Dream Small

"You caught up with Jeanie there?"

"Yes. She was a nurse. The prettiest thing I'd ever opened my eyes to. She saw my name on the intake logs and had herself assigned to me. We were twenty by then. Twenty years old and thousands of miles from home in a miserable bomb-shelled place. I thought I was dead and gone to the afterlife when I opened my eyes and saw her smiling back. She kissed my cheek and I said, 'paid in full' and promptly went back to sleep."

"How? How did she get overseas?"

"We talked a lot in the following weeks as I convalesced. She'd signed up for the RAAFNS with her father's blessing not long after I'd shipped out. Her heart was broken she told me, and if she was to lose me, she was going to give her own life in service to helping the wounded. The odds of turning up injured in the same Italian hospital were something that told us fate had a strong hand in our lives."

"This was after the French woman and the swimming?"

"Haha. Yes. Jeanie wasn't very happy about the French woman. I'd grown to love Renee in my time in France and Jeanie was a jealous woman. She would scold me and tell me that she hated her but was forever in her debt and thankful for my life. I kept no secrets from her. Life was such a cheap commodity in those times. People died every moment. I wanted her to know my truth."

"So, you bonked that Renee woman?"

"For seven months, she sheltered me. At great personal risk. Life was fragile and we sought some comfort in each other's bodies. Yes."

"And great aunty Jeanie wouldn't have been very happy about that from the sounds of things."

"They were funny times, kiddo. When you think you might just die at any moment, you tend to grasp at life."

"I can imagine. So, you and Jeanie? You were a thing?"

"We spent all our spare time together as I healed. We both knew I'd be sent back in the air as soon as I was well enough. Our time was precious. One afternoon as we walked at the Royal Palace gardens, she confided in me. 'I don't want to die a maiden.' We made very sure she didn't."

"Ooh Grandad!"

"Too much?"

"Hell no. I want details!"

"Maybe you should leave the scotch alone, Sashy."

"Will not. Tell me. Tell me."

"Darling, I'm not sure."

"Grandad, I'm not a virgin. I know how it all works. Tell me how it went. This is like the most romantic stuff ever. Oh shit."

I laugh as she rewinds the tape to just before her outburst and records over the part about not being a virgin. "Some things, mother doesn't need to know." She winks.

"So spill, pops. Details."

"It was awkward. It still is to think about and more so to talk about with my Granddaughter. She invited me in. We washed. I was very nervous. We stood beside the basin and took turns with the washcloth dabbing at ourselves until we'd cleaned off the sweat and heat. Italy can be a warm place you know?"

"It's getting hotter by the moment, pops."

"She knew I'd been with Renee. 'I'm not sure how to-' She started to say, and I silenced her with my lips and drew her down to the bunk in her dormitory. Her skin was pale and perfect. She was so warm and soft and alive. So far removed from the horror of the times. Like some kind of living statue. I kissed her skin and marvelled at her body. 'There's a thing the nurses talk about sometimes,' she said and pushed me away. Then she took my member in her hands and used her mouth on it. I'm not sure... Maybe you should turn this off."

"Uh uh." She glared and shook her head.

"She moved me in her mouth, and it was something Renee had never shown me. I was done in moments and I remember to this day her smile as she drank me down. I wasn't prepared for how much it would hurt her. She pulled me down on top of her and I thrust so eagerly. Just as Renee had shown me. I speared in and she howled blue bloody murder. I was so afraid, laying there inside her as she sobbed and clutched me closely."

"It can hurt the first time." Sasha tells me with a knowing smile. "Not for me. For some girls though. Oh shit. Rewind again." I sip scotch as she rewinds the tape and starts us off again.

"I was mortified. I thought... She spoke through little kisses on my neck, 'Wait, just wait.' And wait I did. Then with a naughty smile and a wink she rolled me on my back and took me like I'd taken her. I had three days leave at the time. I think we ate twice. She was so thin then. No one ate well at the time and we were all so busy. 'Bloody American cigarettes,' she would cough and say when we were sated lying in bed. Everyone smoked back then. Cigarettes and a cup of tea... Staples, at the time."

My scotch is eagerly refilled as I rub my forehead and miss her. I know it was many years ago but sometimes still, I smell her skin and body in that time and place.

"It was three months before I was declared fit for duty and sent back to the airfield at Foggia and then back to Edinburgh. We wrote frequently but war time mail was unreliable, and we lost contact early in forty-four. Her cough had worsened she wrote, and she was being sent back to Australia. It was the last I heard of her. The Americans dropped the bombs and we had operation overlord and it was all done eventually. I was a bit lost. I didn't know who I was anymore."

"War changed you?"

"Maybe. More that I had a way of being. Times to get up, times to go to sleep, flight plans, missions, then suddenly nothing and it was just celebrations and dancing. Drinking and women and all I wanted to do was go home to find Jeanie. It was forty-seven before I returned. There was much to do in the aftermath. Not much got written about that but we flew aid missions and transported workers into Europe for rebuilding."

"But you came home?"

"Yes. I stepped off the train in Proston in late forty-seven. I had a suitcase and a bunch of medals and no idea where I was anymore. The town looked different. The people I knew were mostly gone."

"Was Jeanie there?"

"Her father had transferred, I learned. Her sister, when I asked at the pub, was living back in town. Lorna's husband had been killed in the pacific. Everyone knew everyone back then. Everyone was touched personally by the loss of friends and family. I visited."

"Grandma. Lorna? Is that when you fell in love?"

"Oh, hell no... Oh goodness no. That day... I knocked on her door. I was wearing my uniform; I owned no other clothes. I wasn't showing off. She stood there looking at me the same way she did that first day we met, looking down on me from my own height. There was a little girl, a toddler sitting on the floor in her living room. She scowled and just said, 'You killed her. Get out.' 'Jeanie? Jeanie is gone?' I asked. 'TB. Last year. Get.' That was it. I left."

"Ouch." Sasha is crying quietly. "That's brutal. What's TB?"

"Tuberculosis. Curable now. Endemic back then. Her cough."

"Wow. Can we take a break? I'm sad and... Just... I'm having another scotch. Going to call Mum too. I love you, pops. I'm sorry about this stuff. I didn't mean to..."

"Kiss on the cheek. Quick."

She does so, and asks, "Is that why the cheek kisses. All this time growing up. With Mum too? It reminds you?"

I nod, and I take myself out onto the back lawn where my chair beckons next to the pipe my doctor tells me I shouldn't smoke. I suck deep breaths of Dr Pat's finest tobacco and watch the empty blue sky. I see my friends flying. Their faces visit me. I see my sorties and remember missions. I remember those days in Italy with Jeanie like it was yesterday.

~*~

The sun sinks low over the range. Reds and yellows fade to pink- and mango-coloured streaks. My scotch is empty, and my heart is full. Full to overflowing. War was hell but it made the heaven of stolen moments so much more beautiful. There are times I can smell them. Renee had a Turkish unguent of sorts that she used on her skin. It was spicy and woody and combined with her own smells to make a heady thing that I catch drifts of these days on forest walks and days when neighbours mow lawns. Jeanie... Jeanie smelled like coal tar soap, tobacco and hospital cleaners.

Until we made the bedroom. Then she smelled like every woman ever since. Every one that has reminded me of her. Every one that was slightly different but still a little the same. A little bit of Jeanie.

"Hey Daddy." Startles me near my ear.

"Renny. What are you doing here, love?"

"I brought tea and apparently I have some really steamy love stories to listen to."

"Pff." I know I'm blushing.

"You never told me any of these stories." She squints hard at me and I shrug.

"I don't know. Not really dinner conversation."

"Well here." She kisses my cheek and hands me another scotch. "I'll be inside listening to tapes. I love you, old man."

"Love you too, dolly."

We ate tea together as a family, sitting at the large wooden kitchen table where we'd had so many family dinners over time. I smiled at the empty seat at the other end of the dinner table where no one would ever sit; it having been Lorna's place over the years.

"Tell me more about this Renee woman." My daughter Renee tells me. "You were lovers?"

So, I did. In detail. About my embarrassing first time. About her kindness and encouragement. About our occasional close calls with German guards. Everything, including the part about her being pregnant with my child and how hard it was to leave. Renee and Sasha ate and listened patiently to an old man reliving a youthful romance.

"So you were, what... twenty?"

"Just turned nineteen."

"She was your first?"

"She was."

"You were something of a late bloomer then, Dad."

"Well yes, perhaps. Times were different. Let's not compare notes though, hey. I know you have children but your still my little girl."

"Grandad?"

"Hmm."

"Did you ever think about trying to find her? I could have an uncle or aunt, you know. Aren't you even curious?"

"I think about her often. It seemed a little disrespectful to your Grandma though, to go looking for her."

"Grandma's dead." Sasha shrugs.

"Sasha!"

"Well, it's true, Mum. And even if she wasn't..."

"I think Mum would want you too, Dad. If she knew the story. Did you ever tell her?"

"No. You know what a jealous woman she was."

"Well, she's gone now and your too young to stay lonely, Dad. I worry about you. Write down what you know about her for me and I'll get Ben to make some inquiries." Her husband works with the Federal Police. He's based at the airport and has some foreign contacts.

Sasha gathers our plates and stacks the dishwasher while Renee and I settle on the couch with a glass of scotch. It will be my third today. I take one after dinner as a rule. It was a custom for Lorna and me. There is a news program on and a reporter is talking about the trade fair on Southbank. Expo eighty-eight or some tomfoolery.

"Renee Arielle Lavigne." I write on a sheet of Sasha's paper. It's highly unlikely that anything will ever come of it, so it doesn't hurt to humour the girls. I do a little mental math. "Born around 1913. Would be around seventy-five years old. Lived in Val-de-la-hay near Rouen in 1942. Child would now be forty-four if living." It made me sad to write 'if living' and more that I really knew so little about her. I hoped she lived. And lived a happy life. Because of her, I did.

I pushed the little slip of paper over to Renee. "Don't expect happy news, love. I worked in Paris for a little while after the war. There was a lot of building work. One weekend I drove out to her farm near Rouen. It was all but destroyed. One wall and the chimney mostly remained. I found a photograph of her but that was all."

I expected more quizzing when Sasha joined us but was pleased when she snuggled up beside me instead. They woke me an hour or so later. The couch does that to me.

"Ben's on night work. I'll take my old room." Renee told me and kissed my cheek goodnight. Sasha did likewise and I took myself off to bed. Bed, where I lay for long moments remembering Renee, Jeanie and Lorna before slipping into dreams of those times.

~*~

I'd been up since five, as usual and had breakfast on the table for my guests. There's a little shop about a kilometre away and of a morning I walk there and back to fetch the paper, a pint of milk and cigarettes. Renee never was a morning person, best left unprovoked until she had food in her belly and a cup of coffee in her hand. This morning I heard them stirring in the house and quietly helping themselves to bacon and eggs. The paper had an entire lift out section on that Expo 88 thing. All I saw was ridiculously long queues and crowds of noisy people. I'm not an anti-social man but it looked like a fantastic place to catch the flu.

"G'mornin Daddy." My big girl tells me. It makes me smile to hear her forty-two-year-old self, call me Daddy like she did when she was a child. She takes my empty teacup and wanders back inside.
Soon after, Sasha hustles us into the lounge again and points me at my recliner.

I'm handed another cup of tea and told, "So, it was late 1947 and you'd just got home from England. Great Aunty Jeanie had died, and Grandma blamed you for some reason. What happened next?"

"Well, life went on, I guess. Mr Milton had died. Mrs Milton heard I was back in town. That woman knew everything. She sent a letter to me asking me if I would be good enough to stand at a chair as I used to. The rent for the shop was negotiable but she insisted the town required a barber again. I went back to work. Business was exceptionally good. My farm required a lot of work due to neglect. I was quite distracted."

"Get to the bit about Mum already." Renee smiled. "Sasha only has so many cassettes, old man."

"Yes well. I guess it was early the following year. Time flew by. I had a shop full of customers waiting, it was sale day, and all the cow-cockies were in town. There was a tug at my trouser leg and I looked down to find a little brown haired thing, no bigger than this, looking up at me with big blue eyes. 'Mummy wants to know if you still do girls haircuts, Mister.' Looking to the door I saw a stern looking Lorna watching me. 'I do, young lady.' 'She said she'll give you three bob.' 'You tell Mummy to come back in an hour.'"

"This was Mum's daughter?" Renee asks a bit confused.

"This was you, dolly." I smile at her.

"No!" She looks really hurt. "It can't be. You are my Daddy."

"I am. Now shh."

"Yeah Mum, shut up."

"She came back. She sat watching darkly from the silky oak bench, pretending to read an old newspaper as I sat little Renee up on a board across the arms of the chair. 'What would you like done, dolly?' I asked earning a stern frown from Lorna for the pet name and I thought for the familiarity. 'Mummy says I have split ends and too many knots.'"

"Haha, sounds like me alright." Laughs Renee. "Always in trouble for not brushing my hair properly."

"'Ok then, so a little trim and tell me, do you like French braids?' I asked and she shrugged and said, 'I never had any of those.' You were probably three at the time, maybe younger. Do you remember at all?"

"No Daddy. Not a thing."

"You sat very still for me. I didn't even have to show you the jar of ears that I kept to show the fidgety kids."

"Jar of ears?"

"I had a jam bottle full of dried apricots in metho. They swelled a little and I told the fidgeters that they were all the ears I accidentally cut off wriggly kids."

"Grandad! That's hilarious." Sasha laughs.

"Soon enough we were finished and Lorna came and lifted Renee and her pretty braided hair down from the seat and helped her examine herself in the mirrors. She gave you three shillings and told you to pay me. I shook my head and said, 'the price has changed. Anytime you want your hair done, Miss Hemming, it will cost you the total of one quick little kiss on my cheek.' So, I bent down and you pecked my cheek and for a moment Lorna smiled."

"She was coming around?" Sasha asked.

"Not really. What she said next flattened me. She stopped at the door as she was leaving and without even looking back said, 'Her name is Renee Caserta Grace. I expect you for dinner precisely at six pm. Good afternoon, Clarence.'"

"Wait... Get fucked."

"Mum!" Sasha quickly hits the stop buttons. "What the hell mum?"

Renee's eyes search mine for understanding. There are tears in her eyes and when I nod, she leaves for the kitchen. We watch as she splashes water on her face and drinks from the tap like she did as a child. She returns with the scotch and pours herself two fingers over ice.

"What was that all about?" Sasha asks her.

"Get back to your story, Daddy." She's still teary but puts a hand on my shoulder that tells me we're okay.

When Sasha puts the tape back on, she asks, "So I don't understand what is going on, pops."

"Hmm. I finished work and took my farm truck home. It was an old army blitz. I bathed and put on my suit. The whole time I couldn't believe what I'd heard. Renee... Caserta... Grace... The whole time I thought the little girl was Lorna's to her ex-husband but the fact she had my last name. The fact that she had Renee's first name-"

"Get fucked!" Sasha puts her hand over her mouth and Renee and I both laugh as she puts it together. "Mum? You're Jeanie's daughter?"

"I guess so, pumpkin."

"And Caserta? I always thought that was a dumb name for a girl, but it's where the hospital was when you and Great Aunty... Damn..."

"Why wasn't I ever told?" Renee asks.

"You were happy. You were mine. We were family. It wasn't important. You were loved. Lorna loved you as a mother. Your brothers loved you as a sister. It was neither important nor uncommon at the time. The war left many families blended and people just got on with it."

"So, what happened then, Dad?"

"Well, we ate dinner. It was really awkward. You were tired and a bit bratty after your big day in town. Your Mum tried to take your hair out to brush it before bed and you threw the biggest tantrum. You earned a smack with the wooden spoon and cried yourself to sleep. I helped Lorna wash dishes and then she took a bottle of sherry and two glasses and invited me to sit a while on the veranda."

"The bloody sherry. She loved that sticky muck." Renee laughs.

"She took a while to open up, so I let her. 'I've been terrible to you since the first moment I saw you and I don't even know why.' She told me eventually. 'When you visited some months ago, I was truly evil. I blamed you for taking Jeanie from us. She was heartbroken when you left, and she decided to become a nurse. I blamed you for her leaving us. I blamed you when she came home with that bloody cough. I blamed you when she died. Can you ever forgive me?'"

"I shrugged and nodded. She said, 'Renee was born five months after Jeanie got home. Two months before she died. I knew without being told that she was yours. Jeanie told me about Caserta. In FAR too much detail, mind. She made me promise to find you if you came home. She wanted so badly to live and be a family.' She was crying by this stage and I was too. We didn't say too much more for a while."

I stand and fetch a glass and ice for myself. I'm almost crying again now as I retell that night.

"She told me that when she saw I had re-opened the shop, she was afraid. That the war had taken her husband and Jeanie and now she worried that I was going to take all that she had left, little Renee. She told me that she had no idea what to do and asked me to spend some time thinking on what I wanted. I thanked her for dinner and promised I would."

"Damn, if I'd known my school project would start this whole thing... Damn Mum. How are you feeling Mummy? This is big."

"It is big, pumpkin but it's not at the same time. Daddy loved me, Mum loved me and Jeanie would have loved me if she lived too. Nothing else matters."

"You're not going to spring on me that I'm adopted or something, now are you?" Sasha smirks.