Trails in the Dust

by Joy Dettman

  ‘Ignore her, Jen. She pesters me about Itchy-foot’s diaries.’

  ‘She’s going to be a historian like her grandpa,’ Jenny said, then sorted through the letters for a particular stamp and its postmark. She found the one she needed tonight. ‘There’s not a thing in any one of your Pa’s letters that you couldn’t read. He was a gentleman. He wrote this one to me before I went up to Sydney – before the army censors started taking to his letters with black pens.’

  There were two pages in the envelope. She glanced at both, then passed them to Katie. ‘Read it to me, darlin’. I want to but . . .’

  ‘You’re allowed to howl, Jen,’ Georgie said. Jenny shook her head but made no reply.

  Dear Jen, Katie read.

  I sent a telegram to the solicitor demanding that he ignore Pop’s instructions. I’ve written to him too, told him that we’re engaged and that we’re getting married as soon as I get back down south. He was Mum’s solicitor before he was Pop’s and he’s holding a lot of her money in trust for me. He’ll do what I ask.

  You, dirt beneath my feet? Moon dust maybe, sprinkling down from a moon far too high above my head for me to ever reach. Think back for a minute, Jen. While you were winning talent quests, having your photograph in newspapers, I was the town drongo, tagging around behind Margaret and Sissy and pleased to have someone to tag around behind. I wouldn’t wish on anyone what happened to you, but it put the moon and stars within my reach.

  I’ve been giving a bit of thought to how I might have felt about that photograph of your other kids, and all I can say with any honesty, is that they are half you and they’re Jimmy’s half-sisters, and they’d probably grow on me – and even if they didn’t, I promise I’d do the right thing by them. There’s one sure way to put a stop to Pop’s plans, so stop putting up barbwire fences and say you’ll marry me.

  You told me that you’d loved me since you were four years old, since I taught you the right way to eat an ice-cream. Just try for a second to think what that must have been like for me, Jim Hooper, town drongo, hearing that and being able to write it on paper tonight. It makes me a bigger and better man . . .

  There was more, but Katie couldn’t read it. She put the pages down, hugged Jenny goodnight, then went to bed. Georgie followed her. Jenny had never howled publicly but she was close to doing it.

  GREENSBOROUGH

  The worst day of Katie’s young life over, she was healing now. Sitting in the back seat of the car, her iPod blasting directly into her ear canals, she had her eyes closed.

  Many times Georgie had claimed she could do this trip blindfolded. Today Katie played guessing games with herself as to where they were on the road. At the end of each song, she opened her eyes to see how far wrong she’d guessed.

  She guessed right with the roadhouse, only because the car slowed then turned right. They always stopped at that same roadhouse for coffee and chips. Back when she’d been in primary school, every school holiday, her parents and grandparents used to meet at that roadhouse, swap her and her case from one car to the other, then turn around and drive home. It was the halfway mark between Woody Creek and Greensborough.

  Given optimum conditions, they could do the trip in three hours. They’d left Woody Creek at four-thirty, so should be home by seven-thirty or before. They’d wasted no time at the roadhouse tonight but eaten their chips and drunk takeaway cappuccinos in the car.

  They tried to talk Jenny into driving back with them, but she’d kept saying, ‘I’m fine,’ like a robot with a limited vocabulary. They’d delayed and delayed until they’d had to leave, or they’d be driving home in the dark.

  She’d been robotic at the funeral. She’d walked into the church holding tight to Katie’s hand, had sat beside her in the front pew, her eyes never leaving that flower-bedecked coffin. She hadn’t cried.

  She hadn’t sung either.

  The organist had expected her to sing Ave Maria. He’d played the introduction three times before giving up. She’d been going to sing The Last Rose of Summer at the graveside and hadn’t done that either. She’d stood behind that iron fence until the parson was done with his words. Then she’d thrown a red rose down that gaping hole, taken Katie’s hand again and walked away.

  They’d been home well ahead of the others, had time to make a pile of salad sandwiches. Trudy and Nick stayed long enough to eat. The twins screamed blue murder when they were carried out to the car. One screaming three-year-old was loud. Two had every dog in the street barking, and Lila. She thought those boys were her pups.

  A song started that Katie had loved when she’d loaded it onto her iPod. It was too sad today, so she turned it off then removed her earplugs.

  Usually on long trips, she took the opportunity to question her parents, while she had them captive in the car. They were still twenty minutes from home. She had time.

  ‘Was Trudy’s nose out of joint because Nanny gave me Pa’s ladies?’ she asked. The carton, heavy with china, was riding beside her in the back seat, buckled in.

  ‘They’d last five minutes with the twins,’ Georgie replied. She was driving. They always swapped drivers at the roadhouse.

  ‘In other words, yes, her nose was out of joint. Is that why she left in a hurry?’

  ‘He wanted to get home to his mother.’

  ‘She’s younger than Nanny and we left her up there alone.’

  ‘His mother isn’t well. Trudy was about to tell me what was wrong with her when he arrived.’ He’d arrived fifteen minutes before the funeral began.

  ‘She looked so old,’ Katie said.

  ‘Jenny?’

  ‘Trudy,’ Katie said.

  ‘She’s just lost her father,’ Paul said.

  ‘What changed her mind about divorcing him, Mum?’

  ‘That’s none of your business or mine,’ Georgie said.

  ‘She couldn’t stand him touching her at the funeral. He tried to put his arm around her when that army bugle started playing but she stepped away.’

  ‘She expected him back last night. If I’d expected your father and he hadn’t shown up or contacted me, I’d be niggly too.’

  ‘Is that bugle thing played at all ex-servicemen’s funerals?’

  ‘It’s a last goodbye,’ Georgie said.

  ‘Did you see Nanny cry?’

  ‘She used to tell Margot to save her tears for when she was peeling onions, when they might do some good,’ Georgie said. ‘Granny was the same. She told us half a dozen times that if we cried at her funeral, she’d come back and haunt us.’

  ‘Did you – at her funeral?’

  ‘She’s still haunting me,’ Georgie said.

  ‘Do you remember Nanny’s first husband’s funeral?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Did she cry at his?’

  ‘No one cried at his,’ Georgie said. ‘And he hadn’t been her husband for years before he died. He lived in a back room with Donny and he paid Jenny to look after his kids.’

  ‘Like she never forgave him for cheating on her with that Florence woman?’

  ‘He did a lot worse than that,’ Georgie said.

  ‘What worse?’

  ‘A lot worse, now enough about him.’

  It was all she’d get. She knew he’d moved some Florence woman into his house after Jenny left him, that she’d had Raelene and Donny then she’d left him too. She knew he’d taken those kids up to Jenny, that she’d raised them until he’d died. The Florence woman had hired a solicitor then, to get Raelene back. Just scraps of information, collected where she could and not enough about anything. Last night she’d collected a few new scraps, such as that Raelene had been a thief.

  ‘Was Nanny together with Pa as soon as Ray King died?’

  ‘Why would you ask that?’

  ‘I saw his tombstone on our way back to the gate. The date he died is on it. I know when Trudy was born.’

  ‘She was two months premature,’ Georgie said as she turned left at the corner that would take them up to
their street.

  ‘Actually premature or on-paper premature?’

  ‘She spent the first month of her life in a hospital incubator. She was two months old before she weighed enough to be released,’ Georgie said, and she made a right-hand turn into their street.

  ‘If we got a fence, Nanny and Lila could live with us and I wouldn’t have to come home from school to an empty house.’

  ‘We’ll book you into after-school care again if you like,’ Paul said.

  ‘I’m being serious, Dad. An iron fence with spikes on it like the Hoopers have around their tombstones would keep out robbers – and keep Lila in.’

  ‘She’s an old dog accustomed to her own big yard. She’d go stir crazy down here,’ Georgie said. ‘What Jen needs now is time to come to terms with living alone – and without your advice or interference.’

  ‘It felt horrible, driving away and seeing her standing there alone. There’s always been the two of them waving from the veranda. She looked . . . shrunken. And the house looked too big.’

  Their own house looked like most houses, just bricks and tiles and windows, a little larger than some, a little smaller than others. It was home, and Katie pleased to be there.

  *

  That house had been home to Paul for three years before Georgie moved in. He’d shared its rent with two mates. They’d had a history, Georgie and those three guys. She’d first met them in Darwin, then again up the top of Western Australia, then in Adelaide, and when the youngest of them had moved up to Sydney, Georgie had taken over his room and his share of the rent.

  It had a rented-house garden. The lawns hadn’t been mowed in twelve months. She’d mowed them. She’d planted a lemon tree in the centre of the front lawn, an apricot tree near the fence, then a passing bird had sown a fig tree. It was too close to the house but it had liked that position and thrived – and grew bigger and better figs than Granny’s fig tree ever had.

  Given time, she’d got rid of the back lawn and turned it into a vegie garden. No trees grew there. The neighbours’ trees already stole too much of its sunlight.

  She nosed her red Mazda in close to the garage door and turned off its motor. They had a double garage, built on the east and north fencelines. Paul’s Ford and her old red utility were parked under cover. She was first out most mornings, last home most nights. Her Mazda had spent its six months of life in the open.

  They spoke about selling the ute. It only saw daylight when they needed to take a load to the tip or to carry anything that wouldn’t fit in her hatchback. But it was a part of her history and she didn’t want it sold off like an old horse who’d had his day.

  Katie brought the carton of china ladies inside; Paul and Georgie carried the cases. The house unlived in for four nights smelt musty.

  They’d dropped everything when that call came through from the police. They’d been out the door in five minutes, mugs left on the sink, phone on the table – a dead flat phone tonight. Georgie put it on its charger, Paul opened the windows, while Katie took her mobile from her pocket and called Jenny. They always phoned to let her know that they’d made it home intact.

  It rang half a dozen times then went through to the answering machine.

  Neither Jen nor I are available to take your call. Please leave your name and number and we’ll get back to you.

  Katie cut that call fast, put her mobile on the bench and stepped away from it. ‘We should have fixed the answering machine. Why didn’t one of us think to fix it for her?’

  Georgie phoned the number, and again the ghost of Jim answered her call. She left a brief message.

  ‘Where would she be at this time of night?’ Katie asked. ‘She never goes out at night.’

  ‘Her world has changed. Her habits will change with it. Have a shower and get your things ready for school,’ Paul said.

  ‘Can I phone Harry and ask if she’s around there?’

  ‘No,’ Georgie said. ‘And you can’t start worrying every time she doesn’t answer her phone either.’

  ‘It sounded like Pa’s ghost. We should have changed that message.’

  ‘Send her a text,’ Paul said.

  Katie picked up her phone as if it were haunted. We’re home, Nanny. Where are you?

  She replied. I’m booked into the Gold Rush Motel, in Willama. I’m going to see a movie.

  ‘She’s going to see a movie,’ Katie relayed. What movie? she texted.

  Pirates of the Caribbean.

  I’ve seen it. You’ll love it.

  ‘Told you so,’ Georgie said. ‘She’s got the resilience of a rubber band.’

  THAT HOUSE

  Jenny knew the Gold Rush Motel. She and Jessica Palmer had shared a room there one night, before Trudy moved out. They’d gone to the movies. The cinema was only a pedestrian crossing away from the motel office. She was down there tonight, not because of the movie but because the walls of Vern Hooper’s house had started breathing, but good, bad or indifferent, movies sometimes stopped her thinking. In Armadale, when she’d been with Ray, she and Jimmy had sat through a lot of bad movies.

  At seven-forty, she stopped the traffic at the crossing and walked alone to the cinema, where she bought a solitary ticket and wandered in, to sit alone and feel lonely. She was and would be forever more.

  She was thinking cruise ships, thinking she’d need to make a new will before booking her cruise. She was thinking of how she’d approach the subject with Georgie, how she might get Jim’s and her own money tied up tight for the grandkids when the movie commercials stopped playing and the show began. It was a bit of nonsensical fantasy but tonight she needed to escape into fantasy.

  That movie got rid of two and a half hours, a cup of tea and two motel biscuits in her anonymous room got rid of an hour more, and when she was done with the motel-supplied tea and biscuits she wished she’d thought to bring a toothbrush. She’d brought nothing. She’d fed Lila two eggs, picked up her handbag and run from the Hooper ghosts.

  No ghosts in this room, just traffic noise. The new cinema had been built in one of Willama’s main streets. She’d brought no nightgown, and at midnight she stripped to her bra and briefs and slid between tight sheets. The mattress was as hard as the hobs of hell, the pillows too high, but she knew no more until daylight. She hadn’t slept, as in slept for more than an hour, since Wednesday night.

  Phone Harry, she thought. Ask him to take Lila around to his place for a few days, buy a few supplies and stay down here. He liked Lila. She liked him. Teddy had good fences. The motel had provided a toaster along with an electric jug. She could survive here.

  Widows weren’t supposed to hide in anonymous motel rooms. They were supposed to keep themselves busy taking phone calls, opening condolence cards, writing replies on thank-you cards then wasting stamps on posting those cards to people who lived around the corner.

  She sighed, then turned on the jug and dressed in the clothing she’d shed last night.

  Paddy Watson, a recent widower, hadn’t written thank-you cards. He’d put an advertisement in the Gazette. That’s what she ought to do.

  The Hooper family wish to thank . . .

  What Hooper family? They were all dead. Trudy was a Papadimopolous. Jenny might have been a Hooper on her driving licence, might have booked into this motel as Jenny Hooper, but had never been one of them.

  Put an ad in for that house while you’re about it, she thought. Hundred-year-old house with six bedrooms and resident ghost, guaranteed to freeze your bum off in winter and fry it in summer.

  Or burn it down, then do a Georgie. After she’d lost everything in that fire, Georgie had taken off around Australia, had kept driving away until she’d been ready to face the reality of what she’d lost.

  Couldn’t face no Jim waiting at home, not today, not tomorrow or six months from tomorrow.

  No more pills to nag about, no more shirts to iron, no more prosthesis to fetch and hold while he pushed his stump into it. It was with him, down that hole.


  She hadn’t said goodbye to him, hadn’t sung one final song for him.

  Trudy had kissed him goodbye. Paul drove her and the twins down here. He’d watched her lift the boys up to kiss their Papa goodbye.

  ‘Papa won’t wake up, Nanny,’ Ricky had said.

  ‘Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!’ Jenny demanded, then checked the time. Not much after eight. She didn’t have to give up this room until ten.

  She opened her handbag to see how much cash she’d brought with her. A big bag, black, frameless soft leather, not heavy when it wasn’t loaded. It was always loaded. The brochure for her dream fridge was still in it. She wouldn’t be ordering it now. She found her wallet. Plenty of coins in it. Not enough notes to pay for the room. She had their joint-account Visa card and her own savings card. Always carried them. Jim had carried the chequebook. He would have paid by cheque. He’d paid all of the bills by cheque. Had been able to fill his mornings writing cheques and addressing envelopes, sticking on stamps. If she’d been the one who’d died, he would have been at home writing personal thank-you letters to the neighbours then riding his gopher around to the postbox –

  He wouldn’t have. He couldn’t get in and out of bed without her shoulder to lean on. Couldn’t get his foot on unless she held it. Couldn’t boil water.

  Trudy would have signed him into the nursing home behind the hospital –

  Like hell she would have. He hadn’t been near a hospital since he’d walked out of that last psychiatric place in the mid-fifties.

  He’d attempted to talk Trudy out of a nursing career. That was the first time she’d driven in her heels. ‘It’s what I want to do, Dad.’

  My fault, Jenny thought. She’d filled her head with tales of Granny, Woody Creek’s midwife-cum-bush nurse for sixty years. Elsie and Harry had named her for Granny, named her Gertrude, but Granny had been Trude or Trudy to her friends.

  Jim’s letter to Trudy was still in her handbag. She’d picked it up off the hallstand the day of her haircut and forgotten about it. Tuesday now and the envelope was creased. She flattened it, felt that paperclip again and wondered if a cheque was legal tender when the one who’d signed it was dead.