‘Move off the island.’
‘He’s not in a position to buy?’
‘No. He said he told you.’
‘And your farm’s not big enough for him to make a living on.’
He shrugged. ‘My grandparents’ small holding was hardly self-sufficient and the lifestyle I led didn’t include saving. Then there were the medical costs. Dave was leasing a hundred acres further on but I had to let it go when he died. I didn’t have the money to keep it up. I don’t have the money to help Clive. If you sell he has to go.’
‘You know,’ I said carefully, struggling for air, ‘I’m feeling just a bit of emotional blackmail here.’
‘I don’t see—’
‘Really? Stay here for six weeks because otherwise Muriel won’t get medical treatment? Don’t sell the farm because Clive and all the little McConachies will starve and Christabelle will head for the knackery? If that’s not emotional blackmail, what is?’
‘I shouldn’t imagine the McConachies will starve,’ he said, sounding thoughtful. ‘There’s always soup kitchens in Sydney.’ He hesitated. ‘At least I think there are.’
‘Oh, great. That means I can relax, does it? The McConachies can survive on welfare soup on the mainland. I don’t have to imagine the littlest McConachies being forced up chimneys to earn enough for stale bread.’
‘I think they have child labour laws now,’ he said gravely. ‘In the good old days you could send your kids down the mines to make you a living. Now the authorities insist on things like school.’ He gave me a sideways glance. ‘But you can’t worry. They’ll survive. People do.’
‘Right.’
‘You’d be a good example of that yourself,’ he said.
That left me feeling sideswiped. ‘Meaning what exactly?’
‘Meaning life’s kicked you around as well.’
‘I’ve never had to sweep a chimney in my life.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
He sees me, I thought, a little bit desperately. He saw things I kept hidden.
Well, maybe it was a two-way deal. He smiled but I saw the pain behind his eyes.
My sandal hit a tree root. Okay, they weren’t exactly sensible sandals but they were gorgeous and I was wincing at the dented leather almost before I fell forward. I stumbled. Jack’s hand shot out to steady me, and even when the root was safely navigated he didn’t let go.
‘Those sandals are dumb.’
‘I love these sandals,’ I snapped. ‘And I had walking shoes but I stood in cow dung and then your treatment made them shrink. So now what? You’d like me to wear gumboots a hundred percent of the time?’
‘If the cows think they’re sexy, who am I to argue?’ He grinned, tightening his grip. ‘Meanwhile I’m hanging on. You promised to take surgery tomorrow so I can take Bridget swimming. I don’t want my substitute doctor hurtling to her doom down a sand dune.’
We were maybe three feet above the beach.
‘Can you hurtle three feet?’
‘Definitely.’
His hand still held mine. I shouldn’t, but I liked it. And I also liked the way he made me smile, even when I was feeling desperate.
‘It would be a very small hurtle. It probably wouldn’t equate to doom.’
‘It’d be a bump. I don’t let my medical associates get bumped.’
I chuckled, and suddenly, just for this moment, I felt unaccountably happy. It was transitory, I knew, but for now …
For now I was going to leave my hand tucked in Jack’s. I was going to soak up the moonlight. I wasn’t going to feel the least bit guilty about cows. Or McConachies. Or dented sandals.
Or Richard?
No. I couldn’t care less. At least not right now.
15
wipe-out n. a fall of spectacular proportions.
It didn’t last. When had happiness ever lasted? We turned from the beach track to Henry’s house and stopped.
There was a car pulled up outside Henry’s cottage, and Janet was there. Drifter gave a brief warning bark and then, realising it was a friend, headed forward, tail wagging. But the moment I saw her, my heart felt like it stopped.
It had to be trouble with Muriel.
‘You’re here.’ Janet seemed hugely relieved as she hurried towards us. ‘And Jack. Thank goodness. Jenny, I’ve been trying to contact you. I hoped—we assumed—Muriel’s not with you?’
Something stopped inside me right then. Oh God …
‘I left my phone here,’ I told her. Maybe because I didn’t want to field a call from Richard? But with Muriel in hospital, what had I been thinking? ‘What’s happened?’
‘Nothing bad.’ But Janet was visibly trying to stay calm. ‘At least, nothing medical. If I could find her …’
‘You’re looking for Muriel?’ Jack demanded, and Janet nodded, her eyes roaming the moonlit garden as if any minute Muriel could appear from behind the rhubarb.
‘She’s left the hospital. Shirlene, our cleaner, said Muriel asked for Jed’s number. Jed’s our local taxi driver,’ she explained for my benefit. ‘Jed must have taken Muriel somewhere but I can’t contact him, either.’
My heart had restarted. The numbness dissipated. Not dead, then.
‘You know Jed doesn’t answer the phone after nine.’ Jack was frowning. ‘That’s his knock-off time. Did she tell anyone where she was going?’
‘No. But she removed the drip from her arm all by herself, and she’s taken her toiletries. I assumed she’d come here.’
‘And she’s not here?’
Janet spread her hands in apology. ‘Sorry, Jenny, but I know Henry left a spare key under a brick by the tank. I’ve been inside. There’s no one home.’
‘Maybe she’s still on her way.’
‘It’s over an hour since she left. If Shirlene had one more brain cell it’d be lonely. She didn’t tell me Muriel had gone. She didn’t even figure it was strange for her to be leaving.’
Jack was focused. ‘So where would she go but here?’ He was asking me.
‘I don’t know.’
But then suddenly I did know, and my heart did its stopping thing all over again.
I thought back to the last conversation I’d had with Muriel. The conversation with Janet.
‘She didn’t have access to sleeping pills, did she?’ I whispered. ‘I mean … more than a couple?’
Jack saw my terror. He was good, this man. He put his hand on my shoulder and gripped, hauling me back from the abyss.
‘You think she might kill herself?’
‘She was upset. But she said … she said she had no intention of doing anything stupid.’
‘Would she think suicide was stupid?’
‘I don’t know.’ My voice trailed to nothing. I did know.
I don’t care about Muriel, I told myself frantically.
Liar. I’d learned nothing. All Muriel’s careful training had come to naught.
‘Did she have access to sleeping pills?’ I asked again, fear choking me like poisoned air.
‘Only one,’ Janet said. ‘I heard what she said tonight and I was concerned enough to be careful. Besides, would she have taken her toiletries if she intended to commit suicide?’
That was a joke. ‘Of course she would. Committing suicide without perfect makeup? Unthinkable.’ My laugh turned into a sob and Jack gripped me in a hold that stopped the sagging of my legs and forced me to focus.
‘You’ll be no help to us in tears, Jen. We need you thinking. Pull yourself together.’
He was right, of course. But how?
‘Let’s check the house again,’ he said.
‘She’s not there,’ Janet told him.
‘Unless she’s been and gone.’ My mind was scrambling in all directions.
‘Maybe she collected her belongings and made Jed drive her to the dock,’ Janet ventured. ‘To the seaplane.’
‘Jed wouldn’t do it,’ Jack told her. ‘It’d be dumb. The seaplane won’t be here until morning an
d the buildings will be locked.’
‘So where is she?’
‘Let’s look.’
We checked the house again. Fearfully. There was nothing else to do, but at least the house provided more clues.
Muriel’s toiletries were there, in the bathroom cabinet. Her nightgown and her wrap, voluminous, fluffy and frivolous, were hanging neatly in the wardrobe. She’d been and gone.
‘She must have headed for the dock,’ Jack said blankly but I was sorting through the wardrobe and knew better.
‘All her clothes are here. Everything. Muriel would go nowhere without her baggage!’
‘So what’s she wearing?’
I frowned, confused. I sifted through the hangers, counting.
Muriel had packed with care and I’d put her clothes away for her. Every outfit was distinctive.
I checked again. I counted shoes. It didn’t make sense.
‘Nothing’s missing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘We were coming for seven days. She brought fourteen outfits and a couple for the plane. Everything’s here.’
‘Fourteen outfits?’ Janet gave Jack a speaking glance. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Sixteen. No.’
‘You must have forgotten something.’
‘I haven’t. As far as I can see, she’s wearing nothing.’
‘So she’s naked.’
‘I don’t know,’ I wailed. ‘All I know is that all her clothes are here. Jack, she must be suicidal.’
‘Aye, but …’ He was clearly thinking hard. ‘You know, if I was intending to end my life I wouldn’t do it naked.’ He managed a rueful smile. ‘So undignified, don’t you think? Our Muriel has style. If it was her granddaughter then I’d say she might be wearing Henry’s pyjamas but I can’t imagine Muriel doing that, either.’ He tugged his phone from his belt. ‘I’ll check with Jed.’
‘He won’t answer,’ Janet told him but he was already punching in numbers.
‘I have a deal with Jed. I often need him as backup patient transport. I treat his piles for free and in return he always answers if I ring. I let the phone ring once before hanging up. I do it twice. The third time, he picks up.’ He hesitated, listening. Then … ‘Hi, Jed. How’s the game going? No. No, a fast one, Jed. You picked up Muriel Kelly from the hospital tonight, right? Where did you take her?’
He listened.
‘Great. No, that’s all. Go back to the game. Better luck next half.’
He clicked his phone shut. ‘He dropped Muriel here an hour ago. He helped her inside and she said she was going straight to bed.’
‘Maybe she’s gone to the churchyard to visit Henry’s grave?’
I suggested, but Jack vetoed it.
‘What, hiked there? The buggy’s still in the shed. If she’d wanted to go to the cemetery, she would have asked Jed to take her.’
‘Jed might have refused.’ Janet was growing more distressed. ‘He shouldn’t have brought her home. In her nightgown. At this hour!’
‘Jed’s not very bright,’ Jack said. We’d headed back outside and were now standing in the garden, staring around at the darkened undergrowth.
‘If she’s lying somewhere …’ It was Janet who hiccupped on a sob and I hugged her. I was getting better at the hugging thing.
‘Janet, don’t.’
‘It’s my fault.’
‘No. What Muriel wants she gets.’
‘She must be within walking distance.’ Jack was staring around in frustration. ‘She must be here. Unless …’
‘Unless?’ I turned in the direction he was staring. ‘Oh.’
‘What?’ Janet sniffed and stared. ‘What?’
It was so horribly obvious.
‘There’s a surfboard missing.’
I’d used the boards at the end of the row when I’d tried to surf. They’d been in the same position for so long that I could see where I’d moved them. I’d put them back in slightly different places, crushing the weeds.
There was a gaping hole in the middle of the row. The board that had once been Muriel’s was missing.
‘She couldn’t have,’ I said at last. ‘I mean … why would she?’
‘She used to surf.’ Jack was looking more thoughtful than stunned. ‘Henry said Muriel was a fantastic surfer. Her board is a beauty— one of the first of the smaller Malibus, a real collector’s item. Henry kept it polished so it looked like new.’ He swung his flashlight along the row. ‘It’s definitely not here. It’s always been here.’
‘Why would she take her surfboard?’ I turned to stare out over the moonlit water. ‘There’s hardly any surf. It’s so quiet. And she can’t surf with that leg. You’re saying she might have taken it out to float?’
His face tightened. ‘Maybe. But … I think we need to face this. Maybe it’s an alternative to sleeping pills.’
I got it then. Oh God.
I took off into the house at a run. I stared into the dresser where I’d packed away her bathing suit.
A minute later I was out in the garden again, trying not to cry.
‘Her bathing suit’s gone. I didn’t check it with the rest of her clothes but I remember unpacking it and wondering why she’d brought it. I didn’t even know she swam—but it’s not here.’
‘What we need,’ Jack said, ‘is a boat.’ He was suddenly firm, sure of the next step. Thank heaven, because I wasn’t. ‘The fishing boats are too slow. Fraser’s just put a new engine in his and he swears it’s so powerful he could pull the Queen Mary. Janet, ring him, tell him we have someone drifting on the bay. Tell him to grab blankets, fill hot water bottles and have his boat ready. We’ll meet him at the harbour in five minutes. Then ring Maggie on the hospital switch and tell her to send as many of the fishing fleet after us as she can. Jenny, come with me. Janet, after you’ve called Fraser, head to the beach in case she comes back to shore. Ring Deirdre and tell her to organise people to keep you company. Meanwhile take Drifter with you. She’s company in the dark. Let’s move.’
Nautilus Harbour was a working port, with berths for twenty boats, but it wasn’t busy tonight. In the shimmering moonlight it looked lovely, with boats swinging sleepily on their moorings and a couple of pelicans snoozing on the bollards.
But tonight I wasn’t even looking. Every thought was on the bay. On Muriel.
We’d moved with speed, but Fraser was already waiting. I was jolted out of terror enough to recognise the elderly man I’d last seen acting as a hospital orderly. Until now, Fraser had been wearing hospital whites. Now he was dressed in serviceable overalls, a tattered guernsey, huge boots and a wool cap that almost obscured his eyes.
People didn’t stay in their roles on Nautilus, I thought, stunned. The hospital orderly had transformed into a fisherman, just like that.
Fraser was already on the deck of the Mary-Elizabeth, a rust-red, solidly built tub of a fishing boat that looked as if it had given scores of years’ service. As Jack and I ran along the wharf, Fraser gunned the motor to life.
‘Fraser’s the best,’ Jack said as we reached the boat. ‘He knows the currents around the island better than anyone, and his boat has the horses to go anywhere. If anyone can find her, Fraser can.’
‘Who are we looking for?’ Fraser demanded, hauling ropes from the bollards.
‘Muriel Kelly. We think she’s out on her surfboard.’
The old fisherman’s eyes narrowed. He said just one word, and that was unrepeatable.
There was barely time for us to jump on board before the boat left its moorings.
We weren’t alone for long. Jack’s call for help was spreading over the island and other boats followed. But Fraser’s boat was first. He swung out from the harbour, then nosed the Mary-Elizabeth along the coast to the bay below Henry’s farm. Then he set the boat to run in parallel lines, methodically searching.
That was where madness started. Straining eyes searching the darkness.
Back and forth. Over and over.
Nothing
.
‘You know my grandmother?’ I asked Fraser. I needed to distract myself from terror and there was something about the way he’d sworn that suggested a history. Perhaps even a strong history.
‘Surely I do.’ We were moving fast, but there was nothing to do but scan the surface, desperately seeking a surfboard or a swimmer or both. The water was blessedly moonlit and still.
‘How do you remember her?’
‘From years back. More than fifty years ago. It was more than a wee shock when Muriel arrived at the hospital.’ He was puffing on an empty pipe as he hauled the wheel around again, so the boat was pointing in the direction it had come. ‘It brought it all back to me,’ he continued. ‘She was a flighty piece who came over with Henry after the ’Nam War. We all decided the marriage wouldn’t last and we were right.’
He spat over the side, fiddled with his pipe and adjusted the steering a notch. He scanned the sea again, his old eyes creased as if it gave him more focus.
Still nothing.
‘My Edie used to say she was no better than she ought to be,’ he said at last. ‘But me and the boys … Well, we thought different. She was a real lady. Hell, she brought a smile to your eyes the way she prettied herself up. To think of her back here after all these years … She didn’t recognise me, of course, and why should she? I thought maybe I’d visit her in the hospital and then I thought maybe she wouldn’t like it. But now this …’
He sank into reflective silence and we went on searching.
Fraser hadn’t asked what Muriel was doing on a surfboard at this time of night. It wasn’t his business, his attitude said, but I was sure he guessed what we feared, and he was searching as hard as we were.
‘Be a bloody waste if anything happened to our Muriel,’ he said after the tenth parallel run and there was real regret in his voice. More boats were joining us all the time—a flotilla working systematically along the coastline. Nautilus Island might not care for Muriel too much, but it cared enough.
‘Our Muriel?’
‘She married Henry. That’s why these boats are out now.’ He pointed his pipe at the flotilla. ‘She belongs. It was Henry who was the problem. It was the O’Connor in him. Had to be. Idiot couldn’t see.’
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