"I"m surprised she didn"t tell you," said his father.
"We"re both busy. Time flies. You know how it is," he said lamely. His father didn"t comment. He accepted and deplored the fact that young city dwellers barely had time to say h.e.l.lo to each other.
"She sent us a plant from her shop as a thank you present. It"s a beauty. She"s a lovely girl."
"Yes."
"When will we see you two again?"
"Don"t know, Dad. The swap with Cathy O"Brian fell through."
"We thought so when we heard about the engagement. She"s very happy. They had a big knees-up at the pub to celebrate. The whole town went."
"I can imagine." He injected a note of cheer into his voice to keep his father on this less sensitive topic. "I"m sorry I missed it. I"m sure I"ll find another position. Just might not be in Birrigai."
"As long as you"re happy, Shay. We"ll be here for you to visit any time you can."
His mother came back on for further speculation about the mysterious Andrew Nolan interspersed with praise of lovely Joelle and news of the goings on at Cathy"s engagement party. Shay listened and offered non-committal mutterings until she finally said goodnight and hung up.
At eleven, he decided the other call wouldn"t come. He went to bed.
Waiting, waiting, waiting. Two agonising days of waiting. Each evening he rushed home from work to check for messages. Nothing. His mobile rang but not with the call he wanted.
By Wednesday, the eagerness of expectation had dulled to an acceptance that Andrew Nolan probably wasn"t going to call back. Perhaps he didn"t realise his message had been cut crucially short and thought Shay wasn"t bothering to return his call. How ironic that would be when here he was in a lather of impatience, which was fast sliding into despair. How lucky he hadn"t told Joelle.
Shay picked up take away Chinese on the way home on Thursday. He had to be at the hospital at eight for his shift. He ate immediately he"d dumped his bag and jacket. No messages. The answering machine sat blank and uncaring.
He forked in fried rice and crispy skin chicken, straight from the containers, without tasting any of it. Not that it mattered, he was only eating because he knew if he didn"t have something in his stomach he wouldn"t be able to concentrate tonight.
The phone rang. Shay swallowed a lump of chicken. Nolan? Unlikely. Probably Mum.
"Shay Brookes."
"Uh. G"day. My name"s Andrew Nolan. I rang a couple"a days back about an ad you ran?" The laconic voice tailed upward at the end of the phrase, making it a query.
Shay gasped. Words gushed forth in an unstoppable torrent. "Yes, yes. h.e.l.lo. I"ve been hoping you"d ring back. The answering machine cut the end of your message off or I would"ve called you. Sorry." He realised he was babbling and came to an abrupt halt.
"That"s okay, mate. No worries." Nolan"s calm carried through the wires.
Shay steadied himself. It may be a false alarm. "Thanks for ringing again. You mentioned your wife knew Emily Grayson."
"Yeah. Megan. They grew up in the same street. Meg was older-maybe five or six years but they were pretty close apparently when they were kids. She used to mind Emily sometimes."
"I wonder if we are talking about the same girl," said Shay carefully. "The Emily I mean grew up in Toowoomba and her parents were very strict Christians of some sort. Joseph and Rebecca."
"Yeah. That"s the one. Deal Street. Meg was at 54 and the Grayson"s were opposite at 55. Meg told me about that pair. Sounded pretty rough for young Emily. She was an only child and Meg felt sorry for her. Mind telling me why you"re interested?"
"Emily was my mother."
"Christ almighty!" Shay waited while Andrew Nolan digested the information. "Young Emily"s child."
"I"d really like to meet you, Mr Nolan," he said. "Is it possible for us to meet?"
"We could, I suppose, but you"re in Sydney aren"t you? I"m in Albury."
"Albury?" Hundreds of kilometres away-southwest on the Victorian border.
A full day"s drive.
He must have sounded as defeated as he felt because Andrew Nolan said, "Ask me what you like, mate. I didn"t really know Emily. Only saw her once at our wedding-she was a bridesmaid-but the wife kept in touch until..." The voice faltered.
"She died," offered Shay softly.
"How did you know that?" Surprise gave his voice strength now.
"Emily died giving birth to my sister," said Shay. "I only found out a few months ago. I"ve spent my whole life trying to find my sister because we were both adopted. Separately. No relatives claimed us. Not even our grandparents."
"Wait a minute," interrupted Andrew. "You"re telling me Emily is dead?"
"Yes. Were you talking about...your wife?"
"Yes. Meg died in 1981. We lived near Tamworth at the time-little place called Toolac-on fifteen acres. They had the worst bushfires for years." He stopped. A couple of heavy breaths rasped in Shay"s ear. "I was away a lot in those days. I drove big rigs all over the country. Given it away now." He paused. "I married again. Carol likes me home every night." The unspoken wish he"d stayed home with Megan that particular night and day hung heavy between them.
"I heard about those fires all my life," said Shay. "I grew up in Birrigai. Stan Brookes and his wife adopted me." He"d heard about this tragedy too. The man who lost his wife and baby son. Toolac was fifty kilometres from Birrigai. He"d never heard the name of the family but it must be Nolan.
"I remember the name Brookes," said Andrew.
"Dad was the policeman."
"That"s right. Big bloke."
"That"s him."
"I lost Meg and our son in those fires." His voice cracked but he quickly cleared his throat. "John. We called him Johnno."
"I"m so sorry."
"Nuthin" you could do, mate. Nuthin" anyone could do. She shouldda got out earlier but I know what she was thinking. She was stubborn as all get out. She wanted to save the place. We"d only been there a few months and she was that excited about having our own home..." Another pause. "I shouldda been there."
"If you were too far away you couldn"t have got back in time. It wasn"t just one fire, Dad said there were three out of control for a couple of days. Impossible to predict where they"d head."
"At least Emily hadn"t arrived or your sister would have been lost as well."
"Was Emily coming to stay?" asked Shay quickly. That would make sense and at last explain why she was in the area if not the final circ.u.mstances.
"Megan told me she wanted Emily to have the baby and live with us until she was capable of coping on her own. She"d been living with the baby"s father..."
Shay interrupted. "Do you know his name?" Joelle"s father and maybe his own. Andrew Nolan was a goldmine.
"He was a foreign student, I know that much. From Europe somewhere. He suddenly cleared out, went back to wherever he came from. Cowardly b.a.s.t.a.r.d, leaving her all alone. He knew she couldn"t go home. Meg was the only person she knew would help her without contacting those parents.
"I wasn"t too keen on taking in an extra pair but Meg and Johnno were on their own for such long stretches. Company would have been good for her. I didn"t really mind," he added as if he realised how callous that may have sounded. "I don"t know when she was supposed to arrive and I never heard anything afterwards. I didn"t think about her at all to be honest. I"d just lost my family. I sold up and moved away as soon as I could."
"What a tragedy," said Shay. Both girls had died-best friends-possibly on the same day. Plus a baby boy. How did someone cope with that loss? A wife and child. The grief would be crippling.
But Andrew had made no mention of Shay himself which was puzzling. He asked tentatively, "But didn"t Emily have me with her as well? I"m older than my sister. Weren"t you in effect taking in two babies and a mother? I can understand your reluctance."
"No, mate. That pregnancy was her first. She"d only just turned seventeen, remember, and had lived at home with that pair until she was fifteen. Didn"t give her much time to have two bubs. Meg said that character was her first big love. How old are you?"
"Twenty nine. I"m not exactly sure when my birthday is but my sister was born on February 10th 1981. I was about fifteen months old, they think."
"Do your maths, mate. It"s not impossible but highly unlikely. Anyway, Megan never mentioned any toddler coming along with Emily and she would have for sure. She was in a state about the girl as it was. Nah-Emily wasn"t your mother, I"m positive."
"But..." Shay struggled to comprehend what Andrew had thrown at him so definitively. "But if Emily isn"t my mother. Who is? Who am I?"
"I dunno. Why"d you think she was?"
"I was found with her by the roadside. Stan found us. She was about to give birth and he took us to the Medical Centre. He took me home and Amy cared for me. They adopted me."
As he spoke Shay examined the familiar information in the light of Andrew"s facts. One stunning solution occurred to him. He hardly dared give it words it was so unbelievable but he summoned the courage and asked, "Did they discover the body of your baby son?"
Andrew took a moment to reply. His voice was husky and low when he said, "No. The fire was so intense the bodies were...what are you thinking?"
"That I might be your son," said Shay slowly.
"But...he died. Megan died."
"What if he didn"t? What if Megan insisted Emily take John with her and escape?" The idea took hold and grew.
"It"s the sort of thing she"d do."
"Did you have a car?"
"We had a beaten up old ute. You know, that ute was found out on a back road later near some stockyards. Majura Lane. Couldn"t figure out how it got there. Fuel pump was b.u.g.g.e.red."
Excitement galloped away with his tongue. Shay"s words tumbled headlong into the phone. "What if Emily drove it there with your son? With me. Stan picked her up on Robert"s Road about twenty k"s out. She must have walked. Majura Lane meets Roberts..."
He swallowed the rush of tears that sprang to his eyes and choked his throat. Emily must have struggled to save him just as she"d struggled to save her own baby. Nine months pregnant. Shay knew what bushfire conditions were like. Seventeen year old Emily alone, lost, terrified, choking on smoke, charred leaves catching in her clothes and hair, carrying a toddler but intent on getting herself and Megan"s son to safety. So intent the effort had killed her. So brave.
"Can we prove it?" asked Andrew. "I couldn"t...I can"t believe it...to lose my boy and get him back. It"s staggering."
"We can do DNA testing," said Shay. "It won"t take long. A few weeks."
"But we don"t know that Emily ever got to my place. We don"t know she wasn"t still on her way there," said Andrew.
"No but the DNA test will prove I"m right." Shay knew. This man was his father.
"I"d better hop the next plane to Sydney." Andrew"s voice was hoa.r.s.e and strained with emotion. "To meet my son."
Those three weeks waiting for test results were the longest of Shay"s life. But he was right. The tall man with greying dark hair and the brown eyes identical to his own, was his father. They both knew it the first time they met, when Andrew strode through the airport arrival gate his eyes searching eagerly for his son.
"You have Meg"s mouth. Her smile," said Andrew in wonder. They had the same laugh, the same square shaped fingers, the same stride.
Shay was consumed by this man, by the concept. His father. He rolled the word around in his mouth tasting the flavour, savouring the pleasure of the unfamiliar phrase-my father. Without the proviso, adoptive.
But so overwhelming to be almost unbelievable he"d found not only a father but a mother as well. He woke each morning after the first meeting and his brain had to rea.s.similate his new ident.i.ty.
He was John Francis Nolan and his birthday was December 8th 1979, making him a couple of weeks younger than everyone thought. He had parents, real parents and they came complete with a host of relatives.
"I"ve got two brothers," Andrew told him that first day when they talked twenty-eight missing years" worth of talk, "And your mum has one. You"ve got three grandparents still living and eight cousins. Plus, another mob from my second family with Carol. You have three half-sisters who can"t wait to meet you."
"I can"t believe it."
"Neither can I." Andrew laughed. "All those girls and now I have the son I thought I"d lost." And he gazed at Shay with wonder and love shining from his eyes.
After the initial astonishment and excitement, the rush of emotion, the disbelief, the acceptance that this was really true, a momentous fact emerged from the tangle.
Joelle was not his sister.
Shay, therefore, had one more thing to do to make his happiness complete. Waiting for confirmation of his parentage was doubly difficult in the light of this realisation. He couldn"t act until he knew for certain.
And then, of course, there was the minor detail of Joelle"s feelings towards him. Had he uprooted them as effectively as he"d intended? Would she see him differently now or would she react as she had when he was her brother? Friendly, loving, but sisterly? Did he have a chance as a lover? Once he thought he did. Now he wasn"t sure.
Friday evening. After a week of rain the first warmer, sun-smattered day drew to a close. Joelle sat with Mel and Luke on the balcony while the spaghetti sauce she"d prepared for dinner bubbled on the stove. She and Luke sipped wine, Mel had fruit juice. Mel"s tummy resembled a small watermelon now and the parents were ridiculously proud of *the b.u.mp".
"When I get back from this next tour we"ll find a house," said Luke.
"A flat would be cheaper," Mel replied. They sat side by side with fingers casually interlaced.
"Our child needs room to play outside."
"Backyard cricket," said Joelle idly.
"Exactly," agreed Luke.
Joelle watched him stroke the b.u.mp gently and smiled. He leaned his head close and intoned, "Hendrix is the greatest. Hendrix is the greatest. Hendrix is the greatest."
"What on earth are you doing?" she asked, laughing.
"He"s teaching our baby the important things in life," Mel said. Luke kissed her as he straightened up.
"They can hear," he said indignantly.
"I know. The b.u.mp goes berserk when it hears music. Very uncomfortable."
"I play my guitar and sing to it," Luke told Joelle. "Gotta start young. We don"t want a musical ignoramus."
Joelle smiled. The sight of this long-haired, jeans-clad rocker with tattoos on both biceps and a silver stud in one ear stroking her sister"s belly so tenderly was pure magic. Luke hadn"t batted an eyelid at the news of impending parenthood. On the contrary he"d been delighted. That he adored Melanie was transparently obvious to everyone. So much so Joelle was amazed that Melanie had ever doubted him. Perhaps it was herself she"d doubted.