by Anna Romer
Clarice reached for Orah’s hand and clasped the girl’s cold fingers in her own.
‘What Edwin is trying to say is that we want you here. At home, with us. We’ve grown to love you, Orah. We . . . we would like you to be part of our family.’
Orah’s gaze went to the window. There was nothing to see, just the darkness. From the distance came a dim hammering sound, and she wondered if Warra was still out there laying a trap for the possum who had decimated several of the trees.
She was so tired.
She looked at Clarice. The woman’s beautiful face seemed rumpled, like a chemise forgotten at the bottom of the laundry basket. She seemed on the brink of tears, her lips bitten to a deep cherry red, her eyes glassy bright and small with silent pleading.
Orah looked at Edwin. He had the pasty complexion of someone who spent all his time indoors, yet his hands were rough and knotted at the joints, freckled and hairy like those of a worker. He spoke little, and when he did, he chose his words carefully.
They were kind people. They had taken Orah in, given her shelter and food, clean clothes. They had made her welcome in their home, as if she were a long-lost relative rather than a stranger.
Beyond these walls was a world she knew nothing about. She remembered her desolation as she lay beside the campfire that first night after the shipwreck. Despite the warmth of the flames, a cold emptiness had settled over her. For the first time in her life, she was alone. The only people she knew here were Warra and Nala . . . and now Clarice and Edwin Briar. If she didn’t stay here, where else would she go?
She found herself nodding. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured, just before her throat closed.
Clarice seemed to melt, as if her bones had turned to jelly under the enormity of sudden relief.
‘You’ll be happy here with us, dear Orah. So very happy, I promise. Edwin and I have come to love you as a daughter. You are ours now, darling. Our very own.’
18
Bitterwood, June 1993
Even in the warmth of the kitchen, my chills lingered. I brewed hot chocolate and sat watching Basil groom himself on a dusty mat in front of the wood stove. I tried to push away my thoughts of the universe and the demons it had lured me back here to face, but all I could see was that dank passageway in the icehouse, the steps leading down into black nothingness, the charred-smelling air alive with echoes of the past.
Venturing in had been a mistake. It held too many associations with the year I lost my mum. Confronting the past might work in theory, but chasing shadows was getting me nowhere. I needed concrete answers.
Taking out my collection of items, I assembled them once again on the table: my grandfather’s letter and the gold heart charm, the sketch I’d made of my mother, Dad’s manuscript, and the remnant of burnt photo showing one half of a woman’s face. On a whim, I added the icehouse keys. The glass plate negative of the two young soldiers was with Morgan, but I hadn’t forgotten it. Instinct told me that the developed photos – along with the other items – were all pieces of a much larger puzzle.
I picked up the heart-shaped charm. Dad had insisted that Mum’s bracelet had gone into the sea with her. Yet here it was, part of it anyway, resting on my palm, gleaming in the cool morning light. Had Edwin found it washed up on the beach . . . or was there another, less innocent explanation?
Closing my fingers around the charm, hiding it from sight, I thought of that long ago day. Mum had left the cottage early, kissing me goodbye and waving as she set out along the beach to Bitterwood. An hour later she’d come rushing back, calling for my father, clearly shaken. On the brink of tears. There were scratches on her arms, I remembered. And mud smears on the knees of her jeans. Urgency in her voice.
Where’s your father?
Dad used to joke that it would take a nuclear blast to rattle Mum’s calm. Something must have happened that day. Had she and my grandfather argued, was that why she’d been so upset, so desperate to find Dad? I picked up my drawing, studied her strong face. The old ache returned. The guilty hollowness, the regret. My father’s voice raged in the back of my mind. What was she doing there, anyway? Those rocks were slippery after the rain, she should have known better . . .
I had a flash of her in the garden at our old house in Brighton, deadheading the roses she loved. Her favourite was a pink rambler that smothered the archway over the front gate. We were crouched beside it, examining its thick trunk, me looking on while Mum snipped away the shrivelled blooms. She wore her best dress, pale blue with a narrow black belt, teamed incongruously with gumboots. It must have been her birthday. In her view, good enough reason to wear her Sunday best in the yard. She had found a dried rosehip, and for some reason it delighted her. She pulled me close, nuzzled my cheek, making me laugh so hard my head filled with the scent of roses.
I replaced the drawing on the table and went upstairs. In a back room, I found a sewing basket and hunted through, retrieved a length of ribbon. I threaded the charm onto the ribbon and tied it around my neck. Tucked it under my shirt, against my skin.
There was only one way to dispel the heaviness in my heart, and that was to get moving. Edwin had promised me answers, and I was suddenly impatient to discover what they were.
It took several hours to transfer the contents of the pantry and cupboards into oversized garbage bags. I swept the cobwebs from the kitchen ceiling and windows, and rolled up the mouldy old carpet runner in front of the sink. I brushed the wood stove clean, and then swept up the ash and stray matches that had fallen down behind it. A corner of paper poked out from under the stove, and I wriggled it free. It was an envelope, badly scorched, that must have escaped the flames. The stamp was old, franked eight years ago, in 1985. It was addressed to my grandfather. I tossed it into my bag of recyclables and finished cleaning the back of the range.
A while later, I returned to the bag, dumped in more rubbish, hovered a moment – and then gave in to my curiosity. Retrieving the envelope, I pulled out a letter.
Edwin,
Much time has passed since that terrible night, but I still think of her every day. For years I was able to drown my guilt at the bottom of a bottle. These days I am dry, but my cowardice haunts me no less. I can’t bring her back, but a question torments me, and only you know the answer. How was it for her, Edwin? At the end, her last breath – how was it? Did she slip peacefully into the next world? Did she, perhaps in a moment of forgiveness, speak my name? A note is all I ask. If you can bring yourself to use the telephone, my number is at the top of this letter. Please Edwin, take pity on a man you once wronged. If not for my sake, then for hers.
Taking the letter over to the table, I sat down heavily and reread it. Then read it again. It was signed Sincerely yours, but the name was charred and unreadable. The return address was a Salvation Army office in Geelong.
Questions erupted in my mind like mushrooms after rain. Who was the woman to Edwin and how had she died? Had my grandfather replied to the letter, and if so, what had he said? What wrong had Edwin once done, and why had the man written to him in hope of forgiveness?
Nearly a decade had passed since the letter was written. Edwin was dead. Perhaps the sender was gone too. It might be a red herring; then again, it might provide a lead to understanding my grandmother’s disappearance.
I hurried down the hall to the sitting room, picked up the phone and dialled the number at the top of the letter. A woman answered.
I introduced myself and took a breath. ‘I’m tying up my grandfather’s affairs, and I’ve just found a letter. The sender’s name has been burned away, but they gave this number as a contact. The letter is old, so I realise it’s a long shot—’
‘You want to know who sent it.’
‘Is there any hope of finding out?’
‘We’re only a small office here, so it’s possible. Who was it addressed to?’
I gave Edwin’s name and address.
‘Hold on, dear. I’ll ask around.’
I heard muffled vo
ices, and then a man talking at length. When the woman came back on the phone, she was apologetic. ‘No one in the office knows anything, I’m afraid. We have a lot of volunteers coming and going, so I’ll spread the word . . . but after all this time, your letter-writer might not be around anymore.’
I left my contact details, thanked her and hung up. I hadn’t pinned my hopes on discovering anything – the half-burned remnant of letter had been an unexpected wildcard – but I went back to the kitchen in a slump.
I placed the letter on the table with my other puzzle pieces. I had travelled halfway across the world to learn the solution to a mystery that, until a month ago, I hadn’t even known existed. My grandfather’s cryptic note had sparked my curiosity. What had he meant, explain everything? Where was his mysterious ‘something’? As my collection of clues grew larger, that curiosity ignited and began to burn in earnest. I was being drawn into a vortex where past and present existed simultaneously. It made me giddy, made my pulse thunder in my ears, made my skin damp with anticipation. Made me ever more determined to find the explanation my grandfather had promised me.
At four o’clock, I finished sweeping the kitchen. On my way upstairs to wash off the day’s dust, I saw Basil flopped in a patch of sunlight on top of a bookshelf in the hall. He seemed perfectly at home, outstretched on his back, his belly fur exposed to soak up every last ray of sun. I stopped to scratch his ears, still pondering the letter I’d found, and wondering what connection it could have to my grandfather’s explanation. Wondering, too, where Edwin might hide something meant for me. In that moment of stillness, warmed by fading sunbeams, I realised there was one place I hadn’t yet looked.
Edwin’s bedroom was expansive and sun-filled, but paint flaked off the walls and the cracked ceiling – with its plaster mouldings and glorious art deco light fitting – was a nightmare of dusty cobwebs. A cast-iron single bed faced the door, its mattress bare, its pillows naked. On the wall behind the bed hung a cheerful painting of the orchard, a dappled symphony of golden sunlight, green leaves, flecks of blue sky, and purple shadows nesting beneath the trees: an oasis of colour and light that leaped from the drabness of my grandfather’s room.
Next to a tall wardrobe stood a dressing table with a swing mirror, and beside that a large overstuffed chair. Piles of books and papers littered the floor, creating untidy islands on the dark red carpet.
At the far end of the room was a tall bay window. Its glass was foggy with grime, so I rubbed a spyhole in one of the panes and looked out. Twilight was lapping at the edges of the garden, the trees already sunk in their nocturnal shadows.
My gaze lingered on the gate. I wondered if Morgan had decided to camp overnight in Queenscliff. I pictured him bent over a tray of developer, watching faces from my grandfather’s past reveal themselves on the photographic paper. He seemed as engrossed in our project as I was, and I sensed that it wasn’t all due to his loyalty to Dad. He had changed in the five years I had been away, grown quieter, more reflective. The divorce, I mused. That sort of stress and heartbreak would dampen anyone’s spirit. Yet it was more. I sensed it when he looked at me, the way his gaze sharpened as if puzzled. The way he moved around me, sometimes as though on eggshells.
Probably terrified I’d try to kiss him again.
I stepped around a pile of books and slid open the bedside drawer. It contained only basic essentials. Cufflinks, a comb, bottles of medication that rattled around like loose teeth. Inside the wardrobe hung dark suit jackets and matching pants, a dozen or more shirts, most of them grey from wear. I was about to close the door, when a flash of colour caught my eye. Tucked at the end of the rack, gleaming seductively among my grandfather’s drab clothes, was a red dress. Not just red. Blood red, ruby red. A deep shimmering crimson that seemed alive. The fabric, pure silk, floated across my palm, magic against my skin. My first thought: Nina would love this, I’ll set it aside for her. My second thought came on a possessive rush.
I wonder if it fits.
Stripping to my underwear, I stepped into the dress and buttoned up the front. I was a jeans and T-shirt kind of girl, unadventurous when it came to style, happy just to pull back my fair hair in a simple ponytail. When Nina and I were teenagers, she had itched to give me a makeover. Once, I’d let her put me in a skirt and blouse, twine a glittery string of beads around my neck, and paint my lips and cheeks. She had teased my hair and pinned it back, letting the length hang forward over my shoulders. When I teetered over to the mirror in borrowed high heels, I had expected to see a new person in the glass; one who would take control, succeed where I failed, be the sort of person I had always longed to be.
Instead, I’d encountered a smaller, thinner, plainer version of Nina: a little Goth girl with teased hair and racoon-eyes of Kohl. Thanks to Nina’s clever way with make-up and fashion, I looked good – I just didn’t look like me. That was when I realised I was most comfortable blending into the background, being the girl that everyone noticed second. Besides, the new girl, that mini Nina in a short skirt and platform heels, deserved attitude. She deserved to be someone big at heart, someone outgoing and confident who could make the most of a situation. I’d scrubbed off the make-up, handed back the clothes and shoes, combed the knots and gel from my hair, and retreated into the duller, more comfortable me.
As I approached the mirror now, I was half expecting the same. My eyes widened. There in the glass was the other version of myself. The version I had found two days ago in a scrap of charred photograph. It was her dress, I realised. Clarice’s dress, it had to be, for there she was reflected in the mirror, her hair tangled around her shoulders, her feet bare, and her eyes wide and enquiring.
Illusion, of course.
Out of my uniform of jeans, I looked different, that was all. I stepped closer. The silk skimmed my scant curves, giving them substance. The deep crimson hue drew a rosy flush from my skin, made my hair seem milkier, my face more alive. I was still me, only somehow enhanced. I went nearer, studying my reflection. If I squinted, I could almost see her.
‘What happened?’ I whispered. ‘Why did you leave?’
The back of my neck prickled. I looked over my shoulder, certain I was no longer alone. The room was empty, of course, and I let out the breath of a laugh. Crazy . . . Next you’ll be hearing voices.
Instead of voices, I heard the rumbling of an engine.
Going over to the window, I looked through my grimy peephole into the yard below. The gates were open. My van nosed through. Morgan got out to haul shut the gates.
My heart began to race. I hugged my arms about my chest and shivered. The photos, I told myself; I was excited about the photos, eager to see those ghostly faces drawn from their negative world into a visual form I could more easily identify.
I lingered at the window. Morgan was returning to the van. Shadows darkened his eyes, and his limp seemed more conspicuous, the uneven gait making him appear oddly fragile, drawing from me a pang of protectiveness. I rarely thought about the limp. It was simply part of the Morgan package, another layer of his enigma, a souvenir from his youthful obsession with fast bikes. Late one night, returning from a party at Mount Macedon, he had leaned too boldly into a curve and lost control, causing the bike to skid off the road and drag him with it, shattering his leg from ankle to knee.
Morgan made to climb into the van, but then paused. He glanced towards the house, right up at the window where I stood. I was sure he couldn’t see me – dusk had fallen, Edwin’s room was now dark, the windowpanes cloudy with grime. Yet something told me he knew I was there, standing in the shadows watching him. The bolt of awareness was so swift, the spark of yearning in my heart so intense, that my breath caught. My pulse began to hammer. I shivered and pressed my palm flat on the glass.
If Morgan saw me, he made no sign. Hauling himself into the van, he drove towards the house and disappeared around the side.
Standing at the back door, I watched Morgan thump along the verandah towards me, oblivious. His head wa
s down, as if he was battling a windstorm; he seemed deep in his thoughts. Tucked under his arm was a parcel.
He almost reached the door before he saw me.
The frown turned into a smile. His gaze flew over my arms, my shoulders, and then finally met my eyes. The jolt I’d felt upstairs hit me again, but it had morphed into something more reckless than simply pleasure; a flush of warmth sped through my veins, and a giddy yearning overtook me. The fading sunlight dulled, the afternoon sky receded, and the trees became a blur. Only Morgan seemed alive. I had the urge to reach out and touch him, pull him into my arms and savour the warm weight of him, just as I had the night of my party when I’d wound myself around him and pressed my lips to his—
Morgan grinned. ‘Going out for dinner, are we?’
I snapped back to reality. ‘What?’
‘Great, I’m starved.’
I glanced down at the dress. It seemed far skimpier than it had upstairs among the chaste shadows of my grandfather’s dusty room. ‘It’s Edwin’s,’ I blurted.
Morgan’s brow went up. ‘Not sure I wanted to know that.’
I scowled, but then remembered the parcel he carried. ‘That’s them?’
Smiling mysteriously, he brushed past me into the kitchen.
I stared after him, gathering my wits. I felt naked in the dress. The fabric was too thin, too shimmery. My skin was too hot. My pulse tapped irregular beats all over my body. The slipstream of Morgan’s warmth, the scent of him, his big bear-like presence seemed to wash around me, creating a whirlpool of what felt disturbingly like desire.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I shut my eyes, trying to conjure Adam’s face. I returned in my mind to the photo I kept in my wallet: Adam in one of his less formal outfits, pants and a blue cotton shirt, leaning in the doorway of our favourite pub in Camden Town, smiling sexily.
The photo of Adam dissolved.
In its place appeared an old Polaroid from the seventies I had glimpsed once. A young man leaning rakishly against a battered vintage Harley, helmet under his arm, bike jacket straining across his chest, snug Levi’s marked with motor oil and frayed at the knees. He glared unsmiling at the camera, and his face – not the craggy, lived-in face I knew now, but rather the face of a fierce, angry young man – seemed to mock me from the past.