Ripples on a Pond

by Joy Dettman

  The Watson dame. Cara stood and picked up her purse, well satisfied by her research trip.

  ‘Well?’ Raelene was waiting.

  ‘Why not?’

  She wouldn’t be coming back. Why not learn what she could? Until today, she’d not given a second’s thought to what happened to the babies born to prisoners.

  Minutes later, she was led into a small sitting room where a woman waited with a mop-headed doll of a baby in a basket; a baby who had the temerity to smile at its mother, or at the promise of a meal. That toothless smile softened Cara’s heart. When Raelene picked up the mop-headed doll and offered it, Cara couldn’t refuse miniature prisoner King, sentenced to six months for innocence.

  ‘You’ve made something very special, Raelene. How old is she?’

  ‘I had her in October. She gets moved on in April. I’m supposed to get out in July.’

  ‘Have you considered adoption?’

  ‘They pay you to keep them these days. One woman got out last week and they set her up in a flat.’ Her fingers worked at unbuttoning her bodice. ‘Did you feed yours?’ Snake eyes aware her poison had hit a nerve, she injected another shot, just to make certain. ‘I saw him at your father’s place in Sydney. He’s the dead spit of you.’

  Danger! Danger! Danger! Cara’s mind screamed. Too quickly, she rid her arms of that doomed little girl and walked away, left that bitch squirting her evil into an innocent mouth. Didn’t know how she got out of the place. Knew the car’s seat was hot enough to burn, that the steering wheel seared her hands. Drove anyway. Drove away from that place, her eyes searching the street for Dino Collins.

  When had he been sentenced? She couldn’t think. He’d got three years. She’d heard the judge sentence him – a bare two weeks before she’d flown to England. December ’71. He wouldn’t be out yet.

  What about time already served? They deducted time served while waiting for trial – or did they? Didn’t know.

  Mindless, brainless fool. You couldn’t stay away, could you?

  Didn’t know how she got home until she was there, until she was inside. No typewriter taken from its case that night. She sat late on her balcony, smoking, drinking coffee, cursing herself for a fool and remembering. Collins had tracked her every move in Traralgon. She couldn’t play tennis – he’d be there watching her. Robert had driven her miles to go to dancing classes, and he’d turned up there. He’d broken into the Traralgon house and got the college’s phone number. Had called her there, called ten times one night. They’d got him, her and Cathy and Marion. They’d got him, and in court he’d sworn to get her. And he knew about Robin.

  Shouldn’t have run from that prison. Should have smiled and lied . . . should have told Raelene that her parents babysat one of the tenants’ children. Should have . . .

  Late when she went to bed, to be haunted by dreams of Robin, of Dino Collins. Woke before dawn with a dark shape looming over her. Only a shadow. It went by as a car’s lights went by. At four, she checked her balcony door. It was locked. Of course it was locked. She was obsessive about locks.

  Raelene would be out in July, or sooner. Dino Collins shouldn’t be out before July – unless they gave him time off for good behaviour.

  When had he ever behaved?

  Everything could have been so different. If Morrie had kept his mouth shut at the hotel; if she’d flown with him to England . . .

  She returned to bed but, unable to sleep, lay on her back until daylight began filtering in between the venetian blinds. And by dawn, she knew she had to go home. Had to move Miss Robertson into Robin’s room and move into Unit Two with him. It sounded like a plan, until the doves started coo-cooing, until grey daylight washed away the shadows and weary eyes closed.

  She dreamed she was at Amberley, as it was before the renovations, lodgers everywhere. And he was there, Collins, living in one of the downstairs rooms. Where was Robin? Ran through dark passages, looking for him. Came on Myrtle washing dishes in the parlour, watching Collins and Robin playing football on the front lawn.

  Myrtle smiled. ‘He needs his father.’

  Woke, heart pounding in her ears. Woke to the splat-splat, splat-splat of her dripping shower and the clock’s hands pointing to seven thirty.

  She boiled the jug and made a coffee, then sat sipping and watching the hands of her wall clock jerk their way around to eight. She had to go to work. Had to find out if Dino Collins was in jail or out. What if he was out and Raelene in contact with him? What if her phone call had been a set-up, if he’d been parked outside the jail and had tailed her home?

  Dave, Cathy’s cop cousin, would know if he’d been released, or he could find out. He’d helped lock him up in ’65 when Cara, Cathy and Marion had played bait in a trap Dave and his colleagues had set for Collins.

  Phone Cathy.

  Cathy hadn’t spoken to her since last September.

  Call the cops direct. Call Pentridge.

  Call Cathy.

  Couldn’t dial her number when she’d been lonely enough to howl, but she did it for Robin. The phone was picked up on the sixth ring.

  ‘Who wants me at this time of day?’

  ‘It’s me, Cath.’

  For a good thirty seconds, a baby’s wail was the only reply. At eighteen, Cathy had said she wanted six kids. Her oldest was six months Robin’s senior. She had a two year old and a new baby, all boys.

  ‘Secretive bitch,’ she finally said. She didn’t hang up.

  ‘I need to know if Dino Collins is in jail or out. His girlfriend contacted me and she knows where Robin is. I’m hoping that you’ll get in touch with Dave for me.’

  ‘I’m feeding Jamie,’ Cathy said. Silence. Then, ‘Does it ever end?’

  ‘Not with him. And I’m so scared.’

  ‘You must be to call me.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Silence again. Then, ‘They should have hanged that mongrel back when we put him away the first time. I’ll give Dave a ring when I can and get back to you. And you’re still a secretive bitch and you always were. How could you have a baby and not tell me of all people?’

  ‘I was going to give him up for adoption. You would have tried to talk me out of it.’

  ‘Of course I would have, and why would anyone consider giving a baby away?’

  ‘I was half out of my head, Cath.’

  ‘You’re stark raving mad, not half out of your head. He loves you,’ Cathy said. ‘He’s sick with it. Gerry reckons he’s dropped three stone in weight. And you love him too, so what the hell does anything else matter?’

  ‘Some things do.’

  ‘I don’t get you, and I never have – and I’m hanging up before I say something I might regret. I’ll call you when I find out something.’

  Cara placed the phone down and went about the business of a Monday morning. Made toast that she couldn’t eat. Made more coffee and smoked a cigarette while dressing for work. She could leave this flat tomorrow, walk away from most of what she owned.

  Couldn’t leave her job tomorrow.

  She should phone home and sound Myrtle out about swapping Robin for Miss Robertson. Since Mrs Collins’s death, the old teacher had been eating her evening meals at Myrtle’s table. They took her shopping, charged her next to nothing in rent, and Robin would only be a few yards away.

  She stood looking at the phone, rehearsing her spiel for Myrtle, thinking further, thinking about applying for a single mother’s pension, of putting a year into writing. That prison scene was writing itself; Rusty’s mother was talking to her. I don’t get their names and addresses. And her name was Valda. It had to be.

  Raelene would be given an unmarried mother’s pension when they let her out, and they’d probably set her up in a flat where that mop-headed doll of a baby would grow up watching her mother and Collins shoot shit up their arms, until she was old enough to shoot it up her own. Who makes those grand decisions? Was God up there, playing eeny meeny miny mo with the lives of his children?
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  No time left to ring Myrtle. She picked up her keys, her handbag and ran. She’d locked her door, was on the top step when her phone rang. It would be Cathy. She ran back and unlocked, praying it was Cathy, praying that she didn’t hang up before she got to the phone. Got there in time. Snatched it up.

  ‘Cath?’

  ‘It’s Aunty Beth, love. John has booked you a seat on a flight leaving at ten fifty–’

  ‘He’s got Robin!’

  ‘Robin is right here by my side. You need to come home, love.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s your mum.’

  ‘Mum?’

  A brief silence, then Beth’s voice breaking. ‘Just get yourself up here, love, and we’ll meet you at the airport.’

  ‘What about Mum?’

  ‘Your flight leaves at ten fifty–’

  ‘What’s happened, Aunty Beth? Tell me!’

  And Beth howling. ‘Your mum left us this morning.’

  What the hell was she talking about? Another woman might pack her bags and leave, but Myrtle Norris? Then she knew. She knew.

  ‘No. No. Please God, no . . .’

  ‘I didn’t want to–’ A howling Beth gave up the phone to another. Calm, efficient cousin-in-law Natalie.

  ‘Cara, we need you to hold it together until you get to us. We’ll be at the airport. I’ll bring Robin.’

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘We’ll talk when you get here. The ticket is paid for. Your flight is at ten fifty.’

  ‘Where’s Daddy?’

  ‘He’s here, and he needs you to stay strong. We’re all here for you.’

  *

  She was shaking. She was walking in circles. She was breaking apart and she had to catch a plane.

  Ten fifty. Two hours.

  Had to pack her bag. Had to call a taxi. Call the taxi first, then pack a bag. Couldn’t see to dial the number. Had to hold it together, stay strong until she got there. And she couldn’t do it.

  Had to.

  Had to think of money. A taxi to the airport cost big money. How much was left in her purse? Couldn’t count it. The numbers wouldn’t sink in. Tears dripping onto crumpled notes. Her chequebook. She tossed it into her bag. Taxis don’t take cheques. She emptied the contents of her fifty-cent coin jar into her handbag, then hauled her case down from the top of her wardrobe.

  Little case in the larger case in the big case. Stuck. And bawling too hard to get it out. Pitched the lot at the door, and the smaller case popped free. Packed it and ran. Then remembered shoes. Had to run back, unlock her door, open her case, toss in a pair as the taxi beeped below.

  You can’t howl in a taxi, not when the driver wants to talk national anthems: ‘God Save The Queen’ versus ‘Waltzing Matilda’. ‘There’s not an Aussie alive who doesn’t know the words to “Waltzing Matilda”.’

  Watched the road ahead, tears leaking from beneath her sunglasses. Wiped them so she could watch the taxi meter. Too much traffic on the road at that time of day and every car trying to get to someplace. The driver got her there. She counted notes and fifty-cent coins into his hand.

  Which airline? Probably Ansett. She tried Ansett. Ticket booked and paid for in Sydney.

  You can’t bawl at an airport while you wait in a queue. Your hands are allowed to shake, you can drop your handbag, spill fifty-cent coins everywhere, but you can’t cry. Or lose your place in a queue to chase the coins that got away. A businessman with a briefcase returned two of the coins. He heard the tears in her ‘Thank you’ and remained at her side, his kind deed allowing him to jump a few spaces in the long queue.

  Waiting then, in that place she knew so well, brushing away tears that rolled free of her sunglasses. She’d flown many times this past year, just a hop, step and a jump to Sydney, to Robert, Myrtle and Robin.

  No Myrtle waiting in her kitchen today. No more Mummy to remind her to take a handkerchief. No hanky to wipe away forever’s tears.

  Plane too slow to load, too slow to move, to get its wheels off the ground, but the backs of the seats were high and the hostess gave out tissues, which sopped up leaks.

  ‘Bad news?’

  ‘My mother.’

  Couldn’t say those other words, not yet. Thought them. Thought them over and over. My mother is dead. My mother is dead. My mother is dead.

  GOD’S MASTER PLAN

  Aunty Beth and Natalie were waiting to hold her. Robin didn’t understand her tears. She gathered him into her arms, sucking air through her mouth, determined not to drip on him. Little boys worry when adults cry. Little boys who are three don’t understand that their nanny isn’t coming home.

  ‘A ambulance comed, Mummy, and it taked Nanny to the hopspital.’

  He didn’t understand why there were so many visitors at his house; why Papa stood at the window, his back to his visitors and to Mummy.

  Concussed by shock, Robert didn’t turn when she entered. She went to him. ‘Daddy.’

  He looked at her, shook his head, wordless. She put her arms around him, needing him to hold her. He kissed her cheek, patted her back, then disengaged himself.

  Beth made tea. Cara didn’t drink tea. Drank it that morning; didn’t argue when Natalie told her she’d take Robin home, that he’d be better tonight with his cousins.

  ‘Sit down, Bob,’ John said. ‘Drink your tea.’

  ‘He woke up beside her,’ Beth whispered to Cara. ‘There was no warning. We saw her the day before yesterday and she looked so well. Her mother went the same way. She was running around after her lodgers one day and gone the next.’

  Sudden death meant autopsy. Robert didn’t want to know about it. He sat staring at the colours in the leadlight window.

  ‘Bob’s not going to handle this,’ John said.

  ‘They lived for each other,’ Beth said.

  The doctor made a home visit. He wrote a script. Thereafter, Robert sat.

  John took charge. And Cara. They made the funeral arrangements. They spoke to the undertaker. They chose the coffin. Ugly things, coffins: the shape of loss, of emptiness, of excruciating, unbearable pain. Cara had to hold it together – for Robert’s sake, for Robin.

  Robin cried for Nanny at bedtime. ‘I want my nanny to come home from the hopspital.’

  Cara reached for the old convenient lie. ‘Nanny has gone up to live with the angels.’ It had worked for one little boy, perhaps it would work for his son.

  ‘I want Nanny to live wiff me and Papa, not angels.’

  ‘Papa and Mummy want her to live here too, Robbie, but God needed a very special angel up at his place and he knew that your nanny was the most special of all. Weren’t we lucky to have her as our own for such a long time?’

  Just a bedtime story for babies. Cara knew where Myrtle was – in that coffin she and John had chosen – but for an hour she lay with Robin on her bed, weaving pretty tales of Nanny’s angel wings.

  ‘Wiff feavers, like birds?’

  ‘Beautiful white feathers.’

  ‘And Nanny can fly down here wiff wings?’

  ‘She can fly around God’s gardens. Remember how she loved pretty flowers? Well, heaven’s garden is filled with giant flowers.’

  ‘An butterflies?’

  ‘Butterflies as big as eagles.’

  She stayed strong for Robin and Robert; for Uncle John and Beth who came early each day and stayed late. They’d lost a sister-in-law. Pete, on his way home from England, had sidetracked for a month or two in Adelaide, where the Russian freighter had dropped him. He hitchhiked home the night before the funeral. And thank God for Pete, in a borrowed suit and his long ponytail. He allowed Cara to cry all over him.

  A pill got Robert through the day. Another got him through the wake. Pete’s cigarettes got Cara through, and a beer. The men drank beer, the women tea. Cara didn’t drink tea, but had learnt to drink beer in London. She drank enough to escape to the neighbour’s cypress hedge to light a cigarette while Beth and her daughters emptied Myrtle from wardr
obe and drawer. That’s what they did in the Norris family when a loved one died. Cara had been to her grandmother’s funeral. She’d helped empty her room. She’d carried the bags and cases out to the car for transportation to the Salvation Army opportunity shop. No one spoke about doing it. They just did it.

  In the early evening, when the rooms were empty of all but Cara and Robert, he swallowed another pill and went to his bed. Cara, wanting the escape of his sleep, swallowed one of his pills. It swept away the most painful day of her life, swept away the night and half of the next morning. John and Beth arrived with Robin at ten, and Cara attempted to wake herself with a shower. She wouldn’t be swallowing any more of the doctor’s zombie pills.

  Beth was in the kitchen making tea, making toast. Robin stood at Robert’s bedroom door, watching John, who sat on his brother’s bed attempting to talk him out of that bed. This morning, Cara knew why he clung to his blankets.

  ‘You need to get up and have a shower, Daddy.’

  ‘She was my world,’ Robert said.

  They got him up, dressing-gown clad. He drank a cup of tea, then swallowed another pill and sat in his chair in the parlour to watch the kindergarten program with Robin.

  *

  Beth had called Cara’s school and explained her niece’s absence. Cara gave no thought to school, to her flat, her future or Robin’s – or to Dino Collins and Raelene. Her mind had been washed clean by a death she hadn’t foreseen. She’d ignored Myrtle’s age and worried about Robert’s. Hadn’t considered what his reaction might be to Myrtle’s death. In the tales she’d written about the distant future, Myrtle and Robin had been there, and she was the new breadwinner, the cheque-writer, the loan-payer, the decision-maker. She’d got it so wrong and her mind was incapable of altering the ending.

  Hid from it, behind the cypress hedge, her smoking place.

  Beth found her there. ‘Robin needs you, love.’

  Cara nodded.

  ‘He doesn’t know what’s going on with your dad.’

  ‘He’s hiding from it behind his pills, Aunty Beth.’

  ‘We need to get him off them, love. He’s swallowing them like he used to swallow those painkillers for his knee.’