Elianne

by Nunn, Judy

  Neil nodded.

  ‘Right. Right. Well that’s that then. Go and sign up, but don’t come back here when you have.’ Stan returned to his seat and abruptly sat. He stared down at his congealed eggs and gave a peremptory wave of his hand. ‘That’s that. You’re disinherited as of now.’

  Neil stood. ‘I’ll be home for Christmas, Dad,’ he said, ‘I’ll see you then.’

  Hilda rose and fluttered about ineffectually trying to restore peace. ‘Of course you will dear, of course you will.’

  Stan ignored them both as he attacked his eggs, but his hands were shaking.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Alan rarely swore, but he was too agog with amazement to do anything else. Neil had telephoned to say he was in Brisbane and wanted to meet up. He had some news, he’d said.

  They’d decided upon a steak and a beer at Brekky Creek that Saturday. The pub as usual was crowded, but it was a blustery winter’s day and most drinkers were inside so they had the beer garden pretty much to themselves.

  Alan shook his head in disbelief. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said again, ‘you’ve actually gone and done it, have you?’

  ‘Yep, joined up two days ago, it’s what I really want to do.’

  ‘Wow.’ Alan looked at his brother with newfound respect. Much as he loved Neil, he’d never once seen him stand up to their father. Indeed it was a sight he’d never expected that he would see. ‘Good for you, mate,’ he said. ‘What was Dad’s reaction?’

  ‘The full histrionics, as you can imagine. I’ve been disowned, disinherited and am never again to darken the doors of Elianne.’

  ‘Crikey, what’ll you do?’

  ‘I’ll go home for Christmas,’ Neil said with a grin, and they both laughed.

  But even as they laughed, Alan wondered how his father would cope when the time came. Disowned elder son returns to the fold and younger son announces his engagement to a Catholic, he thought. It’s going to be a rocky old Christmas all right.

  When Neil rang Kate, as he’d promised he would in order to keep her abreast of the news, her reaction was much the same. What a heck of a Christmas it promises to be, she thought. She’d decided to bring the ledgers back to Elianne this year, together with her completed translation. She would at long last share them with Alan, as she had originally intended. Then if and when he deemed the time right they would present them to their father. The decision to reveal the secrets of the past would no longer be hers alone.

  Having made her plan, Kate felt a strange sense of freedom. She hadn’t realised what a continual distraction the diaries had become. Busy as she’d been with her studies and her causes, they were somehow always there in the dim recesses of her mind. Was it nearly three years since she’d first discovered them? Had it really been that long, she now thought as she strode through Prince Alfred Park on her regular Saturday morning work-out, wishing as she always did that Cobber and Ben were trotting along beside her.

  She stepped into Chalmers Street and continued briskly towards Cleveland, where the bridge would take her over the railway tracks and back in the direction of Glebe. I can put Ellie and the past aside for a while, she thought thankfully, until Christmas anyway.

  On the opposite side of the road up ahead she saw the sign that said Madigan’s Plumbing Services and slowed a little, wondering vaguely whether Frank was back from Melbourne. She looked across at the shopfront and even contemplated popping inside to enquire, but decided against it.

  ‘G’day, Kate.’

  As she’d set off at speed once again she’d all but collided with him. He was on his way to work.

  ‘Oh hello, Frank,’ she said, ‘I was just wondering if you were back.’

  ‘Been back for over a fortnight now,’ he said, ‘I bought a little terrace in Surry Hills. Want to come into the shop and have a coffee? I’ll show you around.’

  ‘I’d love to so long as I’m not in the way.’

  ‘No, no, I’m not booked out on a job until ten. Just paperwork in the meantime and I’ll grab any excuse to avoid that.’

  ‘Good. Consider me your excuse.’

  They crossed the road and entered the shop.

  ‘G’day, Dad.’ Frank greeted the man sitting behind the counter hunched over a book of crossword puzzles. ‘This is Kate Durham. My dad, Pete,’ he said to Kate.

  ‘Hello, Mr Madigan.’

  The man rose and circled the counter to offer his hand. He’s every bit the older version of Frank, Kate thought, a little less lanky in frame and sandy-haired rather than dark, but with the same grey-blue eyes, even the same lazy smile, although it was a little lop-sided, she noted, probably the result of his stroke.

  ‘Pete, please,’ he insisted as they shook, ‘no one ever calls me Mister.’ The brogue was distinctly Irish, despite the fact that Pete Madigan had been in the country for thirty-five years.

  ‘Hello, Pete,’ she said with a smile.

  Frank introduced her to the young girl, Alice, no more than sixteen, who was working on the window display. ‘Would you rustle us up a couple of coffees, thanks Alice?’ he said.

  ‘Sure, Frank.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to the hard yakka, Dad,’ he said, and Pete returned to his book of crossword puzzles. ‘The man’s addicted,’ Frank added loudly for his father’s benefit, ‘they’re not even cryptic – designed for simpletons,’ but Pete chose to ignore the jibe.

  As Frank gave her a brief guided tour, Kate was surprised to find the place far bigger than she’d expected.

  ‘I won’t show you upstairs,’ he said, ‘that’s Dad’s private domain and he’s a messy old bugger.’ Pete lived in the rooms above the shop and had done for years. There were two offices downstairs, one where a motherly, middle-aged woman called Rose was typing away furiously.

  ‘Rose runs the whole business,’ Frank said upon introduction. ‘We’d be lost without her.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Rose replied good-naturedly, which rather surprised Kate.

  He showed her his own office, and then they retired to the tea room, where Alice was making the coffee.

  ‘There’s a store room out the back and a small workshop,’ he said, ‘but I don’t reckon they’d be of much interest to you. We’ve got our own car park though, with rear access via the back lane, where Dad houses the vans. Having off-street inner-city parking’s a huge bonus.’

  ‘The place is so much bigger than it appears,’ she said as they sat and he poured the coffee from the jug Alice placed on the table before them.

  ‘Yeah, like I told you, the old man’s done really well for himself.’

  They sat talking for nearly three quarters of an hour, the conversation not flagging for one moment.

  He asked after her brother, who he presumed had by now returned from Vietnam, and was astonished to hear that Neil had signed up to join the regular army.

  ‘How remarkable,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted, ‘I was absolutely gobsmacked to be quite honest and I still am, but he has his own reasons, so . . .’ She shrugged.

  Frank tastefully made no further enquiries, but their discussion turned to the reception Vietnam veterans were receiving upon return from active service.

  ‘Whatever your feelings are about the war,’ he said, ‘it’s a shocking thing not to show respect for these men and what they’ve been through. Do you know, there are reports that some soldiers have had their uniforms spat on as they walk down the street?’

  Kate agreed with a passion. ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Neil told me that he’d heard stories of returned nashos being reviled even in RSL clubs. Good God, the Returned Servicemen’s League!’ she exclaimed, outraged at the thought. ‘If they can’t support the nashos, who can? What have these men been doing if not serving their country? It’s absolutely disgusting . . .’

  On and on they went, and it was only when they’d drunk the entire jug of coffee and eaten half the plate of shortbread biscuits Alice had set out that Kate looked at her watch to discover it was a quarter to ten.r />
  ‘Good grief,’ she said, jumping to her feet, ‘you have to be out on a job at ten.’

  ‘You’re quite right, I do.’ He stood. ‘What a pity. I could have gone on chatting all day.’

  She smiled. ‘Ah well, another time.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  But strangely enough, he didn’t nominate another time.

  ‘Goodbye, Pete, goodbye, Alice, thanks for the coffee,’ she said as they walked through the shop.

  ‘See you, Kate,’ Pete called.

  ‘No trouble,’ Alice said and, after bidding a farewell to Frank, Kate stepped outside and continued on her way down Chalmers Street.

  She was intrigued and more than a little mystified. There was no vanity at all in Kate Durham, but she was accustomed to repelling men’s advances not wondering why they had offered none. She and Frank were like-minded people with a passion for justice and an enjoyment of conversation and the sharing of views. They had a great deal in common and she sensed that he found her attractive. Why had he made no specific offer to meet again? Why had he left the possibility simply to chance?

  She could create the chance herself if need be. But she would find out. The man was clearly not shy. There had to be a reason.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Neil’s return to Elianne the day before Christmas Eve did not result in the high drama that might have been expected. Stanley Durham had given a great deal of thought to the subject of his elder son and he’d come to the conclusion that Neil had developed a lust for battle. The boy had joined the army because he wanted to return to war, Stan had decided. Stan had known men like that. Hell he’d been one himself. But the war won’t last forever, he thought. When it’s over, Neil will leave the army and come home to take up his rightful position at Elianne.

  Stan had it all neatly worked out. The only worrying element was his son’s survival. That part he tried to put from his mind.

  ‘Welcome home, son.’

  ‘G’day, Dad.’ Neil dumped his kit bag on the front verandah and returned his father’s hearty hug, surprised by the warmth of his welcome. He’d not feared being thrown out upon arrival at the family home, aware as he was that Stan’s previous tirade had been principally bluster, but he had certainly expected to be met with a frostier reception than this.

  He cast a querying look at Kate. She’d been home for a week now and had driven into town to collect him at the station, Cobber and Ben in the back seat – the dogs had adopted the Holden. She answered his query with a shrug and a smile that said your guess is as good as mine and went inside leaving father and son to themselves.

  ‘We parted under a bit of a cloud a few months back,’ Stan said. ‘That was wrong of me.’

  Another surprise, Neil thought. This was surely the closest thing to an apology he’d ever heard from his father. Stan the Man never apologised.

  ‘The truth is I’m proud of you, son, and I know exactly how you feel.’

  ‘You do?’ Impossible, Neil’s brain said.

  ‘I most certainly do. I felt exactly the same way after Tobruk, when they repatriated me from Palestine because of that bout of typhoid. I felt I’d deserted my mates. God I can’t tell you how I longed to be fighting by their side at El Alamein! There’s an unbreakable bond between men who’ve been in battle together, Neil, I understand that, believe me.’ Stan clapped an enthusiastic hand on his son’s shoulder; the boy really was a chip off the old block when all was said and done. ‘I fully understand your need to be back there with your mates.’

  ‘Goodo, Dad.’ Neil left it at that. Things were easier that way.

  Alan arrived home late the following afternoon. The family was now reunited for the ritual of Christmas Day, which in Hilda’s case always started with the special nine o’clock Christmas morning service at Christ Church Anglican Church in Bundaberg.

  When the children had been little, the morning church service had been a mandatory part of the Christmas tradition, following the dictates of Grandmother Ellie herself. The Durhams had always been seen out in strength at Christ Church on Christmas morning, indeed it was the one day of the year they attended church, apart from family weddings, funerals and christenings.

  In the years following Big Jim’s death, Stan had continued his grandparents’ tradition for appearances’ sake, but when the children got older he’d lost interest. In truth the church service had bored him witless, as he’d suspected it had Big Jim, so he’d left the responsibility in his father’s hands. It had become Bartholomew’s job to drive the family to church on Christmas morning.

  Bartholomew had willingly embraced the task until the death of his beloved wife Mary and the ensuing stroke that had rendered him incapable. Things had rather fallen apart after that. To Hilda the church service had remained of vast importance, more as a matter of form than faith, but Stan couldn’t be bothered taking up the reins once again so Max had been appointed to drive his employer’s wife into town along with any other family member who might be interested.

  Young Kate had always accompanied her mother, mainly because she knew Hilda wished her to, and when Bartholomew had become well enough he’d joined them. Unlike the rest of the family Bartholomew’s faith, admittedly in God rather than the church itself, remained resolute. During the Christmas service, he would disassociate himself from the pomp and ceremony and within the confines of God’s house feel particularly close to Mary, whose spirit was with him always and with whom he believed he would be reunited after death.

  Neil and Alan had been quick to follow their father’s example and made a point of opting out of the Christmas church service altogether.

  ‘I think you should come with us this morning,’ Kate said meaningfully to her brothers over the breakfast table. For the past several years, since she’d had her license, it had been Kate who had driven her mother and grandfather to church.

  ‘Why?’ Neil demanded.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘Because we’re a family and because we’re going our separate ways, and because . . .’ she tailed off. Kate really wasn’t at all sure why. Perhaps it was superstition rearing its head again.

  ‘Because I’m going back to Vietnam, you mean.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Bit hypocritical, don’t you think?’ Neil glanced at Alan for back-up.

  ‘Yep.’ Alan was in complete agreement. ‘I don’t reckon God’s going to sit up and take much notice after we’ve ignored him all this time.’

  ‘Fine, forget it, just a suggestion that’s all.’

  Kate and Hilda attended church on their own that morning. The journey to town and back, the very action of getting in and out of the car, would have been too much for Bartholomew in his weakened state. He joined them for the ritual Christmas lunch, but even that was a surprise for his appearances were rare these days. He remained for the most part in his quarters, waited upon by Ivy.

  ‘Glad you could make it, Grandpa,’ Kate said. God he looked frail. She pushed the hot mustard in his direction. ‘Christmas dinner wouldn’t be the same without you.’

  Something in his smile told Kate that he was there especially for her.

  The numbers had dwindled even more this year. The Krantzes had not been invited, and it was a strictly family affair, with just five seated to table, but the champagne and beer flowed and Cook had gone to the extraordinary lengths she always did.

  Roast turkey with vegetables, a baked leg of ham and even a Christmas pudding with brandy sauce to follow, the full catastrophe, Kate thought, on a thirty-five-degree afternoon with the ceiling fans whirring. It seemed somehow ridiculous, yet somehow wonderful. Time had stood still, and she rather wished it could remain that way.

  ‘This is the ninth day now,’ Alan said. ‘They’ve given up on him, haven’t they?’

  ‘Yep,’ Neil replied through a mouthful of turkey, ‘called off the search. Presumed drowned, the reports say.’

  ‘Terrible thing,’ Hilda shook her head tragically, ‘terrible, terrible thing.
Poor Zara, one always feels for those left behind.’

  The conversation, as was happening at family tables throughout the country and indeed across the world, had turned inevitably to the disappearance of the Australian Prime Minister. Harold Holt had vanished on 17 December while swimming at Cheviot Beach near Portsea in Victoria and now, over a week later, despite extensive sea and coastal search, his body had not been recovered.

  ‘Bit of a mystery,’ Alan said. ‘He was a really strong swimmer and he knew that beach well – why would he drown? Conspiracy theories are cropping up already, at least they are at Tech. Some reckon he defected and that the Russians collected him in a submarine.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Neil said dismissively, ‘nothing mysterious at all. The weather conditions were shocking, the man was showing off and he drowned, simple as that.’

  ‘How come there’s no sign of a body then?’ Alan demanded. ‘Crikey, did you see the size of those searches on the telly? They were huge, an army of choppers scouring the coast.’

  ‘So? He’s either still out there wedged under a rock somewhere, or else a shark got him.’

  ‘Oh, poor Zara,’ Hilda said once again, and she took several frantic sips of champagne in order to calm herself. ‘Oh dear oh dear, that poor, poor woman.’

  Stan loudly harrumphed to make clear his feelings on the subject. He could not have cared less about Harold and Zara Holt, but he always liked to play a leading part in the Christmas table chat, so he turned to his daughter.

  ‘I bet you’re pleased to see the end of the bloke, aren’t you,’ he said provocatively.

  Oh God, Kate thought, here we go. ‘In what way, Dad?’ she asked as if she didn’t know the direction her father was heading.

  ‘Well given he was “All the Way with LBJ”,’ Stan said with a pseudo-jocular emphasis that invited battle, ‘and given your commitment to the anti-war movement borders on the zealous,’ he added a bit of a wink to the table in general, ‘you’d hardly have had much time for Holt, would you? You’d find him something of a warmonger, surely.’

  Kate refused to take up the specific bait her father offered, not just in deference to Neil’s military service, but because in this instance there was a far easier way to best Stan the Man.