Wildflower Hill

by Kimberley Freeman

  The silence was brief, prefaced with a sigh. “I don’t know, Emma,” she said. “None of it sounds like Mum, but then . . . she sometimes did unpredictable things.”

  “Like giving away her money to charity?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But why would she keep it a secret? I don’t understand.”

  “Think about all the things you just told me, Emma, then imagine it’s the fifties and you’re married to a senior politician and have two little children . . .” She trailed off sadly.

  “I’m sorry, Mum, I wasn’t going to tell you any of this. I didn’t want to upset you with stories about secret children and so on.”

  She went quiet again, then said, “Beattie once said something to me in an unguarded moment. And it always made me wonder.”

  “Go on.”

  “It was when I first got pregnant with you, and I was asking her about her first pregnancy and the birth. I was worried, I supposed. I needed some reassurance. And she told me her first birth was fast and at home, easy and natural. Then a few years later, I heard her tell Michael that his birth was awful, too many doctors, strapped on a table. A completely different story.”

  “So either she was lying to make you feel good . . .”

  “Or Michael wasn’t her first baby.” Her voice broke.

  “Are you okay, Mum?”

  “It’s all right, love. It just makes me sad to think . . . that she felt she couldn’t tell me.” She sniffed. “I miss her so much. I wish she were still around to ask.”

  “So do I.”

  I was dead tired at midday and went upstairs to have a nap. I set my alarm for one o’clock but must have turned it off in my sleep, because I slept for much longer than an hour. I was having a dream about Grandma. I couldn’t see her, as she was off in the distance on a horse, but I knew it was Grandma. Beside her, on another horse, was a man with dark skin. They were out on the ridge that I could see from my bathroom window, and they were laughing . . .

  I woke to a knock on the door downstairs. Quite a loud knock. As though somebody had been trying to rouse me for a while. I sat up, disoriented. Looked at the clock: four in the afternoon.

  “Coming!” I called.

  I descended the stairs, hoping whoever it was would give me a chance to get there.

  I opened the door, saw Patrick’s car reversing out of my driveway.

  I ran down, waving madly: a crazy, bleary-eyed woman with sweaty hair. He stopped, turned off the engine, and climbed out of the car.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “I heard you were back.”

  “No secrets in this town.”

  “Indeed.”

  We looked at each other for a minute. Then I said, “Do you want to come in for a coffee?”

  He shrugged. “All right.”

  We went inside, and he sat at the kitchen table while I filled the kettle and put it on.

  “I really just wanted to talk to you about the concert,” he said. “Ask if you were still coming. It’s this Saturday night.”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s why I came back.” I glanced at him, but he wasn’t looking at me. “One of the reasons I came back.”

  He looked up; his eyes were sad. “I don’t know why you went.”

  “Because I’m a fool.”

  He didn’t say anything. I made two cups of coffee and sat with him at the table.

  I took a deep breath. “I had unfinished business there,” I said.

  “With Josh?”

  “How did you know his name?”

  “Monica told me.”

  I put my head on the table. “Monica. She’s never going to speak to me again.”

  He laughed softly. “She’s got a fierce side, especially where I’m concerned.”

  I sat up again. “I’m so sorry, Patrick, I didn’t mean to send you such confusing signals. But I didn’t know what I wanted myself. I had to go back.”

  “And do you know now?” he asked. “Do you know what you want?”

  “I don’t want Josh,” I said. “For certain.”

  A long silence stretched out between us. Neither of us touched our coffee. I suspected he was trying to decide whether he should trust me.

  “I should go,” he said. “Give you a chance to settle in.”

  “I didn’t sleep with him,” I blurted.

  “That’s really none of my business,” he said in a cool voice, and I felt embarrassed for saying it.

  I saw him to the door, then asked him to pick me up for the dress rehearsal on Wednesday night.

  “I can’t,” he said. “I have to pick up the rest of the lights, so there won’t be room in the car. But you can come with Monica and me to the concert on Saturday.”

  In the car with Monica for an hour. I shuddered. “Great, thanks.”

  “I’ll pick you up at five,” he said.

  “Looking forward to it.”

  I watched him drive away, hoping I hadn’t blown it.

  I spent most of the week thinking. Oh sure, I also did laundry and shopped and reset my body clock. But most of the work was going on inside my head. I knew for a fact that my life in London, the life I had thought of as my dream life, was over. I didn’t want Josh—I didn’t know why I’d ever wanted Josh—and London wasn’t as much fun without a glittering and highly paid career to keep me busy. But I wasn’t ready to give up the dancing. My knee would never let me move like that again, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy moving, or teaching, or even seeing ballet. My future didn’t seem so bleak anymore. In fact, I wondered that it had ever seemed bleak, since I was alive and healthy and young.

  My only anxieties about the future were related to Patrick. I kept replaying his kiss over and over in my imagination. I was wary of getting too caught up in a fantasy, but it seemed to me that I’d never met a better man. And that I never would.

  THIRTY-THREE

  I was ready half an hour early on Saturday afternoon, pacing my sitting room. I was nervous for so many reasons: having to face Monica, desperate to make a good impression on Patrick, wondering how Mina would do. I wished I’d been able to see the last dress rehearsal to tell her how great she was, how proud I was . . .

  Mina. I had an idea, and it staggered me that I hadn’t thought of it before. I went upstairs to my bedroom and opened my dresser. Inside was my Swan Lake tiara: she would look divine in it. I realized sadly that the reason I hadn’t thought of it before was that it was too precious to me, a symbol of my old life. I would have been too selfish to let it go.

  I put the tiara in my handbag and went downstairs to wait. The summer afternoons went on forever, mild and balmy. Long shadows and lazy breezes. Patrick turned up the driveway right on five. Monica was in the front seat.

  “Hello,” I said, climbing into the back.

  “Hi, Emma,” Patrick said, putting the car in gear and turning it back toward the road. He looked sharply at Monica, who said hello grudgingly.

  I sat back and looked out the window. She was cold toward me—if not hostile—for the whole journey, much to my discomfort and Patrick’s obvious embarrassment. I was relieved when we pulled in to the car park outside the school hall; I could get out of the car and have some space from her.

  Patrick handed us our tickets. “I have to go over the sound system again,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  “I need to see Mina, if I can,” I said to Patrick. “Is it okay if I go backstage?”

  “Of course.”

  I found my way backstage, where Marlon was parading about, singing happily to everyone. There were nervous children and their nervous parents everywhere.

  “I’m looking for Mina,” I said to one of the mothers.

  “Over in the wings on the other side of the stage,” she said.

  I walked around the back. Stages smelled the same anywhere in the world: hair spray, greasepaint, hot electricity, the rubbery scent of duct tape. It was dark in the wings, with only
the pinprick torchlight of the technical assistants to light my way. I found Mina sitting on a stool, gazing into middle distance.

  “Hi,” I said.

  She looked up and smiled. “Hi.”

  “Are you excited?”

  She nodded. “A little scared.”

  “That’s normal. That’s good. The best ballerinas are always a little scared.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely. It means they care. Hey, I have something for you.”

  “What is it?”

  I pulled the tiara out of my bag. “Remember this?”

  She reached for it, set it on her head. I arranged it properly, pinning it securely while I talked to her. “I can’t dance anymore, Mina. Not the way I used to. So I don’t have any use for this tiara anymore. Would you like to keep it?”

  Her eyes went wide. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  “You must be gentle. It’s delicate. It was . . .” It meant nothing to her that it had been hand-crafted for me in the Czech Republic. “It was special to me once,” I finished.

  “It’s not special anymore?”

  “I’ve redefined special,” I said, and I laughed. “You have it. It looks beautiful on you.”

  She nodded. “You know something? My dad is coming.”

  I was shocked; maybe I had finally gotten through to him. “That’s wonderful. He’ll be so proud.”

  “He’s taking me out for pizza afterward. I really like pizza.”

  I gave her a hug. “I’d better go find my seat. Good luck, sweetie.” I left her there, sitting in the dark, entranced by the whirl of excitement around her.

  The auditorium was starting to fill up. I checked my seat number and noticed that it was right next to Monica’s. Of course. Patrick had been given the tickets, and they were together. I braced myself and sat next to her.

  She glanced up but didn’t say anything.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Do you want me to sit somewhere else?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t mind. I’ve got a friend meeting me here soon.” She patted the empty seat next to her. “We won’t have to try to make awkward small talk. I can just pretend I don’t know you.”

  I had to laugh. “Wow, Monica, I had no idea you were this ferocious.”

  The corners of her lips twitched, but she didn’t let herself smile.

  “Can I explain something to you?” I said.

  “You can try.”

  “Up until recently, I didn’t know what was important. I think I had to lose it for a little while to realize how much I missed it.”

  She turned to look at me. “Are you talking about Patrick?”

  “Among other things.”

  She considered me silently for a few moments, as the chatter and movement of the auditorium increased. “He’s smitten with you, Emma. If you break his heart, I will kill you.” Now she smiled.

  A light, bubbling sensation ran over my ribs. “Really? Smitten?”

  “I don’t want to have to kill you.”

  “You won’t have to. I’ll be good.”

  Her friend arrived soon after, and I sat back to wait. Gradually, the seats were all filled. There was a hubbub of voices, a sense of expectation in the waiting gloom. I closed my eyes for a second and remembered—so many performances, all over Europe—then opened them. The sadness was fleeting.

  That was when I saw Mina’s father. He had arrived just before they closed the doors and was finding his way to his seat, tripping on people’s feet, eyes scanning for his seat number. Finally, he found it, four seats away from me. He sat stiffly, hands resting on his thighs. I watched him for a few moments, but he didn’t see me. Then the lights dimmed and the spotlight came on, the audience roared, and the concert began.

  The first piece was a disaster. The youngest children got themselves completely spooked and didn’t start dancing until the eighth bar of the music, and then they were out of sync for the rest of the piece. But they were spirited and happy, and the audience cheered them as though they’d hit every beat. By the second piece, things were running more smoothly. It was an old show tune, and a couple of the kids were so determined to get it right that the floor shook with their stomping feet.

  I relaxed in my seat, enjoying the show, the warm feeling of community. I felt blessed.

  Mina’s piece was the last. The music started, and six children in white filed out and formed a semicircle. Then Mina, queenly in her tiara, walked gracefully out to the center of the stage and beamed. She was so beautiful, made of starlight. She raised her arms . . . and off she went. Every beat precise, every movement of her arms full of energy and care. I got so swept up in her performance that I almost forgot to see what her father was doing. During the closing bars of the song, I looked across at him. He was palming tears off his face.

  * * *

  Monica left straight after the concert with her friend. She was going to spend the rest of the weekend in Hobart. I was left waiting for Patrick as he and Marlon saw off excited families and watched over the packing up of the sound and lights.

  “I’m sorry,” said Patrick as the last piece of equipment was loaded onto the truck. “You’re going to be home late.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said. “Nobody waiting for me.”

  He smiled at me. “You talked Mina’s dad into coming.”

  “I know.”

  “I would have just let it go. But you didn’t. You were right about that one.”

  “Right about something. At last.”

  “All right, let’s head home.”

  The night was soft and cool, with starlight on the river. In the car, it was dark except for the colored dashboard lights that reflected on Patrick’s skin. The radio mumbled too softly to hear. We talked in short bursts about parts of the concert, then fell into long silences. The wide fields, the noble silhouettes of dead trees, the clear starry sky, the magical dark, and us speeding through it to my home.

  He pulled up in the driveway but didn’t turn off the car. He was going to make me ask.

  “Will you come in?” I said.

  “Are you sure you want me to?”

  I was glad it was dark so he couldn’t see me blush. “Oh, yes.”

  He cut the engine, and we got out and walked to the front door. Closed it behind us. I was in his arms before I’d taken breath. His lips on mine were firm and warm. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and we kissed like teenagers. His hand crept up to stroke my breast, and my skin seemed to turn to liquid.

  “Upstairs,” I said.

  “Upstairs,” he answered.

  I woke, and the birds were there. Calling and singing and chirping, as rowdy as ever. I opened my eyes and saw Patrick, still asleep. His pale, bare shoulder above the sheets. Patrick, naked in my bed. I could have swooned all over again.

  I watched him for a while, and eventually, his eyelids flickered. I snuggled against him and kissed his shoulder.

  “Good morning,” he said softly, his fingers in my hair.

  “Yesterday’s surprise,” I said.

  We lay like that for a while, twined around each other, listening to the noisy birds.

  Then he said, “What are you going to do now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He extricated himself and sat up, looking down at me. “Now the concert’s over. Are you selling the house? Going back to Sydney?”

  “Of course I’m not selling the house,” I said.

  “Then you’re staying?”

  “I guess I must be.”

  He smiled.

  “If you want me to.”

  “Oh, I want you to.”

  Over breakfast, I listed all the things I had been putting off because I hadn’t wanted to commit to staying. “Buy a new fridge,” I said. “One with a freezer that works.”

  “Get the piano tuned. Please,” he said.

  “Yes. And I’ll get a television. And a proper washing machine.”

  “It’ll be like a home.”

  “It is
home,” I said. I snapped my fingers. “The master bedroom. I’ll move in finally, like Monica’s been telling me all this time. I’ll move in today.”

  We finished eating and went upstairs to the master bedroom. He made love to me there, on the dusty covers, sweet and fierce. I opened the curtain afterward and looked out at the cabbage gum and thought about Grandma and Charlie.

  “Are you going to buy a new mattress for this bed?” Patrick said as I dressed. “The springs are gone in this one.”

  I turned. He was lying, still shirtless, on the bed.

  “Probably. I’ll just turn it over for now.”

  “Want some help?”

  “Sure.”

  We pulled the linen off the bed, sneezing from dust, and lifted up the mattress to turn it over.

  “Emma.”

  “I saw it.” The cardboard folder, squashed flat from years between the mattress and the bed base. While he held the mattress up, I reached for it. He let the mattress go with a thud, and we sat on the bed and opened the folder.

  Photos. Dozens of photos. The little girl, whoever she was, in a dozen different dresses and poses. On a horse, playing with dogs, bent over in the garden, posing by a Christmas tree.

  “Oh, my,” I said, leafing through them. Here was Grandma, a young woman, with the little girl, waving to somebody behind the camera. And here was a tall, dark-skinned man, his face obscured by his hat, sitting comfortably on the back of a horse. I flipped it over: Charlie, Grandma had written on the back. I showed it to Patrick.

  “Mystery solved,” he said.

  “There was more than one mystery,” I replied. I started looking on the backs of the other photos. One name appeared over and over again. Lucy. “Lucy,” I said. “Her name was Lucy.” I don’t know why this affected me so; I was close to tears.

  “I wonder what happened to her.”

  Right at the bottom of the folder, I found a letter. I read the address. “She went to Scotland,” I said.