Free Bloodhound by Ramona Koval Page B

confirming if either my sister or I was his issue, as they say.
    Some years ago, she said, my sister had asked Dad if he’d ever considered that he might not be our father. I’m not sure why she did this, but it may have been after a phone call or visit from one of Mama’s old friends. Dad was flabbergasted, she said. He’d never considered such a thing and found it ridiculous.
    I wondered how much denial there might have been in Dad’s response. Mama had told me how desperate to be a father he’d become by the time I was born. They’d fought each time her period arrived. Such was the urgency of his need, perhaps he banished all doubts he might have had about my blondness and curly hair and blue eyes.
    Dad was the sole survivor from his family. His marriage to Mama was unhappy. At least he had two daughters to boast about and to assuage his manly pride.
    Now we knew he couldn’t be the biological father of both of us. And that he might not be the father of either. Telling him and testing him might leave him without any relatives—save for his devoted second wife, her daughter and son-in-law, and their two sons, who seemed to make him happy. Would it be right to do such a thing?
    If Alan agreed to be tested, and proved to be my half-brother through Max, the story of Mr Lederman and Mama and Dad belonged to my sister. It would be hers to pursue if she chose to. I hoped Alan would agree.
    A few weeks later the phone rang seconds before I was about to leave the house. Beeps indicated an interstate call; they stopped, and I said hello. Silence. I said hello again.
    It’s Alan from Kuranda, he said.
    Ah, Alan, thanks so much for calling me, but give me your number and I’ll call you back.
    No, he said, don’t worry. I’m in a public phone box. I don’t have a phone or any electricity.
    So ring me again reverse charges.
    No, really, he said. If we keep arguing about who’s going to pay…
    And then he said: You may be my sister, so I can spend a few dollars on you after nearly fifty years.
    This seemed to be a good beginning. It was tinged with warmth and acceptance. But I had been wrong about the warmth of men many times before.
    I thanked him for responding to what must have been a strange letter to receive.
    Why wouldn’t someone respond? he said.
    He’d love to meet me, he continued, but he wouldn’t be coming to Melbourne in the near future.
    I’d come up there, I replied. When would be convenient?
    Anytime—just write to tell him.
    Mid-July might be a good time. I’d stay in a motel in Kuranda and he could come in to find me.
    He said that he’d listened to me on the radio and read my newspaper column and had thought what a clever girl I was. Girl . Maybe he used that word because I was becoming his little sister. Clever girl . I liked that. I needed that. How did this stranger know?
    I told him how kind his family had been: even his older cousin had been open and had sent me the photo of Max. Did the cousin know this story? Alan asked. I hesitated, and in the hesitation he said: It’s okay if he does.
    I said yes, he knew, but I hadn’t spoken to him for months and all of the recent contact was with Alan’s younger cousin. I said that I knew the older cousin didn’t get on with Max, and Alan said he didn’t get on with a lot of people.
    I hoped that family politics was not going to deflect me from my task—but Alan reiterated how much he was looking forward to meeting me. He said he’d been looking at my photo in the paper and trying to imagine me without all the curly hair. I said I’d send him up a better photo and he said he’d send me one of himself. I said I’d let him know when I was coming and he said that sometimes it was a week between visits to the post office and he might take some time to respond.
    We said see you soon .
    And I hung up and rejoiced that another door was opening.
    I