by Anna Romer
We can’t do this . . . not now, not ever.
I had made a mistake, I realised. I should never have come back. I should have burned Edwin’s cryptic letter, put it from my mind, stayed in London and tried to be happy—
‘Lucy?’
I trailed him into the kitchen, grabbing my old cardigan, which I’d left on the servery. Slipping it over the dress, hugging it around me, I joined Morgan at the table. He took a penknife from his pocket and cut the string tied around the parcel. As he tore the wrapping open, a faint chemical smell wafted up and my misgivings evaporated.
Elbowing past him, I began to spread the photos out, barely looking at one before moving on to the next. ‘Beautiful,’ I murmured. ‘Oh Morgan, they’re just beautiful.’
‘Take your time,’ he said. ‘I’ll get the negatives from the van.’
I shuffled through the prints, spreading them across the table. The landscapes I placed in a pile to one side, then added all the groups and portraits of people unknown to me. Morgan had minimised the effects of cracking and discolouration, sharpening the focus so the details popped, and underdeveloping slightly so that the faces peering from the past were bright and clear.
One face in particular.
‘Clarice,’ I whispered, sliding into a chair. There she was at the church in front of the apse. Frowning intently, her eyes full of dark fire. The sky was cloudless, summery. Nearby, a flock of native ravens had lifted into the air from the branches of a tree, as though startled into flight by the force of Clarice’s aggravation. I had been right. The man beside her was my grandfather, smart in a suit and hat, his long bony face lit by a gentle smile. I gazed at him a long while. I had never seen him smile like that. The grandfather I had known briefly was sour-faced, his wrinkles falling naturally into frown lines, his brow perpetually knotted. Not this younger version; he looked almost handsome. Morgan had also enlarged some of the unbroken slides to capture certain details in close-up. The writing on the banner pinpointed the location and date: Stern Bay Presbyterian Church Fete 1930.
Another close-up showed Clarice sitting on a bench in the garden smiling at a young girl, who looked to be about thirteen. The girl was striking, with her heart shaped face and large eyes. She wore her hair long and loose at a time when all the other girls wore theirs bobbed to chin-level.
I added these to my keepers pile, which now contained a dozen photos of interest. In all of them, Clarice seemed to glow. Not in a joyful way, because in the photos her expression was too sombre. Rather, she stood out from the crowd, as though the camera had been pulled into perfect focus on her alone.
I heard Morgan step into the kitchen, heard him kick the door shut and walk past my chair. He laid the box of negatives carefully on the sideboard and then joined me at the table.
‘Who’s the kid?’ he said, picking up one of the fete shots.
‘I wish I knew.’
I sifted through the photos until I found one of the three of them. Clarice was smiling at the girl, her expression all fondness, warmth. I did a quick calculation. ‘She’d be in her seventies now. If she’s still alive, I’m sure she’d remember Clarice. She might even know what happened to her.’
Morgan rubbed his jaw. ‘There’s something about her. The look on her face, it’s familiar.’
I looked at him, hopeful. ‘You’ve seen her before?’
He shook his head. ‘Not her, but definitely her expression.’
‘Where?’
‘War photos. Many of the returned servicemen and women had that same look. Haunted, as if they were still seeing or hearing things they’d hoped to put behind them. Not something you’d notice at first glance, but after hours in the darkroom watching their faces materialise on the paper, I started picking it straight away.’
He looked at me, and for a moment – barely two heartbeats – I lost track of our conversation. His face was near, the overhead light giving his eyes a blueness that made me think of the ocean. Be careful, whispered a tiny voice, you’re drifting into dangerous territory. I realised I was staring, and glanced back at the photo.
‘You think she’s shell-shocked?’
‘Traumatised, maybe.’
‘From an accident?’
He met my gaze, held it. Said softly, ‘I once saw the same look in your eyes. It was just after you lost your mum.’
Drawing away, I shuffled through more photos, found an enlargement of the girl. I pretended to examine the image, but inside my heart skipped unsteadily. It touched me that Morgan had once looked into my ten-year-old eyes and seen my deep sorrow. It touched me even more that he remembered. But it also bothered me. I wasn’t ten anymore. Not that he seemed to have noticed.
I peered closer at the girl. ‘So she could have lost a parent?’
‘It’s possible. Edwin and Clarice might have taken her in. Unless she’s a sister Ron doesn’t know about.’
‘No, Dad was definitely an only—’ I broke off. Snatching up the enlargement, I tilted it to the light. The girl sat with her hands fisted on her knees, her sleeves not quite covering her wrist bones. Peeping below one sleeve cuff, captured in crisp detail, was a familiar looking bracelet.
Morgan leaned nearer. ‘What’ve you found?’
Through the thin silk of my dress, I felt his body warmth. I should have moved away, but couldn’t take my eyes off the photo.
‘Look at the girl’s wrist.’
‘The bracelet?’
‘My mother had one exactly like it,’ I murmured. ‘Edwin gave it to her.’
‘You think it’s the same one?’
I nodded. ‘I used to pester Mum for it. She let me wear it once or twice, but always made me give it back. I nagged and nagged, but Mum stood firm. It was a gift, she explained. A sort of peace offering from Edwin, although at the time I didn’t know what she meant by that. It would have been rude of her to give it away, she said. Even to me.’
Morgan was watching me. ‘I remember you coming back to Melbourne after your holidays here. Ron was always hung over. Karen was usually chirpy with news. And you,’ he added with a smile, ‘were inevitably sunburned.’
‘Hmm.’ I slumped. Earlier, on the verandah, I had thought – for one electric moment – that I’d glimpsed lust in Morgan’s eyes. I’d been wrong, of course. The only lustful thoughts had been the ones swirling inside my own foolish head. When Morgan looked at me, even dressed as I was in figure-hugging silk, all he saw was a kid sister.
Pushing down my disappointment, I went back to the photo. ‘Mum told me her bracelet once belonged to Edwin’s mother. She said Edwin had been saving it to give to his daughter, and that since Mum was like a daughter to him, he gave the bracelet to her.’
‘Which means,’ Morgan said, ‘this girl could be Edwin’s daughter after all. A sister Ron never knew about.’
Two days ago, I might have argued. Now, after Dad’s revelation about his real mother, Clarice, I was no longer sure about anything.
‘If not a daughter,’ Morgan mused, ‘then maybe a cousin, or the child of a close family friend or neighbour. The possibilities are endless.’
‘I don’t want possibilities,’ I said. ‘I want facts. Only I don’t quite know where to begin.’
Morgan smiled. ‘Then you’re in luck. Digging up the past just happens to be my specialty.’
The charm tied to the ribbon around my neck suddenly felt heavy. I had fled to the other side of the world to escape it, but it had crossed the sea in an envelope to find me. Now, hidden beneath the neckline of my grandmother’s silk dress, it pressed on my skin, a reminder of the lie I had once told.
I’m here, it whispered. Trapped down here in the cold darkness. Waiting for you to dig deep enough to find me.
That lie had changed my life forever, and although sixteen years had passed and my mother was long gone, the burden of her death continued to haunt me.
19
Gull Cottage, 1977
Opening the bedroom door a crack, Karen looked into the
dimness. Lucy’s favourite book, Charlotte’s Web, was open on the bedside table. The pillow, as usual, lay on the floor half under the bed. A compact lump lay curled beneath the sheet, head hidden, like a little animal in hibernation.
‘Lucy?’ Karen whispered, unable to help herself. She went in and bent over the child, placed a soft kiss on her head. ‘Darling, are you awake?’
Of course, there was no answer; the girl was clearly lost to the world. Karen smiled, and retreated to the hallway. She shut the door and trod silently along the hall into the kitchen. It was midnight. She often woke at this time, unable to go back to sleep. Edwin had once told her that his mother was the same, stalking around at night, her candle chasing shadows up the walls. Dear old Edwin, he always seemed to have a story to ease her occasional flights of anxiety. She could never understand why Ron disliked him so. Karen had never met anyone quite like Ron’s father – Ron said he was cunning and manipulative, but Karen couldn’t see it. She found Edwin to be old-fashioned and charming, chronically courteous with occasional bursts of gentle humour. Yet beneath his well-mannered mask was sadness that Karen sensed ran deep.
She took a glass of water and stood in the doorway watching her husband sleep. She was now fifty-two, six years older than Ron, although the difference had never bothered either of them. They were a good match, academics both, madly in love with art and music, literature . . . and, surprisingly after nineteen years, still with each other. Their happiest moments – aside from the ones they spent with Lucy – found them engaged in heated discussions about a movie they’d seen, or a book one of them had read. Cheese and wine nights, Ron called them, always with a wink that made Lucy roll her eyes and Karen smile knowingly.
‘Ron, honey,’ she whispered from the doorway, ‘I’m just going out for a bit. A walk on the beach might help me sleep.’
Ron rolled over and murmured something unintelligible. Karen caught the faintest whiff of alcohol. Rats in paradise, she thought grimly. She hated to admit it, but Ron’s drinking had overstepped the boundary of normal.
She wondered if she were to blame. She had encouraged him to make peace with Edwin – for Lucy’s sake, she’d insisted at the time; the girl deserved to know her grandfather, it wasn’t right to deny her. Which was the truth, but not all of it. Karen thought it cruel to keep punishing Edwin for whatever rift had sent Ron running from his family home at the age of fifteen. Almost thirty years had passed since then, which, by Karen’s reckoning, was long enough to hold a grudge. So, she’d organised for them to stay a little cottage near the beach, a twenty-minute walk from Bitterwood. Each year in July, when the sea was stormy and the beaches cold and windswept, they would travel two hours from Melbourne and spend a week, maybe ten days, at the cottage. A couple of years ago, they had begun visiting in summertime as well, and last year they’d spent Christmas there. Bitterwood had long since ceased operation as a guesthouse. Edwin had become too frail to manage on his own, and after his housekeeper went to live with her daughter in Bentleigh, he’d refused to hire anyone else.
Karen hurried along the track down to the beach, breathing a sigh as her feet sank into the damp sand. She drank in the salty air, relishing the crash and hiss of the moonlit waves as they broke against the silvery shoreline.
She picked her way carefully along the beach towards the dark mass of the headland. That’ll be my turning-back point, she planned. Forty minutes should do it. By the time I’m back here, my head will be clear and I’ll be ready for sleep. But as she approached the headland, she glimpsed a bright star burning in the darkness. Not a star, she realised, a tiny wavering light, and it was coming from Bitterwood.
There was enough moonlight to see the path that led along the side of the headland and up onto the dark verge above. The going was slow. Karen knew that parts of this beach and its surrounds were cordoned off due to accidents in the past. Rockslides, or unstable banks caused by king tides. She had walked this path up to Bitterwood hundreds of times, and although she felt confident even in the dark, she wasn’t the sort of person to take risks. By the time she reached the top, she was panting softly, her body dampened by a light layer of perspiration.
The tiny light still burned. On even ground now, she hurried towards it. She imagined Edwin in his library, poring over his books, or perhaps in the kitchen brewing a cup of tea. He had told her that once he reached eighty, he rarely slept. Two, three hours per night, that was all he seemed to need. What do you do with all that time, Karen had asked enviously. Edwin had smiled, and a shadow of sadness had darkened his eyes. He had hooked his arm in hers and taken her to see something in the orchard, a new lime tree, or the rhododendron in flower, Karen couldn’t remember. What she did remember, later, on reflection, was that Edwin hadn’t answered her question.
Perhaps tonight she’d find out.
She hadn’t bothered to put on shoes when she left the cottage, and her feet were feeling bruised after her journey up the rocky path, so she found herself treading along the soft grass, around the side of the house towards the kitchen. She climbed the steps onto the verandah, and walked along a little way, her feet padding softly on the weather-worn decking. Edwin was in the kitchen, she glimpsed him as she passed the window. He was hunched over the table, his head sunk in his hands, his knotted fingers digging into his bare scalp.
Karen moved closer to tap on the glass, but caught herself in time. She didn’t want to give the old boy a heart attack. He seemed so intent on the book spread open in front of him – a photo album, she now saw, some of its photos removed and scattered about the table.
Edwin looked up suddenly. He seemed unable to see through the glass into the blackness beyond, unable to see Karen. His face – his dear old face with its liver spots and craggy terrain of wrinkles, the huge shrubby eyebrows that shadowed his deep-set eyes – his face was twisted in anguish, his cheeks wet with tears.
Karen stepped back.
Edwin must have sensed the motion, because his expression changed instantly. ‘Who’s there?’ he cried, pushing back from the table. The chair legs scraped against the wooden boards, overly loud in the silent night. ‘Clarice . . . is that you?’
Karen had a flash of herself trying to explain her presence: why she’d been standing in the darkness peering in through Edwin’s window, not making herself known despite his state of apparent vulnerability. Spying, she thought guiltily, and saw ahead to that moment when the fragile bridge of trust she’d so carefully built between Edwin and her family would crumble, irrevocably. Without really knowing why, other than to save face for both Edwin and herself, she turned and ran.
‘What do you expect me to do,’ Ron said crossly the next morning, ‘pull a rabbit out of a hat?’
Karen was brewing coffee. She glanced towards the lounge room where Lucy was watching cartoon reruns on the TV. She lowered her voice. ‘Aren’t you the least bit worried about him?’
‘Why?’ Ron’s tone was ever so vaguely challenging. ‘Because the silly old coot was having a sob fest?’
‘He wasn’t just crying. His poor old face was twisted up, his cheeks were streaming. I’ve never seen him so upset.’ She hadn’t meant to sound accusing, but Ron’s expression became hard. His brows – already woolly and unmanageable, so like his father’s – drew sharply together.
‘What do you expect, at his age?’ he growled, heading for the fridge. ‘Probably lost his marbles. Gone senile. I knew it was a mistake.’
‘What?’ Karen asked, unable to keep the edge of anger from her own voice. ‘What do you mean, a mistake?’
Ron clenched his jaw, as though attempting to bite back a torrent of unsavoury words. Then he gave a strangled sigh, and spun on her. ‘Coming here year after year after flaming year. Pretending everything’s okay, and that Edwin’s nothing more than a harmless old grandfather. I know you blame me for the rift. But honestly, Karen, you don’t know the full story.’
‘Not through lack of asking.’
Yanking open the fridge door,
Ron glared at the contents neatly arranged on the shelves – leftover meatloaf, a container of lettuce leaves, cheese, apple juice – and his frown deepened. ‘Edwin deserves every single one of those tears you saw him shed last night.’
‘That’s just cruel.’
‘No, Karen, it’s the truth.’ He sounded tired all of a sudden, flat. ‘We’re out of beer, I see.’ It was his turn to sound accusing.
‘You’re the only one who drinks it, Ron.’
He slammed shut the fridge, then spent a moment rattling through his trouser pockets. Drawing out a handful of dollar notes, he shuffled through them with a scowl. ‘You know, Karen, you’re always going on about being open to the truth, about seeing behind the mask. Getting to the bottom of things. Well, last night you caught a glimpse of the real Edwin, the Edwin I knew as a kid. The selfish old fruitcake so caught up in his own affairs that he failed to see what was right in front of his nose. He had a doting wife and a son who idolised him, but do you think he noticed? Do you think he even cared? Oh no, not dear old Dad. He was too caught up in the past to pay any sort of attention to what was going on around him. Mad old buzzard, there’s likely more than one skeleton hiding in his closet – skeletons he’s probably buried there himself.’
Cramming the notes back into his pocket, Ron stalked to the door. He wrenched it open, but then glanced back, his round cheeks flushed, his ears pink. ‘Next year we might head up to the Gold Coast – I hear it’s nice this time of year. The change might do us all good.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I need to clear my head.’
She trailed after him, at a loss. She hadn’t expected such vitriol. A lack of interest, maybe. Perhaps even a touch of feigned concern. But not the anger, the avoidance, the storming out; his reaction befitted a hormonal sixteen-year-old boy, not a middle-aged man who knew better.