Blood Junction (30 page)

India was puzzled. “Why on earth did she want a family tree done?”

“It was a present. A Christmas present for you.”

India’s eyes widened. Her heart was thumping. “She said she’d found my grandfather but I didn’t believe her. Not really. He’s
been dead for thirty years.”

“That’s what your mother told you, yes.”

“Mum
lied?
”

“Yes. She had her reasons.”

“Such as?”

“She didn’t want anyone to know her true background.”

India looked blank.

“Least of all your father.”

“But why—”

“India … You don’t mind if I call you India?”

She shook her head impatiently. “No. Not at all.”

“India, over the past two months we have managed to trace several of your relatives.”

India stared at Dr. Child. “
Several?
How many exactly?”

“At the last count, sixty-two.”

“
Sixty-two!
”

“Your family includes a wide network of people, many of whom are only distantly related.”

But India’s brain was jammed on the number sixty-two and all she could say was, “Bloody hell.” Then, after a minute or so,
“Who are they? What are they like? Are they—”

“I’m afraid I can’t say. Lauren went to meet them for the first time at the beginning of December.” Dr. Child put a hand to
her mouth. “You don’t suppose they had anything to do with her murder, do you?”

“I don’t know,” said India, distracted. Sixty-two!

There was a lengthy silence, then Dr. Child cleared her throat.

“There’s something else that I have to tell you. But I feel we should go into it another day. Give you some time to digest
what we’ve learned so far.”

India gave a shaky laugh. “It can’t be anything like as dramatic as discovering I’ve so many relatives!”

“Yes, well, perhaps you’re right.”

India took in Dr. Child’s tension, the way the lines had deepened on her face.

“It can’t be that bad,” India said.

Dr. Child looked away. “Will you be in Sydney for a while? Perhaps you could come back next week.”

India thought of Mikey, then Scotto, and the unfolding story of Karamyde Cosmetics. “I’m not sure where I’ll be tomorrow,
let alone in a week.”

“Oh dear. I rather hoped …”

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, what I have to tell you could be somewhat emotionally devastating.”

“It’s that serious?”

Dr. Child shifted her fragile weight and gripped the edges of her desk as though steeling herself for a natural disaster.
“Lauren was also searching for your brother.”

“My
what?
”

Dr. Child said, “Toby was born on December the fifteenth—”

“And two days later he died in hospital.” India was surprised at how belligerent she sounded.

“That’s what your parents told you.”

India felt as though her brain was staring to seize up. “Are you telling me Toby’s
alive?
”

“As far as we know, yes. Unfortunately we’re having trouble tracing him. Your mother gave him to your grandmother Rose, to
look after, but …” She paused uncomfortably. “Sadly Rose lost him. He had a progression of foster homes, five in four years,
I believe. His last caseworker reported that he misbehaved continually. Silly pranks … he seemed to like scaring people. For
example, he’d catch spiders and let them loose at inappropriate times. Toby was ejected from his last home at the age of eight.
We lost track of him then.” Easing her frail body from the chair, Dr. Child walked around the desk and into the living room
next door. She returned with a bottle of red wine, a corkscrew and two glasses. “Be a dear and open it for me.”

India was only too glad. She’d never needed a drink so badly. She drank her glass of wine in three steady gulps.

“So,” said Dr. Child. “You have a whole new family.”

India poured herself another glass, downed it and topped it up, then sat there twirling her wineglass slowly between her thumb
and forefinger. She was aware of the stem of crystal but she felt suspended and detached, as though she were aboard a space
shuttle drifting in eternal weightlessness above the earth. “Where are they?” she asked quietly.

“They come from an outback town in northwest New South Wales. Cooinda.”

“I’ve been in Cooinda for the past fortnight,” she said faintly. “There was one family of Tremains in the phone book. They’re
from New Zealand. I couldn’t find any more.”

Dr. Child hesitated, but only for a second. “Your mother lied about her maiden name. It wasn’t Tremain. It was Mullett.”

India gazed motionless at Dr. Child, who continued, “In October, Lauren undertook some investigative work in Cooinda and discovered
your mother had lied about her maiden name. Your mother, Mary, was the second daughter of Bertie Mullett and Rose Dundas.
When she was in her teens, Mary turned her back on her family and moved to Sydney, where she married your father.”

“I don’t believe this,” India said.

“Have you heard of the stolen generation?”

India managed a nod.

“I have a photograph of your grandfather, sent to us by Link-Up. Link-Up provides family tracing, reunion and support for
forcibly removed children and their families.” Dr. Child paused to let this sink in. “Would you like to see what your grandfather
looks like?”

“He’s black,” said India faintly. “Bertie Mullett is black.”

“Yes, he is Aboriginal.”

“Lauren was searching for Bertie when she was murdered.”

“She was also searching for Toby. Because he is, unfortunately, one of the stolen generation. Unlike you and Mary, he was
born very dark, but his skin lightened after the first year …”

Suddenly the reason why her father had gone berserk that long-ago Christmas became clear to India; it wasn’t a case of being
overwhelmed by grief at Toby’s death, it was because his son was
black
.

I
NDIA LAY IN THE DOUBLE BED IN DR. CHILD’S SPARE ROOM
. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t keep her eyes closed for more than a few seconds at a time. The same thought bounced around
her head like a superball and wouldn’t let her rest.

I’m black.

Well, quarter-black. But it explained why she had skin the color of caramel, and hair that was thick and springy and black
as jet. Little questions she’d had all her life were beginning to be answered: why she rarely burned in the sun, why her limbs
were so straight and long.

She thought of the chart Dr. Child had showed her, and all those names—her relatives. Rose Dundas, daughter of a sheep farmer,
married Bertie Mullett in 1955. They had six children, the second being India’s mother, Mary, who left Cooinda and married
a policeman. Mary eventually settled in Sydney’s northern suburb of Dee Why. Bertie’s eldest son, Jimmy, was born in 1957,
married Nellie and had three children: Victor, Clive, and Rhona. Rhona married a man called Greg Cooper and they had five
children: Albert, Bobby, Ray, Hannah, and Rosie. Clive was single but had a daughter called Polly. Victor married Lizzie and
had two children: Louis and Clara.

Polly.

India slid out of bed and padded downstairs. Streetlights laid orange marks across the kitchen table, the cool blue floor
tiles. The big station clock above the cooker gave the time as a quarter to three. She closed the door, turned on the light.
Squinted as her eyes adjusted. She unrolled the chart Geraldine had shown her earlier, using salt and pepper shakers, a packet
of muesli and a bag of flour to secure it. Wonderingly, she ran a palm over the paper. Dr. Child had told her Lauren had taken
a copy to Cooinda. Planned to wrap it in red paper, with a gold-red blow. My relatives, sixty-two of them. My Christmas present
from Lauren.

She gazed at the name Polly Cooper for a long time. Was this distant cousin the Polly she knew? She couldn’t remember Polly’s
surname. Could it be Cooper?

You betcha.

Lauren?

Who the hell eke would it be?

I’m half-black, you know. Isn’t that weird?

Not half as weird as some folk here, believe you me. How’re things going? Caught the guy who did it yet?

I’m working on it.

Well, get your bum in gear, babe, I want you to chew ass.

Lauren, is Polly a blood relative?

Who gives a monkey’s? Either you like the girl or you don’t.

I like her, Lauren. I like her a lot.

Then you’re her relative. Blood doesn’t mean shit. Remember that, hon, when the time comes.

India jerked upright, unsure if she had been dreaming.

Holy shit.
The superball bounced back.
I’m black.

The following morning she and Mikey were stuck in traffic at Bondi Junction. The road was being dug up and had caused a traffic
jam half a kilometer long. Mikey had stayed the night with an old cop friend of his at the southern end of Bondi and she’d
collected him, as agreed, at eight o’clock. They’d had croissants and coffee in the Lamrock cafe overlooking the beach, which
India had thought was fabulous and said so.

“But it’s crap,” Mikey had said, expression bewildered. “It’s full of fast-food outlets and money-scrimping backpackers and
overpriced apartments—”

“It’s so big!” she exclaimed. “Look at all that space and sky, right in the center of a major city. And look at the surf!”

Mikey had sent the breakers a disparaging look. “Small bananas.”

“Regular small bananas,” she said. “Look at the hordes of surfers out there.”

“The only good thing about this place is its shark attacks.”

She sent him an alarmed look.

He tapped the cocktail list. “Shark Attack. Best Bloody Mary you’ll find anywhere in the world.”

Now India wished she were still in the cool of that cafe. The Ford’s air-conditioning had packed up and she was uncomfortably
sticky in the heat.
Surely
, she thought,
if I’m Aboriginal, I should like this heat. Shouldn’t I?

“India, what is it?”

“What’s what?”

“You suddenly looked … I don’t know, out of sorts. Like you don’t feel well.”

She squirmed in her seat. The temporary lights changed to amber, then green. The queue of cars and trucks began to move.

“Mikey,” India began cautiously, “you know Jed’s a lost child … Well, he joked about my skin. The color of it. How I could
be an Aborigine.”

Mikey looked blank for a second, then frowned. “I bet he didn’t realize you’d be insulted. He’d have been teasing.”

“I wasn’t insulted,” India said indignantly.

“So what’s your problem then?”

“Listen,” she said fretfully. “You know I saw Dr. Child yesterday. Well, she’s a genealogist—”

“Ah, I see.” Mikey engaged a gear, inched forward. “Does this mean that India Kane is Lady Kane of the Round Table, or the
garter … which is it?”

“Neither.” Something in her voice silenced him with that one word.

There was a long pause.

Her heart was beating a little faster, and she felt ridiculously nervous. “My name is Mullett,” she finally said, and in a
fit of insanity wanted to add: “India Mullett” in a James Bond tone.

For a second Mikey’s foot came off the accelerator and the car slowed. The vehicle behind blasted its horn.

“Bertie Mullett is my grandfather.”

Mikey went completely silent. He pressed on, past the traffic lights and down Oxford Street. Turned right into the heart of
the chic suburb of Paddington and drove past its antique and homeware shops, boutiques, cafes, bars and pubs. They were in
Hargrave Street when suddenly he took a deep breath and started laughing.

It was the last thing she expected. “Look, I’m sorry, but I honestly don’t see the funny side of it.”

“Oh … oh, God, I’m an idiot!” He clapped a hand to his forehead. “I mean, everyone knows Abos love hanging around the bush
at night with no clothes on! I should have guessed then!” He gave her a look he’d give Polly; one of exasperated affection.
She wasn’t sure whether she welcomed it or not.

He leaned across and patted her knee. “Black and white or pink or purple, you’re simply the person you are, and don’t forget
that.”

Surprised, she said, “Thanks,” and watched him calmly run a red light before diving left along New South Head Road and then
right toward Darling Point. He pulled up outside a neat block of apartments overlooking the harbor. “I’ll see you at one,”
he said, leaving the engine running as he got out. “If I don’t turn up, report me missing, presumed garrotted.”

She felt the horror show in her face. “I thought you were seeing Rodney’s wife?”

Mikey grinned. “I am. But it sure got a reaction from you.”

She stuck out her tongue at him before she drove away.