A Drop in the Ocean

by Jenni Ogden

  SEVENTEEN

  I’d never e-mailed Tom before, and my insides were quivering when I sat down at the computer in the motel’s reception area that evening. In all the thousands of e-mails I had sent hither and thither when I was in Boston, not a one had been personal. Once I got in the swing of it I found it quite freeing. I read it over a few times, and removed a few soppy bits before finally sending it. I could see how this could become rather addictive. I’d never before understood the fuss made about the time wasted in these trivial pursuits. I contemplated e-mailing Fran, but couldn’t face it. Pat’s problems were enough to worry about without refueling my anger over the Professor’s disgusting behavior.

  On Monday, I bought a map and found roughly the whereabouts of the farm where my father grew up. I thought the best first step would be to see if a farmhouse still existed at that address. I’d decide if and when to go there after I knew the date of Pat’s operation. I wanted to stay around until that was safely over.

  “Wednesday, first thing,” Pat told me next evening. “The specialist is almost as nice as Dr. Pascoe,” she added, “in spite of being a man.”

  He was certainly wasting no time. Pat went into the private hospital—larger and more generic than the Brisbane one—on Tuesday morning, and I stayed with her while she underwent a barrage of tests. Her family arrived after the kids got out of school, expanded now by Troy, Pat’s bachelor son, direct from his engineering job in the massive Perth mining industry. In spite of Pat’s obvious joy when he walked into her room, she looked exhausted, and I thought I could see fear cowering beneath her smile. Perhaps it was my fear. I left, no longer fitting in. I could hear their cheerful and positive chat as I walked away, down the long corridor that smelled like every hospital I’d ever worked in—an evocative medley of floor polish, antiseptic, and illness. It occurred to me that this smell—I could never think of it as a scent or a perfume—called up powerlessness and apprehension in most people, yet power and excitement in the soul of the dedicated doctor. Perhaps all those years ago when Fran and the others in my medical year lengthened their stride when they were assaulted by the odor, it had signaled QUIT to me as I lagged behind, my stomach in knots.

  The next time I saw Pat she was back in her hospital room, and I was permitted ten minutes. It is a mystery how in the space of a few hours the human body can morph from tanned and muscled to wan and hollow. She managed a smile, and I sat beside her and said nothing much. We both knew the surgeon had been pleased with the way the operation had gone; he had biopsied the lymph nodes under her arm and the tests carried out during surgery had shown they were blessedly clear of malignancy.

  ON SUNDAY, AFTER TWO DAYS OF MISERABLE RAIN, THE sun peered out and I drove to Healesville, on a search for my own family. In truth, my heart wasn’t in it. Pat was still in hospital and “doing well.” When I visited the evening before, she had been sore and tearful. The dressings had been changed earlier in the day and she had seen the operation site. She remembered feeling the same depression a few days after each of her two children were born. Perhaps, she said—and I thought she was joking—it had something to do with losing body substance—the child in the womb, or the boob. My throat ached with love as I drove along, her final words playing with my mind. But by the time I got home from the hospital with my babies, what I felt was wonder.

  Taking Highway 34 east out of Melbourne, the fickle sun, now sailing through a blue sky, soon had me donning dark glasses as the glare ricocheted off the wet bitumen. I turned on the radio and found some classical music. After a while I almost began to enjoy the sensation of being on the road in a Melbourne that was still surprisingly quiet, even for a Sunday. Melbournians apparently weren’t yet ready to trust the sun’s staying power. Driving through Coldstream, I took a right towards the Yarra Ranges, finally leaving the built-up sprawl behind. I passed the sign welcoming me to Healesville, and stopped in the main street of the charming rural town my father must have known well. After a first rate espresso and a greasily yummy pie, I headed out of town past more cafes, antique shops, and galleries.

  I didn’t believe Thomson’s Road would exist, in spite of seeing it on the map, but there it was, right where it was meant to be. The dusty, unsealed road wound up and down small rises and around numerous bends, and I was about to give up, satisfied that I had at least tried, when I spotted the faded words “Dry Acres Artists’ Community” on a large sign nailed to a rustic farm gate. I stopped the car. The greasy pie had expanded and was being remixed in my stomach. I contemplated turning back.

  Artists’ community? Was this where the family farm used to be? The farm was probably farther along Thomson’s Road. No doubt the artists would be able to tell me. Perhaps this was one of those sex-crazed seventies cults and they’d lock me in a cellar and brainwash me.

  This jocular approach didn’t work and my stomach kept churning. I got out and lifted and pushed the gate open and drove through, and got out again and shut it, cutting off a quick exit. Bouncing along a rutted track that led to a jumble of buildings in the distance, I looked around at the green freshness of a peaceful valley. I was expecting dry acres, but perhaps they only appeared during the high summer months. I stuck my head out the window and breathed in the sweet air. A stream chuckled quietly alongside the track and a skylark was singing somewhere in the blue. Ghost gums were scattered randomly across the paddocks, their brilliant white trunks indescribably beautiful in the winter light. As I slowed to negotiate a large puddle, a white and yellow cloud of sulphur-crested cockatoos erupted out of a tree and flew into the air, their loud screeches echoing around the valley.

  I parked in the small visitor’s car park and went into a little café that opened off what looked like an old shearing shed. Inside the café, I could see through to a big space where pottery and wooden bowls and the like were displayed and a few people wandered about. A sign above the archway entrance proclaimed Walk through to see artists at work. The delicious smell of fresh coffee and home baking was tempting, but the greasy pie churned again as I approached the young woman behind the counter.

  “Good morning.” She smiled. “What can I get you?”

  “Well, nothing right now, but perhaps I’ll come back later. I was just passing through and wondered if this was where Dry Acres Farm used to be. My father lived there when he was a boy. His family’s name was Fergusson. I don’t suppose they still live around here?”

  “Oh yes, George left to go back home about half an hour ago. You could probably find him there.”

  “George?”

  “Yes, George Fergusson. He’s one of our craftsman.”

  “Gosh. Fancy a Fergusson still being here.”

  “Well there you go then,” she said cheerfully, as if people wandered in and found long lost relatives with the same name every day.

  “Where’s his house?” I asked, sitting down quickly at the nearest table.

  “You can’t miss it. Take the path around to the back of the shearing shed, and his is the nearest house immediately behind here. Just follow the steps up.”

  “Thanks. And then perhaps I’ll come back for a coffee,” I said, trying for normality.

  “You probably won’t need to. George makes a pretty good cup himself.” Then her smile disappeared and she said in a quiet voice, “I don’t suppose, then, that you know about Selina?”

  “Selina?”

  “His wife. She was in a car accident three months ago.”

  “Oh dear. I’m sorry. Was she hurt badly?”

  “She died. It was awful.” She looked as if she might start sobbing any moment.

  “Oh dear,” I said again. “How is George coping, do you think?”

  “He looks dreadful, poor dear, but he’s hanging in there. He keeps pretty busy helping out here, but he hasn’t had the spirit to get back to his painting yet.”

  “I’m sorry. Was Selina quite young?”

  “No, not really. About fifty, I suppose. But everybody loved her. She and George were t
wo of the original founders of the community. Selina organized all the social things, and she started the crèche and the community meals every Friday night, and none of it works properly any more without her.” The tears were trickling down her cheeks now, and I definitely thought it was time to leave. George, whoever he was, would not appreciate a visit from me right now.

  “I am sorry. Perhaps I’ll come back another time.”

  “No. Don’t do that. It will be good for George to have a visitor.”

  Damn. I escaped the curious glances of a couple enjoying their coffee and found a brick path that curved around the back of the building. As the young woman had said, the house was easy to find. Slightly dilapidated-looking, it was a low, graceful, wooden building with a wide wraparound veranda, furnished with comfortable-looking chairs. An elderly Old English Sheepdog rose to its feet and lumbered towards me. I felt better. Anyone with a dog like that must be okay.

  The door was standing open, and I could hear a vacuum cleaner going. I knocked and called out, “Is anyone at home?” feeling silly, as obviously someone was. The vacuum cleaner stopped and a tall man lolloped down the passage to the door. I nearly passed out. For a second my father stood there. Older, much older, but almost my father. I was shaking so much I had to grip the doorframe.

  The reincarnation of my father grabbed my arm. “Whoa there. Take it easy.” He lowered me down onto the step and I sank my head between my legs until the blood returned.

  “Better?” he said. His voice was reassuringly Australian. If this imposter had sounded like Dad, with his charming Oxford-cum-Australian accent, he would have had his work cut out to convince me he hadn’t returned from the dead.

  “Sorry,” I said, hauling myself up and staring at him. Inside I was twelve again, screaming at the strangers telling me my father had drowned and I’d never ever see him again.

  “Come inside and I’ll get you a drink of water. Then you can tell me who you are.”

  I followed him into an enormous room filled with sunlight, dominated by a large, circular, freestanding fireplace in the very center of the room, cleverly designed so that the flames could be seen and felt from all sides. The massive stone chimney rose up through the apex of a heavily beamed vaulted ceiling, and a low, wide bench, clearly hand carved, circled the fireplace. Gulping down the water he shoved into my hand, I concentrated on a large pottery vase filled with grasses and berries sitting in the center of the table until my head stopped spinning. I looked around. It was a beautiful room. As well as the fancy fire in the center there was a monster wood range on the far wall, also glowing red. On the hob, a coffee pot was burbling merrily, and the aroma of fresh warm bread filled the room. A family home.

  “Perhaps you should tell me who you are,” he said, pulling out a chair and pushing me onto it.

  “I’m Anna Fergusson. I came here looking for my father’s relatives. Harry Fergusson.”

  “Stone the crows. The mysterious missing Harry. He’s your father?”

  I nodded. “You look so like him. That’s why I felt faint. When you appeared at the door, I thought I was seeing a ghost.” I sat on my hands to stop them shaking.

  The ghost laughed. Not just laughed, laughed his head off.

  “You’re obviously a relative,” I said, when he’d calmed down.

  He grinned, and offered a slim brown hand. “George Fergusson. Mum told me I looked like Harry but I didn’t realize we were that alike.”

  I shook his hand, my stomach churning with excitement now. “Mary? Is Mary your mother?”

  “She is. Your father’s big sister. I’ll go and get her. She’s out in the garden.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said.

  “I’m sure she’s there. At least she was last time I looked.” His laugh again. “Mum’s seventy-eight so your father must be about seventy-six. I hope I don’t look that old.”

  “Not quite. Although you look much older than Dad was when I last saw him. It’s strange to think how he would have aged. Not that you look old.”

  “Your father’s not alive, obviously. When did he die?”

  “He drowned when I was twelve, and I never saw his body. They never found his body.”

  “Jesus. Look, just sit there and I’ll get you a cup of coffee, or would you like a whisky or something?”

  “No thanks. Coffee would be good. Black, please.”

  He put a coffee down beside me.

  “How come you’re a Fergusson?” I asked.

  “Mum never married. My father was around from time to time, but she liked her independence. I don’t think she ever even considered giving me his name. I’ll go and get her,” George said, and was out the door.

  A blast of cool air heralded his return, and I looked up over my mug. A tall woman followed him in, taking her wide-brimmed hat off and shaking free her curly white hair.

  “Anna, meet Mary Fergusson, my mum,” George said.

  “I can’t believe you’re sitting there after all these years. Harry’s daughter.” Her voice faltered and George put his arm around her and guided her to a chair.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s a shock—but a wonderful one.”

  “It’s me who’s sorry. I should have written or phoned first, but I didn’t even know if Dry Acres Farm would still be here.”

  “You look like him, tall and dark. The Fergusson look,” she said, her face still pale.

  “I suppose so. George—I thought I’d seen a ghost for a minute.”

  Mary glanced at George, and the color returned to her face. “Yes, he was so like Harry when he was a boy.” She turned her bright eyes on me. “What happened to Harry? He left here when he was eighteen and he wrote once from England. After that we never heard from him again. We tried to find him but it was hopeless. Nobody would help us. He was old enough to leave and that was that.”

  George had piled the table with thick-cut bread and various other stuff, and he pushed a plate and knife over to me. “Help yourself, Anna. Try our homemade pickles. Nothing like a doorstop sandwich when you’re in shock.”

  He was right: I was hungry. It was warm and soothing in the big room, and the three of us buttered, filled, cut, and ate for a while in silence. Then I told them about Dad’s diving accident and never finding his body. After a while Mary got up and left the room. She was probably too upset to sit there with me. Five minutes later she was back and handing me a small photo and a yellowed envelope. I looked at the family photo. My father as a teenager was easily recognizable. No one in the photo was smiling.

  “That’s me beside Harry with our parents, not long before Mum died,” Mary said.

  It was the first photo I had seen of my grandparents. My fair-haired grandmother looked tiny and frail standing in the middle of her dark-haired family.

  “The men all look the same,” Mary said. “I’m not surprised you thought George was Harry.”

  “What are their names?” I asked, not looking up.

  “Papa was another Harry, and Ma’s name was Clemency. Didn’t Harry even tell you their names?”

  “I’d forgotten. I did know but he never talked about them.” I touched my grandmother’s face. “My first name is Clemency, but I’ve always been called Anna. It’s my second name.”

  “Harry loved Ma. I’m glad he named you for her.” Mary’s hand rested on my arm.

  “Did she have cancer? She doesn’t look very strong here.”

  “She was tiny but she had plenty of guts. She had to, living out here in those days.”

  “Was she sick for a long time before she died?” I don’t know why I kept on with these questions. I could feel the tension radiating off Mary.

  “Harry didn’t tell you.” It was a statement, not a question. “Ma took too many sleeping pills one day when she was a bit confused. By the time we found her it was too late.”

  My mouth was dry. Was this my grandmother’s only way to escape her alcoholic husband’s abuse? I took a swig of my coffee, and wished George woul
d say something to break the silence. I looked across the table at him, but he was sitting mute, staring into his own coffee. Poor chap was probably thinking about his own wife’s tragic death. “That’s very sad,” I finally managed to croak. I took a deep breath. “Dad did tell my mother that he didn’t get on with his father and that’s why he left home. Was my grandmother—did my grandmother have problems with my grandfather too?”

  “No, they adored each other, but I think Ma was alone too much with Papa always working out on the farm, and she had no friends way out here. She would be all right for a while and then she’d get very depressed and sometimes she wouldn’t leave her bed for days. Papa tried everything to cheer her up, but we had no money so it was hopeless. He couldn’t even take her away for a holiday.”

  My long-held beliefs about my grandfather tottered. “Dad told my mother that his father liked his drink. Do you think that was why he and Dad fought?”

  George snorted.

  “Have I got the wrong end of the stick?” I said.

  “Grandpa was dead against the demon drink,” George said, and grinned at me.

  “I must have remembered it wrong. Was he one of those stern religious types?” It was stifling with both fires going. I ripped off my sweater, fighting the hot flush enveloping me from the waist up.

  “Harry—your dad, I mean—could always spin a tale when it suited him.” Mary’s voice sounded almost exasperated. “Papa was as gentle as a lamb. He was religious, but not the stern type. He probably should have given young Harry a few good hidings. It might have sorted him out before it was too late.”

  “You weren’t exactly the obedient little daughter, Mum,” George said, winking at me.

  I tried to grin. “I can imagine Dad being a bit of a wild lad. He could never stay in one place for long. I think that’s why he and Mum broke up.”

  Mary’s dark eyes were soft as she looked at me. “Harry was more than just wild. He caused Ma and Papa a lot of grief. He had a spell in borstal for converting a car when he was thirteen, and when he came out he was even worse, always in fights and getting drunk every weekend. He was on the fast track to prison, according to the police.” She patted my arm awkwardly. “I’m sorry, Anna. It must be hard to hear that if you didn’t know.”