No. Alice had been adamant. I want a brother.
Maybe the police didn’t find the evidence because there wasn’t any. What would that skinny pretty-boy know.
‘Alice!’
‘Yes, Gran.’
‘Will you come here please, dear?’
‘I’m in the shower.’
‘Very well, but as soon as you’re ready.’
Alice dries herself and looks in the mirror.
‘Alice!’
‘Coming, Gran.’
‘Well, don’t take all day!’
Alice dresses quickly in her jeans and favourite black jumper. Her long hair is still tangled from the shower but she doesn’t want to annoy her grandmother any further so she starts up the stairs, still raking through it with her wide-toothed comb. Once outside her grandmother’s bedroom she gives two sharp careful knocks on the door before pushing it open.
‘Come in, for heavens sake!’ the old lady barks, irritably. Alice grits her teeth. If she had walked in without knocking her grandmother would be grumbling about her bad manners.
‘Goodness me, Alice! Your hair! Never mind. But it’s too long, don’t you think, dear?’
‘Yes, Gran.’ Alice pulls the comb through, wondering what the latest issue is and how long it will be before she can get away.
‘Needs a good few inches off.’
‘Yeah, okay.’
Her grandmother is propped up against her pink satin pillows. There is a tray next to her with the breakfast leftovers. The latest maid, Sally, would have brought it to her over an hour ago and Alice wonders why it hasn’t been taken away. Her grandmother is very particular about such things. Breakfast is at eight, lunch at twelve-thirty and dinner at seven. Dishes must be cleaned away minutes after food is served and eaten.
‘Will I take the tray for you, Gran?’ Alice goes around to the other side of the bed.
‘Yes yes, please do!’ Phyllis slumps irritably back against the pillows. ‘But just put it down on the table for the time being.’
Alice glances again at her grandmother as she picks up the tray, noticing that she seems frailer than usual, and her skin more sallow.
‘I’m not feeling too well today,’ the sharp eyes have seen Alice’s look. ‘I’ll rest here this morning. I should be right as rain by lunch.’
‘Okay,’ Alice mumbles. ‘Is there anything you need down the street?’ She is trying to think of some legitimate reason to cut short the conversation.
‘No no,’ the old lady sighs. ‘That useless girl!’
‘Who?’ Alice looks up in surprise.
‘That Sally,’ Phyllis snaps. ‘I just gave her marching orders!’
‘Oh, Gran,’ Alice sighs in exasperation, ‘she’s only been here a month!’
‘Well, how many times do you have to tell someone how to set a tray?’ the old lady explodes. ‘I mean to say, it isn’t rocket science! She was absolutely hopeless!’ She points her crooked forefinger at the pretty cane chair in the corner. ‘Pull that over, dear, and have a seat. There is something I need to talk to you about.’
Alice does what she’s told, her spirits flagging. She can guess why she’s been summoned now. Damn. Her grandmother will want her to write an advertisement for a new maid. Then when it’s done, she will crawl over every word and end up writing the blasted thing herself.
‘You know, your mother wore her hair long well after she should have,’ Phyllis declares thoughtfully, leaning over to push Alice’s hair back from her face. ‘Now, don’t you make the same mistake, will you?’
‘What do you mean?’ Alice stammers. Everyone knew that her mother had the most beautiful long dark hair.
‘Everybody knows that women over forty should never have long hair,’ her grandmother declares haughtily. ‘It’s just not flattering!’
‘Well,’ Alice smiles through gritted teeth, ‘I’m only eighteen.’
‘That’s right! But you could do with some off.’
‘Okay!’ Alice can’t keep the irritation out of her voice.
‘Don’t snap, dear.’ Phyllis tries a weak smile. ‘It’s not that important, is it?’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Alice sighs.
‘I miss your mother, dear.’ Her grandmother’s eyes suddenly fill with tears. ‘I miss her very much.’
‘Yes,’ Alice whispers, and looks away, out the window at the tops of the liquidambars along the front fence. The braches are bare now against the lead grey sky. In only a few months there will be masses of green leaves to flicker and shudder about in the wind. Deciduous trees are the best, Alice thinks. They’ve got moods. Like me.
‘She was such a . . . sweet girl.’
Her grandmother hardly ever expresses any real sadness about Lillian’s death, so Alice tends to forget how hard it must be for her. She turns back from the window, wanting to say something kind, but the moment is over. Phyllis is biting her lip, carefully marking articles in that morning’s newspaper with a felt pen, for further reference. It makes Alice smile.
Her grandmother keeps up with what is going on in all spheres and has opinions on everything from federal politics to how one should conduct oneself at a Chinese New Year party. Eric would adore this, Alice thinks, the precise way those elegantly-manicured liver-spotted hands are turning back the pages.
But it is much easier to deal with her grandmother downstairs, dressed in one of her classy pleated skirts and long-sleeved linen blouses, her hair properly pinned up and her lipstick plastered on, bossing everyone around. Inside the white lawn night dress she is thin and wan and frail. Her scrawny old frame looks ninety per cent cadaver already, with the skin hanging lizard-like around her neck, and her eyes glassy and red-rimmed. Alice bites her lip and feels an unfamiliar pang of real sympathy.
‘There is something I need to talk to you about, Alice,’ her grandmother says again, picking up an envelope from her side table and pulling out the page inside.
‘Okay,’ Alice sighs.
‘I’ve been sitting on this a while,’ she goes on, leaning across for her glasses, ‘and I want your advice about how to proceed.’
‘My advice?’ Alice can hardly keep the incredulity out of her voice. Her grandmother has never asked her advice about anything before.
‘It affects you,’ Phyllis adds sharply, handing the piece of paper over to Alice, ‘This is a letter from your Aunt Marie. She wants to come and visit me and bring that wretched boy with her!’
‘What?’
‘Yes . . . Exactly.’
‘Jonty?’ Alice is flabbergasted.
‘Yes.’
Alice gulps and bends her head to read the note, feeling her grandmother’s eyes on her. She reads it through twice and then folds it up carefully and hands it back, unable to meet her grandmother’s searching eyes.
‘What do you think?’ the old lady wants to know.
‘Why?’ Alice whispers, the familiar dreamy sinking sensation pulling her into some other zone. She is being sucked into a vortex of hot ash and mud. Must not panic. Coming across her cousin the night of the concert was the beginning. Every time she thinks of him, and his friend, Tom, the sinking sensation returns. ‘Why now?’
‘Oh, well,’ her grandmother gives a humourless laugh, ‘I think we both know the answer to that question, don’t we?’
‘No.’ Alice looks at her searchingly.
‘The money dear! Why else? It has to be the money.’
‘Oh!’
‘I’m over ninety!’
They are both quiet for some time. Alice knows she must think this through properly. She needs to talk to Sylvie and Leyla.
Her grandmother suddenly reaches out and grabs Alice’s hand. ‘Will you be with me, Alice?’
Alice stares back into the pale withered face in shock. ‘What?’
The hand grabbing her own soft plump one feels as bony as a chook’s claw, but Alice doesn’t pull away. The desperation in the old woman’s face is strangely riveting. What is it that she wants? What is she
trying to tell me?
‘What do you mean, Gran?’ she whispers.
‘When the time comes,’ there are tears in the old woman’s eyes now, ‘will you stay with me? I . . . I don’t want to die alone.’
‘Oh.’ Alice gulps, amazed by the naked fear she sees in the old face. She feels a sudden sharp jab of guilt for all the times she’s wished her dead. ‘I will Gran,’ she whispers. ‘I will.’
‘You promise?’
‘I promise.’
‘It won’t be long now, dear.’
Alice doesn’t know what to say to that.
Phyllis lets go of Alice’s hand and they sit together for a while in silence. Alice watches the sun play in bright sparkling streams on the carpet.
‘It is up to you, dear,’ her grandmother says severely. ‘It’s up to you to decide about your aunt and your cousin.’
Alice wants to tell her no, that it most definitely shouldn’t happen. Better not to meet her cousin ever again. And why meet her Aunt Marie at all? Alice barely knows her.
Phyllis is lying back on her pillows now, hands clasped on the sheet in front of her, eyes closed. Except for the slight fluttering under the lids she could be dead already. Who is this old woman? How did she feel when she found out that her daughter, her favourite daughter, had been murdered? How come she speaks of the other one, her only living child, Marie, as some kind of hindrance? But her grandmother was always hard to know. Even when Alice was little she never behaved like her friends’ grandmothers, who turned up to school concerts and open days and sent presents for birthdays.
They’d stood together, Alice and her grandmother, by the grave, after the service in St Kieran’s church. They’d watched the coffin being lowered as the final prayers were said. Alice and her grandmother on one side of that deep hole, and what seemed like the rest of the town, including Marie and Jonty, on the other. Jed was overseas and hadn’t come home for the funeral.
They’d all watched as the shiny box went down into the earth. In reality, there had only been about sixty people, but they were a sea of faces that Alice didn’t recognise, except for . . . yes, she does now remember . . . Luke Mullaney and his wife, Anna, standing there. Funny that she’s never really thought about it before. Who else came to my mother’s funeral? There must have been others she knew as well. Yes, there were those people from her mother’s work who’d sent cards and flowers. Some of her teachers and fellow classmates must have been there. What else happened that day?
But she can’t remember much at all – only that her grandmother did not invite anyone back to the house after the funeral. Nor did she put on an afternoon tea in the parish hall, the way so many people did. That much was spoken about widely, noticed around the town.
It was a hot day, and the old woman had been dressed in a black linen suit and a black wide-brimmed silk hat that made seeing her face almost impossible.
‘I just need to think about it, Gran,’ Alice says at last.
‘Of course you do, dear,’ the old lady whispers, without opening her eyes.
Alice has a clear memory of her cousin, outside a church, years before her mother’s murder. Lillian and Marie were huddled close together having some kind of furtive conversation, and Alice and Jonty were standing about awkwardly waiting for them to finish.
‘We’re cousins,’ Alice said at last, solemnly.
‘I know,’ Jonty replied stiffly in his weird accent, looking her up and down as though assessing if she was worthy of such a role, ‘but we’re not meant to be close, apparently.’
‘Why not?’ Alice had never heard a kid use the word apparently before and it both impressed and alarmed her.
‘My father says . . .’ His voice fell away and he frowned.
‘What does you father say?’ Alice was suddenly consumed with curiosity. Why weren’t they meant to be friends? What was behind the shadowy unease between the two families?
But Jonty only shrugged and moved away to the stairs leading up to where all the cars were parked. After a while he turned back, motioning for Alice to follow him. She did so very tentatively.
This cousin of hers was older than her by a good three years, and he was taller and a boy, all of which made talking to him a little fraught. She was unsure how to act. But then, when they were standing opposite each other and out of earshot of their mothers, Jonty suddenly grinned. That was when she noticed his eyes – so green and bright, with long soft lashes surrounding them. She’d read about people having green eyes but had never seen any before.
‘I’ve decided I don’t care what he says,’ Jonty whispered. ‘What about you?’
‘I don’t know.’ Alice shook her head. Her cousin seemed to be asking something of her.
He shrugged, and then said something that thrilled Alice to her core. ‘It’s up to us,’ he’d said, ‘don’t you think?’
‘Okay,’ Alice nodded eagerly.
‘We could meet and talk about all kinds of stuff without them knowing. I could be like your big brother.’
‘Okay!’ Alice had been delighted. She had never been asked to be part of a secret alliance before. All the way home in the car she was dying to tell her mother about it, but she knew that if she did the whole plan would be in jeopardy, the magic of it all might disappear.
Oh, Mumma, she prays suddenly. Give me some sign. Let me know if he is the one who . . . She remembers that her mother had liked Jonty. She used to say he was a special kid who’d had a hard trot with that man. That he should be cut some slack when he got into trouble, and that he was extremely clever. What else? What else did my mother say?
‘I think we should let them come,’ Alice says finally.
‘Very well then,’ her grandmother sighs deeply and opens her eyes. ‘I’ll invite them to afternoon tea next weekend.’
Alice suddenly panics, opens her mouth to renege on what she has just said. But no words come out.
‘But, Alice . . .’ Her grandmother is looking at her seriously.
‘Yes, Gran?’
‘I’ll need you there.’
‘I’ll be there, Gran.’
TOM
No need for the alarm, Tom is awake at six anyway. He leans over and switches it off and lies there a moment, glad to be awake. He’d been dreaming of her again, some crazy stuff about running after her down a road at night, but he doesn’t feel too bad now. Good really. Having something different to do helps get his mind away from it.
The truth is, since that day in the courthouse he can’t stop thinking about Alice Wishart. He shuts his eyes at night and it’s her face he sees. He wakes up in the morning and it’s there. That lovely sad face! The awkward hour in the café only made it worse. His dreams are wild and murky and always about being lost and trying to find her, or else about chasing after her into some unknown dangerous territory. He still doesn’t understand what happened in that courtroom. All he knows is something did happen. Since that day her face is in his head, she is breathing under everything else going on in his life.
Tom throws off the blankets, jacks up the blind and looks out. But there is nothing to see. The darkness is as thick as a blanket. He gets into a shirt, jumper, jeans, socks and boots, then grabs his jacket from the cupboard. Only takes a minute. September now. The days are starting to get light earlier. It will be dawn in twenty minutes. Mustn’t wake his dad or Nanette. Sneak out of the bedroom. Tip-toe down the passage to the kitchen. Fill the kettle, switch it on. A quick coffee and he’ll be awake.
‘How about getting me something fancy for the weekend front page?’ his boss had suggested the night before, as they were leaving.
‘What do you want?’ Tom had tried to hide his surprise. His pleasure, too. Steve is a nice guy, easy to get along with and good for a laugh. But there are four photographers on staff and Tom is the most junior, so he never expected to be given anything interesting. He assumed the others were busting their guts for something other than weddings and kids’ sports days, farmer Ted’s prize bull and the lat
est local to make a name for himself in the big bad world.
‘Sunday is the first day of spring.’ Steve, a tall heavy bloke with a loud voice to match, was easing his bulky frame into his car. ‘How about early morning down on the coast?’ He slammed the door shut and wound down the window of his Holden Commodore. ‘Let’s see what they’re teaching you in that fancy course.’ He grinned at Tom as he backed the car out of his space.
‘You’re on,’ Tom calls after him. ‘Might even take the old Minolta out for a run.’
‘Good man,’ he yells as he roars off. ‘I’ll leave it to you then.’
So that’s the plan: head out to East Beach to catch the sun coming up, with the lovely battered old 35 mm single-lens reflex camera that his grandfather owned when he was about Tom’s age. A couple of rolls of slow film and a tripod ought to do it. Of course, actual film isn’t used much any more. At the Chronicle, and even back at college, it’s all digital. The images are there on the computer as soon as you get back to the office. Every device on his old camera has been superseded a thousand times over. But the lens still happens to be among the best ever made, and if you know how, there are things you can do with these old cameras that the digital technology can’t. For all its efficiency, the equipment Tom works with at the Chronicle doesn’t come anywhere near this heavy old girl for subtlety. Besides, he loves handling it. He loves its weight and the clicking of the shutter. He loves taking light readings manually and working out the aperture and speeds and . . . all the rest of it, because it reminds him of his grandfather.
There is a thermos on top of the fridge. He pulls it down and fills it with instant coffee, grabs a banana from the bowl and heads out to the trusty rust bucket.
‘Hey, Tom!’ It’s his old man at the back door. Probably come out for a leak. Not a real pretty sight in his jocks with his gut hanging out under the grubby T-shirt he slept in, grey hair sticking up all over like a porcupine. ‘Where you going at this hour?’ he says all gruff and bleary-eyed.
‘Gotta shoot the ocean,’ Tom calls back. ‘Sorry if I woke you.’
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