Gift of the Gab

by Morris Gleitzman

  ‘I’m not seeing that bludger son of mine,’ he said. ‘Not till he apologises.’

  I sighed. This was what I’d feared. I was hoping we wouldn’t get sidetracked into Dad and Grandad’s war, but Grandad obviously still feels as strongly about it as Dad does. The last time they saw each other, Christmas three years ago, Grandad had too much homemade alcoholic cider and yelled at Dad and Dad called him a booze bucket and a viper-mouthed old troll and a pathetic excuse for a father.

  It’s tragic. I’ve even heard Dad talking about Grandad in the past tense, i.e. ‘my dad’s name was Clarrie’, as if he’d carked it.

  I decided to write another card explaining to Grandad that my visit had nothing to do with Dad.

  Before I could, Grandad grabbed my hand.

  ‘Hungry?’ he asked.

  I shook my head. I’d had an apple fritter walking from the bus-stop.

  ‘Bulldust,’ said Grandad. ‘Kids are always hungry.’

  He dragged me into the house. It was gloomy inside and smelt of old blankets and bacon. As I followed him down the passage I tried not to think about what might be waiting for me in the kitchen. It’s not Grandad’s fault. When people live alone and have to get through whole loaves of bread by themselves, life must be a continual race against blue mould.

  In fact the slices he cut me looked pretty fresh. And the butter was from the fridge. I started to relax.

  ‘Do you like jam?’ said Grandad.

  I hesitated, wondering how long the average solo pensioner takes to get through a jar of jam. Particularly one who prefers homemade cider to spreads.

  ‘Course you do,’ said Grandad. ‘All kids like jam.’

  He opened a new jar of apricot and spread it on the bread really thickly. I realised I was pretty hungry after all.

  Then Grandad went over to the stove, picked some pieces of cold bacon out of a fat-congealed pan, laid them carefully on the bread and jam, shook tomato sauce onto the bacon, put the top of the sandwich on and slid it towards me.

  ‘My favourite,’ he said.

  My stomach tried to hide under my liver.

  Don’t get ill and offend him, I told myself. Remember why you’re here.

  I took a deep breath, silently asked Mum to wish me luck and held up the next piece of cardboard.

  ‘Can you take me to France,’ it said, ‘to see my mum’s real grave?’

  Even before Grandad had finished reading it, his face twisted into a snarl.

  ‘France?’ he spat. ‘I wouldn’t go to that dung heap if you paid me a million dollars.’

  I hoped he was just grumpy because I wasn’t eating the sandwich.

  I pressed on with the next card.

  ‘I’ll pay you back for the plane ticket when I’m older,’ it said.

  ‘If you go to that death-trap of a country you won’t get to be older,’ snapped Grandad. ‘My father went there and was killed. Your mother went there and was k . . .’

  His voice petered out. He obviously wasn’t sure if Dad had told me the secret about Mum. Then his voice came back.

  ‘If you think I’m setting foot in France,’ yelled Grandad, ‘your brain’s as dud as your throat.’

  It wasn’t looking good, but I wasn’t despairing. I still had one more card.

  I held it up.

  ‘You could visit your dad’s war grave,’ it said.

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’ growled Grandad.

  I stared at him, shocked.

  Poor bloke. His dad was killed before he was born. It’s tragic when a kid doesn’t even get to meet a parent. If only his dad had left a tape of himself singing a country and western song.

  Then I remembered the mouth-organ.

  I took it out of my bag.

  ‘This was your dad’s,’ I wrote on a piece of cardboard. ‘Would you like it?’

  Grandad stared at the mouth-organ, face going bright red again. Then he grabbed it and threw it into my bag.

  ‘Get out,’ he said. ‘How dare you come here upsetting an old bloke. You’re worse than your ratbag father. Out!’

  He grabbed me and pushed me down the passage and out of the house and slammed the door behind me.

  I stood in the front yard, shaking and indignant.

  He could have just said no thanks.

  For a sec I wanted to yell at him that he was a viper-mouthed old troll, but the cardboard was probably too thick to push under his door so I didn’t.

  I turned sadly and headed back to the bus­-stop.

  About fifty metres down the road I heard his voice.

  ‘Rowena,’ he was shouting, ‘wait on.’

  I turned, my heart doing a skip, and saw him hurrying towards me.

  Yes, I thought, he’s changed his mind. He’s remembered the life-insurance money he got when grandma died and he’s decided to spend it on getting closer to the father he never knew.

  I held out my hands to give Grandad a hug.

  He held out his hands too.

  In them was a soggy paper bag.

  ‘You forgot your sandwich,’ he said.

  This bus ride home is taking forever. If it doesn’t reach town soon I might have to eat the sandwich.

  At least it’s giving me time to think.

  Poor Grandad, not being able to get revenge for his dad’s death. That’s the crook thing about wars. You can’t bring people to justice because they’re allowed to kill each other.

  Poor Dad, growing up with such an angry father. I reckon Dad’s done a pretty good job, turning out so different. I’d rather have a dad with a bright-red shirt than a bright-red face any day.

  I just wish he’d told me the truth about Mum.

  I sort of understand why he didn’t, but. He knew the most important thing was for me to feel close to Mum. He knew how far away France would seem to a kid.

  He was right, it does seem far away.

  Every time I try and think of a way of getting there, it seems further.

  But I’ve got to get there.

  If I can’t think of a legal way soon, I might have to do something really desperate.

  And I don’t mean eat the sandwich.

  As I hurried along the road to our place, I was so busy worrying how I could get to France I didn’t notice the purple thing standing by our gate till I almost bumped into it.

  Dermot Figgis’s car.

  My guts went tight.

  I ducked behind a tree and crouched in some undergrowth.

  The car was standing with all its doors open. The cow-pattern seat covers were spread out on the roof. The Simpsons car mats were on the bonnet.

  Heart thumping, I wondered if Dermot had come to take my hairdryer so he could dry out the car quicker.

  Tough luck, I thought. I haven’t got a hairdryer.

  Then I heard voices.

  I peered through some couch grass and saw Dermot and another bloke squinting up our driveway.

  ‘Doesn’t look any different,’ said the bloke doubtfully. ‘Looks the same as any other orchard.’

  ‘It’s a chemical bombsite,’ said Dermot. ‘Makes the Iraqi oilfields look like a national park. That’s what the TV crowd told my mum.’

  ‘Ripper,’ said the bloke, scribbling in a notebook. ‘If I can get that clown Kenny Batts to talk I’ll get a front page out of this.’

  Suddenly I recognised the bloke. Stan Gooch, a reporter with the local paper. He plays footy in the same team as Dermot Figgis. And there was Dermot, dobbing Dad in to him. Spreading lies and hurtful gossip.

  I very nearly let Dermot have it. The bloke on the farm next to ours keeps horses and I could have had Dermot’s car full of horse manure if they’d kept talking for another hour or so.

  I didn’t, but.

  It was more urgent to warn Dad. Having your name dragged through the mud on national TV is bad enough, but on telly there’s always the hope that people will be watching a video or changing the oil in the tractor when it’s on.

  Everyone round here read
s the local paper.

  I crept back down the road, jumped the fence, ran through the orchard and burst in through the back door.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ I said to Claire, who was doing some paperwork at the kitchen table. ‘The local paper’s after him.’

  Claire took a moment to understand my hand-movements. Then she gave a groan. ‘Not the local paper as well,’ she said. ‘You’d better warn him. He’s in the big shed.’

  Typical Dad, I thought as I hurried out to the shed. When things get tough he always likes to keep busy. Probably changing the gaskets in the apple-polishing machine.

  At first I couldn’t see him in the gloom of the shed.

  I pulled out the mouth-organ and played a few notes. Hand-movements aren’t much use attracting someone’s attention if they’ve got their head up an apple-chute.

  ‘Over here, Tonto,’ he called out.

  He wasn’t changing the gaskets in the apple-polishing machine. He wasn’t even picking dust out of the grease nipples. He was sitting in the corner of the shed behind a pile of apple boxes eating a bacon and jam sandwich.

  ‘Those TV mongrels have been trying to get me on the blower all day,’ he said. ‘Thought I’d be safer out here in case they turn up in person.’

  He didn’t say the word but I knew what he was doing.

  Hiding.

  I was shocked. Dad never hides from trouble. All my life he’s faced up to it and usually sung it a song.

  Now he looked so sad and stressed I didn’t know what to say.

  I told him I’d do the same thing in his position. It wasn’t true, but he’d lied about Mum to save my feelings so I thought it was only fair.

  I took a deep breath and wished I didn’t have to tell him about the local paper.

  As it turned out, I didn’t.

  Claire came into the shed carrying Erin and her bankcard. She held the card out to Dad.

  ‘Take it, love,’ she said. ‘Go to France till this blows over. Please.’

  My heart started thumping so loudly I thought for a minute the apple-polishing machine had switched itself on.

  Say yes, I begged him silently. Even if you don’t want to, say yes for Mum.

  Dad stood up.

  ‘Thanks, love,’ he said, ‘but I’m not blowing all our savings. I’m staying here to fight the mongrels.’

  My guts felt like stewed apple sliding down the inside of a car windscreen.

  Claire sighed. ‘You’re going to fight the local paper as well?’ she said.

  I could see this rocked Dad. He hesitated for a bit, and when he spoke his voice was much quieter than it usually is.

  ‘I can’t leave you here with the bub,’ he said. ‘It’d be different if we could afford tickets for all of us.’

  Claire gave a grim smile.

  ‘I’ll be OK,’ she said. ‘I’ve handled worse than a few pesky journalists.’

  She has too. She used to be a teacher and once she took Year Six on a camp.

  Dad was still hesitating.

  I was holding my breath.

  Claire looked hard at Dad, flicked her eyes towards me and back to Dad. She didn’t think I saw it, but I did.

  ‘I think you should,’ she said to Dad.

  Dad put his arms round her and the baby and buried his face in her hair.

  ‘OK,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Yes!’ I wanted to shout, but of course I couldn’t.

  I gave Claire a hug too, and told her she’s the best step-mum in the history of the world, including Hollywood.

  We’ve been making travel plans all evening. There’s heaps of arrangements to make. We’re going to drive to the city tomorrow and make them there, where the local paper can’t find out about them.

  My guts are in a knot.

  I’ve been lying here in bed for hours, playing Mum’s tape and thinking about what I’ve got to do when I get to France.

  I feel like my head’s in an ants’ nest again.

  It’s pretty normal though, eh, not being able to sleep the night before a big trip.

  Most people have that trouble, even when they’re not planning how to catch a murderer.

  I think the crew are onto me.

  The flight attendants have been giving me strange looks ever since we got on the plane.

  I saw two of them whispering to each other just now.

  ‘The girl in 58B,’ I think one said, ‘she’s planning to ruthlessly hunt down a French criminal and make the French police look lazy and slack. We’d better alert the French authorities.’

  I hope I’m wrong.

  I hope they’re just staring because of my mouth-organ. I was playing it a bit loudly during takeoff. I needed something to help me relax and you can’t dig on a plane.

  My worry, but, is that they’re staring because of the security-alarm incident.

  It wasn’t fair. Nobody warned me that a mouth-organ would set off the metal detector at the airport security gate. I’d have put it through the x-ray machine with Dad’s belt buckle if they had.

  Instead I had to take everything out of my pockets, including the plastic car and the rag doll I’ve borrowed from Erin’s toybox.

  Dad gave me a puzzled look when he saw them. He knows I haven’t played with dolls for years, and I only play with cars when he wants a race.

  I’m hoping he’s thinking I’ve just borrowed them to remind me of Erin. Instead of to help me act out Mum’s death for the jury in a French courtroom.

  The security guards saw them too, and swapped a look.

  I reckon they told the flight attendants.

  It’ll be tragic if I get stopped now, because everything’s gone so well over the last three days.

  We drove down to the city without any problems except for one scare when we saw a van behind us. We thought it was Paige Parker but it just turned out to be a nappy service.

  The travel agent in the city was really helpful, specially when we gave him a box of apples. And the passport office, where we thought we might have to queue for days, was a breeze. They’ve got a special counter for handicapped people, and because Dad’s finger was in a splint after he shut it in a cupboard door at our motel, we felt OK about using that.

  It was the busiest three days of my life. I hardly had time to think, let alone worry about being sprung.

  I’ve only started worrying about that since we’ve been on the plane.

  If only I could tell Dad what I’m planning to do. At least then if the French customs officials handcuff me and try to bundle me on a plane home, he could protest to the Australian embassy.

  But I don’t want to make him more stressed. He’s got enough on his plate as it is, poor bloke. The pressure of being unfairly hounded by the media’s really getting to him.

  Usually he wears his best clothes when we’re going somewhere special. His pink satin shirt with the black guitar on the back and his Viking-on-a-tractor belt buckle.

  So far this trip all he’s worn are denim work shirts and the World War One belt buckle he only wears when he’s depressed.

  Usually if he was in a group of three hundred bored people he’d have a sing-song going by now. There’s a Carla Tamworth song about a bloke sitting on a rock waiting for his pilot sweetheart to arrive for their wedding. He doesn’t know she’s crashed and he waits so long that moss grows on his tuxedo. It’d be perfect for a twenty-two-hour flight like this one.

  But Dad’s just sitting here, flicking through the in-flight magazine.

  I offered him a go on the mouth-organ, but he just shook his head and –

  Oh no, a flight attendant’s bending over and speaking to him.

  Is she explaining that I’ll have to be sent home at Singapore?

  No, she’s just asking Dad to tell me not to play my mouth-organ once they start the movie.

  Phew, they mustn’t be onto me after all.

  That’s a relief.

  Now I can relax for the rest of the flight.

  Except for one other little thing
that’s worrying me.

  When we were saying goodbye to Claire and Erin at the airport, Claire whispered something to Dad. She didn’t think I heard because I was busy blowing a raspberry on Erin’s bottom, but I did.

  ‘Ro’s old enough to know the full story,’ she whispered to Dad.

  The full story about what?

  I asked Dad while we were waiting to get on the plane, but he just looked away and mumbled something about showing me the exact place where Mum was killed.

  I had the weird feeling he was hiding something.

  I hope not.

  Perhaps I’m just getting too suspicious after everything that’s happened.

  Can’t be helped.

  You need to be a bit suspicious when you’re tracking down your mum’s killer.

  We got through French customs without a hiccup.

  OK, one.

  On his customs form, under ‘Reason For Visit’, Dad put ‘holiday’. On mine I put ‘business’.

  It was careless of me, but luckily they just thought I was a dopey kid who didn’t understand forms.

  Still, I wanted to get out of that airport fast, in case their computer matched my name with Mum’s name and they saw I was the daughter of an unsolved hit-and-run victim planning to take the law into her own hands. I know Mum’s death was quite a few years ago, but computers can do that sort of thing standing on their heads.

  ‘Airport train station,’ said Dad. ‘This way.’

  I’ve got Claire’s rucksack and Dad’s got a suitcase on wheels so we can move pretty fast.

  We’re here, I thought, my insides tingling with excitement. We’re in France and I’m going to avenge Mum and nothing can stop me now.

  Boy, was I wrong.

  First, we got lost. Paris airport is like a huge shopping centre. Dad always gets lost in shopping centres, even ones that don’t have signs in French.

  We bought a French phrase book and found the station.

  Then Dad tried to buy tickets.

  The bloke in the ticket office couldn’t understand what Dad was saying and Dad couldn’t understand what the bloke was saying.

  Dad said the name of Mum’s town all the different ways he could think of, but the ticket bloke just kept frowning.

  ‘Sorry, Tonto,’ muttered Dad. ‘It’s been twelve years since I’ve said it.’