Kirste's Wine Read online

  A little lightning stabs the dense cloud and I'm shaken into my matured present day, as the captain's voice crackles over the intercom advising passengers that we are beginning the descent into Adelaide. 'Back to the future,' I mutter to no one in particular. I check on the empty bottle of Kirste's Wine in my briefcase. It's one of those reassurance gestures; the way some people pat their pockets for the wallet or the cell phone they know is there.

  'Jeez you made short work of that,' observes the passenger in the window seat next to me. 'And it's only half-past-eight in the morning,'

  My response is just a chuckle and a smile. This time I leave 'the story' at that. I am on a personal pilgrimage and for some reason don't feel like explaining things.

  Greg and Christine Gordon still live in the little colonial-style triple-fronted home they built, in a quiet cul de sac, for $10,000 back in 1968. They've made some changes though since I was last here. There's a new room on the back, Kirste's room is now the study, the kitchen has been remodelled and, because of the serious water shortage, they've given the front lawn over to native plantings.

  Their home, at top end of the Fleurieu Peninsula, is in grape country - McLaren Vale is just a stone's throw away and the coast is an easy drive. The locals call it the area the last stop before the country; and real estate agents, naturally, say the air is fresher than in the Adelaide suburbs. It seems to be true.

  Now doting grandparents - Greg is nudging 67 and Christine is four years younger - they've had no reason to move from here, and every reason to remain. They retired from full-time teaching about nine years ago but with the need for good people in the education system they returned to teach part-time at a nearby college.

  It is strange. We're sitting in the same living room in which I took my notes 32 years ago and it's almost as though time has stood still. The piano is still there against the wall, the sliding door is the same, the view into Kirste's room is familiar, and family photographs line the bookcase.

  The bay window looks out onto a slightly more rustic garden and there are no kiddie-nose prints on the glass today. 'Baby' Ailsa is 34 now, and lives just a few minutes away with her husband and two sons, aged five and three. 'Little' Catherine is 37, lives interstate and has a nine-year-old son. Both are achievers who have built excellent careers. The family is tight-knit and Greg and Christine are proud as punch.

  They are also as-ever welcoming hosts. They talk easily about how life has moved on. They have aged gently; neither looks anywhere near their 60s. Christine's generosity and warmth strikes me again; as does Greg's compassionate face. From a certain angle he looks a bit like World Vision chief Tim Costello, although his friends say he's more like British actor Michael Kitchen who plays DCS Christopher Foyle in Foyle's War. When Gordon talks his gaze is steady and measured. He has a reputation for being cool under pressure, able to find solutions quietly with minimum fuss. A handy trait, says Christine, who admits to being more impulsive.

  After a while I produce Kirste's wine bottle from my briefcase. Greg is amazed and, clearly, the memories are flooding back. I think there may be a tear in his eye as he reads the label:

  Bottled to commemorate the laying of the foundation stone of the new church of St Francis of Assisi, Christies Beach on Sunday 21st December 1975.

  'Well, well,' he says. 'It was so long ago but in some ways it was yesterday.'

  Christine brings us coffee and we talk. They do not dwell on the past; there is no wallowing in self pity. Indeed, they believe a healthy sense of pragmatism has helped them come though with the ability to handle life as well as the next person. The word vengeance is not in their vocabulary. Nor is hate. In fact it appears that there are no jagged words in their vocabulary. Scumbag? No way. Bastard? Certainly not.

  Yes, they had heard that Arthur Stanley Brown, who had been a suspect in the abduction, had died in Townsville, aged 90; but they hadn't wasted time pondering on it.

  Brown, who in 1998 was charged with the 1970 rape-murder of two young sisters in Townsville, bore an uncanny likeness to the police sketch of the thin-faced man seen leading Kirste and Joanne away from Adelaide oval in 1973.

  The Gordons were also aware that police had been looking with some interest at convicted child killer Derek Percy.

  'We don't focus on suspects,' says Christine with a sad smile. 'And we don't focus on the police investigation. There is a legal system and it will happen without input from us. Let the police do their job. They have a policy of ensuring fresh eyes are kept on the case all the time. If there is an arrest then we will be no more than innocent bystanders.

  'It comes down to whether or not we want to be victims by chasing the stories - and the answer is no.'

  Christine believes her mother Rita, who died aged 79 from cancer four years ago, was one of the main victims of the crime. She never forgave herself for letting the girls go to the toilet alone, all those years ago.

  'There was nothing we could do to help her though,' Christine says. 'All we could do was to show her we loved her.'

  Rita had been looking after Kirste for a few days while Greg and Christine were away in the Riverland, on the Murray River, for a Caledonian Society dinner on Friday 24 August 1973. Greg, a keen piper, had been chief of the society and a new chief was about to be installed. It had been a wonderful event.

  They spent the next day with friends in Renmark while, 250 kilometres to the south-west, Rita took her granddaughter to the football in Adelaide. Norwood was playing, and even though she was only four Kirste was following in her grandmother's footsteps and was on her way to becoming a one-eyed supporter.

  Rita and Kirste often sat with the Ratcliffe family, and this day was no different. It was a happy gathering of friends and family: Les and Kath Ratcliffe with Joanne; Rita with little Kirste: and Rita's cousin and her family. There was all the usual stuff that goes with the footy: meat pies, cheeky banter, red and blue scarves, and Norwood's song Grand Old Flag sung with gusto and varying levels of vocal competence.

  The girls decided to visit the toilet during the match but soon returned to the group. Then some time later Kirste wanted to go again - possibly because she was bored with the game - so it was agreed that Joanne would take her.

  A little while later, in Renmark, Greg and Christine were just settling into a quiet dinner with their friends when the phone rang and Greg was summoned to take a call.

  In the here and now of 2008, Christine nods sadly as she again recounts for me the moment that dramatically changed their lives.

  'I remember Greg coming back to the table and, as per usual the master of understatement, saying we had to go home because Kirste was missing.

  'I said: "Missing from where?" and he said: "From the football".

  'It was like an iron bar had just gone through my heart. I just knew...'

  Christine's gaze has taken her to a faraway place... Then just as quickly she checks herself and she's back with us in the living room 2008. She sips her coffee and reflects, 'The trip back home was the longest we have ever done, I think.'

  Greg nods in agreement, remembering the interminable drive and the need to keep calm and not to jump at worst-case-scenarios. Not yet.

  'I think I cried all the way back,' says Christine. 'We had the radio on in case there was any news and you know what - we were coming through Truro and they played this song, a Scottish song called, Will Ye No Come Back Again?

  'It was entirely coincidental but can you believe that?'

  Back at the Adelaide oval, in 1973, Rita was beside herself. While the family members fanned out and searched the stands she remained in her seat in case the girls returned.

  But they didn't.

  The assistant curator of the oval reported seeing the girls leaving the ground with a man. Over the next 90 minutes or so there were four different sightings of this man with the two children.

  It was the longest wait of Rita's life. Her personal anguish had just begun.

  Despite one of the biggest child-a
bduction investigations in Australia's history, police never found Kirste Gordon or Joanne Ratcliffe.

  For weeks afterwards friends and strangers expressed their sorrow and shock. Christine and Greg received hundreds of letters and cards, many from people they had never met, and Christine piled them all into a big cake box. For 35 years that box has sat on the top shelf of the wardrobe in their bedroom. Christine occasionally looks through them - not as a conscious intention, rather just because she happens to be up in the cupboard looking for something else.

  'It is jam-packed with letters, cards and telegrams. We could not answer many of them because there were no return addresses,' she says. 'These were people just wanting to wish us well and offer sympathy. It was amazing, they came from all over Australia. It's when that sort of thing happens that you realise you are not alone,' she says.

  The oft-bandied word priceless takes on a new meaning when it comes to that cake box. So much so, says Christine, that if the house caught fire she would climb back in and rescue it - along with the family photographs. The contents have a value that is galaxies beyond the manufactured world of insurance and consumerism-linked claims. Christine is passionate but talking about the cake box has touched a nerve - it's clear that she sees it as full of something so real, so honest, so human and so full of compassion and decency.

  'Even if I never again get it down from the top shelf, I know it's there,' she says.

  For the Gordons, Kirste's abduction was a living nightmare but the things that dominated that time were their closeness, their faith and the realisation that they had to stay on an even keel for the sake of little Catherine.

  Greg says, 'Initially it was a time of great confusion and uncertainty as we grappled with coming to grips with the enormity of the event; and what to do about it. The greatest determining factor for us was that we had Catherine, so we gave paramount importance to providing her with a stable, positive and nurturing environment.

  'We quickly adopted the approach of focussing on the future as each new day brought its opportunities. We did not indulge in 'what if...' speculation. We felt that that sort of thinking only increases the perpetrator's number of victims.'

  The year after Kirste's abduction the Gordons accepted a 12-month teaching post in Singapore. Again, it was a practical decision - certainly not an act of running away. It was a timely circuit breaker that gave them an opportunity to see life from outside the fishbowl for a while.

  With the move came some well-deserved happiness, breathing space and a new baby.

  'The remoteness enabled our independence as a family unit - and the unity within our family - to grow very strongly,' says Greg. 'It was at this time that Ailsa was born. We never wanted to have a family of only one child.

  'We knew that if Kirste was ever found and came back into the family, having a new baby on the way, or born, would be part of the healing process... to get the family on track again,' says Greg.

  The pragmatism word crops up several times as we talk. Perhaps, I find myself thinking, this is why I'm not hearing any intemperate responses or quests for revenge that some people resort to in the wake of criminal acts.

  Greg says being pragmatic helped them cope and kept them all on an even keel - a tricky task, to say the least, when reporters were breathlessly linking the Kirste and Joanne's disappearance to other child abductions; the Beaumonts in particular.

  'The Beaumont case was a consideration, but nothing more than that,' Greg says. 'Although there are apparently aspects that are considered to be similar, we do not speculate on the likelihood of a connection. There are other people who are properly trained to deal with these matters.'

  Their attitude, however, did not mean that they buried their emotions in order to become cold and clinical. It simply meant that they were able to keep life in perspective, accept Kirste's abduction as the heinous crime that it was, hold dear the memories and the photographs and the toys, and not become caught up in the theories that spring in the wake of other disappearances.

  'We had to be pragmatic,' says Greg. 'We were determined not to be crushed or worn down by trying to influence things over which we had no power. Vengeance for the perpetrator was, and never will be, an option. Vengeance is soul destroying and self destructive. We found that this was a time when we had to be looking out. Vengeance is an inward-looking thing.'

  Some well-meaning people, Christine says, talked to them of getting even with the abductor; while others had assumed that she surely wished that Australia still had the death penalty.

  'No,' she says flatly. 'And even if we did, I would not want to pull the lever. Why would I want to take a life? Then some people asked us: "But what if that person is never found"

  'To that we say, that's all right because sooner or later that person will have to meet his maker.'

  Kirste remains strong in their hearts, but they also kept some of the little girl's toys - in a box for the grandchildren to play with when they come around for a visit.

  Christine leaves the room and returns with one of Kirste's favourites. It's the clown with the orange hair, the bright check shirt and green pants - just as I remember it from three decades gone, and as good as the day her godmother gave it to her.

  I hold Clown and ruffle his funny hair. I feel sad and, yes, I feel a certain closeness to Kirste simply because I had broken the unwritten rule of remaining detached from the story. I'm glad I did. And that bottle of Kirste's Wine was always a tangible reminder for me - and for anyone who heard the story - to keep perceived trials and tribulations in perspective.

  But heck, where did all the years go? I was a 25-year-old ambitious reporter when I last held Clown. Now I'm 58 and well seasoned. Time is a scary phenomenon. Thank goodness for precious memories, I find myself thinking - especially for the Gordons.

  Indeed memories of Kirste are always just below the surface for Greg and Christine; and they're sometimes triggered in the most unexpected ways. Music and flowers are especially powerful.

  Sing, Sing a Song was a hit on the radio in the early 70s and Kirste latched onto it very swiftly. 'Ad nauseum,' Christine laughs. 'Then there was Porcupine Pie - no other words for her, just porcupine pie, porcupine pie. And the nursery rhymes. She would ride in the bus with grandma reciting nursery rhymes all the way - word perfect but not tune perfect!'

  Then there are happenings that cannot be explained. Kirste loved flowers and, when she was about two years old, she'd been attracted to some flowers in the garden of a family friend. When the flowers died back, the friend gave Kirste some of the bulbs as a gift.

  Kirste was thrilled but, despite all the nursery advice and green-thumb nurturing, the plants never flowered - until one day in 2008. Greg and Christine went out to the native garden at the front of their house and spied the plants budding up for the first time in 38 years. It was just a few months before Kirste's 40th birthday.

  For Greg and Christine this was significant. 'Kirste's existence was an undeniable part of our lives,' he says. ' It is not that we are constantly and consciously thinking of her, but memories of her reside just below the surface and can be triggered in sometimes the most unpredictable of ways, giving rise to a variety of different emotions that you feel for those you love.

  'Kirste's 40th is the first time those bulbs have ever flowered.'

  Greg pauses and sips his coffee before continuing. 'Those are the sorts of things we appreciate,' says Greg. 'Trees, flowers, music; they're so important. We have come a long way. We see our glass as half full, not half empty. We get a lot of joy from paying things forward - by extending kindness to others, just like all those people did when they sent us those heartfelt messages.

  'We also gain comfort from the Serenity Prayer,' says Greg, and recites the version he knows.

  God give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed. Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.'

  A 40th birthday is a significant
milestone in anyone's life. For Greg and Christine, Kirste's was a time to reflect privately. 'Birthdays and other celebrations are occasions when we can quietly recall the good times,' says Greg. 'We can manage to do this because they are predictable.

  'Around the anniversary of Kirste's abduction, however, is the difficult time. It brings with it a lingering feeling of apprehension about what might be sprung upon us by the media. The only thing that is predictable is that some media activity is likely to occur, and that it makes no real progress towards a solution.'

  Kirste had her own little personality reflected in so many ways: through songs and drawings, hugs and kisses, running, dancing and jumping, making friends, mudpies and sandcastles, laughing, crying, skinning knees and playing games, and so much more - all precious ingredients that, as a whole, constitute the sum of a parent's joy.

  Clearly, Kirste's very nature was such that everyone loved her. People remember hers as a beautiful personality.

  So how might she have grown up? What career might Kirste have pursued? What kind of person would she have grown up to be?

  Greg sighs and nods slowly as he gathers his thoughts. There is sadness in his eyes - but this slight betrayal of sorrow is tempered with a smile full of compassion that lightens his face.

  'That,' he replies, 'remains an unanswered question. We can but cherish the memory of a sweet-natured and gentle child.'

  Once again - 32 years on - it is time for me to leave. I double-check the bump in my bag - just to make sure the empty bottle of Kirste's Wine is safe. It's a cool afternoon and a light wind is picking up as I make my way to the car, my personal pilgrimage done. For now.

  High above me, five cormorants soar towards the sea. In the front garden Kirste's pink lilies nod and lean in the breeze as Greg and Christine, arm in arm, make their way back inside.