Mercy Street

by Tess Evans

  ‘A fine figure of a woman.’

  ‘You’re dead right there, mate. But it means I’ve got to go into one of those places with all those la-di-da women.’

  ‘Wear a collar and tie,’ Redgum advises. ‘No one looks down on a man in a collar and tie.’

  ‘Do you want the Basic Deluxe or the Diamond Deluxe pack?’ The young woman with the alarming fingernails raises her perfect eyebrows, and despite his nice white shirt and tie, George feels looked-down-upon.

  ‘Whatever’s the best,’ he says, not daring to ask the price.

  ‘Lovely.’ She smiles with her mouth and calculates with her eyes. ‘Would you like the Dead Sea body scrub? It’s extra, but all my ladies love it.’

  George is impressed that the saleswoman has ladies she can call her own, but baulks at the thought of Shirl being scrubbed. ‘Just the package,’ he says, and his credit card is an extra two-hundred-and-fifty dollars in the red.

  He buys the rest of his gifts without the reading mums’ assistance.

  ‘I want to buy a present for Aunty Shirl,’ Rory says one evening. ‘I’ve already got a surprise for you. Can we go to the shops after school tomorrow?’

  They go to the Bargain Shop. Lots of things to pick from, Poppy. After discarding a bottle of nail polish (because, as she says, Aunty Shirl only wears pink), a bilious green scarf (George had to do some fast talking on that one), Rory finds a sparkly ballpoint pen. ‘I’ll get her the blue one,’ she says and George takes out his wallet. ‘No, Poppy. I want to use my own pocket money. It’s from me to Aunty Shirl.’

  They all come round for drinks on Christmas Eve. ‘This is becoming quite a tradition,’ Shirl says as she cuts into the fruitcake and passes it around. ‘Cheers,’ they all say, and Mrs Nguyen, after two glasses of bubbly, becomes a bit tipsy and dances Shirl around the kitchen. ‘Happy Christ-amas,’ she sings. ‘I say Happy Christ-a-mas to you.’

  The guests leave after supervising the Santa sack. Shirl has a big meal to prepare for tomorrow. In the past, Pen always cooked lunch for the whole family on Christmas Day. ‘You’re busy enough with the kids,’ she’d tell her sister-in-law. ‘Have a break.’ Which Shirl gratefully did.

  Since Pen died, Shirl has taken over and George and Redgum always go to her place for the festive meal. This year she’s also invited the Nguyens and, somewhat less graciously, ‘that Bree woman’. Fortunately, Bree was going to her sister’s so Shirl manages to escape the consequences of her grudging generosity.

  George, while enjoying the evening, isn’t sorry to see his guests go. It’s been a big week and tomorrow will be another big day. Tempted to leave the last of the cleaning up, he decides on another piece of Christmas cake and a fresh cup of tea. Best wind down a bit before going to bed.

  He swears as the phone rings.

  ‘It’s me, George – Angie.’

  She doesn’t need to tell him. He’d know that voice anywhere.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Just want to wish my Rory a Merry Christmas.’ She pronounces her words with a drawn-out sibilance.

  ‘Are you drunk?’ He can hear someone in the background.

  ‘Won’t be long, babe. Not you, George. Just let me talk to Rory.’

  ‘It’s after eleven. She’s sound asleep.’

  ‘Okay, babe. Just hang on a minute. Never mind, George. I’ll be seeing her in a couple of weeks. Me ’n’ Charlie. We’ll come and pick her up after New Year – around the eighteenth.’

  ‘The eighteenth? Of January?’ That’s hardly any time. He can hear the panic in his own voice. ‘What do you mean pick her up?’

  ‘Me ’n’ Charlie are gonna rent a place in West Wyalong. We’re coming down to Melbourne to bring her back with us. George? George? Are you still there?’

  His voice echoes back at him. ‘The eighteenth, you say? West Wyalong?’ He’s never heard of West Wyalong.

  ‘Gotta go.’ A girlish squeal. ‘Stop it. I’m on the phone. Big hug for Rory. I’ll bring her present when I come.’

  ‘Who’s Charlie?’

  The line is dead.

  West Wyalong. He doesn’t like the sound of West Wyalong at all. He’s fairly sure it isn’t a suburb of Melbourne. Maybe down Geelong way? For the first time, he wishes he had learned how to use the computer. Pen had bought herself one a couple of years before she died. Whenever they needed to know something she’d say, ‘I’ll google it’ and return flaunting the answer like she was Wally Carter, that bloke who won a million bucks on that quiz show they used to watch. For a while he called her Wally. Then the joke grew thin.

  So, frustrated by his lack of computer skills, George prepares for bed and lies awake, focusing on West Wyalong, suppressing his panic at the thought of losing Rory.

  On his way to Shirl’s the next day, he remembers that Bill has a road atlas. It would be a few years out of date, but towns don’t just spring up, do they?

  Rory can’t wait to give Shirl her present. ‘I bought it with my own money,’ she says. ‘And it was only two dollars and fifty cents.’

  Eyes glistening behind her glasses, Shirl kisses the upturned face, remembering with a smile the washcloth saga. ‘It’s a beautiful present, Rory. I’ll use it to write all my birthday and Christmas cards.’

  George stares in dismay at his plate, loaded with turkey and ham and God knows how many vegetables.

  ‘Another roast potato?’ Shirl is forever pressing food on people, but George feels like tipping it all in the bin. With a self-control that he marvels at later, he manages to refuse the extra potatoes and munches his way through food that might as well have been sawdust. Poor Shirl had gone to so much trouble so he munches and smiles and dutifully reads out his Christmas-cracker joke.

  After lunch, while the others are loosening their belts and falling asleep in the lounge room, George goes into the bathroom with the atlas. His thick finger traces its way along the Newell Highway. That’s the middle of nowhere! Two days’ drive at least. All the energy, all the purpose of the last two years drain from his body. He’s gutted – filleted like a fish, soft white flesh raw and exposed. It’s so far away, this West Wyalong. He could drive up to see them, but eventually age and circumstances will put an end to that. Rory will grow up without him. She’ll forget him. Is their short time together enough to bind her to him? It’s a kind of death. The life-before-your-eyes you hear about was of his life with Rory – the defiant, snotty-nosed kid commandeering his couch; the freshly scrubbed little girl smirking in her new pyjamas; the sleeping child clutching Slipper Dog. The reel spools through his head as he sits motionless on the edge of the bath, finger still pointing to West Wyalong.

  ‘Are you all right, George?’ He jumps at Bill’s voice, tactfully subdued through the bathroom door.

  ‘I’m fine. Yes. Fine. Just need a breath of fresh air,’ he assures his brother-in-law. Then stumbles out into the afternoon glare.

  George is by nature a conservative man. Not one to buck the system. But it seems to him as he drives home that there is something terribly wrong with a system that allows a kid to be picked up and dropped and kicked from place to place like a football. He has loved Rory, cared for her, given her a home. She’s doing so well at school – Kookaburra reading group, no less. He knows what that means – he’s a reading mum. She has nice friends. And now Angie is coming to take her away to God knows what sort of life with God knows what sort of people. Who is this Charlie? Another addict? A drunken brute? What if he’s a child molester? You read about it in the papers every day.

  By the time they arrive home, his heart is thudding against his chest wall. He can feel it with his hand. This time the thought of a heart attack terrifies him. They’d give Rory to Angie for sure if he was laid up. He has to stay calm. A beer while he thinks. He opens the fridge then closes it again. Getting drunk will dull the pain but it won’t make it go away (he knows that well enough) so, switching on the kettle, he all but collapses into a chair. He’ll make a pot of tea and try to think
straight.

  He flinches when the phone rings. It’s getting late. Angie again, maybe? With a new plan – maybe this time to come back and live in Melbourne. ‘Yes?’ His voice is eager. ‘George here.’

  But it’s Bree. ‘Angie rang. She’s got this new bloke. They want to take Rory to some place in New South Wales.’

  He struggles to speak. ‘I know.’

  ‘What’re you going to do?’

  ‘Not much I can do, is there?’

  ‘I’m on my way. We’re not going to let her get away with it. We need a plan.’

  ‘Whatever it is, I hope it turns out to be legal.’ (Not a joke. You never know with Bree.)

  ‘Probably not.’ With that, she’s gone.

  Half an hour later, she’s in his lounge room drinking tea. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she says. ‘First you gotta go on as normal – Christmas holidays – all that stuff.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Suzie’s brother plays footy with a copper. Says he’s not a bad bloke. We could get him to arrest Angie.’

  ‘Arrest her? What for?’

  ‘Drugs, shoplifting, whatever. The coppers can always find something if they need to.’

  George has led a sheltered life, and tends to trust authority. This is just another one of Bree’s impossible schemes and he must rein her in. ‘No.’ He has to make it quite clear. ‘I won’t see Angie in jail.’

  ‘Desperate times, George.’

  Briefly tempted, he hesitates. What if this time Bree’s plan actually works? No. Angie is careless and scatterbrained but doesn’t deserve to be locked up. ‘Absolutely not,’ he repeats with uncharacteristic authority. ‘She’s the kid’s mother, for Christ’s sake.’

  14

  The first (and so far the only) part of Bree’s plan is easy. Go away, as everyone expects, on Boxing Day. George packs everything he can think of, including the bike, filling his small car to capacity. Waving goodbye, the Nguyens joke that he reminds them of a turtle.

  ‘Everything go with you.’ They chuckle. ‘Like a house on your back.’

  A weak grin is all George can manage in response, but Rory, buckled into the back seat, surrounded by boxes and bags, calls out, ‘I’ll bring you back some shells and maybe we’ll see a mermaid.’

  It takes over half an hour to reach the freeway. ‘Are we there yet?’

  ‘It’s a long way to the beach, love. You can open your potato chips now.’ (So what if they aren’t good for her? When you’re on holidays it’s okay to break the rules.)

  Potato chips. George curses his lack of experience in the long-drive-with-child. Of course the salt means she needs a drink and a while later a toilet stop, where George hovers outside the women’s toilets, trying too hard not to look shifty.

  ‘No more chips,’ he decides and allows her to sulk over an apple.

  Usually, he enjoys Rory’s prattle, but since talking to Bree, he’s had no time to think. ‘Piece of cake,’ was her final pronouncement. ‘Don’t be there when Angie comes back – and remember it’s just as likely she won’t come back. You know Angie. Anyway, if she does, and you’re gone, she’ll be off again before you know it.’

  Untangling the ifs and whens, George isn’t so sure. Angie’s is a careless kind of love, but it might be enough to bring her back for her daughter. And he hasn’t seen her for well over a year. People mature in that time. He’s an old man and yet, since Rory, he has changed. So how much more might a young person be able to grow in understanding? And change as a result of that growth? This could well be the case with Angie. So what on earth does he think he’s doing?

  ‘Not far now.’ An automatic response to the persistent question. He flexes his hands on the steering wheel. All he’s doing is taking Rory on the holiday they had planned. And coming back on the tenth, just eight days before Angie’s threatened return.

  Unused to long drives, George is tired when, nearly seven hours later, they reach The Famous Red Dolphin Caravan Park. He had booked a van way back in June and when questioned, the proprietor agreed that as far as he knew, no one had ever seen a red dolphin. ‘Plenty of Blue Dolphins,’ he explained. ‘But everyone remembers the “Red Dolphin”, so we stand out from the crowd and become famous. A good business strategy, I reckon.’

  Whatever the strategy, George is more than happy to see a red dolphin winking at them over the entry.

  ‘We’re here, love.’ Two faces look out the window, then at each other with almost identical grins.

  ‘Site twenty-two, row F,’ the receptionist tells them. She’s wearing the briefest shorts George has ever seen. ‘Just down that way. Key’s in the door.’

  The caravan is sleek and modern and Rory dances about, her voice shrill with excitement. ‘Look, Poppy, a little fridge. A stove. Is that my bed? A television. It’s got a television.’

  George feels like shouting himself. All these features had been listed in the brochure, but he can’t quite believe the compact luxury of their on-site van. He tunes in to what Rory is saying. Her bed? There’s only one bed that he can see, high off the floor. George has never stayed in a caravan before and is relieved when the proprietor comes by to explain how things work, unfolding the second bed, which fits snugly into the wall. ‘Enjoy,’ he says. ‘Here are the keys to the toilets and showers.’ George takes the keys, one marked Gents, the other, Ladies.

  ‘I want to go to the toilet,’ Rory says.

  George hasn’t thought about using shared facilities. He can wait for her when she goes to the toilet, but what about showers? She begins to hop from one foot to the other. ‘I really need to go.’

  So he takes her to the toilet block and stands outside until she emerges. ‘Now we can have a swim,’ she says.

  ‘We need to unpack first.’ For some reason (the novelty? George wonders) she’s happy to oblige, singing to herself as they stow away their possessions.

  While Rory puts on her bathers, George steps outside to have a look around. The Red Dolphin has, he guesses, been here for a long time. There are well-grown trees shading the vans and a cracked asphalt road winds between long rows of caravans and tents. A wooden sign, blistered by the sun, tells him that it’s only ten metres to Sapphire Beach. George stretches limbs still cramped from the drive. The afternoon is hot and golden, the wayward bougainvillea a right royal purple. All in all, he could have done a lot worse.

  The next two or maybe three sites are taken up by two caravans and a complicated series of tents and awnings. He has heard of shanty towns and this seems to be a likely candidate, but the more he looks, the more order he detects. Squinting into the sun, he’s startled to see one of the tents moving with slow majesty, in his direction.

  ‘You’re the newbie,’ the tent observes and George finds himself shaking hands with a woman in a canvas hat and an all-enveloping green-and-white-striped dress. She’s a head taller than George, and it seems to him, three times as wide. Short curly grey hair framing a large weather-beaten face. Rough hands. Generous mouth. ‘Stella.’ She beams. ‘Stella Parker. Looks like we’re neighbours.’

  ‘George.’ He squirms as shrewd eyes appraise him, wrinkled and skinny, in his singlet and baggy shorts.

  ‘Park’s got the kids down the beach,’ she explains. ‘Happy hour’s at six. Come over then and meet the gang.’

  ‘Ready!’ Rory, in her new red spotted bathers, jumps down from the caravan.

  ‘Your granddaughter?’

  Rory hangs back, shuffling her feet.

  ‘Say hello to Mrs . . . ?’

  ‘Stella, love. Or Aunty Stell, if you want. Do you like toffees?’

  Rory sidles out from behind George and nods, while Stella’s hand disappears into a large pocket. ‘Here. And one for Granddad.’

  ‘Poppy,’ Rory says, unwrapping the sweet. ‘He’s my Poppy.’

  It’s quite a business, applying the sunscreen, but Shirl had been insistent when it came to skin protection. (And a number of other things, of course – but they’re for another time.)


  As promised, the beach is a short walk over a sand dune, and as they crest the hill, Rory slinks closer to him. ‘It’s a lot of water,’ she says, dragging on his arm. George points out other children running and jumping in the waves, splashing each other, squealing with delight.

  ‘Looks like fun to me.’

  Rory sticks out her chin. ‘I think I’ll make a sandcastle,’ she decides, and sits down well back from the water’s edge.

  He can’t say he’s not disappointed, but spreads out his towel beside her. ‘I thought you wanted a swim.’

  ‘Not anymore,’ she says, and he resigns himself to a summer on the shore.

  They return to the van covered in sand, sticky with sweat and sunscreen. The next thing is a shower and George is at a loss. He had hoped there might be one of those outdoor showers and had kept an eye out for one on the way up from the beach. If there isn’t one in the park (and there are none in sight) he’ll have to let her go by herself. Gathering her things, he reiterates his rules for the showers. ‘. . . and remember, don’t talk to anyone. And don’t let anyone in with you. And lock the door . . .’ Rory’s attention drifts and the rules expand as George’s imagination takes flight.

  ‘Our Loris can take her.’ Stella, now wearing a yellow tent, interrupts his lecture. ‘I got ears like a vacuum cleaner,’ she says. ‘“You slurp it all up, Stell” – that’s what Park says. But I like to know what’s going on. Nothing wrong with that, is there?’

  She seems in need of reassurance, so George hastens to agree that eavesdropping is the most natural thing in the world.

  ‘Loris!’ Stella’s voice, like everything else about her, is big.

  A thin, brown-skinned girl appears from one of the tents. ‘She’s taken Dot and Bubs to the shower.’