by Anna Romer
Abby pointed ahead. ‘There.’
A dark-coloured Forester was parked askew on the verge, almost hidden by the bushes. As they pulled up behind it, Abby’s headlights caught the open driver-side door.
‘She’s here,’ Joe said, unbuckling his seatbelt and stumbling out.
Abby was right behind him as they hurried to Lil’s vehicle. Tom was slower, moving carefully along the rocky verge, praying that Lil was in the car, unharmed. But as he approached, Joe looked around.
‘She’s gone walkabout.’ The old man wandered away from the car and further down the road, calling Lil’s name.
Abby pressed her hand to the bonnet. ‘The engine’s still warm. She can’t be far.’ She walked along the verge and then stopped and gazed after Joe, who was barely visible now in the dark, his hoarse voice echoing through the night.
Abby returned to Tom. ‘I’m worried she’s wandered off into the reserve in a daze and got lost. I only hope she’s not hurt. I have to find her.’
‘You’re not going alone, it’s pitch black out there. I’m coming with you.’
‘Thanks for the offer, but you’ll slow me down. This part of the reserve is rough going, even for someone who knows it well.’
Tom cursed his useless legs. ‘How will you find your way back?’
Abby went to the Fiesta and took out a torch. She flicked it on and the cone of light turned her into a shadow. ‘Every ten minutes, sound the car horn. I’ll stay within hearing range.’ Fumbling out a fresh roll of mints, she offered one to Tom, but he shook his head. She popped one in and chewed, hugging herself as she gazed into the darkness. Then she turned to him and searched his face, her eyes huge and gleaming. ‘If she’s out there, I’ll find her. I promise.’
• • •
When the car horn sounded in the distance, I paused beside a vast old gum tree and glanced back towards the road.
‘Right on time,’ I whispered.
Nearby, the bushes rustled. I hit them with my torch and a wallaby bounded away, its powerful legs thumping the ground.
I continued downhill, pushing between prickly banks of tea-tree and ducking under low-hanging branches. A while later I heard the car horn again, but it was faint. As it cut out, I paused to listen. Leaves whispered in the dampening air, insects droned as night settled in. An owl flew past, its enormous wings eerily quiet. Then I became aware of another sound: the crunch of footsteps moving towards me.
Spinning around, I searched the trees. ‘Lil, Is that you?’
There was no reply, but the footsteps continued to approach and a light bobbed through the trees. There was someone else here, and it had to be Lil – but why wouldn’t she acknowledge me? Moving towards the sound, I shone my torch into the darkness. Between the ghostly tree trunks, it caught a tall, woman-shaped shadow pushing through the undergrowth.
‘Lil!’
She broke through the bushes and saw me, shone her light in my face, but showed no sign that she recognised me. Her back was ramrod straight and her frown fierce, her mouth downturned. ‘Why have you followed me here? What do you want?’
I lowered my torch and went over. ‘Lil, it’s me, Abby. Joe’s waiting at the car, he was worried that you might be unwell. Let’s get you back there, okay?’
Lil peered into my face. Torchlight carved hollows into her cheeks and under her eyes, flaring eerily off her glasses. Her usually soft features had sharpened, and her eyes were small and hard. With one long-legged step she closed the gap between us.
‘I remember you.’
My breath caught. She had clearly mistaken me for someone else. I should have said something, but my mouth wouldn’t open, my jaw clamped tight. The torch quivered in my hand and the trees around us seemed to loom closer. How far were we from the road? I tried to remember the number of horn blasts, but my mind had gone blank. There was just the darkness and the trees and the damp night air that was growing colder. And the stranger staring back at me through Lil’s eyes.
‘All grown up.’
It had been the barest whisper, so I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. Closing my fingers around Lil’s arm, I gave her a shake. ‘What did you say?’
Before she could reply, the car horn sounded in the distance. It seemed to snap us both back to reality. Lil blinked and the ice in her gaze melted away. She blinked again, little rapid flutters, and pulled away from me with a frown. Finally her features settled into an expression of confusion.
‘Abby?’ She gazed around. ‘Why are we here?’
‘Come on, Lil. Let’s get you warmed up.’
Shrugging out of my coat, I wrapped it around her shoulders, remembering again what Joe had said about her turns. She needed warmth, quiet, hot tea. A familiar environment where she could settle back into her old self and recover.
‘I was dreaming, Abby.’
‘It’s over now, Lil.’
‘A terrible dream.’
‘Come on, Joe’s waiting for you. Here, take my arm, it’s not far.’
She gripped me tightly. As we walked, she hung her head and began to moan quietly, muttering to herself.
I led her back through the trees, navigating the rough ground as I followed the distant glow of headlights. It was only when we had almost reached the verge that I made out what she was saying.
‘Oh, Frankie, leave me alone. Please, leave me alone.’
19
Tom stood on the grass beside the back steps, swirling the dregs of his tea as he gazed at the sunny garden. Abby had left early to visit Lil and Joe and then go into town for supplies. She’d phoned a while ago to say that Lil had recovered from last night’s escapade. Aside from a couple of scratches, she barely remembered her trek through the bush. Joe, on the other hand, was still shaken.
After Lil’s vanishing act, and the Glenlivet or three Tom had drunk with Joe afterwards, Tom should have been feeling fuzzy-headed and hungover. But his mind was clear and his body primed – as if he’d been drinking wheatgrass shots rather than whiskey. He should be at his typewriter working, but jeez, it was nearly the weekend.
He found a bucket in the shed and filled it at the tap, then made his way slowly along an overgrown path to the north edge of the garden. The bucket had banged against his crutches and he’d spilled half the water down his leg, twice dropped the carryall with its soap and scrubbing brush, and almost tripped on a tree root – but none of that managed to put a dent in his smile, fool that he was.
Seeing Abby rush off into the reserve last night had done something to him – put a chink in his armour; rattled something loose. He kept reliving that moment when she’d looked at him in the torchlight, her eyes gleaming. That look had puzzled him, and he’d taken it to be a sort of wild elation. Now, on reflection, he suspected what it really was. She’d been afraid. Deeply afraid. But she’d gone after her friend regardless.
Watching her disappear into the trees, Tom had never felt so helpless. Never hated his injured legs more. And as he’d waited with Joe on the roadside, honking the horn at ten-minute intervals, praying that at any moment Abby and Lil would emerge from the darkness, he had made a decision.
Soon Lil would tell Abby the final instalment of her story. And then, once Abby had written her interview, she’d be gone. Back to town, out of his life. Maybe forever.
But how could he let her go?
Abby had gotten under his skin. All the hard work she had done, and without a murmur of complaint. All her attentiveness and good humour. The kindness she’d showed when he’d fallen, and the way she’d laughed when he confessed his schoolboy attempts to wake her up. She’d taken it all in her stride. It seemed to Tom that her efforts deserved more than just a boring interview and a few random photos of his ugly mug.
When he got to the orchard, he made a beeline for the derelict caravan.
He’d seen it the day he inspected the property, and almost immediately forgotten about it. But the other night at dinner, when Abby’s eyes lit up as she spoke about her love of travel
, he’d remembered it. And then after her act of bravery last night, he had decided that the perfect way to show his esteem for her was by giving her something she’d love. Something that might make her less inclined to forget him.
His first job was to clear the swallows’ nest, which thankfully the birds had abandoned. It took until lunchtime to scrub the plywood walls clean of cobwebs, dirt and bird droppings. The teardrop shape dated the van to the 1960s, but its wood construction made him wonder if it might have been built as far back as the 1930s. It could use a coat of paint but otherwise seemed well preserved. Only one corner had a crack along its sloping rooftop. Nothing that a couple of brass screws and a tube of silicone wouldn’t fix.
Tossing the filthy water onto a flowerbed, he made his way back to the house, planning to return that afternoon with his toolbox and fix the split roof. He stowed the bucket and scrubbing brush in the shed, but as he approached the house, he heard Abby clattering about on the verandah.
She was sanding the kitchen windowsill, which had started jamming since the damp weather. Her cheeks were pink from the sun, her peaches-and-cream complexion dotted with freckles. And that hair. Inside the house it looked chestnut, but the sun turned it to dark liquid honey threaded with gold.
She saw him and frowned. ‘Where did you get to?’
‘The orchard.’
She came over to the steps and shook her head at him, her hands on her hips. ‘How on earth did you get down the verandah stairs?’
‘With great difficulty.’
‘Why didn’t you wait till I got back? I could have helped.’
‘I’ve got something for you.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What?’
‘A surprise.’
‘Oh.’
‘Let me guess. You hate surprises?’
She squared her shoulders. ‘Actually, Tom, I’m quite partial to anything that keeps life interesting.’
‘Then follow me.’
• • •
We made slow progress through the garden. Tom was covered in grime, his trackies wet and filthy, and his cast the worse for wear. Yet he was beaming, his smudged face glowing from sunlight and exertion. I was only mildly curious about his surprise, too preoccupied with what I’d spent the morning planning to tell him.
Lil said something strange last night in the forest, and it’s been bothering the hell out of me ever since. I mean, she’s one of the brightest, most together women I’ve ever met, but those turns of hers? Pretty damn scary. I think she mistook me for Frankie. She gave me the weirdest look and said she remembered me and that I was ‘all grown up’.
‘Tom? How much further?’
He glanced over his shoulder and winked. ‘Not far. You’re gonna love it.’
We pushed past grevillea bushes and tromped through high grass. Bush wrens chattered in the undergrowth and, overhead, a single swallowtail cloud drifted in an otherwise empty blue sky. I could tell by the way Tom’s bad leg dragged that he was tired, but his mood was positively buoyant. I smiled to myself. He’d been good with Joe last night, somehow knowing what to say at exactly the right time to put the old man’s mind at ease. It must’ve been terrifying not knowing where his wife was, but Tom’s solid presence had reassured him.
Tom stopped walking and gestured for me to go ahead. I entered a clearing defined by a ring of fruit trees. Pear trees, weighed down by fruit, and autumn apples shiny red among the leaves. The grass was freshly trampled, and I guessed this was where Tom had spent his morning.
On the other side of the clearing, tucked into the shade of a weeping mulberry tree, sat a little vintage caravan. Its silvery plywood walls were wet; they looked newly scrubbed except for the blooms of frilly lichen still clinging to them. The curved roof glinted in the sunlight, and bees danced around its teardrop window.
‘Magical, isn’t it?’ Tom said.
He ushered me over and unlatched the door. I glanced about inside. It was pristine and cosy, a tiny table and booth seats, a miniature sink, all remarkably well preserved, but when I opened my mouth to agree with Tom on its adorable quaintness, a gust of cold, stale air flooded my lungs.
‘It needs a few repairs,’ Tom was saying, ‘to get it roadworthy. The inside could use some vamping up. Curtains, maybe a cushion or two. But it’s tiny, light enough to tow behind your Fiesta. I thought you could—’
‘No.’ I swallowed, shut my eyes. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to surprise me. He was being kind, and I recognised the lovely gesture. But how could I explain? Pinching the bridge of my nose, I tried to summon the words to describe what I was feeling. The way my throat closed up from the stale mustiness, the way my pulse began to fly at the sight of the shadow-infested corners. The way my spirit shrank inside me like a walnut withering in its shell.
Tom put his hand on my arm. ‘Abby, what is it?’
I shrugged him off. ‘I’ve got work to do.’
Leaving him alone in the clearing, I hurried back along the path. But when the house came into view, I couldn’t face returning indoors. So instead I veered past the old back shed and stumbled along another track, heading deeper into the trees as I tightened my shoulders against the flurry of memory.
• • •
‘I don’t know what it was,’ I told the officer, as I sat shivering in my pink jeans and torn blouse. ‘A cave or something.’
I was sitting on a plastic chair in Gundara Police Station, a blanket wrapped around my shoulders. My scalp stung where someone had doused my wound with Dettol. The doctor was coming, they told me. I needed stitches; I would have to be brave. Even braver than I’d been the last three days in the bush.
A police officer crouched in front of me. ‘What sort of cave, Gail? Can you describe it?’
‘It was dark inside and very dirty. I mean, there was dirt on the floor. But underneath the dirt it was metal.’
The officer nodded and smiled again. But then she glanced around at her colleagues. Looks were exchanged, and I shrank into myself, hugging my arms about me. I began to rock in agitation, making the plastic chair creak. I knew what those looks meant.
‘Why won’t you believe me?’ I shouted.
‘How did you get into this cave?’ the officer asked. ‘Did you fall in?’
I frowned at her, trying to remember. My brother said I’d been gone for three days, but it felt longer. A year had crawled by, a lifetime. Which meant I was no longer twelve, but a hundred.
I looked down at my hands. My knuckles had raw patches. My fingernails were bleeding. Dirt stuck to the blood, making little black moons around the nails. My knees and elbows were skinned, my clothes torn in places, every other inch of me covered in scratches. Worst of all I was hungry, but it was a kind of sick-hungry. Soon after they found me, a man had given me hot cocoa from a thermos but it scalded my tongue and then I’d thrown up. I remembered the stale bread I had gnawed on in the cave, and the faint smell of cold bacon fat came back to me, making me gag.
‘Gail, did you hear me? This cave you thought you were in, how did you get inside it?’
I started crying. ‘I want to go home.’
‘Listen to me, Gail,’ the officer said patiently. ‘I know you’ve been through a lot. But we need to ask you some more questions. Rule out a few things.’
My father loomed in the doorway. ‘What things?’
The officer got to her feet. ‘Gail said she saw someone in the bush. A man holding some sort of weapon, maybe an axe. She got frightened and ran away and we’re just trying to—’
‘We already know that,’ my father boomed. ‘What are you doing about it?’
‘I assure you, Mr Radley—’
‘You’re gonna find this guy, right? Lock him up and throw away the key? Because if I have any say in the matter, there’ll be hell to pay for what my kid’s been through.’
The officer’s face remained calm. ‘I understand your concerns, Mr Radley. Your daughter’s been through an ordeal and you’re keen to get her home. But we need to
determine whether or not this was actually an abduction, or just a scared little girl getting lost in the bush.’
• • •
Tom didn’t know how he found her. He imagined following the scent of her anger, a fresh, hot trail that crackled in the air like gunpowder.
She was under a gum tree with her head resting back against the trunk, her eyes closed. The dappled sunlight played over her face, making shadows of her eyelashes, and glimmering on her damp cheeks.
Tom’s fingers tightened around the crutch grips. If it wasn’t for the damn knee brace he might’ve knelt beside her and gathered her into his arms. Maybe have the courage to press a kiss against her hair. Anything to comfort her. But he just stood there, an intruder, awkward in his filthy clothes and crutches, wishing the ground would open up and swallow him.
She wiped her eyes, then got to her feet. ‘You must think I’m an idiot.’
‘Of course not. You okay?’
‘I guess.’
‘Want to talk about it?’
She sagged back against the tree. ‘Not really.’
‘It might help to talk.’
‘It was sweet of you to clean up the caravan for me. I don’t know why I reacted that way. It was just—’ She blinked back tears and stared up into the tree canopy.
‘It’s something I’ve said, isn’t it?’
She looked up at him with wet eyes. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Tom. Most of what you say, I take with a grain of salt.’
‘Good. I think. So the caravan was a terrible idea?’
‘Not at all. But it seemed to spark a . . . memory.’
‘Ah, Abby. I’m sorry.’
‘Not your fault.’ Another tear leaked out. Catching it with the tip of her finger, she let out a sigh. ‘I don’t know why I’m having this reaction. I never get teary. I feel like a stupid crybaby.’
Her face crumpled again, the tears welling. It shocked him to see her like this – vulnerable, exposed, all defences down. He had the urge to crush whatever was causing those tears. Chase it down, stomp it out of existence. Except he feared the thing upsetting her was him.