Ripples on a Pond

by Joy Dettman

  Since the wedding he’d dropped half a stone in weight and the last of the boy had left his face, but to the young hostess he was a beautiful-looking man who had to get his grief-stricken father home to England. She offered water to wash the two pills down, while the second hostess collected the rest from travellers with expressions that suggested they feed the lot to the noisy old bugger.

  A middle-aged passenger returned a pill with a roll of caramel-centred chocolates and a suggestion that may have saved Morrie’s sanity. He inserted pills into the soft centres of two chocolates and Bernard ate them. He liked chocolates. The pill bottle was returned, as were most of the pills, before the plane took to the skies.

  Bernard was sleeping like a baby when a hostess offered tea or coffee.

  ‘Limit his liquid,’ Gerry had advised.

  ‘Don’t let him drink anything,’ Cathy had instructed.

  Morrie didn’t wake Bernard.

  The elderly nursing sister had provided half a dozen adult napkins. They were in Morrie’s hand luggage, but with no desire to take them out of his luggage, six hours into the flight he carried Bernard down the narrow aisle to a toilet that was hard-pressed to hold one.

  Sometime later, they landed somewhere. A hostess supplied a wheelchair, her expression suggesting she’d be delighted to hand over to the next crew.

  And thus the flight from hell continued.

  It didn’t end when they landed at Heathrow, Bernard smelling like a public toilet. It didn’t end when Morrie wrestled him into a London cab. It almost ended at the hotel. Bernard escaped while Morrie was checking in. Morrie ran after him, aware he’d made a bad decision, that he should have ridden that cab the forty-odd miles home to Letty. Hadn’t wanted Letty to see her baby brother until he’d been cleaned up, dressed up. She’d argued against Margaret moving her family back to a land populated by the descendants of convicts and would blame Australia for Bernard’s disintegration. Not Australia’s fault. Morrie and Margaret had noticed his deterioration before they’d left England. Not Letty. Perhaps she’d refused to admit it.

  Morrie sighed. With luck, once back in familiar surroundings, Bernard would improve. He still had moments of clarity. He’d had one in the bath while Morrie was attempting to shave his chubby face. He’d known the bathroom wasn’t his own. A second funeral amongst familiar faces, ashes and a gravestone in the Langdon plot, may convince him that Margaret was gone.

  Lorna had fought for a Woody Creek funeral; had sworn on the Bible that her sister had written to her begging her to see that she was buried beside her mother. Morrie knew his mother had written a dozen letters to Lorna; he’d posted every one of them. And seen every one of them returned, unopened.

  Before the wedding, he may have considered a Woody Creek funeral. Now . . . now he wouldn’t trust himself within a hundred miles of that town.

  The struggle of the past thirty hours had kept his mind away from weddings and Cara, and he couldn’t afford to think of her yet. He forced his mind to his mother’s ashes, aware she would have wanted him to do what was best for Bernard.

  ‘Look after your father,’ she’d said. ‘Promise me you’ll look after your father.’

  Margaret had been his mother, and a good mother. Bernard had never been his father.

  Neither one had possessed an ounce of business sense. For years, they’d left the management of Vern Hooper’s estate in the hands of Roland Atkinson, an elderly Melbourne accountant. He’d been Vern’s accountant. Now semi-retired, Roland would serve a third generation.

  On the morning before the flight with Bernard, Morrie’d had lunch with Roland Atkinson, who had given him more papers. Too much needed looking into. He had a briefcase full of documents his eight-hour marriage had given him access to – his very conveniently timed marriage.

  And it had to be undone. Cara wanted it annulled, erased, forgotten. And that would set Lorna buzzing like a nest of hornets. She’d have no difficulty proving Bernard incompetent, which, according to Vern Hooper’s will, would give her power over the estate until Morrie’s thirtieth birthday – still too far away.

  The solicitor who had drawn up Vern Hooper’s will in ’51 long dead, Vern’s affairs had been passed on to a younger man. Morrie had spoken to him at length before he’d flown to England, and had left his office with a wad of papers. He had his own copy of Vern Hooper’s last will and testament, which left very specific instructions as to the future of his grandson, James Morrison Hooper. Vern had left specific instructions for his own burial, and for the original Hooper property: NEVER TO BE SOLD. Capitalised, underlined.

  The Three Pines land was gone but a manager farmed the original Hooper acres. Four rental properties in Woody Creek and Willama had been sold years ago. Not the Melbourne properties. Morrie hadn’t been aware that the estate paid the land rates on Lorna’s house in Kew or that it belonged to the estate. He knew she’d been receiving a quarterly payment for years, as had Margaret.

  He glanced at and discarded half a dozen pages, seeking the date of Lorna’s first instalment. And found it – some months after Vern’s death, after the sale of the Balwyn house.

  Once he got Bernard settled, he’d need to do something permanent about getting Lorna off his back. If the worst came to the worst, he’d fight her in court, and keep on fighting until December of ’71, his thirtieth birthday. Speak to Letty’s trio of solicitors, Willis, Willis & Willis. Maybe a lump-sum payout would get rid of her. She’d been the dominant presence through his childhood and it was well past time he put all childish things away.

  There was a copy of his original birth certificate amongst those papers.

  Date of birth: 3 December 1941.

  Mother: Jennifer Carolyn Morrison.

  Age: Seventeen years and eleven months.

  Three kids before her eighteenth birthday! The Morrison trollop, Lorna had named her. She must have been.

  Briefcase open on the bed, papers surrounding it, Morrie read on, placing pages according to their importance – to his left face down, or to the right face up. He owned shares, some old, some very old. Nothing new. No spare money in recent years with which to purchase the new. Margaret’s and Lorna’s quarterly instalments had increased along with the cost of living. Accountants had to be paid each month.

  He’d been eighteen the year Leticia had let the cat out of the bag as to why Bernard had gone to Australia; how she and Henry, desperate for a Langdon heir, had pushed for a match between him and Lorna. The day she’d told him, he’d been reduced to near hysteria by the image of Bernard and Lorna begetting anything. Letty had laughed too.

  He liked little Letty. She’d loved his mother. Hard not to love her – and she’d lied to him.

  Should have been young enough to breed her own Grenville-Langdon when she’d married Bernard in ’51. She’d loved him, had shared his bed until a few months before her death, but had given him no child – other than Morrie.

  He placed his papers down and closed his eyes, weary eyes, and thought of the man in the picture frame, the man who had painted the rainbows in the sky, the man with the big teeth who Jenny had said was his daddy. And tonight, behind his weary eyes, he could almost see that photograph. A male in army uniform, woman with short tickly hair, their baby. As a ten year old, he’d remembered that photograph more clearly, remembered it well enough to know that he couldn’t have two fathers. He’d named Bernard ‘Pops’, then and now.

  Promise me you’ll look after your father.

  He’d look after him. He’d got him this far, and tomorrow morning, he’d get him home to Letty. Eighteen years Bernard’s senior, more his mother than sister, she’d look after him.

  She’d know how to organise a funeral. She’d had plenty of practice. She’d buried Henry, eight of her own babies and half a dozen of her siblings.

  Maybe a funeral in this land would allow Morrie to feel what he should have been feeling. Couldn’t feel anything right now. His trust in Margaret had been total.

  Jenny
has gone to live with the angels. He could hear her words now. He could feel little Jimmy’s desolation. They were very sick, my darling boy.

  She’d lied, and not a thing he could do about it. Could neither ask why she’d lied nor accuse her. And tonight he felt that same desolation, that same aching loss – though not for Jenny. For Georgie maybe; Georgie of the red hair, Margot of the white. Georgie always the biggest, the one holding his hand when they crossed the road, holding Margot’s skirt. He could see them tonight, three little kids always together, and he wanted to howl for those three little kids.

  Shrugged off the image and searched back through his papers for his birth certificate, disbelieving that a girl of seventeen could have had three kids. Georgie’s birthday in March, Margot’s soon after, then he’d had to wait forever for his cake with coloured icing and candles.

  His sisters.

  He remembered Ray; not the man, but the giant who had ridden a motorbike, had worn a giant leather jacket. He remembered a red racing trike, remembered riding it up and down a veranda – at Ray’s house. Remembered its wheel spinning in circles on the back of a dray the day they’d left that house to go home to Granny – who’d had lots of eggs and milk.

  That’s when his world had changed. No more sisters and Jenny; only Aunty Maggie and Grandpa and scary Aunty Lorna who had liked tripe and onions.

  ‘Awful,’ he mouthed, then corrected: ‘Offal.’

  Margaret had cooked tripe and onions at Balwyn and he’d run outside and vomited in the garden. And tonight he knew why! Remembered the stink of it, the stink of milk burning, and Jenny scraping awful from her saucepan into a hole in her garden . . .

  Memories spilling, one on top of the other.

  ‘Ashes to ashes,’ he whispered. ‘Dust to dust. If . . . if he buys . . . if he buys another liver, I think I’ll bust. We like macaroni and a rhubarb pie . . . so I’m sorry, Mrs Cow’s Liver, if we don’t cry,’ he recited louder, faster, as the words rushed back.

  How had he remembered that? He hadn’t known he’d remembered it. What else might come if he allowed it to come?

  Had spent too much time denying little Jimmy. He’d known Cara’s school and denied knowing it. Not tonight. He remembered Billy . . . Billy someone. He’d sat next to Billy at Armadale Primary when he’d been Jimmy King. He’d sat next to Michael in Balwyn when he’d been James Hooper. He’d liked Michael – because he’d had the same coloured hair as Georgie.

  ‘Graham,’ he whispered. ‘Kevin, Alan.’

  Names, names, names. Left them all behind. Left them in Armadale, Balwyn, Cheltenham, Bendigo.

  Always moving. That’s what he remembered, always packing up to go, as Margaret and Bernard had attempted to escape Lorna. Moving from one school to the next, new names to learn, new faces, new teachers. After a time, they’d blended into the great blur of his life.

  Fingers pressed to closed and aching eyes, he attempted to see their faces. Nothing there, nothing clear, just shapes – like the photograph of his daddy with the big teeth, the tickle of Jenny’s hair when she’d kissed him goodnight.

  Was it her hair that had drawn him to Cara the night they’d danced in Ballarat, the night she’d fallen against him in the garden? Had he smelt the scent of an older love in her hair? He had loved Jenny once. He knew that. And she’d sold him like so much livestock.

  She hadn’t liked his grandfather. Didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. He’d liked his grandpa. Could still see him clearly, sitting in the sun on the Balwyn porch, looking out over the garden. Just another snapshot in the misty album of his early life.

  At sixteen, he would have gone back to Woody Creek had he known they were alive. Lorna had been living with them at Bendigo when he turned sixteen, and Margaret had given him a classy new racing bike for his birthday, a red bike of many gears. He’d ridden it far to escape Lorna. Could have ridden it to Woody Creek. Would have, had he known they were alive.

  ‘Why did you lie to me, Mum?’ he asked his hand luggage.

  Margaret’s ashes offered no reply.

  Tired, wound up, too wound up to sleep. Should have gone for a walk. Should have shaken some of the tension from his bones once he’d got Bernard settled.

  He’d walked miles at Jenny’s side. Remembered walking with her one day when there were no trams, remembered riding on the back of a horse-drawn dray. Remembered the horse lifting its tail to drop a load of manure on the tramlines. Remembered her laughter.

  And her songs.

  When I pretend I’m gay, I never feel that way, I’m only painting the clouds . . .

  He had to get some sleep. Tomorrow he’d get Bernard home, get the funeral organised, then fly back and . . .

  And what?

  He’d tried to talk to Cara before he’d flown. He’d phoned her three times.

  ‘Just get it undone, Morrie. Then we’ll talk,’ she’d said.

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘We’ll get over it if you stay away.’

  Couldn’t deal with thinking about getting it undone, not right now, not with Lorna breathing down his neck, so forced his mind to the funeral. Get that done, then maybe go back, see the man who had been Daddy.

  Or write to him.

  He could remember a tall skinny man with crutches at a hospital, remembered big hands holding him, crushing him, until Margaret had eased him free.

  Daddy Jim was crying because he was so pleased to see his big boy, she’d explained later. Daddy Jim is unwell because of the war, but soon, when he’s well again, he’ll come home and live with us.

  He hadn’t come home to live with them. He’d married Jenny.

  There was no mention of Jim in Vern’s will, other than a paragraph stating that the cost of his upkeep in the sanatorium would be paid for by the estate.

  According to Lorna, he and the Morrison trollop had a legitimate daughter they’d named Gertrude. That name rang a bell in Morrie’s memory, and he didn’t know why.

  So many names. So many people had wandered through his life. Jenny and Ray, Georgie and Margot, Lois, Billy, Michael, Graham, Geoff, Ian. At every school he’d attended, in every neighbourhood, he’d tucked away another name or two. Steve, David, Alan, Matthew, Mark, several Johns, and all the while his own name had kept altering to suit the current situation. Moving, always moving, Lorna yapping at their heels.

  He’d left Jimmy Hooper Morrison in Woody Creek to become Jimmy King, for a little while. Then Balwyn, and because there were too many little boys named Jimmy, Margaret and Grandpa had changed his name to James Morrison Hooper. Then Cheltenham, where they’d tacked on the Grenville-Langdon.

  At the boarding school, when the teachers had called the roll, he’d replied to the call of Grenville-Langdon.

  ‘Present, sir.’

  At fourteen or fifteen, his mates had named him Lofty Langdon, or Long-Don, or Stick Man. By then he hadn’t cared much what they called him, as long as the same faces did the calling. And they had, from the age of twelve to seventeen. Margaret and Bernard had allowed him to complete his final school year before making their great escape, which they’d managed with the assistance of Roland Atkinson and Mrs Muir, their housekeeper.

  The night after his final exam, he’d left the school in a taxi and for the next two hours had muddied his trail for Lorna. Bought a ticket to a movie he hadn’t watched. Caught a tram to Spencer Street Station, then walked up to the bus depot, where Thomas Martin had boarded an overnight bus to Sydney. The following afternoon, he’d flown alone to Perth, Margaret and Bernard waiting at the airport for him. They’d boarded a boat for England that afternoon and sailed merrily away.

  He’d loved that boat. Loved those weeks of being neither here nor there, and nothing but water around them – and no Lorna swimming behind the ship. Every night was a party, and Margaret, a giggling girl, dancing with Bernard. She’d forced Morrie up to the dance floor, had taught him to dance during those three weeks at sea.

  Then a cab to Thames Ditton. Alien names, a
lien countryside. His first sight of Bernard’s home had blown his seventeen-year-old mind. Big, rock solid, its roots embedded in that land for so long that its walls appeared to have grown out of it. Nothing could ever move that house, or Aunty Leticia. She’d welcomed Bernard as a prodigal son returned, had hugged Margaret, kissed Morrie, and introduced him proudly to all and sundry. She, her house, her land, had given a seventeen year old stability, substance.

  A farm worker had given him his name. ‘You’d be the young Langdon then,’ he’d said. The young Langdon of Langdon Hall. That’s who he’d become at seventeen.

  The birth certificate issued after his adoption stated that he was James Morrison Hooper Grenville-Langdon, one hell of a mouthful. In England, he’d got rid of that mouthful, had dropped the lot – other than the Morrison, which, for some reason, he’d been unable to drop, and the Langdon. He’d filled in his own papers when he’d applied to universities: Morrison Langdon, Langdon Hall, Thames Ditton. That’s who he’d become, who he was.

  Spent four years at the university, gathering a variety of useless information and a new selection of names to take the place of those he’d left behind. Half a dozen had become mates. It was his mates who had taught him to drink and to pick up girls. It was his mates who had cut the Morrison down to Morrie, and before he’d done with university he’d become an Englishman, nephew of Leticia Langdon.

  *

  Bernard moaned and rolled to his side, pulling the blankets with him. Accustomed to a wider bed, he’d fall out if he rolled another inch. Morrie rose to straighten the blankets and tuck them beneath the mattress. No doubt Bernard would have slept more soundly in a darkened room, but tonight Morrie needed light. His thoughts were dark enough.

  He packed his papers away, closed the briefcase and wished he had a book. He glanced at the ubiquitous green Bible on the bedside table, left for lonely travellers. He wasn’t lonely enough yet to open it.