Wind in the Wires (39 page)

If I told Morrie, he’d laugh, she thought. If I introduced Georgie to him as my half-sister, he’d want all of the juicy details.

And I love him.

Love on the poverty line erodes fast. I’m flying to Italy via New York on my honeymoon. Chris had two uncles and multiple cousins in New York.

None of his relatives had migrated to England. She wanted to see England, Ireland.

Morrie should be home by now. If he’d gone home. She had his phone number somewhere. Cathy had given it to her months ago.

She went to her bedroom, opened the top drawer of her bedside unit, and was confronted by Georgie’s plethora of bankbooks but no phone number. Chris spent little time in her flat, but she wouldn’t have left that number lying around where he’d see it.

And she wasn’t going to call it even if she found it.

She sat on her bed, sorting through the bankbooks, each one wearing a version of Georgie’s name. Morrison, Morrison King, Morgan, Morgan-Morrison, Georgina, Gina, Georgie. For weeks she’d deposited mouse money into each account. She’d got rid of it, and would need to get rid of those books before September. Georgie kept promising to come down for a weekend but she had a shop to run. If she came up to Sydney in September . . .

Bet she wouldn’t.

This flat would need to be emptied by September. Little in it was fit to take with her. Her typewriter, television and clothing, and that was about all. Her linen and blankets were ex-boarding-house, old before she’d inherited them. The Salvos might find a use for them, and for her fridge, easy chair, battered coffee table.

She loved her old desk but Chris wouldn’t give it floor space. She loved her bed too, bought secondhand and dirt cheap, but the most comfortable bed she’d ever slept in. Loved her reliable alarm clock, bought at Coles the week she’d started work. Its numbers glowed green in the night, and at any given time she could rise up on her elbow and instantly know the hour. What more do you need from a clock? Chris owned a squarish lump of glass wall-clock, more decorative than functional. It lacked readable numbers. He’d bought it in Japan, or someplace.

She picked up her alarm clock and wound its butterfly key, as she did every night, adjusted her watch to match its hands, as she did every night. The watch, bought for her twenty-first birthday by Myrtle and Robert, may have been expensive but was no longer a reliable timekeeper. Overdue for a clean, maybe.

Morrie would definitely be home by now – if he hadn’t been picked up for speeding and thrown into jail.

I’d be able to visit him.

She smiled, knowing what she’d say to him if they tossed him into jail, if she visited him.

Greater love hath no man, that he would sully his reputation in the name of research. That’s what she’d say and, in prison uniform or not, he’d laugh.

Back when she’d lived at the Windsor boarding house, when he’d driven home late to Ballarat, she’d sat by the phone until he’d called her to let her know he’d got there. He knew this number. He might call her.

It had been a good day, uplifting, relaxing and productive, and it hadn’t cost a penny. She’d live a frenetic life with Chris, always out somewhere, running, eating, visiting, seeing the most recent shows, or in bed.

‘Go to bed,’ she said.

Brushed her teeth, washed her face, smoothed on cream, looked for wrinkles. Looked at her lobes and wondered if earlobe engagements counted. She had no proof that his diamonds were still there unless she checked with her fingers or looked in a mirror.

What else was there but marriage and a house and kids? Marion was going after what she wanted. Everyone was married – Cathy, Michelle, Helen. Marion wasn’t. She’d had three bit parts in television shows recently, and would be in a play in July, not at a big theatre, but she had a big role in it. She’d get to where she wanted to be one day and bless her fiancé for dumping her. Fiancés stole time, stole . . . self.

Pyjama-clad, she returned to her tiny sitting room to turn off the heater. Melbourne’s weighty phone books were beside it, on her coffee table.

She’d been on the phone when Cathy had given her Morrie’s number. Knew where she’d written it too. It was in the margin of the emergency numbers page, a big M beside it.

It wouldn’t hurt to give him a quick call. It was a miserable night. The roads would be greasy. She was making sure he’d got home safely, that’s all.

It would disturb his mother. Probably wouldn’t. It would disturb the nurse – who no doubt was accustomed to being disturbed.

She reached for the phone, dialled the first three digits, then placed it down again.

What will you say if he isn’t there?

What will you say if he is?

‘Something.’ And she dialled the number, and maybe he’d been about to pick up the phone. It barely rang.

‘Just checking that you got home,’ she said.

‘I turn into a pumpkin at midnight.’

‘It’s not midnight yet. I thought I might be able to visit you in jail tomorrow.’

‘I did my best for you but there wasn’t a cop on the road.’

‘Such is life,’ she said. And heard liquid being poured. ‘What are you drinking now?’

‘It’s red, and bottled in South Australia. Not a bad drop either.’

‘Drinking makes us less capable of dealing with our problems, Morrie, and creates its own. Go to bed and get some sleep.’

‘The major general is in it, and if you saw her, you wouldn’t suggest that. Who is in your bed, Norris?’

‘Just a couple of tramps I found camped on the stairs. I couldn’t leave them out there on a night like this. Sleep tight.’

He didn’t hang up. She heard more of something red, bottled in South Australia, glugging into a glass.

‘You’re still there,’ he said.

‘You know my number if you need to talk.’

‘I need, so talk,’ he said.

‘My phone bill was through the roof last quarter.’

‘Hang up and I’ll call back.’

‘I have to go to work in the morning. Bye now.’

‘It’s Saturday.’

‘It’s Sunday, and getting ready to flick over to Monday. Goodnight.’

*

She was dreaming, her arms loaded with books, dream-walking into a relic of a house she’d won in a lottery, and it had no windows. And why would anyone buy a ticket in a lottery to win a blind house? Someone was knocking. In her dream she knew it was the removalists with the Traralgon furniture. She dream-walked a narrow passage, the house longer than it had seemed. And how had she walked so far from the front door? And it wasn’t the front door. It opening into another room, a huge room, claret-red velvet curtains, tall bookshelves.

More insistent knocking washed that room away. And she wanted that room. Wanted to see
Rusty
on those bookshelves.

Clock ticking on her bedside table, its ghostly green hands telling her it was a quarter past one. Dino Collins had found her.

He wouldn’t knock on her door. He’d knock it down.

The flat freezing cold, she slid from her bed and, without light, crept to the door.

‘I’m calling the police,’ she said.

‘Desperation calls for desperate remedies,’ Morrie said.

‘You bloody fool of a man!’ She removed her safety chain and flung the door wide. ‘You half-witted idiot of an imbecile.’

He needed someone to hold him up. She was handy, and in the doorway she held him up while he kissed her. And he had something sharp between his teeth.

She could have swallowed it. She spat it instead, thinking it was glass, that he’d bitten the top off his bottle of something red bottled in South Australia. Had to turn on the light to see what she’d spat.

A ring. Three diamonds in an old-fashioned setting. A beautiful ring.

‘Mum’s,’ he said. ‘And Grandma’s.’

‘I could have swallowed it, you maniac.’

‘But you love me anyway –’

She loved him. The relief of his arms told her so, and his mouth, without the ring, though wine-tainted. And what came next told her so. The unembarrassed shedding of her baggy blue pyjamas, and her mindless lack of care for tomorrow.

She didn’t name it research, but learned something anyway. She learned why the human race kept on multiplying.

They had no say in the matter.

R
EPERCUSSIONS

H
is ring was too large for her wedding finger but a fine fit on her middle finger where it spent the night. She slept warm beside him until the alarm demanded she arise and prepare for her day ahead. His encircling arm held her back from the morning chill, and his kiss was enough to change her mind about rising.

She’d slept with Chris in a finer room, a wider bed, where even the sheets oozed affluence. She made love with Morrie between wrinkled ex-boarding-house sheets, in a box of a room – and therein lay the difference between lovemaking and sleeping with.

‘I’m probably pregnant,’ she said.

‘I’ll demand blood tests,’ he said.

And for the first time she thought about Chris, responsible, reliable, his packets of condoms in his bedside drawer. The thought of his condoms moved her from the bed.

Morrie cooked and served her breakfast when she came from the shower clad for the schoolroom.

‘It still feels like Sunday,’ he said.

‘It’s not.’

‘Is a week’s engagement long enough for you?’

‘What? You want your ring back next Sunday?’

‘Mum came back here to get me married off. Cathy won’t be showing by next Saturday.’

‘My parents would have forty fits.’ They’d have them anyway.

‘It might give Mum reason to live until Saturday.’

‘You’re not doing it for her, are you?’

‘Now she asks.’

And no more time to ask anything. Dishes left on the sink, late to her classroom, and breathlessly happy when she got there. Loved his ring, loved him, and he wasn’t a Catholic, which might take the sting out of it for Myrtle.

Chris would be in court. She had to call him, but couldn’t yet. Myrtle and Robert would need to be told. They’d probably booked the church, were probably pricing caterers, printers for the invitations. Couldn’t call them until she called Chris. Didn’t want to call anyone.

No one noticed her ring at morning recess, or if they did, they didn’t comment.

At lunchtime, she counted coins, then ran down to a phone box where she dialled Chris’s Sydney office. He was in court. She shrugged and used more coins to call Amberley.

‘Is anything wrong, pet?’

Didn’t tell her why. Told her the wedding was off and not to book anything and that she’d call her tonight.

‘What happened?’

‘I’m out of coins, Mum. I’ll talk to you at home. Wait until I call you.’

She reached Chris at four-thirty, after minutes spent on hold, and a phone call to Sydney at that time of day would cost a small fortune. And when his voice came on the line, it’s tone told her he didn’t need the interruption.

‘Can your concerns wait, Cara? I’m in a meeting.’

‘I need to tell you that I’m breaking the engagement, Chris. I’m sorry.’ Silence, a long empty silence.

‘This . . . cannot be discussed at a distance.’

‘There’s nothing to discuss. I’m sorry, but I’m back with Morrie.’

He’d met Morrie at Cathy’s wedding, had suggested after she’d slept with him that a few of those pretty boys leaned a little left of centre. A lengthy half-minute of silence, Telecom’s adding machine ticking over while he shuffled papers.

Then. ‘I’ll call you tonight, Cara.’

‘I wanted you to . . .’ but the connection had been cut . . . to be the first to know. She stood over the phone, wanting to vomit. Almost did when it rang.

Only Cathy, wanting every detail, and Cara in no mood to give her the details, and no sooner was the phone down than it rang again.

Myrtle.

Told her. Told her that there was nothing to be done about it. Told her Morrie’s parents were Church of England. It cut no ice with Myrtle, so she told her that they were getting married on Saturday, if Morrie could arrange it.

Myrtle jumped to the natural conclusion. ‘Are you certain Morrie is the father?’

‘Not to my knowledge, Mummy. His mother is dying. He wants her to see him married. That’s the only reason for haste.’

‘Have you told Chris?’

‘Yes.’

‘What on earth did he say?’

‘He was in a meeting.’

He wasn’t at five-thirty. ‘Have you come to your senses, Cara?’

‘I’m so sorry, Chris. I’ve known Morrie since I was nineteen. I told you about him before we started going out. I’m sorry I let things go so far with us.’

He made a very concise argument while the prisoner in the dock removed the diamonds from her lobes and allowed him to get it out of his system. She owed him that much – and the earrings. Where had she put their box? She’d have to post them back. Couldn’t face him. He was too good with words.

He commenced his closing statement, and maybe she knew why he was unmarried. He could cut with his tongue when roused. She’d never seen him roused.

Not a word could she raise in her defence, only, ‘I’m sorry, Chris. I’m so sorry.’ Like a cracked record, she repeated those words each time he gave her a gap in which to repeat them. Willed him to hang up, but not concerned about the cost, he wouldn’t, so she stood and took her punishment, determined not to hang up on him, and she looked at Morrie’s ring, his mother’s, his grandmother’s, now her own, and she loved the continuity of it, the depth of family behind it.

And remembered where she’d put the earrings box.

‘I’m sorry, Chris,’ she said one final time. ‘I’ll post the earrings –’

He hung up and she walked to her desk and opened the middle drawer, found the velvet box beneath her bills to pay, placed his earrings into it. Set in gold, they looked new. The box looked new – and too small to post. Have to put it in a solid envelope, send it registered mail.

She left it on her desk, on
Rusty
, then made coffee, made it strong – and no milk in the fridge. Contrary to popular belief, two can’t live as cheaply as one, not when both like too much milk in their coffee. Opened her pantry cupboard to search for a can of Carnation milk. Myrtle always kept an emergency can in her pantry. Not a lot of her habits had become Cara’s own. She was pleased that one had.

She drank her coffee at the window, watching for his toy car to drive in. He’d come when he could – or call her if he couldn’t. At six-thirty she took her coffee to her desk to retype a few pages of
Rusty
.

He came at eight. He’d spoken to his mother’s minister, who was prepared to marry them on Saturday, beside his mother’s bed.

‘Okay,’ she said.

She didn’t go to work on Tuesday. Rang in with a bad throat. They bought wedding rings, and left the engagement ring with the jeweller to clean and adjust to size. She bought a new dress, pale blue and pretty.

Myrtle called at five. She and Robert were driving down to prevent Cara from throwing aside a fine young man for a boy, a boy who had been leading her a dance for years. Cara knew from her description of Morrie as
boy
that she’d spoken to Chris. Probably invited him to dinner last night.

‘Three against one isn’t fair, Mummy.’

‘We’ll see you on Thursday.’

‘Make it Saturday, and drive straight through to Ballarat. We’re getting married there at two,’ Cara said.

‘Don’t rush into something you’ll regret all of your life, pet.’

‘I won’t. Love you, Mummy.’ And she hung up.

On the Thursday night at five, Chris knocked at her door. Morrie was there. Cara picked up the earrings before removing the safety chain. She didn’t invite him in but stepped out to the landing.

He didn’t like losing. His face told her how much he didn’t like losing. There was nothing more she could say to him, nothing to do but keep offering the small velvet box.

He took it. ‘You’ve made your bed, Cara. I hope you can lie in it,’ he said.

*

Jenny was where she usually was at ten to six, in the kitchen, cooking up something for dinner.

‘How long have you been doing that for, Jen?’ Georgie asked, entering through the rear door. It was always open for her. Most nights she called in on her way home from work.

‘Peeling dirty spuds?’ Jenny asked, selecting another.

‘Feeding a mob?’

‘Since I was sixteen. Granny’s idea of cooking was a frying pan and a lot of dripping.’

‘That’s where I got it from,’ Georgie said. She sat then at the kitchen table. ‘If I ever met a bloke who could cook, I might marry him – incidentally, it looks as if my trip to Sydney is off again.’

‘Why?’ Georgie shared Cara’s letters with Jenny. She’d read the latest and had been planning a beautiful dress for Georgie. She’d told Georgie to tell Cara she’d make her wedding gown.

‘She rang me this afternoon to tell me to ignore most of what was in her letter, that she’s broken her engagement to the solicitor and is marrying her Pom with the hyphenated name on Saturday.’

‘Is she pregnant?’

‘I doubt it. She hasn’t had much to do with him for the past year or two. She said his mother is dying of cancer and she wants to see Morrie married before she dies.’

‘That’s no good reason to be racing into marriage!’

‘I can’t see any good reason, racing or not – unless he can cook.’

‘You wouldn’t be hinting for dinner, of course.’

‘Depends on what you’re offering?’ Georgie said. ‘She’s known the bloke, Morrie, since she was at college. He’s her girlfriend’s husband’s mate. I think she was in love with him years ago, but got sick of waiting.’

‘Will I peel another potato or not?’

‘What are you offering with your potato?’

‘Sausages.’

‘How rare,’ Georgie said.

And Jenny laughed. She’d been hearing Georgie’s ‘How rare’ since that kid was twelve years old. And Georgie had heard her reply to it as many times. ‘They’re Willama sausages.’

‘Oh, a different matter entirely – if you do them in flour with spices.’

‘You can. They’re in the fridge – and pass me that medium-sized saucepan – the one with the red lid.’

Georgie passed the saucepan. She found the sausages. ‘Have you heard anything from Raelene?’

‘I never hear from her. One of the commune girls said she was in Sydney.’

‘Everyone goes to Sydney bar me. Do you reckon he’s still up there?’

‘Laurie?’

Georgie was separating sausages with a pair of scissors. ‘Who else.’

‘He could be anywhere. He’d be hitting sixty now. He was twenty-six when I was fifteen.’ She watched Georgie’s war with a string of sausages wanting to take them from her hands. Still reminded her of Granny – not in appearance, but in every move she made. Still sounded like her too.

She looked like Laurie, or what Jenny could remember of him, his red hair, his green eyes. She had his kindness too. She could handle Margot. Jenny couldn’t – never had been able to.

‘Use a plastic bag, love. Toss in a few spoonfuls of plain flour, not too much curry, a bit of salt and pepper and a pinch of ground ginger, then toss the sausages in and give them a shake, and make sure the bag is closed or I’ll have flour all over the kitchen . . .’