Fake ID

by Hazel Edwards

  ‘Got it!’ Laughing they fell over in a tumble of legs and hockey sticks. In between, Puss streaked, just as Luke stepped backwards, and fell over the startled cat.

  ‘Your fault, Puss. Get out of the way. If you get under my feet, of course I’ll squash you and you’ll be a Flat Cat.’ Luke pushed the cat away with his foot.

  ‘Careful with dumb animals.’ Luke’s dad picked up Puss, and smoothed the cat’s fur. ‘Sorry, Puss. We nearly took one of your nine lives then.’

  ‘Puss isn’t dumb. You can hear that squawk anywhere,’ Luke protested.

  ‘Want to have a go, Zoe?’ Luke’s dad held out his stick, but I shook my head. Usually I didn’t miss having a dad because he’d never been around. But, just sometimes, it hurt when Luke’s family was so uncomplicated. I didn’t even know who was in mine any more. Several Grans. Maybe an uncle. I’d have to paint a tree like Gran did to work out all the twigs and branches. Had she done that for herself or someone else or just copied Bruce’s tie?

  ‘Dad meant playing hockey, not squashing Puss,’ Luke laughed. ‘Although that might be a good idea.’

  ‘Yeah. I know.’ I said but I was really thinking about Gran’s clues.

  Who was the mysterious Fortuna? I’d checked the postcards which weren’t written in English. Rather than ‘FOR TUNA’, the curly writing could have said FORTUNA. But Zaria was a third name! I’d keep that appointment at Studio 17 at 4 p.m., even if I had to get off school early. Should have shared the ‘not to be opened’ package with Bruce, but Gran’s things would be taken away from me and if she had other lives for bad reasons, the whole world would know next time Missing Millions was on.

  ‘Want to cuddle Puss?’ Smoothing its fur, Dad offered the cat to me.

  ‘No, thanks.’ Bark and I agree on that cat.

  ‘Dinner’s ready,’ called Luke’s mum. She’d set the table with red place mats that you can wipe clean if you drop bits.

  Spag bol is terrific the way she makes it. Luke had two helpings. So did I. The cheesy bits on top are ace. And the crusty bread is sliced sideways. She’s different from Kat, who hates cooking.

  ‘Luke told me about the Trustee, Zoe. Glad you’ve got some help. Your gran must have set that up recently. Did you bring anything back from the house?’ Luke’s mum continued, ‘What’s happening about that dog?’

  ‘Mrs Donna…er, Nell is feeding Bark for a few days. I’ll go back and give him walks. I didn’t want to bring Bark here.’

  Luke’s Mum just nodded. She knew Puss didn’t get on with other cats. A dog like Bark would be even worse.

  ‘I brought back some Kovacs family photos. Might put them up in my room.’

  ‘Do you want to show them to us?’ asked Luke’s mum as she put plastic wrap over the left-overs.

  I shook my head. While Luke and I helped clear the table, wipe the red place mats and stack the dishwasher, I thought about those photos. The ones from the ‘NOT TO BE OPENED’ package and the digitally enhanced ones. I was planning to look at them in my bedroom later, sort of in private.

  In my bedroom I made a bit of a memory corner with one of the photos.

  ‘Bloody shrine,’ said Luke later, looking at the candles. ‘It’s a fire hazard if those veils catch alight on the candle. Dad hasn’t put our smoke detectors in yet. Come out and watch TV.’

  Luke wanted to watch Missing Millions. ‘There’s Bruce. Doesn’t he look …!’ Presenter Bruce was so obviously loving the camera

  ‘Yeah…,’ I added. ‘But he’s OK to talk to.

  ‘Welcome to “Missing,” the TV program where we share with you. Some people do not leave wills. Sometimes they have big estates. If you can prove you are a descendant of this person, you may stand to gain. Do you know this person?

  The job of State Trustees is to find who might inherit. Maybe you can help.’

  A zoom to a woman’s face.

  ‘Good definition,’ Luke always liked to be seen as the techie expert..

  ‘Known as “Freda”, this woman died recently leaving an estate of over a million dollars. We are looking for her descendants. Documentary evidence like a birth certificate and photos will be needed. DNA testing may be required to check if they are of the same family. A sample from Freda will be DNA tested against any claimants.’

  The camera zoomed on a passport photo. That made me think of Gran’s ID card and why she didn’t have a passport showing when she entered Australia. Perhaps she came in legally, but didn’t renew it; 1956 was years ago. Gran was becoming a shady lady. Would anyone remember the real her ?

  ‘If she’s already dead, how can you take DNA samples to compare with other family?’ I said.

  ‘Maybe they dig up the person?’ suggested Luke. ‘And then take a bit off the body. Like a slice. In science we had to dissect a frog and then Mr Noel…

  ‘Luke…!’ called his mother warningly. ‘Remember where Zoe has been today.’

  She was trying to be kind, but Motormouth Luke always says what he thinks and that’s sort of comforting, when you’re feeling low. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about Gran. I did. Lots. But this business didn’t seem to have much to do with Gran and me. Still, I dropped my voice so Luke’s mum wouldn’t think we didn’t care.

  I whispered, ‘But what if they were cremated? There’d be nothing to match against? You can’t use ashes can you?’ I remembered those rows of urns at the funeral place.

  ‘Maybe that’s why some people are cremated, so officials can’t check?’ Luke looked thoughtful. ‘Who decided your gran was to be cremated? ‘

  ‘She did, I guess. Was it written down? Wouldn’t she have to tell someone what she wanted?’

  ‘Not if she died quickly. And no one’s found a will yet.’ Behind us, TV-Bruce was talking to himself, sort of. ‘That’s why wills are called that,’ Luke said. ‘Will you do this…? Sort of… Like organ donors… To take care of things in case they’re out of it at the end…’ Then Luke went red. ‘Sorry. She was OK, your gran.’

  ‘I know. You said that at the funeral.’

  Missing Millions finished with a list of contact websites and phone numbers rolling over Bruce’s face. The volume increased as the White Ladies’ Funeral ad started suggesting people pre-arranged their own funerals, paying in advance and saying what they want to happen.

  Luke pointed. ‘Bet that’s where she got the idea and booked them, too.’

  I nodded, still thinking about tests Gran might have taken earlier. Wouldn’t the Blood Bank keep records of donors? Yes. I remember having a free milkshake at the Blood Bank, waiting for her because you can’t donate until you’re sixteen.

  ‘Can they DNA match blood?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah. Or scrape inside your cheek with a cotton bud to get DNA. I saw that on TV Or tell stuff from just one hair from your head. They can check if your dad is your dad.’ Luke laughed. ‘Mine says he’d like to trade me in if he could, but unfortunately we look so like each other.’

  Luke’s dad had daggy reading glasses too. Bad eyesight genes in the Warne family. So lucky.

  ‘I’m the same height as my gran was. And we have…had the same colour eyes.’ That didn’t really prove anything. I didn’t mention my nose was starting to stick out as much as Gran’s.

  Mum usually rang me once a week, but in between she e-mailed. Because it cost a lot to ring from Down South, we usually agreed on the time and I’d try to be around. The phone was in the hall at Luke’s place, and the cord was short, so others could hear when I did talk. Mum wasn’t much of a listener. Sometimes I didn’t know what to say, because her life was so different. She just told me what she was doing on the station, or about the penguins or the icebergs. Sometimes she’d ring Luke’s mum as an extra, but I didn’t always know when that would happen. With the funeral stuff, Mum had been ringing a bit more. It was easier when we talked about stuff like what time and how much and who was there. I couldn’t really talk about Gran being someone else because I hadn’t worked it all out in my head yet
anyway. Maybe I’d write down some questions to ask Mum.

  ‘Luke, if you have another snack-attack and eat all of the left-over spag bol, please wash the plate,’ Luke’s mum reminded.

  After, as I was cleaning my teeth, Luke knocked on the bathroom door. ‘Hey, Zoe! That Missing Millions program made me think. Want me to do an online search to find out about your gran’s past?’

  ‘She’s not missing. She’s dead. Anyway, Sandor already found her here.’ I said. ‘But what if we find out she killed someone? Or was a spy? She does seem to have more than one name… and other lives.’

  Luke whispered, ‘Maybe she changed names for another reason?’

  ‘So how would we know which name to search? Or what if you find the other Magda?’

  ‘Try them all,’ said Luke decisively. ‘Night.’

  I slept with both family photos under my pillow that night. Which was real? Or were they both fakes? It was like parallel families. Had Gran meant to scan them onto the computer and send them somewhere? Or attach them to her finalthoughts.com message?

  In my dream that night, I was back at the funeral. Like a replay, with the White Ladies and a little kid who looked a bit like me: big nose and sandy hair, with freckles. Like the digitally enhanced boy in the photo. And a bit like Pa, who had red hair until he went bald and just the fluffy bits stayed around the edges of his head. Even Bark got into the dream and he was barking in Hungarian. In the dream I started to ask the dog in how many languages he could bark, and then I woke up. It was like one of those English essays when you can’t think of anything to finish with so you write…and it was all a dream.

  This was. There were no other kids at Gran’s funeral, but I must have been worrying about other people from her history that I didn’t know, and the boy had sort of appeared in my dreams.

  That’s what Luke said when I told him at breakfast, anyway.

  ‘Dogs don’t speak Hungarian or write cyber wills on the Internet. You’re making up stuff in your head because you haven’t got real answers. Ask your mum about the boy next time she rings. Or you’d be better off checking the Red Cross International queries on the Internet,’ said Luke. He was like that.

  Chapter 8 The Shady Lady

  So I could watch Fortuna arrive, I went up the steps to Studio 17 in Main Street at 3.50 p.m.

  School had been yuk today. In Mr Grant’s class they were still writing up interviews with ‘oldest family members’. Unless I asked Mum, how could I do mine? But I did ask the science teacher about DNA. Turns out you need a body. Or at least body samples.

  ‘What sort of samples?’ I’d asked Mr Noel.

  ‘Medical biopsies taken for hospital tests last up to fifteen years.’

  ‘Do they take samples in Intensive Care?’

  Mr Noel looked at me a bit strangely. ‘Possibly. They’d be called path. samples. Biopsies. Luke is doing frogs for his assignment. Are you thinking of studying DNA as your science topic for this assignment, Zoe?’

  ‘Er…Yes.’ I’d forgotten about that science assignment. Too busy with family history.

  In the past, Gran always helped me with school work. But when I started asking questions for my history assignment about when and why she came to Australia in 1956, she kept changing the subject to my hockey training, or ‘Let’s open some Tim Tams.’

  Mr Grant had said to copy documents like birth and marriage certificates or passports, so I asked Gran for hers. She didn’t want to let me photocopy them. I thought it was because she didn’t want to let them out of her sight. But it was more than that. I knew a bit about passports because Mum got a new one when she went to Antarctica, even though she was working in an Australian territory and didn’t need a passport for there.

  ‘In a polar emergency, I might be taken out to South America or even the Falklands, and then I’d need a passport to move in and out of countries,’ Mum explained. ‘And my old passport had a very unflattering photo.’

  That bit was true. Mum’s nose stuck out in the old photo. Just like Gran’s and mine, although Gran didn’t worry how she looked. She just worried about her history.

  I remember the thoughtful way Gran looked when she poured the mousse mixture into bowls and said,‘ Everyone has secrets in their past. If we tell them, they are no longer secrets. And maybe others will be hurt. Have a taste of this.’ She gave me the spoon to lick.

  ‘What sort of secrets?’ I licked the spoon and the mousse tasted wonderful. ‘Secret recipes? Cooking secrets?’

  Gran shook her head with a smile. ’Nothing as simple as that. I have a political secret. Something, which you would find hard to understand in today’s Australia. Fear can make you do unusual things.’

  Gran put the mousse bowls into the refrigerator.

  ‘What sort of fear?’ I was beginning to sound like one of those pushy TV interviewers that shove a mike up your nose for the thirty-second grab on the 6 p.m. news.

  Gran ignored my question. ‘Switch on the music. Try this on.’ That’s when she let me try on her new dancing outfit: the red veil, baggy pants and even the gold coin belt which fits on the hips and clanks when you walk. That’s when the vivid colours and sounds started to interest me as ‘dress-ups’. I loved the feel of the silky material as I moved.

  ‘Play with colour and music. Be someone else for a few minutes.’

  I remember saying, ‘When you get as old as you Gran, do you still like dressing up?’

  ‘Of course. Inside, I feel only your age.’

  Maybe, but outside, she looked old, with lots of wrinkles around her neck. At least the veil covered her wrinkly tummy. Playing the music at full volume, we had fun that afternoon. And we ate all the Tim Tams.

  Only after, I realised I didn’t see the certificates or the passport. Gran was excellent at changing the subject. This time she had distracted me with food and dancing. In class, Mr Grant said towns had been destroyed or over-run during wartime and records lost, especially if the town hall had been bombed. Missing documents made it hard to prove who you were. Maybe it worked both ways? You could claim to be someone like Magda from a town where no records were left.

  So here I was now, meeting the mysterious Fortuna at Studio 17, the fancy name for the belly-dancing place. I felt in my backpack for Gran’s red dancing outfit, which was a link to my fun past, when Gran and I mucked around instead of doing homework. I also had my hockey gear for later.

  Ground level, the shop looked seedy. A worn red carpet covered the stairs to the first-floor dance room. A crystal ball hung from the ceiling, its movements reflecting lights and creating another world. Music wailed. Mirror walls reflected the dancers, suggesting more than the real number that were there.

  Behind a sign on a card table, marked: Clara the clairvoyant — fortunes told, sat a woman wearing rainbow scarves. Because I’d been thinking about the name Fortuna, I paused.

  ‘What’s the time?’ Clara asked. I glanced at my watch.

  ‘Three minutes to four,’ I said. Surely a clairvoyant should have known that! If they can tell the future, they should at least know the time.

  The drum beat got faster. A belly dancer was performing under the crystal light. Necklaces and bracelets clinked as she moved gracefully in her pink, see-through harem pants. Arms moved like snakes.

  Clapping and swaying to the beat, a woman about Gran’s age, in t-shirt, trackie pants, and bare feet looked as out of place as I was in my Hedge High school uniform. (Mum always bought me the full uniform so I wouldn’t feel out of place in a new school. Some chance.) Didn’t look like Fortuna was here yet, but maybe I could find out stuff.

  ‘Excuse me. My gran took belly-dancing classes here,’ I said. ‘Her name was Magda. Did you know her?’

  Behind, the mirror-wall reflections multiplied the dancers as the old woman looked at me intently through her see-over glasses.

  ‘Does she have a different dancing name? Most do, you know. Was she a gypsy? A traveller? Gypsies tell fortunes, or they used to, before al
l these new taxes. Part of the cash economy they used to be. Now we all have to fill in forms.’

  ‘Zaria was her dancing name, I think. There was a message to be here at 4 p.m. to meet Fortuna.’ This was really stupid. I should never have come.

  ‘Here, I’m Fortuna. Why isn’t Zaria here tonight?’

  There was no simple way to say it. I started. ‘She’s, er …dead. It was her funeral yesterday.’

  Fortuna staggered and I grabbed her arm. She looked really old, all of a sudden. ‘If she’s not coming, I’d better go,’ said Fortuna hurriedly.

  I held her arm. ‘Wait. I need to know things…about my gran. About Madga… And if Fortuna’s really your name, I’ve got something for you, from her.’

  ‘What?’ Fortuna said suspiciously. Above us, the swaying crystal ball picked up the lights. This was seriously unreal stuff. Like being inside a cyber-game. This would freak Luke more than the funeral chapel music.

  ‘Postcards with your name on the outside.’ I dragged them out of my backpack.

  Fortuna ran her fingers around the card edges gently. ‘She kept them! I remember sending these. Your grandmother and I grew up together in the same village. We went to university together. But I lost touch with her once she left for Australia.’

  ‘Was she called Magda when you were girls?’ Fortuna knew answers I needed.

  Fortuna shook her head. ‘Dagmar Kiss was her name. But many things change, including names.’

  Looking across at the fortune-telling stall, I asked, ‘Did you use the name Fortuna here because it was something to do with telling fortunes?’ A guess, and this time I was right.

  Fortuna laughed. ‘Good fortune. I saw the signs the first time I came here. As village girls, we loved to dance. And this was the next-best thing. I met your grandmother here, by accident, a couple of years ago. Her face went white when I cried out, ‘Dagmar!’ She had a different life now, so we agreed to use just our dancing names here. I was Fortuna and she was Zaria. We ‘played’ and relaxed here, dancing for ourselves, not others. Belly-dancing is the new yoga. Probably the two oldest belly-dancers they’ve ever had. I’m sorry that your grandmother has died. She was a very unusual and brave woman.’