CHAPTER 68
I tried to distract him and commented that the Penarth ferry was possibly not a job with the broadest of horizons, but Clara was already laughing.

“It would be a help in all sorts of things, everything from being an air hostess to working on cruises, but, well…”

The laughter stopped, and she looked at her hands for a moment, then glanced quickly at LC.

“You know I’ve taken a year out from college, and you know why, but the waiting lists for it are so bad I had to say yes or wait for ages for another chance. When I go back, do my final year, I need to look for work afterwards. They’ll say to me ’Tell us what you did with your year off’, and that means, well, I could end up outed. This way, I go back with the certificates and it’s an achievement, not just a year working in a bar or something”

Every so often, the girl would surprise me with evidence of far more maturity than I would have assumed of her, and, not for the first time, I wondered if it was down to the rather poor hand life had dealt her.

I was surprised again a week later when she started her course and came home to describe its content. I had assumed it was a matter of simply knowing when and how to get on and off the boat, combined with training in how the galley worked, but it was far more intense, and actually included being dumped in water in a life jacket, a swimming test and, in essence, everything boat-related up to a step below deck hand. She wouldn’t be qualified to keep watch or moor the boat, but she had to know how said mooring worked so as to be able to spot any potential problems.

So much for my rather sexist assumptions about her role.

It surprised me to learn that the State required certificates to operate almost anything bigger than a rowing boat, which brought to mind photos of Alan’s Dad at Changi in a heavy wooden canoe. No licence, no safety checks, no lifeguard, no life jacket. It had been a different world indeed.

I was, though, unsurprised when an almost insufferably smug girl came home one Friday evening with a folder holding several certificates. She rarely, if ever, asked for anything, and I could tell how, before Ish, she had been working on the assumption that there was no point in any such request, but now she was steadily and quietly repeating her approach to gaining our son’s affections: no fuss, no drama, just persistence and what I realised was a bloody good work ethic. And both of our children, of course, clearly adored her.

We celebrated her success at that seafood place near the climbing wall, which of course meant a visit to said wall beforehand and a ‘Phil Special’ larger cab home. Ish’s finger was fine by then, of course, which came in handy when we returned the first big favour Kul and Dal had done me.

The lad and his new wife had found a three bed property on Plaistow Street in Joondalup, equidistant from both the University and the old home, so it was the turn of my family to help with the removals, and to no surprise on anybody’s part, Rod simply found us a box van and a driver for a decent rate. When I saw the truck, I started laughing, and then Kul got the joke, so we ended up trying to explain how that sort of box van was named, in the UK, after That Place Which Starts With An L.

Then we had to explain to the driver why that was actually funny. We got there in the end, though, even though the man was originally from Macedonia. The new place was most definitely one of those ‘smell your neighbours’ properties, but as a first house for two it would be fine, and there were both a garage and enough space out the back for a barbie, which we arranged for the following weekend.

So the Summer came, along with Australia Day, and we worked and played like the fair dinkum Aussies we were now supposed to be. Christmas was spent at Gracetown with Phil and his family, and New Year brought a slightly bizarre video stream with Debbie’s lot as we celebrated the date change as they waited to get ready for theirs.

We even found time for another wedding, this one of Chad and Vern, where Kul was lumbered with the best man job for Chad, Dal being chosen by Vern, which meant that the speeches became a riot of father-son pisstaking.

Their honeymoon trip was, unsurprisingly, to Sydney, but they travelled by aeroplane rather than camper van. Our own family took another break in Espy, of course, coordinated with Nora’s lot, and that was absolutely delightful.

We’d secured an acre of tables in the campsite kitchen just across from our ‘unit’, along with two, count them, two barbecue slabs, and there were chilled wine and cold stubbies, prawn salad and lamb cutlets, Burgers With The Lot and several flavours of ice cream. Littler children were in the pool with a conveniently available grandfather, and bigger children were renewing their acquaintanceship.

Gwen and her husband had taken a hotel room, but the rest had booked another unit close to ours, so we were all sitting comfortably with a brew when the couple first arrived. Once again, I thought my ears were going to bleed.

“ISH!” was followed by, “You must be Clara!”, which sounds innocuous, but as it was intermingled with that piercing squeal that seems to be a young woman’s bonding call, it was a full-on sonic attack. That thought left me wondering if I should check for bleeding from orifices, but it was soon over, thank god, and we settled down in pairs and clumps as we caught up on each other’s news.

Andy and Connor were particularly interested in Clara’s account of her immersion training, which was when the younger man slightly put his foot in it.

“We have women in the Navy, Clara, at all levels these days”

“Yeah, but I live in Wales”

There it was, out in the open. We were rapidly approaching the halfway point in her time with us, as her visa was limited and her course started her postponed final year in October. She’d been with us less than four months, but I could see she was already facing the end of what must have felt like every one of her dreams.

He was aware enough to spot the rawness of the subject, so made a joke about Yorkshire weather and cold-water swimming. Clara perked up a little.

“Where did you go in England? We had a massive drive round. Well, I had a bit; the others went all over”

“London and York, mainly. York was lovely, London a bit, well, I don’t like crowds, and it seems to have an extra arsehole ration, the people, ey? Miserable bastards are everywhere. What is it with the bloody window seats?”

That one puzzled me, but he explained.

“Look, it’s simple as: I get on a bus, I take a window seat and put my bag down on the aisle seat. Bus gets busy, I put it on my lap, free the seat up. Basic good manners. Those London buses, people put their bag by the window, and it’s not cause they’re worried about theft, it’s so that it’s harder for someone to take the other seat”

Clara laughed, adding, “Miserable bastards, aye! I’d never thought of that, but yeah, now you say it”

“Yeah. York was better, but then we were mostly being driven round, or walking. It’s not a place for driving. Then, of course, we had a trip to Germany”

He glanced at his grandmother.

“Sorry, but this is a bit nasty for a meal, but it was like, well, lancing a boil. Stuff builds up, needs letting out, so things can heal, and Nan, that was you, you know?”

Trudi cocked her head.

“In what way, love?”

“Oh, just since I met you, there was always a little shadow there. Not a heavy thing, but coming from outside, looking in? That awful place was when, ey? You changed afterwards, lightened up”

Maz took the older woman’s hand, with a sad smile spreading on her face.

“I think I get what he’s saying, Trudi. It is the same with me. I know it’s all over, can never happen again, but there’s still that silly, stubborn dread: is this all a dream? Do I wake up back in hell again? Then, well…”

She waved towards the pool, where we could hear LC’s squeals as she and Manfred splashed some poor old man.

“Then I look at all this, my son, his girl, our friends, and I say, ‘Maryam. You haven’t got anywhere enough imagination to dream all this up, so stop being silly”

Trudi was nodding all through that statement, and then smiled much more happily.

“Yeah, I suppose. I mean, I could remember the layout of the place, and I found where our hut had been, but it’s all gone. Just traces, ey? Andy’s right, it was like draining an abscess: horrible while it happens, but so much better afterwards. You ever fancy going back to where, you know?”

Maz took a long sip of wine, eyes downcast, then shook her head.

“Only if I can take a fucking flamethrower”