Chapter 10

I was sitting on the front veranda reading the Sunday paper when a car pulled up in front, a woman and a girl about Tracie's age got out and approached me.

"So you're the bastard that left my mum in the lurch!"

"I beg your pardon young lady?"

"You heard, you made my mum pregnant and pissed off and left her to fend for her self."

"I think you are mistaken, I would never leave anyone in the 'lurch' as you put it, why would you think that I did?"

"Sally Caldwell ... ring a bell?" The name was like a punch in the guts.

"Sally was pregnant?"

The girl was dancing around and holding her crotch, "Muuum, I gotta go!"

"Oh, straight down the passage last door on the left."

"I need to go as well," said the woman.

"Go ahead and we'll discuss this in the lounge room." I called Donna and asked her to come in as well. Of course Tracie, realising we had visitors wanted to be there as well.

When we were all settled I had regained my composure. "Perhaps we should start by introducing ourselves, This is Donna and the young lady on my right is her daughter Tracie."

"And I'm your daughter Tess and this is your grand daughter Taffy."

Traci squealed, "You're gunna be my aunty, cool!" Donna looked dazed.

"Oh dear, this is a big surprise, I had no idea Sally was pregnant, I'll need to explain to her why I took off."

"It's too late for that, Mum passed away six months ago. Perhaps you can convince me you're not the bastard I think you are."

"I'm so sorry to hear that, she was a lovely person, it's a long story Tess, perhaps I should go back to before I even met Sally. As a young man I finished learning my trade and decided I wanted to see a bit of Australia before I settled down. My Grandad gave me their old caravan, so I packed the van and headed off on my odyssey, I was going to work anywhere I could get a job, stay for a while and then move on."

"Just like you did when you left Mum pregnant!"

"Not quite Tess, I'd been travelling around for quite a while when I landed in Jordan; the local saw mill was looking for a saw doctor so I applied for and got the job. It was good work and I decided I would stay for a bit longer than I usually did. I parked the van in the van park and settled in. I met Sally at the Friday night dance in the Mechanics hall, we hit it off and danced all of the dances together. We arranged to go to the footy mach the next day, we had a good time at the game so I suggested we meet on Sunday, but she said that she had to go home as she'd been staying with her cousin, but she would see me at the dance the following Friday, it was a date.

"Over the next few weeks we met at the dance and the footy the next day, the last day we met she wanted to see my caravan instead of going to the footy. At the van, we started kissing and before we knew it things had escalated and we were in bed making love, she was seventeen so I wasn't worried about her being jail bait. We were both in love, I couldn't get enough of her.

"Yeah, it seems like you got too much of her and she was only fifteen."

"Sally had told me she was seventeen, she certainly looked it. After we made love I took her back to the footy to meet up with her cousin and made arrangements to meet the following Friday ... that meeting never took place. When I got back to the van park after saying goodbye I was attacked, her father had got wise to us and he beat the living daylights out of me. He was a big mean brute of a man and If it hadn't been for some of the other vannies breaking us up he would have killed me. The park owner told me to get out as he didn't want any trouble in the park, a couple of men helped me get the caravan ready for the road, I was in a hell of a mess, my back was damaged where he kicked me I had a broken nose and cheek bone, cracked ribs plus cuts and bruises all over my body. Fortunately the car was an auto and I managed to get started, I drove until the pain was too much and then pulled over for a rest, I did this several times, the last time I just stopped in the middle of the road and passed out.

"I came to in the hospital where I spent the next six weeks recuperating, the police wanted names but I told them I didn't know who my assailant was. Luckily they put my car in the police pound, I dragged my arse out of the hospital like a beaten dog, my odyssey had ended. I wrote to Sally explaining what had happened but got no reply, I tried several more times with the same result. I assumed her old man had forbidden her to contact me."

"Mum said you just took off after you got what you wanted, she hated you for leaving her like that."

"I suppose you hated me as well, not having a father to grow up with?"

"No, I only found out about you just before Mum died, we were going through some old photos and there was a picture of her and you sitting on the bonnet of a car, she pointed at you and said 'that's your father' I didn't understand, you didn't look anything like the man I knew as my dad. Mum then told me what had happened, she waited for you at the Friday night dance and the next day at the footy but when you didn't show up she realised you had shot through. After she missed her periods she had to face the fact she was pregnant with me, her dad wasn't happy, a family friend offered to marry her.