The Four Seasons of Lucy McKenzie

by Kirsty Murray

  All her adventures lay ahead of her.

  Christmas

  Big wanted Lucy to have the window seat, but Lucy made her aunt have it. Big had never flown outside Australia before and maybe she never would again. Lucy knew that in her own life, she would have plenty more trips to admire the view.

  They broke the flight in Singapore because Dad said it was too much to ask Big to fly for twenty hours without a rest. Dad took them to a restaurant on the fifty-seventh floor of a skyscraper. Glass windows wrapped around the restaurant and there was an outside area with timber decks and plush white sofas. Dad ordered them fancy drinks with paper umbrellas in them and they sat outside on the terrace gazing at Singapore’s skyline. As night fell, Lucy and Big took turns pointing out all the lights and crazy architecture. Lucy said it looked like a city out of a manga comic. Big said it was a city of dreams, a city that she hadn’t even imagined existed.

  They landed at Charles de Gaulle airport two days before Christmas. The terminal was bustling with people coming and going, travelling all around the world to be with their families. Dad hauled their baggage onto a trolley and Lucy and Big followed him out of the airport.

  The longest part of the whole trip seemed to be the taxi from the airport to the apartment on the Île de la Cité. Dad sat in the front with the driver while Big and Lucy sat in the back, watching the streets flash past. A week before they had been sitting on the front porch of Avendale, watching the summer light shift on the surface of the river. Now they were looking at the city of light, Paris, where the buildings glittered in the wintery night air. The plane trees were stripped of leaves, which made the elegant lines of the buildings look even sharper, more drawn, like an illustration from a picture book.

  The apartment was above a boulangerie, a bakery with croissants and pastries and baskets of fresh bread piled high in the window. Inside the foyer, a tiny elevator with a black cast-iron grille would take them up to the third floor. Dad went first with their luggage as there wasn’t enough room for three people and their suitcases. Then the lift came down again. Big reached out for Lucy’s hand and together they stepped into the elevator, pulled the grille across and pushed the button. Lucy gave a little squeal as the elevator jolted into action and then she giggled and, to her surprise, so did Big.

  When the grille slid open at the third floor and Lucy saw her mum standing outside the door of the apartment she flung herself into her mother’s waiting arms.

  ‘Merry almost-Christmas, Lucy,’ whispered Mum.

  Then Big was wrapped up in a hug from Mum too.

  Inside the apartment, sitting on a couch beneath the tall, paned windows, was Claire. She had a fluffy white rug over her knees and she wore a blue beret pulled down over her ears. She looked soft and vulnerable, and Lucy ran across the room and folded her in the biggest hug.

  ‘You’ve grown, Lucy-lu,’ said Claire, smoothing Lucy’s hair away from her face. ‘You look so changed.’

  ‘Different?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘No,’ smiled Claire. ‘Not different. More yourself. I think you’re growing up to be just who you are meant to be.’

  Then Lucy looked across the room and saw Big, standing alone and looking shy in this elegant new setting.

  ‘Big!’ cried Claire, holding out her arms. ‘You don’t know how much this means to me, to have you here too. It wouldn’t be a real Christmas without you.’

  When Lucy felt she couldn’t possibly be happier, there was a buzz and a muffled voice came over the intercom. Next thing she knew, her brother Jack came striding into the little apartment. Following behind, her arms full of presents, was his girlfriend, Zoe. Jack picked Lucy up and gave her the biggest bear-hug of her life.

  The apartment had a split mezzanine with a little ladder reaching up to a tiny platform bedroom, which was especially for Lucy. Lucy loved climbing up above the living room and being able to look down at all her family, sitting at the polished-wood table, eating bread and cheese and sipping glasses of champagne.

  She fell asleep to the sound of their voices and soft laughter.

  The next day, Mum and Dad had lots to do to organise a meal for all the family. Everyone except Claire, who needed to rest, was assigned a task. Lucy and Big were sent down to the patisserie two blocks away to buy cakes, which hardly seemed like a chore at all. Lucy chose two dozen tiny coloured petit fours. The next stop on their list was the chocolatier ‘We’re a long way from Broken River,’ said Big as she and Lucy stood on the wintery Paris street and stared in at the dozens of trays of beautiful handmade chocolates.

  Finally, when they’d dropped off the chocolates and cakes at the apartment, Lucy and Big were free to do the one thing they had talked of doing all the way over on the plane.

  It was hard to know which gallery to visit first, there were so many to choose from. Lucy thought the Louvre would be the very first stop, but Big decided they should visit the Musée d’Orsay instead.

  They rode in a taxi along the banks of the river Seine and stopped outside what looked like an enormous palace. Big had told her that it had been a railway station, but it was so grand, it was hard to believe that trains had once run through its heart.

  While Big paid the taxi driver, Lucy stood on the pavement, putting on her mittens. She knew she’d have to take them off again as soon as they were inside the gallery, but there was something very Christmassy about wearing mittens while staring out over an icy-cold river, even though it was only something she’d read about in books. She thought of Christmas at home, of standing on the beach at Coogee, or what it might be like to spend Christmas at Avendale with the cicadas singing and Wally the Wombat snuffling around beneath the living room. There were so many Christmas landscapes inside her head, the ones she’d read about and the ones she’d lived. The future felt crowded with possible Christmases.

  Inside the museum, Lucy and Big stood momentarily awestruck by the galleries that stretched out before them. The ceiling was made up of thousands of panes of glass and it vaulted over them like a high nave. Terraces overlooked the central gallery, and at either end, suspended in midair, were two giant golden clocks.

  Big unfolded a map of the museum, and they sat on a stone bench beneath a bronze sculpture and studied the layout of all the different galleries.

  ‘It’s hard to know where to start,’ said Big. ‘There’s so much to choose from.’

  Lucy had never seen Big so unsure of herself and realised she was overwhelmed. ‘Perhaps we should start at the top and work our way down,’ she said.

  They took an elevator to the fifth floor and wandered from one gallery to the next. It was in the Impressionist rooms that Lucy understood why Big had wanted to visit this gallery so much.

  On every wall hung landscapes that were full of light and movement. Big knew the names of all the painters, even before they read the signs hanging next to them. Bonnard, Sisley, Pissarro, Vuillard and Van Gogh. There were Georges Seurat and Paul Signac paintings made up of thousands of tiny points of colour. Lucy loved the soft cool landscapes and bright rivers, and the huge, soft, blue-and-green painting of Monet’s garden at Giverny.

  Big stood for a long time in front of each painting. It was as if she were wishing she could walk into the landscapes. She had a far-away expression on her face. And then Lucy realised Big’s eyes were full of tears.

  ‘They should have your paintings in here too,’ said Lucy. ‘Your paintings are magic.’

  Big smiled. ‘Thank you, Lucy,’ said Big. ‘But all paintings have magic in them. If you look long enough, if you think deeply, you’ll see what the painter saw and you’ll understand the way they captured light and colour, captured a day, a moment, a tiny piece of time and held it with paint. That’s true magic.’

  Lucy stepped back and looked at the paintings differently. She imagined walking into those landscapes, just as she had walked through the walls of Avendale. She imagined all the people who lived on the other side of the paint, all the lives and loves, all the season
s turning, over hundreds of years.

  She slipped her hand into Big’s and smiled.

  Acknowledgements

  The Four Seasons of Lucy McKenzie is a book that wrote itself but there were many people who helped breathe life into the characters and to whom I am indebted. I would like to thank my lovely cousin Lucy Boyd, who inspired the creation of Lucy McKenzie; Lucy’s children Florence, Ellen and Harry as well as her mother Yvonne; Sabrina Allen for the many scenes she inspired; David Allen for invaluable technical advice; Florence Boyd (again!) for her gorgeous illustrations; Sarah Brenan and Susannah Chambers for editorial support; Lesley Reece for moral support; and my husband Ken Harper for life-support.

  The story of a magical house full of paintings has been with me since I was a child and the fictitious Avendale is loosely based on three houses that once belonged to members of my family: The Grange and Tralee in Victoria and Riversdale in NSW. I am grateful to my extended family for providing me with such a rich backdrop for my stories.

  I am also grateful to the Bundanon Trust (NSW) and the Literature Centre (WA) for providing me with writer’s residencies, during which much of this novel was written.

  About the author

  Kirsty Murray is the author of seventeen books for children and teenagers. Her novels have won and been short-listed for numerous awards including the WA Premier’s Award and the NSW Premier’s History Award. She has been a Creative Fellow of the State Library of Victoria and an Asialink Literature Resident in South India. Her books include India Dark, Vulture’s Gate, Market Blues, Walking Home with Marie-Claire and the epic quartet of historical fiction, Children of the Wind.