by Anna Romer
She looked at the window.
Down behind the orchard, the first pink fingers of dawn touched the sky. Soon the sun would rise. Edwin would stumble from his bed in the guest room and creep back to see why the child was making all that noise.
Hurry, the seahorse whispered in her mind. Hurry, or all will be lost.
Running from the room, she half-fell down the stairs. She opened the front door and a gust of freezing air blew in. She saw a coat hanging on the stand, and grabbed it. It smelled of rum and sawdust, male smells that sickened her, made her think of a craggy face topped by fair wispy hair, sorrowful eyes. She shuddered. Thrusting the image away, she dragged the coat around her and went through the door.
The baby’s cry followed her outside, down the verandah steps, along the gravel drive and all the way to the front gate. She unlatched the gate and slipped through, running and walking and then running again until her breath was ragged. Her feet hurt and a vague thought came: Where are my shoes? No matter. All she cared about was that the house disappeared behind her, far behind. The wind tore at her hair, and sea spray stung her cheeks. Breathless, she slowed to a walk. It was only when she reached the edge of the old coast road that the crying – the thin, pitiful crying of her baby son – finally died away behind her.
They found her huddled in a ditch, barely more than a mile from Bitterwood’s gates. Cuts and grazes covered her feet, and the cold had stiffened her fingers, but she was alive.
‘She’s in good hands now,’ Vetch had promised. ‘She’ll get the finest care. Treatments these days are marvellous. Never fear, old man, she’ll be back home with you and baby before you know it.’ He must have seen something in Edwin’s eyes, because he added, ‘Take heart, dear fellow, my absolute discretion is assured.’
Edwin had nodded, grateful for the reassurance, but as the taillights disappeared along the road that led back to Stern Bay, he feared the worst. In his mind’s eye he followed the car’s progress all the way along the winding Ocean Road and then through the deserted streets of Geelong. As he lay in bed that night, baby Ronald gurgling and babbling happily in the cot next to him, his little belly full of formula, Edwin imagined a host of faceless doctors in white coats bundling Clarice into a sterile room with grey walls and windows that looked out onto nothing. How she would hate a room like that. Edwin tried to picture her surrounded by trees, the tall willowy poplars she loved, the maples and eucalypts of her home in Kyneton. Better still, he tried to picture her arriving home to Bitterwood in a flurry of excitement, her cheeks rosy with health, her eyes as brilliantly blue as the sea, and her smile just for him.
Darling, darling . . .
He never saw her again. The doctor spoke of blood loss and complications, worsened by Clarice’s fragile state of mind. But Edwin knew what really killed her: a broken heart. After she died, her parents drove from Kyneton and collected her, took her back to the family plot. Clarice would have hated that. She had often told Edwin that when she died a satisfied old woman she wanted to be buried near her girls, and – although she never voiced it aloud, Edwin knew in his heart it was so – near her beloved Ronald.
Memory faded.
Edwin broke from the reverie to find himself shivering on the threshold of the icehouse door. An old man holding a burned-out matchstick, the box of matches clasped in his fingers. The edges of the box bit into his palm, but he could not release it. No matter how hard he willed his fingers to let go, they would not obey.
Twilight had turned to night. He was cold. So terribly cold. A thready pain spread up his arm, into his chest, where it blossomed into something large and unwieldy. It began to claw at him, and vaguely, in the back of his mind, he thought, There you are, at last. You have found me. Finally, you have found me—
The pain increased. A shadow fist clenched vice-like around his heart. He tried to take a breath, but his lungs had thickened, closed off, become useless. He fell against the icehouse door, and then slid soundlessly onto the paving stones. For a long time he rested there, waiting for his strength to return. He could only flex his fingers. Tiny, jerky movements.
With immense concentration, he slid open the matchbox. Fumbled out a match. Then he used all his remaining willpower to strike it, once, twice, three times against the side of the box.
When the sulphurous match-head burst into flame, the light radiating from it seemed so intense that Edwin’s eyes filled with tears. Overcome with awe, he watched the match flame blur and grow larger, bursting outwards until it engulfed the night like a single, brilliant star.
38
Bitterwood, June 1993
Taking the letters over to the desk, I settled into Edwin’s chair. Unfolding the top sheet from the pile, I began to read.
16 May 1993
Dearest Lucy,
Please find enclosed the documents as promised in my letter. I hope they will explain enough, if not to help you and your father find forgiveness, then perhaps simply to bring a degree of peace.
I had hoped to hand them to you in person and tell the story in full, but if you’re reading this letter then I am gone. I couldn’t risk sending them by post. I’ve kept them safe for over sixty years and now I entrust them to you. I know that you, dear Lucy, will judge how best to use them.
I regret not being a part of your lives. Your wonderful books have brought me much consolation. Ron’s mother was a storyteller too, and I’m glad that something of her lives on in him.
I regret so much. There were times when the burden of my mistakes seemed too heavy to bear. But your father, and then later you, made me realise that good has come from me, after all.
Your grandfather,
Edwin
I read the last line again, and glanced over at the portrait. My fingers trembled a little, and I realised it was sorrow. He had always been kind to me – when we holidayed in the nearby cottage, and then later during the three months I stayed with him while Dad was at Banksia House. To hear his voice echo up from the spidery writing on the page was bittersweet. Out of a lifetime of regret, Edwin considered only two truly good things had come: my father and me.
I unfolded the second letter. It had been typed on letterhead paper, and as I gleaned the contents, a deeper shadow of sadness fell over me.
Alberton Psychiatric Hospital, Geelong
12 November 1931
Dear Mr Briar,
In response to your telephone call about your wife, who we admitted as a patient at Alberton two weeks ago, I regret to confirm that she passed away in her sleep on Tuesday night.
Soon after her admittance, Mrs Briar requested that we release her into the care of her parents. Her father, Mr Gerald Hopeworth, has informed us that he is arriving tomorrow to collect her for burial in their family plot at Kyneton.
Please accept condolences from all of us here at Alberton.
Sincerely yours,
B. Matheson
Head of Psychiatry
Folding the letter, I returned it to the envelope and rested my elbows on the desk. I looked again at the portrait of my grandfather, wondering why he had allowed his wife to die alone in a psychiatric hospital. Had she gone willingly, or had Edwin forced her there? Fineflower in the dungeon, I thought. Except in Clarice’s story, there had been no soldier’s knife, no open cell door, and no baby son awaiting her upstairs in the light. My grandmother had died in the dungeon, far from the rocky cliffs and boundless blue-green ocean that surrounded her home. Far from her loved ones.
I tried to picture her last moments in the hospital, but the effort bruised my heart. Instead, I saw a woman hurrying along the beach road, the wind lashing her red-gold hair, the old coat flapping around her legs. Her bare feet dusty and cold as they carried her away from Bitterwood.
Away from Edwin and her child.
As I opened the last letter, an unexpected lump came to my throat. Clarice had written it ten days after my father was born. The writing paper looked expensive, thick and creamy white – but it was covered in in
k splotches and small holes gouged by the pen’s nib. The handwriting was erratic, the words scrawled large and elaborate in parts, while some sentences were so small I had to tilt the page nearer the light to decipher them. As I read, as understanding dawned, my heart grew heavy.
28 October 1931
Dear Edwin,
I’ve done a bad thing. I am so ashamed. I don’t ask forgiveness – how can I expect it of you when I can never forgive myself? But something dark rushed up in me and I couldn’t find the strength of will to hold it down. You have always been so very good to me, but in return I’ve been more trouble than perhaps I was worth. That’s why I lost them all, isn’t it? My girls, and Orah. Even Ronald. The darkness inside me consumed them, took them away.
This morning, it came close to taking little Ronnie, too.
I promise you Edwin, I never meant to hurt the boy. Never meant him any harm. He’s more precious to me than the moon and stars, than all our lives rolled into one – but it was there in my mind to do it, and I fear what will happen if I stay.
I’m not myself. My head is full of black clouds and rain. My heart is choked with shadows. My thoughts frighten me. Violent thoughts. I picked him up to cradle him, hold him tenderly, kiss away his grizzling and cuddle away his cries. I don’t know how it happened. I shook him, Edwin. Hard. Only the once, I promise. But his little eyes rolled back, and he made such a desolate sound like the mewling of a kitten trodden underfoot by one who means to love, but hurts instead.
I’m not myself. The right words aren’t coming. The rain and clouds in my head won’t let them. He’s crying again now. I ache to go to him and hold him near, I love him so dearly. All of him. His wise little eyes, the way he tilts his head when I tell a story, as though he’s taking in every word. My little prince, I called him, do you remember, Edwin?
One day, tell him his mother loved him ever so much. And if he asks you why she went away, just smile and say it was because she loved him so. Will you do that for me, darling?
One last thing. Promise me, dear heart, swear on my life that you will never breathe a word of what I’ve told you. Please, love, let my darkness die with me.
Goodbye, Edwin.
My love always,
Clarice
Kyneton, June 1993
Dad was wordless in the passenger seat, watching the landscape rush past his window, his hands fisted on his knees. The Volkswagen rattled and creaked, its little motor noisy, its grumbling roar filling up the silence between us that might otherwise have been unbearable.
We stopped once so he could stretch his legs and ease the stiffness from his hip, but he was keen to reach our destination. Two hours northwest of Melbourne, we turned off the Calder Highway and went through the township of Kyneton. Out of Kyneton, we drove along a country road towards the cemetery.
I parked on the verge, and we walked into the grounds, Dad careful on his crutches. We followed a gravel path to the furthest edge where the plots were tall and imposing. Hemmed behind a wrought iron surround, stood a large granite angel, her head bowed over the dove in her hands as though deep in thought. Kneeling at her base, I brushed away the crumbling lichen from the inscription.
Clarice Hopeworth Briar
28 May 1896 – 10 November 1931
In Our Hearts for All Time
We settled on a nearby bench, in the shade of a sprawling black-trunked cyprus. The sun was warm, infusing the air with the scent of pinesap and fresh cut grass. My skin began to tingle. I took the letters from my bag, held them on my lap.
I had told my father exactly what Edwin had told me. That I had something, which would explain everything. Of course, by everything, my grandfather had meant that the letter would clarify just enough to let us understand that things were not as they had seemed. He had made a promise to Clarice. Not in person, because by that time Clarice was gone. Rather, he had promised in his heart, and honoured his promise to the end.
I handed the letters to Dad. A look passed between us, and then Dad untied the ribbon and bent his head to read. When he reached the note written by his mother ten days after he was born, his plump shoulders began to shake. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, then went back to the letter. His fingers trembled so hard he crumpled the paper. When he finished, he lifted the page to his eyes and sobbed into it.
I had never seen him cry. I had seen him pale with self-pity, drunk and depressed, crimson-faced with anger. Once I had watched him slam down the phone so hard after a conversation with Edwin that the receiver broke away from the handpiece. Yet in all the years of my father’s emotional rollercoaster of a life, I had never seen him shed a single tear.
Until now.
Not knowing what else to do, I leaned against him. And waited. A breeze murmured through the branches overhead. The melodic song of a magpie drifted from the other side of the cemetery. I waited.
Finally, Dad folded the letter, tied the ribbon back around the bundle, and looked up. His dear moonface was blotched pink, his eyes wet. He patted his pockets for a hanky, and when he failed to find one, I gave him mine.
‘My word,’ he murmured.
‘I know,’ I agreed.
Stillness settled over us. My father took a great deep shuddering breath, and then slowly let it out. Finally, he said, ‘Thank you, kiddo.’
‘For what?’
‘For standing by a foolish old man when his world fell apart.’
‘It was my world too.’
He sighed and palmed his eyes. ‘Edwin carried quite a burden, didn’t he?’
I nodded. ‘You can’t know, can you? What makes other people behave the way they do. He was keeping his promise to Clarice. Protecting you.’
Dad’s eyes went misty again. Small spots of colour reddened his cheeks. He gazed at the bundle of letters in his hand.
‘I thought Edwin blamed me for her leaving. I thought he resented me. The things I said to him . . . Oh, Lucy. What I’d give now to take them back.’ He polished his glasses on his shirtfront and sighed. ‘Poor Clarice. I really believed she didn’t love me. Seems I was wrong about her, too.’ He fell quiet, and for a while, there was just the stillness. Birds chattered high in the branches overhead, and the tree creaked gently in the breeze. Then Dad sighed. ‘You know, Karen suffered the same thing when you were born. Postnatal depression, we call it these days.’
‘What happened?’
He shrugged. ‘She talked to a counsellor. Learned meditation. After a while, the depression passed. She went back to her happy old self.’
‘That’s how I remember her.’
He looked at me suddenly. ‘You were our golden girl, you know. Karen was forty-two when you were born. We’d been trying to have a baby for years. I’d never seen your mother so close to despair. Time was ticking away from her; she was desperate. Then one day, suddenly there you were. A tiny heartbeat . . . a blip of hope. We wept for joy, and our joy was so great, so overwhelming, that it never truly left us. It may have been hidden for a time,’ he added. ‘But I expect that wherever she is now, Karen still feels it. I know I do.’
I hid my own tears behind a shaky laugh. ‘Dad, “a blip of hope”?’
He laughed too, more of a sniffle really, but it got us back on solid ground.
‘I miss her,’ he said. ‘Every day.’
‘Me too.’
A delicious peacefulness settled over us. A light breeze fluttered the letters Dad still held. The afternoon grew warm, and shadows began to lengthen across the cemetery. Sunlight shimmered through the feathery cypress leaves, and the magic I had sensed the week before in the cafe returned, this time cocooning us, drawing us from the shadowland of the past and out into the brightness that waited for us ahead.
39
Melbourne, October 1993
There was a wedding, after all. A night-time celebration with fairy lights and candles hanging from the trees in jars, white roses that Wilma had cultivated especially. A celebrant came to my father’s garden, and read from a bo
ok of poetry. One of my favourites, by Emily Dickinson – the same quote, as it turned out, that my grandfather had once sent to me.
Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea,
Past the houses – pass the headlands –
Into deep eternity –
An odd sentiment for a wedding, I’d once thought. But now it made me think of wide-open seas and endless new possibility. It made me think of braving the rain and thunder and finding beauty in the storm. It made me think of Fineflower escaping the dungeon to be with her soldier love, and venturing into the magical blue unknown where all things were possible.
Loud music nudged me from my musings.
Dad had cranked up the stereo. He was off his crutches, had shaved his beard and become a new man. I saw him catch Wilma about the waist and lure her onto the patio for a romantic waltz.
Nina was stunning in a vintage lace wedding dress that showed off her large baby bump. Coby took his bride’s hand and led her down to the lawn, where they kicked off their shoes and danced on the grass.
I kept glimpsing Morgan from the corner of my eye. One minute he was chatting to Gwen, the next he was collecting empty wine bottles and a while later, having a yarn with one of the elderly guests. The next, he had vanished.
I hadn’t seen him in the months since we said goodbye at my grandfather’s guesthouse. I had returned to London to farewell my life there, and once that was done I’d come back to Melbourne. I had moved out to Bitterwood, and was still settling in. Still trying to get my head around being there. The weeks I had spent there over winter had changed me. The place I had shunned for so long had gotten under my skin. Now, I couldn’t imagine a better home for Basil and me.