The Lone Child

by Anna George

  Dejected, Neve bundled a sour mound of linen up from the floor. So much for her amateur sleuthing. She defaulted again to her routine.

  In the laundry, she thrust the jacket onto a bench and emptied the machine. Today’s wet load, like most day’s, consisted primarily of bed linen, jumpsuits and wraps, with the novel inclusion of Jessie’s clothes – her denim shorts, undies and t-shirt. With the basket heavy on her hip, as if by rote, Neve trudged outside. Descending swiftly, she eyed the garden.

  At the clothes line, she paused, realising the folly of hanging washing in this weather. What was she doing? Bemused, she studied the shrubs and trees, and timber benches. The storm damage here was starker than at the front. Thin branches sprawled across larger trees and dangled from the parapets. Everything seemed up-ended. Topsy-turvy. Chairs poked their legs into space, while an umbrella was belly-up and filled with water. A large branch had come away from a cypress tree and its exposed stump was leaning on the wet earth, like an elbow. Something was snagged in a twig nearer the fence-line and the beach. Something pale and gently flapping – a pair of her knickers!

  Had the storm alone done this?

  Disconcerted, she peered up at the bare clothes line. Its run of pegs was like a code of dashes she couldn’t fathom. All that remained dangling was a single bra – her least favourite – a plain white maternity affair, thick and sexless. No other bras nor bedding or wraps, nor any knickers. Not a single pair. Hadn’t she snagged more up there? Six pairs? Eight? An irregular pattern of pegs remained on the furthest cord. Holding nothing. But telling. She looked beneath the line, into the shrubs, down the rest of her hillside garden towards the beach and the open gate. There wasn’t another skerrick of fabric among the tousled greenery. She shivered. She was certain, as certain as she could be, that, along with a few of Cliff’s things, she’d snared at least eight pairs of knickers up there yesterday. Not lacy things, nothing to covet, merely comfortable black or white undies, size 8. Along with four chunky bras and two slips – black and white. And the gate had been shut.

  Had her trespassers made off with her smalls, overnight?

  She raced to the foot of her property, closed the gate and then snatched the undies from the twig. The branch was reluctant to relinquish its catch and an awkward tug of war ensued. Neve won and lost. In her haste, she created a tiny hole in the white cotton. Her finger winked at her from the other side of the fabric. She stuffed the undies into her pocket; to the bin with them. She hunted under shrubs, behind rocks, looking for more, looking for the woman or anyone else. Finding nothing and no one, she felt as agitated as her garden. The leafy chaos was unnerving, as was the cold that had descended on her hill.

  Forgetting herself, clumsily, she pegged up her baby’s wraps and jumpsuits, blankets and singlets. Jessie’s shorts and t-shirt.

  In Benidorm on the Spanish coast, aged barely twenty, she’d once helped a local friend hang her laundry on a rooftop clothesline. The clothesline was one of many on a row of roofs and the lines looked like the masts of ships at dock, their sails down. She could remember how mortified her friend’s mother had been, seeing the skirts skew-whiff, jeans upended, sheets asymmetrical. Neve had felt acutely lacking, unlearned in the art of laundry: unmothered. Ever since, her washing had been a nod to Spain, orderly and uniform. But, today, pegging wildly, she and her washing were reverting to shambolic form.

  When she was done, she climbed the hill and cast about for other signs of trespass, or more underwear. Her smalls could be anywhere: dangling on a cactus at the Rossiters’ or in the Freemans’ pool. Or hidden in the burrow of a tree. Another of her maternity bras might now be gambolling down the beach. Or being used as a slingshot by strangers. Tingles fired along her spine. In her world, today, everything was upside down, inside out.

  Upon re-entering the house, she hesitated in the daylight half-dark. Gradually, she noticed the smell. Of matches freshly lit. Dismayed, she followed the distinctive odour to find Jessie in a corner of the living room. Something about the scene struck Neve as strange. Jessie was chatting to Cliff whose legs were springing in the air, his toes rising above the sides of the bouncer, like exclamation points. Beside Jessie was one of Neve’s mother’s scented candles. Lit. Its flame steady. The aroma of tangy lemon saturated the air.

  Had she brought the dusty candle in? Worryingly, she couldn’t remember. The citrus scent was eclipsing everything and clogging her throat. She pictured her mother leaning over the wick with a long match. The candle was one of four on a windowsill; the last to be lit. She could see her mother’s tears falling beside the candle, threatening to extinguish the others. Her mother was wearing only a towel and her white-blonde hair was loose and wet. Watery rivulets of blood ran down her mother’s inner thigh. Neve was puzzling over the streaks of red when her mother turned.

  ‘Go away!’

  It was a roar.

  The skin on Neve’s arms rose into bumps. She hadn’t thought of that moment in years. She hadn’t truly understood it as a child, either, until after.

  Neve tried to keep her voice calm. ‘What are you doing?’

  Jessie twisted her neck, like a chicken. ‘We were cold.’

  Neve considered the large space; it was cooling without the steady flow of warm air. She eyed the fireplace, the stack of wood and pine cones. Another task awaiting her.

  ‘Where did you get that candle?’

  Jessie rolled a shoulder and pushed her finger into the soft wax. Neve shook her head, wondering how to proceed, and eyed her baby. Strapped into his bouncer, Cliff was wearing a different purple and green jumpsuit. She prodded his nappy and it sprang back, fresh and dry. She stared, uncomprehendingly, at Jessie. Neve had changed her first nappy aged thirty-eight.

  Jessie’s body curved from her, almost as if anticipating a kick.

  Neve retrieved the box of matches from beside the candle. She sifted words through her mind. Dangerous . . . Babies . . . Don’t. She fingered the box in her hand, opened her mouth . . . In the candlelight, she was struck by how much Jessie and Cliff looked like siblings.

  After, her father had explained how they’d tried for years to make her a brother or a sister. Neve had listened mutely, shocked that her mother hadn’t been satisfied after all with an equilateral triangle: with the three of them. ‘We weren’t enough for her,’ her father had said, ‘You and I.’ And aged seven-and-three-quarters, Neve took his words to heart. If she’d been prettier, smarter, better – enough – her mother would’ve been satisfied. And alive.

  Jessie peered into Neve’s face. ‘You’d better hide them,’ she whispered. ‘Up high.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Neve, gulping tears. ‘I will.’

  She looked at the time. It was almost one. Today, she couldn’t afford another random memory. Drip by drip, she was being undone.

  Awake, her baby needed to be fed and she took him to the couch. As Cliff latched on, the front door opened and Jessie sprang to her feet, awaiting direction. But Neve’s brain jammed, until Sal coughed. Then he smiled reassuringly. It’s not her. For some reason, she felt relieved.

  ‘You there?’ he called. ‘I’m done.’

  Neve imagined his head poking through her front door, as if the foyer was fenced by invisible wires. She sat up straight. Cliff had scarcely begun the first breast. Fleetingly, she wondered if Sal had noticed anyone outside. ‘I’ll be one minute.’

  ‘Righto.’

  She turned to Jessie but, unbidden, the girl darted from the lounge room to the nearby guest bedroom. Neve frowned. The girl didn’t need to hide, did she? Sal didn’t require an explanation. Before Neve could protest, something slammed into the vast pane of window in front of her. Something large and black. She screamed.

  ‘Everything okay?’ Sal entered the room, with his boots in his hands. His clothes were damp and dusted grey and his hands were stained and powdery. One spotty green sock showed the beginnings of a hole at the big toe. But his face was solemn and concerned. Seeing Neve he ducked his head as, d
iscreetly, she covered herself.

  He hesitated. ‘What was that?’

  Outside, on the terrace, a bird was struggling to its feet. It was teetering, like a pin about to fall. She hadn’t seen such a large bird so close to her home before. It was black, with a pale long beak. Even so, it didn’t warrant a scream. She was, she realised, pulled taut.

  Sal craned towards the window. ‘Do you want me to take a look?’

  ‘No, no,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘I’ll do it . . .’ Then she turned to Cliff. He’d stopped to peer up at her, her stretched nipple snagged in his mouth. She thought of Jessie, hiding in her guest bedroom, and her trespasser at large. She glimpsed the candle on the floor, the fire needing to be lit. She sighed, a ragged breath. She could do only so much. Even today, she was not enough.

  15

  It took about ten minutes for the large bird to die. Miserably Sal watched it, wishing he had the stomach to speed up the job, and wondering, despite his better judgement, if the bird was carrying the spirit of his mother to the afterlife. If it was, it’d done a poor job. Or had his mum been trying to tell him something? Again. Yet another message he didn’t get. Couldn’t read. Once the bird was still, he scooped it into a shoebox provided by Neve. Then he unlocked the shed, at the foot of the garden, and hunted for a shovel. The place contained a shelving unit and drawers, bags of fertiliser and rakes. Gardening gloves on hooks. Everything in its place. Once he’d located a shovel, he took off for the beach. The bird ought to be buried somewhere worthy of it, he figured. Out of sight and away from scavenging foxes. But not too far away. He’d already stayed too long. Ought to be back at his mum’s.

  Beneath a leaden sky, the foreshore was bedraggled. Thanks to the storm and the king tide, the hills of wrack were high and nudging at the boundaries of the grand houses laying their claim to the sea. To the south, fishing boats lined the pier and distant walkers were upright sticks on the sand. But to the north, paddocks rolled down the hills to meet the bracken and seaweed, as the coast stretched towards Shoreham. Less inhabited: that was the way to go. He began at a good pace beside the seaweed’s steep edge.

  Striding out, he sensed another person nearby. But, surveying the surrounding foreshore, he couldn’t see a soul. He walked faster, lost to his thoughts, finding a rhythm. It wasn’t until he reached the first point that he remembered to choose a spot. Another hundred or so metres along, he found the place. It was raised, where the sand was blown up the hill, away from the rocks and towards a property. Not far from a fallen tree. A house, high on the hill, was barely visible, a curve of wall and glass. But he knew it. It wasn’t his sort of house – far too big, and plonked on the landscape without any attempt to integrate within it. But something about the simple timber poles of the fence appealed to him. They were the usual pine, and the one closest to the seashore was drizzled with bird droppings. A metre from it, he dug the hole, his back and arms feeling the afternoon’s labour. Listening to his breathing, he could hear his eight weeks of not working.

  He paused, feeling the weight of the box in his hands. The black cormorant was one of his favourite birds, with long black feathers and a dazzling slash of yellow across its beak. They were silent birds, mostly. He’d watched them swoop many times into the roiling sea. After, they tended to prop on branches and dry their outstretched wings. Nest in rocks or cliffs. This one, he supposed, was disorientated by those endless panes of glass. Or bedazzled. Neve Ayres’ house had a similar effect on him. It was reminiscent of the castles he’d dreamt about building as a kid. As breathtaking, commanding and rarefied as they came. A lot like its architect was . . . Or rather, had been.

  Inexplicably saddened, he glanced to the horizon corrugated by a swell. In the box, the bird’s eyes would be staring, its body leaching warmth. He hadn’t expected to face death again this soon. But, in a sense, his mum was right: death was everywhere, always. He simply hadn’t noticed. The very sand he walked upon was a universe of life and death. Thriving lice and dead crabs, occupied shells and tiny fish bones. Large fish and birds. He sank into a mound of seagrass, up to his knees. That was dead too, washed up with the storm. He looked to the horizon again. The seas around these parts were blooming with the stuff. Vast seagrass meadows: the nurseries of the sea, vital to our ecosystem. Out there under the water. But lately, though, thanks to rising temperatures, too much of it had been washing up. Dead.

  The planet was trying to tell us something. In the language of death.

  Placing the bird within the earth, he recalled watching his mum’s coffin lowered into the ground, and felt the same powerlessness. He winced, as he covered the box with sand and soil. He imagined the bird had lived a good and long life, had found a mate, and died with a full belly. He paused, on his haunches. In the end, his mum hadn’t been as fortunate. From within him, a brook of grief bubbled up and out. He curled his toes but it made no difference. Minutes passed before he straightened.

  With a grunt, he heaved a knee-high basalt boulder onto the spot and then, methodically, retraced his steps. Wiped his face. The trip back felt lighter with the job done. He watched gulls fly in a trailing ‘V’ towards the horizon. Lopsided but steadily they made their way across the white-tipped sea. Was a colony of cormorants out there feeling depleted? Was one of them pining? Rudderless? Did birds mourn? He didn’t know, couldn’t remember. But it was sad. Too sad. He lengthened his stride. Normally, he enjoyed uninterrupted solitude. But not lately; his insides, he realised, were churning.

  At the boundary of the architect’s property, he stopped. He had that feeling again. Someone was close, watching him. Was it her? Neve Ayres?

  It would be. He didn’t know what to make of her. Years ago, on site, she’d been turned out perfectly, in her designer outfits and flat lace-ups. The only woman there, time and again, and she’d handled herself. She’d got a laugh out of some of them. Knew a few names. Better than him, probably, at the time. While he’d skulked about with his head down, wearing himself out, she’d spoken in her clear, loud voice. She’d gone on to make a name for herself too. But today her cardigan was mis-buttoned, her hair was mussed and her hands were shaky. He tried to recall when he’d last heard of her.

  His nose was cold, his fingers too, but he found he wasn’t ready to go up. He searched the beach for a sign of human life. The walkers had gone in.

  He wondered if having a child had undone Neve Ayres. He’d seen it happen to one of his brothers’ wives, and a cousin. ‘The hardest thing I’ve ever done,’ Tony’s wife had said. She’d been a commercial litigator, and her decline had given the family a scare. Tony had quit golf to stay home and help; after a year, he’d gained a second chin and aged a decade. In those early years, his brother had abandoned their ailing mother. Children could have a profound effect on a relationship, and a life . . . But did newborns, that quick? He supposed they did. Or could.

  Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. Someone wise once said that.

  He wondered what sort of support she had. Only one car in the garage, and no male shoes in the laundry or by the entrance. Was the husband en route? Or working over the long weekend in Melbourne? Years ago, he’d heard the story of her mother, doing a Harold Holt at this very beach. He cleared his throat. That’d be devastating for anyone but especially for a child – losing her mum to the sea. Like Prime Minister Holt, Charm Ayres was a strong ocean swimmer, never found . . . The speculation alone would be unbearable. Impossible too to stand on those balconies high above the sea, and not think of her . . . He listened to his breathing, now slow and deep. What sort of grandad was Sam Ayres? Fairly absent, he guessed. Holed up in South America, building skyscrapers or shopping malls or casinos. Probably a wise move, though. Sal could think of a couple of builders in Melbourne who’d still like a piece of Sam. None of which had anything to do with his daughter. Except the old man’s absence made her, as good as, an orphan too.

  What could he do, he wondered, to help Neve Ayres?

  A woma
n appeared then in the trees and gave him a fright. Alongside the architect’s property, she was searching the bushes, with a stick. A fossicker. Probably she’d been the one watching. Fossickers were grizzly blokes, mostly, with metal detectors, searching for lost watches or wedding rings. It was a lonely sort of pastime but they must have liked it. In this weather, though, it wasn’t something you’d do for long. This woman didn’t seem to be searching for something small like a dropped engagement ring or gold watch. Was it a dog she was after? Seeing him watching her, she jumped towards a shrub; and, for a moment, he wondered if she was trying to hide. She was thin, with a small, dotty blanket wrapped around her neck. It looked like a baby’s blanket, strange over her denim jacket and black jeans and runners. Her hair was shaggy and shoulder length. The two stood, considering each other, roughly fifteen metres apart. The woman was younger than Sal expected, around thirty. Her jeans were covered in sand and muck, and her runners were muddy.

  Sal raised a hand. He wasn’t sure who looked more startled. ‘Lost something?’

  The woman shook her head. Sal waited for more. But she turned and loped up towards the cypress trees.

  Unsettled, Sal banged his boots against a rock, freeing sand. On the weedy lip of the beach, his step faltered. Something soft was beneath his shoe. A faded pink ballet flat, child-sized and sodden, nestled in the seagrass. Flotsam, he thought. The strangest things turned up, sometimes.

  16

  On tiptoes, Neve retreated from the nursery. On autopilot, she’d lost track of how long she’d been with her baby. Every time she’d stopped and tried to sneak away, his crying started again, as if she’d tripped a sensor; and she nearly cried with him. Now he was finally asleep, she felt paper-thin. In the hall, she paused, on the cusp of rest. But the day was getting on. If the mother had been in the garage, where was she now? Or had the roller door been opened by a short or surge? If so, Neve was at a loss. She’d heard of people unwittingly leaving children in cars or at the airport or in shopping centres. But overnight and into the next morning?