A Distant Land

by Alison Booth

  The sausage roll she’d eaten at the pub wasn’t much of a dinner and her stomach was growling with hunger. As she put some bread into the toaster, she saw the note on the writing pad next to the phone. Her heart jumped. It would be from Lorna, surely. She picked up the pad: ‘Zidra, your mother rang and wants you to phone back.’ A glow of pleasure briefly drove away fatigue. But it was too late to phone Ma now, and anyway she didn’t want to be on the line if Lorna called.

  After eating two slices of toast and cheese, she crept upstairs and cleaned her teeth. Too tired even to wash her face, she stripped off her clothes in her bedroom, leaving them where they fell on the floor. She tumbled into bed and, a moment later, into oblivion.

  Tuesday morning in the newsroom. Phones were ringing, voices shouting, fax machines whirring, people rushing around the office, pats on the back, a senior politician on the line to Joe.

  While Zidra was speaking to an anchorman from a television news program, the receptionist handed her a piece of paper. Zidra glanced at it, her attention elsewhere. ‘Your mother phoned. Ring back today.’ She put the slip of paper on her desk. She’d phone her later, as soon as there was a free moment.

  The day wore on. There was talk of a parliamentary enquiry. There was talk of a Royal Commission. The government was embarrassed; the opposition was exultant. Activists were enraged; the organisers of the moratorium marches gleeful. There were phone calls of congratulations, phone calls of opprobrium. Letters to the editor were already arriving, some hand-delivered to reception.

  It was a good day, her best ever at the newspaper.

  At around nine o’clock that evening Zidra decided to drop in to Lorna’s house on the way home. She found a parking space right outside.

  The door opened as soon as she knocked. It was Jeff. ‘Zidra, our paper girl. That was a beaut article in the Chronicle.’

  ‘Thanks. Is Lorna in?’

  ‘No. She hasn’t been back since yesterday.’

  ‘You mean she didn’t come home last night?’

  ‘No. She hasn’t contacted you?’

  ‘No. And Mick’s not home either?’

  ‘He was here this morning and went out later. Looking for Lorna, he said.’

  ‘So you don’t know where she is and Mick doesn’t either?’

  ‘That’s right. Mick thought she might have been with you. He tried to reach you at work.’

  ‘It’s been impossible today. The lines have been busy all the time.’

  After giving Jeff her Paddington phone number, she drove home. Her stomach was churning with anxiety. Confidence in the success of her scoop was disintegrating. It was surely no coincidence that the police had been seeking Lorna two days ago and that Lorna had disappeared at the same time as Zidra’s article had been published in the Chronicle.

  But where on earth could she be? Could she have been picked up by the police? Zidra carried on along Oxford Street after the junction in Taylor Square. If the police could fabricate some charge against Lorna at the Third Moratorium March, they could do so again. It would be easy. Plant some drugs on her, or some subversive material: fictitious donations to the Vietcong, that sort of thing. Or allege that she’d assaulted a policeman, or caused a disturbance in the streets. Rough her up a bit, or have her disappear altogether.

  But it was too late for all that stuff. Surely the police would never dare to pick her up after the story in today’s newspaper. Or would they? She shivered. You could never know what they would do, or what they might be ordered to do.

  From the phone in the kitchen she called her mother. The Ferndale number was engaged. It was a party line, so this signified little about her mother’s whereabouts. Next she tried some mutual friends. Although full of congratulations, they didn’t know where Lorna was and promised to ring her as soon as they had some news. Feeling sick with anxiety, Zidra rang Joe. ‘She’ll turn up,’ he said. She thought he didn’t sound all that convinced, or perhaps the flatness in his voice was simply fatigue.

  Again she tried phoning Ferndale, and still the line was engaged. After toying with the idea of calling the police, she looked up their number and dialled it. If either of the policemen who’d muscled their way into Lorna’s house picked up the phone, she’d just hang up. The phone was picked up by someone whose voice she didn’t recognise. She told him she was calling about a missing person, Lorna Hunter.

  ‘How long has she been missing?’

  ‘Over twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Not long then. She’ll turn up, don’t worry.’

  ‘Have you arrested anyone of that name?’

  She thought the man hesitated for a moment before saying, ‘No, love.’

  Next she decided to ring St Vincent’s Hospital and eventually managed to get transferred to someone willing to talk to her. Lorna Hunter hadn’t been admitted. After this she tried all the other Sydney hospitals. Nothing. But how could Lorna just vanish like this? No one had heard of her. No one knew where she was. It was as if she didn’t exist.

  By now it was nearly midnight and way too late to try phoning Ferndale again. There was nothing else she could do tonight. When she went to bed, she found it hard to sleep. Eventually she dozed, disturbed by dreams in which she was chasing someone whom she thought was Steve, who was pursuing Lorna through labyrinthine streets, streets that seemed to twist and turn forever, until at last she wrenched herself awake, body sweating, face wet with tears.

  She switched on the lamp and looked at her watch. It was not even four o’clock. She sat up and had a sip of water from the glass on the bedside table. Afterwards she picked up a novel and struggled through a couple of pages. It was impossible to concentrate. I’ve pushed Lorna too hard, she thought. Wiring her up was dangerous. It’s left her exposed. Worse, her bloody article had compromised Lorna and now she’d be paying the price. And it was all her fault. How stupid she’d been. Blinded by ambition, kidding herself she was doing Lorna a service, when all the time she’d been endangering her friend.

  The ground beneath her had gone with Jim’s death, and an abyss lay yawning in its place, with only a few bare roots to grasp in order to stop the plunge. For the last few weeks she’d been clutching at these but now that her article was finished, and Lorna had vanished, even those bare roots had gone. There was nothing to halt her fall.

  Where was Lorna? If only she knew. Murder could be made to look like an accident. Lorna could be lying dead on a road somewhere, deliberately knocked down by a car. Or incarcerated in a police cell, abused and without hope. How could she continue if she lost Lorna as well as Jim? She would be to blame and her life wouldn’t be worth living.

  Chapter 31

  At seven o’clock Zidra dialled the Ferndale telephone number. As she listened to the ringing of the unanswered phone, she bit off a ragged piece of fingernail with her teeth, too impatient to get an emery board or the nail scissors. It tore off too far back and would hurt for days. She cursed softly. Still the phone purred on like an oblivious cat. Surely Ma hadn’t left the house this early. Why the bloody hell didn’t she answer after five rings the way she usually did? After thirteen rings the receiver was picked up and she heard her mother’s voice.

  ‘Sorry, Ma. Did I wake you? You’re normally up and about by now.’

  ‘I was outside. I’m so glad you rang. I’ve been trying to reach you for ages. Congratulations, darling! That was a wonderful piece in the Chronicle. We’re so proud of you.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Her voice cracked. The article was nothing without Lorna to share it with.

  ‘Did you get my messages?’

  ‘Yes, and I did try to call you several times. Listen, something’s happened to Lorna. She’s vanished, days ago now.’

  ‘Lorna vanished? No darling, you’re wrong.’

  ‘Of course I’m not wrong.’ Zidra’s anxiety was now overlaid with annoya
nce. Carefully enunciating her words, she said, ‘Please help me find her. I’m so worried something awful’s happened to her.’

  ‘She’s fine, Zidra.’

  Her mother’s calm voice maddened her. The voice of reason, as if Zidra were some crazy person fabricating anxieties. Controlling herself with some difficulty, she said, ‘Lorna’s gone. She’s not at her house. No one knows where she is. I’ve got to find her.’

  ‘But that’s why I was ringing you. You won’t have to look far. Lorna’s right here, at Ferndale.’

  ‘At Ferndale?’

  ‘Well, not quite here. She’s in the manager’s cottage. She turned up a few days ago with a portmanteau and a whole lot of books. Said she needed somewhere quiet. A safe house. She said you’d told her to find one.’

  ‘You mean she’s been there all the time?’ Relief served to fan her irritation rather than souse it. She snapped, ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me? You could have said that in your message. And it’s not a bloody portmanteau, it’s an overnight bag.’

  ‘There’s no need to swear at me, Zidra. If you’d called me when I first phoned, you would’ve known. Lorna asked me not to put it in the message. Think about it, it makes sense. She didn’t want the police to know where she is after all that’s happened to her.’ Zidra’s mother was talking fast, the way she did when she was upset, and her Latvian accent was more pronounced. ‘I wanted Lorna to stay in the house with Peter and me but she said she’d rather be in the cottage. You know what she’s like, incredibly independent. More so even than you. The cottage was terribly dusty but she and I cleaned it out in a couple of hours, and then Peter shifted in the folding bed and an old card table and a couple of chairs. She’s been working in there ever since. Her exams are really soon, you know. Shall I get her for you?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘I’ll phone you back in about five minutes.’

  ‘Ma?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sorry I was cross.’

  ‘No worries. She’ll be right.’

  Ma indulging in Aussie-isms was always a good sign. After replacing the receiver, Zidra sat cross-legged on the landing floor. Through the open bedroom window she could hear noisy miner birds screeching as they gathered in the palm tree several houses away. When the phone rang a few minutes later, she picked it up at once.

  ‘Hello, Dizzy. Really glad you called.’ Lorna’s voice was so gay she couldn’t have known she was a missing person. ‘We’ve been trying to reach you for days.’

  Zidra visualised her friend sitting comfortably in the Ferndale hallway next to the telephone table. She said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me where you were going? You could have got a message to me. Didn’t you trust me? Was Steve following you?’

  ‘I was worried he might be, or one of his minions. And Jeff told me the police had been looking for me. Anyway, you did say I should go somewhere safe.’

  ‘But why didn’t you tell me where you were going? Mrs Ryan was expecting you. She had your bed made up and everything.’

  Lorna laughed. ‘Oh, Mrs Ryan made the bed – what an effort. Honestly, Dizzy, you sound so bloody suburban sometimes. Remember that I couldn’t contact you. God knows, I tried. Your line was always engaged. You knew I was being followed in Sydney. You knew the phone was being tapped. It probably still is. Mick borrowed a mate’s car and drove me down to Nowra and then I got on the bus. I wanted to come south to my country. To come home. I couldn’t go to Wallaga Lake Reserve though. I thought the police would have someone watching that, and so I came on to Ferndale. I knew your parents would look after me.’

  Lorna paused, and then said in a rush, ‘That was such a terrific article you wrote. Really terrific. And it was especially courageous of you to run with it after all that happened. I know you’ve been grieving for Jim and yet you still managed to do all that work. You’ve been so brave.’

  ‘Brave?’ Zidra couldn’t imagine that this word would ever apply to her.

  ‘Yes, brave. Brave and courageous.’

  ‘Not me. You’re the brave one,’ Zidra said, her voice unusually high. ‘Always have been, all the time I’ve known you.’

  ‘You mustn’t underestimate yourself, Dizzy. Never. I’m incredibly lucky to have you as my friend.’

  Zidra’s vision blurred. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Me too,’ she said. She might have told Lorna that she loved her if she hadn’t feared she would break down altogether. She managed to say, ‘I’m so glad you’re safe.’

  ‘Thank you for everything, Zidra.’

  Only as she put the receiver down did she notice that Lorna had just called her Zidra rather than the usual Dizzy. It was because Lorna was hanging out with Zidra’s parents, she told herself, nothing more than that. Their friendship was the same. Hadn’t Lorna just told her she was lucky to have her as a friend? It seemed that these days she was looking for conspiracy everywhere.

  All things conspire.

  And yet anyone with an ounce of rationality must know that much of her life was just one damned random event after another.

  Jim would know that more than anyone. She sat on the floor and began to sob as she hadn’t done since Jingera.

  All things conspire to hold me from you. All things conspire.

  Part V

  Mid-November 1971

  Chapter 32

  Walking up the hill towards Oxford Street, Zidra tripped on a lager can that someone had left on the ground. The can clattered across the pavement and glittered in the sunlight. She picked it up and looked about for a bin. The street was dirty. Gusts of wind lifted up food wrappers and plastic bags, and tossed them around like small kites dancing along the pavement. At the pedestrian crossing beyond the supermarket, a small stooped woman in a long black coat waited for the lights to turn green. The coat was too large and hung almost to the ground. A huge black beret framed like a halo the woman’s dried up brown face, paradoxically possessing the expression of a small child looking out at the world with intense wonder. Then the lights changed and the traffic came to a stop. The woman picked up her torn plastic holdall and began the struggle to walk across the road, every step an agonising effort. When she reached the opposite kerb, she put down the bag so that all her energy could be directed towards climbing the step to the footpath.

  Zidra’s heart ached. That could be Ma in twenty years’ time, she thought, and me in forty years, sooner probably. When the pedestrian lights turned green again, she crossed over Oxford Street.

  At the entrance to Centennial Park, she joined the trickle of people moving through the gates. She found herself behind a couple pulling along a reluctant silky terrier on the end of a tartan lead. The man was shorter than the woman by a good head. He had an arm around her waist, and her arm was resting on his shoulders, her hand caressing his neck. After overtaking them, Zidra looked back and saw the man’s head lolling into the woman’s caress. She felt a stab of envy. No one loved her like that.

  She knew what the trouble was. She was in a state of limbo. Now that her mission was finished and her article published, she’d have to find some other issue to investigate. It wouldn’t be hard; there was plenty wrong with this city and this country. But in the meantime she felt beached and alone. She wanted, with a desperation that shocked her, to feel someone’s arms around her. She wanted comfort. Physical comfort.

  Get moving, get cracking, you’re not here for soul-searching, she told herself fiercely, you’re here for some exercise. After running a few hundred metres, she slowed down. All of a sudden she thought of Hank. She didn’t even have his telephone number, though she had asked him for it.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ Hank had said that night over a month ago now, the week before she and Jim had travelled to Jingera. ‘Do you mind if I phone you at Ferndale?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she’d said, even though
she’d wondered if this was wise. They were simply two people whose lives were briefly intersecting before arcing away on different trajectories. Yet she’d added, ‘I must get your home phone number too. I looked it up in the directory the other night but it wasn’t listed.’

  Ignoring her comment, he’d glanced at his watch. ‘It’s time I went home. I can’t believe it’s nearly one o’clock. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Today, rather.’

  ‘So have I,’ Zidra had said lightly. Hank had an exasperating tendency to assume that he was the only busy person. ‘You’d better get going.’

  He’d climbed out of bed and begun to dress quickly. She’d got up too and pulled on her kimono. After tearing a sheet of paper from her notebook, she’d written on it her parents’ phone number. Hank had carefully folded it into a small square before tucking it into his wallet.

  As she’d opened her mouth to ask him again for his phone number, he’d leant down and kissed her parted lips.

  Later, before she unlocked the front door, they’d kissed once more. It was only as the door clicked shut after him that she’d remembered he still hadn’t given her his home phone number.

  Ever since Jim’s tragedy, she hadn’t wanted to see Hank. Though she’d met him twice since Jim’s memorial service, that was only for lunch. In a way she’d enjoyed seeing Hank; he was lively and quick-witted, and could make her laugh. Yet at the same time he was too much of a distraction from what else was happening in her life.

  But she was no longer so sure. She started running again and almost fell over a large black Labrador dog dragging its owner along on the end of a leash. I would welcome seeing Hank now, she thought. But there’s something I must do first.

  The next day she waited until Dave Pringle was relaxing with a cup of coffee before asking him, ‘Could someone working at the US Consulate be with the CIA?’