Bridge of Triangles (10 page)

“Me brother's married now. You call her Aunty Vera.”

As the ute neared the tidy cream railway cottage Chris saw that there were two cars—one under an attached roof and another, shiny and well cared for, next to the trimmed hedge. Jack saw the shiny black car.

“Well, I'll be buggered.”

“What's wrong Dad?”

“Be quiet, be quiet, nothing's wrong.”

Ted came out from the house. “G'day stranger. Bugger me if it doesn't rain but it pours.”

Vera came and lounged on her husband's arm. She squinted up at Jack. “G'day stranger. Bugger me if it doesn't rain but it pours.”

Ted looked at his wife. “Hey, mind your language.”

“Oh phu to you—just 'cause ya mum and dad are here.”

Chris had thought the car was Grandfather Leeton's.

“Anyway, you better come inside. We're just having a cuppa.”

“Thought I'd charge up the battery. Take the boys for a bit of a run.”

Vera squinted at Chris and Keith. “You must be Chris and Keith. Which one's Chris?”

“He's Keith,” Chris whispered.

“What's the matter, cat got your tongue? Anyway, I'm your Aunty Vera. Come back to live with your dad, eh? Bit different here from the big smoke I bet.”

“You'll be better off here too,” said Ted, “as long as you behave yourselves. Father's gone to a lot of trouble to get you boys back. Hope youse appreciate it. You're lucky boys I reckon.”

“Got company, eh?” Jack jerked his thumb at the fly-screened door.

“Mum and Dad's been here about an hour,” said Vera.

Chris wondered now if it was his grandfather's car. Vera had said mum and dad—perhaps her parents were here.

“So are youse comin' in or what?” continued Vera.

The group moved inside. Grandfather Leeton sat massively on a chrome chair. He seemed to dwell in a place far off. He stared ahead with his eyes unblinking. He was in the room. He was not in the room. His wife, in soft pink and white clothes was in a deep red sofa. A flowered hat was placed on the cushion next to her. As the boys came into the room she patted the hat more firmly over the vacant seat. The centre of the floor was occupied by a wooden playpen in which a small child sat shaking a toy. Another child was in a high chair.

The table was set with good looking china and there were cakes and biscuits on glass plates.

“I can't get up with these legs so come and kiss your mother,” announced old lady Leeton to Jack. He bent over his mother and kissed her forehead.

Quite suddenly the old man stirred. His eyes came to life. “So you're out for a bit of a run are you?” was the greeting of his father. “You've got the boys with you.” His bald head nodded in their direction and the heavy chain of his watch swayed. The room was suddenly silent.

Chris and Keith moved closer together, hovering near the door. what was wrong, Chris wondered. Even as he wondered the old man seemed to retreat back into himself. His eyes staring once more into the space of the room and beyond.

“Yeh, that's right,” replied Jack.

There was a long silence.

Vera coughed. “Well, what about a cuppa—how's your's Mum?”

The old lady looked at her daughter-in-law and said, “No thank you, but if you're giving Jack a cup then you'll need to add some hot water—mine was far too strong—and not quite hot enough.”

Vera's face flushed and she glanced at Ted. Ted was staring at his boots.

“Well I don't suppose you were christened while you were away from your father—so that's the next thing to be done. To think, boys your age not christened, and Leetons too.” The old lady angrily picked cake crumbs off her lap while speaking.

Again the old man seemed to arrive back in the room. He cleared his throat, “What do you expect? Nothing but nonsense—nonsense from the start.” Then silence.

Keith moved over and tickled the baby under the chin.

“And don't start that baby off again. Its only just settled down. Get away from it—we don't want any of that screaming noise again.” The old lady was looking at Vera as she spoke.

Vera averted her gaze and said, “Here, you boys—would you like a glass of cordial to drink in the garden?”

Vera made the boys a drink and said, “Have some cake if you like.”

“Only one piece now, we're civilized aren't we?” The boys' grandmother said with a shake of one bent finger.

Chris and Keith moved out into the backyard. Vera slipped them a handful of biscuits as they passed through the kitchen. She winked.

Out in the yard the brothers found a dog. Their spirits rose as they fed the dog some biscuit.

“What's christen mean?” asked Keith.

“It's something they do in the church. Put salt on ya tongue I think—or in ya ear. And they tip water on ya head too.”

“What for?”

“Dunno.”

“flint doin' it to me.”

“Me neither.” But Chris pictured his grandmother's face and didn't really believe himself.

Contact with Jack's various family members was rare. Sometimes Ted would drop in at Waterbag Road with a bottle or two of beer and his wind-up gramophone. The men would relax and Ted would play “Peg Leg Jack the Sailor” over and over until he sobered up. And then the boys would seem to stop their laughing. Vera was never with him. Sometimes Jack would take the boys into town on Saturday mornings and after he'd bought his chicken feed and kerosene and other essentials, they might call into old lady Leeton's where she would give them a cup of tea and make the boys eat their half a rock cake in the backyard. Outside the old man would be sitting on a cane chair under the apple tree staring at nothing. He would stir every so often and mutter what sounded like, “Yes, yes, yes.” Vacant staring. Then, “No, oh no—oh no.” The cane chair uttered small creaking sounds. Its legs pushed a little into the black earth under the lawn.

It was after a Saturday morning trip to town that old Mrs Leeton announced that she'd arranged with the vicar for the christening to take place.

“He said he'd do them on a Wednesday afternoon—just the two of them. They won't have to go to church as such,” the old lady said. She had in fact insisted on this procedure. She was glad the boys lived with Jack right out at Waterbag Road and that they were not generally known in town. She was so ashamed and might not have insisted on a christening at all if she did not believe that despite certain unfortunate events in a past now best forgotten, all humans should be christened—and Jack was their father so they were human beings weren't they?

“Are you sure about this christening business? I haven't been near a church for years,” Jack said to his mother.

“That's got nothing to do with it. Of course they must be done. It's all arranged. Should have been done years ago, like any decent Christian folk. Every Leeton has been christened. Now no more nonsense.”

“All nonsense—stuff and nonsense,” muttered the old man, but it was not clear just what he meant. The old lady glared at her husband. He sat and stared.

Jack supposed it couldn't hurt the boys and once it was done it was done.

“I don't suppose you've got ties for the boys—you can borrow a couple of your father's. Now you boys be careful with these ties. Your grandfather's had them for years but they're still quite as good as new.”

Old lady Leeton's planned Wednesday dawned and became another point from which so many events would stem. Chris would look back to this point. Or choose countless others as starting places to make the patterns for a life—his life. And this event, was it the same for Keith? For Jack? Old lady Leeton? No doubt they all looked back at some time and saw completely different stories.

The boys of course had not been told before. In keeping with Jack's manner he merely said, “Get yourself washed and put your school clothes on.” The two dark ties were tied around the boys' necks and tucked into their pants.

“What are these for dad?”

“Don't ask bloody questions. Just do as you're told. And don't get dirty before we leave.”

“Where we going?”

“To town.”

“What for?”

“You'll find out. Now stop your bloody questions. Always wanting to know everything.”

The deep red brick building rose up from the green
earth importantly with its statue high up in a niche of the tower. Headstones and crosses reared up from a tangle of rosemary bushes and oleanders. It was cool and quiet inside with strange smells and colours splashed across the chalky white walls. There were dull brass memorials to townspeople from the earliest days of the invasion. The font stood near the entrance to the church on a raised platform. Both boys nervously glanced around to see where the salt might be kept. But they saw only a little pile of books, some folded cloths and a flattish spoon fashioned from a shell. No salt. The minister smiled at the group with a genuinely welcoming, friendly face. The tall man gently swept the boys under his wing-like draped arms and positioned them around the marble basin. His highly polished shoes sank quietly into the deep red carpet. He picked up a long cloth and kissed it in the centre. Keith glanced at Chris. The minister then continued raising the cloth up so that his eyes were briefly cut off. He moved it back over his head and the reinforced cloth with its dull burnishing of gold thread was lowered and settled around his neck and shoulders. It fell in a rich swathe down his front. Chris raised his eyes towards his father and wondered if it were alright that he wasn't wearing a tie. Jack was shuffling awkwardly. The boys stood dead still until the vicar finished the prayers. He was saying something about welcoming these children into the family of God and how those responsible had to guard them from the Devil and the sinful desires of the flesh. He then beckoned Chris closer to the font. “Name this child.”

Chris was alarmed. Was he going to get a new name?

“Say his name,” the minister whispered to Jack who was also mystified. Surely the kid already had a name.

“Christopher Micky Leeton,” mumbled Jack.

“Christopher Micky, I baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.”

A shell of cold water was splashed onto the boy's forehead and the sign of the cross made.

When Chris stood back and the process was repeated for Keith, he looked down at the dark brown tie. A stain of water was spreading over the centre of the widest section of it.

“Oh shit,” whispered Christopher Micky Leeton to himself.

The minister's white hand stopped momentarily in mid air. Keith's head was bent over the basin. Jack shuffled his feet. The faintest trace of a smile crossed the minister's face as he continued.

“Keith Edward I baptise you in the name of...”

The outside world hurt their eyes. Jack dug into his fob pocket and fished out some coins. “Now go and get an ice-cream and play around the park for a bit. I'll see you back at the ute so wait there.” The boys marvelled at this aspect of getting christened and rushed down the street like pups. Then Jack did something quite out of character: he headed straight for the public bar of the Empire and downed several glasses of cold beer quickly.

And so the boys were being to some extent remade. Although they didn't see a lot of old Grandma Leeton, she seemed to inform the consciousness of this strange little family. Every now and then Jack would drive into town and the old lady would inspect the boys as she handed out a portion of rock cake and watery cordial (to be consumed outside). Did they have clean boots, haircuts, clean hands, only speak when spoken to and generally as she put it, mind their p's and q's? She gave them a little prayer book each and urged Jack to bring their frayed shirts and worn socks into town to be mended. She had a lot of correcting to do as she saw it.

Jack never told the boys in advance of anything he would do. This was quite possibly because he rarely planned any aspects of his life. So it was another mystery that began to unfold the day Ted came and took Keith away in his car and left Chris with his father.

Jack drove straight to Grandma Leeton's. Chris sensed something was wrong. The house stood in the pale sunlight, its wrought iron gate and front door closed as usual. On the trellis, rose buds shivered in the chill breeze like small red hearts tightly closed. Jack pulled up in the ute and Chris felt the familiar gut wrenching resentment as his father said, “Wait here.” Chris felt the urge to run up to the screen door and charge inside announcing their arrival. Or to make it even more fun, to bang the big brass knocker and belt some life into the house. But of course, the screen door would be clipped. Jack had always maintained a distant respect for his parents and their house.

On this winter's day, Chris had a feeling of unease. Everything looked too normal. Why had they driven into town and why had Keith been collected by Ted? The house was silent as Jack Leeton walked up the pebbled path bordered with sad wall flowers and small white rocks.

Jack never used the knocker. He had an unrecognised distrust of all that was fancy or frivolous. Instead he knocked on the doorframe. Only then did he call out to Chris to “Get over here.” The boy joined his father at the shut door and he felt the cold from the concrete veranda creeping up through his feet. Grandma Leeton could be heard muttering her way down the funereal hall past the life-size plaster dog called “Man's Best Friend”. Her usual greeting, even on warm sunny days was, “You haven't got mud on your boots have you?” She spoke to the air but it was meant for children.

The old lady's wedding ring was in the form of a buckled up belt and Chris could see it now as her fingers unclipped
the screen door. Her squat figure blocked most of the the gloomy interior from view and, with no mention of mud, she said in a slate-grey voice, “He's not going.”

Chris sensed a movement in his stomach as he felt with even more certainty that something major was up.