Currawong Manor

by Josephine Pennicott

  Elizabeth nodded, thrilled by Ginger’s admission, and excited to hear her mention two of Elizabeth’s heroes. Adelie Hurley had been a successful photographer and the daughter of the famous war photographer Frank Hurley. Coveted for her Australian beach-girl looks, during the Second World War Adelie herself had quickened the hearts of many Australian men overseas as a pin-up girl in Pix and the Sydney Sun. Bunny was one of the most prominent American female photographers and, like Hurley, a former pin-up model in her own right. Bunny was highly regarded around the world for her glamorous nude and cheesecake photography, and her collaboration with muse Bettie Page.

  ‘Bunny was good,’ Ginger said. ‘But so are you, my dear. She had a sweet, gentle, ladylike manner like yours.’ Elizabeth felt herself blush with pleasure. ‘All her models loved her and were happy to pose for shots they would never have considered doing for a man. Bunny knew how to talk them out of their knickers and brassieres. She was ahead of her time in so many ways. As was Adelie. Rupert was the last thing in the world from sweet and gentle, but you do share a similarity in your methods – or maybe it’s just that old camera. I’ll say one thing about your grandfather – there’s a lot of talk about him being the devil, and he may have had the devil’s temper, but he was always a gentleman to me in the studio. He loved his photography as well – painting was his true love, but photography was his mistress. And his sculpture was his bit on the side!’ Ginger chuckled at her own joke. ‘A real renaissance man.’

  ‘Speaking of painting . . .’ Remembering the sketch of the woman becoming a key, Elizabeth described it to Ginger. She was surprised to see the old woman start slightly.

  ‘I don’t remember it at all,’ Ginger said, composing herself. ‘I collect everything, as you can see, and Rupert was always throwing things out. It was probably just something he threw into the rubbish that I picked out and forgot about.’

  ‘I was just curious as it was a much later piece and created near the time of his death,’ Elizabeth said, feeling that Ginger was lying. But why would she?

  ‘If he did some drawing I probably kept it out of sentiment.’ Elizabeth saw with surprise that Ginger’s face had become haggard and drawn.

  Ginger looked over towards Owlbone Woods and frowned. ‘It must be time for a cup of tea, don’t you think? I’m sure Holly’s watching us through her binoculars, dying to know how we got on. I’d best go and put her out of her misery.’

  Watching the pistachio-green vision stride towards the manor, scarves floating, Elizabeth felt exhilarated as she always did after a good session. It was when she was behind the camera that she felt truly alive, peaceful and energised. Working with Linda was more effective than any meditation. She knew from experience that the adrenaline of the day would soon drop away and leave her exhausted, but if Ginger and the light had been up to it she could have shot all night.

  ‘It looked as if you got some good photos.’

  Elizabeth looked up from her camera, startled. Nick Cash was watching her from the drystone wall. He was wearing gloves and a leather coat and Elizabeth realised she had been so engrossed she hadn’t noticed the cold; Ginger hadn’t complained about the weather either.

  ‘You gave me a shock!’ She reached for her coat, which she’d left nearby while she was shooting.

  ‘Sorry, I was trying not to interrupt you. Ginger was in her element, wasn’t she? Hope you didn’t mind me watching.’

  ‘Of course I didn’t,’ Elizabeth assured him. ‘It’s an honour to shoot Ginger. She’s worked with some of the world’s top photographers.’

  ‘And your grandfather.’ Nick’s dark eyes studied Elizabeth. ‘It must be odd to be in his garden photographing the same woman he did.’

  Elizabeth felt a current run between them. She was just about to ask him if he wanted a drink when her mobile went off. Lois. Trust her mother to interrupt an interesting conversation.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Elizabeth?’ The voice on the end of the line was tentative.

  ‘Of course it’s me!’ Her voice came out harsher than she had intended and Nick glanced at her before she walked a few steps away.

  ‘I just wanted to touch base. Find out how it’s all going.’

  Elizabeth gripped the phone. She couldn’t speak through the crushing feeling across her chest brought on by hearing her mother’s voice. She studied the scarecrow with its angular arms and legs, three birds crowning its head. They reminded her of a line from an old rhyme she had chanted as a child: One for sorrow. Two for joy. Three for a letter.

  ‘Elizabeth, are you there?’

  ‘Yes, I’m here. Why don’t you come up for a visit? You could meet Ginger. She’s got some amazing rare shots of her time here.’ Even as she spoke the words, Elizabeth knew it was futile and wondered why she bothered trying.

  In the pained seconds that followed she could see her mother’s pinched face in her mind’s eye.

  ‘You know how I feel about that place. I don’t like you being up there either. But you never listen to me. You’re always determined to do exactly the opposite of what I want you to do.’

  ‘Oh, that’s so unfair,’ Elizabeth retorted, forgetting Nick was in earshot. ‘Everyone has a right to know their family history. It’s you who won’t face things! What are you trying to hide?’

  Silence, and then the dial tone. Her mother had hung up. Hiding her tears from Nick, Elizabeth half ran towards the woods.

  11

  Ducks and Swans

  In the folder full of detailed information about the manor and the surrounding area, Holly had warned residents of the Nests not to go wandering unaccompanied into the woods. She claimed that there were old traps lying around, as well as shooting parties operating without permits, and that it would be easy to get lost in the extensive bush. But Elizabeth was growing weary of following other people’s orders, and she plunged into the bush without pausing to think about what she was doing.

  Growing up she had been controlled by her mother’s whims and unfair restrictions – rules she had obeyed diligently but without earning her mother’s approval. As an adult, it didn’t matter that she was a highly regarded artist making a comfortable living, she always felt her parents judged her work critically and were embarrassed by her more controversial photographs. Although Elizabeth understood that Lois’s childhood had been traumatic, she couldn’t help being hurt and baffled by her mother’s distance and disapproval. Surely it was natural for a mother to love her child unconditionally? And if her mother’s formative years had been so difficult, wouldn’t she want the exact opposite for her own daughter?

  Following the rules and trying to do the right thing never seemed to get you anywhere, Elizabeth fumed. Look at Ginger: she had never followed rules, she was selfish and self-obsessed, and yet she was the most successful of all the Flowers – in her seventies and still going strong.

  In her anger and frustration, Elizabeth had been striding through the woods, paying little attention to her surroundings. Now, though, she rounded a corner in the path and jumped as she saw a person at the side of the track, standing near a large conifer tree. A second glance told her that it wasn’t a real person but a life-sized moss-covered statue of a nude woman, chipped and worn. As Elizabeth approached, intrigued by this strange sight in the bush, she saw that a carved snake curled around the woman and a horned, Pan-like figure knelt at her feet, his face pressed against her rounded stomach. Elizabeth took a photograph with her Canon, vowing to come back later with Linda. She knew that Rupert had placed several of his statues throughout the bush, and Linda would document them and the bush light beautifully.

  Behind the snake woman, another path wound through the bush, and a painted arrow and wooden sign indicated that it led to Mermaid Glen and then on to Devil’s Leap. Elizabeth set off along the path, hoping to subdue the tumultuous emotions she had been wrestling with since her arrival at the manor. In Sydney there were so many distractions that she didn’t have to face her inner turmoil; it was ea
sy for the days and life to slip by. But up here in the mountains she was forced to acknowledge that she needed to make major changes. She was thirty-three, and longed for a family of her own. She couldn’t keep avoiding friends who had children, distracting herself with work.

  Without realising she was doing so, she quickened her pace as she went further into the bush. Large ferns flanked the path, along with wattle, rhododendrons, banksias and enormous conifers and tea trees. She startled a small kangaroo by the side of the path, and it bounded away, concealed almost immediately by the thick undergrowth. Currawongs and other birds sounded their melodious cries overhead, and flocks of brightly coloured parrots swooped in glorious rainbow flashes.

  Gradually, the bush began to unsettle her. The intense quiet of the trees’ shade seemed to swallow her as her feet crunched on sticks, leaves and pinecones. Reports of bushwalkers who had been attacked or lost kept returning to her, as well as the uneasy recollection that the old dollmaker’s cottage was supposed to be out here somewhere, waiting for someone to stumble across it. Indeed – although she chided herself for entertaining such a ridiculous thought, it kept poking her like a mischievous goblin – what if Miss Sharp had never died but was still out here in her cottage, luring people to her den like a scene from The Blair Witch Project?

  After half an hour of walking, Elizabeth was starting to think she should turn back. It might be almost dark before she reached Mermaid Glen. She was also experiencing the strange sensation that she had crossed an invisible barrier and the bush itself resented her trespass. Several times along the path, various smaller tracks branched into the scrub. She wondered where they led, and who had created them, animals or people. A currawong suddenly swooped across her path, causing her to swear aloud, her heart racing. Yet despite her thoughts, her feet kept moving. Near, near, near.

  It was chilly in the deep shade of the trees. Fog was starting to lace around the trunks and Elizabeth was grateful to be wearing her coat. She located her gloves in her pocket and put them on. At one stage she came across some discarded shotgun cases, cigarette butts and a bloody mass of fur and bone. So hunters used these woods, either legally or illegally. Half expecting a bullet in the head at any moment, Elizabeth pressed on. I’ll turn back now, she kept thinking, but she didn’t. It was as if her body had decided on a course of action and was overruling her mind.

  She heard the faint sound of water and with a ripple of excitement knew she must be close to Mermaid Glen. Her breath caught in her throat as she emerged from the trees to see the large body of water with a giant dome-shaped rock looming over it. Cypress trees, conifers and ferns surrounded the banks, along with statues of naked women, satyrs, tigers, wombats and dingoes. Water tricked in a miniature waterfall, making a soothing sound over the rocks. It was a vision from a sensual fairyland, resembling all the paintings, drawings and photographs that Rupert had created here. There were three stone women. One crouched as if drinking from the pond, while a smiling satyr looked as if he was about to take her from behind. Two more satyrs stood near the remaining two female statues. The women embraced as the satyrs laughed with lascivious open mouths. For all their cheeky eroticism, the statues were slightly menacing, and Elizabeth felt very much as if she had invaded their territory – as if she should tiptoe away before they spotted her. But her longing to connect with her grandfather held her fast. Rupert had spent a lot of time here. She was standing in the place where he had created two major series: Kitty in Owlbone Woods and Lust, Ducks and Swans.

  Mist rose up from the water. Black swans and ducks floated on the pond. At the romantic sight, Elizabeth automatically reached for her camera and snapped a few shots. But even in their misty beauty, the waters were sombre, containing the terrible imprint of Shalimar’s death, as though a memory of her thirteen-year-old body still floated in the murky water among the water lilies. The silent glen with its lecherous statues and the hundreds of tiny pinecones lining the banks had once rung with Rupert’s screams for his daughter. What had happened to that poor little girl in 1945?

  In this most beautiful of spots, an ancient menace hovered beyond the tall gum trees, the mist, the statues and the wet glistening rocks. At any heartbeat, the thing could slip through time, shaking off rational thought to reveal a shape formed of tree, bark, root, sky, dreams, ash, story and fire. A being formed from man’s first memory and shadows, unveiling itself fully and she would be forever lost when she sighted the primordial thing.

  ‘Elizabeth.’

  Did she imagine a voice calling her name? Her heart racing, Elizabeth squinted to see through the mist – was that a figure standing near the waterfall, or was her imagination inserting something into the scene that wasn’t there, just as Linda’s dust and scratches added texture to her images?

  The mist had grown thicker. Did she hear the sound of bush being trampled?

  ‘Elizabeth.’

  A shiver ran through her. Was it her name or just the whisper of the waterfall? Even the swans had assumed a more sinister appearance, craning their necks aggressively. A large black swan rose up, hissing, and stretched its wings to an immense span. Elizabeth remembered stories of swans attacking people, using their wings and beaks to defend their territory and their nests. Panicked, she turned to flee, and screamed as she cannoned into a figure behind her.

  ‘Steady, love.’ Nick held her arm. ‘I didn’t mean to freak you out. Sorry about that.’

  ‘You did not freak me out!’ Elizabeth spat the words at him. ‘I was admiring the view, and then you sneaked up on me!’

  ‘Jesus. Can’t you just chill? I wasn’t sneaking, Elizabeth. I wanted to make sure you were okay. I was packing up the gear that you just abandoned in the garden and Ginger came out worrying about you being out here alone. Remember Holly’s warnings about traps? Ginger was in a bit of a state, so I volunteered to come and escort you.’

  Elizabeth’s reaction alternated between humiliation she had been so startled at Nick’s sudden appearance, feeling touched over Ginger and Nick’s concern for her safety, and irritation over their assumptions she couldn’t look after herself.

  ‘I’m absolutely fine by myself and I prefer my own company. But thanks anyway. Now you’ve ruined the peace for me, I may as well leave.’

  ***

  As Elizabeth retreated down the path, Nick was left shaking his head. Women! Between his ex-wife and Elizabeth it was enough to make a man decide to become celibate. Why couldn’t all women be as uncomplicated as Ginger? He stood looking at the swans for a moment then hugged himself as he examined the statues standing around the glen. Christ, it was spooky in this waterhole. He had seen Mermaid Glen with Holly before, but alone it was more eerie than beautiful.

  ‘What happened to you, Shalimar? Was your death really a terrible accident, or were the rumours right that something else went on here? Where did your father disappear to?’ He spoke the words out loud. ‘Wherever you are, Uncle Nick is on the case. I’m going to find the truth about the Ruins. Did somebody know more than they let on about the events here? Miss Sharp, perhaps, or one of the Flowers? Maybe even Ginger, hey?’ He paused for a second to digest that unwelcome thought. He had spent a lot of time in Ginger’s company over the last couple of days and enjoyed their chats. The thought that she might be withholding a secret over the death of a child and Rupert’s disappearance was at odds with the woman who loved playing Frank Sinatra songs and bragged about the time Elvis Presley had made a pass at her.

  ‘Nah, if there had been any funny business, it couldn’t be Ginger involved.’ He addressed one of the nubile statues. ‘Perhaps it was a local that nobody even thought to suspect?’

  He paused, looking at the swans as if waiting for a reply. ‘Somebody must know the truth of what happened here, Shalimar, and Nick Cash is in town to discover who!’

  He indulged a brief, childish fantasy where he swaggered into an American-looking town with a sheriff’s badge on, guitar over his back, twirling a gun while a group of half-naked women
, like the statues around the pond, pouted for his attention. But then he remembered Elizabeth Thorrington’s small oval face, screwed up with dislike for him, and his gun momentarily drooped. Back when Sharkbait was in the charts, women like Elizabeth wouldn’t have dismissed him so readily. Women with sleek hair and intelligent eyes, who read Kafka, Marguerite Duras and Anaïs Nin and could quote from The Female Eunuch, were just as interested in the Sharkbait boys as the groupies who flocked to their concerts. The seventies had been the golden era as far as Nick was concerned – live music was king in Sydney before all that canned techno caterwauling, poker machines and gentrification had exiled him into publishing.

  An old melancholy nipped at Nick when he recalled how he had been forced to abandon his Sharkbait dreams. And Sharkbait were now scattered around the globe, only resurrected for Where Are They Now?-type shows, which were quickly disappearing into the same wasteland as the talent they had featured.

  Nick didn’t contemplate the coincidence that Jason, Sharkbait’s drummer, was living in the lower mountains and he hadn’t bothered to look him up. But there was a time when they had been very close, a long-gone era of leather pants, spangled headbands and their number-one hit, ‘Dingo Blood Ball’. They had believed the music would last forever, he thought in a clichéd tangle of self-pity. He held out his air guitar, spun his arm a few times like the old days and sang to the swans and ducks a few bars of the tune thousands of teenagers in Australia had once waved their arms to.

  ‘Hey, you’re looking so sweet as you strut down the street to the

  Dingo Blood Ball!

  And you’re looking so fine – girl you know that you’re mine

  At the Dingo Blood Ball!’

  He could still hear the cheers from the pub crowds, and every night there were a few knickers thrown. But the cheers had soon subsided; the music business proved a fickle bitch. All the hope, hype and empty promises from the record company and the suits (who were the only ones to ever make any money out of Sharkbait) had quickly dried up. Who remembered Sharkbait now? Not Elizabeth Thorrington, with her cool, distant eyes.