by Anna Romer
‘It’s a photo album.’
Morgan reached into the ash, shook the album free, and flipped through what remained of the pages. The photos were mostly burned away. Only the edges closest to the spine had survived. Some still clung to the page by paper hinges, but most had fallen loose and were buckled and charred beyond recognition. Several showed people. An elderly woman against a background of roses, a smiling Aboriginal girl holding a basket of apples, and a man on horseback. Others were no more than empty skies propped by the edges of buildings.
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Go back.’
The photo that caught my eye was little more than a ragged strip. It showed the edge of a weatherboard building, possibly a church, cast deep in shadow. A woman stood in the foreground, bathed in light. Her hair shone as if electrified, and her striking face seemed to glow with an inner fire.
Morgan bent closer. ‘Definitely a relative. Do you recognise her?’
‘No.’
She wore a light-coloured dress belted at the waist, with puffed sleeves and soft bow collar. The style was 1930s, the design demure, but the fabric enfolded her slender curves in a way that must have seemed, at the time, almost sinful. Beside her stood a man, rigid and formal in a suit and hat. His face had been lost in the flames, but his bearing made me think it could be my grandfather. My attention went back to the woman. The back of my neck tingled. I knew her. At least, that’s how it felt. My sense of recognition was so strong, that I wondered if the photo had a duplicate in Dad’s meagre collection. But the more I studied it, the more certain I became. I had never seen this woman before, but still . . . I knew her.
‘Are you sure she’s not your grandmother?’ Morgan wanted to know.
‘Grandma Dulcie was dark-haired,’ I said absently, unable to tear my gaze from the woman’s face. The more I studied her, the more I saw Morgan was right. She did resemble me. Not the me I saw in the mirror every day, but another version. A brighter, more captivating version who gazed, with evident displeasure, from the pages of my grandfather’s past.
‘She looks unhappy.’
‘Almost haunted,’ Morgan agreed.
‘I wonder who she is.’
‘Ron must know.’
I closed the charred album and looked at the spine, rubbed my thumb over the emblem stamped in the leather. ‘This is the album he wanted. What’s left of it.’
I imagined my father sitting in the sunroom at the back of his house. Not writing, not watching television, and perhaps not even talking to Wilma. Just waiting for me to return with the album of memories he’d sent me to find.
‘Why would Edwin burn them?’ I said softly.
Morgan picked up a charred photograph and shook off the ash. ‘I guess he didn’t want Ron to have them.’
‘It’s such a shame.’
Morgan dropped the photo back into the ashes. ‘I wonder if he destroyed the negatives too. Most people hang onto them. We might have to ransack the place.’
‘Negatives?’ I smiled, remembering what I had found upstairs in the attic the day before. A battered cardboard box, a stack of glass slides. Suddenly I was certain that among them would be more pictures of this woman. Fumbling open the album, I flipped the pages until I found her. The intense eyes, the magnetic gaze, the lovely figure, the elusive way she resembled me but could not have been more different. A strange excited chill washed over me.
‘No need to ransack,’ I told Morgan. ‘Follow me.’
Watery morning sun streamed through the attic window. The light was grey and overcast, doing its best to push through the grime-coated panes. Dust motes whirled in the stuffy air, disturbed by our intrusion.
Opening the wardrobe, I showed Morgan the box of negatives.
‘I didn’t dare take them out, in case I smashed the lot. The box is crumbling away.’
Morgan kneeled in front of the wardrobe and began to slide the box carefully out of its niche. As he placed it on the floor between us, I heard the crackle and pop of breaking glass.
We exchanged glances, mine wincing, Morgan’s apologetic. The top negative was in five pieces. It showed a landscape with a farmhouse in the foreground, barely visible beneath a thick fuzz of dust and mouse dirt. Morgan got to his feet.
‘I’m guessing the damage at the bottom of the box is worse. Those plates lower down will have been under the weight of all the others. Whoever put them here clearly wasn’t fussed about preserving them.’
I brushed a finger gently over the surface of the top negative. ‘They’ll need a good soak to get all this filth off, but I’m guessing we can’t just pop them in the dishwasher, even if Edwin had one.’
Morgan made a sound, too grim to be a laugh. ‘I’ve cleaned up plenty of negatives before, but never ones so poorly retained.’
He scanned the room, and then frowned at an old dining table mostly hidden beneath an enormous mountain of boxes.
‘What are you looking for?’ I asked.
‘We need a flat surface to lay the negatives out on. That way we can see what we have, and pick the ones we want to develop. There’s a darkroom at the uni. That’s where I do all the developing for the historical society. Although I’m reluctant to transport these plates to Melbourne, they’re too fragile. Be good find somewhere local, a hobbyist or professional willing to lend me his darkroom.’ Wandering over to the table, he lifted off one of the boxes and placed it on the floor. ‘Once we sort them, we’ll have to wrap each one separately. Want to give me a hand?’
While we worked, I watched him from the corner of my eye. The lines around his mouth and eyes were a little deeper than they had been five years ago. Most people dreaded getting old, but I was looking forward to it. I liked the way life etched itself into a person’s features, it seemed that age brought the soul closer to the surface. There were times I looked at Morgan and saw a man so beautiful it made my chest ache; other times I couldn’t move past the eyes that were too intense, the brow knotted constantly with worry, and the mouth that hovered on the brink of a smile but never quite got there. Aside from my father, he was the person I knew best in the world. Yet there were times, like now, when I felt I didn’t really know him at all.
As we lifted boxes, moving in and out of each other’s space, the memory of my disastrous birthday kiss filled my mind’s eye. I could still feel his lips against mine, how surprisingly soft they’d been, yet how firm; his first startled pulling away, and then the shock of heat as he kissed back, a man’s kiss against my fumbling inexperience, a jolting intimacy that took my breath away . . . and was still taking it away now, five years later—
The sun broke from behind the clouds. The light in the room turned from grey to yellow and then bright white, and it was in that sudden, intense illumination that it struck me. I’d been hoping to prove to myself that I was over Morgan, that I’d shaken off my schoolgirl crush and that somewhere, in the span of the last five years, I had finally grown up. But standing there in that brilliant sunlight brought a moment of clarity that was almost painful. Rather than diminish my feelings for Morgan, my time in London – attending art school, meeting Adam, getting caught up in the whirl of theatre and galleries and museums, the excitement and history of that magical city – had somehow only served to deepen them.
I glanced at him, relieved to see that while I stood immobilised by my thoughts, Morgan was shaking out an old sheet, spreading it across the table, preparing a surface to lay out the plates so we could examine them.
I began sorting through the box of negatives. After brushing off the worst of the mouse dirt and dust, I arranged them on the table and we looked over them.
Against the white sheet, the images leaped from the glass, fragments of the past captured in the ghostly emulsion. Many turned out to be landscapes or shots of the guesthouse, some from an elevated perspective, as if the photographer had climbed one of the nearby hills. There were more church photos similar to the fragment we had found in the album, as well as other snaps equally as intriguing. Family
portraits and a series of less formal images that showed children working in the orchard.
At the bottom of the pile, I found the negative I’d been searching for, the couple in front of the church. They stood near the apse, its tall narrow leadlight window catching a flare of sunlight. The woman’s serious expression was lost in the inverted lights and darks, but even so she intrigued me. Once again, I had the tingly feeling that I knew her, that she was somehow important. That maybe, just possibly, she was the reason my father had asked me to find the album.
Dad’s phone was engaged when I tried to ring later that morning. Morgan had gone into town in search of a darkroom, so I started clearing the attic. I decided to store anything good down in the sitting room, and fill the empty car space beside Edwin’s clunky old Toyota in the garage with stuff destined for the tip.
By mid-morning, the rain had blown away, leaving the sky clear blue. I went looking for Basil, and found him stretched in a patch of watery sunlight on the verandah. He yowled when he saw me and sprang to his feet, running delicately to greet me, making me laugh. I picked him up and brought him inside, making a nest for him by the heater and leaving the laundry door open a crack so he could come and go as he pleased.
When Morgan still hadn’t returned that afternoon, I accepted that he’d be staying the night at Bitterwood. I prepared one of the guest rooms, sweeping and dusting, dressing the bed with fresh sheets and pillows, hanging several thick blankets on the verandah to air. That done, I hurried down to the kitchen, keeping myself busy, not wanting to think about Morgan sleeping upstairs while I tossed and turned all night in my van.
Just before five o’clock, Dad finally answered his phone.
‘Your line’s been busy all day,’ I said by way of greeting.
‘Sorry about that, kiddo. Wilma’s been sorting legals all day.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Glad to be home. Any luck with finding that album?’
I hesitated. Outside, I heard the growl of a motorbike. My gaze flew to the window, watching for Morgan. He was a blur as the bike coasted down the gravel drive and vanished around the side of the house.
I took a breath. ‘Bad news about the album, Dad. I’m afraid Edwin tried to burn it.’
Dad made a choking sound, so I hurried on. ‘But I found a box of old negatives in the attic. The album photos are all there. Morgan’s going to develop them.’ A grumble on the end of the line. I decided to get to the point. ‘Dad, there’s a woman in some of the photos. She’s with Edwin in most of them. Any idea who she is?’
‘That’ll be your Grandma Dulcie,’ Dad said.
‘No, it’s not Dulcie. The woman in the photo is slim and fair-haired. She looks like me.’
‘Ah.’
‘You know her?’
There was a silence. I knocked the toe of my shoe against the skirting board, frustrated by my father’s lengthy pause.
Dad coughed, and finally said, ‘She’s Edwin’s first wife. Clarice.’
My toe stopped knocking. My breath became shallow. Edwin’s first wife. I thought of the resemblance we shared, the eerie feeling of seeing my own features gazing back at me from an old photo. Realisation settled over me.
‘She was your mother.’
‘Yes.’
Heat flooded my veins, but my skin turned to ice. Grandma Dulcie had died when Dad was a teenager; I knew her only from photos. Yet I found myself disappointed, almost bitter. I tried to dredge up her image, but it slipped away, and in its place emerged the face of a stranger.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Dad sighed. ‘What was the point? She walked out when I was a baby. Just left in the night like a thief. I never even knew she existed until after Dulcie died. She never bothered to make contact, no letters or birthday cards. Nothing.’
‘You never even mentioned her.’
‘Talking about her wasn’t going to change what she did. Or who she was.’
‘What do you mean?’
A pause. I could picture him sitting in slippers and dressing gown, stooping towards the phone, as though poised to catch every nuance of the voice on the other end of the line.
He sounded strained. ‘She walked out on us, Luce. Left Edwin with a newborn to care for. Tell me, what sort of woman leaves her husband and baby, and never looks back?’
I became aware of the grime clinging to my skin, the dust powdering my hair, a vague grubby feeling of anxiety. In the back of my mind, a small voice asked, What sort of person leaves her friends and family, escapes to London, and never looks back? I had the urge to argue with my father, to defend Clarice, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, I went on the attack.
‘You let me believe Dulcie was my grandma.’
‘And so she was.’ Dad cleared his throat. ‘Dulcie was there since I was a tot. The best mum I could have hoped for. Clarice meant nothing to me. She might have bewitched Edwin and left him incapable of loving anyone else, but I’ve forgotten about her. So should you.’
‘Then why did you send me after the album?’
A pause. ‘Just sentimental, I guess.’
‘Not about Edwin.’
‘I thought there might be some pictures of Dulcie.’
I frowned, remembering his plea in the hospital, the way he’d gripped my hand, locked his gaze to mine. I want it back. I understood then. Our circumstances were different, and a gap of many years lay between our separate sorrows, but here was a missing piece of my father’s puzzle. I had lost my mother, too. I knew what it felt like to wish she was still with us.
‘You want to know Clarice,’ I told him. ‘That’s why you asked me to find the album. You want to see your mother’s face and try to understand her.’ There was a pulse of silence. I could hear my father breathing. ‘Come on, Dad,’ I prodded. ‘You must have been curious. Didn’t you ever wonder why she left? Didn’t you want to know—’
Dad’s cough cut me off. ‘Look, Lucy, can we talk about this later? Wilma’s just about to serve up dinner.’
I glanced at my watch: quarter to five. Dad and Wilma never ate that early, but I didn’t have the heart to argue. Daylight was fading fast. The sound of clinking pots and cutlery drifted along the hallway from the kitchen, and I could hear the low murmur of Morgan’s voice.
‘We can talk more when I see you,’ I told Dad.
He gave a wheeze, and something clunked against the receiver.
My heart flipped. ‘Dad, are you all right?’
‘Lucy, it’s Wilma. What’s going on?’
‘Where’s Dad?’
‘He’s having a coughing fit. What did you say to upset him?’
‘Nothing, I was just—’
‘Lucy, I have to go. Your father’s fine, at least he will be once I’ve made him a warm drink. I really wish you wouldn’t badger him at the moment. You know how unwell he’s been.’
The line went dead. I held the receiver hard against my ear, as if my father might return, but there was just the dial tone.
Perhaps it was my imagination, but the sitting room grew darker. Cold settled around me. The light through the window was fading.
Morgan’s voice drifted from the kitchen. I wondered absently if he was talking to the cat. He laughed, a warm gravelly sound that filled me with longing and loneliness. All I had to do was replace the receiver in the phone cradle and walk along the hallway, join him in the kitchen. A simple action, but my body had frozen, trapping me here in the twilight, with the echo of a dial tone ringing in my ear.
I’d always regretted that Grandma Dulcie had not survived long enough to be a part of my life. It seemed futile to mourn someone I’d never met, but my conversation with Dad had plunged me into a mood that felt very much like despair. Suddenly, without warning, his revelation had disconnected me even further from my family. I was someone other than the person I’d always believed myself to be. Not the granddaughter of Dulcie Briar. Rather, the descendant of a woman who had abandoned her loved ones – just as I
had abandoned mine.
She bewitched Edwin, my father had said. But I’ve forgotten about her . . . so should you.
Despite my father’s warning, I could not forget her. My sudden knowledge of her was like a thorn in my heart, aggravated by the slightest movement. The more I worried it, the more it hurt. Yet I couldn’t help wondering. Who was she really, this woman who resembled me? Why had she abandoned her husband and child, broken Edwin’s heart and left her son to grow up embittered?
As I stared across the room at the fading daylight beyond the window, I saw in my mind the scrap of half-burned photo. Saw Clarice Briar’s intense dark gaze. And I knew one thing for certain.
She had bewitched Edwin. Now, she had done the same to me.
14
Bitterwood, 1929
Orah stared at Clarice, unable to believe her ears.
They stood in the cool shadows of the rearing house. The nesting frames at the far end of the room were empty, but tufts of pure white fibre still clung to several of branches where the worms had spun their cocoons. Clarice stood near the window, holding in her arms a beautiful dress of rose-pink silk that shimmered in the muted sunlight. Orah had been fingering the hem, marvelling over the exquisite colour, the impossible sheen, the delicious rustle under her touch.
‘A single dress requires three yards of silk,’ she said, trying to anchor the facts in her mind.
Clarice nodded. ‘That’s right.’
‘So, to grow enough silk to weave three yards of fabric, you need nine thousand cocoons.’
Clarice bit her lips, and then burst out laughing. ‘Oh darling, look at your face! If I hadn’t seen the clear blue sky out there for myself, I’d think there was a thunderstorm on the way.’
Orah tried to shake off the frown, but she still couldn’t believe that Clarice would go to such lengths for a single dress. In Orah’s mind, such an extravagance was unthinkable. ‘But Clarice, nine thousand? It seems enough to fill the entire room. Perhaps the entire guesthouse. Perhaps—’ She couldn’t think of anything larger, and her eyes goggled with the strain.