When the Lyrebird Calls

by Kim Kane

Bea stomped across the verandah and Chopin erupted from the piano inside, dark and broken, the notes spewing across the lawn.

  Nanny patted Gert’s slumped back. ‘Shoulders straight, Miss Gertrude. Now . . . Miss Charlotte or toys?’ she asked, as kindly as Nanny could.

  Gert sighed deeply. ‘Charlie, I suppose.’

  ‘Very well, then.’ Nanny removed her hat and headed towards the house. She stopped. ‘And girls? Do try the lake. Miss Charlie is often there.’

  The girls watched Nanny walk inside.

  ‘Did she just suggest we go down to the pond, ignoring your father’s express instructions?’ asked Madeleine.

  ‘How dare she take off with him like that? How dare she? She’s a guest. Mummy’s guest.’ Gert kicked at the grass.

  ‘She did try to help with Aunt Hen,’ said Madeleine.

  ‘Well, Hen Pen’s not back, is she?’ Gert kicked the grass again and a clump of earth flew up. ‘Anyway . . . Nanny’s right. Charlie is most likely down near the lake. So let’s go.’

  The girls took the back path to the grotto then passed the empty tree and crossed the lower lawn towards the camellias, approaching the lake from below. The path was crisp with gumnuts and gravel.

  ‘If we hide behind the bushes, we should be able to spy on them,’ said Gert.

  The girls peeked through the dark green leaves, spotting the trio instantly. They had chosen a spot on the water’s edge close to the land bridge. Mr Williamson and Elfriede were sitting on the bank, lumped together far more closely than was necessary, talking and laughing, while Imo played nearby in the shallows. She had taken off her boots and was dragging the boat through the water. The lake was as brown and muddy as caramel. The wind had picked up a little, and the boat’s sails were flapping in the breeze, agitated, setting Madeleine’s teeth on edge.

  ‘I loved that boat. Daddy gave it to Charlie, but we all loved it.’ Gert watched on sadly. Her voice was damp.

  Arrrc, arrrc. Two white cockies flew across the sky, fighting – throwing themselves at each other, squawking and dipping into an in-flight tussle. Their crowing was loud; it rang out across the water. Elfriede pointed and laughed.

  Gert knocked an elbow sharply into Madeleine’s ribs. ‘She’s gone. Madeleine, where’s Imo? She’s gone.’

  Madeleine’s head snapped back to the spot where Imo had been playing. It was empty. But Imo’s whistle rang out across the water, coming from somewhere in the garden beyond Mr Williamson and Elfriede.

  ‘Toow wooooo.’

  ‘Has she headed back up towards the house? Alone?’ Madeleine asked uncertainly.

  ‘No, that’s not her. It can’t be. She’d never have got so far in such little time.’ Gert charged through the camellias and sprinted along the shore towards her father, and then straight into the lake in her boots.

  ‘Daddy, Daddy. Imo’s gone. She’s gone.’

  ‘Gertrude? Rubbish! I can hear her whistling. Imo? Imogen? Where are you?’

  ‘Toow wooooo.’

  From the garden, the whistle came again – Imo’s sweet, merry whistle.

  ‘Imogen, this is not amusing. Come here at once.’ Mr Williamson pulled at his fob watch. Both he and Elfriede were on their feet now, staring into the shrub beyond the path. The garden near the lake was wilder and less contained than the garden closer to the house.

  Madeleine stood rooted to the spot. Her breath was thin. She willed Imogen to come whistling through the trees.

  ‘Toow wooooo.’

  ‘Imogen?’

  Charlie burst from a rhododendron shrub. ‘It’s not Imo, Daddy – it’s the lyrebird. I just saw it. I promise.’ Her dress was covered in curled brown leaves and bits of undergrowth.

  Madeleine ripped off her pinafore, the buttons popping like a series of burps, and ran. Tucking her dress into her knickers like Charlie, she kicked at her boots, pulling at the laces, trying to hurl them off as she ran, but the harder she pulled, the tighter they became on her feet. The flapping sound of the boat’s sails now rang from the garden.

  ‘A lyrebird. Damn folly. I’ll shoot them all.’ Mr Williamson ran for the shore. He reached it just before Madeleine did.

  ‘She’s there, right there,’ Charlie yelled. Imogen’s flannel petticoat was just visible in the shallows, like a floating dishcloth.

  Elfriede shrieked. Behind her, the cockatoos shrieked too, higher and higher, screaming.

  The wind blew, turning the leaves. Everything glistened in the sunlight.

  ‘Ach du meine Güte, I’ll get help. Ach du meine Güte.’ She sprinted for the path back to the house. Charlie ran after Elfriede, overtaking her before they’d reached the end of the lake. ‘I’ll get a doctor,’ she yelled.

  Mr Williamson pulled Imo from the water, a tiny figure within a translucent bundle of cotton. He pulled Imo’s dress from her face and hugged her to his chest, rocking her. ‘She’s all right, she’s all right,’ he kept saying.

  Madeleine ran to him. ‘Is she breathing?’

  Imo coughed a deep, phlegmy cough, water pouring from her mouth. She opened her eyes and grinned. Her wet hair hung long and completely straight. The gaps in her teeth looked bigger and fleshier than usual. ‘Madeleine.’

  ‘Oh, Imo!’ cried Madeleine, and she realised she was crying. ‘Here, how many fingers am I holding up?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Clever girl!’ Madeleine laughed. But then she blinked.

  Three . . . Three girls. In her dream. Back at Mum Crum’s. There were three girls. Three.

  Madeleine felt time pause. The world, her world, hesitated. She turned her head, slowly, static in her ears; she turned her head against the buzz, back towards Gert. But Gert had gone. The lake was completely still.

  ‘Gert!’ Madeleine screamed. She stumbled back towards the water and ran straight in.

  ‘Madeleine!’ Mr Williamson shouted behind her. ‘What are you doing? There’s been more near-tragedy here this morning than in ancient Greece.’

  ‘Gert. Gert’s gone under too.’ Madeleine’s voice sounded far away in her own ears.

  ‘Gert. Gertie,’ Imogen cried, her voice crackly.

  There wasn’t so much as a bubble to show where Gert had been swallowed, only the flapping toy boat, marking the spot like an X. Madeleine waded into the water until it was up to her chest, and then she dived under.

  The water was so dark and cloudy that she couldn’t see a thing. It was thick and silty like soup, filled with bits that hit her face. She felt along the bottom as she swam, running her hands through the mud, trying not to think of what they might find. Her boots dragged her down. She thought about nippers training, where they’d made her fall into the pool in her pyjamas and then swim back to the side. Nothing could prepare a girl for being in real clothes, real heavy clothes, at the bottom of a lake.

  Madeleine went up for air, gasping. The water came up to her chin now. She wiped at her eyes and tried to re-establish her bearings. The bottom undulated. She took a step forward, and fell into a hole. Oh dammit. Gert had been about here. Oh, Gert.

  Madeleine kicked up to the surface, took a deep breath, and went under again. The water was colder here, but slightly clearer, brown as tea. Light filtered down in lines. Madeleine looked around her wildly, and there, on the bottom, about two metres away, was Gert in a V, both her arms and feet in the air. Her pale face was turned up towards Madeleine, eyes closed, mouth slack, her hair reaching up towards the light.

  Madeleine didn’t go up to the surface again to draw breath; she just pushed down through the water, pushing and pushing against it, grabbing Gert by the chest. She started to pull her up towards the sky, but she had to stop to readjust her grip. Gert started sinking, her petticoats floating like kelp.

  Madeleine reached down through the water as she kicked. She caught Gert’s apron and heaved her towards her. She was leaden in the water, much bulkier than she’d ever seemed on land and as slippery as a fish. Madeleine gripped Gert under her arms and pulled her up; she
pulled her up with all the strength she had, kicking and kicking and kicking. When she broke through the silvered surface of the lake, Madeleine gasped, the pressure releasing from her lungs. She turned onto her side, looped one arm beneath Gert’s arms, and began side-kicking to the water’s edge in a scramble of limbs and gravel, wet cotton and mud. It felt nothing like the sleek movements the Bondi lifesavers had demonstrated for her; it felt more like a fistfight in a schoolyard.

  Mr Williamson helped Madeleine to drag Gert up onto the bank. Her dress and face were caked in mud and sticks, her body limp.

  ‘Call an ambulance, call an ambulance,’ cried Madeleine.

  ‘The cart only operates in Ballarat,’ Mr Williamson yelled back. Then he knelt over Gert and stroked her hair. ‘Gertie?’ he whispered. Imo peered from behind his shoulder, her eyes huge and bruised.

  ‘Or a doctor. We need Doctor Purves,’ snapped Madeleine, pushing his hand out of the way. It was shocking that a man so important could be so helpless.

  Madeleine wiped a piece of weed from the corner of Gert’s mouth. The skin around her eyelids was cold and grey.

  Madeleine turned Gert’s head to the side to clear the airways, and water gushed out of her mouth. Then Madeleine tipped back Gert’s head and listened for her breath. There was silence. She listened and felt for her pulse: her heart was still beating faintly through her pinafore.

  Madeleine lifted Gert’s chin, put one hand on her forehead, and blew into her mouth as she’d been taught, watching as Gert’s chest rose. It was satisfying and terrifying. She could think of nothing but filling Gert’s chest with her breath.

  Madeleine counted and then breathed into Gert again; counted and then breathed. She blew as deeply as she dared, filling Gert’s lungs with all the hope she could muster.

  Gert coughed, and brown water bubbled up out of her mouth and nostrils. She laboured, wheezing as she tried to draw breath, froth streaming from her nose. She coughed and then vomited. Madeleine turned her onto her side and she spluttered and choked, more brown water spewing from her mouth. She shivered violently, her face mushroom-white.

  ‘It’s okay, Gert. I’m here. You’re going to be okay.’ Madeleine looked down at her hand, the hand rubbing Gert’s back; it was trembling. Everything stank of bile. Madeleine started to cry. Gert’s eyes were now shut.

  ‘It’s going to be all right. It’s going to be all right.’ Madeleine gripped her friend tight.

  Aunt Hen exploded down the path. Millie bounded beside her. ‘Oh Gert, oh, oh, Gertrude.’ She knelt beside the girls and Mr Williamson and stroked Gert’s face.

  Gert opened her eyes, smiled, and then coughed. ‘My throat’s sore,’ she croaked.

  ‘That will be the vomit; it will go shortly,’ said Madeleine. ‘We’ll get you some water.’

  ‘That’s the last thing I want,’ whispered Gert.

  ‘It really is you – you’re back!’ laughed Madeleine. A massive smile broke out on her face. ‘And you’re back too, Aunt Hen.’

  ‘Yes. Thomas sent Anna to find me.’ She looked at her brother. ‘I’m a little battered, to be frank. I haven’t slept since I left yesterday, and I missed you all dreadfully.’ She leant further over her niece and hugged her.

  ‘We fished her out in the nick of time,’ said Madeleine, squeezing water from her ponytail.

  ‘Thank heavens. Oh, how perfectly dreadful.’ Aunt Hen took off her shawl and wrapped Gert as tightly as a packet of fish and chips.

  The veins in Gert’s skin shone blue. Millie snuffled about her legs and licked them, and then settled down close beside her.

  There was a thud from the path. Madeleine looked up. Charlie, Nanny, Elfriede, Bea and Mrs Williamson all ran down together. Mrs Williamson was still in her nightdress, the hem dark with mud.

  ‘Gert’s okay,’ said Madeleine loudly, trying to reassure them.

  ‘Imo,’ gasped Mrs Williamson. ‘Thank goodness – but Imo?’

  ‘She’s perfect.’ Madeleine nodded to Imo with her head; she was squatting just beside Madeleine, the sleeve of her dress hard against the wet arm of her father’s suit.

  In all the drama of Gert, Madeleine had forgotten about Imo’s mishap. It was a bit like someone enquiring after a grazed knee when there had been an amputation. Madeleine felt exhausted.

  ‘Imo darling, my poor, soggy darling.’

  Mrs Williamson held out a blanket for Imo. Nanny wrapped Imo in it and lifted her up for Mrs Williamson. Imo’s face peeked out of a small triangle of green fabric; she looked a bit like a stuffed olive. ‘Madeleine saved Gert!’ Imo chirped. ‘Madeleine saved her! She breathed her back again.’

  ‘I just grabbed her from the bottom of the lake,’ said Madeleine, suddenly realising that for all she knew, the CPR she’d just performed had not even been invented yet.

  ‘She fished her out of the water,’ said Mr Williamson. ‘Swam down and hauled Gert out. We are just so fortunate we had such a competent swimmer on hand.’

  Nanny knelt to hand another blanket to Gert, tucking it tightly around her shoulders. She gave them a rub before she handed a blanket to Madeleine too.

  ‘Come up to the house now, everybody,’ said Mrs Williamson. ‘We’ll get the girls off to bed and I shall have Anna bring in camomile tea and toast. I sent a servant to fetch Doctor Purves – he shall hopefully be here shortly.’

  There was a lightness to her voice now. She was in charge. Mrs Williamson was back, looking after her family, directing people.

  Gert smiled up at Madeleine. ‘I love Mummy like this.’

  ‘Thomas.’ Mrs Williamson’s voice cut through the air, sharp now. ‘I am going to send word to Frau Lüers. It’s time Elfriede departed for Sydney.’

  Mr Williamson nodded. He lifted Gert into the air, her feet dangling from his arms. Madeleine walked behind them. Mrs Williamson handed Imo to Nanny and put one arm about Madeleine’s cloaked shoulders.

  Madeleine couldn’t stop shivering. She could still taste mud in her mouth, and her hands stank of vomit, but she felt a freedom and a lightness and a pride that was almost dizzying in its warmth, and she could not recall another moment when she had felt so well, so strong, so useful.

  Aunt Hen came close. ‘Thank you so much, Madeleine. Thank you so much,’ she whispered. ‘We are so lucky to have you.’

  Mrs Williamson rubbed Madeleine’s hair with a blanket she was carrying. ‘It’s getting a curl, Madeleine!’ she exclaimed.

  The group trooped back to the house together, some wet and goosepimply, some with collars unbuttoned and the fug of stress about them. It was only when they were cradling warm cups of tea in the morning room that Madeleine heard the rattle of carriage wheels. Mrs Williamson looked at Mr Williamson and shook her head: Elfriede had gone.

  That afternoon, after Doctor Purves had come to examine Gert and Imo, and Mrs Williamson had gone through a few litres of tea, Charlie harnessed the pony trap and then she and Imo ran it backwards and forwards over the lower lawn until the pony had kicked up thick clods of grass and Mr Williamson came bellowing from the house telling them to stop.

  Madeleine and Gert watched from a tartan rug they’d laid out nearby, both lying on their tummies, the sun warm on their backs. Madeleine felt completely safe and comfortable – the way she’d felt as a little kid some mornings when she’d been allowed to snuggle in between her mum and dad in their bed.

  She picked at a jagged thumbnail; it had caught right down low where the white met the pink. ‘I must have snagged myself on the bottom of the lake.’ She peeled the nail off; it came away like an orange skin. ‘Here you go, Gert – a keepsake. You can stick this on the grotto wall.’

  Gert scrunched her nose and rolled over.

  ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? A tooth’s acceptable on a wall – there’s something sort of fairy-like about it – but a fingernail is disgusting!’ Madeleine laughed and flicked the nail into the grass.

  Bea was sitting on the edge of their rug and their conversation, sewing tiny cr
osses on a small, round frame. She looked up from under her hat. She’d rarely addressed Madeleine before now, but so much fuss had been made about Madeleine today that even Bea was moved to interest.

  ‘I’ve always thought the same thing of hair. All those things they do with it – it’s sort of ghoulish. Mummy has that mourning locket, which has a little curl of her own mother’s hair plaited behind the glass.’

  ‘May I have the scissors, Bea?’ asked Gert.

  Bea passed Gert a tiny pair of scissors shaped like a crane.

  ‘Here.’ Gert motioned at Madeleine’s hair. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Madeleine, and she heard the graze of a snip.

  Bea passed Gert some aqua tapestry thread, and Gert bound it around the hair, leaving the thread a little grubby. ‘I’ll stick it to the grotto wall.’

  ‘Let me get some of yours too.’ Madeleine cut a little piece of Gert’s hair from the bottom of her plait. The ends were dry and bushy and sprang every which way, but they glowed almost red in the light. She bound it in some red thread Bea had passed over for the purpose. ‘Now we can stick yours up too.’

  Madeleine manipulated the scissors and watched the little crane open and close its beak. When she thought about it, it wasn’t so much strange what these times, these Victorian times, didn’t have so much as what they did have. Apart from the internet and TV, the groundwork for almost everything Madeleine knew was already laid: trains, high buildings, sweets, cars, scissors, even feminism. It was all there, just old-fashioned.

  Madeleine handed the scissors back to Bea. There were so many things – like scissors, and pins, and needles and thread – that had already been invented by anonymous people, and had already given the world a shape she recognised. Did she not know the name for the inventor of scissors because it had been a woman? Or were scissors something that had always been there, passed along an endless chain from generation to generation? Surely the invention of scissors was every bit as much a revolution as the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press, and yet no single person was celebrated.

  Madeleine rolled onto her back and stared up at the sky. She had obviously spent too much time around Aunt Hen.