Under the Midnight Sky

by Anna Romer

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Next time you feel like running off, do me a favour?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come and stay at my place. Or even just pop in for a visit. You can bring Mrs Bilby.’

  ‘Really?’

  I nodded. ‘And if you want to visit your dad, then we can do that too. Together, if you want.’

  She frowned. ‘You’d do all that for me?’

  ‘Course I would.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because hitching to the coast by yourself is a pretty messed-up idea, don’t you think?’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  At Gundara Hospital, I found a park in the visitors’ emergency bay and as we hurried towards Admissions, I rang Coral Pitney and explained where her daughter was. Then I waited with Shayla while they checked her over and filled out forms. When they wheeled her upstairs to the ward, I walked beside her. I wondered if anyone had called the police yet. I hoped not. It would be better if they didn’t arrive until after I had made myself scarce.

  I glanced at the exit, wondering how fast I could get to Lil’s. And what I’d say once I got there. Would Lil remember what she’d done? Would she even believe me?

  As a nurse tightened a blood-pressure cuff around Shayla’s arm, Shayla grabbed my sleeve. ‘Stay with me, Abby.’

  ‘You’ll be fine, sweetie. You’re in good hands now.’

  ‘You promised to keep me safe. To take me to the coast if I wanted. Now you’re fobbing me off on these jerks?’ She glowered over her shoulder at the nurse checking the heart monitor, then leaned nearer to me and took my hand. ‘Please, Abby. I’m scared.’

  ‘I’ll stay until your mum gets here.’ I lowered my voice so the nurse wouldn’t hear. ‘But there’s something I have to do. Then I’ll come back and see you.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘You bet.’

  She sagged, nodding, and kept her eyes on me.

  She looked so small and vulnerable in the bed, with her grubby feet and grazed knuckles, and her pale, wide-eyed face. ‘Trouble’ her mother called her. A problem best ignored, according to Kendra. But all I saw was a smart, brave kid who needed kindness and love, and most of all acceptance. Someone to teach her how to act and behave, how to create healthy boundaries. We learn so much from others, Lil had said. But if the conduct of those we learn from is unhealthy, then how are we supposed to know what’s right?

  I settled on the bed beside Shayla and slipped my arm around her, remembering the moment I’d seen her in the hut, struck by her resemblance to a younger version of me.

  ‘Hanging in there, kiddo?’

  ‘Hmm.’ She buried her face in my shoulder. ‘Did you mean what you said? About me coming to visit?’

  ‘Sure thing.’

  ‘And Mrs Bilby too?’

  ‘Anytime she wants.’

  ‘Mum says I’m trouble.’

  ‘Yeah. My dad said exactly the same thing about me.’

  We fell into silence. I got off the bed and went over to the doorway and gazed along the corridor, wondering what was taking Coral so long. Surely nothing could be more important right now than being here for her daughter? Seeing with her own eyes that the girl was all right, giving her the reassurance she so desperately needed. Soft shoes whispered on the lino. Hushed voices, the discreet beep of monitors, the clang of a steel trolley. But still no Coral.

  I glanced back.

  A nurse was attending Shayla’s head wound, applying a wad of sterile dressing. He must have pressed a touch too hard for her liking, because she swore loudly and elbowed him in the ribs.

  I bit my lips together and tried not to smile. After what she’d been through, that tiny act of defiance gave me hope. I wasn’t sure why, but as I went back to my place beside her, I knew that despite what Coral or Kendra or anyone else said, the Shayla Pitneys of the world would get along in life just fine.

  34

  While the oven was heating, Joe stood at the kitchen table and cut up six green apples. He tossed them in lemon juice, then measured cinnamon and nutmeg into a cup of brown sugar, humming along to the record he’d put on earlier, Ella Swings Lightly, an old favourite from way back. While the apples infused, he followed directions for the pastry, frowning as he rubbed cold butter into the flour. Quite a job. Hats off to Lil, who always made it look so easy.

  The recipe Joe was using was one of Lil’s favourites, given to her by his mother, who’d adored Lil. Lil rather drolly referred to it as ‘Nan’s Apple Pud’, but the pie itself was nothing like a pudding. The pastry was buttery and crisp, the filling richly sweet. Typical Lil, always having her little jokes.

  He glanced at the window, wondering how much longer she’d be and saw himself mirrored in the glass. A hunched little old man in an apron, holding a rolling pin. A ghost. He stared at the reflection, and wished a part of himself could linger there in the window after he’d gone. To watch over Lil.

  It broke his heart to leave her. But what other choice did he have?

  Once, many years ago, during one of their deep and meaningfuls, Lil had confessed her greatest fear. Let’s not move back to town, Joe. I like it out here, I feel free. He had reminded her, gently because he understood that the topic was a sensitive one for her, that the time may come when they were too frail to cope with maintaining the garden and cutting the firewood, not to mention all the other little daily tasks of living independently. But Lil had dug in her heels. I don’t want to be locked up in an old people’s home, Joe. Please don’t let them lock me up. Promise me? If anything happened to you, I wouldn’t want to go on alone. Do you understand what I’m saying, Joe?

  He had reassured her nothing would happen to him. But that was years ago. And as much as he hated to admit it, time was running out. Hence the apple pie. His way of saying sorry for the bad news he was about to deliver.

  ‘Don’t worry, Lil,’ he said, eyeing the man in the window. ‘I’ll watch over you.’

  When the pastry was done, he wrangled it into Lil’s good pie dish and scooped in the filling. This he dolloped with butter, and placed the last of the pastry over the top in lattice strips, which he sprinkled with sugar.

  Standing back, he frowned at his creation. A bit wonky, but Lil wouldn’t mind.

  Donning Lil’s oven mitts, he placed the pie in the oven and then set the table. Soon the kitchen filled with the sweetness of syrupy apples and he knew that, despite its wonky pastry, the pie would taste good.

  He’d serve it with that old bottle of Tokay he’d been saving. The dessert wine’s rich honey and orange-rind flavours would wash the apples down nicely. The Tokay had become another favourite since serving it – a lifetime ago, it seemed – at their wedding. They’d saved this particular bottle for another landmark occasion. But decades had passed and it was still gathering dust. Joe was tired of putting things aside for later. For him, later would never come. There was only now. Today. And he intended to make the most of whatever time remained.

  He heard Lil’s car and went to the window. She was late. Probably been held up at drama group, got nattering with Diane. But when she parked askew in the driveway, he knew something was wrong.

  She stumbled along the path, her lovely hair windblown, her face twisted into a frown. Joe went to the door and opened it for her, and to his surprise she sagged into his arms.

  ‘Oh, Joe.’

  ‘Love, what is it?’

  ‘I’m so afraid, Joe.’

  He studied her face a moment, then kissed her damp forehead and smoothed her hair. As he held her close, his eyes stung with sudden wetness.

  ‘It’s time, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, pet. It’s time.’

  ‘I’ve made Nan’s Apple Pud.’

  This seemed to cheer her. ‘It smells wonderful. And I see you’ve brought out the Tokay.’ She gazed into his eyes, resting her palm against his wrinkled cheek. ‘What a feast we’ll have, eh? And then, my darling, we can go and lie down, enjoy a nice long sleep together.’

&
nbsp; His old ticker beat hard with joy. He wouldn’t have to leave a part of himself behind after all. He wouldn’t have to worry himself sick about saying goodbye. They would be together, just as they’d always been. In a sudden flush of love he took her face in his hands and kissed her.

  ‘You’re my girl, Lil.’

  ‘Always.’

  While Joe set the table with their best glasses and plates, Lil went over to the cupboard where they kept their tablets. Taking out Joe’s prescriptions and then her own, she carried the little bottles over to the chopping board. Emptied the contents and then, while Ella Fitzgerald’s sweet voice drifted through the house, Lil began to crush the tablets under her heavy wooden rolling pin.

  • • •

  A vase of garden flowers sat on the bedside table, and the delicate perfume of autumn roses drifted on the air. Joe removed his socks, wriggled his toes to air them, and then climbed under the covers.

  Lil settled on the bed beside him.

  Joe’s pie had been a treat. They had eaten the whole thing and then sat talking while they emptied the bottle of Tokay. Lil had assembled some of the missing puzzle pieces for Joe. The nightmares that she now understood were really glimpses of things she’d done. Terrible things. And bursts of memory that surely could not be her own? A young girl on the roadside, climbing into Lil’s car . . . she’d been thirsty and Lil offered her a drink of cordial. There must have been something in the cordial, because soon after, the girl nodded off . . . had stayed asleep, oblivious as Lil half-carried, half-dragged her along the bushy trail to a place she had been to many times before . . .

  Joe had listened in silence, reaching for her hand, giving her fingers a reassuring squeeze. At first he had not believed. But Lil had persevered, recounting dates and even pulling out the rumpled pages she’d torn from Frankie’s diary – until finally he understood. She had wept hard at the end, and Joe had wept too.

  ‘Sing me a song, Lil?’

  She looked across the bed. ‘Oh, Joe. I can’t.’

  Joe started humming. Dear fool that he was, he began to sway his fingers in the air as though conducting an orchestra. Trying to cheer her. ‘Come on, love. Help me out here.’

  She climbed under the covers beside him. ‘I haven’t sung in donkey’s years.’

  He stopped conducting. Taking off his glasses, he placed them on the nightstand, on top of the book he’d been reading. Lil noticed his bookmark still quite a few pages from the end.

  ‘How can you bear not to finish it?’

  Joe smiled. ‘I’ve read it before. I know how it ends.’

  Lil smiled back, more for his benefit than her own, because her lips had started quavering and she wasn’t sure they’d be able to stop. Something in the sad way Joe had spoken touched a nerve in her. At first she didn’t know what that nerve was, just that it bothered her. Like a spot on her vision, small but nonetheless distracting. She blinked but the more she tried to dislodge it, the darker it grew. Random images tumbled through her mind. Roses embroidered on denim. Round, frightened eyes peering from the shadows. Eyes that reminded her of another little girl, a sweet little thing she’d known a lifetime ago.

  ‘Any regrets, Lil?’

  Flashes of memory came back to her. Hiding in the trees, watching Abby approach the cabin and shove open the door, save that poor girl. And later, Lil, the shadow-Lil, stumbling along the narrow trail, dropping the padlock key when Abby and the girl were out of sight further along. Waiting until they’d gone before she got back in her car and drove home. She had fought the shadows to set things right, but of course it was too little, too late. Did she have regrets? She looked at her husband. Of course she had regrets – how could she not? But she bit her tongue. If she started listing her regrets, they’d turn into a torrent, rush forth like a river and drown them both.

  Instead, she snuggled under the covers beside him. For a while they chatted, as they were accustomed to doing. The afternoon had slipped away. Night was coming. Their chatter stopped. Cosy silence lapped around them, and her limbs settled deeper into the bed. She wanted to yawn, but her lungs were heavy, the air in them treacly and thick. She blinked, and her sister’s face appeared before her. Not the flushed and frightened version it had been at the end, but rather a chubby-cheeked face with freckles dotting the nose, and eyes that danced with mischief.

  If only things had been different.

  If only they had never met the young soldier, never listened to the stories of his grandfather’s magical house with its chandeliers and shadows. If only they’d never become entranced by the tales of that wondrous wrought-iron birdcage fashioned in the shape of an emperor’s palace. If only they’d never wanted to see the birds that inhabited the garden: the green and yellow finches, the scarlet parrots, the willie wagtails, and the tiny wrens with their dazzling blue feathers—

  ‘Lil?’

  She startled back to the present. Joe was watching her. For a moment she felt wide open, exposed. As though by catching her in an unguarded moment, he had glimpsed her memories. Viewed her, even briefly, through the lens of that murky spot. Perhaps even seen the woman she sometimes became, the one in her nightmares. Recognised her at last for the monster she was.

  He kissed her brow. ‘Feeling all right?’

  She examined his face, finding comfort in his familiar features. In the tenderness she saw shining from his eyes. Reaching out, she touched his cheek. ‘You’re a good man, Joe. The best.’

  He caught her fingers, the way he used to, and gave them a nibble. ‘You’re my girl, Lil. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Always.’

  Melting back against him, she savoured his warmth and tried to ignore the heaviness that was descending. Tried to pretend that this was just another of the afternoon naps they’d taken together over the years.

  ‘Lil?’

  ‘What’s that, love?’

  ‘Will you sing me to sleep?’

  Her heart dissolved. How could she refuse him this one last request? Linking her fingers in his, she began to hum. Shakily at first. Then she let the words come. It was Fantine’s song of broken dreams, the one the women had urged her to perform in their production. It was a beautiful song, but the frail, quivering notes that left her throat were full of rust. Her voice was part of another life, a life she had buried deep in the earthy black shadows beneath a gum tree. Buried and tried to forget. Yet nothing was ever forgotten, was it? Then, as she sang, something magical happened. Lil felt it in her chest. The strands of her voice unravelling, the kinks smoothing out, the snarls and tangles gone.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Joe murmured.

  For the first time in many years, Lil allowed her voice to rise up and lift them, carry them both away.

  35

  Lil’s car was parked in her driveway at an angle, and as I rushed past it, I glimpsed the keys still in the ignition. She’d come home in a hurry, but where was she now? Bounding up the verandah steps, I hammered on the back door. It swung open.

  ‘Lil?’

  I went inside. The place was very quiet. The table was laid with a clean cloth and a vase of roses. In the drying rack on the sink were teacups and wineglasses and a large cake plate. The air smelled sweet, of apples and pastry and sugar.

  ‘Lil, are you around?’

  A frail voice wafted along the hallway. Someone was singing and as I followed the sound, I realised it was Lil. I knocked on the bedroom door. The singing stopped and Lil called my name. Going in, I found her and Joe tucked up together in bed. Joe was asleep, his head resting against Lil’s arm.

  Lil blinked at me, and then beckoned me closer. ‘Abby?’

  ‘Yeah, Lil. It’s me.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. For everything.’ Her words were slurred, and she seemed unable to keep her eyes open.

  On the drive here I’d planned what I wanted to say. How could you, Lil, you of all people, after what you’d been through? How could you? But the words died in my throat. I glanced at Joe. He was very still, and a
grey pallor had taken over his usual healthy flush. His chest rose and fell with every shallow, laboured breath.

  ‘God, Lil. What’ve you done?’

  ‘We’ll be asleep soon.’ She dabbed beneath her eye with the back of her hand. ‘I won’t hurt anyone ever again.’

  Numbly I stood there. ‘Asleep?’

  ‘My blackouts,’ she murmured. ‘My lapses of memory. Those turns I’d been having since I was a girl. I didn’t know where I went. Or what I did while I was gone. And sometimes I had nightmares. Terrible nightmares. But I didn’t think for a moment they could be true.’

  ‘Lil, have you taken something?’

  She pressed trembling fingers against her cheeks. ‘I told Joe about our talk outside under the trees this afternoon. After you found the diary. I explained what you said, and he wondered if I might have done something. That perhaps my nightmares were real.’ Her head dropped forward and her body began to shake as she sobbed. ‘Is it true, Abby? Did I hurt those girls? Did I hurt you?’

  ‘Oh, Lil.’

  Understanding hit me. Rushing to the door, I ran along the hall and out to the lounge room. Grabbing the phone, I jabbed triple-zero and then waited, trembling. Precious seconds passed before I realised there was no dial tone, no sound at all coming from the receiver. I checked under the table. The cord had been cut.

  On the way back to the bedroom, I planned my next move. The farmhouse was a good forty-minute drive from town, which meant I’d have to bundle them both into my car and race back to the mobile signal at the turnoff. Call an ambulance and meet them halfway to town.

  ‘Can you stand, Lil?’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s too late, Abby.’

  ‘Let me help you, then. I’ll bring the car closer to the house, then Joe doesn’t have to walk so far.’

  ‘Abby, let us go.’

  ‘Lil, you can’t just—’

  ‘There’s not much time left. And still so much I need to tell you. Please.’ She gestured at the chair under the window. ‘Sit beside me a moment.’