by Mick McCoy
She refilled her glass. ‘Every bloody Christmas he goes on like this,’ she said to Elaine, ‘even though he knows we’ve been filthy communists since God knows when.’
‘God knows all too little of communists, doesn’t he?’ Ryan said.
That morning while she was stuffing and trussing the bird, skewering its flesh and tying back its bones, Ruby had made a pact with herself that when the confrontation came she wouldn’t bite. ‘Big brother, I haven’t missed you much,’ she said.
Curtis clamped a hand around Ruby’s arm. ‘Ryan, why would you say such things?’ That made her smile. ‘Surely you don’t believe what you read in the papers?’
Ruby and Curtis watched Ryan. Conrad and Elaine concentrated on their food. Maggie had pushed her chair away from the table, sitting side on with one knee crossed over the other, ready to disown her husband not ten minutes into lunch.
Ryan let out a breath. ‘I’d like to know,’ he said, ‘in light of all these well-publicised views and actions of yours, what business you think you have in a church?’
Ruby slapped the table, glasses and plates and family jumping. ‘We all know the tremendous affection you have for the sound of your own voice, brother, but what’s your point?’
‘Well, even if it’s not all true, even if I don’t believe every word, there must be something in it.’
‘Which bit do you think there’s something in?’ she said.
‘You know what I think,’ Conrad said. ‘What we think. Nothing has changed.’
Ryan chewed as he watched Conrad. He swallowed. ‘I thought I knew.’
Ruby stood again. ‘Will you stop eating for just a single bloody second.’ Her fingertips trembled against the table. ‘Have a look around at what you’ve done.’
Ryan held on to his cutlery. ‘What are you getting so excited about?’
‘Don’t give me that! Why do you suddenly think anything is different? In us?’ She hugged her hands to her chest. ‘Inside us?’
Maggie gnawed on her lip. ‘Oh Ruby, please. Don’t egg him on. You’re like two seagulls fighting over a dropped potato chip.’
‘What is it we should repent for? The marches? The rallies? Reading books? What should we stop believing?’ She grasped her fork, tapping the handle against the table. ‘You know we’re not spies, don’t you? You accept that, at least?’
Ryan didn’t answer.
‘You don’t accept that?’ Ruby was genuinely shocked. She gave him more time to back off, to say he didn’t really think she and Conrad passed information to the Russians. The table was quiet. Everyone gave him time.
‘Don’t be so damn stubborn, Ryan,’ Maggie said. ‘Tell your sister.’ But he wouldn’t. He started eating again. ‘This is ridiculous,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t think it, Ruby. I know because I’ve asked him and he’s told me, when you weren’t around to battle with.’
Finally he lifted a hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you’re spies.’ But he couldn’t meet their eyes. He looked at Elaine, her face impassive.
‘I’m embarrassed for you, Ryan,’ Curtis said. ‘Why was that so hard?’
Ryan shook his head. What did that mean, Ruby wondered?
‘I need a refill,’ Maggie said. ‘And it’s time to change the subject.’ She uncrossed her legs and sat forward. ‘How’s work, Conrad?’
Ruby reached again for the champagne, filled Maggie’s glass and emptied the bottle into her own. ‘Good question,’ she said.
‘Have I said something wrong?’
‘I lost my job,’ Conrad said. ‘Six weeks ago.’
Ryan straightened his back. ‘Do you mean they sacked you?’
‘You seem surprised,’ Ruby said, twirling the stem of her glass until it tipped over, champagne spilling across the table.
Elaine and Maggie jumped up.
‘Just leave it,’ Ruby said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
Elaine continued out to the kitchen.
‘My boss called me into his office a week after I got back from Sydney,’ Conrad said, ‘and told me my security clearance had been revoked.’
‘And that’s it?’ Curtis asked. ‘Job over after, what, eight years of service?’
‘While I was in with the boss they packed my things into a cardboard box, coat and hat draped across the top, and had it waiting for me outside the office door. Then they marched me out.’
Elaine reappeared and dabbed at the spilt champagne with a tea towel, then sprinkled salt and poured water over what was left. The tea towel stayed draped over her shoulder as she stood quietly beside Ruby.
‘Thank you,’ Ruby whispered.
Conrad smiled at her from the other end of the table. ‘It’s a government department, the SEC,’ he said. ‘They have a security officer these days.’
Her husband’s ability to maintain an even tone never ceased to surprise Ruby. It was a virtue she respected, even if she never intended to copy it.
Ryan found his voice again. ‘So what are you going to do?’
‘There’s a job open in the engineering department at Melbourne Uni. I’ve had an interview.’
‘Do they have a security officer as well?’ Curtis said.
Ryan drew back from the table and folded his arms. ‘Of course they will. And he’ll come to the same conclusion.’
‘Do you think it my fault that I lost my job?’ Conrad said.
’You sound like you know something about it, brother,’ Ruby said.
‘I’m no more a spy than you are,’ Conrad said. ‘I’m more a communist, but that shouldn’t cost me my job, should it?’
A silence fell on the table again, everyone watching Ryan. After a pause he lifted his napkin to wipe at the corners of his mouth.
‘Ryan?’ Ruby said. ‘What do you know?’
Ryan threw his napkin across his half-eaten meal and pushed back from the table. Ruby’s skin tingled as he passed close behind her chair, but she stayed quiet as he tramped through the kitchen and out into the backyard.
‘The front door’s the other way,’ she shouted after him, ‘if you want to leave.’
‘What just happened here?’ Curtis said.
‘He’d like to think he caused it,’ Ruby said. ‘His brother-in-law’s sacking.’
‘Ruby, what do you mean?’ Maggie asked, already sounding apologetic.
‘He should explain it,’ Ruby said.
‘Please, Ruby, just tell me – what do you mean?’
‘I’ll get him,’ Curtis said. No one spoke as the screen door at the back of the house slapped shut.
Maggie reached out for Conrad, squeezing his hand. ‘Whatever he’s done, I’m sorry.’
Ruby gazed through the dining-room window. Above the side fence, the top two feet of the neighbour’s window were bathed in a high summer sunlight that never shone through the Murphy’s south-facing glass. ‘It’s not your fault, Maggie.’
The screen door screeched and slapped again. Curtis took his seat at the table.
‘Let’s have it,’ Maggie said, looking past Curtis to where Ryan stood in the kitchen doorway.
Ruby could feel her brother behind her, but she refused to acknowledge him. She wiped a tear from her eye and watched Conrad, so composed at the other end of the table. She pressed herself up and dragged her chair around behind Curtis and Maggie to sit next to him.
‘Are you going to come in here?’ Curtis said.
Ryan stayed where he was, staring at the empty space Ruby had left and the chair where he ought to have sat. ‘I wrote a letter,’ he said. ‘To what’s-his-name Richards at ASIO.’
‘Ron Richards,’ Conrad said. ‘The deputy director general at ASIO.’
‘That’s him,’ Ryan said, finally taking his chair. ‘Did you know?’
‘You did what?’ Maggie said, glaring. ‘What was in this letter?’
Conrad answered for him. ‘It was to let Mr Richards know that I still might pose a threat to security, given my role at the SEC.’
Ruby watched her brother as he pushed his plate away and rested his folded hands on the table.
‘How did you find out about it?’ Ryan said.
‘My boss told me about a letter from a family member. “Even your own family don’t trust you,” he said to me.’
‘You must have written it the day Conrad was in the papers,’ Ruby said, her smile without humour. ‘Run straight to the post office with it.’
Maggie gathered herself in close, her head low, her shoulders bent.
‘How could you do such a thing?’ Curtis said, his voice cracking.
‘Your pathetic little letter made no difference,’ Ruby said. ‘None whatsoever. But we were hoping you’d be man enough to tell us about it before now.’
Conrad leaned on his elbows. ‘They’d made their decision the day ASIO came to my office with the summons. Before I’d even got on the train to Sydney.’ There was no venom in his words.
‘I can’t believe this,’ Maggie said, no more than a whisper.
‘Did you think you were telling them something they didn’t know?’ Ruby said. ‘Your letter had absolutely nothing to do with Conrad’s sacking, but you were hoping it had, weren’t you?’
Ryan stared at his near-empty wineglass.
‘Were you trying to teach us a lesson?’ Ruby said.
Ryan tilted his glass on its base, his eyes following the trail of alcohol as it tracked around inside the bowl. ‘I don’t agree with what you’ve done.’
Conrad scratched at the corner of his eye. ‘But Ryan, I haven’t done anything. At least not what you must imagine.’
Ryan put the glass down and closed his eyes. ‘But you have,’ he said. ‘You only have to read it in the papers, hear it on the radio. By proclaiming yourself a Communist, by your defiance in the dock, you put yourself and your whole family in danger of being labelled traitors. Don’t you understand that?’
Ryan’s letter had been all Ruby could think about as Christmas Day approached, and when she’d imagined this moment she thought she’d be angry and righteous and indignant. She and Conrad had lain awake in bed the night before, their hands clasped together on top of the sheets, gazing at the crumbling plaster petals of the ceiling rose, listening to the house’s clicks and cracks, its walls breathing in and out. He’d tried to convince her they shouldn’t bring it up over Christmas lunch, that they should do it privately, but she wouldn’t relent. She’d wanted to expose him in front of his brother. In front of Maggie. She’d thought she’d feel vindicated once they found out what Ryan had done to her and Conrad and Alex. But she only felt hollow.
‘Those newspapers, they’re nothing but tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapping,’ Ryan said.
‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ Ruby said, finding it surprisingly easy not to raise her voice. ‘We hadn’t paid a fair price, or so you thought. You’re convinced we’re guilty, so you wrote your letter.’
‘Have we paid the price now?’ Conrad said.
Ryan didn’t answer.
‘Get out of my house,’ said Ruby.
Maggie stood and collected her basket from beside the Christmas tree, unloading the gifts she’d brought and spreading them around the base of the tree.
‘I mean it,’ Ruby said. ‘I want you out of my house.’
Maggie held her empty basket. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
Conrad kissed her cheek, but Ruby focused on her brother as he swallowed the dregs of his wine.
Ryan patted down his hip pockets, one responding with the tinkle of concealed keys.
‘I don’t want to see you again,’ Ruby said. ‘Ever.’
CONRAD
By mid-March Conrad still had no job. At least not one that could sustain a family. The university position came to nothing after he failed the security check. The same thing happened with a design job at the General Motors Holden plant at Fisherman’s Bend and a teaching role at Swinburne Tech.
But Conrad was no good at idleness. Early in the new year he spent a month at a friend’s engineering workshop, clocking regular hours although orders were being placed for only half that. Full-time employment was important to him, despite what little he was paid; he knew it was all Brendan could afford, probably more, so he worked gladly. Ruby had gone back to nursing two nights a week after almost three years with Alex. Financially, it made more sense for her to work and Conrad to care for Alex, but he couldn’t bring himself to accept that. He saw himself as the breadwinner – that was part of it – but without work he didn’t tick, and he was useless around the house. Couldn’t cook, had never done a grocery shop, and his parenting stretched no further than playing with Alex in the sandpit, reading to him, and walking him around the block if he wouldn’t settle. He’d never so much as warmed a bottle or changed a nappy. Everyone’s lives would’ve been hell.
At the workshop he was foreman for a team of two including himself, and his workmate needed no guidance at all. Fitting and turning mostly, work his father devoted his life to, which required Conrad to wear overalls for the first time in over fifteen years as he bent over lathes and drills to turn out parts for pumps and propeller shafts and rudders. The calluses that began to thicken his pen-pusher’s hands were a quiet source of pride, and he didn’t mind the manual work so long as he understood how it fit into the bigger engineering picture. He quickly grew used to the workshop’s rhythm, making the hours pass by thinking through each task, giving it weight and importance and dignity. But still, it was slow. The equinox had failed to break the lingering dry of a long summer, and the heat draped heavy over the bitumen and brick of the windless Richmond streets, collecting under the workshop’s tin roof and pressing down on its occupants day after day after day.
Then the commissioners decided they had something else to fill Conrad’s time.
He was home for lunch when last November’s black suits paid their next visit. There’d been no preliminary skulking this time, or none that Conrad or Ruby had noticed. The short one, the talker, presented Conrad with the letter of summons and money to cover travel costs. Their Honours expected him the day after next.
But this time Conrad wouldn’t go to Sydney alone. This time, Ruby would come.
Two mornings later, George Street was stuffed with traffic outside the Lord Mountbatten Hotel and nearby Market City was all bustle and clank as Conrad stood at the mirror sliding his tie back and forth through his buttoned collar. The newly roughened pad of his workman’s forefinger rubbed reassuringly against the tie’s seam before wrapping it behind the beginnings of the knot, back over the front and around the top left corner. He loved the process of constructing a tie knot. Method, precision, repetition, the way his father had taught him. With his tie hanging evenly, he guided his arms into the sleeves of his jacket and rolled his shoulders forward to shrug it into place, examining himself in the mirror.
‘Do you think I look like a communist?’
Ruby was cleaning her teeth at the basin in the corner of their room. She rinsed and dried her mouth with a towel. ‘You know you do,’ she said. ‘But why have you got your jacket on? It’s too hot.’
He smiled at himself, every inch your earnest, middle-class, intellectual communist, then began to roll his shoulders back out of the jacket.
‘You’ll still look like a dangerous subversive in your sleeveless pullover.’ Ruby took his place at the mirror and brushed her hands across her blouse and skirt. ‘Do you think Alex will be all right?’
‘I’m sure Elaine will manage just fine.’ He kissed her lightly on the neck, wrapping his arms around her waist. ‘Don’t worry.’
Ruby leaned back into him and closed her eyes. ‘We should probably go,’ she said.
‘I don’t think I’m on straight away. The lawyer said Petrov was on before me.’
‘Don’t you want to hear what he’s got to say?’
‘No.’
‘One more time,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’
He reminded himself that he was in good spirits. They’d been out to d
inner and a movie then spent a night alone in a hotel room, something they hadn’t done since they became parents. ‘One more time,’ he said, smiling like he believed it.
They picked their way across the top of the city, then down through Hyde Park to the courthouse. The muffled rumblings coming from Court 1, audible from the foyer, belonged to Vladimir Petrov, part way through another transaction to earn the bundles of money he’d been promised by the Australian Government in exchange for his dubious testimony and documents. But the order of proceedings on the noticeboard had been amended. A single word was typed next to Conrad’s name: CANCELLED.
‘Look at this.’ Conrad tapped the noticeboard’s glass. ‘My session has been called off.’
‘Cancelled,’ she said, sliding an arm around his. ‘Does that mean they’re done with you now?’
Conrad faced the open courthouse door. ‘No idea.’ He began walking. ‘Frank Powell will know, I hope.’
Ruby joined him on the tiled verandah. ‘Pity they didn’t tell us earlier,’ she said, ‘although I was looking forward to it, in a way.’
He frowned, but leaned closer to her. ‘I wasn’t.’
They retreated to the same old wooden bench between St James’ Church and the Supreme Court building where Conrad has waited so nervously before his first hearing. As the early session ended, Powell appeared on the courthouse steps and whistled to them. Ruby squeezed Conrad’s hand as she was introduced.
‘You’ve seen the board?’
‘I have,’ Conrad said. ‘But is it just deferred? Do I have to stay up here in Sydney?’
Powell shook his head. ‘They’ve decided not to pursue it. Something you said at a meeting of the Australian Legion of Ex-Servicemen a couple of years back.’
‘I remember that,’ Ruby said.
Conrad nodded. ‘They found out I was a communist sympathiser, to use their term, and wanted me thrown out.’
‘Cringely was going to hash over the undercover thing again,’ Powell said. ‘But one of the commissioners – Littlejohn – reviewed it and advised they wouldn’t proceed.’