Andrea's Secret

by John Kelly

The day itself, began simply enough. In the early morning darkness, Julian Knowles, thirty-five years old, stirred to the sound of the digital alarm clock setting off its nauseating, monotonous beeping. It was five o'clock. It was time to get up, shower and dress for the long day ahead. It was time to put aside the comfort of a warm bed, which offered a certain security of tenure. He shut the alarm down quickly hoping not to disturb his wife Annette, facing the other way, still sleeping soundly by his side. Climbing out of bed, all he heard was the sound of his own breathing, and the squeal of Annette's cat Foofo, as he brushed past on his way to the bathroom, and then to the kitchen. As he prepared for the day ahead, his mind was a wandering disoriented array of thought, expectation and perhaps anticipation. Thirty minutes later, as daylight was breaking, he climbed into his taxi, his place of work. He logged on to the GPS satellite system, entered his PIN number and placed a tape into the cassette player and drove the short distance to the deserted shopping centre in suburban Doncaster, twenty kilometres east of Melbourne, where other taxi drivers were parked, already engaged in deep discussion on the ills of the world and forcefully espousing their own personal plans to set things right. This was a morning ritual for Julian and his fellow drivers as they waited for the six o clock bookings to be called. The six o clock bookings might score one or two of them a prized fare to the airport, 40 kilometres away, but in the meantime, there was a pressing need to try and solve the world's problems.

  "Look at the mess we are in," said Alberto as he leaned out from the side window, waving his hand in the air. "It hasn't changed in a thousand years, or even longer. Genocide, pollution, starvation, wars here, wars everywhere. A thousand years, it hasn't changed. Now, it seems, we have nuclear weapons gone missing in Russia."

  "It's the Americans," Jacques replied with equal passion. "They interfere in everything. They spy, and they topple foreign governments covertly. They impose their culture on all the rest of the world through their giant corporations. They throw money here and there, buying loyalty and subservience. They are the culprit."

  Julian Knowles pulled up slowly alongside Alberto Antonini's car. Alberto was the owner of the taxi Julian drove. Alberto had several taxis, a fleet no less, all inherited from his father several years ago. Not one license encumbered. On paper, Alberto was worth a fortune. Like most taxi license owners however, he was asset rich, but cash poor. The industry was going through a difficult time, and to supplement his income, Alberto had taken up some part time work as a debt collector for a loan shark who also happened to be his cousin.

  "Good morning gentlemen, what is business like so far?" Julian asked.

  "Nothing so far," Jacques replied. "It's so quiet. Nobody is going anywhere this morning." He took a deep draw on his cigarette.

  "I am taking my cousin to the airport at eight o'clock," Alberto volunteered. I need something good before that. Not the same old five dollars here, five dollars there, which gets you nowhere; something to the city at least. Is the car running okay?" he enquired of Julian.

  "Yes fine," Julian replied.

  "The small jobs are okay," Jacques replied. "So long as you get a good mix! So long as the big jobs come as well," he added.

  "Just something local for me will be fine until I start my permanent runs." Julian said.

  "Ah yes, you are lucky with your runs," Alberto acknowledged. "Permanent runs, that's what I would like. But I don't know if I could handle the intellectually disabled the way you do," he said.

  "They are fine," Julian replied. "They respond well to whatever you ask of them. They don't answer back, and you don't have to talk to them if you don't want to. It's those people who won't stop talking I can't stand. They tell you their whole life story in ten, fifteen minutes of non-stop rambling. It's as if they have not spoken to anyone since the last time they were in a taxi, and they have to make the most of the time they spend in your car before they climb back into their silent lonely world."

  Yes," said Alberto. "Let them tell their priest or their psychologist. Why lump it on to us?"

  "There are a lot of lonely people out there. For some, we are the only ones they speak to. Us and the supermarket checkout girls," said Jacques with a grin. "And we don't charge for advice," he added.

  As the three men continued their discussion, they did not notice a young lady walking toward them from the rear. Dazed and dishevelled, she crossed the car park, clutching her handbag as she moved, her face revealing all the symptoms of shock and dismay.

  "Don't be too hard on the American's," Alberto said in their defence. "They are the ones who will defend us when we are attacked."

  "Attacked? Attacked by whom?" Jacques asked.

  "The Indonesians of course! Who else?" Alberto insisted

  "Oh yes, of course, and what are they going to do, land at Broome with one hundred thousand soldiers? What then? It's a long walk to anywhere from there. If the heat doesn't get them the taipans will," he joked.

  Suddenly the young lady thrust her face in the passenger side window of Julian's car. "Take me home please," she begged.

  Startled at this unexpected 'walk up' from nowhere, Julian took a moment to collect his thoughts, before speaking to Alberto.

  "Which of you was here first?" he asked. "I was," Jacques replied, "but that's okay you take her," he indicated to Alberto.

  "No, you were here first," Alberto replied. "You take her. I'll wait for a radio call." This mutual display of generosity was a smoke screen. They both wanted the airport booking. As they bantered away, the lady became more distressed. "Who will take me home?" she cried. "No, she is yours," Jacques insisted, intent on taking whatever the six o clock bookings would offer.

  "Will somebody take me home please," the lady screamed.

  "Hop in," Julian said, realizing the lady was not in a fit condition to put up with this foolish exchange. As the lady climbed into the back seat of Julian's car, Alberto agreed to take her, but it was too late. Julian was off. The meter was on!

  "Where is home?" Julian asked. She gave him the address. "Gracedale Street in Mitcham," she said.

  "What happened to you?" he continued, now realizing the lady was crying. "I was attacked just after I got off the bus. A man approached me from behind and tried to grab my handbag."

  "Where? Did he hurt you?" Julian asked, quite shocked. She pointed down the street. "He pushed me to the ground."

  "Do you want me to look for him? Do you want to go to the police?" he asked. "That's what you should do. I will take you there now if you wish."

  "No, no, take me home please. He didn't get anything. I wouldn't let my bag go."

  Despite his many years experience as a taxi driver, this had never happened to Julian before and he deferred to the lady's wishes although he felt strongly the need to bring the matter to the attention of the police. 'The assailant might not be far away,' he thought. 'Perhaps he could be caught quickly. But no, take the lady home first.' As he observed her through the rear vision mirror, he estimated her to be in her early twenties, with dark brown hair, brown eyes and generally speaking, a very attractive young woman.

  "What did this man look like?" he asked as they drove along. She gave him a vague description. "I didn't get a very good look at him, it all happened so quickly. He was tall, he had dark hair, he wore jeans." "This is a dreadful business," Julian said. "The country is falling apart. Where is the respect anymore? Where is the order?" Julian's comments were designed to offer support, while not quite knowing how to handle this difficult situation.

  Seven minutes later, Julian pulled up outside the lady's house in Gracedale Street, Mitcham. It was a modest weatherboard cottage sandwiched between two more modern brick dwellings, off the main thoroughfare. "Thank you for helping me," she said. "How much do I owe you?" Julian was initially reluctant to charge, even though the meter displayed ten dollars fifty cents. But business was business and after all, this was his job. So he took the money. The woman thanked him once again, and climbed out of the car. "You should
report this to the police," he advised her once again. She nodded in agreement. "I'll think about it." As he drove off he took a mental note of her address, thinking that he might go to the police himself and report what happened.

  Returning to the taxi rank at the shopping centre where he had begun the day, he noted both Jacques and Alberto had gone. Perhaps they had scored their six o clock bookings and were on their way to the airport. Not without a touch of regret did he also realize that if either driver had taken the young lady, as they should have, he himself might now be on his way to the airport. Never mind. He still had his runs at Elm Tree Cottages, with the intellectually disabled, and they were better than an airport fare. As he waited for the time to pass, there was little activity on the radio. Troubled by the incident with the young woman, he decided that he would report the matter concerning the young lady to the police on the way to Elm Tree Cottages. 'Perhaps the fellow who attacked her had done this repeatedly? Perhaps the police already knew of him? Yes, better to report it.'

  When he arrived at the police station, the duty officer, Constable Beverley Ashton was on the phone. When she finished her conversation with the caller, making a note of the discourse in the logbook, she attended to Julian.

  "I just thought I should report it," he concluded after telling Beverley the events of the morning. "Maybe the lady will come in herself. Maybe not! I don't know. But I thought I should report it."

  "That's fine," Constable Ashton said. "Let me have your name and address in case we need to contact you again," she said. "There's not much we can do, if she doesn't come in herself. But we have a record of it here now and if anything comes of it we can take it from there."

  It was with great personal satisfaction that Julian drove down the Eastern Freeway to Elm Tree Cottages. If he wasn't of much assistance to the young lady, at least he had brought the matter to the attention of the authorities and therefore he had played his part, done his civic duty, so to speak. As he drove, he turned on the cassette player. He loved his music. His collection of tapes made little room for anything else in the glove box. They were an important part of his work comfort. Music relaxed him. It was a buffer between him and those maniacs on the road who made a mockery of the basics of road safety. Mostly it was the young ones, the P platers, who had just been given their license to drive and did not understand the meaning of the words, 'road courtesy'. As Dame Kiri Te Kanawa sang the beautiful 'Marietas Lied' by Korngold, a rendition that almost sent him into a rapturous daze, Julian took the exit ramp at the Chandler Highway and was soon passing through the main entrance to Elm Tree Cottages.

  For the past three years, he had been coming to this place each morning, to collect the four residents he had come to know so well. They had become a small part of his life, these poor unfortunate victims of nature's mistakes. Elm Tree Cottages had for over fifty years provided in one form or another, a home for people who through no fault of their own, were born intellectually disabled. It was a home and a place of refuge. A place where they could be given the care and attention needed. But in the cold hard light of business, its future had recently been decided. Its commercial development potential was irresistible.

  As Julian drove along the upper main road, over the larger than usual road humps that prevented travelling at a speed of more than twenty kilometres per hour, he wondered about the fate of the residents after the developers had had their plans approved by the State Government. As he passed by the row of white mini buses parked and ready to take the residents to their day care centres and sheltered workshops, he wondered also about the magnificent English elms that so elegantly grace both sides of the road, providing a dense green canopy above him as he passed underneath. Would they too be given their marching orders?

  His first passenger at Unit 33 was Loretta, a woman in her forties, overweight and profoundly deaf and consequently mute apart from those moments when she was sufficiently provoked enough to vent her anger. Make her angry and her vocal chords let fly; not with coherent well timed, enunciated instructions, but rather a high pitched scream that left no doubt as to her displeasure, and had staff jumping every which way to pacify her enraged demeanour. At such times, she was not beyond taking matters to the physical and attempting a well-timed left jab to the rib cage of a distracted staff member. She had become used to seeing Julian walk into the lounge where she sat waiting patiently, and often walked to his car without any prompting. The one basic rule with Loretta, that Julian and the staff needed to remember, was never to let her see her bag; the one necessary item that carried all her essentials. Her medication, her lunch, her diary and any additional item of clothing considered important for the day's activities were in her bag. Never let her see her bag! Her bag had to be delivered into the boot of the car secretly. What it was about the bag that so infuriated her, no one could establish. On some occasions however, Julian's appearance was enough of its own to set her off on one of her tantrums, that would leave him and the staff perplexed to the point where, when she refused to get into the car, the staff gave up and she stayed home. Loretta was unpredictable but on this morning she was happy to travel and settled into the front seat without a murmur.

  "She seems happy today," Julian remarked to the staff member Anthony, as they guided her into the car, Julian taking her arm, Anthony walking behind them with her bag behind his back.

  "She's been good this morning," Anthony nodded as he quietly placed her bag in the boot of the car. The placing of the bag into the boot had become a well-executed ritual. "I checked her diary this morning. It says she will be going on a picnic today. I think she understands that and is looking forward to it." Anthony added.

  Julian turned on the meter and continued on to the next pick up point at Unit 49. Here he greeted Maria Stewart, a woman in her late forties, and the unit supervisor of some twenty residents, now classified as clients, by a system that seemed to favour viewing the institution in corporate terms, with each member a cost centre showing a credit or a debit. It was Maria who, three years earlier asked Julian if he would be willing to take on the responsibility of doing a permanent run each morning and afternoon. Maria was the one who had convinced him to at least give it a try, with promises of its fulfilling and rewarding nature. Julian had accepted the offer to take on the run, but only on a three-month trial basis. It was agreed between the two of them that if he felt that he was not able to continue, then he could just say so, and that would be the end of that. Three months somehow became three years.

  "Hello happy face," Maria said as Julian walked into the lounge. The lounge was a huge room, a common room for perhaps a dozen or so residents who gathered after breakfast to watch morning television while waiting to be picked up by other taxi drivers, or staff drivers, who took them to their placements each day. Most of them that is! Some had nowhere to go, and sat around for much longer than a normal person could stand, until something was organized that would at least have them engage in some meaningful if not productive activity.

  "Morning Maria," he replied.

  Richard is ready, and Rowland is in the bathroom," she said as she tied the shoelaces of a resident. "The dockets are on my desk."

  Richard Steedman was fifty one, and had lived most of his life at Elm Tree. He struggled to walk unassisted without falling over, and always wore a protective leather head-guard. Within the confines of Elm Tree Cottages he generally shuffled around with the aid of his big red walking frame. He had a fascination for water, shining, glistening, shimmering water. He often needed to be restrained from falling in, when taken to the indoor pool for exercise. Unable to enunciate clearly he was still capable of conversation, had a remarkable capacity to recall names and addresses, and loved music.

  "P-p-lay A-ABBA t-t-ape J-j-ulian," he said as Julian collected the dockets and guided his big red frame toward the car. "Okay," Julian said. "ABBA it is today."

  Julian's third passenger was Rowland, mute and disruptive, he generally had to be herded from the unit into the car. Never ke
en to leave the Cottages, he initially resisted going, but eventually acceded and relaxed once inside the car, until the fourth passenger Daphne, was picked up from Unit 50. A fifty one year old, with a physical deformity in her legs, she was a bombastic, overbearing, bossy individual who took control of Rowland as they sat together in the back seat. Rowland was always wary of Daphne, and rarely played up when she was in the car. He did, however have an unfortunate tendency to remove some of his clothing without notice, and his shoes were never safe on his feet.

  With his four charges on board and safely belted in, Julian set off to the first of three drop-off points, a sheltered workshop, and two educational facilities for adults with intellectual disabilities. ABBA was not Julian's choice of music. He would much have preferred Mozart or Bach and often he encouraged Richard to appreciate the classics. Richard however had his own ideas about the music he most enjoyed. As Julian's car exited Elm Tree Cottages and joined the morning mainstream traffic chaos, Richard could be viewed bouncing up and down to the very loud sounds of ABBA singing "Thank you for the Music," Loretta was taking a swipe at Daphne who was bellowing abuse at Rowland as he attempted to throw his shoes out the window, all to the great consternation of passing motorists who could be seen gawking at the goings-on, and running the risk of a minor collision. For passing motorists it seemed like a side show, a curious distraction, but for Julian Knowles, it was business as usual.

  9.