Thornwood House

by Anna Romer

  ‘It kept you up all night.’

  ‘Not all night. Apparently I was dead to the world when you found me.’

  She considered me through narrowed eyes. ‘Mum, you fell asleep on your arms at the kitchen table, with all the lights blazing. How can you say it was a boring read?’

  I drained the rest of the coffee so I wouldn’t have to answer. It scalded my throat on the way down, but it did the trick. My heart began to pump again and my brain cleared.

  ‘It’s Saturday,’ I remembered, leaping to my feet and tossing the diary up on a shelf with a pile of recipe books. ‘The barbecue’s today. What time did I tell Corey? Four? What time is it now? We’d better get a wriggle on, I still have to buy sausages – ’

  ‘Relax, Mum. It’s not even eight o’clock. In the morning,’ she added, scowling.

  I slumped back on the chair, relieved. There still remained the better part of the day to prepare. Shop, make salad, chill beer. Shower and freshen up. Pump my body with caffeine and create a façade of normality by the time everyone arrived –

  Bronwyn was still hovering. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

  It was then I noticed what she was wearing. The new pink polka dot dress she’d bought with her Christmas money. Her good white sandals. She’d done her hair differently, too. Pigtails with white ribbons, very girly, she hadn’t worn it like that for ages. Despite her height, she seemed younger than her eleven years.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

  She rolled her eyes. ‘You promised we’d visit my grandmother today.’

  A familiar emotion rolled over me. Guilt. I’d forgotten. But with Bronwyn’s reminder, I felt a ripple of eagerness. Luella was a direct link to Samuel and Aylish. After what Corey had told me, I suspected Luella would be too fragile to cope with being questioned about them, but there might be other more subtle clues at her house – photographs, or mementoes; conversation threads that might unravel a little more of Samuel’s story. I knew it was early days to be planning intimate heart-to-hearts with a woman I’d not yet met, but I couldn’t stop myself hoping.

  ‘There’s no guarantee she’ll open her door,’ I warned, as much for my own sake as for Bronwyn’s. ‘Remember what I told you about her being a hermit.’

  Bronwyn flipped a pigtail over her shoulder as though its presence irked her. ‘There are worse things than hermits, Mum.’

  ‘She might not like getting intruded upon.’

  Bronwyn sighed. ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Mum. That’s what Dad used to say and I agree with him.’

  Before I could muster an argument, she’d escaped out the door. I listened to her thump along the verandah and down the stairs into the garden. When the twitter of birds and the rasp of windblown foliage were all I could hear, I went to the window and peered out.

  The sky had turned from eggshell to aquamarine. Cabbage moths flounced in the air, weightless as paper scraps. I guessed that Bronwyn had escaped to her jacaranda bench, no doubt to tally the minutes until we made our trek to William Road.

  Her carryall was propped near the kitchen door in readiness for our departure. I couldn’t resist a peek. Inside was the box of Cadbury Roses we’d bought, albums of photos, mostly Bronwyn and her father, and a handmade glitter-encrusted card. ‘For My Grandmother’ she’d written in fancy letters. The card stirred an odd mix of feelings. Envy, because it had been a very long time since she’d bothered to make a card for me. Protectiveness, because there was a strong likelihood that her quest to meet Luella could end in disappointment. Jealousy, because I feared that my daughter might need someone other than me to fill the void her father’s death had left behind. And a giddy, illogical sort of fear that I might lose her.

  Crazy, I reasoned.

  Still, it couldn’t hurt to take an active stand against this newest threat. Grabbing a pair of secateurs from the utility drawer, I headed outside.

  The flowerbeds were overflowing – the bobbing heads of roses and gladioli, sunflowers and daisies and gerberas created a brilliantly hued concerto in the harsh light. Bees hovered, and butterflies sailed from leaf to leaf looking for a tender spot to mark out their eggs.

  I walked uphill towards the sea of nodding flower heads, planning which combination would have the most impact. A big bunch, I decided, showy and brazen and bursting with colour and scent. Wobbling roses, perky gerberas, maybe a few sprigs of timeless lavender; a shrewd and ingenious combination of cottage garden with reliable old-world charm.

  I might not be able to fill any voids, but I had a pretty good idea about how to impress a prospective grandmother. If you can’t beat ’em, Aunt Morag had been fond of saying, then you might as well go down with all guns blazing.

  We stood at the door for an eternity. Both of us wide-eyed, nervous. Bronwyn hugged the massive bunch of flowers to her chest, her carryall with its bulging cargo of chocolates and photo albums slung over her shoulder.

  The verandah was cool and shady, dark beneath its canopy of white wisteria and climbing roses. The outlook was pleasant – bushland and distant hills, the pretty garden – but I had the jitters. Someone was watching us. I didn’t know how I knew, only that I had the feeling of eyes peering through the shuttered windows, eyes that were as curious as our own.

  ‘Come on,’ I told Bronwyn. ‘We’ve been here five minutes, I don’t think she’s going to answer. We might as well head home, come back another time.’

  Bronwyn put on her most pleading face. ‘What if she was out the back and didn’t hear the first few times we rang? Please Mum, just a bit longer?’

  Before I could answer, she reached out and pressed the doorbell. Muffled electronic chimes burbled deep inside the house. I waited to hear footsteps, waited to hear the creak of floorboards, the rattle of the door being opened.

  There was only more silence.

  ‘We can’t stand here all day,’ I insisted. ‘We have to prepare for tonight – the salmon isn’t going to marinate itself, you know. Besides, there’s a fete over at the Lutheran church. Why don’t we pop in on the way home, Jade might be there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come on, Bron, your grandmother’ll still be here next week. We can come back then, have another try.’

  Ignoring me, she shot out her hand and rapped on the flywire door.

  ‘Gran! Gran, it’s me, Bronwyn!’ she cried shrilly. ‘Gran, please come out, I’ve brought you something.’

  ‘Bronny, I don’t think it’s a good idea to . . .’

  Bronwyn kept knocking. The flywire door shuddered and clanged, making a horrible racket.

  ‘Gran, please come out. It’s Bronwyn, your granddaughter. I’ve come all the way from Melbourne to see you!’

  I sighed. ‘Bron, you’re making a fuss. Even if Luella is inside, she won’t want to open up now. What must she be thinking?’

  Bronwyn’s eyes filled. ‘I don’t care what she thinks. I just want to see her, talk to her. You don’t know what it’s like, Mum. I really want to meet her.’

  ‘Then you’re going about it the wrong way. Carrying on like this is only making things worse – ’

  There was a soft click.

  We froze. A mouse-like scuffle came from behind the door, and then the snicking sound of a deadlock tumbling in its chamber. Behind the flywire screen, the front door rattled.

  And swung open.

  In the dim half-light of the entryway stood a woman. She was tall and stout; her pudgy face was blank with shock. She shuffled forward, peering through the flywire, blinking her small grey-green eyes. She wore a fifties-style floral dress, and her grey-streaked brown hair was teased into a bouffant bun, dressed with a velvet ribbon – white, like the ones in Bronwyn’s hair. Her makeup was perfect, as deftly applied as a movie star’s.

  For what seemed like a full minute she didn’t speak, just stared through the flywire at Bronwyn as if looking at a ghost. When she spoke, her voice was high and soft, husky.

  ‘Glenda? Dear God, my Glenda . . . i
s it you?’

  ‘Mrs Jarman?’ I said quickly. ‘Luella, forgive us for dropping in unannounced. I’m Audrey Kepler, and this is my daughter, Bronwyn. She’s Tony’s daughter – ’

  The woman looked at me, but only for a second. Her eyes turned back to Bronwyn, large with disbelief. Bronwyn beamed back, her eyes aglow.

  ‘Gran? We’ve brought you flowers. I hope you like them.’

  A puff of breath escaped the woman’s lips.

  ‘Bronwyn?’ She wagged her head from side to side, as if unable to grasp what she was seeing.

  Bronwyn held out the flowers. ‘For you, Gran.’

  The flywire door squealed open, and Luella Jarman blinked in the dappled light. As she gazed at Bronwyn her eyes welled. Twin tears spilled over the rims, splashing down her plump cheeks, painting lines in the powdery make up.

  ‘My dear girl,’ she whispered huskily. ‘My dear, dear girl.’

  Then she grasped Bronwyn’s hand and drew her close, careless of the flowers as she enfolded Bronwyn in her vast fleshy arms.

  We followed Luella into a dim hallway, deliciously cool after the heat outside. Through wide arched doorways I glimpsed a formal sitting room. The walls were high and white, punctuated by black-framed pictures. Heavy drapes muted the light filtering through tall windows. Polished floorboards gleamed like spilled ink, and there were bulky lounge chairs and cabinets displaying figurine collections and silver trophies. Bookshelves groaned under the weight of countless books.

  I caught a whiff of Pine O Cleen from further along the hall, but that was soon eclipsed by other aromas: rose perfume wafting from the bunch of rumpled flowers Bronwyn carried, a faint musty animal smell. A dog, maybe. Furniture polish. Hairspray. Freshly baked cake.

  We emerged into a sunny buttercup-yellow kitchen with double doors that opened onto a wide verandah. The benchtops were the same dark wood as the floor, brightened by a colourful retro cannister set. A groovy sixties sunray clock ticked on the wall above a breakfast nook; below it sat a pine table and four chairs.

  Glenda’s diary was still fresh in my mind, and I couldn’t help picturing her and Tony breakfasting at that table. They would have measured their mornings and afternoons by that clock, eaten and laughed and bickered under this roof, perhaps eaten cereal from those gaily coloured canisters. They’d been a long time gone from this house, yet I imagined I could feel their lingering presence, as though the air had never quite managed to fold itself around their absence. It was a sad feeling, an emptiness within an emptiness, a dislocated sense of being where I had no right to be, knowing what I had no business knowing.

  ‘Such a surprise,’ Luella was saying, apparently mesmerised by Bronwyn. ‘Such a wonderful, wonderful surprise. I can’t believe I have a granddaughter, a beautiful little granddaughter . . . I must be the luckiest woman in the world.’

  Pleasure shone from Bronwyn’s eyes as she watched Luella bustle about the kitchen.

  ‘I brought photos to show you, Gran. Most are of me and Dad, but there are some of Mum, too.’

  ‘Truly? I can’t wait to see them.’ Luella still seemed dazed, but she managed a shy smile for Bronwyn. ‘If your mother has time, I might even be persuaded to bring out my own snaps – your father as a little boy . . . and our dear Glenda. You resemble her, you know.’

  Bronwyn nodded. ‘I’ve seen her photo. We could be sisters, couldn’t we?’

  A brittle intake of breath, then almost inaudibly, ‘You could indeed.’

  While the kettle boiled, Luella selected three floral teacups from a glass-fronted cabinet and stacked them on a tray. Her chubby fingers worked swiftly, gathering the implements of morning tea: sugar spoons, delicate plates painted with cornflowers, crisp linen napkins, a jug of fresh milk, lovely old silver cake forks. She removed a jam sponge from the fridge, then filled the teapot with scalding water. The only thing out of place was the quavering in her hands. Nerves, I surmised, and who could blame her? Twenty years without company, shut up in her house with little outside contact; I was amazed that her one display of strain was a slight tremor.

  ‘Dad was a famous painter,’ Bronwyn chatted on, ‘really clever – he won all these awards and travelled overseas, had lots of exhibitions to show off his work . . . Oh, but you probably already know that, don’t you, Gran?’

  Luella chuckled. It was a pretty laugh, throaty and warbling. ‘Why yes,’ she told Bronwyn with a hint of the conspirator, ‘in fact I followed my son’s career in the newspapers. He did well for himself, didn’t he?’

  ‘Everyone loved his pictures,’ Bronwyn agreed, ‘they bought heaps of his work and he became very rich. He painted landscapes; his early ones were small, the size of postcards . . . but Mum says as he got more confidence his paintings became bigger and bigger. Abstracts, he called them, but if you looked hard you could still see the trees and rivers, that sort of thing. Do you have any of Dad’s paintings?’

  She stopped talking long enough to peer around at the walls, which made Luella laugh again.

  ‘Oh yes, darling. I’ve got some lovely watercolours of flowers and birds, even a view of this house from the top of the hill. They’re in the lounge room, and there’s a couple in the hall. Why don’t you wander through and have a look? Then come out to the verandah and we’ll cut the cake.’

  Bronwyn scampered off.

  ‘Can I help you with that?’ I offered, as Luella hoisted the tray.

  ‘No thanks, dear, it’s lighter than it looks. Although you might bring the silverware? And grab that packet of Iced Vo-Vos, there’s a love.’

  In the twenty minutes I’d spent in Luella’s company, I had been pleasantly surprised. I’d been expecting her to be mousey and drab, fearful of her own shadow, perhaps even somewhat deranged . . . but Luella Jarman was none of those things. She spoke in a formal manner, yet her voice radiated warmth. She was a large woman but she moved gracefully, as though each gesture, each step she took, had been rehearsed.

  There was another reason her friendly nature boded well. If she was this easy to get along with on our first meeting, then she might be open to discussing her parents after all. Perhaps not today . . . but sometime soon.

  Collecting the forks and biscuits, I followed her through the double doors – which, I noticed, were fitted with deadlocks – out to a wide shady verandah.

  ‘It’s a perfect morning, isn’t it?’ Luella piped, unloading her tray onto a large cedar table. ‘So clear and tranquil, except for those kookaburras cackling fifty to the dozen. You’d think they’d just heard the joke of the century.’

  ‘And look at that view,’ I agreed, ‘it’s breathtaking.’

  Beyond the yard stretched a vista of grey-blue bushland, dotted with Bangalow palms that swayed in the warm air. Purple volcanic hills languished on the horizon.

  The yard itself hadn’t changed much since the photo of Tony under the bunya pine. There was the wonky paling fence, the shaggy lawn overrun with daisies, the clothesline where Glenda and Luella had been taken by surprise. Everywhere were red and yellow nasturtiums – cascading under fruit trees, pushing up through garden seats, or spilling from a variety of planters including an old clawfoot bathtub. Framing the view was the magnificent bunya, stretching its arms as if to embrace the four corners of the sky. The soil around its base was carpeted with brown needles and clumpy pinecones; tucked behind the tree at the end of a meandering path was a tall glass-panelled hothouse –

  A sharp bark made me whirl around.

  At my heels stood a stocky bull terrier, its lips drawn to reveal rows of yellow teeth. I took a startled step backwards and the dog growled. It was white with a tan mark on its head like a handprint. Its eyes were dull with age and its coat mangy, but it seemed alert . . . and I didn’t like the look of those teeth.

  ‘Don’t mind Gruffy,’ Luella said, stooping to dance her fingers along the top of the dog’s head. ‘He’s not used to having visitors . . . Now, take a seat, love, and make yourself at home. Do you like sugar in your
tea?’

  She busied herself slicing cake, arranging generous segments on plates, fiddling with dessert forks. Just as the silence was about to reach saturation point, Bronwyn burst onto the verandah. Plonking herself at the table, she took a hungry bite of cake and watched Luella pour her a glass of lemonade. When the cake was demolished and her glass emptied, she dragged her carryall onto her lap and took out the presents she’d brought for her grandmother.

  Luella exclaimed over the chocolates and card, which she positioned next to her teacup, shaking her head all the while in amazed disbelief. She dabbed at her eyes with a large hanky, but the brightness of her smile said her tears were of the joyful variety.

  An hour later Bronwyn and her grandmother were still poring through the last of the albums, examining Bronwyn’s school photos. Luella wanted to know everything: what Bronwyn had loved best about school, what she was good at, what subjects – if any – she struggled with. She even asked the names of Bronwyn’s classmates, and Bronwyn was eager to recite them for her.

  I stifled my hundredth yawn.

  It took all my available willpower to resist the urge to dig in my tote and check my watch. No amount of inconspicuous twisting and craning in my seat had yielded a glimpse through the open doorway to the kitchen clock. I was starting to get jittery. There was shopping to be done, a barbecue to prepare. And I was hoping to find a few moments to steam open the rest of Glenda’s diary.

  Meanwhile, time was ticking away.

  My bladder came to the rescue and I excused myself. The bathroom was old but clean, tiled in white with fluffy towels and fresh cakes of Imperial Leather. The window overlooked the back garden, framing the huge pine tree and revealing a glimpse of distant mountains. Like the windows in the kitchen, this one was fitted with a security grille and deadbolts.

  I washed up at the sink, grimacing at the pallid sleepy-eyed creature staring back at me from the mirror. I made a mental note to add a hot shower and mud-mask to the afternoon’s to-do list, then went back into the hallway.

  This wing of the house had a more lived-in feel than the formal lounge and dining room near the entry. Four closed doors lined the hallway, their brass knobs glinting in the muted sunlight. I paused outside the first room, curious to know what lurked within. Surely a quick peek wouldn’t hurt?