The Valley of Lost Stories

by Vanessa McCausland

  If only Liv were here, she thought. Her daughter would have loved the fluffy still-warm scones with jam and cream. She would have picked up a cube of sugar and popped it into her mouth and smiled her beautiful, gap-toothed smile. The ache of missing her daughter thrummed below her sternum and she pressed her hand to her heart. She did not miss Robert. Poor Robert. He was such a simple man. She wondered if he had a depth that she’d failed as a wife to plumb, to find, or whether the depth just wasn’t there. After so many years together, she knew the answer, deep inside her, but it didn’t stop her from feeling bad. In some ways they were a good match. She like a balloon flying high, light and wafty, he a brick anchoring her to the ground.

  She thanked the maid profusely and poured herself a cup of tea, savouring the fragrant brew, so different from the thick sludge they drank in the valley. She laid the blue dress on the bed. Again, the memories rose in her mind, again she pressed them down. There was no point dwelling on the past. But the future. Could she really have one with Magnus? Was that what this was? She knew he was wooing her, but how on earth could she ever enter this world again for more than just a moment? She imagined bringing Liv into this world. She longed to. Would there be a way to fuse Jean with Serpentine Rose? To live the life she truly desired? To escape the valley?

  She sat down at the ornate dressing table. There were perfumes smelling of flowers mixed with exotic spices, face powder as fine as silk, a beautiful silver-backed hairbrush. She powdered her shiny skin, relishing the sweet smell of the make-up, dabbed perfume on her wrists and behind her ears. She slipped into the silk dress – it felt like slipping into water.

  She was ready when she heard the tap on the door. Magnus was dressed in a fine black suit, with a bow tie at his neck, his dark hair slicked back, his skin glowing from the sun. She couldn’t help the feeling stirring inside her. Desire. How long had it been since she’d desired a man? He offered her his arm and she took it.

  ‘You look stunning,’ he said, as they walked together down the carpeted hall lined with painting after beautiful painting.

  ‘You look rather handsome yourself,’ she said, allowing a glimmer into her eye, a frisson to pass between them. She used to be comfortable flirting with men. She used to instigate it. But that seemed like another lifetime. Another woman. This woman in the gown wasn’t Serpentine, but she wasn’t Jean either. Who was she? All she knew was that she was the woman who needed to be by the sea to feel alive.

  Chandeliers were strung from the ceiling of the dining room and the centre table was laid with a feast, but nothing could compete with the view of the setting sun illuminating the Harbour Bridge from behind. A white-gloved waiter offered them a glass of champagne and they took it and made a toast to Sydney Harbour. A few other guests were standing by the doors opening onto the balcony, glasses in hands, breeze in their hair.

  ‘Let me introduce you to my friends, our hosts,’ Magnus said, steering Jean towards an older man with a pair of small spectacles on his nose and a stomach that spoke of a propensity for fine food and wine. But before Magnus could speak the man cried out.

  ‘Ah, the exquisite Serpentine Rose! Is that really you?’

  Jean’s heartbeat accelerated and she felt sweat bead her brow. Surely this man had not recognised her after all these years.

  She offered her hand, stealing a look at Magnus, whose face was dark with confusion. Her gut churned. She should have thought she might be recognised but she assumed she had changed. That the valley had robbed her of everything she used to be – her beauty, her spirit. And it had been so many years.

  ‘May I present my friend, Miss Rose,’ Magnus said, his voice steady, not betraying the confusion she’d just seen cross his face.

  ‘Oh yes, we know who she is. I see time has not faded you. What a vision you are,’ Mr Parker said. ‘Welcome to my home. I trust Mrs Wembley has looked after you?’ Despite her nerves and all the eyes she could feel sliding towards her, Jean felt herself slipping back into the game she used to play so adeptly, like pulling on a familiar piece of clothing you thought you’d grown out of and finding it still fitted. ‘And you must be Mr Parker, thank you for your hospitality. What a beautiful home you have. This view!’

  ‘Magnus, where on earth did you find this creature?’

  Magnus smiled and nodded, again concealing any doubt. ‘Miss Rose is the school ballet mistress in Glen Davis, west of the Blue Mountains, where my work takes me routinely.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve come from the mining settlement. I imagine after being in that valley the water is a sight for sore eyes. What possessed the famous Serpentine Rose to go and live in the middle of the hot, unforgiving bush? And a woman is missing out there, no less? Goodness, the news is all over Sydney. One wonders what on earth could have befallen her. The harshness of the Australian bush, eh?’

  Jean felt her skin flush, the redness creeping up her neck. She remembered Clara Black’s face, luminous in the moonlight, so full of hope, her bare feet walking into the night. Guilt besieged her when she thought of that pillowcase stuffed with Clara’s things and she tried to push the panic away.

  ‘The valley is no place for an elegant woman, I can assure you,’ said Magnus. ‘We’ve just been reacquainting ourselves with civilisation and I think Miss Rose is finding it to her liking.’

  Jean’s face was burning, but she nodded. She wished she could step outside onto the balcony to feel the salt air on her skin. Instead she took a gulp of the cool champagne.

  ‘Well, I certainly hope so. Because Sydney would be truly honoured to have you back. Now, tell me, have you danced since the incident at the State Theatre? Because I was in the audience at the performance and believe me when I say it was dramatic.’

  Jean’s heartbeat rose into her throat and sweat slid under the cloying silk of her dress. She wished she had never come to Sydney. Never met Magnus. Why had she snuck out of the house that night to see the hotel ball? If only she’d sat down and darned Robert’s socks and read Liv another bedtime story, she’d be back there safe. Where she was meant to be. All her earlier bravado had abandoned her. How could she think this Mr Parker, who moved in the world she once had, wouldn’t know about that last disastrous performance? Of course, he had been there.

  A woman with soft grey hair and heavy pearl earrings that dragged at her earlobes took Jean’s arm. ‘Oh dear, I was there, too. We all felt for you, poor darling. Such a terrible fall. We all heard your ankle snap, I’m sure of it. We were all so shocked. We’d never seen a dancer take such a fall onstage.’

  Jean swallowed down the dread, pushed back at the memories that threatened to flood her. The hot stage lights bearing down, the music swelling for her final act, leaving her behind, and she was immobilised on the ground, the pain gripping her leg, making her cry out, tears squeezing out of her eyes even as she urged them away.

  So many months in hospital as her broken ankle healed. Some of the dancers had visited her, suitors had brought her flowers at the beginning, but she had watched her dreams fade like the wilt of those flowers in glass jars. They disappeared with the negative reviews in newspapers, with the loss of muscle tone in her body as she gained weight from being incapacitated for so long.

  And when she went to live at her father’s house, she knew everything was over. She was sad and fat and felt abandoned by everything and everyone. But there had been a man who’d been doing repair work on the house. Robert Peters was quietly spoken. Solid. He was deaf in one ear, which made him ineligible to go to war. It had also endeared him to her. She’d always had a soft spot for vulnerability. He didn’t care about her ruined reputation, or her thick middle, or the days she struggled to dress herself and get out of bed. He had sat with her in the tiny back garden in the sun as he ate his lunch. And when she’d become pregnant with Liv, Serpentine Rose and her glamorous life was finally laid to rest and her new life as Jean Peters had begun.

  ‘None of that matters now,’ Mr Parker said, shooting his wife a pointed look. ‘People l
ove a comeback. A triumph over adversity. And look at you now. There were rumours, I must admit, that you grew as big as a house. But look at you. More stunning than ever.’

  Jean blushed deeply and waved away the attention, grateful to be guided by waiters to her place at an elaborate table, set with burning candles, fragrant blooms and rich food. She tried to enjoy the delicacies laid before her – roast lamb so succulent it fell off the bone, wine that tasted like cherries and spice, and fresh salads with exotic cheese and herbs. She felt she’d eaten more in this one day than she had in a month of rationing in the valley. She had to fight the instinct to wrap chunks of the soft bread in the thick serviettes to take back to Liv and Robert.

  ‘This terrible business with Clara Black,’ said Mrs Parker, leaning over to whisper in her ear. ‘Tell me, are the other women in the valley nervous? Do you have any news I can pass on to my Sydney friends? A big mystery, isn’t it? It’s like something out of a novel.’

  ‘Not really. No one knows anything. We’re still hoping she’ll be found of course,’ said Jean, struggling to keep her voice level.

  ‘A terrible business, her poor husband,’ Mrs Parker said.

  Jean caught Magnus’s eye across the table. A shadow passed over his face. She had once been so adept at reading men like him, but now she felt overwhelmed, out of her depth. She wondered what he made of this gossip about her past. Of her spectacular fall from grace, from high society into ruin and oblivion. She felt like a fraud in her silk dress. She didn’t know how long she could continue this ruse. She wondered how she had ever operated comfortably in this world. Why she had missed it so much. She wished suddenly that she was in her little house in the valley. The safe simplicity of it. The way the sun hit the back steps in the afternoon, where they would sit as Liv chatted about her school day, the light fading to gold on the escarpment.

  As coffee and dessert were served, Mr Parker turned the conversation once more back to her dancing.

  ‘So, I’ve been thinking during our meal and I have a little proposition for you, Miss Rose, if you’ll hear me out. I own a picture palace on George Street and it’s doing quite well but things are getting rather competitive. New cinemas opening all over the place. It seems all of Australia is in Hollywood’s thrall. I wonder if you’d consider performing again, perhaps just a little routine accompanied by piano before the film begins. I just need something novel, an extra attraction. A beauty dancing before the show each night is just the ticket to get some extra patrons in. Of course, many will remember the famous Serpentine Rose. And we have plenty of room here at the house. You’re welcome to stay right in the room you’re in now. Magnus will have to fight off all the suitors, though.’ He winked.

  Her whole body tingled at Mr Parker’s words and she pressed her cool hands to her hot cheeks. ‘Oh my goodness, I’m so flattered, thank you, Mr Parker. Of course, I’d need to think about it,’ she said, looking to Magnus. He pressed a smile onto his lips.

  ‘Do think about it,’ urged Mr Parker. ‘It’s such a waste to have a talent like yours squirrelled away at the end of the earth.’

  She imagined living here on the water and catching the train into George Street every evening. Performing a little, making up new routines of her own design, the music, the dancing part of her everyday life. Being paid to do what she loved again. What she was born to do. And dropping casually into the Black and White Milk Bar where the lovely servers would know her name. Know Liv’s name. Buying Liv one of the chocolate milkshakes and watching the delight on her face when she saw, when she tasted, a hamburger.

  Now was the time to bring up Liv. That she had a daughter. She was in the position to bargain. Mr Parker wanted her. They could make money from what she could bring to the table. She was selling not only her dancing but her story. A triumph over adversity. She thought of Robert, dear Robert who had stuck by her through all her failures. Guilt closed over her, heavy, stifling. The words wouldn’t form on her tongue. What Mr Parker was proposing was a figment, a dream girl. Who was she kidding? A mother did not fit the image of Serpentine Rose, she knew that. And how would Magnus feel to know she’d deceived him all along? That she was married and had a child. No, she couldn’t tell him in this way, not publicly.

  I will tell him later, she told herself, looking out onto the darkening water, the city lights reflected and shifting, like a mercurial dream.

  CHAPTER 26

  Emmie

  Emmie snuggled into Seraphine’s warm little body as lightning lit their room. The rain flicked at the windows like insistent fingers. The storm thundered and thrashed against the valley walls, but Sera didn’t stir. Her daughter’s lashes twitched; she was lost deep in her dreams.

  Emmie had fallen into sleep easily. She had drunk too much red wine with dinner, they all had, full of relief that Sim had been found. But this wild storm felt like the brewing of something ancient inside her. She had never liked storms. And this valley flashed and roiled with it.

  She prised herself from Sera’s clasp and reached out for the comforting light of her iPhone. It was 3.13 am. She opened the screen and found the photo. The dread was still heavy inside her. She never should have posted the picture to Instagram in the first place. She had no idea things would go the way they had.

  She had seen the likes and comments first. Hundreds of them. Her heart was beating fast and her mind raced. What was it about this picture? The kids were lined up in front of a crumbling façade in the mines. It was true, it was a nice shot because the children were all caught in motion, like birds mid-flight, not one of them looking at the camera. And the light was otherworldly, beautiful. And then she saw it. A face. Hollow-eyed and vague, but still, the shape of a human visage in the left-hand corner of the window at the top of the photo. She gasped and adrenaline spiked her system.

  She was being so careful to post something where the kids were not overtly identified that she never saw it. It looked different the more you stared at it, like an optical illusion, shifting, oily. Was it just the reflection on the dirty glass of the window? She scrolled through the comments. Some people thought it was the face of a woman, others a child. Others had a scientific explanation about what could have caused light to refract in such a way. What everyone seemed to agree upon was that it was there. People had messaged her asking where the photo was taken so that they could research who the ghost might be. Thank God she’d never identified where they were staying and that where they were staying was so remote and little known.

  She had ignored everything, all the questions and comments. Her immediate instinct had been to share the news with Pen, to tell the others that this photo had gone viral, but it had started raining and then she and Pen were running back over the bridge, soaking wet. Sim was missing and everyone was panicked, and then, when she was finally found, they were all numb with cold and relief. They’d crowded around the fire in the lounge to dry out and drink wine and hot cocoa, cowering against the elements raging outside. The kids had toasted marshmallows, and Caleb had brought them bowls of porridge with brown sugar and sliced cheese on long baguettes because he hadn’t had a chance to finish cooking.

  Mostly she had wanted to tell Nathalie. If she was honest, her friend with her photogenic face and easy grace was the star of the Instagram account. Emmie had never intended it to be this way. She was not inclined to take selfies alone, and Nathalie was just always there, with her way of lighting up the world. Some of the commenters had remarked that the ghostly face looked sad and beautiful ‘like you’. Emmie knew the photo that people were referring to. A frame of Nathalie taken in the gardens on the first day they had arrived in the valley. She’d been standing under the willow tree drinking wine. Emmie had been taking photos of Macie’s spectacular afternoon tea and one image had included Nathalie, leaning against the tree’s trunk, a faraway look in her eye.

  But what was she going to tell Nathalie? That it had all just been done on a whim and for the fun of it? That people had started to follow her and that s
he’d kept posting photos of them all, and followers had kept growing? And that now her ghost photo had gone viral, and people assumed the account belonged to the beautiful woman in many of the shots and she just hadn’t corrected them? Maybe she would be flattered. Hadn’t Nathalie said she’d wanted Emmie to help her set up an Instagram account, because she didn’t know how?

  Now she studied the ghostly face in her original picture. A woman? A child? She wasn’t sure. Was this place haunted? She didn’t believe in ghosts. If she’d been looking at this picture online, she would have thought it had been photoshopped. But what of the woman Will said he kept seeing? Seraphine stirred as thunder growled so deeply she felt it in her belly. Emmie drew her daughter to her and smoothed her hair, bright, even in the gloom. It wasn’t ghostly spectres that were haunting her right now. Why had she made this whole thing so complicated by starting an Instagram account? Why hadn’t she asked the others before posting photos of them? Why the hell was it now that things were just taking off for her? She had dreamt of weekends away with girlfriends like this. She had dreamt of this kind of exposure online. Now it was all happening, and her stupid Instagram posts threatened to upset everyone. Perhaps she should just delete it and pretend it never happened. Maybe they would never find out.

  She went into her Instagram account now. There was no reception, so it was impossible to know where things stood. She was going to have to come clean in the morning. At the very least, everyone would probably be thoroughly spooked and go home. She’d ruined everything.