Kookaburra Gambit

On these last two words her voice took on a reverent tone, so I wasn't too surprised to find a face familiar from the Web site. Brother Owen.

Alf was standing beside Brother Owen, and from his expression, was rather impressed by the man. I could imagine why he might be. Brother Owen did have an aura about him. Or maybe it was his cologne. I could smell a faint, musky scent.

He wasn't in his flowing white televangelist robes today but in a beautifully cut dark suit. Brother Owen's tie, I noticed, had little trumpet-blowing cherubs woven into the design. As he had on television, he looked sleek and well-fed. His neck bulged a little over the collar of his shirt, and the superb tailoring of his suit didn't quite disguise the extra weight he was carrying.

'God bless,' Brother Owen said in a velvety bass voice. He put out his hand. His skin was soft and somehow creepy. Not sure whether I was supposed to bob a curtsy or maybe even kiss the fat emerald ring on his finger, I decided to shake his hand instead. 'G'day. I'm Kylie.'

'An Australian,' he said approvingly. 'Yours is a wonderful country.'

'You've been Down Under?'

He smiled. Standard sparkling teeth, of course. 'As it happens, just in the past few months, my dear. The Church of Possibilities is setting up a ministry in Australia.'

Now this was interesting. 'Really?' I said. 'Where in Oz?'

'We're examining several sites, in both urban and country areas.'

'Have you heard of Wollegudgerie?' I asked. 'Alf and Chicka's family live near there. Opal-mining town.'

'Wollegudgerie? I don't believe I ever have.'

My Complete Handbook was quite stern about relying on gut feeling alone, but I was sure, absolutely sure, Brother Owen was lying.

Twelve

My Aunt Millie arrived in Los Angeles late on Wednesday morning. I was at the international terminal at LAX to greet her. She wasn't hard to spot. She came out of customs pushing her luggage cart so pugnaciously that even seasoned travelers scattered before her.

I waved with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. 'Aunt Millie. Over here.'

She steered in my direction, narrowly missing an Italian family noisily reuniting. Aunt Millie was usually a ball of belligerent energy, but today she seemed subdued, tired. There was none of the usual fire in her voice as she looked me up and down and then declared, 'You've lost weight. Doesn't suit you. Need meat on your bones.'

'You look exactly the same, Aunt Millie.'

And she did. Short, stocky, cantankerous. Her skin, still smooth and soft, was a much darker shade than mine. Her hair was graying, but her eyes were the same beautiful liquid brown. Right now they were squinting at me critically.

'Are we going to stand here all morning?'

I indicated no. We set off for the parking structure with me pushing the luggage cart and my aunt stomping along beside. 'Good flight?' I inquired.

'Good? You're asking someone who's spent hours cooped up in a metal cylinder, squashed into a tiny airline seat, if it was good?'

I sighed. My chats with Aunt Millie rarely went swimmingly. 'Did you manage to get any sleep?'

My aunt snorted. 'Oh, yes, slept like a baby,' she said with deep sarcasm. 'Who wouldn't, with people clambering over you every five minutes to go to the loo, or trying to start idiot conversations?'

I spared a moment to send a sympathetic thought to Aunt Millie's traveling companions. They would quite possibly be vowing never to fly again.

We came to my boring rental car. Aunt Millie regarded it without favor. 'Thought you'd have a convertible, Kylie. What's the point of living in Southern California if you don't have a convertible?'

'I can't imagine what I was thinking. I'll rush right out and get one.'

That got a glimmer of a smile from Aunt Millie. Fortunately, underneath her snarl there lurked at least a ghost of a sense of humor.

'You do that,' she said. 'And make sure it's red. I like red cars.'

She did actually, having a rather battered red sedan herself. My mum always said it was fortunate her sister had chosen a bright color, as Millie was the world's worst driver and people needed to see her to get out of her way.

'I'm taking you straight to your hotel, so you can freshen up,' I said, darting into a tiny break in the traffic that seemed to roar around and around LAX's many terminals in an unending loop of frustrated drivers.

'You're not taking me to meet those Kendall & Creeling people you'd rather be with than your own family?'

'I'm saving that for later.'

When we made it to the freeway, it was, as always, clogged with vehicles. 'Humph. The traffic's worse than the last time I was here,' my aunt observed. 'Much worse.'

I looked at her in surprise. I had no idea she'd ever visited the States. I knew she'd been to Fiji with her husband, Uncle Ken, before he died, but I couldn't remember her traveling much more than that.

'I didn't know you'd been here before, Aunt Millie.'

'Ken and I visited your mother when she was married to Colin and living here in L.A. I'm surprised you don't remember. You cried every time you set eyes on me.'

'I wonder why,' I said, hiding a grin. Obviously even at an early age I'd recognized a noxious relative.

My aunt sniffed. 'Ken liked it here. Got carried away with all those film stars living nearby. Insisted on wandering around with a star map looking for their houses, until I put my foot down.'

My mother contended that Uncle Ken had died to get away from Millie. I recalled being quite shocked the first time Mum had said this, but I had come to see it as a real possibility.

'How's Brucie?' I inquired politely. We might loathe each other, but he was family.

'He's doing all right.' She glanced over at me with a fearsome glare. 'You're not to put ideas in Brucie's head that you want him over here. He's like his father-a hopeless romantic.'

I couldn't help smiling. Cousin Brucie didn't have a romantic bone in his body.

'Smile away, Kylie! Brucie's saving his money to buy a plane ticket.'

My smile disappeared.

'He even had the hide to ask me, his mother, to fund his wild ideas. I told him, Brucie, your place is here in Wollegudgerie with your own kin, not gadding about with strangers.'

For once, I felt the need to stand up for my cousin. 'I'm his kin, too,' I said.

'You're half American,' snapped Aunt Millie. 'Your father was nice enough to me, but he was basically unstable, like Yanks in general. It's no wonder you lobbed over here without a word to anybody. It's in your genes.'

Now I was getting angry. She could criticize me all she wanted, but I wasn't going to hear anything against my father. 'Please don't talk about Dad that way.'

With a grudging nod, she said, 'Fair enough. You're loyal. I'll give you that, Kylie.'

Uh-oh. I held my breath.

'Loyal, except to your mother. You've been disloyal there, my girl, leaving her in the lurch that way, with the pub to run and Jack O'Connell being worse than useless.'

'Jack and Mum are going to be married. It's a case of three's a crowd. I would have moved out anyway and probably left the 'Gudge for Sydney or Brisbane.'

'I wouldn't bank on the marriage,' said my aunt darkly. 'Like most men, Jack's more trouble than he's worth.'

'Mum's told you they're breaking up?'

'Not in so many words, but I know which way the wind is blowing. If Jack doesn't stop throwing his weight