Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 31 October 1975
Letter to the Editor
Dear Madam Editor,
How long can this country survive the insane extravagance of our so-called leaders down in Canberra? Does our treasurer have any idea how much a bottle of milk costs this week compared with three years ago? Four times as much, that’s what!
Mrs Gerald Whatmore
Wirragoon Hereford Stud via Gibber’s Creek
JED
It had been a long and strangely rich morning. Jed had only meant to drop off Sam’s chainsaw to his parents’ place — Dr McAlpine’s was being serviced, and a tree had come down near the water tank.
But somehow ‘staying for a cuppa’ with Blue after breakfast had turned into three hours of stories, startling ones about ‘harem girls’ at the circus, who included a young man and an old woman, with paddings, wigs, make-up and clever lighting; a pickpocket elephant called the Queen of Sheba; the 1960s drought and how the local businesses had let people’s credit run on for three years, till the rains came and they could pay their accounts again; the time Sam was eight and had climbed the cliff at Overflow to gather what he thought was wild bees’ honey as a Mother’s Day present for her, but the bees’ nest turned out to be a paper wasps’ nest and he’d had to plunge into the creek to wash them off. Luckily paper wasps didn’t sting as fiercely as European ones . . .
This was a land of stories. Nancy’s tales passed on from her grandfather, about how he had married the Aboriginal girl who had captured his heart and been cast out from Overflow — the reason for ‘Clancy’s gone to Queensland droving and we don’t know where he are’ — returning only after his father’s death to the property he inherited either because the old man had forgiven him or, more likely, never got around to changing his will.
The even harder saga of Nancy’s and Matron Clancy’s years in a Japanese internment camp: stories that should have been tragic, with the loss of Matron Clancy’s son and husband, the death of almost every woman there from starvation and disease. Somehow, though, in the telling they were more about the friendships and strength of the women there than about the atrocities they had experienced.
And the richness of Matilda’s memories . . .
Jed smiled. Matilda was generous with love, money and her incredible collection of decades of couture clothes, but possibly the greatest richness she had given Jed was the knowledge of the land around her, and how the nation of Australia had been built.
She’d just opened the fridge to make a sandwich for an overdue lunch when the phone rang. ‘Hello?’
‘Jed? It’s Carol. I’ve found out something you need to know. Okay if I come out to Dribble?’
‘Of course. Have you had lunch?’
Carol laughed. ‘My sister just made a hundred spinach triangles, two dozen melting moments and curried parsnip soup. Yes, I’ve had lunch. Can I bring anything out to you?’
‘Something for dinner would be wonderful.’
‘For three of you?’ There seemed to be no hesitation in Carol’s voice now at the thought of Sam and Jed together. Jed was glad.
‘Yes, three. No, make it four. I haven’t had lunch yet. Spinach triangles sound perfect. See you soon.’ There were distinct advantages in being the landlord of a café, and having an account at that café; and having a cook at that café whose food, somehow, was always exactly what you felt like eating.
Jed put the bread back in the fridge. She filled the kettle, then put tea leaves in the pot. She grabbed mugs in one hand, and milk in the other, turned . . .
And stopped.
Three women sat at her kitchen table. The first’s hair was white, short, curling about her face. She wore a psychedelic caftan, of the kind that had been fashionable ten years ago, and multicoloured bangles on her bony wrists. It was herself. How old was she? Seventy, perhaps? Or more like eighty, or even ninety.
The second woman’s hair was plaited white and mauve and twisted into a bun on top of her head. She wore a sparkling tailored dress. Julieanne, undoubtedly. The third’s hair was grey, left long, draped over purple overalls and T-shirt.
Carol.
The kitchen wall behind them was painted pale mauve, instead of white, and outside the river ran with the gush and froth of flood.
For perhaps ten seconds she caught a twist of talk: ‘. . . and then we’re all going to meet at . . .’ The Jed of the future stopped. She met Jed’s eyes — the Jed of now, the Jed staring into the vision in her kitchen, the first such vision she had seen for years, and laughed. ‘Oh, I had forgotten this. Guys, look: I told you that one day we’d see us from way back last century.’
The white-and-mauve-haired Julieanne laughed. She gave a small wave of a hand still encrusted with rings, though these looked considerably more valuable than the ones she’d worn as a student.
The grey-haired Carol stared at the young Jed. ‘I never quite believed you.’
‘I know.’ The older Jed grinned. ‘Take a good look. This is only going to last a few more seconds, if I remember. And, no,’ to the Jed of now, ‘I’m not telling you a single thing about your future. Except you can probably guess it’s going to be a long one.’
‘And more crammed than a generation ship to Mars,’ said older Carol.
‘You mean we’ll go to Mars?’ Jed began excitedly.
‘Great-Grandma?’ The yell came from outside. ‘Where did you put my —?’
The three older women smiled at her. And vanished.
Jed put the mugs down, shaking only slightly. She was still sitting at the table when Carol’s car pulled up.
Carol gazed at her from the door. ‘Jed! Are you all right?’
‘Yes. I’ve . . .’ What? she thought. Seen a ghost? ‘I’ve just had a vision of the two of us and another friend, at this table, in maybe sixty years’ time. And you aren’t going to believe me, because I saw that too. Or you’re not going to believe me till you sit here then, and see the me of 1975 right in front of you.’
‘Yes. Well, I’m glad I don’t have to say, “You’re joking,” then,’ said Carol ironically. She put a plastic-covered plate, the spinach triangles’ steam condensing, in front of Jed, with a small container of melting moments, then slid three more large plastic containers into the fridge. ‘Eat,’ she said. ‘You are obviously suffering from a lack of food.’
‘No, I’m not. Well, yes, I am. But that’s not why I saw us in the future. I just see things, sometimes. Or used to.’
‘It’s okay. Scarlett told me and Leafsong about . . .’ Carol hesitated.
‘My visions or hallucinations?’ Jed grinned and attacked a spinach triangle. Just the right amount of feta. ‘By the way, one of the three of us is going to have a great-grandchild.’
‘Only one of us? And one great-grandchild?’
Jed laughed, joy filling her at the glimpse of happiness and friendship in the future. It was good to know that when she was old there would be two friends, at least, who remembered these extraordinary years. ‘I heard a kid call out “Great-Grandma”. A girl, I think. She could have been speaking to any of us. We might all have fifty great-grandkids. Maybe by then they will be hatched in test tubes. I never see enough to really know much about the future.’
‘A useless sibyl then. Can you tell me the winning lottery numbers for next week?’
‘Nope.’ It really was a superb spinach triangle, flaky outside and soft within.
‘How about “Will Malcolm Fraser pass Supply?”’
‘Of course he will. He has to. But I didn’t get that from a vision. Nicholas told me they’ve persuaded two opposition members to cross the floor. What did you have to tell me?’
‘This is going to be easier to explain to a woman who believes she can see the future. The investigator has been keeping an eye on probate registrations. There’s been another one for a Ra Zacharia, also known as Dennis O’Lachlan. The money was left to him by an Australian this time: Mr Angus McHenry.’
‘Ah,’ said Jed. ‘One of the Chosen, I presume. How much this time?’
‘A house in Sydney worth twenty-six thousand dollars, and just over three thousand in cash. But his son is contesting the will on behalf of his mother. His son claims that Mr McHenry left the community of the Chosen last year, but due to his illness and the need to arrange for his care his will was never changed. They have a good case,’ she added. ‘If I were Ra Zacharia, I wouldn’t bother fighting them.’
‘Is he going to?’
‘No idea. I’ll let you know.’ She hesitated. ‘The investigator rang Mrs McHenry. He didn’t pester her — he’s an okay bloke. He was open about who he was and who was employing him, and asked if she’d like to talk about Ra Zacharia. He said she was very, very happy to. In fact he said she really needed to talk.’
Jed tried to imagine a grieving widow, knowing that her gullibility, and her husband’s, might have meant his early death. ‘Go on.’
‘I went with him. Jed, it was impossible not to feel sorry for the poor woman, losing her husband, knowing she could be kicked out of her house any day. She can’t forgive herself. She can’t forgive Zacharia either. “He promised us,” she kept saying. “He promised us Angus was cured.”’
‘So it is all a con,’ said Jed flatly.
‘I . . . I don’t know.’ Carol shook her head. ‘I was sure it was a complete con before I saw her. But Mrs McHenry was very clear — her husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer over five years ago. The doctors gave him three months to live, six at the most. But he lived for almost another five years, and for a lot of them was pain free.’
‘The power of belief?’
‘I just don’t know. But there’s more. It’s not all just being at one with the universe out there. The green drinks you described?’
‘The wheatgrass juice?’ Jed felt the memory of the cud-like stuff slithering down her throat, then threatening to slither up again.
‘Not everyone gets wheatgrass. They’re given herbal teas all through the day. Mrs McHenry’s son is a chemist. He knows a fair bit about herbal remedies too. He believes the people in the community are being drugged. There are herbs that can stop you feeling pain — mostly illegal ones, and if you take too much they can kill you too. And there are others that make you feel as if the pain is a long way away and the whole world is bright, or so carefree you’ll do pretty much what you are told.’ Carol smiled wryly. ‘Most of those are illegal too.’
Jed thought of the herb gardens out at the Chosen of the Universe compound, the long greenhouses. Thank goodness Scarlett had agreed not to go out to the community again, and that studying for her exams had left her with little time to see Mark. ‘Has the drug squad ever been out to the community?’
‘Not that I know of. I have a feeling that Ra Zacharia is too clever to grow anything obvious like marijuana or opium poppies, and those are probably the only ones the drug squad recognises. They’re cops, not botanists.’
‘I’m not even going to ask what the other herbs might be,’ said Jed.
Carol grinned. ‘Let’s just say I did too much . . . experimentation . . . at uni. I was lucky,’ she added. ‘One of the blokes I knew ended up swimming in the harbour naked and arriving at the breakfast table of two old ladies who have a waterfront cottage. He was in the asylum up at Goulburn for months.’
Jed shuddered, and picked up the last crumbs of pastry with her finger. ‘So, Ra Zacharia drugs his acolytes, and at least two of them have left everything they own to him. But is he breaking the law?’
‘It depends on his motivation,’ said Carol slowly. ‘That’s what matters in law. Is he deliberately trying to unduly influence people who he knows will die within a few years, leaving him all they have? Or does he really think he can heal them, and keeping them happy and pain free is a way to help that?’
‘What do you think?’
Carol shrugged. ‘I have no idea. Two other bits of information though. The McHenrys aren’t the only ones who have left the Chosen. Over half of the believers had left by the time they realised Mr McHenry needed proper medical help, and quite a few others were beginning to lose faith too. And you know those aliens he talks about?’
‘The ones sending out Morse code signals conveniently in English?’ Jed blinked. ‘I’d forgotten — they’re supposed to be arriving soon.’
Carol gave a crooked smile. ‘On 11 November.’ She reached for a melting moment. ‘It’s even better than Nostradamus and the northern hemisphere blowing up. All our lives will change on 11 November!’
‘Or the community of the Chosen is going to collapse completely in a fortnight.’ If members were leaving now, surely none would stay after the aliens failed to show up. Suddenly she felt deeply sorry for Mark. She had to help him. And surely Scarlett would want her to, just as she’d asked her to help Leafsong. He’d need a place to live, something to give him a feeling of being needed.
And, just possibly, she had the solution.