by Ella Carey
Tess knew if she slowed down and thought about what she was doing, she might find reason to pause, but she also knew that if she didn’t find Rumer, it would bother her for the rest of her life. What came over her like a wave crashing on her own solitary rock was that selling copies didn’t matter one bit anymore. It was Edward. Edward and Rebecca and the fact that they had to see each other again before they died. If they could. Now that she’d met Edward, Tess wanted him to have the chance he’d clearly never had, for whatever reason, to find happiness with the woman he’d loved all his life.
Rumer was an artist who didn’t want fame. Rebecca would never have sought fame. Rebecca had disappeared. Rumer had kept her identity secret. Rebecca had made an art form of running away. She’d run from her mother to ensure her survival. Had she run again? Had she destroyed all evidence of the girl who had existed before Rumer Banks?
She’d only left a handful of drawings and paintings back in Australia, and Sunday Reed had looked after those. They’d been hidden away at Heide. There had only been one exhibition forty years ago. While Rumer’s work had become easily recognizable now, Rebecca Swift’s work had been left for dead.
Switching back to her research on Rebecca’s death over the weekend, Tess had also discovered that Rebecca’s body had never been found. So. Edward had never had closure. And that was why Rebecca Swift lingered on in his soul, gone, but not buried. The fact that she’d haunted him since Edith died made sense.
But at this point, even though Tess still didn’t know what had gone wrong between Edward and Rebecca, one thing was clear: the past may well be some strange, secret shore, but if it was haunting Edward enough to make him want to write a book for the first time in forty years, enough to make him want to revisit it as soon as his wife had died and he was free, then Tess had an obligation to tell him that Rebecca might not have died that night in 1946.
One lead, one chance to find her. Carmel-by-the-Sea was mentioned in three articles by three separate journalists as Rumer Banks’s home. Tess looked at the photocopies of those articles that she’d laid out on her desk and studied them alongside her photos. She had to make sense of this quickly.
Tess leaned forward and picked up the phone.
“Pronto?” Edward said.
“Edward? It’s Tess.” Tess winced at the high-pitched tone of her voice.
This was not her story to keep secret.
“Edward,” she said. “There’s something you should know.”
There was a silence.
“Have you heard of an artist called Rumer Banks?”
“Vaguely,” he said. “She is US-based, a mystery, isn’t that right? I’m not any more familiar with her than that, I’m afraid.”
Tess took in a breath. “As soon as I saw Rebecca’s sketches—this is going to sound odd, Edward, but bear with me—I noticed that Rebecca’s work bore more than a resemblance to Rumer Banks’s sketches.”
Edward stayed quiet.
“You see, my father also . . . well, you could say, in his own way, he admires Rumer Banks and owns two of her early sketches from the 1950s. She is famously prolific, so it’s not so unusual for smart investors to have bought her work years ago. All Rumer does is create art. Apparently, she’s hidden herself away from the rest of the world, and from what I’ve read, she’s leading an almost hermetic existence, it seems . . . Edward.”
“Hang on—”
“Please hear me out, Edward. When I saw Rebecca’s sketches, your sketches, I noticed not only that Rebecca’s work was strikingly like Rumer’s. I wondered if they were by the same artist.”
She waited a few moments. Her heart pounded out a triple tattoo. Either she was about to be ditched again, or . . .
“I know it sounds crazy,” she murmured, wishing, so intently, that she was there with him, sitting in some café in Rome surrounded by Italian art. “But Edward, the work is so similar, I have to ask whether Rebecca may still be alive. I have to ask whether she may not have drowned at sea, but instead reinvented herself as the mysterious Rumer Banks. I think she ran away again.”
Silence.
Tess’s stomach turned on itself.
“I don’t think,” Edward said finally, “that you could possibly understand the loss that I went through. I want you to forget we had this conversation. Rebecca is dead. I’ve been living with that fact for forty years, believe me. She’s gone. If you think that somehow finding out whether Rebecca reinvented herself under a pseudonym could be another publicity stunt for your career, then I will seek another publisher.”
Tess felt her shoulders droop. Silently, she cursed the way she’d approached him when they’d begun working together.
“If you want to continue with this project, would you please keep things professional,” he said. “I have no interest in any more tactics that are clearly directed toward publicity on your part. It’s becoming obscene.”
And he hung up.
Rome, 1987
Edward placed the receiver onto its cradle, his heart hammering in mismatched beats. He gazed at the intricate patterns that decorated the Turkish rug he’d saved from Haslemere. Then he went over to the kitchen.
Edward’s hands shook as he lifted the electric kettle. As if in a trance, he moved across the small kitchen to the sink and turned on the tap, forcing himself to focus on the water as it ran from the faucet into the kettle’s white lip. He had to stop before he could fill it enough even for one cup of tea, furious with his old vibrating hands, age spots tenanting the places that once, Rebecca had stroked . . .
He leaned against the Formica bench, closing his eyes against the tears that stung the backs of his eyelids, old half-formed things that had never fallen years ago, when they should have.
He had never been able to let them out.
Guilt returned like a wasp. Stinging in repeated patterns, again and again, in the same tortured spot. He’d been so wracked with everything at the time it all happened that he’d been unable to see past his own nose. If the past was another country, he’d left it far behind. For years that had worked.
Until now.
So what should he do? Gaining control of his feelings was his first quick instinct, like capturing a bad spirit in its den. No matter how much his life might want to move in circular patterns, Edward wanted to stick to a straight line. Writing about the past was one thing. Taking a step back and risking living it again was simply not something he was prepared to do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Victor Harbor, 1946
Rebecca rushed down the lawn, her dress flapping behind her, down the path through the bushes onto the beach. It was as if a spool of black ribbon had wound itself around the entire Russell family since the horrifying facts surrounding Robert’s death had come to light. Edward was in an abominable place that was impossible to reach. The house was filled with hushed discussions about the importance of covering up the amount of alcohol that had been in Robert’s bloodstream when he stumbled into Edward’s car and drove like a madman until he finally, in some death wish, wrapped both the Aston Martin and himself around a tree.
Rebecca sat by in stunned silence as the press figured more in family conversations than Robert ever had. It was impossible to tell what was going on with Celia, but she constantly diverted the family from any talk about the boy they had lost, the person he was, and the tragedy of his drinking. Rebecca could only watch helplessly as Edward tried to convince his mother that they needed to talk about the drinking, to acknowledge that it had caused Robert’s death, and to help Angus. In the face of Celia’s stony resistance, finally, he appeared to have given up.
It was too late, after all. The deed was done. The worst had happened.
Robert was dead. So what was the point in going over it? Edward withdrew from everyone. He’d told Rebecca he wanted to think his own thoughts, make his own decisions. He’d shut her out. Had become a pale and muted version of himself. It seemed he was afraid that Celia would collapse if he raised anything co
ntroversial.
Vicky’s face, when she appeared, was the color of a frozen lake, blue undertones rendering her soft features almost ghoulish. But she wasn’t going to let up either; she was not going to acknowledge the truth about the family’s problems.
Rebecca saw mirror images of the time after her own father’s death. Rebecca had to tell her friends that her father had died of a heart attack. Not the truth. Never the truth.
Robert’s tragic death brought back searing feelings about her father. She lay wide awake at night, stuck with memories of her own loss. Grief seemed to be a complex circle that spun itself into patterns; it was hardly a linear process. Did time have any bearing on it? Rebecca thought she’d gotten over her father’s death years ago. And yet, more than anything else, right now it seemed that she and Edward were both locked in torturous worlds that were heartbreakingly separate, and yet intrinsically the same.
Rebecca now saw with startling clarity the way her mother swept everything under the carpet in order to forge on. Celia’s attitude highlighted it until the realization cut into Rebecca’s heart. Rebecca could see so clearly what was happening, how this failure to face up to the truth wouldn’t work in a year, or ten years, or twenty, but she could only stand by and watch, helpless.
Cry, for heaven’s sakes, she wanted to say to them all. Don’t sit in this stony cold state! But stoicism was supposed to be a sign of strength, and she knew better than to confront them in their grief.
Rebecca sat through the funeral in the local church in the pew behind the family, staring at the back of Edward’s rigid head. Robert’s body was to be transported to the family graveyard at Haslemere, where he would rest on a hillside overlooking the paddocks that his forebears had turned into a sprawling estate.
The evening after the funeral, Rebecca stood on the beach staring out at the sea.
She knew with deadening certainty that her relationship with Edward was breaking down. Celia could not have been less subtle about Edward’s responsibilities had she wielded a sledgehammer. The older woman told Rebecca repeatedly that Edward’s role was fundamental to the family’s future now. And suggested that Rebecca should go home.
Rebecca dipped her toes into the warm shallows that puddled in and out, gentle, tiny wavelets.
But how could she abandon Edward? She would not walk out on him, ever. He’d been there for her when she needed him. She, in turn, would be here as long as he needed her. But did he need her? Did he want her here?
Rebecca painted furiously. Her work was her only balm. She mailed sketches and paintings that she made while keeping well out of the way in order to calm her circular yearning to be with Edward. She missed him. But this was not the time to tell him that. Instead, she spent hours sitting on the beach or on the island, where the wild gray sea seemed to marry perfectly with the turbulence in her soul.
Beneath all the swirling, broiling mess, she had moments of pure clarity, just as sometimes the foamy water parted enough to show the ocean’s depths. She loved Edward. She would do so until the day he died, so she would stay here. Sunday was right. Love was all we had. Love was all that mattered. She had to believe in it, or she would be lost.
And so she would wait for him to get through this. She would give him the space he needed and let him grieve. No matter how long it took. Rebecca knew that he loved her. He would come back to her once things were done.
Sunday, as always, understood.
Heide
Darling Rebecca,
I think you are right in giving Edward some space. I think you are also right in that this time is for you to paint from your heart. Go to your island, don’t hold it back. The CAS is delighted with your work and your sketches will hang alongside Sidney Nolan’s and Albert Tucker’s in their next exhibition in Melbourne. Grief is uncontrollable sometimes. Out of it will come your best work. Things will resolve themselves. Just hold out.
Edward will come through. Your love is too strong for anything else.
Take life one day at a time. It is the only way we can control our lives at times of indomitable grief.
My love,
Sun.
The delight she should have felt at the fact that her work was being hung alongside Sidney Nolan’s and Albert Tucker’s seemed irrelevant, washed aside by worry about Edward, about their future. For the first time in her life, her art was only a distraction, not a refuge. Rebecca tugged at Sunday’s letter in her pocket. She had no idea where this crazy, wild sea storm was taking her next.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
New York, 1987
Tess waited on a black leather sofa in the lobby of her office building, her hands clasped in her lap. Her suitcase was lined up, with her cherry-red scarf tied to its handle. She’d grabbed it at the last minute, not only so that she could identify her suitcase, but it seemed appropriate for this journey. It was a wave of hope, somehow, to Rebecca Swift.
Tess focused on the tall windows that looked out over the busy street. It might not sound rational to anyone else, but to Tess, Rebecca being Rumer made perfect sense. She’d run away from her life, and she’d hidden herself away for decades. And she’d painted. Tess was sure of it.
The elevator doors slid open. James walked into the lobby and marched straight toward her.
Tess folded her hands tighter in her lap.
He stood, blocking her view of the streetscape. James’s voice was low and deep. “Tell me what you’re doing.”
Tess tightened her lips into a bow.
“Okay then. Here’s the thing.” He sat down beside her. “I think I know.”
Tess felt her heartbeat go double time. Where was the taxi?
He wouldn’t understand. She couldn’t tell him. He’d think she was crazy. And tacky. His use of the word still caused her to wince.
“Leon said you were going to Carmel-by-the-Sea,” he murmured. “I presume he knows why.”
Tess smoothed her hands down her outfit.
James crouched down in front of her, sending a glance around the room. “I went to the Rose Reading Room, Tess. I admire Rumer Banks, you see. But I thought it was too far-fetched to say anything to you about my suspicions before I’d checked it out back home, and I wasn’t sure whether you’d made the same connection. You could have talked to me, Tess. But Rebecca’s work has been locked away at Heide, and Edward has kept those sketches to himself. I doubt he even showed them to his wife. We have to appreciate how much it must have cost him to show them to us.”
Her favorite spot in the library. The Rose Reading Room. She’d underestimated his knowledge of art.
Tess clasped her hands and stared straight ahead.
“Hey,” he said, as she watched the constant movement out in the street. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“You haven’t read Edward’s book,” she said. “You don’t know how much he loved her. If I don’t do this I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. It’s nothing to do with my career.”
James ran a hand through his tousled hair.
Tess focused straight ahead. If she thought about this too much, she’d tell herself to stop—to put her career first. The room seemed a blur now, people came and went as usual on a busy Friday morning. But somehow, beneath all this day-to-day bustle in the world, truth and honesty and getting to the heart of things were all that mattered now. Edward and Rebecca had been right. And what was more, Tess had known it all her life. She’d toed the line for far too long now. She had to start making her own decisions. She had to start standing on her own two feet. And if that meant striking out on her own, then so be it. She knew how she felt about James. No one, not ever, had treated her with such respect as he had. No one affected her as he did. But she still knew that she had to follow her heart where it was leading her right now.
And if she had a chance to find Rebecca Swift, then she was going to take it.
“Tess,” James said, “if Edward finds out you’re doing this, he’s going to be furious. Your job, your career . . . y
ou can’t afford to lose everything.”
Tess gritted her teeth.
James reached out, touching her hand for a brief second before pulling it back. “You’re getting too involved, taking everything too seriously,” he said, his voice achingly close.
Tightness clamped her chest. Everything? As in him, James, as well? She glared at the window, determined not to let him rattle her.
A yellow cab stopped outside the glass-fronted building.
She stood up. Looked him straight in the eye. Fought an urge, almost as strong as her own heartbeat, to reach out and trace her fingers over his face, his lips. He had that hurt look in his eyes again. She knew he was worried about her. But still, she held his gaze. “If Rumer is Rebecca, which I think she has to be, I want to know why she did it. I need to know why she left. I want to know why she hid herself away from the man she loved, and I want to see if there is any chance that they can find happiness again.”
James’s look seared into her. For a moment, something twinkled in his eyes. He leaned forward, his lips brushing the top of her head. “Let me come with you,” he murmured into her hair.
But she shook her head, even though her hands wanted to reach out and hold him as he held her. “No. I have to find her myself,” she said.
“Be careful,” he muttered, as the taxi driver took her suitcase.
James walked with her out the front door and hugged her roughly again before she climbed into the cab. “Call me if you get stuck. I’m here. You know that.”
Tess nodded. “I’ll be fine. I just want to find her.”
James stood on the pavement while Tess rested her head on the vinyl seat. It was as if she were unpeeling layers of a bound onion—she had to get to the core of the thing. Everything was interlinked: the way she’d been carrying on at work these past few years, the way in which she’d handled herself around her family for a long time, perhaps even the deep-felt fear she knew that she still held about trusting that James held her best interests at heart. Tess didn’t know what the answers were yet. But she suspected that Rebecca had also run away. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to know if the older woman was still alive and if she would consider taking the risk to live the authentic life that she had left behind. Tess wanted to know the measure of Rebecca’s courage, and while the stakes were high—her job, Edward’s trust, and her relationship with James—she wanted to know the measure of her own courage too.