by Wendy James
Ed has cut the notice carefully from all of the papers. The nine copies are pinned neatly to the cork board in the office, waiting to be filed. Susan prises out the drawing pin and takes the top clipping.
Would Karen Michelle Brown
(formerly of Harbord NSW)
or any person having information regarding her
past or present whereabouts
please contact Howard Hamilton at
Shepard Hamilton Sloane Solicitors.
Suite 6, 4 Peel Street, Chatswood.
She thinks about their names. Susan. Karen. Their lack of meaning, of connection. If their names held some particular association for her parents, Susan was never told – as far as she knows they were named for no one, for no particular reason. Their names have no history, no past. They are names typical of their era: Karen was fashionable and so was Michelle. At school Susan was always Susan C. to differentiate her from the three other Susans in her class. Susan’s middle name is Louise – the bridesmaid of names, a perfect middle name, containing the required number of syllables, nothing more than a convenient filler. At home she was usually Sukey. Or Susy, Suse, Sue. She was only ever Susan when she was in some trouble or other. If you don’t stop doing that right this minute, Susan Louise Carter ... It was impossible to shorten Karen’s name. She was always just Karen.
***
Waiting, she is in a state not unlike those first days of pregnancy, when it seems that everywhere you look there are women lumbering with their eight-month bellies, or pushing new babies in prams. Everywhere Susan looks she see sisters. At the school gate a tiny kindergarten kid – her dress too long, shoes extra shiny – grips her sixth grade sister’s hand tightly; another shouts something, gives her younger sister a sneaky shove with her bag before running off with friends. A pair of elderly women – their identical bright blue eyes the giveaway – walk slowly along the beach, trousers rolled up to their knees, shoes swinging loosely in their hands. Queuing at the supermarket Susan eavesdrops unabashedly as the young women ahead of her talk heatedly and unselfconsciously about their mother: ‘I can’t believe sometimes, that she’s actually our mother. She’s so irresponsible,’ says one. ‘She’s just lonely,’ her more generous sibling replies. ‘She needs the attention.’ Even stopping at traffic lights she imagines sisterly similarities in the faces of drivers and passengers, between female pedestrians crossing together at the lights.
For the first time ever Susan is envious. Is filled with a real sense – an adult sense – of what she’s missed out on. Of what she’s lost. She has female friends, good female friends – her best friend Anna, her sister-in-law, girls she went through college with, colleagues at work – but with none of them does she have that uncomplicated ease, that familiarity that she sees between these women. She notices the casual way they touch one another – the brisk removal of lint from shoulders, of lipstick from teeth, the hair brushed away from faces, sunscreen smoothed onto skin. She envies them their easy impatience, too, the scornful shrug of the shoulders, roll of the eyes, the knowledge of each other’s shortcomings, fears, failures. She envies most of all their shared history, their shared past.
***
The week before she is due to start her college nursing course, Susan visits her mother. She visits only every month or so now – and then for just a few hours at a time. She goes for lunch usually, or sometimes brings Chinese takeaway for an early dinner. It has been years since she has stayed overnight – and anyway there is no longer anywhere for her to stay. Her mother has closed off most of the house, and lives entirely in the kitchen and lounge room, where she has set up her bed on the couch. She gave up working years ago, and Susan guesses that her father supports her, or at least supplements her government entitlements, though he never mentions it. She knows he or Gillian calls in every week to bring groceries and to check that she’s okay, that she’s bathing, eating regularly, but they never mention this either. Nobody ever suggests that Susan should do more – she is young and busy – and the time that she spends with her mother is painful enough.
Today her mother has set the table for a formal afternoon tea; the good silver teapot – a wedding present from an English aunt – has been brought out of storage, and the dainty china cups have matching saucers and tiny silver teaspoons. She has covered the table with a lacy cloth that doesn’t quite hide the smeared and crummy surface beneath. Neat stacks of Scotch Finger biscuits grace a scalloped Wedgwood cake plate.
‘Karen won’t be long,’ her mother says as she fills the cups. ‘She called me from London last night and said she’d be here in time for afternoon tea. She said we should start without her, not to let it all get cold, not to let it spoil, waiting.’
The tea is stone cold, and the surface looks slightly greasy. Susan pretends to take a sip. ‘Mmm,’ she murmurs. ‘Delicious. Just what I need. Thanks Mum.’
Her mother blows on the surface of her tea. She breaks a biscuit in two, dunks one half, and pops it into her mouth. Swallows the finger in a single noisy gulp. She’s no longer the thin, haggard, underfed woman of Susan’s childhood, but is unhealthily plump – a result of years of inactivity, overeating and medication.
‘Did I tell you I start college next week, Mum?’ Susan says brightly. ‘Nursing’s a three year course at college now, it’s not taught in the hospitals anymore. Not like when you did it.’ Susan keeps going, though her mother isn’t even looking her way, is humming tunelessly to herself through another mouthful of soggy biscuit. ‘I’ll get a diploma in applied science at the end of it. And then I start work as a sister.’
Her mother nods and mutters. ‘A sister. A sister.’ Susan has her attention now. ‘Your sister Karen is a very fine doctor,’ she announces with a proud smile. ‘All her patients tell me she’s a fine doctor. One of the best.’ She slurps her tea, lifts a corner of the tablecloth and delicately wipes her mouth. ‘You should be proud, too. It’s no small thing, having a doctor in the family. Your sister; you should be proud.’
She presents Susan with a cardboard carton as she leaves. ‘I’m having a bit of a spring clean, dear,’ she says, ‘and I thought I’d give you a few of your old things, things you might not want me to throw out.’ As far as Susan can recall, she’s left nothing here, but she takes the carton anyway. ‘I thought I might take a short holiday when I’ve finished here,’ her mother says as Susan kisses her goodbye. ‘I thought I might take a train down to Melbourne to stay with Karen for a few days. It’ll be lovely to see Karen and the kids,’ she adds, a little teary now. ‘I’m lucky to have such lovely grandkids,’ she tells Susan earnestly. ‘So many things to be grateful for.’
Susan opens the box when she gets home. They’re not her things after all, but Karen’s. A couple of netball trophies – best and fairest, 1973; most consistent player, 1975 – and a random selection of her books: Carrie, Jaws, Go Ask Alice, some hard-backed Agatha Christies and a few old Nancy Drews. There’s a battered address book and several dressing table trinkets: a Victorian pincushion and a pair of china kissing angels; a maroon-and-white Manly football beanie; a Certificate of Merit in Biology for the year 1974. Susan is surprised that her mother’s kept anything belonging to Karen. Soon after the separation, all her sister’s belongings were consigned to the incinerator, and everything that couldn’t be burnt was sent to the tip. Nothing was donated, it was as if her mother wanted all evidence of Karen’s existence destroyed. She must have hidden this collection of things away from herself. But this is a strange assortment, there’s nothing here that’s characteristic, nothing telling – they’re meaningless bits and pieces.
At the bottom of the carton are several slim manila folders – all with Karen scrawled darkly across the top. Inside is a copy of some official document – a police report. In the second folder are newspaper clippings detailing Karen’s disappearance and the subsequent search. They range from front-page articles in the Manly Daily with six by
six blowups of Karen’s last school photograph; to a single paragraph in the Sun. Police give up hunt for missing teenager. Girl feared dead.
Susan dumps everything back into the carton, tapes it up and shoves it as far back in the wardrobe as she can. She is starting college in a week. She has her own life to get on with.
She has chosen nursing because she has enough marks and because, as her father has pointed out, nursing is a sensible job for a girl. ‘It’s not as if you’ve got any burning ambition, Sukey,’ he says, ‘or any particular talent. Nursing’s respectable and flexible and the pay’s reasonable, though I can’t understand why you have to go to college. Waste of time if you ask me. I don’t understand all this bullshit about careers for girls, anyway,’ he adds somewhat irritably. ‘You’ll all just end up getting married and having kids like your mothers.’ Susan’s father has become unashamedly reactionary as he’s aged, and she is often appalled by his curmudgeonly declarations, can’t imagine what Gillian sees in him, but has never braved asking, perhaps fearing that underneath the flamboyant clothes and eccentric opinions Gillian would secretly like to shave her legs and don flesh-coloured pantyhose.
Anyway, Susan takes no offence, makes no objections because, as she sees it, her father’s probably right. It’s true – she has no burning ambition, no particular talent. Judging by her final exam results, she’s reasonably, but not outstandingly, bright. She has no flair for art or music or textiles or sport. She abandoned the acting fantasy in her junior years of high school. She has no desire to be a lawyer or a doctor, or to study arts or engineering. But she doesn’t want to be a check-out chick or spend her life waitressing, either. So, ultimately, if rather unimaginatively, it’s a choice between teaching and nursing, and considering that her mediocre marks will barely secure her a place in primary education in a rural college, nursing’s really the only option. She can’t claim that she has a burning desire to make people well, to heal or to nurture, but then, at her age, who does? Like many girls her age, Susan’s only significant desire is the usual one. And, were anyone to ask, she’d have to admit that the prospect of meeting a nice young doctor (isn’t that every young nurse’s dream?) is appealing.
He is not a doctor, but a business studies student at the CAE. He’s not quite a man either, but the same age as Susan: nineteen – just a boy, really. She is eating an early lunch – a pay-by-weight meat and salad sandwich – between lectures; is sitting contentedly alone at one of the courtyard tables at the college cafe, when another student, male, asks if she’d mind sharing. She says no, go ahead, but can’t help wondering, after a quick look around, why he wants to share when there are so many empty tables. The boy takes the seat across from Susan, heaves his backpack onto the vacant chair. Her initial impression is that he’s reasonably good-looking – maybe his hair’s a bit shorter than what’s currently fashionable and he is, perhaps, a bit too boy-scouty, it’s possible that he’s a Christian or a young Liberal on a mission – so she keeps her eyes cast down, chews her food slowly, self-consciously, trying hard not to gulp or dribble.
‘You’re from the beaches aren’t you?’ His voice is deep, his vowels neutral.
‘What beaches?’ Susan knows she sounds impatient, that her tone could even be taken as scornful, dismissive. It’s just nerves.
He perseveres. ‘The northern beaches. I’m sure I’ve seen you swimming at Freshie. I’m from Harbord.’ He’s smiling warmly, encouragingly. Susan wonders when it was that he saw her there – she hasn’t been in the surf for months. She wonders what swimmers she was wearing.
‘Actually, yeah, I do. I am. Well, sort of.’ Susan tries to appear less wary. ‘I live in Manly, but my Mum’s at Harbord. I don’t know if that counts.’
‘Oh, yeah – Manly counts alright. Good surf.’ He nods approvingly, smiles. ‘Mackellar Girls?’
‘Yep. You were at Manly?’
‘Uh huh. Don’t know how we’ve never met.’
He has great teeth, and the faintest of dimples in his right cheek. ‘So. What’re you studying?’
‘Nursing.’
‘Nursing? Then how come you’re here? At college? I thought nurses trained in hospitals.’ His eyes, wide set, heavily lashed, are an impossibly bright blue. They twinkle. She wonders how it is that she’s never noticed him before.
‘They’ve changed the system.’ Her reply is too abrupt.
‘Oh.’ He seems suddenly at a loss, looks away, his shoulders slumped.
Susan contemplates packing up and going – her chemistry lecture begins in five minutes – but she can’t leave the conversation there. She tries hard to combat her nerves, to inject some casual warmth into her voice, ‘So, what’re you studying?’
He brightens at her enquiry. ‘Business. Marketing options mainly.’
‘That sounds interesting.’
‘Oh, it’s fantastic. I’m learning some unbelievable stuff. Huge. Life-changing. Did you know that just through the introduction of peer reviews, a company can increase employee productivity by up to eighty per cent? Just imagine it, eighty per cent!’
Susan has no idea what he’s talking about, but she doesn’t care. All the other boys she’s met at college have been cool, restrained, have been trying hard to be cynical, to seem grownup. This boy is different. He’s so unselfconsciously enthusiastic, so convinced of the wisdom of what he’s learning.
‘You should come to the three o’clock lecture, I’m sure no one would mind. He’s an unreal guy, the lecturer – totally inspiring. He’ll make it all much clearer than I can. Why don’t you come?’ He looks doubtful. ‘I mean – that is – if you’re interested.’
She’s interested.
‘By the way,’ he says, holding out his hand, ‘I’m Ed. Ed Middleton.’
Although there’s the odd occasion when parents are absent and surreptitious overnight stays are possible, it’s almost impossible for Ed and Susan to spend long periods of time together.
It even proves difficult to meet outside college during the week – Ed’s mother, though not overtly hostile, doesn’t approve of Susan. ‘Ed’s studying, I’m afraid,’ she’ll say over the phone, ‘I don’t think I should disturb him.’ Or, ‘He’s helping his dad at the factory today, dear, and you can’t call him there. I’ll let him know you called ... er ... Sally, is it? Perhaps he can get back to you tomorrow...?’
Ed, though anxious himself, and conspicuously nervous whenever they’re both in his mother’s company, tries to reassure her. ‘I think it’s just that you’re so quiet around her, Sue, so reserved. I think quiet people make her uncomfortable.’ He makes suggestions: ‘Perhaps if you’d open up a little; try to be more friendly. Maybe you could start conversations; talk about the weather, the tennis...? I think she just doesn’t know what to make of you.’
But Susan suspects that it is the little she does know of her that offends the respectable Mrs Middleton: her parents’ divorce (‘Such a sad thing, divorce,’ she sniffs. ‘We’re lucky, in our family, we’ve all managed to keep together. Seven siblings between us, Mr Middleton and I have. And there’s not been a single divorce. Not one!’); her mother’s ‘illness’ (‘Oh dear, a psychological problem is it? Fortunately we’ve never had to cope with that sort of thing in our family. It’s just not in our make-up, I suppose.’); her father’s live-in girlfriend (‘Gillian’s your stepmother, is she, dear? They’re not actually married? Oh, I see.’); even the fact that Susan lives in a unit (‘Oh, I do think that must be hard. All those neighbours. And no garden. No sunshine. It can’t be healthy.’). It is possible too that, being local, she remembers Karen’s disappearance, though Susan has never mentioned it to her. Or to Ed. Instead, she has told Ed that her older sister died of meningitis when she was a child. This is the tale she tells any new friends or acquaintances. It’s an easier story to tell, somehow, and the more frequently she’s called upon to tell it, the more real it feels.
While he doesn’t disapprove of Ed in particular, Susan’s father has made it clear (despite both Gillian’s and his daughter’s remonstrations) that he will not welcome frequent visits by young men. ‘They take up so much space,’ he huffs. ‘Their big feet. Their pimples. Their callow arrogance.’ He sucks in his cheeks, ‘And they eat so much.’ Ed’s visits, as awkward and uncomfortable as Sue’s visits to the Middleton home, are restricted to Friday nights, between the hours of six and ten pm.
Though neither of them are especially keen on the outdoors, out of desperation Ed and Susan take up camping. They go away together every few weekends when Ed can get away from work, stop at different beaches and camping grounds along the Central Coast, sleep in the back of Ed’s newly resprayed EH Holden wagon, his pride and joy.
Susan tells her father that they are staying at a friend’s holiday house at The Entrance. It is his imagined response to them sleeping in the back of the car, rather than to the outrageous fact of their sleeping together, that keeps Susan from telling him the truth – and though she knows he has reservations about Ed’s driving ability and the age and reliability of his vehicle, he makes no real objections to their weekends away. Susan’s not sure what Ed tells his parents, but assumes, noting his barely suppressed panic whenever they are held up on the congested freeway on Sunday nights and the frequent calls he makes from garage payphones along the way, that he, too, is lying.
‘Why don’t we move in together?’ Susan has woken up cramped and cold in the back of the wagon. Ed is lying on his side, facing away from her, his knees pulled up almost to his chest in order to fit. They have been going out for more than six months, and with no perceptible diminution of interest, but Susan can no longer pretend to herself that the extreme inconvenience, the humiliating privation of their weekends together – the mosquitos, the lack of decent food, the vaguely sordid coupling on the hard floor of the wagon-tray (or occasionally, for variety, on the back seat), the interminable walks to the smelly amenity block for a pee – represents in any way the apotheosis of romantic love. Moving in together seems a reasonable way to avoid these weekends of deception and discomfort. ‘Ed?’ she nudges him gently when no answer’s forthcoming, ‘why not move in together?’