Ripples on a Pond by Joy Dettman

wheelchair, her expression suggesting she’d be delighted to hand over to the next crew.
    And thus the flight from hell continued.
    It didn’t end when they landed at Heathrow, Bernard smelling like a public toilet. It didn’t end when Morrie wrestled him into a London cab. It almost ended at the hotel. Bernard escaped while Morrie was checking in. Morrie ran after him, aware he’d made a bad decision, that he should have ridden that cab the forty-odd miles home to Letty. Hadn’t wanted Letty to see her baby brother until he’d been cleaned up, dressed up. She’d argued against Margaret moving her family back to a land populated by the descendants of convicts and would blame Australia for Bernard’s disintegration. Not Australia’s fault. Morrie and Margaret had noticed his deterioration before they’d left England. Not Letty. Perhaps she’d refused to admit it.
    Morrie sighed. With luck, once back in familiar surroundings, Bernard would improve. He still had moments of clarity. He’d had one in the bath while Morrie was attempting to shave his chubby face. He’d known the bathroom wasn’t his own. A second funeral amongst familiar faces, ashes and a gravestone in the Langdon plot, may convince him that Margaret was gone.
    Lorna had fought for a Woody Creek funeral; had sworn on the Bible that her sister had written to her begging her to see that she was buried beside her mother. Morrie knew his mother had written a dozen letters to Lorna; he’d posted every one of them. And seen every one of them returned, unopened.
    Before the wedding, he may have considered a Woody Creek funeral. Now . . . now he wouldn’t trust himself within a hundred miles of that town.
    The struggle of the past thirty hours had kept his mind away from weddings and Cara, and he couldn’t afford to think of her yet. He forced his mind to his mother’s ashes, aware she would have wanted him to do what was best for Bernard.
    â€˜Look after your father,’ she’d said. ‘Promise me you’ll look after your father.’
    Margaret had been his mother, and a good mother. Bernard had never been his father.
    Neither one had possessed an ounce of business sense. For years, they’d left the management of Vern Hooper’s estate in the hands of Roland Atkinson, an elderly Melbourne accountant. He’d been Vern’s accountant. Now semi-retired, Roland would serve a third generation.
    On the morning before the flight with Bernard, Morrie’d had lunch with Roland Atkinson, who had given him more papers. Too much needed looking into. He had a briefcase full of documents his eight-hour marriage had given him access to – his very conveniently timed marriage.
    And it had to be undone. Cara wanted it annulled, erased, forgotten. And that would set Lorna buzzing like a nest of hornets. She’d have no difficulty proving Bernard incompetent, which, according to Vern Hooper’s will, would give her power over the estate until Morrie’s thirtieth birthday – still too far away.
    The solicitor who had drawn up Vern Hooper’s will in ’51 long dead, Vern’s affairs had been passed on to a younger man. Morrie had spoken to him at length before he’d flown to England, and had left his office with a wad of papers. He had his own copy of Vern Hooper’s last will and testament, which left very specific instructions as to the future of his grandson, James Morrison Hooper. Vern had left specific instructions for his own burial, and for the original Hooper property: NEVER TO BE SOLD . Capitalised, underlined.
    The Three Pines land was gone but a manager farmed the original Hooper acres. Four rental properties in Woody Creek and Willama had been sold years ago. Not the Melbourne properties. Morrie hadn’t been aware that the estate paid the land rates on Lorna’s house in Kew or that it belonged to the estate. He knew she’d been