When the Lyrebird Calls

by Kim Kane

  Anna blushed again. ‘Thirteen.’

  ‘Only just older than me!’ Madeleine was about to ask how on earth she’d come to be at work in the middle of a school day, but then again Gert wasn’t at school either, and Anna looked so uncomfortable that Madeleine decided to can that idea. She got the distinct feeling she wasn’t meant to chat to Anna and Percy.

  Anna held out a plate with a dainty pile of biscuits on it, as long and thin as nailfiles. ‘Cat’s tongues. Cook made them this morning.’

  Madeleine helped herself to a biscuit and it dissolved on her tongue in a buttery stream. ‘Oooh, it is good,’ she said, taking another. Anna turned around to bind the curtains open. By the time she returned to the chair, Madeleine had finished the entire plate.

  ‘My,’ said Anna, looking shocked. ‘You were hungry.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Madeleine. She suddenly felt very greedy. She wondered if it was unladylike to devour an entire plate of biscuits, crumbs and all.

  ‘I’ll have Cook send in some more,’ said Anna. ‘It’s rare we have a guest with an appetite! Particularly a girl.’

  So it was unladylike, thought Madeleine. Great.

  Madeleine did like her food – she ate like she talked and thought and ran: fast. And she was definitely not ‘ladylike’. Madeleine and Nandi were the kind of girls to count batting averages rather than boys on the bus, and to save their pocket money for cricket pads rather than padded bras. Madeleine yearned for clothes as much as the next kid – especially theatrical dress-ups – but she didn’t care enough to talk about them. She wore chapstick instead of lip gloss, zinc instead of fake tan, and if her hair had a wave, it was because it had been scrunched under a bike helmet.

  Anna picked up a bellows and used it to pump air at the fire. The coals sprayed and sparked deep orange. They looked like they were alive, breathing. Anna set the bellows down gently and left the room.

  Madeleine sat watching shadowy patterns cast by the fire bobbing on the ceiling, trying to work out what on earth to do next. She had no idea how to get back to Mum Crum and Elf Cottage. She had no idea how she’d got here; how any of this was even possible. Above all, she had no idea how to behave like a lady – no idea at all.

  Madeleine heard a scraping noise. She turned and found herself looking straight into a bright eye spying on her from behind one of the liver-coloured curtains. Out tumbled Charlie, with her notebook in hand and a little white terrier at her heels.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone, not Nanny, not Gert. They’ll slaughter me. I’m not to bother guests, you see.’

  Charlie grabbed at the dog’s collar. ‘Sit, Millie,’ she said, and the little dog sat.

  Millie had one ear up and one down, which gave her a wonky, lopsided look. Charlie also looked a bit wonky. Without her hat, her hair looked even choppier, as short and bristly as an old toothbrush. Her pinafore was tucked into a strange pair of long, white linen shorts, out the bottom of which shot two skinny shins sheathed in thick black tights and covered in mud and bits of grass.

  ‘Master Charles Williamson,’ said Charlie, putting out her hand. ‘I’m not sure we’ve been formally introduced. How do you do. While my father is away, I am the man of the house.’

  Charlie smelt a bit earthy, not unlike beetroot fresh from the ground. Madeleine shook her hand.

  ‘And this is Millie.’

  ‘You can sit down if you want.’ Madeleine gestured towards a couch and Charlie sat on it. Millie tried to leap up next to her but couldn’t clear the seat. She bounced around on her hind legs with her tongue hanging out until Madeleine scooped her up. Millie snuffled and snorted and licked Madeleine’s hand.

  ‘Millie, Nanny will eat you alive if she sees you on a chair in the drawing room.’ Charlie scowled at the dog, who leapt over the back of the couch and down – clack – onto the wooden floor.

  Charlie sat forward on the very edge of the sofa, suddenly quite prim. Just as she opened her mouth and took a breath, presumably to start asking more questions, Gert burst in, glowering at her sister. ‘What are you doing in here?’

  Charlie ignored Gert and scribbled in her book. Madeleine could see fine blue veins in the skin near her temple.

  ‘Would you cease your note-taking and hide these soiled shoes somewhere Bea will never look before she chances upon them? Bea will throttle us if she discovers them in this state – even if we had nothing to do with it.’ Gert tossed Madeleine a pointed look as she thrust the sparkly shoes at her sister. ‘You know how particular Bea is, and I’d hate this to mar her complexion.’

  Charlie rolled her eyes, licked her finger and flicked through the pages of her book.

  ‘Things that have supposedly marred Bea’s complexion: ashes from the summer fires (last year); the sound of possums fighting in the roof; foregoing Clarissa A’Beckett’s party because of the storm; the sight of native ladies’ bosoms in the museum . . . Which leads me to the conclusion that it is much easier to mar Bea’s complexion than everyone supposes.’ Charlie smacked her notebook shut.

  Native? Madeleine suddenly missed her brother. Unlike these girls, Teddy was not racist, and he was also good at science and maths and interested in all things peculiar. He subscribed to a magazine called The Unexplained, which he and Raj read in the backyard in the tent they set up to get away from her. Madeleine would sit outside the filmy wall of the tent spying on them while the boys talked and read, watching the yellow bullseyes from their torches flash about, listening to the flick of pages and their murmurs about time and the afterlife and sink holes. Teddy and Raj would know how Madeleine had got wherever she was, and, more importantly, how to get back.

  Gert puffed up her chest. ‘Charlie, Nanny should be back shortly, and she will not be happy to find you and Millie in here.’

  ‘You can’t scold me, Gert. You’re not Nanny.’ Charlie picked at a scab on her elbow.

  ‘I may not be able to scold you, but I can ask you to leave, and return those shoes while you’re at it. I can also warn you that if you don’t, I shall tell Nanny you sneaked Millie into our bedroom last night and had her in your bed.’

  ‘You wouldn’t.’

  Gert raised one eyebrow.

  ‘You are a beast.’ Charlie ran out of the room, Millie clacking behind her.

  Gert waited until the thump of leather on wood could no longer be heard. Then she said, ‘Well, that should keep Charlie occupied. Let’s find you something warmer to wear. That way, you will not have expired from the cold by the time Hen Pen returns from her constitutional.’

  Madeleine found Gert’s language hard, and her old-fashioned accent was like a wall. Madeleine could really only comprehend Gert when she stopped trying to understand each word and let the sentences wash over her.

  Gert passed Madeleine a pale-blue shawl. ‘Put this on.’

  The shawl was made out of a spidery wool, the threads fine as hairs, and it was sewn along its edges in nimble yet not machine-neat stitches, just like Bea’s shoes.

  Madeleine wrapped herself in the shawl and huddled in the chair. She suddenly felt terribly grown-up and responsible and desperately sorry for herself all at the same time.

  Gert sat down on the couch, which still bore tiny ripples from Charlie’s bottom, and looked at Madeleine more closely. ‘Are you all right?’

  Madeleine pressed her index fingers into her eyes to dam the tears. ‘I just, well, I just feel a long way from home.’

  Gert sighed. ‘Whenever I’m feeling sad at school, Hen Pen always says to look at the moon and remember it’s the very same moon our family is under. I always look at it and think of Imo waiting for me in the drive with her chubby, outstretched arms. She is always thrilled to see me come home.’

  ‘Come home from where?’

  ‘From school. The little ones have a governess – well, they currently have Nanny – and Bea’s completed her lessons with a tutor, but I attend a proper school in East Melbourne, and now that we’ve moved into the Muse full-time because of . . . well, be
cause of Mummy, I am a boarder. Of course I come home for the hols, but sometimes I feel so homesick that I actually get ill. The taste of the plum cakes Cook sends makes me feel better. Mummy asked that I only get one a term, but Cook sends extra. Aunt Hen urges her to.’

  ‘Does Bea get them too?’ asked Madeleine.

  ‘Bea’s too grown-up to be greedy. She’s become a lady and a bore ever since she moved out of the nursery and started eating luncheon and dinner with the adults.’

  ‘And Charlie and Imo? Who is Imo?’

  ‘Imogen’s the baby. She gets cake whenever she feels like it. That’s the problem with being a child, you see – an in-between. All the adults love babies, and they love each other, but adults don’t like children, not really – and that makes it hard for children to be heard.’

  The room was still.

  ‘Gert, do you think you can help me?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I can, but Aunt Hen is bound to, given that she’s an acquaintance of your grandmother’s.’

  ‘I do need help, Gert. I need to get home, and I have no idea how.’ Madeleine started to cry again.

  Gert leapt up and held her arm. ‘Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. Here.’ She pulled a napkin from her skirt and unwrapped it. Inside was a piece of white fondant about the size of one of those bouncy balls from a vending machine. The fondant looked slightly grubby. ‘It’s peppermint. Not as good as Jacksons, but Cook keeps it in the safe to make sweets with.’

  Madeleine broke off a bit. It was soft and rubbery and tasted like toothpaste. She smiled. ‘Thank you.’

  Gert sat down again. ‘Peppermint and plum cake can solve almost any problem. Have you been to Jacksons? It’s in town and it’s my very favourite sweet shop—’

  ‘Gert!’ Madeleine interrupted, making a sudden decision. ‘I’m not sure how to say this . . .’

  Madeleine was silent, trawling for the right words.

  ‘You can confide in me,’ said Gert. ‘I shan’t tell. Charlie, on the other hand, is a frightful blabber.’

  ‘Well,’ Madeleine said at last, taking a deep breath, ‘I am from Sydney, but I was staying with my grandmother, and I dreamt about you – about all of you – here at the Muse, and then somehow . . . I somehow . . . Gert, I tumbled back in time.’

  It was a very difficult thing to tell someone you were from the future, and apparently it was a very difficult thing to hear, too.

  ‘You’re what?’ Gert’s face crinkled like a pug’s.

  ‘I’m not from here, Gert, from now. I’m from the next century.’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’

  ‘I wish I were being daft, Gert, but I’m not. One moment I was walking along with a pair of shoes I’d found in an ancient cupboard, and the next moment, I bumped into you and Charlie in the grass and you were accusing me of stealing slippers I never stole.’

  Gert shook her head.

  ‘It’s true, Gert. We don’t have servants to bring in tea, or polished silver, and we don’t wear knickerbockers. We have central heating and too many cars, and Australia is a nation of states, not colonies – for so long, in fact, that we forget it wasn’t always like that.’

  ‘How many states?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘You’re not sure? Molly McGolly, you’re from the future – how can you not know?’ Gert’s voice had dropped to almost a whisper, and her hands were clenched.

  ‘Well, let me count them. There’s the Northern Territory and the ACT – they’re not really states but territories. Then there’s South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, Tasmania, of course, and Western Australia.’

  ‘Western Australia?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘If only that were true, Daddy would be so pleased to know. Western Australia will just not make up their mind. First they said no, but now the miners have demanded the vote, so it could all change.’

  Madeleine thought about an Australia without Western Australia, with its mining and crayfish and beaches. It would be weird to have that state as another country. Western Australians would need a passport to come and see the footy in Melbourne. ‘But it’s part of the same continent,’ she protested to Gert.

  ‘Yes, but it’s further away from Victoria than New Zealand is, and John Hall said the twelve hundred miles of Tasman Sea are twelve hundred arguments against New Zealand joining. So . . . did they?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did New Zealand join?’

  Madeleine shook her head. ‘No, New Zealand is another country altogether.’

  ‘Daddy will be disappointed. He was happy to include a clause which might allow them to join at some stage. What about Fiji? Did Fiji join?’

  ‘No! Fiji is where people go for cocktails in pineapples, coconut oil and hair braids with beads.’

  ‘I was fooling. Fiji hasn’t been included for years, and they never did want to be involved.’ Gert sat back and stuffed the last of the fondant in her mouth. ‘Fooling like you. You know, you really are a fibber, Madeleine Barnett. First you steal Bea’s slippers, then you wheedle your way into our home for tea, pretending you’re faint, and now you’re trying to tell me that you’re from the future. That’s preposterous. I’m off to find Percy, and he can drag you kicking and screaming to the police. Then you might start telling the truth.’

  And with that, Gert marched out of the room.

  Madeleine sat alone in the drawing room for another few seconds, her breathing shallow and panicked, and then she bolted out of the room after Gert.

  She found herself in the grand entrance hall, with its blue, green and terracotta mosaic tiles and its high dark walls lined with paintings of stern-looking men hanging from a rail. Gert saw Madeleine following and ducked into a doorway to her right, just past the sweeping staircase. The slap of her boots echoed about the hall, and the painted men stared. Madeleine ran into the room after Gert. She had to stop her.

  Gert ran around a very long shiny dining table, on top of which sat an enormous centrepiece made of silver clam-shells, with a big silver pineapple on top. She disappeared through a smaller door on the left-hand side of the fireplace, into a narrow corridor where Anna stood leaning against a bench, polishing spoons. Madeleine followed.

  To the right was a tiny set of white-painted wooden stairs leading upwards. To the left was a heavy door with a big brass lock. Gert opened it and flew outside, onto a covered pathway paved with great slabs of stone, which hedged two sides of a square courtyard. A number of low doors ran off the courtyard, and a strong smell leached from somewhere – a bleach or permanent-marker sort of a pong, but different.

  One of the doors across the way was open, and inside a woman stirred a deep pot on a long, cream enamel stove, which pumped the sweet smell of burnt butter into the air.

  ‘Keep the eggs outside in this weather, Miss Gertrude, and you’ll never get a cake to rise – I’ve seen doorstops with more air than these drop scones!’ The woman spoke very quickly and in a very high pitch. Madeleine thought it sounded lovely, quite lyrical. The woman held up a plate of floury scones as the girls tore past. ‘Take’em off my hands to make me less grumpy?’

  But Gert had already shot off to her right, along the opposite side of the courtyard to the kitchen, leading Madeleine past a steamy laundry in which a purple-cheeked woman was squeezing sheets through two rollers, then past an open set of big doors on enormous brass hinges that looked weirdly exaggerated, like the type you found on kids’ diaries or pirate chests. Madeleine caught a glimpse inside what appeared to be a garage – the floor swept bald; various carriages lined up in a row.

  Gert bolted around the side of the garage, running all the way around the house in a loop, past some stables and two long-lashed cows chomping at the grass, their pink udders dangling low and thick. Gert ran over the front drive, past a clipped grass tennis court, and then she turned left along a wobbly stone path, out beyond a low-walled garden and a well.

  Gert ran and ran, right to the edge of t
he mountain. The sky was greying and the air was sharp. The ground was so cold that Madeleine could feel it hardening the soles of her boots and getting in through the weave in her tights. The olden days had never looked this freezing in photos.

  The girls leapt a small stream at the garden’s edge and crashed uphill through fern and bracken. Great gums with bark hanging in careless strips muttered above them.

  ‘Gert, Gert, stop, please!’ gasped Madeleine. She reached out and grabbed Gert’s arm. Gert jerked away and tripped over a log. Her boot cracked against the hard timber.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Madeleine knelt beside her. There was a noise: the crack of Gert’s boot on the log. Again.

  Gert nodded, panting softly, and put a finger to her lips. There was a rustle in the bushes next to them. She parted some bracken, and behind it was a bird, just like the one Madeleine had seen earlier. It too was stomping on a soil mound. The bird cocked its head and warbled, looking straight at the girls with one eye. First, from its beak, came the crack of Gert’s boot on the log, then the thud as she’d landed.

  Gert giggled. ‘Isn’t it clever?’

  The bird made a call that sounded like a gong, just as the other bird had done earlier that day – booooong.

  ‘He’s imitating sounds to woo his lady,’ whispered Gert.

  ‘He’s quite a pants man,’ said Madeleine. The bird broke into the sound of a kookaburra. ‘That’s some repertoire.’

  ‘It is. Charlie says the female looks after the chicks and the male just dances and prances. They’re terribly active in winter.’

  There was another rustle in the background and another, plainer bird hopped into sight and then ducked away again, but not before the male bird had folded its tail down in a how-do-you-do bow.

  ‘They’re lyrebirds, aren’t they?’ said Madeleine.

  Gert crossed her legs and nodded.

  ‘I thought so. I spotted one earlier. Lyrebird Muse. Mum Crum was right – they really were here!’

  ‘Did you see the stuffed one in the hall? In the bell jar? Mummy gave it to Daddy for his last birthday. It was the perfect present for him.’ The lyrebird’s feathers fluttered like a fan. ‘He’s so elegant.’