Ripples on a Pond (3 page)

The habit of teaching the sniffling kids she'd dismissed at three thirty last Friday helped. They didn't know her world had ended over the weekend.

Helen knew of her broken engagement, but Cara dodged her at lunchtime and escaped to a misty street and the estate agent's office. Wrote him a cheque, and told him again that her security-chain knob was still missing. He told her again that he'd get onto the owner. It was an old habit they had: she complained; he promised. Old habits were good habits today.

Walked a block to a corner pharmacy to replenish her supply of aspros, and while there asked the assistant if she had any stronger painkillers, for a toothache. The assistant offered a choice of two, along with a tiny bottle of liquid to rub around the tooth. Doubtful that the liquid would ease a broken heart, she left it on the counter, but bought the aspros and both packets of pills, both containing codeine. Some, when they could no longer stand their lives, reached for heroin. Codeine was a close relative. For lunch that day, she swallowed one from each packet with a milkshake, then returned through heavier rain to her rabble.

And could barely keep her eyes open.

The office woman disturbed her nap at two. ‘You've got a phone call, Miss Norris.'

Maybe it was him.

Just Cathy again. ‘I thought you'd be up here, or on your way.'

‘It's a school day, Cath.'

‘Did Morrie call you?'

‘My phone is disabled,' Cara said.

‘His mother died last night.'

Should have said, ‘How terrible', or ‘That's sad', or ‘Poor Morrie'. Should have found something to say. Nothing came to mind. She'd met his mother twice: for five minutes three years ago, when she'd been released from hospital after they'd found the lump in her other breast; then on Saturday, when she'd stood at her bedside for ten minutes. She'd read a lot about her in Morrie's letters. For years their letters had flown backwards and forwards across the ocean.

Why hadn't he mentioned his lost sisters?

Why hadn't she mentioned her ‘sort of' adoption?

She had to say something. Like . . . like . . . she chose a very opportune time to die, didn't she? She'd lied to Morrie for most of his life and now he couldn't even accuse her.

‘Are you all right?' Cathy asked.

‘My class is unsupervised.'

‘He needs you up here. He's not thinking straight,' Cathy said.

‘We've got four staff members off with the flu.'

‘Your mother-in-law just died!' Cathy said. ‘Tell them. They won't expect you to work.'

‘I'll talk to you later. I have to go.'

‘You can talk for a minute. Did you get to meet his ghoul of an aunty?'

‘No.'

‘He brought her back here with him–'

‘The kids will be wrecking the classroom.'

Cathy had taught until she'd married Gerry. She knew about unsupervised kids.

‘I'll pick you up this arvo,' she said. ‘If I leave now, I should be there in an hour or so.'

‘No.'

‘He needs you. His father has lost his marbles, his aunty is as snarly as a staghound with fleas–'

‘I'll come up for the funeral.'

‘The last I heard there wasn't going to be a funeral – or not over here. Morrie is suddenly deadset on taking her home – which could be Gerry's fault. He told him that being in familiar surroundings might shock some sense back into his father. He's got none at the moment. He can't remember from one minute to the next that his wife is dead. I've been over there all morning and he's spent the day looking for his paints or looking for Maggie to ask her what she's done with his paints. It's like a house of horrors with its own resident ghoul following Morrie around and raving at him about his grandfather's will.'

‘I've got to go, Cath.'

‘Call me back when you knock off. Have you reported your phone to Telecom?'

‘It's the line, not my phone,' Cara said and she went back to her class.

*

She didn't phone Cathy at three thirty. She bought two bottles of cheap bubbly wine, bought milk, cheese and bread. A heavy load. Looked for his little red MG as she approached her block of flats. No MG. Checked her mailbox. No letter, or not from him. A bill she didn't need.

Once inside, she washed down another toothache pill with poor man's champagne, and, after a second glass, the combination of codeine and wine made her drunk enough to look up local solicitors' names in the phone book. A mistake had been made. Mistakes could be erased. Morrie hadn't told Cathy, and if she didn't know, no one knew. If the mistake could be erased before anyone found out what they'd done, then it almost hadn't happened. That's what she had to do. Undo it. Annul it. Wipe it out.

She spoke to a receptionist, who was unable, or unwilling, to offer her phantom friend free advice.

‘Your friend will need to make an appointment. I can give her one at ten thirty on Friday morning,' she said.

‘She was only married for eight hours. All I want to know is if the marriage can be annulled and how long it would take,' Cara said.

‘She will need to speak to Mr Rogers.'

But erasing the documentation of what they'd done wouldn't erase the rest of it, and it was the rest of it Cara couldn't live with – or couldn't live without. The bed part. The love part.

She poured more wine.

She poured enough to decide to fly to England with him and his father and his mother's body. If she took the pill, there'd be no inbred babies, and who was to ever know. She loved him. He loved her. They'd met as strangers.

Fell into bed at eight, and put herself to sleep planning her flight to England to live happily ever after with him, where they'd make books instead of babies. Dreamed of him. They were making love when a hammering at her door frightened him away.

‘Cara.'

The voice of hell that morning. The voice of she who believed she was the axis the world turned on. No use pretending no one was home. No use yelling, ‘Butt out of my hellish bloody life.' Cathy had never learnt to butt out.

About to open the door, Cara remembered the unplugged phone. Pushed it into its wall socket, tossed the empty wine bottle into her bin, placed her packets of toothache pills into her top cupboard, then opened the door.

‘They're having a service for her in Ballarat then having her cremated – and your telephone still isn't working,' Cathy greeted her. ‘I don't know why the rush, but I think Morrie's doing it to get rid of the ghoul.'

Cara, dressing-gown clad, measured coffee into a mug, hiding her face from the girl who had been her best friend since college.

‘Don't make one for me,' Cathy said. ‘Even the smell of coffee makes me vomit.'

She was newly pregnant and managed to bring her pregnancy into every conversation. This morning the topic had competition.

‘You should have heard the ghoul going on about the cremation, which is Gerry's fault. He suggested it, after I'd looked into the cost of flying a body to England, and what they'd need to do to it before it flew.'

‘Did Morrie ask you to pick me up?'

‘Gerry did. He's worried sick about him. We've known him for years, and Gerry longer than me, but we've never seen him like this. He looks as if he's caught his aunty's ghoul disease.'

Cara forgot about coffee and went to the bathroom to shower. She had to talk to Morrie, if only to construct a plausible story, and where better to discuss the demise of love than at a church service for his dead mother.

She gave her black suit a brush. The skirt had been worn often, the jacket rarely. Found a well-pressed handkerchief in its pocket. Myrtle had trained her early in the ironing of handkerchiefs. She found a second handkerchief in her overcoat pocket and almost heard Myrtle's, ‘Have you got a clean handkerchief, pet?'

She'd need no hanky today. She'd shed no tears for that woman. She'd lied to Morrie and didn't deserve anyone's tears.

T
HE
G
HOUL

T
he girls were in Ballarat by ten forty, and no sign of Morrie. Cathy, familiar with his house, led her in via the back door, where they collided with Aunt Lorna, foraging in the kitchen. A long woman, she looked hungry, and when Cathy introduced Cara as Morrie's wife, Lorna's dentures attempted to escape and bite off a bit of her. She didn't take her new niece's offered hand, but coloured – or her oddly shaped proboscis coloured while her cheeks and brow paled. Then, with a scoff of derision, she turned back to her foraging.

Morrie came, a dark suit-clad ghost of himself, a plump little gnome clinging to his hand. No kiss of greeting, only a request to Cathy. ‘Can you keep an eye on Pops for five minutes?'

He took Cara's arm and led her into the sitting room.

‘I'm sorry,' he said.

‘We can have it annulled,' she said.

‘I'm sorry I ran–'

No time to say more. Doorbell playing that familiar ‘Avon calling' ding-dong. Morrie left her to answer its song, and returned with a middle-aged couple he introduced as Ian and Lorris Hooper, his mother's cousins, only given the news of Margaret's death two hours ago.

Cara returned to the kitchen, to Cathy and the gnome. Lorna was now having her say in the sitting room.

Cathy's grandmothers arrived, via the back door and basket laden. They took over the kitchen, unloading party fare. Mrs Rodgers, the nursing sister Cara had met on the day of the wedding, arrived to take charge of Bernard, or to medicate him. Half an hour later, Cathy's husband, Gerry, arrived.

Gerry drove Lorna to the church. Morrie and Bernard rode in the cousins' rear seat. Cara and Cathy followed them into the church where a small gathering waited.

Same minister who had performed a marriage service on Saturday, now speaking of a dead woman Cara hadn't known, of her happiness in seeing her beloved son wed, of her bravery, of her childhood and her years in England, where she'd missed the land of her birth.

The service was brief. Cara, daughter-in-law of the deceased, sat in the front row, between the gnome and the ghoul, who smelled of the grave. Cara there only to talk to Morrie, then to get a train out of this town and never return. She didn't belong in that front pew. Just playing a role, as Marion, another college mate, had played a similar role on a television show – except on the box, Marion had howled on her husband's shoulder. Cara, daughter-in-law of the deceased, separated from her husband by the gnome, didn't cry. Marion had gone home to her own life when the director called, ‘Cut. Print.' Cara wanted to go home to the life she'd had until last Saturday but no one yelled, ‘Cut. Print', so the scene played on.

She stood to watch the coffin wheeled from the church. Morrie followed it out. Bernard stopped to chat to a neighbour. He wasn't playing his bereaved role at all well.

He refused to get into Gerry's car to follow the hearse to a city crematorium. Lorna was already in the rear seat. Morrie offered to give up his front passenger seat but Bernard set off for England on foot. Morrie and the cousin retrieved him.

Gerry suggested Lorna may be more comfortable in the cousins' car. They would be returning home after the cremation and could drop her off at her Kew home. Her business in Ballarat not yet complete, Lorna had no intention of going home.

Cathy told Cara to get into Gerry's car. ‘She was your mother-in-law,' Cathy said.

Cara didn't argue, just walked away to Cathy's car.

Undertakers had to make appointments at crematoriums. They were running out of time. Two cars followed the hearse: Gerry's and the Hooper cousins'. Lorna stayed behind, and Cathy's parents, Len and Gwen Bryant, drove her back to the house. The grandmothers drove Bernard, and Cara rode back in Cathy's little blue box on wheels.

*

The mourners – a handful in a large church – became a crowd in a sitting room. The nursing sister took charge of Bernard, got him settled in his chair in front of a television set, the volume turned low. Cara escaped to the bathroom, where she washed down two heartache pills, aware she'd have to continue her role for a few hours more. She made tea, poured tea, served sandwiches and finger food.

Aunt Lorna's appetite was good. She snatched at what was on offer, ate conjoined sandwiches, dropped pastry from a sausage roll on the carpet then trod it in. She liked her tea black, strong, no sugar. No ‘please' escaped her mouth. No ‘thank you'. She spat her words around false teeth that seemed determined to escape, while her beetle eyes, magnified by bifocal lenses, spat venom in Bernard's direction each time a small snore escaped his pouted lips. Poor little exhausted man, snorting the air in, exhaling it in a whistle, little pink-faced gnome with a fluff of white frizz at ear level.

‘They shouldn't have had the service so early,' Cathy said to Cara. ‘They think we're serving them lunch.'

Her grandmothers and mother, who had supplied the eats, hadn't catered for a hungry crowd. Cathy did her best to get rid of the mourners by placing a too-large log onto a smouldering fire. The smoke moved a few.

Cara, bereaved daughter-in-law, walked them to the door, was kissed by many, told by as many how brave that little woman had been, and what a blessing it was that she'd lived to see Morris wed.

‘Thank you so much for your support today,' the daughter-in-law murmured.

One line only in her script, and she wore it out before closing the door for the last time.

Only Cathy then, only the grandmothers washing dishes in the kitchen, only the live-in nurse making herself a sandwich for lunch.

‘Mrs Rodgers will stay on to keep her eye on Bernard until you can get him onto a plane,' Cathy explained.

She knew Morrie's plans. Cara, his sister/wife, didn't.

Lorna, who already resembled smoked leather, tolerated the smouldering log until the last neighbour left, when she added newspaper and a few smaller chunks of wood to the log. She raised a blaze then stood before it, absorbing its little warmth while eyeing Cara.

Almost three o'clock, still no sign of Morrie and Gerry. Cathy occupied with her grandmothers; Cara looking through a telephone book. It was no day for walking, and she, unfamiliar with this area of Ballarat, would require a taxi to the station. She was leafing through a Ballarat phone book when Cathy found her.

‘They're back,' she said. ‘They'll be starving.'

Tins of tomato soup in the pantry, bread in the fridge. The girls, working together, made toast, heated soup. Ready to serve it, they found Lorna seated with the men, waiting for her lunch. A dash of hot water, a shake of tomato sauce, a dash more milk and two more slices of toast and the girls served three.

The ghoul was laying down the law. ‘I suggest that you look to the terms of your grandfather's will.'

No thank you to the waitress for the soup.

‘You've done that one to death, Aunt,' Morrie said. ‘And this is neither the time nor the place to discuss the subject.'

‘Your properties are here, boy. Your responsibilities are here.'

‘As you say,
my
responsibilities, Aunt, not yours.'

‘Due solely to a very conveniently timed marriage–'

‘You lost that war a long time ago, and there have been enough casualties along the way. Lay down your arms and eat your soup. It's over,' Morrie said.

Bernard was awake and looking for Maggie, the nursing sister tailing him, pacifying. The grandmothers had washed the dishes, packed their baskets and were ready to leave; as was Gerry, who took no part in the table talk, but emptied his bowl and took it out to the kitchen as Bernard called, ‘Maggie? Maggie?'

‘How are they going to put him on a plane?' Cathy said.

Gerry, the doctor, shook his head and carried a basket of plates and bowls out to the grandmothers' cars.

‘He'll need to be tranquillised up to the eyeballs,' Cathy said, watching the nursing sister attempt to lead Bernard towards the bathroom. He was small, but wilful. ‘He wets his bed. He wets his pants–' And she left the kitchen to assist the nurse.

Gerry got her out the door. They called their goodbyes to Morrie; not to Lorna, now complaining about her quarterly pittance. They kissed Cara, who considered asking for a lift to the station, but, in no mood for Cathy's argument, decided against it. She stood at the door watching the two cars turn right then left at the corner, then she took her coat from the hanger in the hall, her handbag from the hall table, and escaped via the back door. She'd follow the path of their car and with luck it would lead her to a familiar street, and if not, she'd ask directions.

Ice in the wind's bite, a bitter Ballarat day. She was at the corner, tying her scarf around her head, when she heard him call her name. Turned and saw him, still clad in his funeral suit, no overcoat, no sweater. She'd come up here to talk to him so she waited.

They walked a block in silence, and the street she'd been expecting to intersect with a familiar street didn't. It led to a park she'd never previously seen. Had the sun been out, she would have known in which direction to turn. No sun today, so she turned right and walked on, their footsteps on gravel communicating, and that was all. A wide space between them, as much space as the footpath allowed.

Children's playground on the left. Bereft of children, it looked lonely. She stilled her feet. ‘Which way is the station?'

‘I'll drive you home,' he said, and walked into the park and to the swings. Twin swings, pleading for motion. Pushed one, pushed the other.

Is there a sadder sound on God's earth than the squeal of metal on metal when the wind is freezing your face and your feet are turning to ice, when the one you love best in the world is pale and shivering in his funeral suit and your arms want to hold him and make him better?

‘Point me in the right direction, then go home, Morrie. You're freezing to death.'

‘I'm directionless,' he said, and he walked to a leafless tree, big, old, broad enough in the trunk to suggest a little shelter from the wind.

She walked behind him. ‘We were only married for eight hours. It can be undone so it never happened – annulled.'

‘I should have told you sooner,' he said.

‘I should have told you sooner, and it doesn't matter now. We have to work out what to tell Cathy and Gerry. They think I'm going to England with you.'

‘Come with me.'

‘Help me, Morrie. Don't make it harder.'

‘Morrie,' he said. ‘You know who I am. Fly home with me. I'm Bernard Grenville-Langdon's son over there, nephew of Leticia Langdon. No one has heard of Woody Creek over there.'

‘We've heard of it,' she said.

His back to rough bark, she stood before him, offering what shelter she could, not looking at him but up at bare branches.

‘We can forget we've heard of it,' he said.

‘The guilt would kill anything we thought we had.'

‘Losing you is killing me. I love you.'

‘Your aunty recognised me. I look like Jenny.'

‘She's blind in one eye and can't see much out of the other. She was measuring you up as her new landlady, that's all. I've inherited her.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘It's in the will.'

‘Your mother's?'

‘My grandfather's. Lorna carries a copy of it around with her.' He hunched his shoulders and buttoned his jacket. ‘She spent years chasing Mum and Pops around with it, demanding they give her a home for life – as stated in the will.'

‘Did she get up here in time – before your mother died?'

‘Mum was sleeping and that hard old bugger wouldn't even hold her hand. I manhandled her to Mum's bedside – probably the first man who ever has – but she kissed her brow – or sniffed it. Mum died two hours later. I hope she knew Lorna was there. It was what she wanted, why she came home – to make peace with her sister.' Hands pushed deep into his trouser pockets, he looked towards the road as a car sped by. ‘I drove halfway to Woody Creek that night, maybe running home to Jenny, then I changed my mind and got drunk enough to kidnap Lorna.'

His hand reached for her. Cara placed her own into her pockets.

‘The gate was padlocked,' he said. ‘I ripped the backside out of my trousers climbing over it, then belted on the door until the woman she lives with let me in. Lorna in a nightgown without her teeth is a sight to behold.'

He was shivering, his face near blue. She took his ice-cold hand, held it between her own.

‘I told her that Mum was dying, that she wanted to see her, and the old battleaxe looked pleased. Then she told me that my grandfather's will states that I don't inherit until my thirtieth birthday, and until I do, I'd answer to her, so I told her I'd pipped her at the post. She's deadset certain I married you to get my hands on the estate.'

‘Can she cause trouble?'

‘She's never been the type to admit defeat silently. She told me how my grandfather had bought me from my trollop of a mother for two thousand pounds.'

‘You don't believe that.'

‘That's the trouble – I do. She's too much of a bitch to bother lying. I've known for years that she imported Bernard for herself, that whoever got me when my grandfather died got control of the estate. Mum upset everyone's apple cart by snatching her sister's intended – upset old Henry's and Leticia's plans too. Lorna's mother was Henry Langdon's only sister; Bernard is Leticia's brother. They expected Pops and Lorna to produce an heir for Langdon Hall.'

‘She's your mother's sister.'

‘Same father, different mothers. Fly home with me, and we'll write the whole sorry tale and make our fortunes.'

It's what I want, Cara thought. I love him. It's not my fault or his. There's no way anyone could ever find out. His birth certificate might tell the truth, but mine never will.