The Tying of Threads

by Joy Dettman

  The grunter was in Teddy’s arms, which to Georgie looked highly ridiculous. Trudy did the required amount of worshipping of Michael John Hall, which enabled Georgie to keep her distance – watched her coo at its smiling face, listened to her speak of assisting at a few deliveries – and how in God’s name anyone could stand around watching that, Georgie didn’t know.

  Granny had. She’d delivered a few generations of this town. She’d delivered Georgie, and Elsie’s six.

  ‘I’d like two or three more,’ Vonnie said, which turned the conversation to pregnancies and caesareans – time for Georgie to excuse herself, to walk outside for a smoke and wonder if there was something queer about her. Dino Collins and Raelene had called her the red dyke. In one of the places she’d been where women were thin on the ground, she’d told a stockman she was queer.

  Cigarettes don’t burn long and a smoker gets rid of one faster when the air outside is frosty. The conversation had turned to Trudy’s ten-day holiday in America when the smoker returned, and the new Hall god was in Elsie’s arms.

  ‘Of all the places you could go, why America?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘Sophie’s got an uncle and aunty over there and half a dozen cousins she’s never met.’

  Georgie knew why Jenny didn’t like America. Trudy, Jim and the Halls didn’t know. Georgie knew that the miniature grunter in Elsie’s arms was Trudy’s half-brother. Trudy didn’t know. She didn’t know that the earth where her natural mother had died had been turned over this morning, that turning it had been Georgie’s private burial service for Margot.

  Years ago, Jenny and Elsie wanted to tell Trudy the facts of her birth. Jim and Harry hadn’t, so she’d never been told.

  The male and the female animal were two different species. Their brains functioned in a different way. How could a marriage between the two have any hope of working? Some did. Evidence of that was in this kitchen. A lot didn’t. The Paul disciple had been married until his wife caught the seven-year itch and took off for Queensland with a workmate.

  ‘Any boyfriends, Tru?’ Vonnie asked.

  ‘A few,’ Trudy said, and everyone laughed. Georgie wanted another smoke – or wanted to ask Teddy to move his car. What time did babies go to bed?

  Harry, who must have been feeling the pinch, rolled a smoke while Trudy gave him a lecture on the hazards of smoking.

  She was a nice kid, a totally together kid who’d decided early on her trade and never wavered – and she was no kid now. Still seemed like a kid to Georgie – a kid with Teddy’s eyes, big and brown and expressive, with Teddy’s dark hair, held back from her face tonight by a stretchy blue headband. Looked like Alice in Wonderland – after she’d eaten the grow tall biscuit. Harry and Teddy’s height had somehow been enough to cancel Margot’s and the Macdonalds’ lack of it.

  On paper, she was Jenny and Jim’s daughter and Georgie’s half-sister. By blood she was Georgie’s niece. She called Elsie and Harry Nan and Pa. Always had. Had she ever questioned why? Would she ever question why? Knowing Trudy, probably not, and tonight, Georgie envied her disinterest in where she’d come from.

  The Hall kids had been born knowing who they were. As a twelve year old, Teddy had known what he’d been born to do. At seventeen, Vonnie had known she’d wanted Teddy. She’d set her sights on him and chased him until he’d stopped running. And he looked happy to have stopped his running, looked content, his son back in his arms.

  Did I ever want anything enough to go after it? Georgie asked herself. She’d gone after her bits of paper, had studied hard to pass the accountancy exams, though not because she had any desire to become an accountant. Her only reason for doing it had been to prove to herself that she could – and she had to do something about replacing that piece of paper, had to speak to Amy McPherson tomorrow.

  She’d once envied kids their fathers. She’d envied the Hall kids, who’d called Harry Dad. As a four year old she’d envied Margot’s two fathers. She’d put on such a turn one day in town, Jenny had produced Laurie Morgan’s photograph, cut from a newspaper, glued around a bit of cardboard cut from a cereal packet. For a lot of years – or three years, which is a lot when you’re a kid – Georgie had believed her daddy to be a famous movie star.

  She was seven years old that day in Armadale when she’d removed famous daddy from his frame and read the few available lines of print glued around his cardboard mounting. Redheaded water-pistol bandit . . . she’d read. Arrested in Geelong . . .

  Could still see those words. She’d almost tossed him that day. A few times since, she’d almost tossed him, but that newspaper cutting was half of who she was and, watching Trudy and Teddy, she knew how large that half might be, and how do you throw away the only contact you’ve ever had with half of yourself?

  Harry went out the back door to light his smoke. Georgie went the other way, through the large and frosty entrance hall to the sitting room where a log fire smouldered in the grate, warming maybe a foot of air around it. A cold room, but pretty with its deep blue velvet drapes and fancy pelmets, its semi modern couch and chairs upholstered to match the drapes. She lit a smoke and stood smouldering with the fire, hoping her smoke would join the logs’ and go up the chimney.

  This room had been well built in its day, with wide decorative cornices, a fancy mantelpiece and a beautiful old fireplace, a fancy light fitting which shed too little light hanging from the ridiculously high ceiling. She toed a smouldering log into a blaze then returned to the warmth of the kitchen.

  The grunter ate at ten. The Halls went home so he might dine on breast and Georgie picked up her handbag to follow them out to the car. Watched Trudy give Elsie and Harry hugs, and again wondered if she’d ever questioned why she gave them hugs.

  ‘See you next time, darlin’,’ Elsie said.

  ‘Love you, Nan and Pa.’

  Maybe you grow up not caring too much about where you came from when you live with two parents in the biggest house in town. Georgie copped another Trudy kiss before she moved her Torana, freeing Georgie to drive home to her draughty squat.

  *

  The removal of that bedroom door had caused its wall to buckle, and by mid-August the house was creaking and groaning like an old bloke with arthritis, but with every inch of that blackened earth turned, Georgie had started on the removal of the concrete slab. She was making a lot of noise but little impression when Jack Thompson crept up on her one Sunday morning.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ she said. ‘Do you know anything about breaking up concrete?’

  ‘Have you got a sledgehammer?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve tried that.’

  ‘A crowbar?’

  She’d tried that too, but she fetched the tools he’d ask for from the shed and he gave her a practical demonstration on how to break up a slab of concrete. It was a two-man job. While one shoved the crowbar beneath a corner and heaved, the other one gave the cement a decent whack with the sledgehammer. Their first whack broke away a good-sized chunk which required four hands to move it.

  ‘You’re not just a pretty face,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve got a lot of hidden qualities,’ he said.

  They worked side by side then, taking turns on hammer and crowbar. Always good mates, Georgie and Jack – becoming more than best mates had ruined a good friendship. They worked all morning and when backs and hands complained, they stacked the broken-off lumps of concrete along the fenceline as an added deterrent to the hens.

  They worked together until the sun disappeared behind the treetops, and like an old and weary married couple crossed over the goat paddock, he to open the beer and pour it into glasses while she stoked up the stove and set Granny’s frying pan on to heat.

  They ate eggs and toast for dinner, emptied the bottle of beer then drank coffee, he seated on the south side of the table on an upturned packing crate, she seated on the north side, on her oil drum chair.

  He turned the conversation to Collins. ‘I saw him a wee
k ago. He was like a zombie.’

  ‘Still in his wheelchair?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s got the use of his arms, and I’ll almost swear I saw his knee twitch. He didn’t open his mouth while I was there, just sat picking at that tattoo he’s got on his knuckles.’

  ‘A Willama bloke broke his neck diving into the creek a few years ago. His foot doesn’t twitch – or his hands. He’ll lull everyone into a false sense of security then do a runner.’

  ‘Not the bloke I saw last week.’

  ‘Will he go to trial again?’

  ‘And have every bleeding-heart in the country up in arms?’

  ‘So he gets away with it?’

  ‘He’s not going anywhere, love.’

  She made more coffee, and lit a smoke. He lit his own and was counting what he had left in his packet when she asked how to go about finding someone she’d lost track of.

  ‘Electoral rolls,’ he said.

  ‘Been there, done that. Can a cop track them down through their rego numbers?’

  ‘Who do you want to track down?’

  ‘Cara Norris – Grenville.’

  ‘I thought you said she was your cousin. Oh,’ he said. ‘I almost forgot why I came up here. Are you still interested in locating your water-pistol bandit?’

  ‘You arrested him?’

  His hair might have receded, he might have added a few stone, but his smile hadn’t altered.

  ‘I put Dad onto tracking him down – after our trip to Frankston,’ he said.

  She’d told him about Laurie Morgan the night they’d driven Margot home, Trudy unnamed, unwanted, in the city in a humidicrib. He’d suggested asking his retired policeman father to see what he could do about locating Laurence Morgan, and she’d told him very definitely not to tell his father.

  ‘What did he find out?’

  ‘Plenty, by the feel of the envelope.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me back then?’

  ‘It wasn’t through lack of trying. I must have phoned you a dozen times and had the phone slammed down in my ear as many,’ he said.

  She played with her packet of cigarettes. ‘You disturbed my equilibrium.’

  ‘You did your own disturbing of mine. Still do for that matter. Anyway, Mum found it a few weeks back when she was clearing out Dad’s desk.’

  ‘What’s in it?’

  ‘It’s sealed and it’s got your name on it, but from what I recall, there were photographs, newspaper cuttings and pages of Dad’s notes.’

  ‘Mug shot photographs?’

  ‘I seem to recall him in uniform in one of them.’

  ‘Prison uniform?’

  ‘Army. He was standing with two other chaps. They were wearing slouch hats.’

  ‘He was jailed for three years in ’39. The army wouldn’t take crims.’

  ‘It will be in the envelope,’ he said. ‘And once the Japs came into the war I think they were taking every able-bodied man they could get.’ He reached out a hand to ruffle her elongated crew-cut. ‘It’s growing,’ he said. ‘You’re starting to look a bit more like yourself.’

  ‘Jenny threatened to murder me if I shear it,’ she said.

  ‘How come you never married, love?’

  ‘I’m queer,’ she said.

  ‘That outfit will do it for you, though I reckon I know better,’ he said. She drew smoke and blew three perfect smoke rings at him, and he smiled. ‘How do you do that?’

  ‘Practice.’

  ‘You didn’t smoke when I knew you.’

  ‘I was nineteen in ’59, Jacko. A lot can happen in twenty years.’

  ‘Mum told me once that you never get over your first love. There’s a part of me that won’t let go of you,’ he said. She directed three more perfect rings at him. ‘If that’s your usual response when a bloke declares his lifelong love, it could be what’s holding you back.’

  ‘Back from what?’

  ‘Getting married. Having a few kids.’

  ‘I’m footloose and fancy free, and that’s the way I like it.’

  ‘There’s no future in it, no eternity.’

  ‘I thought eternity was what came later – if you don’t end up in hell.’

  ‘It comes with your kids,’ he said. ‘I look at Johnny and Ronny and I see my dad and myself in them, and I know that if I live long enough, I’ll see my dad and myself in their sons. That’s my eternity – and I’d better get back. I told Mum I’d be a couple of hours.’

  ‘Idiot. She’ll be worrying about you.’

  ‘She knew where I was going,’ he said.

  ‘Can you post that envelope up to me?’

  ‘I can do better than that. It’s in my glove box.’

  She was out the door before him. She was trying his door handle when he came with his keys, and when he handed her a large manila envelope, she held it to her breast, her arms crossed over it. She expected him to get into the car. Not yet ready to go, he kissed her and she didn’t have a hand, or the heart, or maybe the desire, to belt him. Should have belted him. He drew her close and kissed her again.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to do that for twenty years,’ he said, his mouth close to her own, then he went back for more, and maybe she wasn’t queer. She remembered his kiss. Didn’t fight him until he came up for air, when she held him off with a palm on his chest.

  ‘We look at the past through rose-tinted glasses, Jack, and see some utopian place where kids played. It was never what we thought it was.’

  ‘It was for me,’ he said, reaching again to hold her. She gave him a light tap on the cheek with the envelope then stepped back.

  ‘Thanks for this. Tell your mum thanks for not tossing it out.’

  ‘I loved you back then and I love you now. I think I get it under control, then I see you and I know that nothing has changed for me, nor ever will.’

  ‘Your marital status has,’ she said. ‘The past was crap, Jack. Ta for the cement, but don’t come back.’

  ‘I’ll come back,’ he said.

  ‘Then I won’t be here.’

  She watched his tail-lights disappear into the bush, knowing she could have had a different life with him, that she could have shared his eternity – or messed it up. His kids would have been redheads, would have looked like the water-pistol bandit and not like their father.

  Back in the kitchen, she ripped her way into the envelope and emptied its contents on the table. There must have been twenty-odd pages of Laurence George Morgan, copies of old newspaper reports, handwritten pages. Afraid to look closer, to discover that Tom Thompson had found the wrong Laurie Morgan, she lit a cigarette and made another coffee before sitting down on the upturned crate.

  In 1959, when Tom had done his search, Laurence George Morgan had been living in Essendon, Melbourne, with his wife, two small sons and infant daughter. He’d been employed in the menswear department of Myers. And of course it wasn’t Georgie’s Laurence Morgan. He’d been a bank robber. He’d held up a jeweller with his water pistol. He’d stolen cars.

  Her fingers delving deeper found a photograph, in sepia tones. Three men wearing slouch hats and army trousers, one wearing a singlet, one a shirt and one’s chest bare. They were standing over an unexploded bomb, and the bloke baring his chest looked like a young Clark Gable wearing his slouch hat at a cocky angle.

  And she breathed. She breathed and touched her father’s face with an index finger. It was him.

  ‘My God.’

  Fingers delving deeper still until she found a pristine newspaper photograph, identical to the mug shot she’d been carrying around since she was four years old.

  ‘My God.’

  As a kid, she’d seen Laurie Morgan as a man. He was a boy, and a nice-looking boy in 1939. If he was still alive, he’d be an old man now. Jenny would turn fifty-six in December, and her water pistol-bandit had been years her senior – not as old as John McPherson. Younger than Amy.

  She read of his parents’ and sister’s death, read of his every escapade, then
found the date of his release from prison – not from Long Bay but from a prison farm. For twenty years she’d seen him as an old lag, locked up in Long Bay.

  He’d been honourably discharged from the army in 1945.

  ‘My God.’

  She’d slept with the framed image of her father beneath her pillow until Jenny had moved them to Ray King’s rooms in Armadale, where he’d spent a few months on the windowsill, beside Jimmy’s photograph of his father.

  The day she’d removed him from his frame, she’d considered a burial, in the garden where Jenny had buried Ray’s sheep livers. She’d dug the hole, had found an empty custard powder packet for a coffin. Couldn’t put him in the dirt, so she’d buried him in one of Jenny’s kitchen dresser drawers, beneath the fancy tablecloths she’d never used.

  The contents of that manila envelope again altered Georgie’s image of Laurence George Morgan. The old lag with the flattened nose and cauliflower ears was gone and in his place had risen the Myers salesman, the married man, the father of three.

  Then it hit her. His kids were as much her siblings as had been Margot and Jimmy and Cara – though closer in age to Trudy. And she had to tell Jenny, had to show her what Jack’s father had found. She didn’t look at her watch. Knew it was late but also knew that Jenny never went to bed early.

  The papers shovelled back into their envelope, she picked up her keys and handbag and drove into town.

  TIME

  Archie Foote, a sprightly eighty-odd, may have made his century if not for old man kangaroo’s decision to cross over the road as Archie had driven by too fast to swerve. Archibald Gerald Foote had died as he’d lived, in a hurry to get to somewhere else fast.

  The date of Gertrude Foote’s birth, hidden behind her crazy tombstone, was considered by many to be a joke in very poor taste. It would have made her twelve months away from ninety when she’d waved her final goodbye from the goat paddock. Gertrude Foote had ridden her horse into town not six weeks before she’d died and hadn’t looked a day over seventy.