The Ghost by the Billabong

by Jackie French

  ‘I want to know if you do.’

  ‘Please.’ The man on the bed reached out a blue-veined hand to her. ‘Rose was . . . my granddaughter. I did not know her well. But that adds to the . . . pain. It doesn’t lessen it. How did your mother . . . die?’

  Jed looked at him. To tell, or not to tell? Each piece of information she gave might lead them to her, far too fast. She shouldn’t even have mentioned the Blue Mountains. How many men had been killed there in a car accident six years ago? The Dragon was clever.

  But the man on the bed wanted answers to his family tragedy before he died. Perhaps he even deserved them. But would the answers hurt more than they consoled?

  She met his eyes. This man wanted truth.

  ‘My mother killed herself when I was four years old,’ said Jed clearly. ‘Dad said it was sleeping pills and booze. She was a drunk.’ And that’s just the half of it, she thought.

  The Dragon gazed at her. ‘Rose vanished in 1950, four years after she arrived in America. Her husband offered a reward, as did we. An extremely large reward. No one ever claimed it. Why didn’t she contact us? Why didn’t your father ask us for the money after she died?’

  ‘I don’t know why my mother didn’t contact you. People don’t tell four-year-old kids things like that. I don’t know why Dad didn’t claim the reward either. Maybe he didn’t even know about it. Or you. I didn’t, until a little while ago.’

  ‘You won’t tell us your name, or your father’s name. How are we expected to find any proof that you are who you say you are?’

  Jed hid a smile. Already the Dragon had moved from expecting Jed to prove who she was, to admitting the Thompsons would need to do the investigating. Investigations took time. Enough time? She hoped so.

  ‘I told you. All you need to find is my birth certificate in America. That will have Mum’s maiden name on it, no matter who she put down as the father. If she was still married to her first husband, then I’m a bas—’

  The Dragon moved swiftly. ‘I told you not to use that language in my house.’

  ‘I’m . . .’ Jed flicked the Dragon a smile ‘. . . probably illegitimate. I don’t know anything about that time, or what names my parents were using, or why they chose to do what they did.’

  The Dragon stared at her, unblinking. ‘But old enough to know your mother committed suicide.’

  Jed met her gaze. ‘There are things you don’t forget, even if you’re young. Accident or on purpose, Mum didn’t care enough about her life to keep it. Or to stay with me. Dad was drunk when he died too. His car hit a lamp-post. But he never drank as much as Mum. He was . . . pretty good . . . most of the time.’

  ‘Leaving you . . . alone?’ Tommy Thompson’s voice had neither pity nor belief.

  ‘No. Dad married again a few months before he died. Or for the first time, if he hadn’t really married Mum. After Dad died I lived with my stepmother. It was okay for a while. Not too bad, anyway. Dad left life insurance money. Then my stepmother hooked up with another bloke. When her boyfriend . . .’ Jed kept her face carefully blank. ‘It was either him or me, and she chose him. It’s not like she was any real relation to me. That was about a year ago.’

  ‘Since then?’ demanded the Dragon.

  ‘I’ve managed.’ She was not going to tell these people how. Or why.

  ‘Where were you born?’

  ‘I told you. America.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘I was a bit young at the time to read addresses.’ Which was not a lie either. She knew exactly where they had lived, and the name of the street, even if she hadn’t been able to read it.

  ‘Convenient. If you didn’t know the name of your mother’s first husband, why do you think your mother and Rose Zambriski were the same person?’

  ‘The dates fit. Dad said Mum had gone to America as a war bride in 1946. Her name was Rose. There can’t be a lot of “Roses” who went from Australia to the USA to get married in 1946.’

  The Dragon looked at her calmly. ‘A coincidence, perhaps, even if true. Can you tell me why your mother didn’t bother to tell her family in Australia that she was safe? That she had a daughter?’

  ‘You might know more about that than me,’ said Jed evenly. She saw the man on the bed flinch. Bull’s eye. He had already admitted to not really knowing his granddaughter. There had to be a reason for that. But instead of triumph she felt a slash of guilt that she had added to his pain. ‘I suspect Mum was out of it pretty much most of the time.’ Which was true too.

  She looked at their faces. ‘You want me to pretend to go all weepy and say, “Oh, I miss my mum.” I don’t miss her. I never did. I didn’t love her, and she didn’t love me either. My first memory is of trying to get away from her. She was yelling. Screaming. I had to hide from her till Dad came home, because Dad would look after me. I didn’t even know her much — I have a vague memory of some other woman looking after me too. A babysitter, I suppose. I have no idea at all why my mother left her first husband, why she vanished, why she didn’t contact you. Maybe she didn’t want you to know she’d made a hash of her life. She didn’t have any other family, did she? Only you. Dad told me her parents were dead. Her mother of cancer, the year after she went to America, her father when she was small. I think he was much older than her mother.’

  Neither man nor woman acknowledged the truth of this. But it was true. Jed had read it in the paper.

  ‘Was your father wealthy?’ the Dragon demanded.

  ‘Dad? If he had two shillings, one went on whiskey and one on the horses.’

  One perfectly arched eyebrow rose. ‘Yet he never thought to ask us for money even when you came back to Australia?’

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘Why?’

  Jed shrugged. ‘He probably didn’t know her grandparents were still alive, or even that their name was Thompson. Ask him yourself. A séance might work.’

  ‘Then why should I believe you are my husband’s great-granddaughter?’

  ‘I’ve told you. The dates fit. A war bride. The name “Rose” and that her Australian parents — my grandparents — were both dead.’

  ‘Not . . . enough,’ whispered Mr Thompson. ‘I deal . . . in facts . . . and probabilities.’

  ‘And I’m an improbability?’

  Again, the sound was the song of oxygen, nothing more. His eyes shut, the lids pale and crinkled.

  Dismissed.

  The Dragon stood, obviously willing her to go. Jed unconsciously gripped the seat of her chair. ‘I am here and you are dying. Do you really want me to leave now? This may be your only chance to meet your great-granddaughter.’

  ‘And leave . . . you a few . . . million . . . in my will?’ There was no interest nor life in the thin voice. The paper eyelids didn’t open.

  Contempt flared into anger. Why had she ever felt sorry for him? These people and their precious millions. Money was necessary, to keep you safe, but nothing more. These people probably counted every dollar they owned every night, like other people counted sheep to put them to sleep. ‘You’re too ill to make a new will. A valid one, anyway.’

  His eyes opened at that. In books old people’s eyes were faded, but his were deep blue.

  ‘I watch telly,’ said Jed. ‘Well, I used to. I’m not stupid either. Mrs Pur— The woman next door had one. I used to babysit her kids. Boyd QC taught me all about wills. You have to be compos mentis to make one.’

  For the first time the old man seemed to really see her. ‘You think . . . I’m . . . senile?’ The lipless mouth gave an almost smile.

  ‘No. But a judge might think you are. I don’t expect you to change your will for me.’ That was the truth too. ‘I know you can’t. Even if you did, the rest of your family would contest it and they’d win. I don’t want anything from you.’ She stopped. That last sentence had come from anger. It wasn’t true. Jed Kelly she might be, but she was also the girl who didn’t lie. ‘I don’t want money in your will, anyway,’ she amended.

 
; ‘Then why . . . are . . . you here?’ the ancient lips said softly.

  Jed stared at the carpet. The day before, even that morning, she had wanted security, a family. A room in this house. Bed and dinners and a roof over her head, for as long as she needed them.

  Now, suddenly, she didn’t want them. Not to be trapped here between resentment and death.

  What had she expected? That they would love her on sight? No one else had ever loved her, so why should they? She did not deserve to be loved.

  She looked back up at them, the Dragon and the old, old man. ‘I don’t want anything from you,’ she said slowly. ‘Not now. I don’t want to live with you, if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t want to be a millionaire either. I believed I wanted something from you. On the way here, I thought I did want to stay with you, for a while. Just a little while. Or if you didn’t want me to stay with you, that you might lend me a little money. Not a lot, not millions, not even a legacy. Just enough money to rent a room, then get a job.’

  And with a job she could finish school, she thought, even if she could only study at night. Because if she could get her Leaving — no, it was called the HSC or something here in New South Wales — with the same kind of marks she had so easily achieved all her life, she would win a Commonwealth Scholarship to university, one that would pay not just her fees but enough money to live on, if she worked in the uni holidays too.

  And once she had a degree she could get a job that wasn’t washing dishes. It would be the sort of job that didn’t pay ‘women’s wages’, because women’s jobs didn’t pay enough to live on — a professional job like law, teaching or medicine, where women’s pay packets might not pay anything like what a man might earn, but were enough to survive on. Not that she wanted any of those jobs particularly, but they would make her safe. Give her a new life, one where she might forget, sometimes, for a little time, who she had been, and what she had done.

  These people were not going to give her that. They’d probably got rich by never giving away a cent. She gazed at the wraith in the bed. ‘I wouldn’t take your money now.’

  ‘Why . . . not?’ The whisper was genuinely curious.

  ‘You don’t want to give it.’

  And that, she thought, surprised at herself, was truth too. She stood.

  ‘Don’t go.’ Tommy Thompson held out a thin hand, mostly bruises between the age spots. ‘Or don’t . . . go . . . yet.’

  The Dragon stiffened. Jed ignored her. ‘Why not? You don’t believe I’m your great-granddaughter.’

  ‘Probably . . . not,’ he said, almost gently. ‘But I admit the . . . possibility. And that you might . . . believe . . . you are. And also . . . as you so . . . tactlessly reminded me . . . I am dying . . . My time . . . to get to know you is short. Or to . . . let you know me . . . if that means . . . anything to you.’

  ‘I . . . think it does.’ To Jed’s surprise she meant that too. The concept of ‘great-grandfather’ had meant nothing to her, except the chance of money or a place to stay for a while. Families were not, in her experience, worth collecting. She’d planned to use these people, then move on. But suddenly she wanted to know this man who looked at death serenely.

  ‘Besides,’ he added dryly. ‘Dying . . . seems to have emptied . . . my calendar. I have nothing . . . better . . . to do today.’

  He breathed through the mask a few times, then said without turning his head, ‘Matilda, darling, could you leave us for a while?’

  ‘I don’t think that —’

  ‘She’s not going to suffocate me with the pillow. And if she tries, I can push the buzzer.’ He took three more breaths, then added, ‘And, as she has . . . pointed out, nothing she says will make any difference . . . to my will.’ He met Jed’s eyes. ‘There is . . . nothing to leave, anyway. Made over the business . . . to my sons, years ago. No . . . death duties.’

  ‘And the Drinkwater property,’ said the Dragon again, ‘is mine.’ She stood, kissed his forehead. Left quickly.

  The old man took three more breaths before he managed to speak again. ‘So, tell me who you are.’

  ‘Jed Kelly.’

  ‘Not your name. What are you? Who are you? What do . . . you love? What do you want? What do you want . . . to grab from life?’

  Her next meal. A shower, in a bathroom, with shampoo, not soap. Tampons. A café that wanted a dishwasher badly enough to take a grubby one, that paid enough to rent a room so she could go to night school and maybe her life might begin at last. And then, at university, she could perhaps think about loving and wanting. How could this man ever know that choice was a luxury only love and money could provide?

  ‘For some of us,’ she said, ‘choice is a luxury only love and money can provide.’

  Tommy Thompson grinned. She hadn’t thought he had the strength.

  ‘That I . . . do know. You think I was . . . born rich? And Matilda? She . . . came here with . . . change of clothes. Less than you . . . probably. No love. No money. I at least . . . had love. Both of us . . . working in a factory for pennies. But we knew . . . the things we wanted.’

  ‘And you got them.’ It was obvious Tommy Thompson thought less of her, so lacking in ambitions and dreams.

  ‘Yes. So there . . . is nothing . . . about Jed Kelly of . . . interest?’

  She could tell him how to steal a shirt from a clothesline. Not a good shirt, the sort someone might report to the police. An almost dishrag shirt, that she could darn, cut strips off to patch her jeans. How to stick a packet of biscuits down her bra — to steal just one item at a time, too small to hurt the shop. The Beasts’ size were useful for that, at least. How to tell by a man’s eyes if it was safe to get a lift from him, and how to get away if you chose wrong, because while Jed Kelly had her wits and a fruit knife in a shoulder bag, she wasn’t going to end up like the dead hitchhikers in Victoria . . .

  ‘No.’

  ‘Political interests? What do . . . you think . . . about the Vietnam War?’

  ‘Not much. I mean, I don’t know much about it.’ She did read the newspapers she stuffed down her clothes for warmth, but only if there wasn’t a library nearby. Books held more for her than newspapers. Australians going to fight in a far-off Vietnam was stupid. Conscription was dumb too. If your country needed to be defended, then Australians should volunteer to do it, as they had in the world wars. The government was stupid too, but most major decisions in the world today were stupid, so she rarely wasted time thinking about them. Libraries and books gave you yesterday and tomorrow, or thousands of years in the past or future. Newspapers only gave you today. ‘Why should we fight another country’s war?’

  ‘Because wars . . . in other countries . . . can spread to ours.’

  ‘Vietnam’s a long way from here.’

  ‘So was Thailand. Malaya. New Guinea.’ Each word needed three gasps of air. ‘But that’s where . . . we had to fight . . . to stop being invaded.’ And another gasp. ‘In World War II.’

  ‘If everyone stopped fighting, there wouldn’t be any wars.’

  ‘That,’ he whispered, ‘is one of the stupidest things . . . I have ever heard. Look at children . . .’ another gasp ‘. . . fighting in the playground. Peace is a . . .’ gasp ‘. . . nice concept. But humans will have to . . .’ four gasps ‘. . . evolve much more to get there. Two men . . . one Russian and . . . one American . . . only have to press their red buttons . . . that will release enough atomic bombs . . . to destroy Earth . . . twice over. Being nice . . . does not solve . . . that.’

  ‘There speaks the man who got rich in two world wars.’ Jed saw the expression on his face. She flushed. ‘I’m sorry . . .’

  ‘Not true.’ Tommy Thompson was fighting for breath now. ‘Made money. Gave most of that . . . money away.’

  ‘I really am sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’ It had come from the newspaper article she had read, which had said nothing about him passing his wealth on. Had he really given most of it away? ‘I told you, I don’t know much
about politics.’

  ‘Tell me . . . not your first memory. Your second one?’

  Mum, breaking a whiskey bottle. Stepping on the glass, feeling the blood cold on her feet, and pain. Mum, yelling at her, because the blood had made a mess. That was not a memory to give to this man. Jed shook her head.

  ‘Not a . . . nice memory? Must be some . . . Did you enjoy school?’

  ‘Not till high school.’ The grin she offered him was genuine. ‘Teachers at primary school didn’t like me knowing more than they did about history and geography, and my handwriting looks like a mob of ants marching across the page. Teachers like things neat.’

  ‘But you did . . . like high school?’

  She nodded. ‘Not all of it. But it was a selective school — you had to pass an exam to get in. And when you’re there you get divided up, with the best students in one class.’

  ‘And you . . . were the . . . best?’

  ‘One of them. Some of the teachers were wonderful. They really cared. More than that.’ They had given her books. Visions of the world. Who she could be. What the world might be. ‘Lots of school was boring. Or stupid.’ Like wearing gloves, and stockings with straight seams, and only white underwear, and bloomers for sport that came down to her knees under the bulky skirt. ‘Other bits were the best parts of my life.’

  ‘And yet . . . you left. You’re too young . . . to have finished school . . . already.’

  She shrugged again.

  ‘Why did you . . . leave? Didn’t you want to . . . finish school? Go to . . . university?’

  ‘Yes.’ More than anything, yes. University meant freedom. The vast library that the women at the counter wouldn’t let anyone who wasn’t a student or academic use. She had needed those books, and they had stopped her reading them . . .

  ‘And study . . . what?’

  She let the memory of guard-dog librarians vanish. ‘Whatever will give me a decent job at the end of it.’

  ‘That is . . . sad. Life needs . . . passion. Joy in . . . work. Friends at school?’