Chapter 3

I disappeared for three months after her funeral, did the swaggie thing, and finally reached Tamworth in my wanderings. Tamworth is a very cold place to sleep under a bridge, in winter. The cops there don't seem to approve of aging itinerants walking the streets at all, anymore. They picked me up using vagrancy as an excuse, and then when they found a thousand dollars on me, negating vagrancy, they arrested me for theft. Me, being who I am, immediately contacted a local solicitor and sued the police for harassment.

This local area had recently experienced two violent home invasions, and a bank holdup. None of the crimes were solved, so they decided to make an example out of an old man minding his own business. It pissed me off enough for me to make them realise that under my scraggly grey beard was a millionaire missing person, I took the NSW Police Force to the cleaners!

There is absolutely no law in this country which forces you, or even requires you, to carry identification with you. I didn't even need to prove to them that the money was mine. They had to prove ... by law, and without the slightest doubt ... that it wasn't mine. Suspicion isn't good enough. Twelve months later, after an increase in my income by two million dollars, they paid my legal fees. Every cop in that station was demoted and transferred. The station chief was sacked for incompetency (called early retirement but not publicly admitted to).

My oldest set of twins, nineteen year old Julia and Francine, came up and Francine 'spat the dummy' at the ungrateful incompetent inconsiderate infantile, etc. etc. Julia really hit the thesaurus, and then they used the only valid reason they really had for being upset: they'd lost Mum, and now they were afraid they'd lost Dad. Fair enough, but they should not make a mistake, to me, I ceased living when my Darling died, now I'm simply surviving.

Daniel (Danny), Dan, Hey-You, one of my fifteen-year-olds, said it best, although his sister Betsy, Beth, Guts-ache (Elizabeth) made half of the statement: I was a dead man walking. I no longer wanted to live. They had to come up with a damned good reason for me to keep living, as just having four kids was not enough of a reason. They all knew how much, their mother and I loved and were devoted to each other; and also knew her death had devastated me. Once she left me I became impotent, and I never had sex again.

I now owned a series of fifteen employment franchises state wide, including my own original base office in Hamilton, just outside Newcastle CBD (Central Business District), that all worked marvellously, without any input from me. My own head office found me more of a hindrance than a help, and all but said I was incompetent, especially without Gail to front me. Being called incompetent by a twenty-two-year-old newly out of uni employee of my own, finished what the police service had started.

I was incensed! I opened a new office, under a new business name. I walked around to many of the small employers who would never go to someone like my big company. I showed them a new way of employing people, by which they didn't lose contact with their right to someone they preferred. They didn't have to accept someone from some snot-nosed impersonal agency, which took the attitude that they were doing a favour for you, by just finding you a 'warm body.'

I then went personally, to every high school in the area. I interviewed every 'year ten' kid who wasn't going to do uni, and needed a job, now. Next, I went back to those same schools, and spoke to the year twelve students for the same reason. I spoke with them not for this moment, but for when they became employable.

Using this method, while my main company was putting advertisements into papers and luring potential clients to their offices, I had the employer and employee already satisfied with each other, and working. All my advertising was by word of mouth, and my phone never stopped ringing. In the Hunter Valley area, my original company went into decline. The, now twenty-five-year old, who had called me incompetent, came to me looking for a job. He did not realise who was running his opposition. My senior person interviewed him. It was funny that no one outside the top management clique knew I was running my own company against myself. I was enjoying myself, heartily.

Julia and Francine were both beautiful auburn redheads, taking after their mum. They were living in a unit I owned in Chippendale, Sydney, while they studied English and Mathematics. Danny and Betsy lived with me in a three bedroom modern home unit in Newcastle East, overlooking the ocean, whilst doing high school in the local state run Newcastle High School. The local Private schools are too elitist, and the education wasn't superior, in any way that I could discern. Danny took my features, resembling me to such a remarkable degree he could be my clone. Betsy had no resemblance to Gail, or me, or anyone else in either Gail or my families.

We worried often that she was switched at birth she was so different. Danny was Danny. He wasn't brilliant or stupid, being naturally, very quiet and retiring. School wasn't his forte. His 'little' sister was small breasted, and half his height and strength. She was 'built for speed' as we said as kids. She was also a party animal just like their mum, and like her Mum, she never stopped talking. She never failed to top her school in marks, though never having to study, ever.

Danny played Rugby Union for his school, Rugby League for Western Suburbs Leagues Club, and was a force to be feared on the field in both games. All summer he played cricket, and surfed. School work wise he did second percentile positioning, mainly B's and C's, no matter how hard he studied. This made me very happy for him, as he always did his best.

I never pushed any of my kids, though Gail used to push them to go out and make friends. Gail had a different priority to most. Betsy played Netball, perpetually changing clubs to be with her current set of friends while summer was her time to 'par-tee', being a perpetual 'par-tee' animal. She was always home in time to watch her brother's cricket match, though usually from the vantage point of the inside of her eyelids.

One night recently I came home after deciding not to go a Chamber of Commerce 'do'. The unit was dead quiet, so I presumed the kids were asleep. I was wrong. Walking to my room, a noise I hadn't heard for a dog's age, was emanating from Danny's room. The door was partly open. Betsy, in all her small breasted, whip-muscled beauty, was riding her brother. She was loudly shouting, just like her mum used to do, whilst in full gallop. I left it until tomorrow. They weren't doing drugs, painting graffiti or rolling alcoholics down at the park, so we would spend some time together tomorrow.

Tomorrow does come you know. I had just started making what I called breakfast, when Betsy came into the kitchen, wearing her nighty. It was not an improvement, to my eye, as It was an old one and hid little. She took the frying pan away from me. The Big Galoot came in five minutes later, poured himself a coffee, and sat with his eyes closed waiting for the caffeine to make him human. She put three plates of food down in front of us and he pushed his away. I told him to eat as he was going to need it. They both gave me an odd look, and then gave each other a knowing one, as he picked over his food then ate it, then half of both mine and Betsy's leftovers as well. When she started to rise I told her to sit down, we had to talk.

Lady friends I'd had in my younger years used to use that same expression on me. I would immediately begin planning on moving.

"I got home early last night. I saw some things you didn't want me to see, and I wasn't expecting to see. Your Mum and I always insisted we were all honest with each other. Both of you and your sisters all had your sex education improved considerably more than any of your friends. We didn't hide it, and we discussed it openly with you all. I think, 'where's mum and dad, oh the usual', was an often reoccurring joke in this house. If you disagree - speak up. I'm not upset about how you spend your nights, I'm not happy that you thought you had to keep it a secret, which you will have to do from those outside the family. However, inside this family, sex has always been a healthy pastime, as long you don't stuff things up and become pregnant or tell anyone else. I need to know that you're protected, and I need to know if you are having relationships outside the family. Even if it is a secret from each other, it now becomes very important."

"We have been, 'doing it', since we hit puberty. Mum knew but gave us the blind eye. We use to find packets of condoms on our bedside tables and we got the hint. We don't think that she saw the point in worrying you about it. It was about the time when she had her first mastectomy and we thought she had enough on her mind already. We love each other, not like a brother and sister would, and you might note that we never fight. I'm not interested in having sex away from Elizabeth, the way I feel, I'll love her until I die. The only thing that worries me is when we matriculate, I'm not smart enough to go to uni and she would be a fool if she doesn't go. I think that would break us up and we'll never get back together again."

"I'm on the pill. I haven't told you, Dan, that I did it once with Benny Passfield. I didn't tell you because I knew it would upset you. It was just the once, and then his parents moved to Melbourne. I wasn't happy because he was hopeless, and I felt so guilty. I feel married to you Danny. It was not unlike mum and dad who were never apart, and were so faithful to each other. I felt sick when I realised what I'd done. You're right when you say we're going to split up when I go to uni. I don't know what to do when that happens. I love Daniel, Dad and I will be lost without him."

I don't think she has realised what she had done or said, only selfishly thinking how everything had affected her. Danny had the look on his face as if his world had come to an end. His world view was that loyalty was its own reward and he looked like he'd just been blind-sided on the Rugby field.

"We'll make an appointment today to see the doctor. You'll have to have a full spectrum test for STD's. Until then it could be a good idea not to have sex until you are both given the all clear. There is also a list of reasons as long as your arm why the pill stops working and you'll have to learn what these are and Dan you may have to start using those condoms mum gave you if you both can't control yourselves."

She was giving me a look, really offended as if I was calling her a slut.

"I will tell you a little story which has never come up before between us..." I gave them a highly truncated story of my life right up to when I had met their mum and already decided I was going to be a confirmed bachelor because of my distrust of women. "What you did, 'just once', can give whatever you possibly caught to your brother, and some of the diseases have no symptoms whatsoever, such as chlamydia for instance, yet can cause sterility in women. Had this Benny had sex before?"

She sounded angry, "Just once with the school slut, Maggie Slattery, and she brags to everyone that both her parents have sex with her."

"So, whatever Maggie is almost guaranteed to have, Benny has, so QED you have and Danny therefor has. It seems your brother has inherited that faithful gene which you missed out on." Betsy was crushed at what I said and my attitude to her. We made an appointment for the doctor next day where they discovered they both had chlamydia which I knew was currently prevalent in almost pandemic proportions. As I said, she had and therefor Danny had. They were young enough and it was caught early enough not to do anything permanent physically, though emotionally it was a disaster. The treatment was easy and after testing three months later, they were both cleared.

They were hardly clear though, things between them were decidedly cool. They had sworn together to be faithful. Without Betsy's knowledge I had a DNA test carried out, a simple scraping off the inside of her cheek carried out with all the blood tests and vaginal swabs. Betsy was different in every way to all of our family members, physically, emotionally and psychologically. The test cost a fortune and the results took months to come through, but were absolutely conclusive that Betsy was not related to either of Gail or me. There was not a single shared genome outside being human.

Talk about throwing a spanner into the works. I spoke to my solicitor and using a court order he employed a private detective to go through all the hospital's records of babies born very near in timing in that hospital ward, as were my twins. There was only two, one light haired and skinned the other Asian. The blonde girl was officially a runaway a week ago who her parents were not actively searching for as fifteen year old runaways are not uncommon. I however did start looking.

The private detective was put on the case but I planned for a week to search by myself, before the detective began.

I went to places where runaways congregate which, to my non-surprise, hadn't changed in the slightest since I was a runaway as a thirteen-year-old. Funny thing, she was in the second place I looked. The first place was Newcastle, itself. The second was in one of Sydney's unused railway tunnels, trying to stay warm and defend herself. I sat down beside her, and she wriggled away from me.

"You're Penny Davies, you're fifteen years old, born..." I gave her everything that I knew about her.

She, of course, took me wrong. In her situation, she just naturally would.

"I'm not going back to them! You can't make me! I'll leave, again!"

"Did you ever feel that someone had mixed up your birth tags when you were a baby, and you were growing up with strangers? That the world was crazy and you were the only sane one? Penelope Davies, your true mother was Gail Berry who died eight months ago of breast cancer. She was a small, auburn red-head. She looked a lot like a red-headed Kate Hepburn, just as you do. Only, you're a blonde version. She was a famous actress many years ago. Your father is Ross Berry, a huge blonde bloke, and not very pretty.

You have a non-identical twin brother who looks exactly like his dad, and is just as big and ugly. You were mixed up at birth so you have another sister, exactly your age who probably looks like your other parents. And their father, me, loves them both very much. I would cut my arm off before I'd put them into the position of running away from home. You also have twin sisters who are older, and who live in Sydney and are going to uni. They look like their mother, thank God, but are near their father's size which has always been awkward for them, as they don't like basketball. They are identical twins. If you'd like I could buy you a decent meal and you could meet your older twin sisters. Possibly luxuriate in a bath, wash your hair and have a chance to sleep in a safe, warm bed."

"How do I know that it would be safe?"

"It couldn't be worse than this."

"Point taken. What do I have to do."

"Follow me, you can hold my hand if you like. My name is Ross and I would be honoured if you would call me Dad. Here's a thought, though ... I've gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to persuade you, when all I really had to do was hit you over the head and you could have been on a slow ship to an Asian brothel. I'm sure you've already seen something like it. I grew up around here, myself. I know what you're going through. What have you got to lose?"

I held out my hand and she hesitated then took it, it felt natural, like coming home. I took her to an all-night café where she ate four helpings.

I whistled up a taxi and took her down to the twin's flat in Chippendale. I knocked, seeing they knew nothing about any of this, and Julia answered the door in the same study clothes she wore in high school. Penny was like a skittish horse, both wanting to run and stay, holding my hand with both of hers, her fingers white from the strain. The girls did their squealing act as I pulled Penny inside. I didn't feel like I actually had her, until the door was closed behind me.

I sat us all in the lounge with study notes and text books covering every surface. I explained what I had done and what I had learnt. When the three of them were sitting side by side, the resemblance to Gail and each other was remarkable, and even Penny couldn't ignore it. Eventually the girls plumped Penny into a bath full of hot water and bubble bath and let her lock the door so she would feel safe.

"I don't know what the legalistics of this are, but her parents aren't looking for her, and evidently don't care."

Penny called out, and Francine chucked her a sweat shirt that would have fitted me nicely, then I recognised that they had stolen it from me. They always did use my clothes before their own. They both used to snuggle up to them when going to bed whilst very young. It was almost always the one I'd worn on the weekend around the yard. Those were perpetually disappearing.

Penny came out and the girls told her to put her dirty clothes into the washer and I would put them in the drier when they finished. The girls were still trying to kid me that they slept in separate beds, so they supposed that they'd have to share one, so that Penny could use the other bed. What a crushing loss. They looked quite bemused when I laughed at them.