2024

AWESOME

You function automatically when your life is in ruins. I reluctantly pushed the sheet off and climbed into the shower out of habit. Breakfast in an empty house is depressing. Sue had left weeks ago, and taken the children with her. Then my job had collapsed. I had been a draughtsman in a building company that had followed others into oblivion. I was not aware that there were any other avenues of employment. I was doomed. 

I had put all my energy into earning enough money to support the family, and, I suppose, spent time on the computer exploring the internet. I didn’t understand Sue screaming that I was not a participating parent and I never listened. I don’t know where she got this participating parent thing from. It all ended in a furious row, and my family vanished.

It was a Sunday morning, and I had nothing to do. The sun was shining, so I walked down to the park. There was a bench in a sunny spot, so I went over. A slightly warped thin old man was sitting at one end. He looked respectable enough, I thought,  though clad in a brown suit that was overworn and a cap that my grandfather would have called old-fashioned. I sat at the other end.

He interrupted a longish silence. “You don’t look very happy.”

“I’m not. My life is a complete mess. I feel terrible.”

A slight pause, and then he said, “It’s sad that you chose that.”

I turned on him. “Maybe my wife leaving was partly my fault but my employer going bust wasn’t and having no job prospects isn’t, either.”

“I grant your problems, but that wasn’t what I was referring to. I meant that it was sad that you chose to feel terrible.”

Anger rippled through me. “I didn’t choose to feel terrible, depressed. It was forced on me by what’s happened.”

He turned his head and looked across the park. “What can you see in front of you?”

I looked. “Grass.”

“How many blades of grass, do you think?”

Old men go a bit potty. Dementia. “Millions, many millions.”

“They say that no two blades of grass are the same. Probably untrue, but interesting. Do you know about grass?”

I was already growing tired of this guy. “Nothing.”

“This grass is mostly kikuyu. It grows across the surface on stems, stolons, they are called, which have nodes that root while it is growing. Each stolon has a  rhizome under the soil which also roots. Totally amazing. And amongst the leaves there are insects and spiders, flies and bees, and below that worms and a host of other creatures. Awesome. And then think of your body. Trillions of living cells all perform their separate functions assisted by trillions of microbes and an astonishing number of electrochemical interactions every second. Awesome. Then there is the universe, from particle-waves so small we can only guess them mathematically to systems billions of light years across. There are continual interactions, entities doing and having things done to them. We stand in awe, and then we are very very grateful because we are conscious and aware, which is extraordinary,  and we experience all of this while we create. Holding this enormous magnificence in your mind is an exalted way of living. It doesn’t solve all your problems, but you deal with them in a better way. Of course, being a person isn’t easy, there are the complexities of communication and cooperation, but being in gratitude and awe makes a difference.” He smiled, “Of course, you have to work at it as well as put some energy into creating a solution to your problems. Give it a trial.” 

To my astonishment, I was feeling different, a bit better. I muttered a thank-you and stood up to make my way home. I walked along the path to the park gates feeling a bit stunned.  My life had come to the point where I was taking life coaching from an ancient guy on a park bench. Still, it sounded sensible, and I did feel better. I would give it a try.

A slim and very fit woman in her early twenties, swathed in multi-coloured lycra, jogged along the track until she drew level with the old man on the bench. She stopped and went through a brief breathing routine before saying, “Good morning, Professor.”

He smiled at her. “Good morning, Sylvia. I’m glad to see that you keep fit. I trust your thesis is almost finished. I am looking forward to attacking it with Viking ferocity.

Sylvia grinned at him. “I shall enjoy that. Are you alright, sitting out here by yourself?”

“Yes, thanks, my attendant will be back with the wheelchair in a while. Fortunately, Alfred is a very strong man who can lift me in and out easily. I enjoy sitting here letting my mind explore the nature of light. I am afraid my new theory about the nature of light has disturbed many of my scientific colleagues and I need to choose my words carefully and keep my concepts in good order. Incidentally, on the bottom of the University notice about my lecture next Thursday, someone had written EHBWHisB. Do you know what that means?”

She grinned. “It’s one of those mad student mnemonics. It’s what they call you. It’s quite complimentary, really. EHBWHisB stands for Einstein Had Better Watch His Back.”

Still grinning, Sylvia jogged away.

REUNION

I suppose you’ve been to a School Reunion. A woman had organised a Ten Year Reunion for our Year. It was a BBQ in the Breston High School grounds on a sport-free Saturday. My wife, Edna, came with me because she wanted to meet the people I had been talking about occasionally over the last five years.

Some twenty-five people turned up plus sixteen partners, so it was quite a big affair. I was astonished that most remained unchanged. I recognised them and they were no different in manner than at school. Lisa Hartman I did not recognise. I think she’d had a face job done and deportment school as well. It had caught her a fierce entrepreneur who gazed at us as if we were inconsequential staff.

We all milled around asking the same questions; “What are you doing now?” “Where do you live now?” One surprising change was Peter Erskin who had never displayed any interest in music that I could recall now made violins and was selling well in a competitive market.

We were getting into our first sausage when a large, highly polished Lexus drew up, and out stepped Squiz. I can’t remember how he got the name. He was Andrew Vagas, World Class Enthusiastic Failure. He came to our school in grade six, and whenever the teacher asked a question, his hand would go up. He hardly ever knew the answer but he was keen to get into the action. When we went up to the High School he was put into 7S grade. The S stood for Special, or dumb and different. In retrospect, these kids were ADHD or Aspergers as it was called then, retarded or with learning difficulties and so on. For us in those days they were just dumb. All through High School I interacted with Squiz because he was the loudest cheerer at football games and he was good to have around because nothing phased him and he was always cheerful.

I eventually connected with him over a hamburger. He spoke to me with the same old confidence. “What are you doing, Ronnie?” I told him I had been to university and was now an advertising copywriter. My wife was a part-time doctor’s receptionist, and we had a three-year-old boy.

“What about you, Squiz?”

“Well, I didn’t get into university, didn’t get an apprenticeship, if it comes to that. I got a job in a motor parts warehouse as a forklift driver. Well, it was all a bit confusing and the drivers kept crossing over each other. Then I remembered Pythagoras’s Theorem, you know, with all the squares on it. So I rearranged the warehouse a bit and put squares on the floor big enough to move the forklifts, and I painted labels in the square saying what was there on the racks. Then I put more stretched squares, I think they’ve got another name, out in the loading area for the trucks, and the long bit, the hypotenuse, I put down the centre of the yard to stop the truck running into each other.”

I was lost.  I could remember: In any right-angled triangle the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. “How did you use Pythagoras’ Theorem?”.

He went on. “You know, sticking squares on everything. The problem was I had the warehouse working faster so we were putting the four lorries under pressure, and goods were piling up at the loading bays. The boss, Charlie, said, “Squiz, we need another truck.”

Well, I had passed a yard up the road where three trucks were sitting doing nothing for weeks, so, next morning I went to it. Hassay Distribution was the sign on the front. I went in. There was nobody but a young woman packing up.

‘Who’s about,’ I asked, ‘Is the boss here?’

She laughed. ‘The boss, Dan Meyer, his mate and the drivers won’t be back. Drug smugglers. We were distributing office furniture with heroin. Dan got twelve years and the others a bit less. The police took everything and I haven’t been paid for a month so I’m leaving. What do you want?’

I told her I wanted to know about the trucks in the yard. She threw some keys at me and said, ‘They’re all yours as far as I’m concerned.” She walked out.

I looked around. There was nothing but rubbish in the warehouse, and little was left in the office. I went through the filing cabinets and found stacks of paper left behind including the documents for the trucks and four cars which were not visible and must have been taken by the police.

There was an office safe, open and empty. I stared at it for a while and started thinking to myself that the base seemed a bit big and it would be a nice place to hide something. I felt around inside it but it seemed solid. Just to be sure I found a piece of metal piping and gave the inside base a belt. Sounded a bit hollow, I thought. There wasn’t any catch to open it, but I’m a forklift man and it’s all concealed pullies in the modern ones, so I thought, how would I do it in a safe? It had to be in the sides to the top. I gave the inner top a good push, and the bottom plate lifted. I folded that back and there were banknotes; $100,000.

Well, I thought, that is drug money, so it doesn’t really belong to anyone. I took it, because work needed to be done on the trucks. I had the trucks shifted down to Danny’s to be resprayed and so on, and I transferred ownership. Mr Meyer wasn’t available so I signed for him, and the trucks might have been flagged by the Police so we changed the rego. I’d found the address of the secretary, so I sent her a couple of months' wages, off the books.”

I stopped him. “Squiz, if the Police catch up with you there will be real trouble.”

“Don’t think so, they left the trucks behind, and it says on the paperwork that Mr Meyer gave them to me. Anyway, we have three more trucks and business is good.”

I pointed at the Lexus. “So the boss gave you a massive raise?”

“Oh, no. You remember Glenda Jackson?’

How could you forget Glenda Jackson? She was as thick as an old fence post and looked as exciting.

“Well, she’s the boss’s daughter. And I’d heard a lot that if you wanted to get on in life, you marry the boss’s daughter, so I did. She’s at home with the little ones, They’re too young to leave, but I thought I’d look in here and see what was happening.”

“So, your father-in-law lets you drive the Lexus.”

“Actually, Robbie, it’s mine. Charley’s got a heart problem and I’m running the company now.” He nudged me in the ribs with his elbow. “School helped a lot, didn’t it? Just as well I remembered hypotenuse’s theorem, or I’d never have got going.”

Uncle Edmund

Uncle Edmund passed last week. Well, faded away, really. Finished fading. He was dead.

My father said that he was intensely busy, so would I please go and clean up his unit? He gave me the house keys. “Uncle Edmund said that only you could sort it out. You will find on the ring that there is a key to his roll top desk.“

Uncle Edmund was really a Great Uncle. I didn’t know much about him, and my father didn’t encourage connections with other family. I could only remember visits from an ancient sage who dispensed gift bottles of barley sugar. He had just turned ninety-seven.

His unit was an independent living unit in a retirement village. It was compact and tidy. I went first to the old-time roll-top desk. I put the key in the lock and was surprised by the result. There were three distinct clicks and then the roller lid rose by itself. The inside was as I expected., little pigeon-holes stuffed with letters and receipts. There was a picture of Aunty Florence, his long-departed wife.

I tried the drawers. They were locked. There were no visible keyholes. I guessed that there must be a switch somewhere in the top, and after pulling everything out onto the floor I discovered an irregularity in one pigeonhole and pressed it. The whole front of false drawers swung open to reveal a real safe with a combination lock. I was looking about, cursing the confusion when I noticed some words printed at the back of the concealed lock. 

TONY TREE

And it all came back. When I was about nine Uncle Edmund stayed with us for a Christmas holidays. During that time he and I  had built a tree-house fort. We pretended that there was a secret lock with a combination based on my life at the time. Right 9, left 4, right 5, twice left 13.

I tried it. The safe opened. There were two well-worn carry-on bags; the sort you take on plane journeys. I pulled them out. The top one contained nothing but an outdated British passport made out to Henry Witherspoon but with Uncle Edmunds's photo, showing many trips to Britain and America, Canada sone South American countries.

I opened the second case. Inside was a collection of women’s clothing. I phoned my father and told him about the clothing and the passport. He said, “Leave everything as it is. Come over now, and I’ll tell you about it.”

I was a bit confused, but I went.

My father said, “What I am going to tell you is secret. You cannot tell anyone. Swear to it.”

I swore.

“Good, first, Edmund said you were the only one who could open the safe, which is why I sent you. Now, you won't remember, but you have heard of the Petrov event. Petrov was a Russian agent who defected to Australia and the Russians tried to abduct his wife and get her out of the country. It caused absolute chaos in the Russian Embassy and the KGB suspected everybody in the place. We had spy in the Russian Embassy, a female secretary, and it was decided to extract her before they looked too hard, so, while all attention was on the drama in Darwin rescuing Mrs Petrov, the young lady was extracted and hidden. She was Uncle Edmund.”

“What? She was Uncle Edmund?”

“Yes, he was aa magnificent female impersonator. They got him in as a secretary to the KBG operatives in Canberra. From a young age he picked up languages with ease. He spoke Russian like a Moscow born girl. I think in the end he spoke nine languages fluently. Anyway, they hid Edmund in England for some years, doing translations, and then he spent decades as a secret diplomatic courier.’

I was almost speechless. “He didn’t seem the least effeminate.”

“No, he wasn’t. Just a superb impersonator. The KGB never worked out who he really was or what he had stolen, which was considerable. I think he did it for the excitement. Now you need to go back to his unit and finish cleaning up.”

I went with the story running around my mind. It was almost too big for my mind to hold. Faded old Uncle Edmund had been a spy, a female spy. My head felt thick.  The whole thing was incredible.

I returned to his unit for more disturbance. The roll-top desk and the safe were completely empty. Well, not quite. There was a note on the desk. It said,

Tony, thanks for your help, everything is now as is expected. The event is closed.

I cleaned up the unit a bit and put a collection ready for the Op-Shop. I went home to bed.

I woke around four am wondering how whoever had cleaned out the desk had known I had opened it and wasn’t in the unit. Only my father. And then my mind settled on the strange message. Everything is now as is expected. If you ran two words together you got asis, which is Australian Secret Intelligence Service.

I met my father again. “Were you a spy, too?”

“Now, Secret Service means secret. What would have happened when you were at school, and they asked, “What does your daddy do for a living?” and you had said, “He’s a spy.” Most of the kids would have laughed at you and scorned you for trying to big note yourself, but some might have told their parents and the word spread and I might have disappeared. That is, if I was ever a spy, of course.”

I stared at him. “You were often away for long periods when I was a boy.”

“Business trips. Unless I was spying. Forget about speculating about possible histories. Let’s go out to lunch.

We ate at the Army and Navy Club. I asked him, “How did you qualify for membership here?”

He grinned. “A Colonel in Army Intelligence told them I belonged, so nobody asks questions, as you don’t.”

It was all a bit much for me. I buried my head in the rack-of-lamb. 

© David Townsend 2023