Black Wattle Creek (Charlie Berlin #2)(26)
Berlin pulled his chair up close to the radiogram and Sarah sat on his knee. Her presence reduced his ability to swear out loud as the Bombers went down to Melbourne in what could only be described as a massacre. She patted him on the shoulder when the final siren went. ‘Never mind, Daddy, there’s always next year.’
Rebecca brought fish and chips home with her and while Berlin buttered slices of bread and sliced up a lemon she opened the steaming, newspaper-wrapped parcel in the middle of the kitchen table. Berlin was hoping for a Saturday-evening family dinner sitting up at the kitchen table, but it wasn’t to be. Peter insisted his jar of murky pond water and frogspawn needed to be within easy reach, and Sarah was constantly distracted by the sound of the television blaring in the living room, and after five minutes Berlin gave the idea away. The food was divided up on plates and the kids moved into the living room, leaving Berlin and Rebecca with the kitchen to themselves.
Berlin closed the hallway door to shut out the noise of a sudden exasperating squabble over a potato cake and sat back down at the table.
‘Jesus, Rebecca, I could handle a crew and a Lancaster and flak and night fighters, but I can’t get my own bloody kids to sit down and shut up at the kitchen table for half an hour over tea.’
She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. ‘It’ll get better, Charlie, we just have to give them time.’
In their ten years together Berlin had rarely mentioned the war, and when he did Rebecca never, ever pressed him for details. He loved her for that. And when new neighbours somehow found out about his war service at one of the monthly card nights and wanted to hear about his adventures, she quickly deflected their questions with talk of children and holidays, or how long it was taking the council to pave the local streets.
They ate quietly, happy in each other’s company. The fish was well cooked, the batter golden and crisp, and the chips and potato cakes were thick-cut and tasty. Berlin asked Rebecca about the wedding and she shook her head sadly.
‘Par for the course. Mum and dad and the bridesmaids all busy worrying about how they looked and ignoring the bride, who was absolutely terrified. Poor little darling looked like she was about to be marched in front of a firing squad instead of walked down the aisle. I’m pretty sure she still has no idea of how she got herself into trouble. I reckon the wedding studios should be handing out free passes to all the local drive-in theatres, because I think that’s where most of their trade comes from these days.’
Television had already forced the closure of a number of the smaller suburban picture theatres and Berlin secretly hoped it would force the drive-in theatres out of business before Sarah turned eighteen.
In an unspoken ritual they swapped plates across the table when they were almost done. Berlin got the uneaten batter from Rebecca’s fish and she got the leftover small crispy brown chips from Nick’s hand cut-potatoes.
After dinner Rebecca cleared the children’s plates, filled the kettle and cursed softly at the flint in the gas gun, which refused to spark. She lit the stove with a match and then lit a cigarette, leaning on the kitchen bench as she waited for the kettle to boil. Berlin folded up the newspaper wrapping and took it out to the bin. At the back door Pip insisted on a pat before trying unsuccessfully to sneak inside between his legs. Back in the kitchen he washed his hands at the sink and dried them on a tea towel. Rebecca was scooping tea leaves from the caddy into the pot she had warmed with hot water from the tap.
The kettle whistled and Rebecca filled the teapot with boiling water and put the lid back on. ‘So how was your trip to the bush this morning? You get anywhere with that information from Bob?’
‘Not really. I don’t know what’s going on, or what you can tell Beryl. Just a lot of strange coincidences and dead-ends so far. Not too sure what else I can do.’
While their tea brewed he told the story of his morning, but only up to the farm and the truck with the missing licence plate. He deliberately left out the part about the Blackwattle Creek asylum and its director Jessop denying any connection to the Thursday morning incident when Berlin hadn’t even mentioned Thursday. He wasn’t sure himself why he left that part untold – was it the word ‘asylum’ he didn’t want to mention? He also left out the part about Stansfield warning him off with all the subtlety of a punch in the kisser, because he knew it would worry her. She liked him doing missing persons cases because there was little risk of him coming to physical harm.
Rebecca poured the tea after rotating the pot anticlockwise three times. It was a ritual that always made Berlin smile. The phone in the hallway rang and Sarah beat Peter in the mad scramble to answer it. There was a brief but decisive scuffle for the handset and Sarah spoke for several minutes before putting the handset down and coming into the kitchen. She stood by the table and spoke seriously, as if delivering a message of great importance.
‘It’s Mrs Moffit, Mummy, and she would like to talk to you, please. I told her we had fish and chips for tea and Pip caught a rat and Peter is a big bully.’
Rebecca was smiling when she went to take the call but she had a concerned look on her face when she came back a few minutes later.
‘Anything wrong?’ Berlin asked.
Rebecca sipped her tea and thought for a moment before answering. ‘It all seems very odd, Charlie. She said she’s been thinking it over and wondering if she’s made too much of things. She said she thinks she probably did imagine Cyril’s leg being missing, and you should forget about everything she told you. And she asked me to thank you again for being so nice with her and that she’s sorry for wasting your time.’