Evergreen Falls

by Kimberley Freeman

  “It will look very different when I’ve redesigned it. I haven’t drawn up plans yet, but I need to knock through some walls and build others. The developers want to maximize the space. As for what the interior decorators will do: Who knows?” He handed me the torch. “Lead the way.”

  I led him down the corridor to the storeroom. Old floorboards creaked beneath our feet, and the dust itched my nose.

  He fished out the key and unlocked the door, then shone the torch around. “Good grief, what a mess.”

  “Will they just throw all this out?”

  “I’m surprised they haven’t already. They must have missed this room.”

  “Are you going to tell anyone about it?”

  He shook his head. “The developer won’t care. We can go through these things, if you like. If you’re interested in our little historical mystery.”

  “That would be fun.”

  He squeezed my hand, then leaned in towards me and kissed me lightly on the lips. My head swam a little.

  “Now for our third date,” he said. “Coffee at my favorite café.”

  I smiled, imagining the surprise on Penny’s face when we turned up. But then I remembered. “Oh! I’m due at work at six thirty! What time is it now?”

  He shone the torch at his watch. “Six fifteen. Good thing we’re on site.”

  “I’ll have to dash. Third date. Soon.”

  “Tonight.”

  “You’re on. I’ll make you dinner at my place. Seven o’clock?” I boldly kissed him on the mouth, letting him open my lips with his tongue, then ran off up the corridor while he lit my way, and out into the early-morning light. Smiling like a fool.

  CHAPTER THREE

  My shift seemed to drag on forever, but I was free at two. I picked up some groceries and went home to marinate steaks and make a pasta bake and salad. A long bath followed, and I finally washed off the grime and stale alcohol smell. I could easily have fallen asleep in the water, but I needed to unpack Adam’s books before Tomas arrived. There was no space in my sitting room for unnecessary clutter.

  Wrapped in my dressing gown, I sat on the floor and opened the first box. In it was a letter from my mother.

  I hope you enjoy these books, and take the time to remember your brother—my darling son—when you read them.

  With a pang, I remembered I’d turned off my phone last night at the restaurant. I quickly located it in my handbag, switched it on, and waited as it downloaded seven increasingly desperate voice-mail messages from Mum. With the phone jammed between my shoulder and cheek, I began to unpack the books.

  “Hello?” she answered breathlessly.

  “It’s me.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Nowhere. I just forgot to turn my phone on.”

  “Lauren, you must be more careful. It’s not fair to me to disappear like that. I’ve been worried out of my mind. I called the police but they wouldn’t do anything.”

  I took her admonishment with good grace as I moved books from boxes to bookshelves, apologizing, feeling like a teenager, but then when I could finally get a word in, I said, “Mum, I’m a grown woman. You really can’t expect to know where I am every second of the day.”

  The line went quiet, and I knew I’d hurt her feelings. “Sorry, Mum,” I said again. “But don’t worry about me, okay? I’ll be fine.” Because I felt guilty, I said too much. “I’ve met a man.”

  “A man? As in, a boyfriend?”

  “Yes. He’s great. He’s an architect from Denmark.”

  “Does he speak English?”

  “Yes, Mum.” Trying not to sound exasperated.

  “You need to be careful, Lauren. You’re not good with men.”

  “Well, I’ll never be if I don’t spend more time with a few,” I said, trying to sound light. “We have our third date tonight.” That’s what Tomas had called it. It made me smile. I’d never made it to a third date before. “I’m cooking for him.”

  “That’s good. You’re a good cook. I’m glad I took the time to teach you.”

  I could tell she wanted to say more—dire warnings, promises that I would always be welcome back at home if things went wrong, requests for assurance that I was safe—but she didn’t, and I recognized the effort that took. “I’d better go,” I said. “Trying to tidy the place up before he arrives.”

  “You invited him to your house? This early in the relationship? What if he gets ideas?”

  Ideas. Oh, how I hoped Tomas had ideas. The same ideas I was having.

  “Mum. Stop worrying.”

  She grumbled some more, but eventually said good-bye, with a promise to phone early tomorrow to see how things had gone.

  I put aside my phone and turned my attention more fully to the books. Some were dusty and yellowed. Novels and history books and books about space or cars. I blew the dust off them, shelved them. I finished one box, then another. Most of these books I would never read, but it wouldn’t feel right to give them away or dump them. A book about the Blue Mountains caught my eye, and I opened it to glance through the pictures. As I did, a photograph fell out.

  It was a young Adam and a friend of about the same age. I realized with delight that this photo was taken right here at Evergreen Falls. I recognized the viewing platform on the ridge, where they leaned, shirtless, talking to each other. Their shoulder blades, like the buds of angel wings, hunched up. Adam’s fair hair was long. I didn’t know his friend, but he was dark-haired with a handsome profile. I flipped the photo over. Written on the back was: Adam and Frogsy. Love you guys. Drew xxxx.

  I turned back to the picture. Adam was eighteen or nineteen in this photo, right before he’d grown ill. He’d had no idea what was coming. He looked happy and relaxed, talking to a friend in front of the majestic view. Frogsy and Drew. He’d never mentioned friends with those names, and nobody from his time in the Blue Mountains had contacted him down in Tasmania. I went carefully through the book, looking for more photographs. There were none, but I did find an inscription at the start of the book, in blue handwriting: Happy nineteenth birthday, and here’s to many more years of joy. Love from Frogsy.

  Adam didn’t get as many years as Frogsy had wished him, and certainly few were filled with joy. I put the book aside and gazed at the photo a long time. Frogsy was an unusual name. Did he still live around here? But then I realized: Frogsy was a nickname. Maybe it rhymed with something, or maybe he looked like a frog, or wore a lot of green. Unless he still used the nickname, I’d be unlikely to find him. Still, I’d show Penny the photograph and ask her. Or even Lizzie; she had lived here a long time.

  These were the thoughts running through my mind when I heard a knock at my door.

  “Tomas!” I said as I opened the door, pulling my dressing gown tightly together. Had I completely lost track of time? “I wasn’t—”

  “I’m sorry,” he interrupted. “I have to cancel.”

  “Cancel?” No third date. There was never a third date.

  “Sabrina . . . my ex-wife . . . she’s had a car accident. My number was in her mobile phone as her emergency contact. I have to . . . I’m driving down to Sydney right now, getting a flight to Copenhagen.”

  His ex-wife? Wasn’t she . . . ex? Even in my confusion I recognized that it wasn’t the right time for me to ask this, so I said instead, “Of course. Is she badly hurt?”

  “Very, very badly. She’s going into emergency surgery right now. She might not make it.” He set his jaw against tears, took a breath. “I know it sounds crazy, Lauren, but she has nobody else. Both her parents are gone and she has no siblings. I need to get back there and take care of everything. I’m her oldest friend.”

  “I’m so sorry. What a terrible thing to happen. Go. Don’t worry about me.”

  He managed a half smile. “You are extraordinary. Here, I have something for you.” He picked up my hand and pressed something into it, closed my fist over it, and pulled me against him. Kissed me on the lips. So hard. “I don’t know how
long I’ll be away. I’ll call.”

  Then he was gone, crunching back down the gravel beside the house. I heard his car pull away, and then I opened my hand and looked at what he had given me.

  It was the key to the west wing.

  * * *

  I obsessed, of course, about Sabrina, his ex-wife, his oldest friend. I would periodically remind myself that poor Sabrina was on death’s door and that I was being so uncharitable I would certainly go to hell, but I couldn’t help it. Scenarios would play out in which he stayed in Denmark to help her recover and ended up remarrying her. Why shouldn’t he? Who was I to make a claim on him? Two dates, which were really one very long date during which I had behaved embarrassingly. Mum was right. I was too inexperienced with men. I was vulnerable.

  But on Monday morning at three, my phone tinged loudly. I opened my eyes and picked it up. A text from Tomas. Safely in Copenhagen. Sabrina serious but stable. Still unconscious. Send me your e-mail address.

  I typed out a reply and waited in the dark, sitting up in my bed. The only sound was the thrum of my pulse.

  Ting-ting. I’ll be in touch when I can. Need some sleep. Need to contact Sab’s cousin. Solve the mystery while I’m away.

  “I will,” I typed, and pressed Send. Then I was alone in the quiet dark.

  * * *

  I promised myself I would start clearing out the storeroom in the west wing on Monday after my shift, but when I left the café and made my way down past the ballroom, I saw a group of men standing near the colonnade. I hung back among the overgrown hedges and watched them. I was fairly certain Tomas hadn’t asked the owner’s permission for me to go in and poke around, and I didn’t want to get him in any trouble. The men were in deep conversation, and I would have been in plain sight if I walked past them to let myself in.

  Instead, I doubled back and made my way through a breezeway and then across the old tennis court to the edge of the escarpment. A long stone wall, about hip height, ran the length of the Evergreen Spa’s boundary. Its Doric columns were spotted with wear and lichen and in some places were crumbling into rubble. A set of old stone stairs led . . . somewhere. A wire fence had been erected across the entrance to the stairs, with a danger sign attached. I heard voices approaching, and hesitated. The desire to go unnoticed in my prowling around the west wing fought with my desire not to slip on a crumbling stair and go hurtling to my death. What would Mum say if she saw me?

  I was over the fence in a moment. The stairs were solid, if a little worn, but they soon ran out and I was standing on an overgrown, stony path that wound down into the valley. The Evergreen Spa had been a health retreat in its day, and perhaps this had been an old walking track. I was charmed by this idea. From the town, many fine bushwalks zigzagged up and down to the Falls, and they were all well maintained, with handrails and stepping-stones. They were also usually busy with tourists. I liked the idea that nobody had trod this path for a long time. The sun was warm on my face, the afternoon breeze up.

  The path took me down on a slow curve into the valley. The flora contrasted sharply with the introduced oaks and conifers that lined the streets of the town. Instead, I passed red gums and she-oaks, wattle and banksia. Here and there, old tree branches covered the path and I had to pick my way over them. Years of leaf fall, peeled bark, scratching ferns, and loose rocks sought to pull my feet from under me. I leaned on the rock wall for balance as I made my way down and down. The canopy grew thicker now, coachwood trees and gray myrtles.

  I looked up and saw the edge of the escarpment far above me. I’d have to climb all the way back up at some stage, and clouds were moving in. I hesitated, but then I saw something odd about a hundred meters away, so I kept going to get a better look. I soon came across two metal cables, about my thumb’s width. One hung slack and curled up on the end, but the other plunged far below. The source of both appeared to be at the top of the escarpment, behind the hotel.

  Curious now, I picked my way down farther amid the sharp smell of the forest, the clear call of bell miner birds and the rocks green with mold in the shadows. My feet crunched on until I found the path had crumbled away and I couldn’t go any farther.

  I knelt down and peered over the ledge, and I could see far below, where the cable ended: a little iron structure had come to rest against the sediment-striped cliff. I had no idea what it was, but clearly it had something to do with the hotel. Would Tomas know?

  Sweat was trickling under my T-shirt now, and I sat back on my haunches and wished I didn’t have to slog all the way back up. I could hear distant traffic, and thought that if I could get to the bottom of the valley, I might find a road, a bus stop, a town with a taxi. I looked around. Was that another track that wound off into the valley? Or just another dead end?

  I picked myself up and followed it. A huge fallen red gum covered the track, so I leaned against the bark and peered over. Definitely a track. I wriggled up onto the tree, then half slid, half fell down the other side. I picked my way between rocks and spiky grass trees, ducking under bulging overhangs. Around the bend I could already see that the track was running out; it sheared into the rock wall and all that was left was a big drop.

  But as I drew closer, I saw the cave.

  Above me, the clouds had dissolved. Romantic ideas about sheltering in the cave from the coming rain dissolved, too. I accepted that I would have to trudge back up the path, but first I wanted to see how deep the cave was.

  The opening was small, and flanked by a slab of granite about chest height. I had to bend almost double to enter, but once inside I could stand up. The cave was about the size of my bathroom, although the ceiling was much lower. A strong, unpleasant smell of animal pervaded the dark and cold. I started to think about spiders, and then I couldn’t get out of there quickly enough.

  It was as I was coming out that I saw something that looked like a design etched into the back of the rock that half covered the opening. I peered at it closely, then realized I was looking at a love heart carved into the stone. The granite had been too hard for curved lines, though. The heart had sharp corners, and the lettering inside was also sharp, made of lightning bolts. But the letters were clear enough. SHB.

  I stared. My letter writer, SHB, had carved this. No, that wasn’t right—SHB’s secret lover had carved this. Who was she? I reached out with tentative fingers to touch the carving, feeling the past and present collide. Only when I touched it did I realize there was something else carved here, but I couldn’t see it in the dim light.

  I pulled out my phone and lit up the torch. The other carving wasn’t letters or love hearts. It was scribble. Violent scribble, not as deep as the letters but carved into the rock nonetheless. With force. Perhaps even with anger. My skin prickled.

  I flipped the phone around, turned on the flash, and took a photograph to send to Tomas. I searched the rest of the cave with the torch but did not find any more carvings. I stood for a long while gently running my fingers around the sharp-edged heart. The mystery deepened.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1926

  Somewhere, far away, up above the water, Violet could hear her name being called.

  Her eyes flicked open. Sunshine hit the water and refracted green and blue. She shot up and broke the surface. The late-autumn sun slanted through the willows and she-oaks. Ada stood beside the swimming hole, beckoning wildly.

  “Please, Violet. We’ll be late.”

  “We’ve ages.”

  “I’m going without you.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Ada stomped off through the grass and Violet rolled onto her back to float. Ada had always been a wet blanket. It was one thing not to own a bathing suit, but quite another for her to raise her eyebrows at Violet’s, especially when she was so proud of it: black with an emerald belt and matching emerald bathing cap.

  “She’s right, you know,” Clive said from where he sat on a flat rock with his sketchbook open. Violet wondered if he was drawing her. “You will be late.”
>
  Violet and Ada worked together at the Senator Hotel in Sydney’s city center, where Violet’s shift started in an hour. Plenty of time. “You all worry too much.” She rolled over and dived under again, her eyes closed, a curl loosed from her bathing cap tickling her cheek. Then up again, and this time she swam until she felt the stony ground beneath her feet. On the bank, the towel and dry clothes were waiting. The cold hit her hard. This might be her last swim until October, perhaps. Violet loved to swim, loved to disappear into the liquid-crystal water. It took more than a bit of cold to put her off.

  “Look at you,” she said to Clive, peering over his shoulder to see his picture: she was a little disappointed to see a willow taking shape on the page. “Man of leisure.”

  “It’s temporary. The new job starts in a few days.” He turned his face up to her and smiled. “You’ll come and see me, won’t you, Violet?”

  Violet knew that Clive was sweet on her. They had worked together the past two years at the hotel. “Maybe. It’s a terribly long way up to the mountains.” She pulled her dark hair free from the bathing cap and toweled it vigorously.

  “But the hotel is so grand. You’d love it. All the ladies in their fine gowns.”

  “I’d just be annoyed that I couldn’t wear a fine gown myself.” Violet had no intention of visiting Clive. He was her summer romance, and summer was long gone. Besides, all they’d shared were a few dances and one brief kiss. “You’ll survive without me,” she said.

  “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t,” he replied lightly. He said and did everything lightly. Even his hair and eyes were light, as though the sun were caught in them.

  Violet pulled her dress on over her wet bathing suit and headed towards the path that led to the train station. Her shoes and stockings were in her bag.

  “I’ll be leaving on the eight a.m. train from Central Station,” he called after her. “If you want to see me off.”

  “I have an early shift,” she called back. It wasn’t true, but it was easier than saying she wanted to avoid a farewell scene.