by Kate Lyons
‘Blood pressure meds,’ the woman said briskly, tucking a curl behind Dad’s ear. ‘It’s a side effect.’ As Shandy knelt down to rearrange a travel rug around Dad’s knees—all that wool, in this heat—she murmured in Ursula’s ear. ‘They like to be touched you know. You’re only the second visitor he’s had since he came in.’ Ursula was about to ask who the other one had been but the woman bounced upright again.
‘How’s that? All good, Jimmy?’ Dad grinned. Jimmy. Dad was always Jim. James sometimes, in official documents, McCullough to other men. Never Jimmy.
‘Now, I’ll be back soon and then we’ll have a rest and then we can go for a swim. Careful with that, all right? Let it cool down first.’
‘Swim? I have to get changed.’ He started trying to lever himself out of his chair. Dad, who hated swimming, hated water, because of the creek and the river, its receding fortunes and swelling disasters, either drowning sheep or coughing them up as a dusty pile of bones. Never seen Dad in a pair of bathers. Never seen him smile so much.
The nurse pushed him gently back into his seat. ‘No, Jim, not right now. Later. Ursula’s here now, see? Your daughter. I’ll let you catch up.’
With a final warning glance at Ursula, she walked off, leaving Ursula alone with the stranger in the chair.
‘I told her you’d come.’
‘Sorry? Who?’
‘Ursula. I told her. She comes by train. Did you come by car? How’d it go?’
Playing for time, she took a sip of chocolate, which was lukewarm and horribly sweet.
‘Dad. I’m Ursula. See? I’m here.’ Although she couldn’t be entirely sure of that right now. That dizzy slippery fading feeling again. Maybe the codeine she’d taken on an empty stomach. Or the heat, the bleach stink of the pool.
‘She likes chocolate. Shouldn’t really. Size of her.’ Her father slurped greedily, froth on his lip. ‘Lovely stuff.’ Lovely. Her father never said things like that. Things were either buggered or OK. ‘Here.’ He was holding the mug out, hand shaking, chocolate dribbling down the sides.
‘No thanks, Dad. I’ve got some.’
But he was shaking his head, sticking his tongue out, waggling it, and it took her a while to twig. Leaning forward cautiously, avoiding fingers, knees and fronds of hair, she blew on his chocolate quickly, sat back. Watched him lap away like a cat while her own chocolate formed a skin.
How dare he. The snowy guileless glow of him against the white of his shirt, the blue zing of the pool, the nursery pink of the walls. After all this time. Smiling and smiling, like bloody Father Christmas or a rosy-cheeked gnome. Just when she needed something hard and dark and definite to brace against, he’d slipped his traces, shifted the territory. Changed the rules.
‘Long trip? By car? How’d it go?’
She should find a tissue, wipe that silly froth off his lip. Should work out how to do this, how to knock him back into a shape she could deal with. Find the thing she knew was still lurking beneath the ice-cream colours, the fairy-floss hair.
‘Yes. I came by car. It was a long way. I came from Sydney. That’s where I live. With Tilda. Remember? She came after Mam got sick. Before she died.’
She’d been aiming for a short sharp shock, like the bang Dad used to give the TV when it was on the roll. Nothing, just that big wide smile. He’d always been a bit deaf though, by fault or design. And he wasn’t wearing his hearing aid.
She moved her chair a bit closer, but not too close.
‘Dad? Shandy said you’d had a bit of trouble.’ Stupid name. Sounded like someone’s horse. ‘She said you’d been going walkabout.’ Still smiling, Dad cocked his head. She was shouting now, her voice clamouring back at her from glass and tiles. ‘Where were you going, Dad? Home? To Twenty Bends?’ He shook his head fast, like a dog with a fly, and she remembered Winston, tied to the gate outside. Hoped he was all right out there.
‘We sold it though, remember?’ she said. ‘And Mam’s not there any more.’
‘Twenty Bends. That old place.’
Where six months ago the mere mention of either Mam or the farm was enough to make him turn purple, now he said the name with an air of wonder, like it was something from a fairy tale.
‘Haven’t been out there in donkey’s years.’
‘No. You were there less than a year ago, Dad. Before we sold it. Then you moved to Frederick Street.’
He snorted, hands clenched on his stick.
‘That bloody dump! Wouldn’t put a dog in there. Couldn’t even fit Eddie’s car in the garage. Had to leave it out in the driveway. All madame’s idea of course.’
This was more like it. Still, it rankled. Dad had chosen that place himself.
‘Still going, that car. Remember Eddie’s FB?’
How could she forget? Dad lavished more care and money and attention on that car than he ever gave his kids.
‘Good as the day it was bought.’
‘Dad. Forget the car. Look, I’m sorry I haven’t been to visit for a while. I should have. But I didn’t think you’d want to see me, after last time. I tried ringing, a few times. And I sent letters, remember? But you didn’t write back.’
Useless. He was off somewhere, smiling vaguely, polishing duco, his arm out some remembered window as tyres ate Technicolour miles. She thought about touching him briefly on the knee, to get his attention. Lifted her hand then dropped it again.
‘Dad, listen. About those letters. You remember the last one I sent, to Frederick Street? After we sold Twenty Bends?’ His smile faltered, his gaze wandering off over her left shoulder, to where a tiny old lady was splashing around in the shallow end of the pool. ‘Well, it’s turned up. I mean, I found it. See?’ She waved it in front of his face. ‘But I’m not sure how.’ She wasn’t making any sense, she realised, not to a deaf forgetful old man, or even to herself.
‘I’m hot,’ her father announced suddenly, shrugging away his blanket. ‘I need a swim.’ To Ursula’s horror, he started fumbling with his shirt buttons, white hair spilling out. Frightened he was about to start on his trousers, she looked for Shandy, but the courtyard was deserted, the people in wheelchairs having trundled off, or been spirited away. Just the little old lady paddling in circles, a flowered cap on her head.
‘Dad. Wait. Not now. Later. When you’ve finished your drink.’ She handed his mug to him and he sat back, draining it obediently, although the stuff must be stone cold by now. ‘About that letter. See, I found it, in someone’s pocket. But I sent it to you. I don’t know how it ended up there.’
Her head hurt with the heat and the effort of trying to explain the hopscotch of clues and whispers and inklings and yearnings that had led her here.
‘Ray got hold of it somehow, Dad. The letter.’ He smiled back. ‘Remember Ray?’
‘Yeah. He ran off. Got lost.’ Get lost. That’s what Dad used to say when Ray was little and Ray was trying to help him, with fences or wood chopping or cleaning Eddie’s car.
‘Big secret. Delly won’t let me tell.’ Dad tapped his nose, a sly look on his face. Mug shaking, dripping the dregs of the chocolate all over his pants. Loose tracksuit bottoms. No belt. ‘Ray was Eddie’s you know.’
It was all she could do not to throw her own chocolate at his face.
‘Yes, but that’s not true is it? That’s just what we told people. When I went away.’
He was grinning and nodding, enjoying some private joke.
‘Good thing too. Taught you some manners, those old nuns.’ One good kick to that walker thing he was sitting in and he’d be in that pool, clothes and all.
‘You’re Ursula.’ He was looking at her properly, for the first time. Smile draining away.
‘Yes. That’s right. And I’m looking for Ray. This letter, see?’ She held it up. ‘I sent it to you months ago. But I found it in Ray’s clothes.’ The sun went behind a cloud and the courtyard dimmed. She tried to move herself into her father’s eye line but his gaze was strafing left and right, looking everywhere bu
t at her.
‘How did Ray get hold of it, Dad? Did he come to see you, maybe here, or when you were at Frederick Street?’
‘He came to lunch.’
Heart thudding, she leaned closer but her father reared back, seeming to notice the state of her for the first time.
‘What happened? Did the nuns beat you up?’
‘Forget that. Ray came to lunch, you said. When?’
‘No! Not Ray. Eddie. I told you.’ He looked furious suddenly, waving his cane in the air, slamming it against her chair leg, and she jumped. ‘Just said, didn’t I? He came for his car. But he didn’t take it. It’s still there. Someone nicked the wheels.’ His face was swimming, waves of anger and sadness and confusion passing over it. In the shadowy light he looked thinner, the bones etched, the hothouse bloom fading from his cheek.
‘Dad, Eddie died. You know that. Ages ago.’
He shook his head adamantly, eyes fixed on something over her shoulder. ‘He was there. Had some little lout with him, and a mongrel dog. Made a mess of my front lawn. I told him, you gotta show ’em who’s boss.’ Fear in his eyes. Some hole of the past he was falling toward. ‘Like I did with Ray.’
They like to be touched.
She reached out slowly, through air like treacle, to take his hand.
‘That’s not true though, is it? About Eddie? It can’t be.’ His hand trembled. No calluses, palm soft, the skin paper thin. ‘It must have been Ray who came. And you gave him the letter.’
He snatched his hand away.
‘Do you know where he is now? Where he went?’
‘Get off. Go away. Mind your own business. Bugger off!’
She was still staring at his hand, at the wild trembling of it, marvelling at how soft and breakable it had felt, so she didn’t see the stick coming until it hit her across the cheek. Not that hard, but in reflex and shock, her arm shot up, the stick bounced back and hit her father in the chest, before rattling harmlessly away.
He heaved himself out of the chair, his leg knocking her mug over, shattering it, bits of crockery tinkling into the pool. And she realised he was crying, chest heaving, face awash, gulping at air, like a child.
And then Shandy was swooping, settling him back, patting him down. Glaring at Ursula, who wished it was her shoulder someone was patting. Her forehead someone was smoothing, telling her it would all be OK.
‘Right. That’s quite enough for today. Come on, Jim. Time for a rest.’
She sat watching her father sleep. For an hour or two, maybe more. At some point Shandy stuck her head round the door, to check on Dad and to tell Ursula to come to the office before she left, to sort out the unit, the fire, the insurance papers, the money owing to the lady who lived above. Ursula nodded until she closed the door. Sat watching the sun decline over the Japanese bridge and the empty sand garden and the half-built villas along the town tip hill. And still he slept.
After a while she got up, looked around. Some shirts in the wardrobe. Mam’s old copper sunburst clock on the wall above the bed. One of those panic button things hanging on the wall. The rest could have been anyone’s, anywhere, impersonal and blank. On the windowsill there were three cards, for his birthday, months ago. None of them from her. One from the nursing home, a generic-looking waterfall on the front. One from Aunty Ada, whom Ursula didn’t know was still around, who must be a hundred in the shade by now. The last, with an Australian bush print on the front, the sort of thing favoured in real estate calendars and doctors’ waiting rooms, she wasn’t even going to bother with, but as she went to put it back down, she saw the inside was covered with small, dense writing. Tidy, neat. Familiar. The old-fashioned copperplate cursive taught to her by nuns and rulers, which she’d taught to Ray.
Hey Dad. Happy birthday for tomorrow. You were asleep when I came. (Bit of a tartar, that nurse of yours.)
She whipped around, like Tilda, but the room was full of wet breathing, lurid sunset. Her father a dim outline in the bed.
Got some news since I saw you last. I’m getting married. Not for a while but I’d like you to come. We’re having bit of a get-together at this property I work at sometimes, place called Ruby Downs, out Tibooburra way. Nothing big, just a few mates. I can pick you up and bring you back, if you’re up to it. I’ll ring soon as I have a date, clear it with the powers that be. Hope you’re feeling better. See you soon. Ray.
She read it three times before she remembered to breathe. No love. No kisses. But he’d been here. He’d seen Dad. He’d met a nurse. Maybe it was the same nurse, the one with the name like a horse. Maybe he’d left his mobile number, or his address. But when she got back to the front desk, there was a closed sign propped on top and there was no one around, even though she rang the little bell again and again.
Didn’t matter. She’d call later. Collecting Winston from outside, she hurried down the hill. She had a place. A map, a direction. A clue.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The sand was heaving. Mick stared out at the picnicking families, the bodysurfing Santas. Made no move to get out of the car.
Something occurred to Ray. ‘You been to the beach before?’
The boy shrugged, drawing a forearm across his ever-dripping nose.
‘You can swim though, right?’
‘Don’t have any cossies. They’re at home.’
‘Just go in your daks. No one’ll care.’
Mick gave him an incredulous stare.
Digging in his pocket, Ray held out a fifty. ‘Here. Chrissie present. There’s a surf shop down there. Don’t spend it all at once.’
‘It’s Christmas Day. Everything’s shut.’
Ray sighed, reached over, tucked the money in Mick’s top pocket. Opened the passenger door.
‘I dunno. Buy yourself an ice cream or something. Take the dog for a walk. I won’t be long.’
He sat with the engine running, watching Mick stumble across the grass, almost pulled off his feet by the frantic kelpie. At the sand’s edge, the boy paused, shifting foot to foot. Ray knew what he was thinking, the dreary circling patterns of it. The leaving, the being left, in a strange place, surrounded by other people’s mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers. Even the dog not his own.
Rolling down the window, he shouted into hot exhaust. ‘Be back in an hour, OK? Meet you right here. Tie that dog up if you go in the water. And swim between the flags.’
Mick took off finally, in a blur of leaping dog and curly red hair.
Heading into a world of hot asphalt, ticking sprinklers, clenched cul-de-sacs bathed in waves of cicada song, he envied Mick even that crowded city beach. No air here, even a few streets from the sea. Coming in, he’d driven across the bridge and back, just to see it, to show Mick, who refused to be impressed. Looking for fat ferries, creamy sand, sparkling water, all those stories that had spanned his childish imagination, Ray found himself stuck by traffic in the middle lane. Trapped by an iron lace of shadow between road and sky.
Number 50 was a little semi languishing in the shadow of the big white mansion next door. Ray sat in the ute, sweating, staring between the address on the back of the letter and the piles of boxes, bricks and rubbish on the front verandah. A rusted bicycle under the front window. A row of Buddhist flags tattering from the eaves.
Nothing spoke to him of the sister he remembered. But there, beneath the car port she’d noted in the letter, between what looked like a painting easel and a stand fan missing most of its blades, sat one of Mam’s old carved-oak dining-room chairs. Along with a box of cowboy novels and the family Bible, it was in the list of things she’d given Dad, things she threatened to throw out if he didn’t write back soon. Her name at the bottom in that familiar rounded hand. No dear, no kisses. No love.
He turned off the ignition. Thirty-five by the car thermometer. Mick’s Fantales turning to goo on the dash. Because it was the only decent thing he had and because it would hide the tea stain on his shirt, he struggled into his coat. Then he remembered there was a stain on that a
s well. Swearing, he reefed it off and the shirt with it. Rummaged through his rucksack for his old blue work singlet, the only clean thing he had left, then turned down the visor mirror, got out his comb. Thinking as he scraped and flattened of a tall woman with hard rough fingers, tutting, spitting, trying to coax a curl from a little boy’s dead straight sticking-up fringe. In the glare of the mirror, he saw someone pink, wet, featureless, blond hair dark with sweat.
He got out, collected his present, pushed the gate open against cracked and lifting concrete, went up the front path.
Nothing prepared him for it. He’d expected shock, tears, anger even. Waiting at the front door, hearing his knock echoing for too long down some hallway, he’d braced himself for someone frailer, slower, shorter. A woman gone soft at spine or middle, but unmistakeable. A square face, olive-skinned, the eyes steel blue. That same look in them he got when he knew he was up against it. When he’d made a mistake but wasn’t going to admit it. No fear.
And it was a mistake. It had to be.
At first, all he could think was how could she bear a jumper in this heat? Heavy, long and black, it hung off her like she was made of wire. Bare feet, bare legs, a white neck rising like a stalk from all that wool. Blue vein at her temple. Blue eyes, like pale flat stones. He thought of curls, dimples, blondeness, a gap-toothed smile. Couldn’t be. Wasn’t possible. All that dead black, dead straight hair.
‘Till?’
Nothing. She wasn’t looking at him, seemed to be focused on the street, over his right shoulder. But there was something, wasn’t there? Some line drawn between them, humming in heated air.
‘Tilly? It’s me, Ray. Remember me?’
He bent down, trying to get into her eye line but she just cocked her head to gaze past him again, out the gate and down the road.
He took a step back. Must have it wrong. But there was the letter, the address. Mam’s chair, sitting right there in the car port. The letter was old though. She might have moved, left all her stuff here while the new tenant or owner moved in. What about this woman then, her spidery fingers picking at white and wasted forearms? Her jumper falling off one shoulder, revealing a collarbone like a chicken wing? This sick-looking stranger with his sister’s eyes.
