by Susan Duncan
‘Hear you loud and clear, Artie.’
‘That Kate would say the same if she was around. Saw her go off with a suitcase yesterday. Any idea when she’ll be back? I’ll miss me morning confabs with her.’
‘Let you know the second I hear.’ Morning confabs? He gives the old man a quick salute.
Artie says: ‘Was good to feel the fire in me belly again, son. Real good.’
Sam makes it about one hundred metres before swinging his tinny around. Maybe she’s left him a note, he thinks.
The house is cool and still. Sam checks for a note under the kettle. On the bed. In the bathroom. On the coffee table. He circles the kitchen table where Emily’s treasure trove is laid out in the order of discovery: the mysterious contents of the grey tin, the documents in the plastic bag. A stack of letters. There is no note for him here, either. He considers his options. Takes a seat. Pushes aside the mementoes and pulls the bag towards him. He removes and unfolds the first yellowed document. Neat copperplate writing in faded ink. A deed to a house in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, dated January 27 1938. Not a bill, then. He skips to the names. Phyllis and Robert Conway.
He puts it aside and reaches for the next document, more stained, this time, and worn thin around the edges. It’s a death certificate for Phyllis, dated 1963. Cause of death: Suicide. There’s another death certificate. Robert Conway, who departed this mortal coil in 1983. Kate would have been eight years old. Next, a birth certificate for Emily Elizabeth Conway. Kate’s mother. If he’s not mistaken, the old girl was two years older than she admitted. He grins, wryly, impressed. Emily was a law unto herself. There’s a wedding certificate for Emily and Gerald.
He looks up at the sound of thunder. Pushes back his chair and goes to the window. The far-off glow of sheet lightning strobes way beyond the escarpment. With a smile, he counts and gets to fifteen before there’s another rumble, testing Jimmy’s theory. A wind from the west gathers and riffles the casuarinas, setting off a low keening. Leaves start to fall from the spotted gums. A dark shadow makes his way down the steps to Kate’s pontoon. Sam knows it is her wildly eccentric and reclusive neighbour on his way to fish off the end. He hopes he doesn’t get struck by lightning.
He returns to his seat and pauses for a moment to consider whether he has a right to be in Kate’s kitchen, looking through private documents. Too late to think about that now, he tells himself. He reaches for an envelope that’s been slit open. And there he is. The long-lost brother: Alexander Conway. Born September 12 1961. Place: Corowa Base Hospital, Victoria. Mother: Emily Conway. Aged nineteen. There is a blank space where the father’s name should have been.
So it is true, he thinks, weirdly flat, finally understanding that it’s the not knowing that drags a person down, eats away at any idea of who you are and where you come from.
He rocks on the back legs of the chair in a way that sets Kate’s teeth on edge. The letters are in date order. He begins with the earliest.
In the Newbury County Court No R 1367 In the Matter of the Adoption Act, 1947
And In the Matter of Baby Conway, an Infant Take Notice that an Adoption order has this day been made in respect of the above-named Infant
On an application under the serial number BQO Dated this 27th day of March 1962.
(Two names are stamped above ‘Registrar’:)
J F Hampton
G Barr-Jones
3014/27
The address shown is in Newbury, Berkshire, United Kingdom. The opening times for the court are also thoughtfully supplied: ten am to four pm. Mondays to Fridays only.
England. The baby was put up for adoption in England. He reads on.
General Register Office Newbury
Berks PO 27, RG14
Telephone: (0)1635 1356
Your reference: Our reference: RAC 0638202 20 February 1980
Dear Madam,
Thank you for your recent letter containing information as requested. The adoption record of your son has been noted in accordance with your wishes. If he should apply to this Office for access to his birth records under provision of Section 26 of the Children Act 1975, your request will be conveyed to the counsellor conducting the interview which your son will be obliged to attend before particulars of his birth are provided. In order for this office to maintain up-to-date records, it would be appreciated if you would advise us of any change either to your address or your original request. Please quote the above reference number in any correspondence to this Office.
Yours faithfully,
Mrs IL Roberts
General Register Office
Ed Harrison Adoptions
Casework Officer
Date: 22 June 2000
Dear Mrs Jackson,
Thank you for your letter dated 15 May 2000, informing us of your change of address. Our records have been noted accordingly. Should you have any further changes of address etc. please keep this office informed so we can keep our records up to date.
You would not be informed if your adopted son were to die as we do not know this information and would not be informed ourselves. If/when your son applies to access his birth records or applies for entry onto Part 1 of the Adoption Contact Register, your name and address will be forwarded to him.
Yours sincerely,
Ed Harrison
Berkshire County Council
20 January 2002
Dear Madam,
My name is Joe Brampton and I work for the Berkshire County Council Social Services Directorate. One of my jobs is Section 51 Counselling, that is to help people who have been adopted research their birth origin.
I am aware that you have thrice made contact with the adoption registrar to seek information about your adopted son. These enquiries have now been forwarded to me for action.
I am pleased to advise that your birth son has now requested information about his birth and, because of the emotional implications for all involved, we offer to act as intermediary.
My first meeting with your son went well and we are in the process of requesting records from the appropriate adoption agency to enable us to take the next step. He is not yet aware of your contact but was told about the adoption register.
When the records I have requested are received from the agency, we will meet again. May I suggest you write a letter to him via this office to enable me to present this letter at our next meeting.
I realise this letter is out of the blue and perhaps will trigger many emotions and I do hope that you have some support. It goes without saying that we will help all we can.
You will be pleased to learn that his name is still Alexander, the name I believe you gave him at birth. That’s as much as I am able to tell you about him at this stage.
I would take this opportunity to wish you a happy New Year and look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
Joe Brampton
Family Placement Assistant
Berkshire County Council 10 February, 2002
Dear Mrs Jackson,
Thank you for your telephone call and subsequent letter sent to me for onward transmission to Alexander. I write to advise that our meeting on 28/01/02 went exceptionally well. He was visited in the security of his home. There was a lot of information given in your letter that caused much joy and excitement.
Alexander will be writing to you and will no doubt share with you his life story. You are both sure to be emotional but I sense you’ll both handle it well. In the first instance, Alexander will correspond via this address until he feels confident enough to pass on his location. I’m sure you will understand. He has a lot to think about and so do you. I hope you have some support.
I am away on leave for two weeks from today. I would expect that you will receive mail direct from Alexander before I return. I wish you well and feel that your contac
t is progressing well. From past experience it is advisable to progress at a pace that all concerned can handle and are comfortable with.
Yours sincerely,
Joe Brampton
Berkshire County Council
17 September 2004
Dear Mrs Jackson,
A lot of water has gone under the bridge since I last wrote to you on 10/02/02 about Alexander. Alexander was contacted the moment your letter arrived this week and collected it from my office within the hour. He read it in my presence and was obviously delighted. My understanding now is that he will make contact by letter in the first instance then progress to a phone call at a later time. This being so, and since I am unable to effect a face-to-face meeting locally, the time for me to withdraw has come. I will now place the file back in the archives for safekeeping. I do hope all is well with you. I can imagine the emotions you have gone through and am glad to have been of some service to you. It goes without saying that if there is anything you feel we are able to help with in this regard, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Yours sincerely,
Joe Brampton
Family Placements
Sam leans back in his chair, his head spinning. Emily could have opened the door in 2002. Instead, it took her two years to write a letter to the child she relinquished. Why? She definitely wanted to find him. She first began her enquiries into his whereabouts in 1980. Clearly, it took a long time for Alexander to begin searching from his end. He must have been – he scans the letters, scribbles a few dates – nearly forty years old. Probably with children of his own. Sam mentally puts himself in his shoes. If his adoptive parents were good and kind – parents in the true sense – to avoid causing them hurt or grief, he’d delay the search until after their death.
He replaces everything in forensic order. So she’s gone to England, he thinks. God knows for how long. He’d better warn Ettie so she can alert Jenny she’ll be needed for a while yet. Rain fingers the roof. Then pounds down. Outside, the light is dark purple. The bay froths with white caps. He’s going to take a beating in the tinny.
The bow dredges into every second swell before breaking clear. The hull sloshes with rain and seawater. The bilge pump kicks in with a high whine but barely keeps pace. Sam is soaked. The outboard makes death-throe sounds. He is in his element. The boat climbs a wave, teeters, crashes down. Sam drops the revs, hoping the engine doesn’t cut out completely. His eyes sting. Hands are slippery. The shore is almost invisible. He wants to shout with the sheer bloody pleasure of it all. Grins when a huge swell hurls him forward. He shifts his weight up a fraction to avoid flipping. A flash of lightning hits. Closer now. He feels a shock run up his arm where he’s holding on to the gunnel. The rain keeps coming in solid sheets. Up ahead, he makes out the shallow-water marker and adjusts his course.
Truth is, he thinks, wiping his face with his arm, Kate shies at the first hurdle. Steps to the sidelines and observes. A journalist through to the core. What did she call it? The thrill of the chase. Yeah. Sniffing out secrets and exposing them. Once, he’d asked her if they did any good, these public revelations of private matters. ‘Not every private matter, Scully: it’s a question of public interest but sometimes it’s hard to hold on to your integrity under pressure from the editor for a front-page lead.’ She’d absentmindedly called him Scully and he’d asked her why. A journo’s habit.
She’d kissed him lightly on the cheek, but he’d felt uncomfortable all the same at the distance the use of a surname instantly put between them. She’d given up the job, she’d said, because once or twice she’d found herself weakening under pressure and she’d known it was only a matter of time until she ended up cynical and disengaged from the people whose lives she pushed, pulled and honed into a series of facts summed up in less than one thousand words.
He rounds Stony Point. Waves towards the Misses Skettle, who’ll be watching his clumsy progress through their binoculars. He’d tried to visualise how many pages one thousand words filled and later, still curious, he’d leaned over Fast Freddy’s shoulder while he read the Saturday paper at the picnic table in the Square, and counted out loud. He’d made it to five hundred and seventy-three before Freddy lost patience. It was an amazingly small space. A huge last gust knocks the boat, then the squall blows itself out. The wind drops, the sea begins to quiet. He chugs almost sedately to tie up at The Briny’s pontoon. If he’d delayed for ten minutes, he would have had a dry run. Timing is everything, as his father used to say.
He waits in the tinny, wiping the moisture from his eyes, tasting salt, removing his shirt to wring it out. The bilge pump slowly clears the hull. No point in coming this far and letting the tinny sink from lack of attention to detail. While he watches the level drop, he decides once and for all to put his relationship with Kate on the back burner. Relationship? Has it ever been anything more than – oh jeez, the black-hearted insouciance of the word – a convenient fling?
It takes a couple of seconds for him to feel a lightness spreading through his body, the heaviness shifting from where he now realises it has laid like a rock pressing on his chest ever since Kate took off for the will-reading and left Ettie in the lurch without a second thought. He has known despair, felt it, tasted it, and once, almost succumbed to it. Love might be an act of courage, as his father told him often enough, but only fools are blind to the truth. There’s no way to save a person who can’t see she’s in trouble. But who is he to judge? He knows very little of the world beyond Cook’s Basin. He climbs out of the boat, his clothes sticking to him like a second skin. Helluva ride.
He breathes in the pulse of his chosen territory, feels the strength of his connection to people, community, landscape. In time, the community will forgive and even understand why Kate abandoned Ettie and swanned away from the fight to save Garrawi. But it will never forget. Not that it matters. He has a feeling Kate isn’t long for Cook’s Basin. She needed a holiday, not a radical change of lifestyle. Hardly a noble end to a relationship. He sighs, wondering if he is as cool as he thinks or if, as after the death of a loved one, grief will smash into him like a ten-tonne truck in three months’ time. That’s how long it takes, according to the experts who are regularly quoted in Freddy’s favourite tabloid, to finally believe a person – or in his case, an affair – is dead and buried.
But shit, a single phone call wouldn’t have gone astray, just to let him know she was OK. He’d feel the same way about any member of the community who’d upped stakes on a decidedly iffy mission. Ah bloody hell, he’s kidding himself. He wouldn’t give a toss about anyone else. Not unless it was Ettie, or Jimmy, or even the chef, now that he thinks it through. Jenny too. The Misses Skettle. A few others he can think of . . .
The list goes on and on. Artie’s on it, for sure. Not that the old bloke’s going anywhere with his bung legs. Shouldn’t write him off, though. He pitched up for the Save Garrawi parade with a hefty slice of his once legendary dash on display. He must have been a rabble-rouser in his day. And a lot more went on behind his dishwater yellow eyes than any of the community gave him credit for. He didn’t miss a trick. He’s definitely got a thing for Kate, Sam thinks. He watches over her like the old soldier that he is. Sam wonders but wouldn’t dare ask what the two of them talk about on those confabs Artie misses so much. Ah, move on, he tells himself. Done is done.
He pulls out his mobile. Calls Glenn. ‘Mate! You got a rubber mat sorted? You won’t be needing it. No, mate. I’ll go to the flying thing. You’re off the hook. It’s my turn to be useful.’
Keeping busy. Keeping busy. Works for him. He stomps towards the café.
Sam hears Ettie whanging and banging inside the café. He pokes his dripping head inside the back door where she’s putting away pots and pans. ‘Got a minute, love?’
She comes towards him, drying her hands on a tea towel slung over her shoulder. ‘You’re drenched, Sam . . .’
‘Kate’s
gone. To England, I think. Well, I’m almost certain. You might want to let Jenny know she needs to hang around for a bit.’
Ettie sighs. ‘It’s the brother, isn’t it?’
‘Seems to be.’
‘What about a shower upstairs and I’ll bring up an early lunch?’
‘No offence, love, but I’ll get going, if you don’t mind. Leave you two to sort out logistics for the next . . .’ He breaks off. Shrugs. ‘Well, who knows how long?’ He turns on his heel and makes his way back to the tinny. Another squall is threatening. Not that it matters. He’s soaked to the skin.
‘How about dinner with the chef and me tonight?’ Ettie calls after him.
He gives a backwards wave, suddenly unable to trust himself to speak.
Sam makes his way into the city with a rolled-up exercise mat borrowed from Jenny. ‘No time for yoga right now,’ she’d told him when she handed it over. The sun is brutal. Steam rises from the bitumen. He copes better with the traffic. Must be getting used to it, he thinks. He wishes he’d brought a CD to shove in the scratchy deck of the ute to treat himself to a little homespun country-music style philosophy to counter the loony claptrap he’s about to submit to. Although there are people, he admits, who might find it hard to differentiate between the two.
Unaided human flight. Is there no end to the gullibility of lost and lonely people? He hates to admit it, but he’s worried the six goons might be lying in wait like a pack of hyenas ready to pick his bones bare. After he’d showered and changed, he’d returned to the Square and stuck his head inside The Briny. Told the two women to send out a search party if he wasn’t home by six o’clock. They’d laughed, thinking he was joking. Which he was . . . in a way.
He swings into a dark street in the inner city where the houses all date back to the Victorian period – though this lot hasn’t been discovered by trendy young money-market whiz-kids yet. They’re rundown, with peeling paint, loose guttering and forsaken front plots. Bloody depressing, if you ask him, when only two hours away the clean blue sea is there to rest your eyes on for free. He sees a scabby young bloke nodding off in a doorway. Further on, a desperately skinny young woman with dyed black hair and a skirt that advertises her totally naked backside gives him a wiggle and an encouraging look. What the hell is a multi-billion-dollar empire doing hanging out in a street that’s a slum? The answer rockets back. Easy prey.