‘Actually, I was off with the fish.’
Grappa nodded as if to say fair enough. ‘I said, when do you expect her back?’
‘Who? Ayla?’
‘No, your mother.’
‘Soon, I imagine.’
‘She’s actually moving off?’
‘Who knows? My mother’s renowned for changing her mind.’
The old man took a swig from his flask, then offered him a drink. ‘No thanks, not after last time.’
Grappa cackled.
The more time Riley spent in his company, the more intrigued he became. ‘Did the Nor folk really tell you where the box was?’
‘Let’s just say, they made me aware of knowledge I already had.’ Grappa looked omniscient.
Riley enjoyed the way he spoke in riddles. ‘Ayla said your Gran came here from Ireland? She was the one who taught you about the Nor folk.’
‘That’s right. The little folk are big over there.’ The old man looked confused by what he’d said. ‘If you get what I mean. Where is she?’
‘Who? My mother?’
‘No, Ayla.’ Grappa shook his head at the reoccurring motif within their conversations.
‘At a cleaning job she’s been putting off all week.’
‘Harley’s place?’
Riley nodded and smoothed his hand over the back of one of the dolphins, the voluptuous curve of the wood reminding him of her body.
Ayla wished Harley’s brother had removed more possessions from the house. The worst moment was finding the comb in the bathroom cabinet with Harley’s long black hairs stuck in it.
She was cleaning the last of the windows when she discovered his sunglasses on the floor of the lounge room, hidden under the curtains. The sad silence of the house became deafening as she turned the glasses over and over in her hands, wondering if Trev had flicked them from Harley’s face to land under the curtains when he found him dead. Or had Harley done it as he lay down to die?
The walls closed in as a vision of Harley walking, head bowed, apologising to the world for his existence made her rush outside into the fresh air.
June was at the Hills Hoist next door, hanging out washing. ‘Hey Aylee.’
Ayla held the glasses up in way of an answer. June came over and the two women hugged, June’s tears dampening Ayla’s neck.
‘It doesn’t make sense. He had plans to go to the animal shelter that Thursday to buy a new dog.’
‘Wish I had taken Jip to a vet. Then they might both still be alive.’
‘Don’t you dare think like that. Harley killing himself had nothing to do with Jip’s death. That morning of the day he died, Trev and I spoke to him, he was acting very strange, claiming half the island hated him. He was saying ridiculous things like the people on the island only tolerated him because of Jip, but now Jip was dead they wanted him gone. That they thought he was a scum bucket and a bludger living off their hard-earned tax dollars. We tried to calm him down, but he claimed he had proof. Some anonymous letter from a group of island residents.’
‘What?’
‘We didn’t believe it either, so we asked to see the letter, but he said he’d already burnt it. He wasn’t himself. He was acting very paranoid.’
‘There’s no group of people who hated him. If there was, we’d know about it in such a small community.’
‘Exactly. Everyone on the island loved Harley because of his work at the youth hut.’
‘I know, Ajax, who I went to school with, says he wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for Harley.’
‘He said the letter made no mention of his youth hut work. He was very angry about that. He’d been smoking a lot of dope so Trev told him to lay off the stuff. We begged him to come for dinner but he ‘wanted to chill’, he said. That night Trev went to check on him, but of course…’ June couldn’t finish.
They both stared at the sunglasses in the hope that Harley would emerge from them, laughing his shot gun laugh, full of life.
‘What should I do with these?’
‘Trev might like them, as a keepsake.’ June put the glasses in her pocket. ‘I hear you’ve got a new boyfriend. Good for you. If he’s anything like his mum, he must be a real sweetheart.’
‘I heard you had a coffee with her.’
‘I wish people would stop claiming she killed Jip. Harley did her a real injustice there. She recently lost her dog of fifteen years, so she knew how Harley was feeling. She was very concerned about him.’
Riley had never owned a dog. He had always wanted one. Ayla’s instincts prickled. ‘In what way was she concerned?’
When June finished recounting the conversation, Ayla had a sickening suspicion who had written the letter. ‘You didn’t tell Marlise about Harley’s youth hut work?’
‘No, but…’ June looked askance. ‘I’m sure she had nothing to do with…’
‘Of course not.’ Ayla lied, staring up into the spindly branches of the spotted gum hanging over the house. Poor June would blame herself if she realised the truth.
‘You okay, Aylee?’
‘Just sick of cleaning. Sick of uncovering all the dirt, all the sad secrets of other people’s lives.’ She gave June a quick hug. ‘I better get back to it. You’ve got new neighbours arriving tomorrow.’
Worry spread across June’s face. ‘I hope they’re….’ she couldn’t find the word.
‘Nice?’
‘Harley was so tolerant, you know…non-judgmental. Such a good neighbour. Can’t believe he’s…’ Unable to speak, June hurried across to her yard.
Ayla took a steady breath, entered the back door, made a quick call to Tilly, packed up her cleaning trolley and thumped home as quickly as her legs would accommodate her rage.
The official take on Harley’s death was accidental overdose, but Trev claimed Harley knew what he was doing when it came to opiates. According to Trev, Harley had committed suicide. A letter of that kind would have been enough to tip him over the edge. A wave of repulsion hit as she thought about the letter Harley had burnt, trying to reduce its power, but the sinister words would already have done their damage, locked in his memory, torturing him.
‘I thought I heard your trolley,’ Riley said, sliding the back-door open. ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’
‘I’ve got a surprise for you, too.’ She failed to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
The smile left his face.
‘Your mother told June she could sympathise with Harley because her dog had just died.’
Riley grunted. ‘Obviously Mum’s attempt to stop the rumours that she killed his dog.’
‘She had heard the rumours then?’
‘Grappa told me that’s what people were saying about her.’
‘Do you think she killed Jip?’
He shrugged and looked out the window, his jaw clenched. ‘The day we moved in, she kept complaining about its barking.’
‘I’m sorry Riley, I think Harley was right. She did do it.’
He glanced at her, the shame evident on his face. ‘Not only that, but…’ ‘What?’
She didn’t know how to start.
‘Ayla?’
As she told him of her conversation with June, he stood in silence, listening, eyes downcast.
‘Do you think a letter would have been enough to make this guy kill himself?’
‘His self-esteem was pretty low. I don’t know. We have no proof, but I can tell you now, there’s no group of residents who had banded together to write a letter. I checked with Tilly. If anyone would have heard a whisper of such a thing, it would be Till. She said it was a load of baloney.’ Ayla paused, pained by what she was about to say. ‘And… there was a horse that died on the island. I think your mother might have had something to do with that too.’
Riley remembered the expression on his mother’s face when she found out Maria was the one to overturn the council decision. He slid down the kitchen cupboard and sat on the floor, his head hung between his raised knees. ‘I’m sor
ry Ayla. We should never have moved here.’
‘You have no need to be sorry. If she is responsible, these are her actions, nothing to do with you.’ She sat beside him, sensing the years of torment he had lived through.
Riley knew this was the beginning of the end. His mother had done it again. It would only be a matter of time before all this happiness would be ripped from him. What shocked him most was his lack of surprise. It was almost a relief she had exposed herself. He no longer needed to maintain the facade. ‘She’s psychotic.’
‘I’m guessing. I have no proof.’
‘It was Mum. I know it was. She’s vindictive.’ Vindictive. The word exploded in his mouth. It felt good to spit it out.
Grappa appeared on the back deck.
Ayla threw herself into his arms. ‘I’m sorry I ever doubted you. You were right. I think she did cause all three deaths.’
Riley’s throat constricted. He stared at what Ayla was drawing in Helen’s large sketch pad on the table, trying to make sense of the deaths by creating a rough time line.
She turned to Grappa and detailed the evidence. Grappa’s set of his face said it all. Pointing to her notes in the sketch pad, she said. ‘Let me know, Riley, if any of this is wrong. This was the day you moved to the island? You said your mother complained about Jip’s barking. Three days later…Jip was dead. Then, around here…according to June, this was the day she grilled her about Harley. So, I guess she dropped the letter off between this date and the day Harley killed himself. The whole island was abuzz with the gossip that Maria caused council to resume spraying on this date. I remember because Mum said it was all anyone was talking about, and here, two days later, Toto is dead. Stan’s pretty confident both animals died of MVEV, a mosquito-borne virus. All those mozzies she breeds in those cages –’ She stopped at the look on Riley’s face.
‘Nice detective work,’ the old man said, nodding.
Riley felt like he was asphyxiating in the truth of it, the humiliation making his voice small and tight. ‘I have no doubt it was Mum.’
‘I have no doubt it was her either. But she didn’t do it by any scientific means,’ Grappa stated matter-of-factly.
Ayla shook her head. ‘Grappa.’
‘There’s more to your mother than meets the eye, boy.’ The old man leaned over the time line and picked up the pencil. ‘See…day she moved to the island was a king tide. Full moon…I remember ’cause I went crabbing that night.’ He drew a circle above the date. ‘And the morning I found Toto, that was two days after a full moon. I remember ’cause when the rain stopped, I moored off Three Mile. The light was that bright you could see the cars on the mainland. Remember thinking it was a sun moon night.’ Grappa drew another circle and didn’t flinch under Ayla’s cynical glare.
‘A what night?’ Riley asked.
‘Grappa’s name for a particularly bright full moon.’
‘Not just bright. It’s when the moonlight is that luminous it feels like sunlight. As if the sun is hiding in the moon. Mark my words, not all full moons are sun moon nights, but the ones that are…well let’s just say, bad things happen on a sun moon night.’ Grappa fiddled with the pen. ‘If she’s Fey, she’d be guided by the cycles of the moon and the earth to draw on her power.’ He re-circled his circles.
The word Fey whirled in Riley’s ears as he stared at the moon symbols the old man had pencilled, remembering the dead pigs, birds and pademelons he and David had found walking the perimeters of Burrawang over the years, and how David remarked once, ‘Strange. Always seems to happen around a full moon.’
Something foreboding clicked in his head. Before he knew what he was saying, it came out: ‘My mother told me once, she has these dreams where she turns into a mosquito…but she doesn’t think they’re dreams. She actually believes she becomes a mosquito.’
Grappa looked at him. ‘That confirms it then.’ It felt like the world stood still. Riley knew it wasn’t logical, but he experienced a rush of relief, as if an unspeakable burden had been lifted from him.
The old man understood, reaching out and touching him on the shoulder. ‘Good you told us, son.’
Riley saw disbelief invade Ayla’s face. He wanted to tell her not to worry. Like David said, ‘there’s always a logical explanation for everything.’ But the last few weeks spent in the company of the old man, Riley felt a growing respect for Grappa’s wisdom. It was as ancient as the sea and came from the earth itself. He seemed to be at one with all creatures, from the tiniest ghost crab to a passing dugong. The way he was guided by the natural world inspired Riley.
And so it came that Riley found himself caught between their gazes, not knowing who to side with. As far as his mother was concerned, anything was possible.
21.
Grappa was on his regular dawn walk when he came across the grizzly maze of dead and dying mutton birds on Mud Rock Beach. The big winds last night had blown the exhausted birds in. Now the winds were gone, the fetid smell of death bled into the air as the flies began to gather with the approaching day. He picked his way through the gruesome sight, which had never frightened him before, not like this time. The words ‘bad omen’ sat on his tongue all the way around Dead Tree and along Three Mile to the mangrove swamp where he found the boobook owl hanging from a blackbutt, swaying in the breezeless air. The fishing wire, a macabre bow wrapped around its throat. He checked the poor creature’s pulse: still warm, but dead.
‘Sweet Jesus.’
Had that mosquito woman returned?
When he heard the scrape of the barge ramp on the cement platform, a shadow passed overhead. He headed back toward the barge.
The sun was still drowning in the watery horizon but the dawn was already filthy with heat. He waved at Ranga, who was signalling the garbage truck to disembark.
‘How’s it hanging, old man?’
‘Much traffic?’
‘Nup. Normal people don’t get up at sparrow’s fart.’ Ranga lifted his baseball cap and wiped the sweat. ‘Sun’s not even up. Gonna be a stinker.’
‘Bureau of Meteorology predicts 42.’
‘I heard 46. Don’t go away, got something for you.’ Ranga walked off.
The garbage truck reversed, revealing the woman’s yellow scooter parked on the barge under the driver’s tower. Grappa’s heart skipped a beat.
‘Here you go, know all.’ Ranga passed him a bottle of scotch.
‘What for?’
‘Didn’t catch one snapper all weekend.’
Grappa remembered then, Ranga had been boasting about the amount of snapper he was planning on catching, but Grappa was adamant the snapper had moved on. The argument had escalated into Ranga placing a bet.
‘Thanks, mate. Nice brand this one.’
‘Should have known better than to get into an argument with you over fish.’
‘Where’s the owner of that scooter?’
‘The good-looker? Just missed her.’
‘Why’d she leave her bike?’
‘Spluttered and carked it, out of petrol. Should have seen her carrying on. Thought her head was gonna fly off. I said she could leave it, come back later and deal with it.’
Grappa took off in the direction of the road.
‘Thought you said she was trouble?’
‘She is,’ Grappa called over his shoulder.
‘Imeacht gan teacht ort.’ He practised it as he walked.
May you leave without returning.
When he arrived at the old house on the swamp, he could hear the shower running. The creak of the screen door as he opened it made him jump. ‘Don’t be a coward, you stupid old fart,’ he told himself. ‘You can do this.’ He crept upstairs, repeating the Irish words in his head like a prayer of protection. He saw a woman’s handbag on the kitchen table but ignored it to search the lounge room lined with books for a clue of some kind, evidence that would expose her…but what? Ancient Celtic Folklore and Mythical Beings, torn and well used. He flipped to the index and searched S for Shape
shifter…page 89. There was an underlined section.
The Puca is a mythological faery and ultimate shapeshifter, a legendary creature found most notably in the West of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Renowned for confusing and terrifying humans and capable of assuming a variety of forms including a horse, goat, rabbit, goblin or dog.
Someone had written in pencil in the margin the word, Mosquito? Then, below this, Puca, Irish for ghost. Had she written this trying to understand what she was?
Grappa dropped the bottle of scotch. It bounced along the wooden floor and he scrambled to retrieve it. The shower turned off. Trembling, he put the book back. The scrape of a shower curtain sent him running into the room beside the lounge room. The laboratory was as Ayla had described it. Marlise was coming down the hall. He was light-headed, his worn-out heart beating too fast. He willed it to slow down. The bottle of scotch felt like a weapon. He didn’t want to scare her. He needed to draw on the knowledge of his grandmother and her mother and all the mothers before. He knew a curse required the inner formidable strength of a woman. He placed the bottle beside the computer and wiped his sweaty palms on his shorts.
She walked past and onto the verandah where he saw her through the glass door, bending to dry her hair. She wrapped it in a towel on the top of her head, revealing the tattoo of a mosquito at the back of her neck above her dressing gown. She surveyed the swamp, turned and screamed.
The words jammed in his voice box.
She slid the door open. ‘Who the hell are you? Get out.’
He saw his Gran rise out of her chair and lift her head. ‘Imeacht gan teacht ort,’ he bellowed, casting a spell. The ancient phrase echoed through the mangroves beyond. Marlise lost composure, grabbing at the door to steady herself.
‘Get out.’ Her fierceness returned.
‘Imeacht gan teacht ort,’ he repeated less convincingly and darted through the hallway and down the stairs. The heat of her black rage singed his neck as he slammed the screen door in her face and ran, not daring to look back.
‘Imeacht gan teacht ort.’ Those words had made an impact. She had almost collapsed at the sound of them. Hopefully it was enough to make her leave without returning. At the corner of Long, he giggled.
Beneath the Mother Tree Page 25