“Come on in, then. I’ve just made a batch of scones for the library fund-raising committee. We can steal a couple for ourselves.”
Sitting in Lizzie’s sunny kitchen drinking hot tea and eating fresh scones with jam and butter was a lovely way to spend my morning off. I had chores to do—grocery shopping, cleaning my bathroom—but they could wait. We chatted for ages about family, life, work, movies (it turned out Lizzie was a crime-thriller film buff), and then I finally asked what I’d been intending to ask all along.
“Lizzie, do you know of somebody named Anton Fournier who lives up on Fallview Road?”
“Is that the rather handsome fellow who runs a record company?”
“He’s handsome, yes. I don’t know what he does for a living.”
“It’s the big timber-and-glass mansion.”
“That’s him.”
“I don’t know much, I’m sorry. Just that he travels a lot for work, overseas and so on. He keeps to himself.”
“He’s the man in the photo. With Adam. The one I showed you.”
“Is he? Is he indeed? Yes, now I think of it, it is him. I didn’t recognize him in the picture with all that long hair. He’s filled out a bit.”
“I suppose he was only a teenager back then.”
“So, he knew your brother?”
“The most curious thing: I went to see him, to ask him what he remembered about Adam. He got really angry at me and told me he wanted nothing to do with me or my family.”
Lizzie tipped the teapot up to her cup again, but only a trickle came out. “Did he now? There’s a mystery for you.”
“Something happened back then. I don’t know what. Can you think of anyone in town who might know some more about him?”
“I think he has a young fellow who stays there with him, some of the time or all of the time, I’m not sure. He looks after the house and the dogs when Anton goes away. Can’t recall his name, but Penny might know. But apart from that, I can’t help.”
“No wife I could speak to? Children at the local school?”
“Not that I know of, dear. Sorry to be so useless.”
I beamed. “You’re not useless. You’re wonderful. Shall I refill the pot?”
“That would be lovely.”
* * *
Penny had nothing either.
“I’ve seen the guy Mrs. Tait mentioned,” she said to me, after hearing the whole story. “I remember chatting to him outside the bakery one day when he was walking the dogs. Two whippets, isn’t it? He mentioned Anton being away in Hong Kong. I think he said his name was Peter, or perhaps Patrick. Started with P. Anton has been in here once or twice, but my impression was that coffee isn’t his thing. He was after vegan food and herbal tea.”
“But he’s a record executive or something?”
“I couldn’t say. Travels a lot. Not often around in town and very private when he is, I imagine. You could try Amelia at the health-food shop; there’s a good chance he’s more frequent there.”
“Thanks. Thanks, I might do that.” I tied on my apron and got to work. I was starting to understand that asking about Anton Fournier wasn’t going to achieve much. Whether or not he was a record executive who went to health-food shops, whether or not he owned whippets, or had a dogsitter named Peter or Patrick—none of these things told me why he’d had such a violent reaction to my presence. All I could do was keep working on my letter and try to put it out of my mind.
“Hey, I’m driving down to Sydney on Monday morning,” Penny said.
“You want me to cover your shift?”
“No, Eleanor’s going to do it. I wanted to know if you want to come for the drive. I’ve got to see a solicitor in the city. You could go shopping. It’s a long way by myself, and I’d be grateful for the company.”
An idea glimmered, driving thoughts of Anton Fournier out of my head temporarily. “Will we be anywhere near a library?”
“A library? Evergreen Falls has a library.”
“I want a big library.”
“There are libraries at the university.”
“Then I’ll definitely come.”
When Adam left to take the job in the Blue Mountains—I presume that’s when he met you—I was bereft. I was a spotty teenager, very awkward, and he was always so smooth and so sure of himself. He was a beautiful boy, wasn’t he? I look back at pictures of him and he has a glow about him, a softness about his face. I have a photograph of the two of you, all long hair and faraway looks, up on the viewing platform above the Falls. He looks happy, content. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to know what he was doing at that time in his life, when he was far away from us. He never let go of the idea that he might go back one day, though that wasn’t to be.
I wish I could say Adam was always lovely, patient, kind, and gorgeous, as he had been as a boy and then in his young adulthood when you knew him. But unfortunately, it wouldn’t be true. The illness took such a toll on him, it’s impossible for you to imagine. He was at times bloated and red-faced, at other times bony and pale. The light left his eyes around his twenty-second birthday, with his first bout of cancer caused by the anti-rejection drugs. Maybe up until that point he’d thought one day he’d get better, but after that, he grew negative and—
I stopped for a moment. I knew what I had to write. Frightened. He grew frightened. I tapped my pen on the desk, deciding that only brutal honesty would win Anton Fournier over, and continued.
—frightened. His fear was one of the worst aspects of his condition. We were all afraid, too, of course we were. We were afraid for our hearts, afraid of the empty future without him, afraid of how much it was going to hurt when he died. But his fear was far more primal. He looked death in the face every day. Every single day. The rest of us think about death every now and again, and it gives us a chill for a few moments and then we’re off about our lives, making ourselves busy. But Adam lay there every day and breathed every breath alongside that shadow, and I’d be lying if I said he eventually got used to it or made his peace. He didn’t. There wasn’t any peace. That made him a little cruel, and very demanding. That made the corners of his mouth turn down perpetually, creating permanent creases in his beautiful face—that face that had never even seen a pimple—and it made him sometimes say or do hurtful things.
I took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of my nose as some of the memories came back to me. Adam’s voice, shrill with pain, telling Mum she’d ruined his life, telling Dad he was a bumbling oaf, telling me I was a stupid little girl who knew nothing about the world. I suppose, at least, the last accusation was true. I didn’t write any of this down. It was too private.
Through it all, I loved him still. I loved him and wished and hoped for improvements. Not for recovery, because we all knew that this was a train that had only one destination. But I wished for happiness for him, and sometimes he had it. Sometimes in a gentle mood we would laugh and talk as we had as children. We’d reminisce about St. Smithereens or about television shows we’d watched together like Monkey and Doctor Who. He was still in there, my lovely brother. When I got a chance to see that side of him and spend time with him, I felt like the happiest girl alive.
Anton, one thing I know about Adam is that Evergreen Falls is the last place he was happy. When I asked him about why, he would just say because it was beautiful and he had good friends there. Is that true? Or was there more? Drew told me about the mad summer you all had. I would love to know more. I would love to hear everything you can remember about Adam, because memories are all I have now that he is gone. I’ll write my phone number and address below if you change your mind.
Kind regards,
Lauren Beck
I wrote my phone number, my address and the address of the café, and then I folded the letter, went to Lizzie’s for an envelope and stamp, and walked to the corner to post it. Once it had slid into the postbox, there was nothing more I could do, so I vowed to put my own family mystery out of my mind.
; I had a mystery from the 1920s still to solve.
* * *
The vast university library I walked into on Monday morning was nothing like the small community library where I used to find books for Adam. Nor would I have to return home to wash my hands with antibacterial gel and spray the books with disinfectant, causing Adam to curl his lip when I handed them to him. “Did you get these from the library or the hospital?” he would say. And I’d say, “You’re welcome,” and he’d crack a little smile and start reading.
I let the memories flow through me and turned back to the task at hand, which was trying to figure out the state-of-the-art software with which I had to try to find books. Keyword search? That might be the one.
I typed in Honeychurch-Black.
I got hundreds of hits and my heart leaped. Was there that much written on them? But no, there was a Honeychurch-Black Agricultural Institute that published mostly science books, and every one of them had turned up on my list.
I tried excluding them and ended up with zero hits, so I tried again, adding new search terms instead. Family. History. Australia. 1920s. Eventually, with a bit of ingenuity and a lot of luck, I found a book called Great Farming Families of Australian History, published by the Honeychurch-Black Agricultural Institute.
The air-conditioning in the library was cranked so high my fingers were turning blue. I buttoned up my cardigan as I walked up the stairs to the book stacks. Swarms of students passed me, going up and down. The young women didn’t seem to be wearing much. Was I becoming an old lady? Perhaps I was just jealous that super-short cutoffs wouldn’t look good on me. The staircase echoed with their voices, but up among the stacks it was very quiet, the carpet absorbing any hushed sounds. I ran my fingers along spines until I found the book I was after.
I didn’t bother sitting back down. I stood right there between the shelves flicking through pages. Births, deaths, marriages . . . I moved from the 1800s to the 1920s with one flick. There they were. With photos. My heart pressed up against my ribs to see him. Samuel Honeychurch-Black. His soul in his eyes, black hair flopping over his forehead. Born 1906 at Curlew Station, outside Goulburn in regional New South Wales. Died at home in 1927 of pneumonia. His father also died of pneumonia at the same time. It made me sad to think that he lived only to twenty-one—but at least he got to have that passionate affair at the hotel. Flora Honeychurch-Black was born in 1901 at Curlew Station, married in 1927, and had four children. She died in 1989. I studied her picture. She was pale, like me. Not pretty. Again, like me. But there was something about her face: I saw goodness. Her brow was calm, but a tiny smile touched the corners of her lips. Her eyes were clear and intelligent. I compared her to her brother, who was dark and sad-looking.
But maybe I was projecting all this onto them. He died young; she didn’t. His letters made it clear that his sister had a strong sense of duty and dignity.
I held the book to my chest as I stood in the queue for the photocopier. I gazed out the narrow window and saw students milling about. I would have liked to finish my university course. I’d studied business communication, with an idea that I might work in a big firm somewhere, writing documents and correcting everybody’s grammar. The thought was laughable now. Me in a big business firm? Wearing power suits and meeting “key performance indicators”? It was well beyond me. The same illness that robbed Adam of his youth had robbed me of mine. All this time I had told myself it wasn’t too late to go back to university, that I might get there one day, but as I stood here surrounded by students and books and learning, my heart sped a little. I was nearly too late for everything. For study, for husbands and children, for backpacking in exotic places. I was on track to die alone.
I steadied my breathing, told myself not to be an idiot. What Adam would have given still to be alive. I lifted my eyes, watched the elms bending in the wind, the sun shining on their leaves. I was like Flora, the sister who survived. I should be grateful and live my life gratefully.
That’s when it occurred to me: Flora’s children might still be alive. Or if not her children, then her grandchildren. They might be keen to see Samuel’s letters. A generation or two had passed. Nobody would be shocked anymore, surely. Also, they might know who Samuel’s lover was, and then I could solve the mystery, and share it with Tomas.
I flipped to the back page of the book, looking for names. I discovered that the book had been written by Graeme Dewhurst, who was the husband of one of Flora’s grandchildren. He’d thanked her in the acknowledgments: Terri-Anne Dewhurst. By the time I’d made my copies, I’d decided on a course of action.
I sat down at one of the computers and searched for the Web site of the Honeychurch-Black Agricultural Institute. I composed a message to Terri-Anne, in which I told her about the letters and offered to send them to her, and then sent the message to the institute’s inquiries address, asking them to forward it to Terri-Anne. I was hoping that if she called, she might be willing to talk or share memories.
Or maybe I would get the same kind of reception I’d received from Anton Fournier.
It didn’t matter. I hit Send. The letters were written by her great-uncle. They belonged with his family.
* * *
The wind changed in the night, turning and swirling in, cold and dry, from the south. I’d left my window open when I went to bed, and the wind blew the curtain in wildly, rattling the rail and waking me up. I checked my phone: 3 a.m. I closed the window and lay for a while, expecting to drift back to sleep, but it seemed that my brain had decided it was the perfect time to obsess about all my problems. Around and around in my head they went. Mum. Dad. Tomas. My future. Anton Fournier. An hour passed.
I sat up, reached for my phone. In Denmark, it was probably a reasonable time of the day. I always waited for Tomas to contact me; I’d never been so bold as to contact him. Before I could think better of it, I tapped out a text message.
Can’t sleep. Thinking of you.
It whizzed off into the night. I waited, but nothing came in response. I obsessed a little longer, then got up and dressed. There was a whole collection of map books at the Evergreen Spa west wing library waiting for me.
I wasn’t prepared for the cold—that particular cold characteristic of the hours before dawn, when the world seems emptied out. The wind howled through the pines, whipping my hair into my face. The streetlight through the branches of the oaks along the main road created constantly shifting shadows. A few leaves loosened and streaked off down the road. My fingers were numb. I hurried towards the hotel, my head down, wishing I’d stayed in bed.
I let myself in and shut out the cold, caught my breath gratefully, then switched my torch on and headed up to the library.
The library report had given the location of the maps, so I carefully shone my torch on the tags inside the glass-fronted bookshelves until I found them. Three shelves of folio-sized books, bound in red leather. I opened the door, carefully pulled out the first one, and took it to one of the big oak desks.
As I turned the heavy pages, a squall rose outside, shaking the windows on the other side of the boards. If there weren’t so many of these map books, I’d have taken them home where it was warm and I could switch on an electric light and make a pot of tea. Book after book, page upon crackling page of detailed maps, but no notes in margins, no love letters stashed between pages. It was just a set of books.
By the time dawn came I was beginning to feel despondent. I left the maps for the time being and went to the big drawers at the bottom of the shelves. Here was where the librarian had stacked old records, and it didn’t take me long to find a set of well-worn staff registers, dating back to the opening of the hotel in 1888. I plowed through the drawer until I found the one that covered Samuel’s stay. The binding had rotted away and pages were loose and falling out. I opened it and carefully ran my torch over a few of the pages. Names, dates, duties, pay rates. I put it aside to take home and pore over, and continued looking through the drawers. I soon found a leather-bound
letter book, brimming with typewritten letters and swollen with age. Each letter had been pinned in, and all the pins were rusty. Every piece of correspondence was signed off Yours faithfully, Miss Eugenia Zander, Manageress. I looked closer, and realized they were all carbon copies. Miss Eugenia Zander had kept a copy of every letter she had sent.
I flicked forwards; the book ended in 1925. The next one in the drawer started in 1927. The only one I was really interested in—1926—was missing.
I had two choices: go through all the drawers one by one, or go home and look through the library report to see if correspondence for 1926 had been catalogued.
I chose to go home, reasoning that if I started pulling things out of drawers, I increased the chances that I’d mix it all up putting it back. Besides, my stomach was grumbling, and I fancied some toast and tea.
I shone the torch around and realized I’d left one of the map books out. As I picked it up off the desk to return it, my sleep-deprived, clumsy fingers let it slide out of my grip and it landed with a thud on the floor, pages splayed.
“Oh, no,” I sighed in the dark. I knew I’d bent pages; I just hoped I hadn’t damaged the spine. I crouched and picked it up carefully, and something slid out.
I sat back, looking at it. It was a portrait of a woman. Written across the top in faded ink, in handwriting I recognized from the love letters, was My Violet.
Samuel’s lover had a name.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I know I shouldn’t have, but I took the picture home, tucked inside the staff registry. My stash of stolen treasures from the Evergreen Spa was growing. I intended to take it all back, of course, eventually.
I made myself some breakfast while dawn struggled into the sky. It was a gray day. By the fluorescent glow of the kitchen light, I studied the portrait of Violet.
Violet.
I now knew for sure she was a staff member. In the portrait she wore a maid’s uniform. She was pretty, achingly so. A sweet, round face with a slightly pointed chin, wavy dark hair cut to her jaw, large eyes with long sweeping lashes. There was something familiar about her; perhaps she looked like a movie star of the time—they all seemed to have a similar look. The artist had been very good. He captured the light in her eyes and something—was it uncertainty?—around her brow. I wondered if Samuel had drawn this, but I could make out another signature at the bottom, though it had two thick lines struck through it. The first initial was a C or an E, and the surname Betts. Why was it struck through?
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