Ripples on a Pond (12 page)

*

Home to an overflowing mailbox, and the same cigarette box with the same brown-paper wrapping, the same keys rattling in it. Bills, too, and an envelope. No address, only
Cara
, underlined. He'd been here, and his stupid little red car was still parked in her bay, and for the first time since she'd left this place two months ago, she howled. Howled on the stairs, howled while searching for her key, dropped her mail. Too tired, too sore, to reach down and pick it up, she scraped it indoors with her sandal.

And that bloody phone ringing. Ripped the plug from the wall and went to her room to howl, but died instead, died for sixteen hours in her own beautiful old bed.

Someone knocking at her door. Clock stopped, watch stopped, no idea of the time.

‘Cara. It's me.'

Cathy.

‘Are you in there?'

Cara remained silent.

Moments later, a bill slid beneath the door. One she'd dropped no doubt. Didn't retrieve it until Cathy had walked back downstairs. An electricity bill, snail eaten. Didn't want it anyway.

Looked at the rest of her mail, one from Georgie. Made a coffee, opened a can of Carnation milk, then opened Georgie's letter.

G'day, ta for the birthday card. I've tried to call you a few times since, but nobody home yet. Dare say you'll turn up sooner or later. You missed a good party. The old town was rocking . . .

Opened Morrie's envelope.

Dear Cara,

It goes without saying that I had hoped to see you, to talk to you. I have my theories as to why you're dodging me. In the main they are associated with Chris Marino. If he's back in the picture, I hope he charges less than Letty's mob of solicitors back home. They charge for licking stamps.

I can't come to terms with what happened, or don't want to come to terms with it, but if you have, and if you've moved on, then I wish you only the best.

Pops doesn't improve. All in all, there isn't a lot that is positive to report from my side of the ocean. My initial intention when I bought the MG was to one day ship it over home, but life has a bad habit of changing, and I can't drive two cars. I took it for a drive this morning. It's going well, and by the miles on the speedo, you appear to have been exercising it. If you're okay with the situation, I'd like to leave it with you until I get things sorted out over here.

Lorna has been . . . difficult isn't the word, but it will have to do. The only thing preventing her from seeking satisfaction through the courts is the cost. She'd need to commit a few thousand in order to get any sort of case into court, and as she's dependent on the estate for her daily bread, the freezing of funds while she fights for the lot might inconvenience her. Also, by the time her case gets to court, I may well have reached the age of reason, wed or not. She appears to have given up.

And that's about it.

Love, as ever, Morrie

Two letters, different handwriting. A brother, a sister, strangers to each other since 1947; strangers to Cara until the sixties. She loved them, and she loved their letters, and wouldn't reply to either. Had to . . . go somewhere far away. Had to start again . . . somewhere.

She'd been home for two days when a police constable knocked on her door. She opened it to him, or opened a four-inch gap.

‘Your family is concerned about you,' he said.

‘Tell them I'm fine.'

‘I suggest you contact them and tell them you're fine.'

‘I have no intention of contacting them. You can tell them that too,' she said.

R
OBIN
J
OHN
L
ANGDON

M
id-April, and her work skirts still refused to do up at the waist. As she'd done months ago, she looped elastic through the buttonhole to reach the button, then covered the gap with a long top, a jacket. She was scarred for life, and so what. She'd survived. Her stomach wasn't as tight as of old, but she'd fix that too. She was walking again. She'd run again soon.

She paid her electricity bill. Paid the phone bill too, even though she didn't use it. Unplugged, nor could anyone else.

Someone sent a man from Telecom to her door in May. She told him that her phone was fine, but he wanted to test it anyway. He pushed the plug in; it worked. She pulled it out before she let him out.

‘You're paying the bill, love,' he said.

Cathy started ringing her at school. ‘Your mother said that you'd had some sort of a nervous breakdown.'

‘Tell that to my class of unsupervised rabble.'

‘If you haven't, then you need to know that Morrie has.'

‘I have to go.'

‘He's sick with love for you. The only reason he wanted that rushed wedding was so his mother would be there. He didn't even know the details of his grandfather's will until after she was dead.'

‘The world is overloaded with sad stories, Cath.'

‘And you are an unforgiving bitch who is cutting off her own nose to spite her face – and his too. He loves you.'

‘I've dealt with it, and will continue to deal with it.'

‘He thinks you're back on with Chris Marino.'

‘Are we done, Cath?'

God stopped playing around in May and got down to the business of true disaster. Sixty-five thousand men, women and children died when Northern Peru was struck by a major earthquake. It made the Vietnam war look like a kid's party game.

On payday Cara bought a secondhand typewriter from an opportunity shop and a new television set – a larger model with short splayed legs. The delivery men moved her desk so they could get at a small plug that would attach its aerial wire to the roof aerial. She hadn't known it was there. They plugged it in, turned it on and she was rewarded with a crystal-clear picture of militant Arabs playing war games. They'd hijacked a plane and were holding three hundred passengers hostage. It was on all four channels.

She could have picked up the younger of the delivery blokes. Marion would have. Cara thanked them for her clear picture, then closed the door on them.

The television played while she wound a clean sheet of paper into her rattle-trap typewriter. Its keys worked, it had a stability her portable typewriter lacked, and she liked the old-fashioned print. Spent most of her waking hours at it during the weekends, and a few hours each weeknight. Six weeks was all it took to write a first draft of
Balancing Act
, the diary of a teenage girl who'd been raped and impregnated by her much older brother, a bikie who closely resembled Dino Collins, even down to the HATE tattooed on his knuckles, the skull and crossbones on the back of his leather jacket. The pregnancy was her own, with minor alterations; the diary that of her younger self, the Traralgon Cara. She'd altered names and dates but that was all. Hadn't altered Myrtle and Robert; how could anyone ever hope to change them? Their pre-war mentality became the story, and their daughter's inability to break their pre-war hearts by telling them their cherished son was a rapist.

She completed a second draft in early September, then before she could read it one last time, before she could white-out and alter one more word in it she posted
Balancing Act
off to a Melbourne publisher – and plugged her phone in so it might ring.

*

It rang early on the third of October. Myrtle always called early with her birthday greeting.

‘Don't hang up, pet,' she pleaded. ‘Daddy and I are so worried about you.'

Cara didn't hang up, didn't reply either. Stood there listening to background sounds that didn't originate from Robert's radio. Recognised the sound. Didn't want to hear it.

‘Are you well?' Myrtle said. ‘Just tell me that you're well.'

‘Fit as a Mallee bull. And you?'

‘I'm always well. Your father's knee has been giving him a lot of trouble. He said to wish you happy birthday.'

Perhaps he had.

‘Thanks for remembering,' Cara said, then she hung up.

Disaster hit Melbourne that month. Two massive sections of the forty-odd-million-dollar West Gate Bridge collapsed, just when it was nearing completion. A massive construction, designed to bridge the lower Yarra and forge a major link between Melbourne's east and west; destined to become a landmark like Sydney's Harbour Bridge – so some said. A not so fine landmark now. Great lumps of it lay in the mud, men buried beneath it. Cruel images on the television news. Thirty-five bridge builders who had kissed their wives and children goodbye when they'd left for work that morning wouldn't be coming home.

November's images even crueller as a cyclone and tidal wave hit the coast of Eastern Pakistan, killing five hundred thousand. It made Northern Peru's disaster look small.

Viewers become inured to televised disaster. Blame the producers who break into devastation to advertise coffee and white goods, used cars and new furniture, washing powder guaranteed to make your sheets a whiter white.

Maybe Robert had been right about that box, Cara thought. Kids accustomed to being fed their favourite TV shows in five-minute doses had difficulty maintaining their concentration for more than five minutes at a time in the classroom – or maybe she was the one having the difficulty. She'd never wanted to teach. Robert and Myrtle had brainwashed her early into saying she was going to be a teacher like Daddy when she grew up. Had escaped to that teaching college only to place distance between herself and her parents – and Traralgon and Dino Collins.

Apparently, she was good at what she did. Her rabble knew just how far they could go before she pounced. And Morrie's little red car had gained her points with a few of the boys. Any teacher who drove a sporty little red MG couldn't be all bad.

A few came to stare when the MG stopped dead twelve yards from the school one afternoon. The RACV man couldn't get it running; he called for a tow truck to take it to the service station guy who kept its petrol tank full.

‘Cars have changed a bit since the fifties,' the service station guy said. ‘When something goes wrong with these old imported jobs they can be hard on the pocket too.' An old bloke who he'd served his apprenticeship with had owned one and he said he'd check around, see if he was still in the game. ‘He knew these old buggers like the back of his hand.'

A bad, bad year, and still not over. Cathy phoned her at home now and at work, and that publisher didn't phone. Myrtle did, on Sunday nights. Cathy had been in touch with her too. Cara knew she'd ferret the truth out of Myrtle. Knew it was only a matter of time before the two were comparing baby hiccups.

No car, back to riding trams; and the service station man wanted her car moved. He'd tracked down the MG enthusiast, now retired, who had agreed to have a look at it for her, but she'd need to pay for a tow truck to move it. More money. She was living from hand to mouth, from pay cheque to pay cheque, but she paid to move it.

In mid-December, on a Thursday morning, ten minutes after she'd got her rabble settled, the office woman knocked on her classroom door.

‘Phone call, Miss Norris,' she said.

Knew it was Cathy. Knew that she and Myrtle had spent last night comparing hiccups. Knew that Cathy had been sweating on Cara getting to school so she could make her new attack.

Cara got in first. ‘His car's broken down. You might tell him–'

Not Cathy. Aunty Beth, calling from Sydney.

‘Your mum's in hospital, love.'

‘Mum?'

‘Your father rang me a minute ago. He said she's in terrible pain. He and Robin are with her at the hospital. John and I are leaving as soon as we can find someone to stay with the children.'

‘I told them they were too old to look after him. I told them, Aunty Beth!' How many times had she screamed their ages at them? They'd done it anyway. ‘Is it her heart?'

‘That's what your dad is afraid of. The doctor was with her when he called.'

‘I'll ring the airport now. Tell her . . . tell her I love her, Aunty Beth.'

‘She knows that, love.'

*

Tullamarine airport had been open since July. Cara got a seat on a flight leaving at eleven ten. It took longer for the taxi to weave its way through city traffic to the airport than it took for the plane to bridge the gap between the two cities.

She dialled John and Beth's number when she landed, intending to take a taxi directly to the hospital. Unable to raise anyone at their place, she cursed herself for a fool for not asking Beth which hospital Myrtle had been taken to. Hadn't thought far enough ahead. Had known she'd had to get there, that was all. Just praying: please, God, don't punish her for what I did.

Rode a second taxi to Amberley. Mrs Collins or Miss Robertson would know which hospital. She asked the driver to wait, and let herself in with her own key.

As the door swung open, she heard them in the kitchen.

Heard him.

Looked back at the taxi. She'd sworn never to set foot inside that house again. Too late to take it back. Too late for everything.

Looked for John and Beth's car. Couldn't see their Holden, but a new car was parked out front. Maybe they'd traded up. She walked back, paid the driver, then, small case in hand, returned to the open door, certain that John and Beth would be with Robert. And why wasn't he at the hospital?

Fear eating at her heart, she walked through the parlour to the kitchen. No John. No Beth. Robert at the stove, his back to her, an old man battling unfamiliar terrain. And a tiny boy strapped into a high chair, demanding his meal.

‘Daddy,' she said.

He turned. ‘It's gallstones, poppet,' he said, and left his saucepan to come to her, to hold her. ‘They're operating this afternoon.'

She howled then against his shoulder, howled with the relief of being held, the relief of gallstones. She'd seen Myrtle dead. All the way up here, she'd seen her funeral.

Milk erupted all over Myrtle's pristine white stove. And a little boy yelled for his meal, or for his papa who was holding a stranger and not him.

Robert released her to lift the saucepan, to snatch a tea towel and singe it in his bumbling attempt to mop up the spill as the yell from the high chair became a tearless wail for attention. Cara took over the mopping up while Robert poured boiling milk on two Weet-Bix – her own childhood breakfast food. Except it wasn't breakfast time.

‘It's coming, Robin,' Robert said. ‘Papa is going as fast as he can.'

Not fast enough.

Cara turned to the noise maker. They'd named him Robin John; had registered him as the son of Morrison Langdon. Knew he'd been born with one head, one pair each of arms and legs, ten fingers and toes. Hadn't known he'd been born with her hair and big blue eyes – and not a tear in them. And two front teeth – or had two teeth now.

Turned away. Turned to the sink to wash the tea towel and to watch Robert prod at parboiled Weet-Bix. He was helpless in a kitchen; had always been helpless in the kitchen.

Cara took a third Weet-Bix from the box, soaked it in cold milk, added half of the semi-boiling mush to it, then mashed the hot and cold together. Felt its heat with a finger before offering the bowl to Robert.

He silenced the siren with Weet-Bix mush.

‘Where are John and Beth?' she asked.

‘They had to go home.' He shovelled in more Weet-Bix. ‘Natalie works at the local supermarket. John and Beth look after the children, three of them. They'd left them with a neighbour.'

Robert not concentrating on the job at hand, the tiny boy grabbed the spoon, spraying its load, then plastering what he'd splattered with tiny palms.

‘Your mother manages this with less mess,' Robert said.

‘One of the teachers had gallstones,' Cara said.

‘She was in agony,' Robert said. ‘I thought we were going to lose her, like we lost her mother.' Loading, shovelling Weet-Bix, and that mouth always open and ready for the spoon. ‘He's had a busy morning. He'll sleep well this afternoon. Pour some of the hot milk into the bottle for me, poppet, then fill it with the cold.'

‘How much hot?'

‘Your mother tests it on her wrist. Blood heat,' he said.

She did as she was bid, an outsider in that kitchen, and the curly-headed boy knew it. She fitted the top, attached the teat, watched Robert undo the straps holding the boy prisoner, then lift him from his Weet-Bix-plastered chair. She followed with the bottle, to her room, a modern cot beside the window, the smell of baby permeating the air. Stood watching from the doorway. Bottle now in his tiny hands, mouth busy on the teat, his eyes watched – and accused her. She turned away from his accusation and went out to the kitchen to wipe his chair, his table-tray, the floor.

Robert came, his suit jacket on, his hat in hand.

‘Don't go, Daddy!'

‘He'll sleep for two hours. I want to be nearby when your mother comes out of the operating theatre.'

‘She'll be asleep until tonight.'

Cara had been after they'd cut into her. It had taken her a day to shake off the anaesthetic.

‘They may allow me to sit with her.'

‘At least call them first,' she said.

‘I'll be back before he wakes.' Keys in hand, wallet in his pocket. ‘Have you told his father?'

‘I told you, it's over.'

‘You knew him for years, poppet,' Robert said.

‘It's over. I'm here. Let that be enough.'

And he was gone.