Currawong Manor

by Josephine Pennicott

  It was Nick, in black sportswear, his breath steaming the air. Obviously he’d been out for an early-morning jog in spite of the rain.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked, irritated at her privacy being disturbed, while feeling mesmerised by the glistening raindrops in his hair. His dark knowing eyes made her breath catch in her chest.

  He glanced past her to the sofa where the bag was positioned near her tape recorder, then met her eyes and turned on that sexy smile. ‘Sorry, are you working already?’ he said innocently. ‘I thought I’d see if you want to come down to the village to grab breakfast – after I’ve had a shower and changed, of course.’ He gestured to his drenched clothing, unembarrassed.

  Elizabeth was startled – breakfast, one on one, with Nick Cash, the two of them making polite conversation? ‘Um, thanks for thinking of me, but I’m keen to get working,’ she mumbled. ‘There were a couple of tapes in the bag Ginger gave me last night and I’d like to start on them.’ Inwardly she cursed herself for mentioning the tapes.

  ‘She should talk to us both together,’ Nick said, an edge of irritation in his voice.

  ‘I think she might be afraid of getting too emotional,’ Elizabeth replied. ‘Perhaps with her ill health she doesn’t want to put herself under any more stress than she has to.’

  In the brief pause that followed her statement, Elizabeth registered the full force of his intense gaze. His dark eyes contained a disturbing warmth that disarmed and surprised her. But then she reminded herself of his reputation as a lothario; clearly this was part of his power, those sensual eyes that threatened to make her drop her guard. After all, as a writer his job was to manipulate, to gain people’s trust so he could extract information and unearth old secrets.

  ‘Are you okay?’ He looked slightly concerned now.

  ‘Of course I’m okay!’ she squeaked. She flushed, realising she had been staring into his eyes like a starstruck schoolgirl.

  He smiled. ‘You were just frowning at me as if I’d done something wrong.’ His eyes flickered to the bag and she moved protectively across the gap in the door. Registering her movement, his smile slipped again. ‘Elizabeth, I understand the “blood is blood” business, but as the writer of this project I do need to see any research material. I don’t want to be left in the dark. With anything.’

  A sudden rush of anger extinguished the incipient warmth she’d felt a few moments before. To Nick Cash this was just another job; he was a parasitical journalist, eager to profit from the suffering and grief of innocent people. But to her it was a vital chance to uncover some of the secrets behind her own family’s past, to learn more about her mother’s early years, how Lois had lost her parents and sister.

  ‘Of course I understand, Nick,’ she said as sweetly as she could. ‘I’ll pass these tapes on to you after I listen to them today. And no, I don’t have time for breakfast this morning.’ Then she shut the door firmly on him.

  With renewed determination, she took out the tape marked ‘1’ and inserted it into a cassette player, then pressed play.

  ‘Testing, testing.’ There was a pause on the tape; the sound of a drink being poured. Elizabeth also made herself a coffee as she listened. And then Ginger’s confident, booming voice filled the small room.

  ***

  I had a shabby brown suitcase, with a few well-worn things hastily packed in my rush to leave Sydney before being discovered. I felt relieved – no guilt nor despair over abandoning the city and my family as I placed a letter to Ma on the kitchen table. I was fed up with everything. I was tired of the constant fretting about lying to Ma over the loss of my job, pretending I was at work every day. Weary of witnessing Ma so worn and defeated with her money worries. I dreaded Pa’s imminent return from the war, with his insults and the belt that he used whenever he had the urge. Inside me I knew that I was destined for a different life. If I trusted my inner whisper and the wind, I would be blown to my true course. And wherever I landed, there, waiting with open arms, would be my perfect man, at the time, a combination of William Powell and Clark Gable, as well as all the friends and finery I was sure was my due. I didn’t want to end my days as a Surry Hills breeder, reliant on some man filled with grog, rage and the quiet despair of people living little lives. I was prepared to do anything to make sure that never happened to me.

  The country train from Central Station was half deserted, for which I was thankful. It was early April, pouring with rain, and most people of good sense were staying inside. I was wary of the few men on the train – I didn’t fancy the three-hour trip with some fellow thinking he could get into my knickers with a chat and a smile. The blokes we knew had been much more forceful and disrespectful lately on dates. I guess they figured that if the Aussie girls were giving it away so freely to the doughboys then they should show a bit more patriotism with the home boys. As if we’d give them a second glance after the movie-star looks and uniforms of the Americans!

  After all my fretting that Snowy, the boy I’d been dating, might pop the question before he sailed, on our last date, after dancing and drinking for hours at the Trocadero, the rotten mongrel owned up to a wife and baby in Melbourne. I rewarded his honesty with a good slap on his chops. At night I kept my tears to myself with my head under the pillow, but I only had myself to blame.

  It wasn’t often I had the luxury of time to myself or an excursion out of the city. In spite of my nerves, I enjoyed the brief glimpses of the towns we passed through, interspersed with increasingly dense bush. But most of all I enjoyed my own company as the train made its leisurely way up the mountains. I was trying not to fret over Ma’s reaction when she discovered I’d done a bunk – or about the reception that might be awaiting me at Currawong Manor. In their letter, Doris and Rupert had both assured me that I was welcome to stay for as long as I liked. They would do everything for me so Rupert could paint his redhead with ‘the face that interested him’.

  Fate can be a dangerous mistress. We passed the bigger towns in the upper mountains – Leura and then Katoomba, where the train paused for any passengers who wished to eat lunch. Over sandwiches and a pot of tea in the station’s refreshment room I worried more about my impulsive action, but by now my journey was almost finished. We finally arrived at tiny Bellwood Station. I disembarked, taking a full breath of pure mountain air. And in that moment – perhaps the purity of the air enabled me to think clearly for the first time – I changed my mind.

  It was no use, I realised. I couldn’t go through with any of it. I decided that I would wait there, catch the next train down the mountains, and throw myself on Ma’s mercy. And that’s exactly what I would have done, and enjoyed a more peaceful life for it, too, if some interfering old busybody hadn’t chosen that moment to sing out.

  ‘You okay, miss? Are you lost?’

  If only. Those two words must be among the saddest in the dictionary. If only I’d ignored him, pretended I had alighted at the wrong stop. Instead, like the well-trained young woman I was, I replied automatically, ‘I’m looking for Currawong Manor, sir. The home of the painter, Rupert Partridge.’

  Was it my imagination, or did the man’s friendly expression alter to a gaze slightly less respectful? There was an odd pause as he took in my carefully made-up face, hair set in pin curls, my ma’s green coat, in which I was sweltering, and old suede shoes.

  Still, all he said was, ‘You don’t say? The Ruins you’re after? Well, you’re in luck, miss. The dollmaker’s over there.’ He waved a hand towards a woman who was adjusting the straps of a bag she had collected from the train. A formidable white-haired woman dressed entirely in black, with a long black shawl draped around her shoulders and a black belt around her waist from which hung a large set of keys. In spite of her white hair, when I looked at her more closely I saw that she was only middle-aged.

  ‘Cooee!’ the man sang out. ‘This young lady’s after a lift to the Ruins. Can you take her, Dollmaker?’

  And there you have it. Fate had given us all a mischievous nip
from her teeth. If the unfortunate Henry Kelly – for that was who it was, the man who, a few months later, drove the train that killed Doris Partridge – had only minded his business, I might have headed back to Sydney that same day, his own life may not have turned out as cruelly as it did, and the Partridge family might well have lived.

  I could imagine from the dollmaker’s sullen expression how I presented to her in Ma’s good green coat. My ‘nylons’ were really the result of a skilful hand with a brush, and a pot of Stockingless Cream. I wore my favourite green hat with a pink feather. ‘Red and green should never be seen,’ Ma used to sniff when I wore colours that clashed with my hair. But I didn’t hold with fashion rules. If I liked it, I wore it. In those hard times, it was a case of making do with what you had. And I’ve never liked to be dictated to by anyone.

  ‘Are you deaf, Dollmaker?’ the busybody called. Under his breath he muttered, ‘Mad, she is, the sour sow. Miss Sharp’s her name, and don’t it suit her!’

  Finally the woman responded. ‘I’ll take her,’ was the ungracious reply. ‘But she’ll have to share with Buster.’

  ‘Buster’ was a full-grown male kangaroo, who wasn’t too impressed at sharing his seat with a redhead. He made it his business to let me know with a couple of spiteful kicks, which ripped Ma’s coat and terrified the dickens out of me. I was never overly fond of Buster after this disastrous introduction, though I would never have wished on him his gruesome end.

  As quickly as I disliked Miss Sharp and Buster on first meeting them, I just as swiftly became beguiled with Currawong Manor. I can still recall my first glimpse of the place as we drove in a gleaming, well-cared-for Vauxhall along the bumpy dirt track that branched off the main road. Currawong Manor seemed to glow a welcome in the sunshine with its bluestone walls, stone lions and enchanted towers.

  I gasped at the romantic scale of the English fairytale manor and its bizarre but beautiful placement in an Australian setting. Everything about it – even the crumbling, shabby parts such as the winding staircase up the side that led only to the sky – seemed to somehow fit. The bright blue front door with its giant lion’s-head knocker enchanted me, promising mystery and magic inside. Overgrown roses trailed up its walls. In April there were only a few blooms left, but I could imagine their beauty at full flower. Everything about the house was perfect.

  I was a child of Sydney’s grittiest inner-city streets. This vision before me was like something from a storybook. I couldn’t conceive that anybody who was fortunate enough to live within its walls could ever know of disappointment or misery. Which proves how wrong first impressions can be!

  ‘It’s a beautiful house, isn’t it?’ Miss Sharp said, noting my expression.

  I nodded, caught up in fanciful imaginings that the manor had called me to it and that our destinies were joined in some mysterious fashion.

  ‘Looks can be deceiving,’ Miss Sharp said harshly, breaking the spell. ‘It’s not known around here as the Ruins for nothing. You’ve still got time to catch the next train to Sydney if you want me to take you back to the station. Your choice.’ I glanced at her in surprise, wondering if she was joking, but she was poker-faced. ‘You met him at his art show in town, didn’t you?’ Her mouth worked away as if chewing tobacco. ‘The dolls warned me that a new Flower was on her way. A scarlet firebrand Flower, they said, with a mouth and a heart that could heat a poker. A rosy-red Flower for the devil. But there’s still time to leave, my girl. There’s always a choice of path – and sometimes it’s wise to take the less exciting one. I’ve known him since he was a baby in my arms. I watched as my dear mother pulled him out of his mother and whacked him hard into life – and he’s been trouble ever since for any woman. Just like his older brother, Christopher. Women are well advised to steer clear of the Partridge men.’

  If there’s anything that’s bound to make me dig in my heels, it’s someone telling me what to do. If this rambling old fool thought she would warn me off a job with such excellent wages, she could think again. ‘I’ll advise you to keep your opinions to yourself, Miss Sharp,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t seem very healthy or wise to take counsel from dolls. I listen to my own heart and mind.’

  ‘See yourself to the front door,’ the dour thing snapped. ‘I’ll go around the back. You’re carrying death into the manor as surely as the currawongs carry it in their beaks and claws. Beauty doesn’t last forever, my arrogant girl. Red hair fades to grey, and juices dry up. The only real path – the eternal truth – is birth winding on a bone spool to death. And all the stitches in between mean nothing!’

  She opened the car door for her kangaroo and the pair vanished around the side of the manor, her long black shawl flying behind her and her keys jangling. A peacock strutted by and stared mournfully at me. I knew I had made an enemy in Miss Sharp, but at the time I was too wound up to care about the ravings of a deluded crone.

  On closer inspection, the blue front door was adorned with a painting of a nude woman; I could imagine Ma’s disgust if she saw a good door ruined in that way. To my disappointment, it was a woman who opened the door. I’d hoped for Rupert; in the event he sent me away, there would be nobody else to witness my humiliation. The woman studied me warily. Her glossy dark-blonde hair was styled in a long bob; the fringe swept up from her pretty oval face and fastened with a tortoiseshell clip. She wore camel-coloured trousers with a man’s grey vest and a bright yellow and plum scarf at her throat. Several ornate rings adorned her pale hands, including a large opal, which Ma would have said portended ill fortune. Ma was often accurate with her superstitious ways.

  ‘You must be Ginger,’ she said in a crisp English accent I remembered from the show. ‘So you did decide to accept our invitation. He will be pleased. I’m Doris.’ So this woman with her effortless grace, suspicious eyes and posh accent was Rupert’s wife. Her glance flickered from my shoes to my hat. I knew she discerned with some feminine instinct that my outfit was borrowed and hand-me-down. The coat, hat and gloves, which had seemed so dashing when I set forth that morning, now appeared gaudy and ridiculous in comparison to her understated elegance.

  ‘But how unreasonable of me to expect he would let me know in advance that you were coming today.’ She sighed. ‘He really is too tiresome.’ She held open the door. ‘You had best come in. He’s in the studio with the girls.’

  The hallway was long, and featured wallpaper patterned with bright hibiscus flowers. Artworks adorned the walls, some in ornate frames. Stacked along the floor were more paintings waiting to be hung. Next to an umbrella stand, a hall table held a blue and white vase filled with flowers. A large crystal chandelier dazzled high overhead. I wished Ma could come to have a peek at such grandeur. Our entire terrace would have fit into the hall alone.

  ‘Leave your case there,’ Doris ordered. ‘Follow me.’ She walked briskly away down the hallway. I placed my case beside the front door, and followed her, glancing into the rooms we passed. Inside them I glimpsed old floral wallpaper peeling away in strips, folded ladders, cans of paint and other evidence of recent work. We entered a charming kitchen with red and white tiles on the floor, a large wooden table and open fireplace. Seated in an old armchair in front of the unlit fire was a handsome young man. A lock of sandy-brown hair fell over one eye, his socks needed darning, and a pair of mud-splattered boots kept his outstretched, sock-clad feet company. Two steaming cups of tea waited on the hearth as he balanced an enamel plate heaped with buttered toast; a black cat waited hopefully near the boots. It was a charming domestic scene, marred only slightly by the gumboots.

  ‘Did you get rid of him?’ he said and looked startled when he saw me. ‘Sorry! I do beg your pardon!’ He looked at Doris and the pair laughed. The ice woman looked totally different in that moment, softer, slightly younger with a hint of excited mischief in her guarded eyes. ‘Hello,’ he grinned, extending his arm out to me, nearly dislodging the toast. ‘We thought it was some pedlar. Or that dullard codger Patrick again. Not a beautiful redhead.’<
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  ‘She’s here at Rupert’s invitation,’ Doris said, picking up her cup and raising an eyebrow at him. ‘I think he’s found himself another Flower.’ She sipped her tea, smiling to herself as though something amused her. I watched, frowning, as the pair exchanged a meaningful glance.

  ‘My name is Ginger,’ I said testily, liking neither being referred to as a plant nor feeling excluded from their private exchange.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Ginger.’ The man crunched into a slice of toast. ‘I’m always happy to meet a Flower – I’m Dennis, the gardener.’

  ‘Think you’re a comic now, do you?’ Doris teased. ‘Pop some marmalade on a slice for me, Dennis, while I take Ginger to the studio.’

  As Doris shepherded me out, I gave Dennis a little wave. He winked back as he began spreading another slice of toast with marmalade. I noticed a large pot of homemade stew on top of the gleaming Kooka stove. The cheese and pickle sandwich I’d bought at Katoomba Station hadn’t filled me up, and now the rich smell of the stew made me ravenous.

  ‘I expect you’re hungry?’ said Doris, noting the direction of my glance. ‘After you’ve seen Rupert, we’ll feed you. Nobody goes without food at Currawong Manor!’

  I discovered later how true that was. Despite her rather frosty, intimidating exterior, Doris loved cooking for people. She was never happier than when serving great quantities of food. In contrast, she only ever picked at her own meals and so remained as slim as a reed. I came to realise that food was Doris’s method of control and power in that house. Ma would have thought her a fool to cook when she could well afford domestic help. Ma baked with no love for the task, and her disgruntled resentment infected all the meals we ate. Her idea of a good spread was chops, overcooked veg and dripping on toast. None of us thrived in that tiny Brick Lane terrace. One or other of us was always sickly and having to take the dreaded daily spoonful of cod-liver oil. By contrast, meals at Currawong Manor were much-anticipated occasions – even more so because, thanks to the manor being as self-sufficient as it was, they didn’t suffer from war-time rationing. Rupert wanted curvy life models – verging on plump – and so everyone was happy.