Dream Small

"Well honey, this is probably as good a-" Sasha's horrified face cracks us both up before Renee can spring her teasing joke.

"You bitch. You had me then. So go on, pops. This is like a movie."

"Well, I didn't see your Mum or Lorna for another week. She was living in town in a house she rented from the old Sorenson woman. I heard she was working at the school as an aide. One afternoon there was another little tug at my trouser leg and a little angel looked up and said, 'Can you make my hair pretty again, please?' Lorna was smiling from the doorway and nodded at me. Then a little cutey scrambled up into my empty chair and asked for the board. When we were done, she kissed my cheek and turned around and around in the mirrors. 'Will you do mine, too. Please Clarence.' Lorna asked."

I sipped my scotch and watched as Renee refilled both our glasses. She was smiling to herself. I'd been terrified this story would hurt her, but the truth is truth.

"She sat up in my chair and as I brushed her hair she started crying. 'I'm sorry.' She told me, 'No one has touched me since Grant died.' 'I'm sorry for your loss, Lorna. You'll have to tell me about him sometime. About what sort of man he was. Now what are we doing for you today.' 'Whatever you like. Seriously, I need a change. It's so heavy and dull and just how I feel. Shave it all off for all I care.' I asked little Renee to hand me a magazine from the pile. It was a Women's Weekly, and I asked her to flick through while I brushed out her hair. 'Earmark some pages. I can't do everything as well as Mrs Stringer used to, but I did practice a lot on the nurses in Caserta.' 'I'll bet you did, you pig. Jeanie would have cut off your... yes well. She told me you only had one left to lose.'"

"What Grandad? Why are you smiling like that? Is it about your balls?"

Renee laughs at Sasha's casual reference to my balls. "Ball. Singular, pumpkin."

"Nope. I'm just remembering that that was the first time I ever heard your Grandma laugh. And her laugh could change a man. Her stern face broke into twinkling eyes and dimples that reminded me of Jeanie in happy times and the sound of it gladdened my heart. After everything we'd all been through over the last decade, laughter was truly precious."

"She found a simple short, bobbed style that looked quite glamourous and more importantly for me, quite simple and when I was finished, I told her, 'Sixpence, if you must pay me.' The shop had filled with a few timber cutters and old Col had found his drunken way over from the pub. She stood and smiled and brushed a little hair from her skirt. 'The price was set long ago, Clarence.' And then she knelt on the floor in front of everybody and kissed me squarely and quickly right on the butt. I was pretty shocked, but not as shocked as my customers. 'Dinner is six, if you remember.' Were the words she told the silent shop."

"I need the loo." Renee tells us. "And it's almost lunch time. I should call Ben and see if he's up and about. Can we pause a little while, please guys?"

"Sure Mummy, I need a swim. Grandad won't turn the air con on unless it gets over forty." She rolls her eyes at me.

"Hasn't changed a bit, then." Renee demonstrates where Sasha learned the eye-roll gesture.

I take the opportunity to visit the shop up the road. I need toilet paper courtesy of my visitors and a few other things. I like the walk as well. Men think better when they move around, I believe. Renee surprises me by showing up at the shop while I'm there.

"Hi Daddy. We're staying the night again. Sasha is taking Monday off and I'm chucking a sicky too. I'm getting stuff for spaghetti."

"Ok then."

"Here, give me that lot." She takes my trolley and I follow her around. "Thanks for doing this for Sasha. It must be a little cruel on you. A whole bunch of old feelings and memories. Some truth bombs you couldn't control. I love you, old man."

I hand her some shaving cream and a box of disposable razors. "Not so tough. I miss Mum. I miss them all you know. It's the funny thing about loving women. Loving one and losing her doesn't make loving another one any less. Doesn't make loving the first one less either. I don't know. I loved them each with everything I could. It's a funny world."

"That it is."

"Dad. Is this all okay?"

"What do you mean, dolly?"

"Well, it feels a lot like we opened an old wound or dug too deeply."

"No. It's things your Mum would have told you had she been here still. In her own time. You know how she was. It's good. Like taking a cast off. Do you remember your arm? The little eighty?"

"Very well. Haha. I can't believe I wedged it that far under the tank stand." She whiskey throttled that little motorcycle and dropped its clutch and I have no idea how she fit it under the water tank. Thankfully, she only had a greenstick fracture and a big attitude.

"Do you remember how itchy it got?"

"God yes. I think you found me getting ready to take it off with the hammer."

"Haha. Yeah, so carrying these things, waiting for a time when it was okay; all a bit itchy."

"I get it." We shop quietly and then she drives me home. My heart is a little worn out. My body not so much. I swim a few laps before dinner and then I join my world in the kitchen. All that's left of it, these days. My daughter. Her daughter. My son, Drake doesn't talk to us anymore. He's joined some hand clapping Christian church and we don't measure up. He'd be thirty-six this year.

"Daddy?"

"Renny?"

"No more tonight. Just cuddles. I spoke to Sash. Just cuddles please. Here." She hands me a plate of lamb chops and mash and kisses my cheek like she always did.

"Love you."

"I know, Daddy."

I'm asleep in the recliner before I know it. The girls have tidied up and little Sash is on my lap asleep against my chest when her Mum wakes me with a kiss on my cheek and a shake of my shoulder.

"Shh, Daddy. Bedtime." She smiles down.

~*~

"Where were we Dad?" Renee asks, passing me the token bribe of scotch and dry.

"You were going to dinner at Grandma's house." Sasha reminds me.

"Oh. Yes, now that became quite the habit for a while then. A couple of times a week, Missy here would tug on my trouser leg and have her hair done and once a week, Lorna would request a style or some other attention and demand I visit for tea. I'd told her the price had changed and she could stop kissing me on the bum. Now she paid with a chaste peck on the lips and a pretty blush."

"Ooh..." Sasha smirks.

"One evening I was bouncing Renee on my knee and we were talking about the recent bull sale and the ball that followed. I was sharing gossip gleaned from Mrs Milton and the shreds I heard from the men I groomed that day. Prices had risen steeply after the war. The wider availability of refrigeration meant that the dairy industry had changed significantly as well and people were- yes well, I can see how interested you both are in the cattle industry, so I'll move along."

I sip my scotch and plot a course through this. Clearly, both girls are old enough not to require a sanitised version of events.

"Lorna put Renee to bed. That was the first night she said it. Lorna was quite disturbed for long moments. Her face etched in a deep frown. 'Goodnight, Dolly,' I told you when you kissed my cheek. 'Goodnight, Daddy.' You said and turned our night on its head. As yet, neither of us had told you that you were my daughter."

"Sheez, pops. That would have thrown a spanner in the works."

"Indeed. Lorna was silent for a time which was uncommon for her. You both know how she just had to fill any quiet moment with chatter."

They both laugh remembering.

"'We have problems.' She told me as she took the sherry bottle to the veranda. She poured us both a little glass and stretched unladylike in her squatter's chair. 'You have a daughter to raise and no real idea how to do it.' I couldn't argue with that. 'And l have a cattle station still, that I have no idea how to run.' We'd spoken briefly over time about the block near Darr Creek that was left to her when Grant died. His brother was presently agisting cattle on the place in exchange for maintaining the property until she was prepared to take over."

"So that sucks. You guys just did an arrangement thing?" Sasha asks. "Hardly Mills and Boons stuff, pops."

"Haha. Well not so fast young lady. She told me, 'Renee needs a family. I need a cattle farmer. You need a mother for Renee.' I hadn't really thought too hard about women since I'd gotten home. Truthfully, my heart had taken a bit of a beating and I wasn't quite back on my feet. We sat and mulled that over for a little while. What she did next absolutely floored me."

"What?" They both complained.

"She wandered back inside with our glasses and the sherry bottle and returned a couple of moments later. She stood in the moonlight on the veranda and looked me squarely in the eyes. Naked."

"Naked?" Sasha squeaks.

"Mum?" Renee laughs. "She was always one for ultimatums. I guess it makes sense."

"She smiled at my total confusion and said, 'The price has changed for dinner.' She took my hand and led me to her bedroom where she undressed me slowly. At least it felt like slow motion. She was still a truly beautiful woman. At times she reminded me of Jeanie but that night as she lay gently back and parted her legs to pull me down between them it was all her. It was all Lorna."

"Sounds like Mum. Straight down to business." Renee laughs.

"Now Renee taught me all she knew about sex and Jeanie and I thought we had perfected it into an art form. Your mother though. She surrendered herself entirely to it. For moments before I entered her, I simply looked down in wonder at her body. She was so similar to Jeanie, but health had granted her the curves that ill health had taken from Jeanie. I was a little nervous. This was my greatest critic and harshest judge, laying back and offering me her body."

"No pressure, pops." Laughs Sasha. "I felt a bit like that wi- shit."

"Ahuh! Sasha Jean Doherty! I knew it, you little stinker. I want to hear all about it later, too. Promise me, honey."

Sasha's blush is pretty as she rewinds the tapes and starts us off again.

"'Relax Clarence. I'm just a girl.' She smiled at me and pulled me down. 'A girl who has wanted to kiss you for a very long time. But no... You had to go and fall in love with my sister and I had to marry the first cow-cocky who flirted with me. Relax. Let's see if we can build a life for little Renee and maybe make ourselves happy in the process.' She welcomed me inside her with just the slightest movement of her hips and her hand on my neck drawing me closer. 'Shit.' I mumbled and looked around, 'a sheath' I told her."

"They had condoms back then?" Sasha asks seriously.

"Yes. They were a little uncomfortable but available in the cities. The churches didn't like the local store stocking them. When I mentioned it, she suddenly rolled to her side and started sobbing. I tried to comfort her, but she hid in her pillows, so I just lay down naked next to her."

"It's hardly that much of a mood killer." Sasha states drawing a raised eyebrow from her mother.

"Young lady, we are SO having a girl's day out this week."

"When she eventually settled, this beautiful naked woman who smelled so much like soap and perfume in my arms, she told me. She said simply, 'I'm infertile. Grant and I tried and tried. The doctors said I'm ruined. I can offer you my body. I can help raise Jeanie, but I'll never be able to give you children.' We never ended up making love that night. 'Please hold me.' Were the last words she spoke before sliding off to sleep."

"Damn. I wanted rude stuff, pops."

"What about Monty and Drake then?" Renee asked.

"The doctors told your Mum she was infertile. There wasn't really any testing much, just quick blame the woman. It was mostly deliberate. If they told the man he was infertile, (they could check that back then), but then if the woman got pregnant, he'd know for sure she'd been messing around. If they told the woman she was infertile, then it was just a miracle if it happened."

"Pigs." Sasha screws up her face.

"The following morning, I woke to gentle tentative kisses, just as the sun was rising. Her lips tasted like mint; I was worried about my breath. My French Renee did a thing with her tongue and my tackle that I quite liked. It was a lot of licking and rubbing with her hand, and Jeanie did that thing that the nurses spoke about but Lorna... My goodness, she took her time and took me in so deeply into her mouth."

I'm a little embarrassed as I had been remembering the act so vividly that I forgot who my audience was.

"Sorry girls. Um..."

"Shut-up pops. This is hot. Keep going."

"Your project though."

"Dad... Stuff the project. Keep going."

"Well, that's the thing I couldn't really. In no time at all I fired a volley like a twenty-one-gun salute, if you know what I mean. She licked her lips that beautiful creature and I fell head over heels as she swallowed me down."

"Men are easy." Sasha laughs. "Put their dick in your mouth and- Shit sorry Mum."

"I may have used that technique to get your father's attention, at times." Laughs Renee. "What happened then Daddy?"

"Well, she kissed me, wrapped a sheet around herself and said, 'Thanks. I should go make 'you' some breakfast. I've already had mine.' Then moments later a little bundle of happy kid jumped up on the bed asked if I was really her Daddy. Lorna was at the door watching when I nodded. She smiled and went back to the kitchen. And that's about it really."

"So that's it? Just like one blowjob and then they lived happily ever after? Lame." Sasha laughs.

"I mean that was about it for us. We were a unit then. We didn't have words to describe how we worked but we did. The town rumour mill had been working overtime on us already anyway, we just had to accept that we were a couple. I think till then we were the only ones who didn't know it. I sold my farm. It made me enough money to re-stock Lorna's place with store cattle and breeders and to purchase equipment for preparing cultivation. Mrs Milton was sad to see me close the shop, but happy to stand as witness to a small courthouse ceremony. Mum was pregnant with Monty at the time. We moved to the farm just after he was born."

"I remember the farm." Renee smiles. "It was sad when we left."

"Yes, it was, but that bought this place and put you and Drake through university. It was time to retire to the city. We had hopes of travelling, your Mum and me. We had no secrets. She knew all my war stories and love stories and shared her own with me."

"Oh. Now those you have to spill, Dad."

"I'm not so sure. If she was alive, she'd probably tell you herself. Maybe some other time. We were going to go and visit all the places in Europe that Jeanie and I went to." There's an insistent tear forming in one eye, so I sip steadily at my scotch.

Renee's hand rests on my arm. "I know Dad. We all miss her."

~*~

That was all about two months ago now. Sasha got a B+ for her 'thing' with the tapes. She dropped off a copy of the uncut tapes for me and a copy of the edited assessment piece. Renee made copies for herself of the uncut story and still rings me now and then to ask a question or clarify a part of the timeline. I guess it was especially important for our family.

Renee and I even took a trip out to Proston to visit the little cemetery next to the showgrounds where Jeanie was buried and then drove home back past the old cattle block and had lunch at the Darr Creek roadhouse. If anything, we're a little closer. She sent a copy of the tapes to Drake and he scrawled 'return to sender' over the front of the envelope and sent them back. I hope he comes back to us some day. But as a special woman used to tell me, "Dream small. Celebrate small victories."

It was Renee telling me to be happy about my slow progress. Initially with my healing groin and my inability to walk, then later with my frustration at swimming. Her philosophy was that if you made huge elaborate dreams for yourself, you would always feel like you have fallen short, but if you make small objectives you will achieve many more of them and consequently be a lot happier.

It's a thing that I've tried to remember through the years.

Firstly, with Lorna's cattle property. I chipped away at overcoming one small obstacle after another until we had grown it into a highly successful operation. One that provided very well for our growing family.

I did it with our family as well. We each dreamed little things we'd like for ourselves and for each other and gently led ourselves into a deep loving happiness. We both had our memories and sadness's, but we both had many small joys and the longer we lived together the deeper and greater our love became.

I'm reading a travel brochure lately. There is a little money left from the sale of 'Currawong Creek', our property, that I'm going to draw against to fund a final trip to Europe and England. I'm going to go and visit those ghosts that Sasha stirred up. I'm busy marking little dots on a map when the doorbell announces a visitor.

A tall, very well-dressed young man with short blond hair and piercing blue eyes hands me a business card when I answer the door.

"My name is Gabriel Bisset, sir. I'm sorry for arriving unannounced. I have some personal questions for you and won't take much of your time."

"I'm a Lutheran." I tell him. "Your type are wasting your time."

"Ah. Yes. I'm sorry." He holds out his hand and in his open palm I see an old identity disk. "I'm trying to establish the owner of this item and I have instructions to do so as discreetly as possible. Are your family home?"

"Nope." I grumble and take the offered disk. Part of me knows already that it is mine and part of me knows grief at its return. I left these with Renee all those years ago when I took my false papers and set off for Calais. If she is not holding them as she was that night I left, clutched tightly to her chest as they hung around her neck, then she too is gone. "Come in. I'll make tea."

It's what Lorna would have done. Renee would have made coffee.

"Thank you, sir. My client wishes proof that this is yours and upon satisfaction I have some instructions for you."

He speaks with a faintly British, faintly French accent. His English is perfect but clipped and precise.

"Wait here." I point at the table.

Upon returning to England many years ago, I was issued with replacement id tags. I fetch them from my closet where they hang from the bayonet on my .303.

"Very good sir." He says as he studies them and sips on his black and one tea.

"My client's name is actually Louis Bisset. My father. He is a diplomat presently attending Australia for the trade fair."

"The expo?"

"Indeed. He has further property which belongs to you and wishes to return it with the great thanks of his countrymen for your service in the second world war."

"Right. What property?"

"Erm..." He looks at a notepad. "A uniform. A photograph. A handgun and some correspondence."

"She's dead then. Renee?" I nod, and tears fill my eyes.

"Here. These are my only instructions." He hands me a folded note. "I must return to the embassy and report. Father is strict."

I see the young man out and take the note and the bottle of scotch out to my seat by the pool.

"Dear Mr Grace. I would be honoured if you could join us for dinner at the Hilton any night this week. Please leave a message with the desk if you can attend so that I may expect you and any family who may wish to attend. I am grateful for the opportunity to meet you and lay some important things to rest. Regards, Louis Bisset. Ambassador."

Much later I return to the kitchen and put the nearly empty scotch bottle down and go to the phone.