Dedication
For Jess
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Part Two
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part Three
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Part Four
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Part One
The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
Was but a dream; and now I wake,
Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
For a dream’s sake.
—Christina Rossetti
It does not take much to remain unseen in a house like this. A soft tread, a downcast eye, knowledge of the creaking stairs and loose floorboards that betray my presence. And the inhabitants, of course, so busy with their own lives – their troubles – their desires – so busy with themselves they do not notice the ones like me bearing witness from the shadows.
But I see them. I see it all. The things I am supposed to see – and the things that I am not. I see the flare of a cigarette lighter in a dark room, and the lipstick marks on a glass. I see the indentations on a pillow, the bloodstains on the sheets. I see furtive looks – trembling hands – clenched fists – tear-stained handkerchiefs.
It’s all there – the secrets of their lives – if you will only look.
Because a house like this has eyes.
I am the eyes of the house . . . and I am always watching.
Chapter 1
She wakes a little after midnight, too hot and with the sheets tangled round her legs. Something insistent has pulled her from her dreams, tugged her from a fitful sleep. Lying in bed, the house stretching vast and silent around her, she tries to think what it could be. Rustlings. Whisperings.
She waits for it to come to her: the room. It is the room of trees. The sound of the wind moving through their branches, the trembling of the leaves. The trees are calling to her, singing their night song.
Ignoring the protestations of her old joints, she slides out of bed and retrieves the ornate brass key from its secret place, heading barefoot into the dark corridor, following the curved staircase down into the entrance hall, her feet feeling carefully for each step, her fingers trailing the dusty banisters.
A draught blows under the front door, its cool breath moving over her too-hot skin, sending a stray brown leaf scuttling across the tiles. She drags the heavy tapestry to one side and unlocks the door behind, following the winding corridor until she stands outside the room that has called her. She steadies herself against the doorframe, before stepping over the threshold.
She isn’t entirely sure if she is awake or asleep as she walks ghost-like in her white nightdress among the trees, the musky scent of the place wrapping itself around her, her hands running over smooth, grey bark, her fingers tracing knots and whorls as familiar to her now as old friends. Overhead, the canopy hangs dense and rich. In the darkness she imagines she can see its opulent flashes of blue and green and gold. And the eyes – those ever-present eyes – watching her as she goes.
Tiredness comes, as it does so frequently these days. She sits, allowing it to claim her. It is so easy to drift away. It is so tempting to leave the present and wander through chambers of the past – to return to familiar faces, cherished moments and memories. She meanders the corridors of her mind, only jerking awake at a piercing scream – high-pitched, like the shriek of a peacock, or a woman in pain.
Real or remembered she isn’t sure, but the darkness looms all around her, thick and cloying. An acrid scent hangs heavy in the air. Her nightdress clings to her sweat-soaked body. She does not feel like herself. She does not feel well. It’s not real, she thinks. None of it is real. But gone are the trees, the shimmering leaves, the watchful eyes. All lost in a thick cloud of soot and smoke. She presses a hand to her forehead. She is so hot – burning up – and the smoke – the black, smothering smoke – rolls ever closer.
She drops to the floor, afraid and disorientated, crawling on her hands and knees. Is it real or imagined, the voice she can hear calling to her through darkness? ‘Lillian. Lillian, can you hear me?’
Her mouth opens to answer but no sound comes. Instead, smoke rushes in, filling her lungs, stealing her voice and her breath. The trees crackle and hiss. Orange embers rain down. ‘I’m here,’ she says. ‘I can hear you.’ But the words are lost and so is she, cast into suffocating darkness.
Chapter 2
It’s 3 a.m. when Maggie stumbles out of the Sydney nightclub with two girls and a tall man with a snake tattoo curling up his forearm. The comparative quietness of the street outside and the cool air on her skin are a welcome shock after the heat and noise of the pounding drum and bass inside the warehouse. Maggie adjusts the fabric bag on her shoulder and turns to her newfound friends. ‘How about a little adventure?’
‘What exactly did you have in mind?’ asks the man. Tim. Jim. She doesn’t remember exactly.
‘Follow me.’ She leads him up the alley towards the glittering lights of Oxford Street, the girls tripping and laughing, arm in arm, as they trail behind. They pass a late-night kebab shop and a window display of Barbie-pink mannequins dressed in fetish gear. Outside a 7-Eleven a homeless man sits with his head bowed, a ripped cardboard sign on the pavement in front of him and a brown Kelpie curled at his feet. Maggie spots the yellow light of a taxi drifting towards the city centre and sticks out her hand. She clambers into the back with the man, the girls jostling for the front seat. ‘Clovelly Beach, please,’ she says and the driver, catching her eye in the mirror, nods and pulls a U-turn, heading out of the city towards the Eastern Suburbs.
‘The beach?’ the man beside her asks, his warm hand sliding up her inner thigh. ‘We could just go back to mine?’
He smiles, dimples forming in his cheeks, but she shakes her head. ‘I want to see the ocean.’
‘Is that someone’s mobile?’ asks the girl beside them.
Maggie listens. From the depths of her bag she hears a faint beeping – a phone that hasn’t rung in such a long time she’s almost forgotten what it sounds like. She lets it ring out, concentrating instead on the yellow lights of Bondi Junction sliding past the car window and the insistent pressure of the man’s hand on her leg.
The taxi drops them in the car park beyond the surf club. Maggie slips off her shoes and leads them onto the rocky headland jutting out into the Pacific, the flat stone cold beneath her bare feet, the taste of salt in the air. She can feel the man following close at her heels but the girls are a short distance away, stumbling and laughing in the darkness. The sound of the waves below is a roar in her ears. She trips once but her companion catches her easily and holds her steady. His hands are rough and thick-fingered – a workman’s hands. ‘Where are you from?’ he asks, sparking up a cigarette, passing it to her as they navigate the
uneven platform.
She takes a drag before passing it back. ‘England.’
‘I guessed that much from your accent. Where in England?’
‘You won’t have heard of it.’
‘Try me.’
‘It’s just a village. A speck on a map.’
‘Called . . . ?’
‘Cloud Green.’
He shakes his head. ‘Nah. Never heard of it.’
‘You’re a long way from home,’ says one of the girls, catching up to them.
‘As far as I can get.’
She finds a spot, as good as any, drops her bag then moves out across the ledge until she is at the very edge, looking down at the black water. It surges below her, just a hint of white foam glinting in the darkness.
‘Is she all right?’ she hears one of them ask.
She spreads her arms wide and allows the air to hold her in place.
‘Come back,’ says the man with a nervous laugh; but she closes her eyes and trusts herself to the wind, the ocean rushing below. She feels like a bird – a gull – hovering on the breeze. She remains there until, scoured by the salty air, she turns and picks her way back across the rock to the group.
They sit and share a spliff, and Maggie, shivering a little now, wraps her arms around her knees. The man slings his arm over her shoulder, a cigarette dangling loosely from his hand. The girls get bored and peel away, back towards the lights of the car park, but Maggie stays put, staring out at the dark, roiling sea.
‘So, what are we doing here?’ he asks.
Maggie shrugs. ‘I like the sea. It helps me forget myself. Besides, I wasn’t ready to go back to the hostel. One of my roommates snores like a pig.’
‘Fair enough . . . it’s getting cold, though.’ He grinds out his cigarette butt on the rocks then leans in to kiss her, the taste of tobacco and beer on his breath. ‘I’d better warm you up.’ His hands pull at the straps of her top, sliding them down over her shoulders, exposing her skin to the cool air. She leans back, his mouth on hers, his hands pulling at the zip on her skirt. She turns her head to the ocean, where the faintest glimmer of light sits on the horizon. She’s not ready to face the morning. Instead, she closes her eyes and tries to forget everything but the sound of the waves crashing onto the rocks below and the sensation of this stranger moving on top of her, pinning her to the rock. With her eyes shut tight, and the sound of the water moving below, it almost feels as if she’s drowning.
When she wakes he is gone – it’s just her and a couple of curious seagulls standing a few feet away, eyeing her with suspicion. Her shoulders are stiff and there are grains of sand stuck to the side of her cheek where she has slept with her face pressed against the rock. A procession of runners has begun to stream along the coastal path, the slap of their shoes a steady drum beat. In the car park behind her, two women in brightly coloured activewear stretch and chat. Their laughter pierces the morning. The sight of locals going about their early-morning exercise makes her feel grubby and unwholesome. Maggie reaches for her bag, thankful her new friends didn’t think to relieve her of her stuff. If she hurries, she might have time for a shower at the hostel before her shift at the cafe.
Walking back towards the car park, the faint ringing of her mobile rises up again from the depths of her bag. She pulls the phone out and studies the screen: WITHHELD NUMBER. It’s tempting to let it ring off again, but at the very last moment curiosity gets the better of her. ‘Hello,’ she says, her voice a dry rasp.
‘Is that— Oberon?’ The line crackles. The woman’s voice sounds very English and very far away. ‘Hello . . . Maggie Oberon?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘That’s me.’ Maggie swallows. Her tongue is dry and heavy in her mouth and the first trace of a hangover is beginning to beat in her temples.
‘Oh, thank goodness. My name is Kath— Davies. I’m calling from— hospital in Buckinghamshire— I’ve been try—’ The line crackles again with static. Maggie closes her eyes. Somewhere out over the water a seagull shrieks. ‘—track you down. Maggie, are you there?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I’m here. Sorry, the connection is terrible.’
‘I’m calling about Lillian. Lillian Oberon.’
Maggie keeps her eyes squeezed shut. ‘Is she – is she . . .’
‘—Are you her next—’
‘ . . . OK?’
‘— of kin?’
Their voices criss-cross confusingly over each other.
‘I’m her granddaughter. Is she OK?’
‘Can you hear me, Maggie? This is a dreadful line.’
‘I can hear you. Tell me,’ she urges, even as her words bounce back at her from twelve thousand miles away. ‘Tell me . . . what’s happened to Lillian?’
Heathrow is a grubby wash of people, luggage, diesel fumes, crying babies, tears and exclamations. In the early-morning crush of the international arrivals hall faces peer expectantly, pressed up against the railings. It’s hard not to feel self-conscious – on show – as she walks through the waiting crowds. Two little girls wave a hand-painted WELCOME HOME DADDY banner, while their mother dances from one foot to the other impatiently behind them. A woman in a black burka embraces a tall, weeping man. An elderly lady sits slumped in her wheelchair as her family converse animatedly over her head. There is no one waiting for Maggie.
She didn’t sleep at all on the long flight from Sydney to London, but something about the juddering motion of the Heathrow Express soon has Maggie dozing in her seat, her head slumped chin-to-chest, and so unaware of the world around her that it’s a shock when a station guard shakes her shoulder and tells her that she’s arrived in Paddington. Bleary-eyed, she navigates the Underground to Marylebone, buys a bunch of red tulips from a flower stall in the station concourse, then collapses into the corner of yet another train carriage. It creeps its way out of London’s grey urban sprawl until it hits the open countryside and begins to gather pace.
After the heat and light of the past few months, it’s strangely comforting to be back in this landscape of muted browns and greys and greens. She’d found much to like about Australia: the endless blue of the sky, the red dirt, the pale, peeling gum trees with their shimmering green leaves. She’d grown to relish the early-morning shrieks of the lorikeets outside the hostel windows, the cicadas singing to a noisy crescendo in the hottest part of the day, the small glasses of ice-cold beer served in the pubs, the scent of coffee wafting out of cafes, the sting of sun and saltwater on her shoulders. She’d embraced each difference as physical proof of the distance she’d put between herself and her home – between her and the site of her wrongs. But for all the miles she has travelled, all the experiences she’s weathered and all the people she’s met, deep down she’s not sure she’s any different from the person she was when she left England almost a year ago.
The general medical ward is relatively easy to find amid the labyrinthine corridors of the hospital, although the unmistakable scent of boiled vegetables and bleach makes her jetlagged head spin. She takes shallow breaths all the way to the nurses’ station, then gives her name to the matron and asks if she can leave her rucksack with them.
‘Here we are,’ says the nurse, leading her to the very last bed on the ward. ‘It looks as though Mrs Oberon’s having a little rest, but you’re welcome to sit with her. The medication makes her very drowsy.’
Maggie regards her grandmother from the foot of her bed, shocked at her appearance. Her face is pale and slack-jawed in sleep, a trace of blue veins just visible below the surface of her skin, her lips dry and flaking, a white bandage on her right temple and a cannula taped to the back of her hand. Her thin white hair, usually pinned neatly in place, falls limply around her shoulders.
‘Would you like me to put those in a vase for you?’ the nurse asks, nodding at the tulips in her arms.
‘Thank you.’ She pulls up a plastic chair, settling herself onto its creaking frame beside the bed. Lillian frowns and murmurs in her sleep. Watching her, Maggie fee
ls a deep ache rise up.
‘Gran, it’s me, it’s Maggie.’ She reaches for her hand as Lillian’s eyes flutter open and fix momentarily on her face. ‘It’s Maggie,’ she says again. Her grandmother stares a moment longer before her gaze slides away towards the window. ‘How are you feeling? Can I get you anything?’ Still Lillian doesn’t answer. ‘Would you like a drink?’ She’s not sure if the slight movement of her grandmother’s head is acquiescence, but needing to feel helpful, she pours water from the plastic jug, finds a button to raise the bed slightly then brings the cup to her grandmother’s lips. Lillian takes a couple of obliging sips before resting her head back on the pillows. ‘I came as soon as I heard.’
Maggie leans back in the chair, perplexed by Lillian’s silence. Earlier, on the train, she’d imagined how it might be, sitting there at her grandmother’s bedside holding her hand and offering words of comfort, but this isn’t the woman she left nearly twelve months ago and Maggie feels scared at how diminished she looks. The scent of bleach and the sounds of the ward stir a memory in Maggie’s mind; the sour taste of unripe cherries on her tongue, the snap of a rotten tree branch, the sharp ache of a broken arm. Back then, it had been Lillian who had scooped her up from the orchard and driven her to this very hospital. Lillian who had sat at her bedside on the children’s ward and coaxed her through the procedure as she’d had her arm set in plaster. It was Lillian who had told her how brave she was and who had been offered the first signature on the clean, white cast. Always Lillian. Always there.
Staring at her grandmother’s frighteningly pale face, Maggie can’t help but feel shame that this is how she has repaid her – living a hedonistic life on the other side of the world in Lillian’s own moment of need. And now that she’s here, she sits useless at her bedside, uncertain what to do or how to help. She owes this woman so much more.
A couple arrive on the ward with a large fruit basket for the grey-haired lady in the bed opposite. They smile at Maggie before pulling the curtain around the other bed; Maggie hears their low murmurs of greeting followed by laughter. She glances back to Lillian, whose gaze remains fixed steadfastly on the ceiling.
The Peacock Summer Page 1