Thornwood House

by Anna Romer

  ‘Oh yes, but don’t ever dream of telling him that. The last person who attempted to convince him to speak ended up with a broken nose.’

  I considered the shadowy figure on the lawn with fresh eyes. ‘I’ll remember not to press him . . . Holy crap, it wasn’t you, was it?’

  ‘Lord, no! A teacher at school. The guy meant well, but Danny just lost his straw. He was about fifteen at the time – it was the year after Tony left and Danny wasn’t coping. He insisted on attending the regular school, even though in those days Magpie Creek High wasn’t suitably set up for deaf students. He’d been cautioned, told to return to the special school in Brisbane. They sent letters home, even threatened legal action – all to no avail. In the end one of Danny’s teachers tried to reason with him, and offered to help him apply for a grant to get a hearing aid and learn speech . . . but Danny, in typical form, gave in to his primordial instincts and punched the poor guy in the face.’

  ‘A bit extreme,’ I observed.

  Corey sighed. ‘To him being deaf is nothing more than having green eyes when everyone else has blue. He refuses to acknowledge his limitations which, sadly, I must say, is not always to his advantage.’

  ‘You have to admire him for standing on his convictions, though.’

  ‘Hmmm . . .’ she said doubtfully. ‘But I expect when poor old Ross O’Malley was waiting at the surgery to have his nose re-set, he wasn’t applauding my brother’s commitment to his convictions. He probably wanted nothing more than to wring the little bastard’s neck.’

  I looked at Corey. ‘Ross O’Malley? He teaches at the primary school now, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah, I expect you’ve met him?’

  ‘Not yet. He was away when Bronwyn started school. I’ve got an appointment for a catch-up on Monday.’

  Corey snorted. ‘Lucky you, something droll to look forward to. I must say, though, I’ve got fond memories of Ross. Twenty-odd years ago he taught me and Glenda at Magpie Creek High. Tony too.’

  Glenda’s Ross, I realised. ‘What’s he like?’

  Corey jangled her car keys from her back pocket. ‘Oh, a bit of an oddball, but nice enough. Somewhat haunted, I suppose.’

  ‘Haunted?’

  She studied her keys, weighed them in her hand, then looked at me. ‘Not long after Glenda died, Ross left the school. We thought he’d had a transfer, but then a year later he was back. I couldn’t help wondering if Glenda’s death affected him more than he let on. She’d had a crush on him for ages. I was horribly jealous, I hated anyone who took Glenda’s focus away from me. But after Ross came back the following year he was changed. Less confident, almost nervy. As though he’d aged into an old man. Later I heard that the night Glenda died, Ross’s wife had a miscarriage and soon after that, his marriage ended. No wonder the poor guy had seemed so defeated.’

  ‘You think something happened between him and Glenda?’

  Corey let her gaze drift away, giving her attention to the dark valley. ‘I don’t know. Glenda and I had a sort of falling out, we didn’t speak much in the months before her death. It’s my greatest regret,’ she added in an quiet voice. Then she shook herself and gave a husky laugh. ‘I can’t imagine that anything happened between them. Ross was her first real love – sadly, her only one. He used to be considered quite a dish, way back in the day, although to see him now you’d never believe – ’

  Whatever she’d been about to say was cut off mid-breath by the abrupt honking of a car horn. Down on the dark verge, the Toyota’s headlights flashed. Then it rolled away along the service road, soon engulfed by the black trees. An instant later Bronwyn pounded up the stairs, her cheeks glowing crimson against the pallor of her face.

  ‘Mum, Jade’s going to the school camp next Friday, too. I can’t wait!’

  ‘Goodnight!’ Corey bellowed from halfway along the path. ‘See you midweek, if not sooner.’

  Before I could reply to either of them, Bronwyn had escaped past me into the house, and Corey was clambering into her Merc, honking the horn as her brother had done, then roaring away along the access road.

  I watched her headlights press through the morass of shadows, visible one moment, swallowed the next by the impenetrable black moat of bushland that enclosed Thornwood and safeguarded it from the outside world. I stood in the silence, letting the echoes of the evening float back: the conversations, the warmth, the outbreaks of hilarity. Even the sombre tone it had ended on.

  After the chaos of my nomadic life with Aunt Morag, I’d come to crave stability. And yet I’d always been drawn to people who were edgy and unpredictable. Artists, musicians, poets. Outsiders who were shadowed by a darkness that was indefinable . . . yet strangely alluring.

  Like Tony. Except that he’d been the best of both worlds – or so I’d first thought. Level-headed and practical. An inspiring companion, a considerate lover. Organised and ambitious, in control of his world. And yet the moment I scratched the surface a very different sort of man emerged: prickly and secretive, plagued by nightmares and long bouts of silence. In the end the chasm between us had proved too vast.

  After he left, I consoled myself that inexperience had caused me to overlook the obvious: Tony was an artist, and by his very nature he was unpredictable. I’d made an error of judgement . . . next time I’d be more careful.

  Only there hadn’t been a next time. I’d been alone for five years, without so much as a glimmer of interest from the male species. In that time, I’d formulated and honed a vision of my ideal man: A quiet accountant-type without the merest hint of artistic ability. Trustworthy, reliable . . . perhaps even a tiny bit boring. For surely that was better than a man who promised to be there forever, and then ran off and married someone else?

  I recalled the image of Danny Weingarten’s face in the lantern light. His handsome features burnished gold, his gorgeous green eyes, his lingering smile. I remembered the spellbound way he’d watched his sister relate a tale from their childhood; and then the way he’d studied me as though trying to fathom what went on under my skin. I recalled the question mark that had given me tingles in the rose arbour, and the tug of desire that had woven its forbidden magic around my heart.

  I sighed and turned away, eager to be back inside.

  It had taken me a long time to find myself after Tony walked out.

  However tempting it might be to stray from the path in search of chaos and excitement, I had no intention of ever getting lost again.

  15

  After they’d gone, I did a quick clean-up. Nick Cave crooned in the background, his beautiful Nocturama lulling me into a reflective mood. I did the dishes and then, still basking in the afterglow of the evening, filled a saucepan with water and set it on the stove to boil.

  Soon, wafts of steam were dampening the air. The final leaves of Glenda’s diary took longer to peel apart than the earlier ones. Starting at the back cover, I worked my way to the centre of the book. I was disappointed to find that most of the remaining pages were blank. Most . . . but not all. With luck, there’d be an entry that related the outcome of Cleve’s violent attack on Hobe Miller.

  As I crept along the hall past Bronwyn’s room, I paused to listen. All was silent. I knew she wasn’t sleeping, she’d still be too manic. I heard the rattle of a page and guessed she was immersed in a book.

  On silent cat-feet I hurried down the hall to my bedroom, eager to catch up on a little reading of my own.

  Saturday, 11 October 1986

  One week since Dad’s attack on Mr Miller. Dad’s been charged with assault. His court hearing comes up in three weeks. He keeps reassuring us he’ll just get a fine . . . but I can’t see how you can attack and hurt someone with a knife, and not go to jail. I’m scared. Scared for Dad . . . and, I’m ashamed to say, a bit scared OF him now. He’s changed since that day. Become distant, somehow. I think maybe he’s scared too.

  Nearly five weeks since my fight with Corey. She’s still not talking to me. What started as a stupid misunderstanding
has now ballooned into an awkward mess, each of us too proud to admit we were both wrong. I suppose the kiss wasn’t all that bad. If I’d known I was going to lose her over it I’d have bloody well kissed her back.

  It’s her birthday next Sunday. I’ve gotten her a book, one we both loved as little kids, The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay. Daggy, I know, and I probably won’t get the chance to give it to her . . . but I so wanted to see her face light up and hear her laugh again, and I miss that silly snort she does that always cracks me up. I wrapped up the book and wrote a card, but I guess now it’ll just languish away in my bottom drawer forever. Sigh.

  Sunday, 12 October 1986

  This morning I went to Grandfather’s, dunno why, just moped along the trail in that direction, mulling things over, trying not to cry as I worried about Dad and what he’d done to Mr Miller.

  The wildflowers are beginning to bloom. Tony’ll be up there soon, sketching and painting – though he hasn’t done much artwork since Dad took us to the Millers’. He escapes from the house more often than usual, but I know it isn’t to draw or paint. He was friendly with the Millers, and I don’t reckon he’ll ever forgive Dad for what he did.

  It was a scorcher of a day so I stopped at the gully for a drink of creek water. By the time I got to the hollow tree at the edge of Grandfather’s garden, the sun was blazing and I started wishing I’d stayed at home. I had a headache from crying, and it depressed me to see Grandfather’s garden so neglected and overgrown.

  I was pondering whether or not to turn back, when I saw someone up ahead.

  A man. He was carrying something in his hand. A fold of paper, it looked like. Too late I recognised him. My stomach dropped, there was no time to escape into the bushes and hide. I froze in my tracks. He’d seen me.

  ‘Glenda – ?’ Mr Miller’s voice was ragged as a crow’s. ‘I’m sorry, lass . . . so terribly sorry. My brother told me you and Tony saw what happened – ’

  He was babbling like an insane person, but that wasn’t what scared me. His head was bandaged, the strip of gauze twisted skew-whiff over his eye. The dressing was stained with dry blood, pink in patches, sunken over his socket. His face was pale and shiny with sweat, his whiskers stark white, his hands trembling. He looked wasted, barely human, more like a zombie than a man.

  ‘Give this to your mother, will you – ?’ He flapped his bit of paper, urging me to take it. ‘Just a note to let her know I’m all right. Will you give it to her, lass?’

  I cringed away. He didn’t look all right. His voice trembled even worse than his hands, and he smelled of Dettol and fire-smoke, maybe a bit sweaty. He was acting all doddery and frail, no doubt on account of his injury.

  The injury inflicted by my father.

  I took a shuffling half-step back, and when I realised he wasn’t going to follow me, I turned tail and ran. All the way home, gasping for air as though my lungs had shrunk to the size of peanuts. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t let myself think. It was only when I reached the safety of the paddock next to our house that I allowed a couple of hot tears to splash over my lashes and down my cheeks.

  I stumbled inside. Luckily no one was home – Dad gone fishing, Mum rostered at the hospital, Tony . . . God knows where. I chucked my clothes in the hamper even though they weren’t dirty, and got in my pyjamas, crawled into bed and pulled up the covers. The heat was wretched, but I didn’t care. Better to sweat it out in bed, burn my tears into the pillow, pretend I’d come down with something contagious – anything was better than letting myself think.

  I kept seeing him, though – his pasty white face, his shaky hands. His hair standing on end like the hair of a crazy person. One eye blue as a shard of sky, the other hidden behind a pink-stained bandage.

  Burying my head under the pillow, I shut my eyes. Something was very wrong. Mr Miller had always been kind to me and Tony, back in the early days when we used to take the chutney. What had he done to make Dad hate him? Why had he been so upset about us seeing the attack . . . and why had he written a note to Mum to say he was all right?

  The note.

  I sat up. Looked around for a hanky, then wiped my nose on my sleeve. Thinking back to the day of the attack, I remembered how Dad had been yelling at Mum, waving around a sheet of paper. Then out in the yard he’d shown the paper to Tony: ‘Did you deliver this for your mother?’

  In all the fuss, I’d forgotten – but the memory crashed back to me now. Mum had given an envelope to Tony the day I’d been spying on him from the verandah. An envelope and – I’m pretty sure – she’d given him some money too. Inside the envelope was a letter . . . a letter which had somehow found its way to Dad.

  A strong gut feeling came over me. If I could find that letter, the one that’d made Dad so upset, then I knew it’d explain why Dad had gone ape-shit and attacked Mr Miller.

  Of course, Dad might have burnt the letter, or thrown it away – but I didn’t think so. He’s a hoarder, a real squirrel when it comes to mementoes or keepsakes, his little bits of evidence from the past. He’s got boxes and jars and tins of things stashed all around the shed: rusty bolts, broken bits of machinery he was still getting around to fixing, old bike wheels, a collection of ancient Coke bottles. Mouldy stamp albums that had belonged to Grandpa Klaus, packets of seed, coins and paper notes from before the war.

  If Dad had hidden that letter, then I had a pretty good idea where it might be.

  ‘Mum – ?’

  I jerked upright. The diary toppled from my lap and thumped onto the floorboards. Bronwyn was peering through the crack in my bedroom door, pyjama-clad and rumpled, sleepy-eyed. Her eyes sharpened, however, as they focused on what I’d dropped.

  She gave me a questioning look, then said, ‘It’s late. I saw your light on, I wondered what you were doing.’

  ‘Just revising my sign language lessons.’ Retrieving Glenda’s diary from the floor, I tossed it onto the bed among the jumble of Auslan manuals. ‘Off to bed now, are you?’

  She scowled, her gaze darting past me to the pile. ‘I thought you said it was boring?’

  ‘What? Oh, you mean this?’ I laid my hand on the diary’s buckled cover, ashamed when the first thought that came to mind was another lie. I shrugged it off, groping at least for a fragment of truth. ‘I guess I got hooked, after all.’

  ‘Did you manage to find out who it belonged to?’

  Dragging in a breath, I looked my daughter in the eyes and said, ‘Still working on that one.’ Yawning, I tucked my legs back under the covers, settled the sheet around me, and relegated the pile of books to the bedside. ‘Well, goodnight then,’ I hinted. Reaching for the lamp, I flicked it off and plunged the room into darkness.

  The moment the door clicked shut, I swung out of bed again and waited, my ears pricked. Faint footsteps padded down the hallway, and I heard Bronwyn’s door rattle. I counted to twenty. Then, grabbing the diary from the bedside, I found my way across the dark room, slipped silently out the door, down the hall, and into the secluded privacy of my studio.

  4 p.m. Friday, 17 October 1986

  God, oh God, I wish I’d never looked.

  At lunchtime, I told Mr Abbott I felt sick with period pain and he let me go home. I knew there’d be no one here. Dad’s in Brisbane for work, and Mum’s doing the late shift at the hospital, Tony’s off somewhere. Perfect, I thought. Grabbing Dad’s spare key from the windowsill, I let myself into the shed. It didn’t take me long to find the letter. It was in a big old tin, all crumpled up and torn to bits . . . but I didn’t even bother reading it.

  Not after I’d seen the bundle.

  It was a fat wad of envelopes with old-fashioned stamps, tied with ribbon. I took them back to my room and spent a couple of hours reading and re-reading them. And now I don’t know what to do.

  I have to talk to someone. Corey, maybe. We’re supposed to be fighting, but I need her right now. This is bigger than a stupid fight between friends. Bigger than pride. All I need to do is say I’m sorry and tha
t I love her and I want to be friends with her again. She’ll understand, she’s good like that. I’ll ring her now . . . Just as soon as my heart stops crashing about and I can gather my wits to speak.

  Then again, maybe I should tell someone higher up the chain, like a teacher. Maybe Ross? Yeah, Ross’ll know what do to. Afterwards I’ll go to Corey’s and see if I can stay with her for a while. Even just the weekend. I can’t face anyone here, not now.

  At least, not Dad. And especially not Mum.

  God. God. I wish I’d never looked.

  6 p.m. Friday, 17 October 1986

  I was shaking like a leaf when I rang Ross. I told him it was urgent, and he said he’d come and pick me up. There was thunder in the distance, and the first few sprinkles of rain on the roof. All I wanted to do was climb into Ross’s big warm station wagon and try to feel safe again. But just before we said goodbye, I heard a car pull into the drive.

  Since Mum was doing the late shift and wouldn’t be home ’til after eleven, I knew it must be Dad. He’d freak if Ross showed up here, and I knew he’d never let me get into the car with him, regardless of Ross being my teacher. Besides, the last person I wanted to see right now was Dad. So I told Ross I’d meet him at Grandfather’s house, where we could talk in private. Ross said he could be there in an hour and a half, which seemed like an eternity away, but then he insisted he’d drive me to Corey’s afterwards, which made me feel better.

  So I packed my bag, luckily remembering Corey’s present at the last minute, and left a note on my pillow for Mum, saying I’d ring her once I got to the Weingartens’. Then I climbed out my bedroom window and raced up the hill towards Grandfather’s.

  Right now I’m huddled inside the hollow tree. The rain set in twenty minutes after I left home, dammit. A sprinkle at first, but by the time I got to the edge of Grandfather’s garden it was bucketing down and I had to take shelter inside the burnt-out beech. I’m drenched, and the tree reeks – ancient charcoal and possum poo – but it’s better than drowning in the deluge outside . . . or worse, sliding arse-over-turkey down the muddy slope.