by John Kelly
It was six weeks after the lunchtime meeting between Terri Carney and Andrea Steedman in Melbourne, and two thousand miles to the north, where Mary Therese Campbell, a six-year old girl, living in Cairns, was completing her first year at school. Her mother Irene Campbell, left home to pick up her daughter from school that hot, humid, afternoon as threatening storm clouds gathered above the dark blue mountains and the rich green fields of cane sugar. Minutes later, the postman rode by and delivered a letter into the letterbox at their home.
"Did you have a good day?" Irene asked, as Mary Therese climbed into the front seat of their 1975 Holden sedan. "Yes mummy. Lucinda says she's going to get a Barbie doll for Christmas. Can I have one too?" she asked. "I guess we'll have to wait and see won't we?" her mother replied. "Can we go to the Zoo tomorrow?" an excited Mary asked, her head filled with all the excitement of Christmas and the upcoming, long holiday break. "We'll see," Irene said hoping to contain Mary's excitement. "Can I play with Lucinda when we get home?" Mary asked. "We'll see," her mother replied.
The storm broke as the two arrived home. They ran inside as the heavy drenching rain poured down, so heavy in fact, that Irene did not bother to check the letterbox. As the two ran from the car to the house, Irene waved briefly to Gladys Goodfellow, her next door neighbour, who was standing on her front porch, having herself just retrieved her mail. It was the wet season and monsoonal rains had begun. Cairns almost shut down in the wet season. The sugar mills were closed. The marlin fishing was on hold. Tourists were scarce. Most of the shops closed around midday on Saturday's. On Friday nights it was different, as people walked around the town, and the Salvation Army band played on the corner. At the local council meeting, there was an air of excitement as the town's leaders' spoke of airport upgrading, international tourists and boom times ahead. But when the rains came down, everybody went for cover.
These past years had been good for the Campbells. Their sudden return to Cairns with Mary Therese five years earlier had been greeted with joy and excitement by their friends. No one suspected anything unusual in the adoption. Irene and James explained their way around the happy event by telling family and friends they wanted to keep their adoption plans quiet.
"I didn't want to say anything, because I was afraid it would never happen," Irene told the baker, the milkman, and Gladys Goodfellow, the next-door neighbour.
"We thought if we told you what we were doing you would feel sorry for us," she said to Gladys, who came knocking the morning after they arrived home from Brisbane. Gladys was certain she heard a baby crying next door and her curiosity got the best of her. It was a similar story for James.
"We weren't sure if this was the trip where we would be bringing home a baby, so we didn't want to say anything," he said, when he told his boss, his workmates, and the barman at the corner hotel the good news. And so, the sudden trip to Brisbane on the pretext that Irene' mother was ill was the perfectly understandable act of two people, anxious not to allow their expectations to exceed their good judgement. How sensible. How wise. How understanding were the neighbours and the community in general, as they shared the excitement that a new baby brings to a family and social circle.
As Irene and Mary Therese settled themselves inside the house, James Campbell was returning from Tully, several miles south of Cairns, and officially the wettest place in Australia. As he drove along the Bruce Highway, passing through Innisfail, he could see the dark clouds rolling in off the coast. James was a sales representative for Argus Oil, an American multi-national corporation that had ventured into the Australian market ten years earlier. He was good at his job, supervising the company's network of service stations and farm agencies from Tully to Cooktown. So good in fact, that he had received a call from his Sales Manager in Brisbane earlier in the day asking him to report to the Brisbane office the following Monday. His Sales Manager didn't want to pre-empt what the Branch Manager intended to discuss with him, but suggested in the most confidential of terms, that a promotional transfer to the Sydney Head Office was on the cards. The storm broke as he reached Babinda, where he needed to stop and fill up, and also write up some credit notes for Allan Marshall, the local service station proprietor. As he pulled into the site, a clap of thunder rocked his car, and felt so close, that for a brief moment, he thought he had blown a tyre.
In Cairns, the storm had calmed and Irene was preparing a salad for the family's evening meal when she remembered the mail. "Mary," she called. "Would you go and see if there's any letters in the letter box please?" Mary returned a few minutes later and placed three letters on the kitchen table, just as the phone rang.
"Hello," Irene said as she picked up the receiver. It was James.
"Oh hello Darling, how's everything?" she asked when James spoke. "I'm fine," he answered, "but I'm afraid the weather isn't. I'm in Babinda waiting for the rain to stop. I might be a bit late. What's it like up there?" Irene could hear the sound of rain through the phone and looked out the window. "It's clearing here. Just a light drizzle," she answered. "Okay," he answered, "I'll wait a little and head off again when it lightens up. See you in an hour or so. Got some news," he said as Irene was about to put down the receiver. "What news?" she asked. "You'll have to wait until I get home," he answered cheekily. "Tell Mary Therese I have something for her," he said and hung up.
Irene grinned. James was always bringing something home for Mary Therese. She finished preparing the salad and settled herself with a gin and tonic before turning her attention to the mail Mary Therese had brought inside. Two of the letters were bills. The third envelope was overprinted; It read, 'Western Family Agency' and immediately Irene became concerned. She opened it quickly and as she began to read the contents, she slumped into the kitchen chair, displaying a look of horror.
"Dear Mr. And Mrs Campbell,
I am writing to advise you that I have in my possession a letter from a Miss Andrea Steedman ,who claims to be the birth- mother of a girl called Mary Therese, who she says was placed for adoption though our agency. The letter was sent to us here at the Western Family Agency, but we have no record of an adoption process commenced through this agency for any child by that name. Our records do show that an initial application for assessment was lodged by you in 1974, but it appears that application has never been processed. As Miss Steedman mentions your name in connection with the adoption of her child, we are understandably confused. I would be pleased to hear from you and any information you can offer that might help us resolve this matter. Meanwhile we have advised Miss Steedman that we are looking into her request, and will reply to her as soon as we can.
Yours faithfully
Ross Davidson
Agency Director
An overriding fear engulfed Irene as she tried to absorb the enormity of this seemingly simple request. In her apprehension, she felt the moisture oozing from her forehead. Pulling her thoughts together, she grabbed the telephone and tried to remember the number of the general store at Babinda. 'Perhaps James was still there,' she thought. Holding the phone to her ear, she tried to remember the number from previous calls she had made there. 'What is it? What is it?' she said inside her head, over and over again, as small droplets of perspiration fell from her forehead onto the letter. Giving up on memory, she hurried into James study where his work papers were filed. On his desk she found his address book and opened the index at B. Nothing there! 'Where is it?' she pleaded to herself. 'Babinda is a privately owned site, not a company site.' She opened the index at P. Yes, there it was. Using the telephone extension in James office she dialled the number."Babinda General Store, Allan speaking," the voice said.
"Allan, it's Irene Campbell, is James still there?"
"Well, hello to you too. No, I'm afraid he just left. Run out of milk have you?"
Irene forced a calmed composure. "No, I'm sorry. I was just anxious to ask him something before he got home. Doesn't matter. Sorry to bother you," she said. Replacing the receiver, Irene took a couple of deep breaths. Her mind was
spinning in a dozen different directions. Past events flashed in and out of her consciousness. She hardly remembered what Andrea Steedman looked like. But she remembered all too clearly that she and James had done the wrong thing. She remembered the desperation she felt at not being able to adopt a child. She remembered the waiting list. 'Three to four years! How could anybody be expected to wait that long?' 'You can go to the Philippines or Thailand', someone suggested. 'Things can be arranged quickly there,' she was told. 'No, that's not what we want.' She recalled. 'We want an Australian baby.' Each agency they approached told them the same story. Three to four years! 'How could anyone wait that long?' Then, the breakthrough! She and James met with Julie Macleod from the Western Family Agency. Perhaps something could be done, but not through the agency. It would have to be done privately and it would cost a bit of money, but it could be done. Recurring thoughts were spinning around in her head as Irene tried to rationalise the situation. 'What does she want? More money? She got paid. How did she remember our names? That was a mistake. We shouldn't have given our real names. Oh God, I don't believe this is happening.' Unable to concentrate her mind on anything other than the letter and its ramifications, Irene slumped onto the lounge chair behind Mary Therese, who was sitting on the floor watching television.
"Will Daddy be home soon?" Mary asked. Irene didn't even hear the question. "Mummy what's the matter?" Mary asked, getting up from the floor and sensing an air of disquiet. Irene composed herself enough to tend to the needs of her daughter. 'You are my daughter. Mine! Not hers,' she thought as she looked upon Mary standing at her side. 'You didn't want her. I did! I've raised her. She's mine.' It was these forthright thoughts that helped Irene regain her mental strength enough to respond to Mary.
"It's all right Darling, Mummy was just thinking, that's all," she replied. "When will Daddy be home?" Mary asked again. "Soon darling, soon. He's been caught up in the storm. He'll be home soon." Mary's interruption to Irene's thoughts was a blessing in disguise. It helped settle her. 'After all,' she rationalised, 'nothing is going to happen right now. I can relax. There's no need to go hysterical. We can work this out. We will come up with a way to fix everything.'
Over the next hour while waiting for James to arrive home, Irene thought of ways to handle the letter. She considered several possibilities. They could simply ignore the letter and wait to see if another one came. They could return the letter marked 'not known at this address'. 'No, that wouldn't work. Our number is in the local telephone directory.' They could respond and claim no knowledge of Andrea, suggesting some possible confusion with another applicant. 'Yes, that would work. We could say that she must have confused us with someone else.' The one final and least attractive option, Irene thought, was to simply disappear. They could leave Cairns. Run away and hide somewhere. Leave the country. Go to New Zealand, start a new life there. Leaving would create problems though. 'What if they came up here looking for us and spoke to the neighbours? The neighbours would mention Mary, and say how old she was. That would start a manhunt. That would be telling them we had her.'
By the time James arrived home, Irene was an emotionally exhausted woman. She had neglected Mary Therese, who was eating dry biscuits and still watching television, unfed and unbathed, when James came through the front door. James' dinner was no further advanced, other than the prepared salad still sitting in the refrigerator, and Irene was lying down in the bedroom in the dark. As James walked in and surveyed the scene inside the house, a terrible fear shot through his chest. He walked over to Mary sitting on the floor. "Hello sweetie, where's Mummy?" he asked kissing her on the forehead. "In her room lying down," she answered. "Have you had your dinner?" James enquired. "Not yet. Mummy's lying down," she said, not taking her eyes off the television. James made a move for the bedroom, and as he passed by the kitchen noticed the open letter on the table. Pausing briefly he scanned the letter quickly. As he read, he slumped into the kitchen chair. He was momentarily stunned, unable to move. Pulling himself together, he hurried to the bedroom, where Irene lay across the double bed. She had fallen asleep. He sat down on the bed and gently stroked her forehead, taking care not to arouse her suddenly. She opened her eyes, looked into his, and flung her arms around his neck, and the two embraced each other tightly in silence.
"You've read the letter?" Irene asked, finally releasing her grip. "Yes" he replied. "What are we going to do?" she asked. There was a pause while James considered their position. "Well, I can tell you what we are not going to do. We are not going to panic. There is a way out of this," he reassured Irene, recalling the conversation with his Sales manager about a possible move to Sydney, "and we can still have Mary Therese. That I promise you."
As James reassured his wife that they would overcome any obstacle that might result from the letter, he knew it would not be an easy road. Deep down, he knew from the very first day he and Irene brought Mary Therese home to Cairns, that one day they would be called to account for their actions. Whatever their motives, their actions in side-stepping the appropriate procedures for adoption would eventually catch up with them. While considering running away from the problem, he knew that it would never be a permanent solution. Little did James Campbell realize as he sat on the edge of the bed, holding his traumatised wife in his arms that it would be another sixteen years before this error of judgement would be resolved.
8.
1996
Sixteen years later
