mark, Daddy. But I warn you, you'll need to forget I'm your daughter.'

Robert had taught English to matriculation students. He was adept with a red pen. For a week, he sat reading while she walked around him, watching the pile to his left shrink as the pile to his right grew. At times she caught him staring at her, and knew he was asking what on earth he and his gentle Myrtle had managed to raise. There was little gentleness in that tale, but he'd met the protagonist Cara had trapped on paper, and he persevered to the end.

‘You write very well,' he said.

‘Give it a mark, Daddy. How many out of ten?'

‘It's very harsh.'

‘Life is harsh. Come on. I need your mark.'

‘I'd deduct a point for the language.'

‘You heard her language. Don't blame the carpenter's tools.'

She stood over him, waiting for his mark, and he wrote a red nine. On the strength of that nine, she went shopping for a brand-new, whiz-bang electric typewriter, not as noisy as the jittery old portable.

*

The MG, again a going concern, was still cluttering Barry's shed. She rang him from a public phone, told him she'd moved, that the phone hadn't yet been connected, that the car's owner had been contacted and no doubt would contact him shortly. Robin didn't understand why the toy car was fixed but they couldn't bring it home. They had room for two cars in their garage.

Cathy had Cara's number. She phoned. ‘Morrie's up to his ears in builders, and his accountant is in hospital, but if you can get the car up to us, we'll store it for him until he can work out what he wants to do about it. It wouldn't have killed you to write to him instead of getting your old flame to write.'

‘Chris is my solicitor. He looks after my affairs.'

‘Morrie thinks you're having an affair with him. Are you?'

‘He's married.'

‘That doesn't stop some of them.'

‘Speaking from experience, Cath?'

‘I'd kill him,' she said. ‘And he knows it.'

‘Tell Morrie I'll pick it up and store it, but I want it gone as soon as possible,' Cara said.

She and Robin took a taxi to Ashburton. They drove the MG home. Thereafter, because Robin loved that car, and because old cars need exercise, they exercised it regularly. They drove it to the post office when winter was almost done, where they posted chapter one of
The Addict's Child
up to Sydney, with a copy of the reader's report they'd sent to her when they'd returned
Balancing Act.

In September, the postman delivered a business-sized envelope addressed to
Cara Grenville
. The publisher wanted to read the manuscript in its entirety when it was complete.

They drove to the post office again that afternoon and posted a giant envelope. Desperate to tell someone, Cara phoned Cathy, who way back in the mid-sixties had read a draft of
Angel At My Door.

‘What happened to that Jessica story you wrote at college?' Cathy asked.

‘It's still around.'

Her old desk was still around, and had deep drawers; the bottom drawer deep enough to hold all three of her rubber-banded novels and a rough draft of
My Soldier Boy.
One day, one fine day, they'd all see the light.

In October, Tracy had her second birthday and Cara her thirty-first. Anna organised another supervised visit. Cara drove to Helen's house, where she called a taxi. No Raelene that day. Definitely didn't like supervision.

‘When will they learn?' Cara asked the supervisor. Only a shake of the head in reply.

Perhaps they didn't want to learn. Raelene's involvement in the prison's experimental rehabilitation program may have coloured their judgement. Someone refused to give up on her.

A wasted day, but on the way home, Cara bought a copy of
The Lost Letter House
and that night, she read her two a new bedtime story – a cute tale of gnomes and wicked witches, written in verse. They sat at her elbows, looking at the pictures of a magic garden on the far side of a tall fence:

Where children roamed from dawn to dark, allowed to laugh and play,

For the gnome had cast a magic spell to keep the witch away . . .

She read the book again later, and asked again how, in a city of millions, a crippled woman who had never been outside of Melbourne had made contact with a Woody Creek child, and how a child's fairytale book had given Mary her fairytale ending. And perhaps, too, for the Jenny child – Robin's blood grandmother who he could never know.

Gough Whitlam believed in fairytales. In October, Malcolm Fraser and his party blocked supply. In November, the harsh reality of life crept up and king-hit Big Gough. He was dismissed as prime minister and Malcolm Fraser, a dour Liberal man, put in as caretaker prime minister.

In November,
The Addict's Child
returned, with a detailed reader's report that suggested an alternative ending, where Frances gets her life back together and mother and daughter are happily reunited. The happily-ever-after fairytale is always prettier than the truth, and much more satisfying to a reader.

*

Santa ate his cake that year. He drank his milk, and left too many presents beneath the tree. On Christmas morning, too early, Robert and the children came to Cara's room and placed a large carton on the bed. Its contents scrambled free – a bundle of black and white fluff with a big blue bow for a collar, and a card attached, printed by Robin:
My name is Bowser
.

She'd had a Bowser on her bed as a four year old: a black and white puppy with a wind-up key in his tummy. He hadn't licked her face and peed on her quilt.

Laughter that Christmas morning, and puppy food to serve, and water bowls to fill, and in and out the back door all day, attempting to teach an eight-week-old pup that there was a time and place to make his puddles.

Robin had his first professional haircut in January. He wanted his curls cut off – curls were for girls, not boys. The loss of his curls turned him into Morrie's son. He was the image of him.

Tracy's curls had grown long. She wore them in bunches tied high with big pink bows. She liked pink best. Her hair was Raelene's; her eyes weren't. Her elfin chin may have been; her mouth was nothing like Raelene's.

And not one word about Raelene. No letter from Anna, no phone call.

She always comes back
, Georgie had once written. Maybe she wouldn't this time.

Border collie pups dig holes. Bowser became offended by the daphne bush; he dug it up twice before it died. He became offended by Robert's tomato seedlings, but stayed well clear of a clump of self-sown pumpkin plants. They took over the back garden and in time produced multiple baby pumpkins, which the children kept tabs on. Each morning they ran outside to see how big their pumpkins had grown in the night.

‘The one near the incinerator is enormous, Papa.'

‘It 'normous, Papa. It diss big.'

Happiness. How do you define it? It was no supervised visits; it was the day Robert transferred his ‘poppet' to Tracy. Happiness was revisiting her own childhood as an onlooker; it was laughing at a half-grown pup that loved the earth she walked on; it was tucking two kids into their beds, kissing their noses, their ears, loving them, being loved by them.

For two months, Cara attempted to alter the ending of
The Addict's Child
, but couldn't turn a sly fox into a lovable border collie and make the reader believe it. A fox is a fox is a fox, as
The Addict's Child
was what it was.

And who gave a damn anyway? She had what she wanted: two kids, a dog, and Robert well. She had a home that was her home, a safe home, set in a court of twelve houses where children played together and the neighbours watched over them.

The Addict's Child
was packed away with the other manuscripts, a sheeting shroud was placed over her whiz-bang typewriter, and Cara lived happily.

L
ORNA'S
C
IVIL
C
OMPANION

O
n a chilly morning in July of '76, when most would have been content to sit by the gas heater, Lorna and her companion took a bracing walk down to the Commonwealth Bank, where Lorna withdrew a hundred dollars and learned that her account had been swelled, not by the usual quarterly payment, but by thirty thousand dollars.

Her response was a satisfied humph. It was a satisfactory figure and one Lorna considered long overdue. Her mood was somewhat brighter on the brisk walk home.

Amber checked the letterbox. They received little mail, but that day she removed a letter from Roland Atkinson. Once inside, with the aid of her magnifying glass, Lorna learned that the Kew house had been transferred to her name. She was a woman of property, until she offered the letter to her reader, who required no magnifying glass. There were two pages, stating that Lorna was to receive no more quarterly payments from her father's estate; that from that measly thirty thousand dollars paid into her account she would now be expected to take responsibility for electricity, phone, water bills and land rates.

And the final paragraph: Her nephew was in the process of selling up the last of his interests in Australia.

Lorna rose from her chair, the blood leaving her brow, her cheeks, to centre in her blob of battle-scarred nose.

‘That fool does not know who he is dealing with,' her teeth spat. ‘Pack for two days, Duckworth. We are going to Woody Creek.'

Amber may have near forgotten answering to her former name; she hadn't forgotten Woody Creek, and in the process of carrying two meals from kitchen to dining table, the shock of that name almost caused a disaster. She spilled gravy, lost a pea or two, but managed to get those plates down, then hid her face for minutes while cleaning up the spilled gravy and hunting down spilled peas.

A civil little woman, the neighbours, the minister and his wife said of Miss Duckworth. Few had little to say to her and not one of them would have believed she'd spent sixteen years in an asylum for the criminally insane. Amber had never been insane. She'd had unrealised expectations of life, and when life had refused to pay its dues, like a cornered rat, she'd become a little vicious.

She was content in Kew, Lorna's loyal guide dog, her reader/navigator/cook/cleaner, and companion who never said no. And she must. She could not accompany Lorna to Woody Creek.

Or could she? What was the likelihood of anyone recognising her after all this time? In 1946, Amber Morrison had worn her beige-blonde hair shoulder length, had clothed herself in beige suits, beige frocks, beige hats and gloves – a camouflage for her true colours, Norman had once commented. Elizabeth Duckworth dressed in soft blues, lilacs; her silky white hair was worn short, curly. She dressed well. For the first time in her life, she could afford to dress well. She paid no rent. Lorna supplied the majority of the food they ate, and for this, Amber, as wily as a rat in the snake pit, measured each reaction, censored every word, ever alert for slips.

‘Woodscreek? I don't believe I've heard the name before, Miss Hooper.'

‘Woody Creek,' Lorna's teeth snapped. ‘My sister and I were raised there. My fool of a brother still resides there with the Morrison trollop – in my father's house, I might add.'

She'd mentioned her fool of a brother previously. Miss Duckworth had never met Jim Hooper, but Amber knew him well.

‘Do they have children, Miss Hooper?' she asked now.

‘A daughter, who my brother had the good sense to remove from the trollop's influence. She's being educated at the college my sister and I attended,' Lorna said, and again she loaded her dentures with food. Not a pretty sight: a featherless vulture with a damaged beak, swallowing what it could rip from a swollen carcass. ‘My sister, Margaret, adopted their bastard son. You've met him.'

Amber placed her fork down to listen. She'd met Lorna's nephew, but had been unaware that he was the son of Norman's stray. She watched the dentures fight another load down, waiting for further information, but Lorna turned the conversation to the pittance in interest she might expect to receive per annum on a thirty-thousand-dollar investment, which, according to her, would be hard-pressed to cover the cost of ever-increasing land rates and electricity.

A viperous woman, Amber thought. Her benefactor absorbed information as a python absorbed a goat; and a week, a month or a year later, she could spit out the skin and bones of it intact.

‘Is there a train service to Woody Creek?' Miss Duckworth asked.

‘Humph,' Lorna replied. She refused to mix with the masses on public transport. ‘I'll speak to my solicitor on Monday. We'll leave on Tuesday.'

‘I feel I must express my concern for your sight, Miss Hooper, and the distance.'

Lorna's eye specialist had suggested she sell her vehicle. Her optician had seconded the motion. Both were male. Lorna had little respect for a male's opinion.

‘If my brother will not act on his own behalf and prevent the sale of our father's land, then he may be encouraged to act on his daughter's behalf.'

His daughter. The words reached down to the place of Amber's anger. Sissy should have borne his daughters.

Had Sissy married, borne children? Was she back in that town?

She'd recognise her mother, short hair or long, beige or blue frock. As would Maisy.

Memories are long in Woody Creek
, Amb
, Maisy had written.

Norman's stray would recognise her.

‘I warned that boy the day my sister died that I'd reveal his whereabouts to the trollop should he ever attempt to sell my father's land. He's known me long enough to know I keep my word,' Lorna said, her words accompanied by the toss of the vulture's featherless head and a tap of her talon on her empty plate.

Amber rose to remove the plate and to fetch the treacle pudding and custard. Only one serve. She placed it before her benefactor, then again took her place at the foot of the table, her mind searching for excuse as to why she could not accompany Lorna to Woody Creek. Watched Lorna's dessert spoon dig into the pudding, watched her throat as she swallowed.

‘The traffic is increasing each year–'

‘We will leave at daylight, and I am more than familiar with the route.' Lorna swallowed another mouthful of pudding. ‘We will obtain accommodation at Willama – a neighbouring town. You will remain there while I take care of my business.'

At last, Amber filled her fork. Willama was thirty-odd miles from Woody Creek, too far away in '46.

Her mutton casserole had grown cold. No matter. She'd eaten worse.

*

They left Melbourne before seven on the Tuesday morning, Amber afraid of the early traffic, Lorna afraid of nothing. They broke their journey at a roadhouse, where they ate a second breakfast while Lorna rested her eyes. She drove on along country roads, keeping her speed down to a comfortable twenty-eight miles an hour. A tractor, going about its morning business, passed them on a straight stretch. They had a frustrated tail of ten cars where the road twisted between hills.

But they got there, secured two rooms at a motel close to the centre of town, then walked down to Willama's main restaurant for lunch. It was little changed since the last time Amber had eaten there, with Sissy, Margaret and Lorna the day they'd ordered Sissy's wedding gown. Memories. This town was full of them, though no longer the same town.

At one thirty, Amber, seated well forward, looking left, looking right, sighted the Woody Creek signpost. She vacated the passenger seat, leaving her benefactor to drive on alone while she walked back to Willama's centre. She'd noticed a big Woolworths store close by the restaurant. Lorna refused to set foot in their stores, or in Coles. Amber enjoyed wandering their aisles.

*

At fifteen minutes past two, Lorna parked her car in Hooper Street and walked down the brick path she knew so well, to the veranda she'd worn out with her morning constitutionals. The floorboards had been replaced. She was confronted by a modern security door. It galled her that she couldn't get at the heavy brass knocker. A doorbell on her left. She chose not to ring it, but with the side of a closed fist hammered on the metal mesh.

The trollop opened the inner door, and was about to close it when Lorna stated her business.

‘I have been in recent contact with your bastard son,' she said. ‘I wish to speak to my brother.'

Inside, a key turned, then the trollop disappeared.

*

Lorna was seated in the sitting room when Jim joined her. Not Jenny. She stood in the passage, within hearing range but out of sight. She heard Lorna enquire after Gertrude's health, and for an instant believed that the black-clad hag had lost her mind. Granny had been dead for almost twenty years.

‘She's well,' Jim said.

Trudy, originally registered as Gertrude Maria, had been Trudy Juliana since her adoption.

‘You told Jen that you've seen Jimmy,' Jim said.

Jenny held her breath for Lorna's reply.

Not the right reply.

‘Our father's property is to be placed on the market,' Lorna said. ‘His will stipulates that the family farm is never to be sold. I intend to stop the sale. You have funds at your disposal?'

‘Sufficient for our needs,' Jim said. ‘When did you see Jimmy?'

Lorna scoffed. ‘My recent contact has been through Atkinson, who also informed me that my funds are to be further limited. I spoke to my solicitor yesterday, who assured me that Gertrude, being your legitimate issue, has a greater claim to our father's estate than a possible grandson born out of wedlock. I expect you to join with me in a suit to prevent the sale of the land – if not for your own benefit, then for the benefit of my niece.'

‘Where is Jimmy living?'

‘The irresponsible fool calls himself Langdon. He inherited Langdon Hall, my mother's family property. It was a crumbling wreck when I was there in '52,' she scoffed.

And they had it.

James Morrison Langdon, Langdon Hall, Thames Ditton, England.

The envelope was addressed that night, the letter written. Not an easy letter to write, and perhaps too long. When it had been festooned with airmail stickers and was gone from their hands, Jenny wished it back.

‘I shouldn't have said . . .'

‘It was a perfect letter, Jen. It's up to him now to make the next move.'

*

Waited for him to make the next move.

Waited for months.

Waited for the letter to return.

They saw Israeli commandoes liberate one hundred and three hostages held by pro-Palestinian terrorists in Uganda; saw the American spacecraft
Viking 1
land on Mars. They saw the advertising of cigarettes banned on radio and television. They saw Vern Hooper's land sold to the Jenner brothers; saw Pastor Doug Nichols appointed governor of South Australia, the first Aborigine to hold a vice-regal office. They saw random breath testing introduced to Victoria, in an attempt to get drunk drivers off the roads.

Saw another Christmas, and looked for a Christmas card from England. They'd settle for a Christmas card.

No card.

Nothing.

‘It's time to let go, Jen.'

‘Tell me how and I will.'

Nineteen seventy-seven began with a rail disaster in the Blue Mountains. It was followed by the kidnapping of a teacher and nine schoolchildren. At the same time, the Queen and Prince Philip were on their way across the ocean to celebrate their silver jubilee.

That's life. Good or bad, it goes on and on.