Lost Girl

by J. C. Grey

  I am nearly back at the car when something catches my eye in the window of a real estate agency. It is the house, my house, as I have already begun to think of it. The advertisement is curled with age, half hidden behind a newer, glossier picture of a newer, glossier home. The weekly rent quoted is ridiculously low for a walloping great pile of stone, even if the ad is several years old and the place is a wreck. Mind you, everything seems cheap compared to Sydney prices.

  A woman, wearing a skirt suit like armour and hair like a helmet, comes out of the shop. Before I can stop to consider whether this is really the best move, I am half blocking her path.

  ‘The house,’ I say and point at the ad.

  ‘Yes?’ She is what you might call well-preserved—or mutton dressed as lamb if you’re a rude bitch like my friend Brendan.

  ‘In the window.’

  She looks at me with shrewd eyes, up and down, as used to sizing people up by their clothes as I am, albeit for different reasons. Mine are simple but good, and I know how to wear them. Her eyes fix on the chunky resin band on my wrist. It is one of a kind, and I can see she has sensed its value, and the opportunity to land a good deal in a weak market. She’s also seen the antique wedding ring that is still on my finger, and has me pegged as the wife of a wealthy self-made man, not realising that she is a day too late.

  ‘Most of the holiday accommodation around Lammermoor has been taken through to Anzac Day,’ she says. ‘But you’re lucky, that one is available. It has great green credentials.’

  She thinks I mean the new and glossy pictured next to the old and crumbly.

  ‘I—’

  ‘I’ll be back in about twenty minutes,’ she says, skirting around me. ‘I have to drop some keys off. Please make yourself comfortable inside. Sally will make you a cappuccino.’ She rushes off, hips straining the tight skirt. She would do better in loose layers.

  I beep open the car, and stash my shopping. Having caught the scent of the cheese, my stomach is protesting its increasing hunger, a good sign as I have eaten little for weeks, but it will have to wait a little longer.

  Inside Lammermoor Realty, Sally is a freckle-faced strawberry-blonde a year or two younger than I am, with gap teeth and an endearing terror of the new coffee machine, with which she has been entrusted. She looks even more fearful when I request not a cappuccino but an espresso. Thinking she might burst into tears, I take over the coffee-making duties as we have the machine’s big sister at home—correction, Marc has it in his home. Sally finds me a Tim Tam.

  ‘I’m renting the place by the river,’ I tell her, flicking idly through a property catalogue as I lick the chocolate off one end of the biscuit. ‘Your boss sent me in to pay and pick up the keys.’ Okay, it is a stretch but a harmless one.

  ‘No, you can’t!’

  I swallow a mouthful of Tim Tam and look up. This is not a response I had anticipated, unless it is an inexpert attempt to drive up the rent.

  ‘Someone else is interested?’

  Sally shakes her head, curls bobbing wildly. ‘You don’t want to stay at that place.’ She is emphatic. ‘It’s creepy. Everyone says so.’

  I nearly smile. With so many ghosts of my own, a few more will simply blend into the crowd.

  ‘It’s just an old house. A few creaky boards, that’s all.’ As I pull my credit card from my wallet, platinum flashes. ‘Four weeks rent all right?’

  ‘But everyone says—’

  ‘You’re advertising it in your window.’ I go over to the window and reach for the photo. It is gritty with dust, and I shake free a dead moth that has stuck to it. It makes its last flight to the floor, crumbling to nothing. ‘I’m sure your boss wouldn’t advertise a property she had her doubts about.’

  I’m dead sure she would; even Sally, young as she is, is a little uncertain about the depth of her employer’s integrity. But what can she say, especially when the exclusive credit card is winking at her?

  ‘Well,’ she says. ‘If you’re sure.’

  ‘I am.’ Actually, I am surer of this than I am of anything else in my life at this moment, so I may as well go with the flow.

  Sally’s boss has trained her better in processing rental payments than she has in using the coffee machine. I key in my PIN, realising that I may soon have to drop the McAllister from my name. Maybe the doing will be easier than the thought of having to do it. Sloughing off identities past their use-by date is not something I have struggled with before.

  Sally and I both agree that a damages bond would not be appropriate given the state of the place. She has to hunt up the keys, which are eventually located at the back of the bottom desk drawer. Not that I need them to get in, but I would like to be able to lock the door at night.

  ‘I’ll ask Val about getting the power and water switched on,’ Sally promises.

  ‘Don’t worry about that. They’ve been left on.’

  ‘Oh, we never do that,’ she assures me. ‘Not with places empty for so long. Even out here we can get … the wrong sort. You know, squatters.’

  Actually, I do know, although you probably wouldn’t think it. Once or twice I had to be … creative in my choice of accommodation, in another life before I married money.

  ‘Well, they’re on. Someone must have been paying the bills.’

  She looks mystified, but as I am worried about Val returning and killing the deal, I postpone my questions about the place. I am just in time. As I drive away, Val is race-walking along the street, anxious to return to her waiting client. I hope she will be happy enough to have leased the place that she will forgive Sally for the lack of a rental agreement, or even a contact number.

  On the way back to the house, I glance down at the house keys on the passenger seat. One is big and old, the others unremarkable.

  When the river comes into view, I have to concentrate. There is no mist this clear, bright afternoon to force me off the road at just the right place. The track is near impossible to make out, concealed as it is by low-hanging branches. But I slow and make the turn, keeping to the middle of the track for the sake of the Audi’s paintwork.

  Almost immediately, I feel as if I have been swallowed whole by the valley. The forest towers over me, more protective than intimidating, and with the windows open I can smell the damp mysteries of earth, roots and leaves. Seconds later, the car is bumping over the narrow wooden bridge that crosses the stream. As I approach the open gates of the house, for the first time in daylight, I am jolted by the quiet dignity of the place. In the mellow afternoon light, the sandstone glows a rich gold, and the tall windows gleam through the dirt. Even the loose shutters and rusted locks are not so much flaws as an opportunity.

  This house needs me, I think, as much as I need it.

  I see there is a plaque on the wall just to the right. It is so dirty, I cannot make out what it says from the car, so I park and get out. Even close up, it’s hard to decipher. I have to rub my hand across the metal to dislodge the dirt from the copper.

  House of Lost Souls. My breath catches and I blink. The letters blur and rearrange themselves into Lammermoor House, and I let out a laugh. It’s been a tiring thirty-six hours.

  I continue up to the house, hauling in my groceries and new bed linen and towels, dumping them on the kitchen table. I have a month to make some decisions. But not now. I want hot soup, some cheese and then sleep. I have had as little rest as I have had food in the past weeks. Now my body is craving both.

  But before I do either, I use the old key to lock the front door from the inside—keeping the outside world out.

  May, the year before last …

  It is the night of Brendan’s show. He’s my bitchy photographer friend, and I am one of his subjects. The photos of me are good. More than good. And I am … something. Intriguing, says one art connoisseur, head cocked to the side in thought. Bewitching, says a womanising collector who wants me to hang from his arm as well as his living room wall.

  ‘I will have you,’ the collector says in his th
ickly accented voice, almost making me giggle, but he is too late. All four photographs bear red ‘sold’ stickers. Displeased, he storms off to rant at the gallery owner.

  Wearing aloofness like a cloak over the green shot-silk cocktail dress that my fashion-student housemate, Claire, ran up this afternoon (striking in a sea of dreary black frocks), I find a quiet corner where I can observe the crowd. Even so, it is hard to escape the speculative glances. Everyone wants to talk about the woman in the photographs, the one with secrets in her dark green eyes. Quite how Brendan achieved the look, I don’t know. The images are so leached of colour they are almost black and white, except for the eyes. My eyes.

  I sip my champagne, knowing I appear more poised than I really am. Having been in Sydney for almost five years, I survived the lean, early days by sleeping on friends’ and strangers’ couches at times and attending any function like this where I knew there would be free food. I soon fell in with a creative crowd in Surry Hills and Darlinghurst, who see a kindred spirit in me, and so far I have managed to conceal my lack of any real artistic talent. I have modelled for Claire and other emerging designers to earn a little cash and exposure, had some short-term fashion retail jobs and lowered myself to café work during lean times. I have acquired the skin of a free spirit without the soul.

  Apart from a couple of brief mentions in the social columns, I have flown under the radar. Now, I am truly noticed and it is both disconcerting and exciting. And, yes, it is also the realisation of something that I always knew would happen, sooner or later. It is this languorous ‘knowing’ that Brendan has captured so acutely in his photography, although I don’t realise it until later.

  ‘Em, darling,’ he says now, rushing up, his eyes shiny with excitement and possibly something more chemical in nature. His jeans are so tight they make other men wince to look at them, and he is wearing the silver cowboy boots of a true artiste and show-off. ‘You won’t believe it. They’ve all sold.’

  ‘I know. Congratulations.’

  ‘To him.’ He jabs a finger across the room towards a group of penguin-suited men, all of whom are looking at me, save one with his back to me.

  ‘Which him?’

  ‘Marc McAllister. Tall hunk, blond hair.’ He describes the only man not looking my way. ‘Investment banker. Rich. Straight, sadly.’

  ‘How can you tell? Maybe he keeps his silver cowboy boots to himself.’

  I am, I confess, a little put out that the hunk seems oblivious to me, and I stare at his back, just as he turns. He is strikingly handsome in a kind of fallen angel kind of way, the blond hair set off by eyes that at this distance look almost black. Mine lock on his, and a shiver runs through me. He jolts, as though responding to the same electric shock. Satisfyingly, his hand shakes a little as he places his champagne flute on a table.

  I’m not sure which of us moves first. Maybe we move in unison towards each other. But I do know that we meet in the middle of the gallery and then walk side by side without touching, out to the top of the spiral stairs that curl down three floors to the street.

  Until he mutters what the hell under his breath as we stand there, neither of us speaks. One look and our sophisticated shells have been smashed on the rocks of desire. Urgency buffets us like a windstorm. I feel too tight for my skin, let alone my clothes. I glance up at him as he tugs at his bow tie.

  ‘My car is right outside.’ His voice is a low rumble. ‘We can be at my place in about fifteen.’

  It is not far and yet it might be the moon. I grip the smooth banister and stare down the snail-shell curves to the tiled lobby below. This isn’t how it works, I tell myself. How I know this, I am not sure, maybe it is instinctive or perhaps I have learnt more than I thought since I landed in Sydney, but I am certain that I must let him pursue me. A man like this will not value anything that falls into his arms too easily.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ he asks urgently.

  ‘All right.’ What can I say? When it comes down to it, I am not impervious to temptation.

  We are careful not to touch on the stairs or in the street, both knowing that it will be cataclysmic. In the car, it is more difficult. Once, his hand glances off my knee when he shifts gears. We both freeze and stare straight ahead. A moment later, he pulls over and yanks on the handbrake. We are outside a two-star hotel, not the kind of place he would ordinarily patronise, I am sure.

  I glance at his jaw where a muscle ticks wildly, and understand why he has pulled up here. We will make it no further.

  Inside, the desk clerk asks no questions as he processes Marc’s credit card and hands over a key. He must see this kind of wild fling played out in his lobby night after night.

  Still we have not touched each other. He has not even asked my name although, given he has spent a small fortune on four photographs of me, he probably knows it already. In the lift to the third floor, we stand at opposite sides and let our eyes devour each other. I think I moan. He curses again.

  At the door to our room, his hand is not steady enough to swipe the card that opens it. In the end I do it. We enter, and we are lost.

  Three

  Present day, early morning

  Don’t cry.

  ‘What?’ I murmur but only silence answers.

  My eyes flicker open, and I realise the new bed linen beneath my chin is wet with salty tears. My throat and nose are clogged and I have to sit up on the chaise to grope around in my bag for a tissue. I blow loudly. When I’m done I feel wrung out but lighter, well enough to wrap myself in my robe and make coffee.

  I should not have read Marc’s messages before turning in last night, but fortified by red wine—drunk from the bottle as the glasses in the kitchen are stupendously ugly—I thought I should get it over with.

  The first, left around the time the mist swallowed me on the day I arrived, read: Where are you? The second, sent when I was exploring the house, said: Are you okay? Call me. Please.

  My hand clenches around my mobile in the pocket of my robe. I should not look at it but I cannot resist. There is another message and a missed call from earlier this morning. My hand trembles as I go to read the message and I accidentally turn on the camera instead. It clicks as a photo is taken, probably of my feet or the fridge door. My resistance to Marc is temporarily restored and I shove the phone back in my pocket without reading the text or listening to the message. Willpower is a muscle that requires exercise, I tell myself.

  When I have made coffee in my new plunger, I pour it into my new mug and take it outside. On the back porch, a sturdy rattan chair holds a mildewed cushion, which I toss to the floor. The chair is generous and low, so I curl into it like a cat, observing the world over the rim of the mug. The coffee is rich and robust, and I decide I like it better this way, made with an old kettle and cheap plunger rather than a space-age machine.

  The garden, bounded by a heavy stone wall, is becoming familiar. I can make out the four rectangles of an old kitchen garden; green bean canes remain standing in one of them though they tilt at odd angles. In another, mint has been left to run riot, bullying its companions into submission, although the stalwart rosemary survives. Basil has long gone to seed, and curly-leafed parsley is a ragged lacework left by an army of caterpillars. Fragments of fine green cobweb may be dill, but I am not sure. I am no gardener or gourmet, although when Marc and I first married, we booked into a weekend cooking course—thinking that was the kind of domestic thing couples did. But just the thought of preparing the oyster entree was so erotic we never made it out of bed that day, too busy feasting on each other.

  My lips curve at the memory before I can stop myself. I am not paying attention and accidentally jerk my coffee cup. Only my swift reflexes ensure the hot liquid lands on the porch and not my lap. Before I can spill the rest, I drain the mug, put it down and step off the porch. The grass—more weeds than grass, in fact—is wet and slippery with dew. I hold my robe up as I wander through the kitchen garden. Despite its neglected state, it smells good—of de
w and mint and rich soil.

  Under a dark-red leaf, a hint of canary yellow catches my eye. Reaching down, I tug the piece of metal free of the dirt. It’s the carriage from an old-fashioned train set, the type little boys play with—or at least they do in vintage movies. My heart twists a little but it is not too bad. To distract myself, I try to remember what toys I grew up with but nothing comes to mind. Did I have a bear? A doll? I don’t remember. And yet there are other things about that time I wish I could forget.

  Inside, I rinse my coffee cup and the train carriage, which I take into the library and place on the window-seat next to the bear, which has fallen on its face again. I set the bear to rights, adjusting it and the chair and carriage until I am satisfied their positioning cannot be improved on. It makes a charming scene. On impulse, I pull my phone from my pocket, using the camera to take two shots from slightly different angles. They are both good, thanks to the alchemy of my innate sense of style and Brendan’s influence.

  I remember the earlier shot, the one taken by accident. Surprisingly, it is even better than the others, a slice of pale foot against the aged patina of the wide kitchen floorboards.

  In the shower, my mind probes around the edge of an idea that is forming. I haven’t quite got a hold of it yet, but something is taking shape. It is the first time anything has fired my imagination in a long time—well, for the past few weeks. As I rinse conditioner out of my hair, I know that I was right to come here. It has been just a few days, and already I am eating, sleeping and living in the present. And if I cannot yet shake the recent past from my dreams, the burden is somehow lessened.

  I spend several hours entertaining myself taking photographs of the house, which fascinates me. The splendidly ornate staircase and the front-door lock yield the most intriguing shots, but they all have something. One of a dark stain in the master bedroom, juxtaposed to the elaborately detailed ceiling rose, sends a shiver up my spine, and I delete it, not wanting to think what might have caused it. The locked door remains impassable, but I shrug. There is plenty more to capture my lens—the open door to the master balcony, drapes fluttering in the autumn breeze, the drawing room chaise a splash of deep colour against the grey marble fireplace, the copper taps of the claw-foot tub gleaming dully. I even venture outside and down the driveway to the gates. The old brass lock, stiff and rusted in reality, glows under the attention of the camera-phone.