The Everlasting Secret Family

by Frank Moorhouse

  . . . did I tell you that I managed to get a double adaptor for the power point so that I can have the wireless and the radiator on at the same time . . . I had a blinding headache again the other night when Blankenzee arrived but felt it would be touchy to put him off. It would be bad to get on the wrong side of him. He saw the photograph on the sideboard (now in chromium frame) and said you looked like Prince Bernhard. As Ina and I said nothing, he said, “I thought you’d be complimented.” We said, “Oh no, we’ve always thought Pieter far superior in looks to Prince Bernhard, although we think the Prince is very nice indeed.” I hope he didn’t think us disloyal. We are careful with him as you advised. He thinks because his things are stored here he can come and go. I wish we did not owe him.

  The photographs turned out well, 17/6 for three post cards, two serious and one smiling (the one in the chromium frame) and I have the proofs in a dark place for you to see next leave . . . the dentist fitted me in for an appointment and said that I had been on the verge of pyorrhoea last year and could have lost my teeth had he not done the scaling . . . He said he would do them again in a few months as the tartar builds up very quickly . . .You didn’t enclose the form from the bank. I have to find £3 minimum for Saturday to give to the Netherlands Sailors’ Fund . . . Mrs T says you should be getting more money or is it just for flyers or are the Dutch paid less or what?

  I have a right to know the position re money. It tells hard on me this month but when angry I scrub the floor. I wish you were here to put your arms around me. You’re a Star Number! How about lunch at Romano’s? If only we could. Kisses dry and wet from your Marijke.

  3-3-1943

  [Marijke to Pieter.]

  . . . This morning I received the note telling me of the terrible news of Rudy’s death. Rudy always joked that Darwin was the dangerous place and to think he had to die in such a foolish incident. But death is everywhere. Even on a bicycle. I myself do not intend to tell Ina and Dirk. Although it would be easy to deceive Ina, she might be shocked if Dirk let it slip and he cannot be trusted. Rudy’s things have been sent to us as he gave your name as his next of kin address . . .

  18-3-1943

  . . . and congratulations on finding out the secret of the chameleon, why in heaven’s name didn’t any book or teacher tell us that the chameleon is transparent? . . . I have had my teeth scraped for this year and what do you think? It has cured my rheumatism. The children have also been scraped. He is a wonderful dentist . . . The people in the drama group still ask after you, especially from the Seagull, everyone remembers you and thinks you should be an actor after the war . . . Went to the Child Study Association about Dirk and they put his outbursts down to a hidden complex dating from the age of three. An inferiority complex has taken root and I have to restore his “self”. In case it is physical they also gave me a tonic to give to him and an ointment with which to massage his spine. I am doubtful about me doing this at his age but they said it would strengthen his nerves. They also gave me a packet of Vita-meal for him . . .You say you “have” the money, does this mean it is in the bank or what? It is unsafe to not put it in the bank even if you do fear that the government will confiscate funds . . . Have you started the book Man the Unknown? It is a truly marvellous book which has changed my whole way of thinking . . .

  21-4-1943

  . . . Dirk’s operation went off well enough and it does not hurt so very much for him to pass water. He had one day’s nausea after the ether. There is a picture of the Lord Jesus in front of him and he said he was so dizzy that he could not see the picture three times. However, he said this was proper because God is three in one. So you see his spirits are up. I did not buy him the clock he mentions in his letter, it was the little red clock we had in the suitcase from before the war which I got fixed for him.

  The Macquarie Street specialist said that the operation will remove his irritability and stop the outbursts but that definitely Dirk will not be able to have a proper married life, which is sad and terrible but we knew that would be the case. In many ways I am happier about this kind of operation than an operation on his brain. I suppose the time to tell him will be when he is older. Maybe a doctor could explain or you when you are back with us. I don’t think that I should have to tell him. I’m letting him drop out of Sunday School because he says he knows it all and is a disturbance. I have questioned him and it is not because he has lost his faith . . . Miss Fitton the drama teacher asked my advice about the paragraph which is to be used in the drama group’s program and I was very flattered. She wanted to know about how it should be typed. I might be allowed to play a few bars of Sibelius’ Valse Trieste which comes into the play . . . I bought a rekje to dry clothes in front of the radiator . . .

  I put the letters down, too tired and boozed to read on. Confused also by this operation on Dirk, who I had assumed was my Dirk’s father. If he’s been castrated or whatever, as indicated in the letters, then my Dirk could not be his son. The letters were incomplete.

  I put them back in the writing slope and back in the locker. I would finish them on another night.

  I went to bed, unsettled by the springing to life of this poor forgotten Dutchman and his wife.

  It was like turning over a pile of someone else’s rubbish.

  THE HIDDEN-AWAY LETTERS (2)

  After dinner in the college hall I felt myself pulled back to my room and to Dirk’s letters.

  I had an uneasy feeling, not guilt but a silly fear of being caught with the letters. There was no reasonable cause for this fear but I wanted to get the letters read and back in place.

  In my room I took out the letters again.

  They were still from 1943 and began with a letter from Pieter to his castrated? son Dirk.

  2-5-1943

  My dear son, When I think of you being in hospital knowing that the doctors have said you will be happier in yourself, my heart is glad. I will try to get some American comics for you, as you ask. But I have some good news for you. I have a real American airmen’s belt for you. It looks like this with holes for attachments—

  It has a clasp, of course, and in the holes you hook a revolver, a jungle knife, ammunition, first aid box, an airtight cylinder of matches, tablets for purifying water, and a water bottle. But listen, one day I went with a party to pick up a pilot of a Spitfire who had had a fight with the Japs and was forced to land in the sea. He used a rubber boat to land and kept himself alive for a fortnight with birds eggs, lizards and such. He eventually dropped from exhaustion and the aborigines found him. I gave him his first drink out of the water bottle I am going to give to you.

  That makes it a rather good souvenir, don’t you think?

  I want you to learn to be a real man through Christ. When you grow up you will learn there are many ways to be a real man. But more of that later. . .

  23-5-1943

  [From Marijke to Pieter.]

  . . . quite a shock. Dirk told me he still had that two shillings which Rudy gave him to buy photographic views of Sydney with. The silly thing is that I will have to let him waste the two shillings now or tell him that Rudy is dead. I know that it is silly and unchristian of me but I believe that because you both went into the airforce at the same time and Rudy was killed, that you will not now be killed. That it is more unlikely.

  I had to miss Toe H guest night because of a blinding headache after Blankenzee called. . . . A girl I know told me that the censor in Darwin is holding the letters and letting them come in batches. I will start numbering the letters and so should you . . . According to the Herald there were two Dutch-manned Mitchells in the raid the other night and the pilots had to bail out . . . Ina is becoming a real little shopper and the shopkeepers are always sympathetic and so she gets them to lower their prices. I often send her out for things now. She got a pair of sandals for fourpence off.

  We are working on Pride and Prejudice at the drama group. What I find hard is to keep my feelings hidden and I have dreadful headaches. The things Lady Catherin
e says in the play an ordinary person would only say in anger. But Miss Harrod is right I suppose when she says that a “Lady” would say them at any time. But the rule of the acting profession seems to be that one does not have opinions. I don’t want to be thrown out of the group and most of all I don’t want to be known as a “difficult person”. I am now posing as very meek.

  I heard that a wireless set just like ours, and second hand at that, went for £28 at a sale. It was only £11 new. As you know the gramophone I bought with a lot of records cosi £1, well, I was offered £4-10-0 for it without the records. I had the camera valued and it is worth £1 more than when I bought it three years ago.

  Do not go on about the torch. I know I should have removed the batteries. I tried it with new batteries and found that it works when you press the button on top but not when you slide it forward so it won’t stay on. But at least it works and is worth keeping.

  I need your alien registration card to get Dirk a ration book. Despite his operation it seems to me that he is just as difficult . . .

  2-6-1943

  . . . Your money arrived from Darwin late and it is a peculiar amount £36-15-5. I never know where I am with money. I think it is foolish for you to keep it in envelopes and not to send it down for me to bank. Ina found sixpence behind the wireless set and thinks you put it there for her to find when you were last home. I will go to Liverpool to see if I can get cigarettes from a shop I was told about. I could not get down to Fiorellis but had already bought a salami at the Austrian shop at the Junction.

  Have you read Man the Unknown or Crisis of the Age yet? If only the geniuses of the earth would get together and plan things . . . I took Ina to an American Tea at the Rectory and she won four articles with the hoopla but they are not of much value. I found I had a stomach cold when I got home. The Metropolitan Hospital Fund won’t help with Dirk’s operation because the defect was classed as congenital. The funds always seem to be able to find a reason for not paying the amount you expect therti to pay.

  I had to borrow £4 from Blankenzee. You put me in a position where I have to ask him favours. I wish he’d take his stuff away and not call around. He is always bringing something.

  Remember Harry Steen, the boy who was a communist and came here selling communist literature and you ended up giving him a book on the Christian faith to read? Well he is in the airforce now and I am having trouble getting that book back from him.

  I wrote you a horrid letter yesterday but I took a dose of cascara to cast the devil out of me. You know I think the world of you and would give anything to be able to put sixteen arms around you and squeeze you to death. You know that wives get cranky when their husbands are not there. I’d take you to lunch at Romano’s if you were here . . .

  20-6-1943

  . . . to a Red Cross meeting to hear a Dutch lady from Java tell about the Japs and the bombing of Broome where she was evacuated. She was full of shrapnel.

  The dogs are giving me an awful time. Lady Gery is on heat and you should never have bought a bitch. I am followed by a string of male dogs when I take her out. I will have to do what everyone else does and send her away when she is on heat to a place at Chatswood which charges 7/6 a week for three weeks. They ring you and warn you when the season is about to begin. I can’t bear it. Two dogs got stuck outside last night and I had to send Ina inside.

  Thank you for the beautiful napkin rings you made from aircraft parts. Real souvenirs.

  I listened to the Brains Trust again on Sunday. Three or four of the best brains in England, including C.E.M. Joad, meet at the BBC in London to discuss questions sent in by the public . . . My visit to the Russian Medical Aid has borne fruit. Mrs Jessie Street (Chairman) sent for me today and asked me all the circumstances surrounding Mrs Jones. She said she would use her influence to get a shed put up so that the Jones will be able to engage an old age pensioner to help them and he can sleep in the shed . . . Thank you for buying me a suitcase which sounds so chic and smart but I would never use it as I don’t travel do I? I thought you might sell it at a profit to the envious officer you mentioned and let me have the money. Don’t go on about the sixpence that Ina found. It is not a matter of carelessness with money and I don’t know how it got there.

  1-11-1943

  [From Marijke to Dirk and Ina. The letter is hastily written and the only address is “Brisbane”.]

  Dear, darling children, a Dutch major met me at the railway station and told me that Daddy was still alive.

  I sent you an urgent wire which you should have got by now. The blow to the back of his head by the propeller was not at the temple and after many hours of unconsciousness he woke and then went unconscious again. He has had a blood “transfusion” and will be brought to Brisbane tomorrow. A good Dutch doctor is coming along with him in the plane and a brain specialist will examine him when he arrives in Brisbane.

  Remember to water the plants and I have just remembered that Dirk will want his shoes back from the shop near the bank. Well, the ticket they gave me is in the Kookaburra clip for receipts in the white desk. It is probably the top ticket and should say on it that 1/3 is already paid and that another 1/3 is to be paid when you get the shoes. Tell the milk man that I am away and will pay when back. Now look in the cardboard box in the big wardrobe right hand drawer, the top book in it is often stuck under the lid but under that is the green insurance book. Will you tell me the name and address of the insurance company and whether it is paid up . . . Will write. Mr Blankenzee will look in every day.

  13-11-1943

  . . . Daddy got a temperature and they could not move him to Brisbane so I went to Charleville and the God-given coincidence is that there is an American base there and, if it were not for that, Daddy would be gone. But they have a wonderful new medicine that the Australians haven’t got and they are giving Daddy £4 worth a day. They also have dried pooled blood plasma (taken from 1000 different people) which the Australian hospitals haven’t got and which the Americans will not give to the Australians because they do not have the knowledge to use it, so Daddy is far better off than in Brisbane. If Dirk needs the top coat it is at Mrs Rickson’s in 22 Truscott Street, Wollstonecraft. You get off at Crows Nest and walk up the street opposite the stop, you must thank Mrs Rickson very nicely and I think 5 or 5:30 would be the best time to call on her. I flew in a B25 Mitchell bomber sitting in the navigator’s seat. It was a great honour to be the first woman in Australia to fly in a Mitchell bomber. I live in a hospital room opposite Daddy so I can hear him if he coughs . . . about once a day I get through to him. He is paralysed down his body and does not move . . .

  4-1-1944

  . . . and Daddy opened his eyes and showed recognition and I’m sure he knew it was me. One eye could not move and his mouth cannot smile. He is fed with glucose through the veins and from a teaspoon with liquids. The doctor says that at Herne Bay they would operate. They do not seem hopeful but I place great reliance on the power of prayer. Do what Mr Blankenzee tells you and be good and Dirk should clean Mr Blankenzee’s shoes for him in the mornings before he goes off . . .

  [The only other letter was dated from Sydney after the war in 1947. It was from Marijke to a friend or relaiive called Nan.]

  . . . and I flew in the Mitchell bomber but the war was on then and everything was different and you never knew what might happen next. You don’t know how good it is to hear from you after so long and out of the blue. But I see that you had to relate that experience to someone and am glad you chose me for it is right up my alley. It is a remarkable example of telepathy and the power of thought to reach the dead.

  I depend heavily on telepathy to reach Pieter for he has never regained the power of speech or movement.

  I think yours was definitely a premonition dream. Thought has the same power as electricity and can be transmitted through the air waves, that is my belief. You had that other instance too which you relate when Pat first menstruated and naturally wanted to tell her mother but couldn’t bring h
erself to and so did it by thought waves, hence your dream of blood disguised as a red sky. In my opinion, telepathic experiences can be told to one’s friends without losing value for oneself while spiritual experiences should never be told. A friend of ours named Rudy who was killed during the war sent his spirit to visit us and I felt it in the garden and he even mentioned two shillings which he had left with Dirk to buy photographic scenes of the harbour and which we did not do because I had lied to the children.

  You know how sick of this earthly life one can get at times so it is refreshing to get in touch with something on another plane. It would be interesting, for instance, to know what John was dreaming that night you speak of. The Society for Psychical Research should be given a record of your experiences. And by the way, the Cambridge University accepted a thesis from a student named Lawrence Bendit on Supernatural Cognition so these things are no longer looked upon askance. But those who do not understand become frightened, I think, of those of us who have these powers and I have a case in my own life of people who have stopped having anything to do with me.

  The children have very little to say to me these days and are difficult to communicate with and they avoid going into the room where Pieter is. Dirk is forever in the city playing billiards and smoking and mixing with well-dressed older men and Ina is rude and boy-mad. . .

  I returned the letters to the writing slope’s secret compartment. I placed it back in the locker and screwed back the latch screws and went to bed. I felt a nausea from having looked into all that forgotten life.