Ripples on a Pond by Joy Dettman Page B

Georgie started, then sighted Jack approaching with a plump blonde woman and two skinny-necked boys. She patted Katie’s shoulder, then told a partial lie. ‘I told Jenny I’d plaster a bit of makeup on her face. I’d better go.’ She’d plastered on the makeup an hour ago. ‘Good to see you,’ she said, and merged into the crowd.
    Most of her merged. Her hair wasn’t easy to hide. She’d stopped growing at five foot ten but usually added three or four inches to her height with heels. She was wearing sandals with three-inch heels tonight, the lesser inch a concession to the time she’d be standing in them.
    Walked around the corner, where she stopped to light a cigarette before continuing down to the side door to wait for its bolts to be drawn. They’d bring the kids out that way to escape the crowd, and when they did, she’d sneak in.
    Heard the last of the tinkling kids’ voices singing ‘Train Whistle Blowing’. Every item tonight, plus the costumes, had been chosen to fit into the theme of the old days.
    Jenny was wearing Juliana Conti’s gold crepe frock they’d dug out from the bottom of Granny’s cedar trunk, an authentic 1920s frock. She’d restrung Granny’s amber necklace and bought fake amber earrings, almost a match.
    I should be thinking about tomorrow, not yesterday, Georgie thought. Maybe she would if she ever worked out what she wanted to do with her tomorrows.
    Cara would be seeing in the new year in London – in twelve hours or so. She’d be home in April.
    Sell the shop and move down to the city, share a flat with her. She’d be easier to live with than Margot.
    Or fly somewhere, see a bit of the world. Or drive somewhere.
    Margot.
    She was the brake on Georgie’s life, like the barricades the council blokes had used to block off both ends of South Street, big sign on them: No Through Traffic.
    And the door was opening and kids streaming out.
    Jenny opened the adult’s concert with ‘Yesterday’.

T HE F UGITIVE
    C ara had survived the week between Christmas and New Year, locked inside her dogbox; maybe the longest, loneliest, saddest week of her life. On New Year’s Eve, stir crazy, 1970 still an hour away, she opened a bottle of wine, and lifted a glass to Morrie, knowing that he was doing the same on the far side of the ocean – or would be.
    She’d met him at a New Year’s Eve dance in Ballarat, in 1964. Five years ago. She’d been in love with him for most of those five years. Why hadn’t he told her he’d been born in Australia? Why hadn’t she asked where he’d been born?
    Why hadn’t he told her his mother was Australian? He’d rarely mentioned his mother – other than her illness. I’ve served my time here , he’d once said, and that was all he’d said.
    He’d known Melbourne roads. She should have wondered how he’d known them so well. When she’d told him she’d won Armadale Primary in the Education Department’s lottery, he’d repeated the name, but hadn’t told her he’d started his schooling there. Why hadn’t he said something then?
    Because Morrie Langdon hadn’t attended that school. The school’s old records only mentioned James Morrison King; and Morrie had been hiding who he was from himself, not from her.
    The wine was good. Bubbly wine always went directly to her head. And maybe to her stomach.
    Whatever was in there was having its own New Year’s party. Maybe it was two. And why not? People needed people. Tonight, she needed people.
    Outside her window, Melbourne was partying. In Woody Creek, Georgie would be partying. She lifted her glass to Georgie and to Woody Creek’s centenary, to its new paint, its flowerbeds and its white ants.
    To date, her belly bulge hadn’t moved much; and when it had, it had felt like wind rolling in her intestines. She knew they