Lost Autumn

by Mary-Rose MacColl

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m meeting with Cal tomorrow.” Cal was his lawyer. He must be flying Cal over from New York.

  What could a lawyer do? Even Ben had said the press were free to do what they liked.

  “Okay,” she said, not wanting to argue again. “I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I’ll call in the morning. I should know more by then.”

  “You don’t need to do this, you know,” Ben said.

  Back to not working again, she thought. “Yes, I know,” she said, deciding to pretend he meant her going to Paris rather than her work as a journalist. “But this came up.”

  “Did they have to send you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m the one they wanted to send.”

  “Did you want to go?”

  She hesitated. “Yes, I did.”

  He laughed, a small laugh. “Well, at least you’re honest. What can I say, Victoria? Come home soon as you can. We’ll talk . . .” She heard a voice in the background, a woman. “Gotta go.” The line went dead.

  He’d hung up on her. He was still angry at her for going away and not telling him, she thought.

  She should have told him. He was right. She’d deceived him and it was wrong. She wasn’t normal. He was.

  Her phone rang then. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Why? What did you do?” It was Claire’s voice.

  “I thought you were Ben.”

  “I figured. What did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Well, I’m the one who’s sorry. About this morning. Are you all right?”

  “I’m in Paris.”

  “How is it?”

  “I just filed for tomorrow. Hardest job I’ve ever done.”

  “I know. It’s awful,” Claire said. “She was just so alive, so real.” Claire was teary by the sound of her voice. “It’s a terrible shock.”

  “I’ve been thinking of that story I wrote. Did it turn everyone against them?” Victoria said.

  “No,” Claire said. “Don’t be daft. It was generous to both of them. You write about goodness.”

  “Do I?”

  “Well, yes, sort of. It’s easy to make a living out of being mean. It’s much harder to make a living out of being nice.”

  “I don’t want to be nice.”

  “Well, what do you want?”

  “I don’t know. Truth?”

  “So what are you going to write for the magazine?” Claire asked.

  “I have no idea. I’m all over the place. I had a fight with Ben just before you called.”

  “I figured. Victoria, about today . . .”

  “Please don’t worry,” Victoria said. She’d sat up and was looking at herself in the mirror again, her face now. She looked afraid, she realized. She looked terrified.

  “I am a bit worried.”

  “I saw her body,” Victoria said. “The coffin, I mean.”

  “About you. I’m worried about you. Are you all right?”

  “I am. I really am, Claire. It’s just nerves and all the changes and then Diana.”

  “Why don’t we have a coffee when you get back tomorrow?” Claire said.

  “Of course. But I don’t know when that will be.”

  “Well, let me know, and we’ll meet. I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Are you okay?” Victoria had been so preoccupied by her own problems she hadn’t even thought there might be something wrong with Claire.

  “I’m fine, but I need to speak with you.”

  * * *

  Ewan phoned her at six a.m. She woke from a dream, afraid, saliva running out the side of her mouth onto the pillow, dry lips, sick in her stomach.

  “Harry was right about the family,” Ewan said. “The mood is definitely turning against them. There’s a big to-do.”

  “Who with?”

  “Everyone really. She’s the people’s princess now. Blair made a statement late yesterday. Off the record, Alastair told me Tony’s going to talk to the Queen, tell her to come home. He’s going to tell her to come home,” Ewan said.

  “It can’t be easy on them. Did you get the piece I wrote?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It will run tomorrow.”

  “Was it all right?”

  “It was beautiful,” he said. Beautiful was not a Ewan word. “Very moving. I wanted it for the leader, but Harry said it didn’t catch the mood. People are really angry at the family.”

  “I guess,” she said. “I’m not though.”

  “No. But Newswriting 101.”

  “Find the conflict,” she recited. Adding, “Maybe conflict is overrated.”

  “Maybe. Sells papers.”

  “I saw her coffin.”

  “Mark got a shot.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.”

  “It felt like I was writing the truth, Ewan.”

  “You are,” he said. “But Harry isn’t. And increasingly, truth’s not the job.”

  Twenty-seven

  BRISBANE, 1981

  I could hear dogs barking at one another, and it put me on edge. I got out of bed and came out here and put the television on.

  Diana Spencer has gone into hiding.

  “Good girl,” I crowed when I heard that. “Perhaps you’re more wily than you look. Perhaps you’ll hide for the rest of your life.”

  It’s possible she’s come to Australia, they said; one of her sisters lives here. I hope she has. I hope she comes to visit me.

  I heard the possums scurrying along the roof at great speed, and then a different sound, their little feet on the ceiling plaster. They’re coming home.

  I rang the hospital. “No change,” the nurse on the ward said. “Is there someone who can come and sit with you, dear?” she asked.

  “He’s not my husband,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “I know. But is there anyone?”

  I called Andrew Shaw then because I didn’t know what else to do.

  “Are you working today?” I asked.

  “Who’s this?” he said, more confused than annoyed.

  “It’s Maddie Bright.”

  “Maddie?” he said, his voice still waking up. He sounded like a little boy right then.

  “Are you coming over today?”

  “Is something wrong?”

  I might have sobbed. A noise came from me and I was not quite in control.

  “I’m on the way,” he said. “Can I bring Frank and Sally?”

  “That would be lovely,” I said.

  After I got off the telephone, I went out to put the kettle on. I could hear the kookaburras starting up. There’s a group of them living in the gums at the top of the rise. They laugh at me every single day. I suppose they laugh at all of us. We are so terribly funny. Imagine their view of us from high in a tree, running around below them like giant ants. Perhaps they have sayings. They might call each other human-brain, and say, “You’re off with the humans today.”

  Wouldn’t that be a nice thing?

  When Andrew arrived, I had already had a cup of tea, which brought what comfort it could. I poured him one, put his three sugars in.

  “Ed,” he said, having settled the children in front of the television and some terrible cartoon whose central character appeared to be a bat.

  “There’s no change,” I said.

  “No,” he said softly. “No.” He drank his tea, looked as if he was about to say something, then didn’t. He sat forward, looking at me.

  “I lost everyone,” I said.

  “I assumed,” he said.

  “It’s not that I haven’t been happy. I have. But I lost everyone.”

  He nodded.

  “My father killed himself afte
r the war. He couldn’t find a way home.” I realized I was nodding. “I wasn’t there. I was . . . I wasn’t there.”

  Andrew Shaw put his hand over mine on the table. There were tears in his eyes and I appreciated the fact he would cry for me, or for my father, who had so much he never got to give. Writing, teaching. All lost with him.

  Andrew Shaw told me then that he was very sorry, but he had some news he needed to tell me. He was so gentle; I knew what he was about to say.

  “It’s Ed,” he said. “Ed has cancer, Maddie. I think that doctor yesterday must have thought I was related to him. He took me outside to tell me. I think they thought you were too frail to hear it.”

  “Ed didn’t tell me.”

  “It’s possible he doesn’t know.”

  “Can we go and see him again today?”

  “Of course. I’ll take you up there and wait with the kids.”

  “I knew,” I said. “Everyone dies.”

  * * *

  We were leaving the house to go to the hospital. Frank and Sally were already in the car. I was dressed now and I took a cardigan so I could stay the day with Ed.

  Frank and Sally were waving like maniacs at me from down in the car. I was so glad Andrew had brought them. Hope, that’s what children are.

  “Just . . .” I said, stopping before locking the door.

  Andrew was beside me.

  “I lost everyone.”

  “I know,” he said, patting my hand, which was still holding the key in the lock.

  “My father,” I said.

  He nodded, didn’t say anything.

  “The war. It was just too much.”

  I saw the bird then, the baby crow that was fledging in my yard.

  “Not Ed, though. Ed’s been a constant.”

  “He has,” Andrew Shaw said. “He’s been a good friend.”

  “Did they say how long?”

  “He’s not coming home, Maddie. That’s what they said.”

  “I see. I lost everyone.”

  “You did,” he said.

  “We should tell his father.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Let me do that.”

  “My father fought in the war.”

  “Which war?”

  “First.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, I stopped again and sat down.

  “There’s more I have to tell you,” I said.

  He sat down beside me.

  “I don’t think I can be forgiven.”

  Twenty-eight

  PERTH, 1920

  We arrived in the city of Perth early in the morning after six days at sea. We’d taken a train from Albany, where the ship had anchored the evening before. It was raining for our arrival in Albany and there had been showers through the night during the journey north.

  It was a relief to be on solid ground, although my legs still felt wobbly on and off that first day. The planned levee where the prince could meet people in Perth was moved into the station foyer due to the weather and, when I came onto the platform, I noticed the prince had been accosted by the governor and his wife, a portly, stern-looking woman who might have taken the prince to her bosom and embraced him, given a chance. They had chased him down and caught him when he’d stopped to talk to a group of soldiers. As the prince shook their hands, he looked weary. There was none of the boy on the ship about him now. His face was glum. There had been no spider letters in the mail waiting for us in Albany. Mr. Waters said it had left the prince very low.

  I had spoken to Helen briefly before we left the ship while we were packing to leave.

  “Mr. Waters told me Ned has asked you to marry him and you’ve accepted him,” I said, incredulous.

  “Yes,” she said. “What of it?” She looked up at me and she was the hard-hearted Helen now.

  “Why?”

  She looked lost suddenly. She sighed. “Maddie, I went to try to talk to Rupert like you suggested. If I were different, perhaps we’d have had a chance, or if he were less like himself, less loyal, less bloody convinced about David, perhaps we’d have overcome our circumstances. But that’s all water under the bridge now.”

  “But Colonel Grigg!” I said. “You said yourself he doesn’t believe in anything.”

  “He’s safe,” she said. “I want to be safe.”

  “And Mr. Waters is not?”

  “Maddie, you have to stop all this,” she said. “I know you think it’s simple. But you don’t know anything.”

  “I know two things,” I said. “Colonel Grigg isn’t Mr. Waters and Mr. Waters is who you love.”

  What on earth was wrong with Helen? I thought. And how did Colonel Grigg in a million years conclude that she was interested in him? She just wasn’t, and anyone could see it!

  Except Colonel Grigg, who couldn’t see beyond his own nose, and Mr. Waters, who may as well have been wearing blinkers.

  * * *

  There were no spider letters waiting in Perth and now it was clear that F.D.W. was going to stick to the plan to end her friendship with the prince. The prince for his part had written twenty-three letters on our six-day journey.

  I was in the office set up at Government House with Mr. Waters at lunchtime when the prince himself came in after the official reception in the town hall. Our office was much like the one in Sydney, although it was in a separate building from the main house, a cottage that was usually a guest cottage for the governor that had been converted into offices for the tour. We’d already set ourselves up and I was busy attending to letters for Mr. Waters.

  “That bastard Halsey has contacted the King about the India trip,” the prince said. “He makes me sound weak. I’m in for it now, Waters. You know what my father will be like.”

  “I don’t think the admiral meant any harm, sir,” Mr. Waters said. “In fact, I’m sure of it. What he said to me was that no human being could endure what you’d endured and not feel it. I’m sure that’s how he’ll have put it to His Majesty too. It might be for the best.”

  Whether or not the admiral had put the message to the King in the way Mr. Waters suggested, the King blamed the prince. BE STRONG STOP YOU ARE POW STOP ENDS was the wire. The prince had it in his hand. I already knew what it said as Mr. Waters had told me when he first came in. He’d looked quite worried and had said we should focus on the job at hand today and try our best.

  It was the governor himself who handed the telegram to the prince, the prince told Mr. Waters now. “How could my father do that, embarrass me in front of that buffoon? I have done so well. How could he, Rupert?”

  Mr. Waters had stood up and was leading him out of the office to go back to the main house. “Let’s go and talk to Godfrey,” he said. “I’m sure His Majesty is trying to help. Godfrey will know what to do.”

  The prince shook him off. “Grigg tells me you wrote to your father, Waters. Did you?”

  “I beg pardon, sir?”

  “I said: Did you write to your father?” He stressed each word.

  “Well, yes, but not about the India tour.”

  “You told him I’m struggling, didn’t you?”

  “I may have said the tour was asking too much. That’s all.”

  “Ned said Lloyd George told him that the King has it on very good authority from one of his men that I’m not stable. Was that your father?”

  “No, sir. I don’t believe he would—”

  “Oh, forget it, Waters. I’m just sick of the whole fucking lot of you.”

  He left.

  * * *

  When Helen came over to the office, she wanted to know where Colonel Grigg was. “I don’t know,” Mr. Waters said. “Will you two be making an announcement soon?”

  He said it coldly, as if he didn’t care.

  “I don’t know,” she said, just as coldly. “Ned wants to wait until we�
��re back in Sydney so that Godfrey can tell the King. I said you could do that.”

  It was as if they were daring each other not to care.

  “Of course,” Mr. Waters said. “I’ll send a wire today.”

  “Let Ned decide,” Helen said. “It’s up to him really, not you.”

  * * *

  Despite the frayed tempers and misunderstandings among the humans everywhere you looked, Western Australia was immensely beautiful. The Swan River had a sandy bank unlike the river in Brisbane with its mud and so it was like being at the seaside. Although the rain had continued through our first day, it cleared briefly in the afternoon and I walked across to the riverbank and watched swans among rowing boats.

  Here, I thought, here is beauty, and we humans do our very best to make it ugly.

  * * *

  It was early evening when the prince came back across to the office. He had been to a second function in the afternoon, another levee where awardees were presented to him. Mr. Waters was hurrying behind him. I heard their conversation. “They are doing their best, David, and I know it wasn’t what you’d hoped.”

  The prince turned around, forcing Mr. Waters to stop suddenly. “They are not doing their best.” He said each word slowly, enunciating every syllable. “We said people. We said I want to meet with people. Instead they gave me a blasted luncheon with that awful woman and then an endless, droning list of idiots I did not wish to meet.”

  I wasn’t sure who the awful woman was.

  Mr. Waters glanced at me then said, “Let’s keep going and talk in your private office, sir.”

  “What’s tonight?” the prince asked, not moving.

  “The ball, sir, here at the house.”

  “Oh fuck, Rupert,” he said.

  Mr. Waters looked at me as if to apologize for the prince’s language. With five brothers, I’d heard the word, and others besides, I didn’t say.

  The prince went on, still exercised. “If it’s a ball, the governor and his stupid wife are going to be there. She judges me. I swear she judges me. And they’ll want me to dance with their daughter.”