Laura knew she needed an element of surprise, so when Glenda turned into a paved driveway and she saw the garage door open, she kept driving past. She didn’t want Glenda to see her at all.
Parking a few streets away, Laura walked quickly back, trying once more to work through her opening lines.
When she arrived at the house, she stopped, intimidated. The place was large. Painted white with black awnings, it radiated status, looking exactly like the sort of abode rich people should have. Momentary fear was quickly overtaken by anger.
Walking up the driveway, she pressed the bell and waited. Within moments, she heard the clicking of heels on tiles.
The door opened. The two women stared at each other for a moment. Glenda’s mouth fell open in shock. She began to close the door.
Without thinking, Laura put her arm up to stop the door closing and pushed forward. ‘Hello, Mrs Hunter,’ she said. ‘I was in the neighbourhood and wanted to say hi.’
‘You shouldn’t be here, Laura,’ Glenda said stiffly.
‘Maybe. But I needed to ask you some questions. And it’s very hot out here. Do you think I could come in and have a glass of water?’
The indecision on the woman’s face was almost laughable, but Laura was confident Glenda’s good manners would prevail. They had every other time Laura had had anything to do with her—it seemed an instinct as strong as breathing for Meghan’s mother.
‘Of course,’ Glenda answered with trepidation. She waved Laura into a lounge room and towards a white leather lounge. ‘I won’t be a moment. I’ll get you that drink.’
As Glenda’s heels clicked down the hallway, Laura looked around. One of the walls was covered with photos. Some were old black and white prints; others were more contemporary. She saw one of Josh and Meghan at school. Meghan’s hair was up in a ponytail and Josh’s was parted and swept to the side.
She stepped up to the wall to study the photos more closely. At one end was a black and white one of two teenage girls and their parents. Looking more closely, Laura felt sure that one of the girls was Glenda. She turned her attention to the man. His face was deeply lined and saggy, as if life had beaten him down many times. Could it be Thomas? Surely not, she told herself. He’d died in the war. She studied the photo again. Could there be a resemblance to the boy in the photo she’d found in Howie’s office, she wondered.
To find out, she needed to get the picture back to Nambina to show her father, but she couldn’t just take it off the wall, she realised. It would leave a gaping hole and Glenda would notice immediately. Beginning to panic she glanced around, wondering if there was something she could replace it with.
Her mobile phone vibrated with a text message and she pulled it out. It was from Tim asking how she was getting on. Of course! Hearing Glenda’s footsteps approaching, she quickly tapped on the camera icon and snapped a couple of shots of the photo.
She was putting the phone back in her pocket when Glenda walked through the door. ‘Thank you,’ Laura said, accepting the water. She took a sip, playing for time and wondering what to say next.
‘I don’t think I can help you in any way, Laura,’ Glenda said coldly.
‘You know what Meghan’s up to?’
Glenda nodded reluctantly. ‘I’d appreciate it if you would leave.’
‘Is your maiden name Murphy?’ Laura stared hard at the woman and saw something flicker in her eyes. Disdain? She couldn’t be sure.
‘Oh, yes, Laura. That is definitely my maiden name.’ The words hung in the air before Glenda indicated the front door.
‘What was your father’s name?’
‘I don’t have to answer any of your questions. I’d like you to leave.’
Glenda’s attitude confirmed Laura’s suspicion that the woman had information worth having. ‘I’m not going down without a fight,’ Laura told her. ‘Meghan will regret taking me on, I can promise you.’ She put the glass down and walked towards the door.
‘Is that a threat? Are you threatening me or my daughter? Because if you are . . .’
Laura interrupted her. ‘No, Mrs Hunter, it’s not a threat. It’s just how it is. A fact. Thank you for the water.’
The door banged behind her. Laura walked back to her car, looking over her shoulder every so often to see whether Glenda had followed her. She breathed a sigh of relief when she climbed inside the ute and locked it.
Her heart was still racing as she pulled out her phone and checked the snaps she’d taken. Looking at the photo again, she was certain one of the girls was Glenda as a youngster. But as for the man? If it wasn’t Thomas, who was it?
The house was in darkness when she arrived home. She went to bed but couldn’t stop thinking about her encounter with Glenda Hunter. Too wired to settle down, she gave up and flicked on the bedside lamp. Grabbing her mobile phone, she studied the photo again. But nothing jumped out at her. Sighing, she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
Finally she got up and went out to the kitchen. She switched on the kettle for a cup of tea. While she was waiting for the water to boil, she picked up one of Howie’s old show schedules. It was dated 1952. She flicked through it.
On the fifth page she saw it. Howie had circled the words in red. ‘Judge: T.G. Murphy.’
Chapter 36
1952
Thomas sat and leaned back against the warm tin of the shearing shed. He turned his face towards the dying sun and breathed deeply. In his mind he could hear the tin ripping and the static calls over the radio. He could feel the fear from that day eight years earlier. But that was all he could remember. No matter how hard he tried, his memory of those few days after the crash were gone.
‘Daddy! Daddy!’
Thomas dragged his eyes open, irritated.
A little girl ran from the stables towards him, a pannikin in her hand. She held out the cup.
He looked at it blankly. ‘What about it?’ he asked.
‘I milked a cow!’
Her smile was as wide as the cow’s arse, Thomas thought, but it didn’t touch his heart. He knew it should, but it just didn’t. ‘Good on ya.’
The smile faded and the little girl cocked her head to one side. ‘Drink, Daddy?’ She offered the cup again.
‘Not now. I’m busy. You run along like a good girl. Your mother will be calling for you.’
‘You’re sleeping.’
‘No, I’m thinking. Now, off you go.’ Thomas shut his eyes again.
When he heard her leave, he tried to think about the telegram he’d received two months earlier. To judge the wool classes in Adelaide would be an honour, but could he do it?
Within seconds his mind had returned to the crash. Reliving it every time he shut his eyes made him anxious and angry. It made him never want to close his eyes again. But shutting his eyes locked out the sight of his own decay. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.
Some days he found it hard to believe he’d been shot down. Despite all his training and quick rise through the ranks, his Spitfire had been caught over the English Channel. His attention had wandered for just a second and, from nowhere, a dark shape had appeared under the belly of the plane. A German Focke-Wulf; it banked and fired.
The call over the radio had come a fraction too late. ‘Tally-ho! Bandits on the approach,’ another pilot in his squad had yelled. Thomas had felt the impact before he had time to locate the enemy. He remembered struggling to get the plane under control—he’d only been winged. He’d turned the aircraft around and checked left, then right. He saw another plane from his own squadron sweeping beneath him, and seconds later the black smoke of the German plane as it trailed into the sea.
Thomas remembered glancing down and seeing a ship on the brilliant sapphire water. The sun caught the waves, throwing sparkles of diamonds into the air, almost blinding him. It was a rare English summer day, when everything looked and felt beautiful. And up in the freedom of the sky, it was easy to forget you were in a war zone. Easy to forget until Thoma
s looked below again and realised the ship didn’t look right. As he’d taken another swoop around, he’d seen the ship’s bow was too low in the water. Bodies floated in the water, some still struggling.
He’d directed his eyes skyward, into the abyss of blue, and had tried not to think. The plane shuddered again—he’d been hit.
Something had snapped inside him. He could end it all now, and no one would know how he’d done it. Just another casualty of war.
He turned the rudder and flown downwards. He wished he’d been taken ages ago. Thomas understood in that moment that Ernest had been right about one thing and wrong about another. Thomas was weak, all right, but not like his mother. He was weak like Ernest, and that was why he wanted to die. He’d been drinking too much, fighting with people. Angry. It had to stop and this was the way he’d do it.
As the water grew nearer, Thomas had patted his pocket, which contained Elizabeth’s last letter. She was to be married. Thomas increased the throttle. And Mac? Oh, that’s right. Mac wasn’t there anymore, either. He’d let them both down.
‘Murphy! Murphy!’ The crackling radio had broken through Thomas’s reverie just as the window shattered. His blood spattered the window. Another hit.
He’d flicked his radio to transmit and said one word: ‘Ejecting.’
The last thing Thomas remembered was floating through the air momentarily before the iciness of the water and the relief it was all over. Then again, if he’d been truly determined to die he would have stayed in the cockpit as the plane sank.
He opened his eyes. The sun had disappeared. See? He tortured himself. Even when you decide to not think about it, you still do. You’re hopeless.
He stood and stretched. He felt the familiar ache in his leg from when it had caught in the parachute. He rubbed at it and started down the track towards the house. Elsa would have tea cooked.
Being sent back to Australia had done nothing to help his state of mind. Once again, he’d failed. There was nothing to come back to, either. Elizabeth was married now, so their friendship and letters had stopped. Thomas had felt her loss keenly. Other than Mac, she’d been his only friend. And Mac? Thomas felt his heart ache as he trudged towards the house. He would need extra rum tonight. Extra rum to take all the pain away. Extra rum to hide the hurt and make him forget.
If he was lucky, Elsa would let him have his way with her, once the girls were asleep. Between sex and the rum he’d slip into oblivion, remembering and feeling nothing.
He pulled open the flimsy screen door then let it slam behind him. The girls were sitting in an iron tub. Elsa was pouring tepid water into it.
The faces of Leanne and her sister, Glenda, lit up as he walked into the room. ‘Daddy!’ they shouted in unison.
Thomas narrowed his eyes. If only they knew. If only they knew. Disregarding them but for a curt nod, he poured himself a drink. He ignored Elsa’s wary look. He was just like Ernest now, but he would never hit the girls. He stomped out to sit on the verandah.
‘I’ve cooked a rabbit stew for tonight.’ Elsa appeared in the doorway. ‘Do you want it now?’
‘No.’
She left him alone. He’d been lucky, he supposed, when he’d met Elsa three years earlier. He’d been on the train from Sydney to Melbourne, headed to Portland, even though his grandparents had both passed on and the farm had been sold. He didn’t really understand why he wanted to go there, but something had pulled him in that direction. He’d inherited some money from the sale of the property. Maybe he just wanted to see what the place looked like now it had a new owner.
Elsa had been sitting opposite Thomas on the train. They’d nodded at each other but made no conversation for the first few hours. When she took out her sandwiches, he’d glanced over and wished he’d remembered to pack some food. She’d seen his look and offered him half of hers.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘Have you been overseas fighting?’ she’d asked, gesturing towards the strapping on his leg.
He nodded and bit into the bread and mutton.
‘Where are you headed?’
‘Portland. I have family there. You?’ He wasn’t sure why he’d lied to her. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to seem needy. Alone.
‘I’m going to Melbourne,’ she answered. They had talked a lot after that and she’d told him of her family and how they had a little farm on the outskirts of Dubbo. And now, at the tender age of twenty-two, she was a widow.
They’d promised to keep in touch. And while still on the train, Thomas had formulated a plan. He didn’t end up going to Portland. Instead, he caught another train to Adelaide and then ventured further north to a little town called Mount Bryan. He’d been there once with Mac and knew it was a renowned sheep-growing area.
Soon he’d bought a parcel of land not far from town, using his small inheritance and a returned soldier’s subsidy he’d received. Then he wrote to Elsa, asking her to join him. A month later, she arrived.
At first, he’d built up his sheep numbers, but the memories of his childhood and the war never left him, and he found himself turning to the bottle more and more. The nights he spent at the local pub were punctuated by fights and more grog, and the sheep and the work took a back seat. Thomas wasn’t interested in anything but numbing his feelings of inadequacy and anger.
As time went on, Elsa had withdrawn. If he was honest with himself, he couldn’t blame her. He hadn’t turned out to be the husband she was expecting and she hadn’t had the sort of life he’d promised her.
Thomas didn’t know whether Elsa knew of the women who offered services behind the pub’s back wall, but they were women who didn’t mind how rough he was with them. He liked rough. It made him feel powerful and dominant. How a man was supposed to be.
Now he looked out across his land. The full moon cast a pearly glow. The whiteness of the tree trunks stood out in the faint light and he could see a mob of sheep grazing towards the fence he’d put up two years ago.
He should be proud, he told himself. Proud he’d got his own parcel of land. Proud he’d started his own merino stud, and lived up to Mac’s expectations.
Ah, there was Mac again.
Mac’s disappointment had been obvious when Thomas told him of his decision to go and fight.
‘I told you. It’s not a job for you, Thomas.’
‘I gotta go, Mac. There’s nothing for me here.’
‘Nothing for you . . .? What?’ Mac had been incredulous. ‘What have I been training you for? You’ve got your wool classer’s stencil now. You can class, be your own boss. How can you say there’s nothing here for you?’ The bewilderment on Mac’s face had registered with Thomas but he hadn’t known what to say. Hadn’t known how to thank him for everything and make him understand that he had to go. It was the only way to save himself from becoming his father.
Mac had walked away without saying goodbye.
Now Thomas felt in his pocket for Elizabeth’s last letter. He carried it in his notebook and kept it with him to remind him of his loss. Of his mistakes. He took it out, and just looked at it, not wanting to open it; the paper was so fragile. He knew its contents by heart so he didn’t need to read the words, blurred by the cold water of the English Channel.
My dear Thomas,
This letter contains both sad and joyful news. I hope you will bear with me while I give you the good news first.
I am to be married in four months. Glen is a lovely man who Father introduced me to at the last show dinner. He is steady and practical, with a love of sheep. We are building a small hut on the station and will live there after we’re married. It’s certainly a time of great excitement and anticipation.
It’s with a heavy heart, however, that I write to tell you of the death of Mr McDougall. Your friend and mentor, Mac. Father told me he contracted tuberculosis last autumn and didn’t see the end of winter. He is buried in Adelaide.
And now, dear Thomas, this must end. Our friendship and letters. I’m sure you understand it wo
uld be inappropriate to keep up this correspondence once I am married.
With every best wish I can muster,
Elizabeth
There it was. In one fell swoop, everything Thomas had held dear had been snatched away.
He looked out across the moonlit paddocks again and folded the page. Then he drank deeply. He felt the urge to hurt something. He went inside. The girls were asleep.
Elsa was by the stove, darning a sock. She glanced up as he entered the room. He strode across the wooden floor and grabbed her by the arms, pulling her to him. He sucked at her neck and let his hands bite into her buttocks. He ignored her struggles—he knew she wouldn’t scream or cry out for fear of waking the girls. Forcefully, he pushed her to the floor and tore at her clothes. As she struggled to get away, he felt himself harden. Seconds later she stopped resisting him and went limp. Thomas slapped her face.
‘Come on, darlin’,’ he whispered harshly in her ear. ‘Fight me. You know you want to.’ He grazed his teeth over her now bare nipple and yanked at it roughly. He narrowed his eyes as he felt her stiffen. She would be biting her lip to keep from crying out, he knew.
‘You bastard,’ Elsa snarled in a low voice. ‘I hate you. I hate you.’
Thomas barely heard the words because he had entered her and had forgotten everything else.
Chapter 37
2008
Laura had stared at the show schedule for a long time. She’d tried to tell herself that the T.G. Murphy listed as a judge in the schedule could be someone else, another Murphy who just happened to have the same initials. She wished this was the case. But it seemed a long shot, and Laura found herself repeating Tim’s line: ‘I don’t believe in coincidences.’ And why would Howie circle the name?
She’d thought the postcard had confirmed that Thomas died in the war and therefore hadn’t fathered any children. But now it appeared that the information contained in the postcard could be wrong. If Thomas was alive and judging at the Adelaide show in 1952, it suggested he’d survived the war, and may well have married and had a family.
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