‘I suppose.’ Who hadn’t believed what she’d told them of home, so she had stopped telling them anything. Was a friend still a friend if they had no idea who you really were? If they’d rather believe that everything was ‘nice’ at home than face the truth with you?
‘But not strong enough . . . friendships to have . . . kept you near them. You won’t live with your . . . stepmother again?’
‘No.’
‘Why not? Because you don’t like her new . . . husband?’
Had Debbie married Merv? She doubted it. Didn’t care. She kept her face impassive.
The gentle voice went on. ‘A great-granddaughter . . . anyone your age . . . is usually delivered . . . by a suitable . . . adult.’
‘I brought myself.’
‘And how long . . . have you been . . . by yourself?’
‘I left my stepmother’s place about a year ago.’
‘And her . . . name is?’
‘Not relevant either.’ Let them investigate in the USA. A nice big place, the USA. ‘I don’t want to talk about myself,’ she said evenly.
‘Not even to . . . please . . . a dying man?’
‘I’d rather hear about you.’ To her surprise she meant it, and not just to evade giving information about herself.
He considered. ‘You want me . . . to tell you about . . . myself?’
‘I looked you up, in the library. You’re in Who’s Who. And in a book about the development of radio.’
The grin again. ‘You think that . . . tells you . . . all there is . . . to know?’
She grinned herself. ‘I hope not. It was very, very boring and you’re not.’
He sucked in oxygen. He seemed to be considering. ‘No. Not a boring life. Not one . . . second . . . of it. The most important thing,’ he said, ‘the heart of my whole life . . .’ He paused to gulp more air.
‘Is your wife. Your sons. Your grandchildren,’ Jed added for him.
‘I imagine,’ he said dryly, ‘that the . . . article you read . . . mentioned them. No.’ The head shifted slightly on the pillow, the smallest possible move. But he looked out the window now, at the sky. A pale day-moon floated above the English trees. ‘Do you know . . . where my heart . . . rests now?’
She shook her head.
‘At a place . . . called Cape Canaveral. Men there are . . . preparing . . . to journey to the moon . . . and then come back. To walk . . . on another world. And Australian men . . . at a place called Honeysuckle Creek . . . will help them . . . get there . . . and bring them back.’ Another tiny turn. Tommy Thompson met her eyes. ‘One day the children of my grandchildren . . . will see other worlds. That is what . . . keeps me alive, here in this bed. I am going to live . . . to see a man walk on the moon. Then I can . . . die.’
Chapter 6
JED
The dark-haired woman brought tea, and more scones, already buttered, with strawberry jam. Matilda Thompson came back, drank tea too, crumbled a scone, then left again. A nurse checked oxygen, the old man’s pulse, then left too. And still he talked, so faint that at times Jed had to lean in to hear.
She liked Tommy Thompson. She hadn’t expected that. More than that: he was fascinating.
He talked about the past, working on the first ‘production line’ conveyor belts in Australia, the massive change that meant each factory worker specialised in one small task, instead of a craftsman making it all.
Unskilled labour could build a radio, a gramophone, a car, with no more than a few hours’ instruction. He talked about cars as a grand adventure, building his first in a Gibber’s Creek shed and how it had blown up, almost killing him and the Dragon herself. Talked of radios, of things like valves and now transistors — too technical to follow, but still she was drawn in by the passion in his voice.
‘Imagine walking . . . on the moon,’ he whispered. ‘Leaping high . . . with every step . . . in the low gravity.’
‘You’re the only person I’ve ever met who talks about the future. Humanity’s future, I mean, not their own. Big futures. Not little futures. Do you read science fiction?’
He shook his head, the smallest of movements on the pillow. ‘Prefer . . . science fact.’
‘But you’ve got to dream things first!’ Jed urged. ‘Imagine them. Would anyone have planned a moon mission if dreamers hadn’t shown them what might be? I read Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress last year.’ In a library, a refuge for an entire day, gulping the book down. ‘It’s about colonists on the moon rebelling against Earth. People like Heinlein make living on the moon seem so real that we believe that we can do it.’
He smiled under the mask. ‘I’ve managed . . . a fair hall of inventions . . . without having to . . . borrow someone else’s . . . imagination.’
‘You’d like Robert Heinlein’s books. Or Fred Hoyle’s. He writes more, um, well, good science but not good characters. But he is a scientist. And Robert Heinlein’s an engineer. Robert Heinlein doesn’t just dream things. He puts in details about how we might do it. Mining the moon for water so we could live there, underground. Using Earth’s gravity to “slingshot” minerals down to Earth. I could read you one of his books . . .’ She stopped.
That last bit hadn’t been a manoeuvre to make the old man ask her to stay here. She wanted to read to Tommy Thompson. Jed Kelly, who had learned not to care for anyone. Maybe, accidentally, she had found a way to convince him to let her stay. Even for her to want to stay here, despite the Dragon, at least for a while. And surely Tommy Thompson would want her to finish school. Would want to help her, not just because she might be related to him, but because they understood each other . . .
He shut his eyes again. ‘I’ve lived . . . to see it all,’ he whispered. ‘The steam age . . . electricity . . . combustion engine . . . nuclear power. Lived to see man in space.’ He paused to take more gasps of oxygen.
She should let him rest. But she had never been able to talk to anyone like this, never heard anyone describe the world so profoundly, except in books. ‘I remember when Yuri Gagarin went into space. The first human to go around the world in space. On the radio he asked everyone to turn all the lights on, because he’d be passing over Australia at night. It was a way of saying hello to him, even though he was Russian and an enemy. My stepmother laughed at me. But I sat there at the time they said he’d be flying over, with every single light on, and hoped he could see our house.’
The old man smiled, his eyes still closed. ‘No one . . . is an enemy out there. We are one Earth . . . for the first time. That photo of our planet . . . blue among the black . . . from the . . . last space mission. Made me glad . . . to be alive. Kept me alive.’ He took a long and shallow breath, and managed: ‘Once everyone has seen . . . That is when . . . there will be no more wars . . . because we know that we are one. When we are citizens . . . of Earth . . . not nations.’
‘Is Australia really going to send a rocket to the moon?’
The parchment eyelids opened. His stare saw more than she wanted. ‘You know about Gagarin . . . but not about the Apollo program? You haven’t been . . . listening . . . to the news . . . for the last two years?’
‘No.’ There was no point not admitting it.
‘Why not? Where do you live . . . Jed Kelly?’
‘Nowhere. Everywhere. Wherever I want to. Does Australia really have rockets?’
‘We had them. Not any more. The Americans are the ones . . . attempting . . . a moon landing. But Australia has . . . tracking stations. The Americans can’t get there . . . without us. The rest of the tracking stations . . . around the world . . . are run by Americans. Ours are manned by Australians . . . We’ll be tracking man to the moon and back . . . I met the director of the main one . . . Tom Reid . . . at a charity do, before . . .’ His hand waved at the bed, the oxygen. ‘His wife organised it. Very good woman, Margaret.’ Tommy Thompson sucked on his oxygen again.
She leaned forwards. ‘When are they going to the moon?’
‘Next yea
r, if all goes well.’ Another pause for oxygen. ‘NASA announced it . . . a few days . . . ago. There’s another . . . space mission . . . next month . . . Apollo 8. They’re sending up a spacecraft to orbit the moon. The first time . . . anyone has ever seen . . . the other side of the moon. The first time in space . . . beyond the call of Earth.’ Another pause, and an even softer whisper. ‘First time . . . men will have the power . . . of the Saturn 5 rocket . . . under them. If they can . . . survive it. The Saturn 5 . . . only worked in one . . . of two . . . test launches. The first one would have shaken anyone to death. And Apollo 1 . . .’ His voice faded.
‘What happened?’
‘You . . .’ pause ‘. . . didn’t . . .’ pause ‘. . . hear?’
‘No.’
A voice softer than a feather stroke. ‘January 1967.’ Pause. ‘Countdown. We waited for man to go to space. Three. Two. One. Blast-off.’ Pause. ‘Then everything exploded. White-hot light.’
January 1967. She tried to shut her mind to what her 1967 had been like. She had thought Debbie liked her while Dad was alive. Then the escalating complaints about how much it cost to feed and clothe her. She’d won a scholarship that year, had thought that might ease the anger. The slow realisation that Debbie hated her because she was more intelligent and did not have the wisdom to hide it. That Jed was younger, and more attractive to Merv and the men before him. You could hide intelligence but not being young and attractive, even in school uniform.
She would not think of it. Could not afford to let herself think of it. Forced herself to say lightly, ‘I missed the news that month. Were there astronauts on board?’
A thin nod. ‘Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger . . .’ pause ‘. . . Chaffee.’ Pause. ‘They died.’
‘Oh.’ She had no more words to add. What was her January 1967 compared to what had happened to those men, and to their families, and all the people who worked with them? Suddenly she felt that all she had suffered was small, compared to the vastness of the astronauts’ ambition, the lives they had given to take humanity beyond this one small planet . . . Though that did not make her memories easier to bear. For they had died in greatness, for the world to remember. What she had gone through was best buried, never thought of, never looked at again.
The old man shut his eyes as if the effort of keeping them open and talking to her was too much. ‘But astronauts still go. Out into the black. One day . . . we will find . . . new worlds . . . among the darkness.’
And all at once she could feel it too, determination seeping into her, as if courage was contagious. If the astronauts had the bravery and resolution to keep going, then she should too. She could survive, not just today, but every day. Live her life, properly. Not a ghost any more, but a real person. She only had to convince this man — and the Dragon — and she would have her chance.
The whisper from the bed was as soft as silk rubbing against silk. ‘If I were younger . . .’ a pause so long she wondered if he had fallen asleep ‘. . . would be there too. Back at my drawing board. Finding new equations . . . helping astronauts discover alien rocks and life and answers . . .’ Tommy Thompson opened his eyes. ‘I’m not going to die . . . until they get there.’
Jed believed him.
Chapter 7
JED
He had been asleep for about ten minutes when Jed tiptoed out. A nurse in uniform and hair permed into a perfect brown helmet sat outside the door, reading a Women’s Weekly. She put it down as Jed came out.
‘He’s sleeping,’ said Jed.
The nurse nodded and slipped into the bedroom. Jed continued down the stairs.
A door opened down the corridor. The Dragon in her lair. ‘I hope you haven’t tired him.’
‘I hope I have,’ said Jed evenly. ‘It must be horrible to be so looked after that you are never interested enough to get tired.’
The Dragon stared at her, re-evaluating. ‘You may be right,’ she said at last. ‘Would you like some lunch?’
It was a genuine offer, the first this woman had made her. And she was hungry again. And she would be more so, soon enough. She’d been too busy talking to even eat a scone. ‘Yes, please.’
‘If you’d like to go into the dining room, I’ll just go and check on him —’
‘He’s asleep. The nurse is with him.’ Jed allowed herself a smile. ‘I’m sure she’d have told you already if I’d murdered him.’
‘I’m quite sure you won’t murder him. You obviously prefer him alive.’ The look Matilda Thompson gave Jed was surprisingly like her husband’s. ‘Old frail men can be manipulated. Dead men can’t be.’
Jed followed her along the corridor. ‘I don’t think your husband can be manipulated easily.’
‘True. Interesting that you call him my husband, not your great-grandfather.’
‘I’m not used to having a great-grandfather. But he is very much your husband.’
‘You’re no fool, are you?’
‘No. Could it be genetic? May I use the bathroom again?’
‘Of course.’
Mrs Thompson was sitting in the dining room at the head of the table when Jed returned, as if guarding her family’s hoard of cutlery, plates, cruet and mustard pot. She waited till Jed was seated, then said, ‘You’re not the first to claim to be Rose’s daughter, you know.’
Jed stared, startled. ‘But I don’t have a sister.’
Matilda Thompson smiled. ‘That is the first thing you’ve said that makes me think there is the faintest chance you might be who you claim. That and your intelligence. Anna was no fool either, nor was her husband, nor Rose and the man she married. I didn’t like him, but he was brilliant at what he did.’
‘An engineer too, the newspaper said.’
‘Not your father or your mother?’
‘No. I told you before: I had never known Mum was married before Dad. Dad might not even have known about him.’
‘Hmm.’ The door opened. The dark-haired woman came in with a tray. Two filled plates, cutlery, teapot, cups. She put the tray down and set the table quickly and efficiently, then put the plates and cups in place. She smiled and left the room.
‘Your servants don’t eat with you?’
Matilda Thompson looked startled. ‘Servants? You mean Anita?’ She gave a wry smile. ‘Mostly we eat with her, in the kitchen, except when we want a private conversation. Like now.’ She picked up her knife and fork.
Jed followed her lead. Cold lamb, thinly sliced, lettuce, tomato, a radish carved into a rose, two halves of a hard-boiled egg, a wedge of cheese, a curl of sliced orange, cucumber with red ridges from a fork dipped in beetroot juice, and the slices of beetroot too, a dab of mayonnaise at the side of the plate.
‘I used to have salad like this every day at school,’ Jed said. She didn’t add that she’d had to sneak money from Debbie’s handbag to do so. ‘We’d pick the plates up from the tuckshop and take them into the park and find a tree to sit under.’
‘But you didn’t finish school.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I told you. My stepmother kicked me out.’
‘Did she have good reason to?’
‘No.’
‘Couldn’t you have stayed with friends? Some other relatives?’
‘I have no other relatives. Dad was an only child too. His parents were refugees. They came to Australia just before World War II, but died before I was born.’
‘With a name like Kelly? I didn’t know the Irish were one of Hitler’s targets.’
Jed flushed. She shouldn’t have mentioned her unknown grandparents. The less information the Thompsons had, the better. ‘I told you, I chose the name Kelly. Dad’s parents helped people escape the Nazis and finally had to escape themselves.’
‘How nice to have heroic ancestors.’ The Dragon was back, her tone implying she didn’t believe a word of it. And yet it was true. Or what Dad had told her was the truth, which, come to think of it, was no guarantee.
Matilda Thompson reg
arded her steadily. ‘Who brought you here?’
‘No one. I hitchhiked to the Gibber’s Creek turn-off. Walked the rest.’
‘Hitchhiked! You might have been murdered. Like those poor girls — there was another body discovered yesterday. Just flung out, next to a river. The only thing in common seems to be that the girls were hitchhiking.’ The Dragon gave her a sharp look. ‘Which is not safe, even without a murderer on the loose.’
‘I can look after myself.’
Matilda Thompson watched her from across the table. ‘You know which car holds a law-abiding gentleman and which one hides a murderer?’
‘No. I’ve got into cars with men who . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I got out of them alive. And unhurt.’ Thanks to wits, determination and a fruit knife, she thought. Blokes who laughed at a girl defending herself with a fruit knife were surprisingly anxious that the fruit knife didn’t cut their seats or tear their dashboard. Men really valued pristine cars.
‘I suspect none of the men you have faced was a serial killer, no matter what other assault they planned. So, you hitchhike, despite the dangers. You have no place to live. No friends who will give you a bed or drive you here. If you’re trying to convince me you are worthy of being my husband’s descendant, you’re not doing a very good job.’
‘Why should I prove that I’m worthy? Even if I had been expelled for burning the school down — and I wasn’t — it wouldn’t make any difference to whether I was Mr Thompson’s great-granddaughter or not. I could be the murderer and still be Mr Thompson’s great-granddaughter. I’m not the murderer, by the way.’
Was that almost a smile from the Dragon? ‘I’m glad to hear it. Did you mean that you were expelled for another reason, or not expelled at all?’
‘Not expelled at all. I was good at school. Topped the class in English and History and Logic. Had one detention for rolling up my skirt. Our headmistress expected it to touch the floor when we kneeled down.’
‘Unreasonable. So you stopped rolling up your skirt?’
‘No. Just didn’t get caught.’
‘Sensible.’ There seemed to be no irony in the tone. ‘If you are pretending to be Rose’s daughter, we will find out, you know.’
The Ghost by the Billabong Page 5