Lyrebird Hill

by Anna Romer

  Pete leaned back in his seat. ‘I hope she’s left you something amazing.’

  A flush of warmth filled me, but as I made my way along Rusden Street in the direction of the solicitor’s office, the anxiety oozed back. I hoped Pete was right. I remembered the book Esther had mentioned to me that night in the gallery, and how she had insisted it belonged to me. It wasn’t Jamie’s diary, because that had gone into the ashes years ago; but it could be an old volume of fairytales, which – considering the memories that had been trickling back in the past weeks – would have been a most welcome memento of Granny H.

  The solicitor’s office was in the central mall, an old building with an echoey foyer that led upstairs into a tiny cluttered room.

  The solicitor, Anne, got straight to the point.

  ‘Esther has named you in her will to receive her farmhouse and the surrounding three thousand acres of land known as Lyrebird Hill.’

  I hovered on the edge of a heartbeat, hardly daring to breathe. When I found my voice, I blurted, ‘But I hardly knew her.’

  Anne smiled warmly. ‘When my associates witnessed this will, Esther explained that you had lived at Lyrebird Hill as a child, and that you’d been neighbours. She said she was fond of you, and since she had no other relatives, she wanted the property to go to you. There’s also this.’

  Taking a paper-wrapped parcel from her drawer, she passed it across the desk to me.

  It was a book.

  While I sat stunned, Anne explained that probate would take a month, after which time the deeds and related documents would transfer to me. She would then send me a letter when the documents and spare keys were ready for pick-up.

  I thought I’d better come clean about my extended stay at the property, in case it impacted the legals, but Anne reassured me that since I was there at Esther’s invitation, and there were no living relatives to question my presence, she could see no reason why I shouldn’t continue to stay on.

  I left the office in a daze, stumbling along the street to where Pete’s Holden waited. I got into the car and sat silently, hugging myself as I stared through the windscreen.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Pete wanted to know. ‘You seem a bit out of it.’

  I held aloft my parcel. ‘Esther gave me a book.’

  ‘That’s great,’ he said, frowning. ‘What else happened in there?’

  ‘She also left me the farm. I barely knew her, and she left me a three-thousand-acre property.’

  Pete blinked, then broke into the giddiest smile I’d seen so far. He let out a delighted howl, which inspired the dogs into a barking frenzy.

  ‘I knew it, bless her,’ he declared, thumping his palm on the steering wheel. ‘Oh the darling old girl, if she was here now I’d give her one of my famous bear hugs.’

  ‘You seem pleased.’

  He beamed. ‘Of course I’m pleased.’

  My brain was still trying to untangle the complicated idea that in a month’s time Lyrebird Hill would belong to me. I looked at Pete with his wild dark hair, and the blue gaze now fixed steadily to mine. He and Esther had been close, and Pete had always been there to help her. I felt a rush of protectiveness for him.

  ‘Of all people, I would have thought she’d leave the farm to you.’

  He shrugged, and hammed up the wide-eyed puzzlement. ‘I’ve got my own farm.’

  ‘But . . . she should have left you something.’

  ‘She did.’

  Clearly, I’d slept through the part about Pete’s inheritance. I frowned and shook my head, mystified. ‘What are you talking about?’

  He grinned, buckling on his seatbelt, and leaning towards me so his face was a handspan from mine; his eyes crinkled at the edges and gleamed like gemstones.

  ‘Ah, Roo,’ he said in a softer voice. ‘It’ll be just like the old days, only better. We’re going to be neighbours.’

  It wasn’t just any old book in Esther’s parcel, it was a large leather-bound journal.

  And not just any old journal. It had been written by my great-grandmother, Brenna Whitby, recording events that had occurred between March 1898 and her imprisonment in August that same year.

  The book was full of beautifully detailed botanical paintings. They were clearly rendered by the same hand that had decorated the letter to my grandfather as a baby. Native orchids, ferns, gumnuts and blossoms – all accompanied by notes about their medicinal uses.

  But most intriguing were Brenna’s personal entries.

  It is dawn, she had written towards the end of the book. I am sitting on a blackened scar of land. Tears stream down my cheeks as I write, splashing onto my words and making the ink bleed. Once, a humble dwelling occupied the patch of bare dirt where I now sit. But the people who lived here are gone, their ashes swept away by the wind. I searched for them all day yesterday, and late into the night. But they are gone.

  From the moment we got back to Lyrebird Hill, I immersed myself in Brenna’s world. As her story unfolded – as the pages turned, and as I became more entangled in the web of mystery surrounding Brayer House and the shadow it had once cast over Brenna’s family – I found myself desperately hoping that she had been innocent. I wanted to know the truth – but I wanted it to be a truth that led to redemption, and not one that marked her as a murderer.

  But as I reached the journal’s last pages, I couldn’t help feeling disheartened.

  I could understand Brenna’s grief, and how it had driven her over the dark brink of endurance. But still, the question shadowed my mind. Was I like Brenna, after all? Did the potential for murder lie buried in me, just as it had in her?

  ‘This calls for a celebration,’ Pete declared, as we sat on the verandah later that afternoon. ‘I’ll fire up the barbie, and we can relax with a glass of wine or three and bliss out under the stars. What do you say, Ruby?’

  ‘I say, absolutely.’ I tried to smile, tried to force up a festive mood – but I was still feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of Esther’s bequest and the uncertainty inspired by Brenna’s journal. I gazed across the rambling disorder of the garden, and down the slope to the river. Through the grove of casuarinas, I could see the water babbling over the stones, and kingfishers swooping for insects, and above it all, an endless vista of blue sky.

  ‘I’m still wondering,’ I told Pete. ‘Why me?’

  He reached for my hand and gave my fingers a gentle squeeze. ‘Esther liked you, she used to talk about you a lot. Maybe she thought you deserved a break. You know, after your sister.’

  Twining my fingers in Pete’s, I examined his hand. It was a broad square hand, the knuckles nicked with scars and the skin lightly freckled from time spent outdoors. Despite all the gardening he did, his nails were short and clean; not manicured, like Rob’s, but somehow honest and real. Looking back, I wondered how I had ever been satisfied with anyone who wasn’t . . . well, Pete.

  He shifted closer, his warmth radiating against me, the friendly aromas of eucalyptus and dog hair wafting from his shirt.

  ‘Do you remember,’ he said quietly, ‘how Granny H always used to rework the story? One of her favourite tales was Beauty and the Beast, but she never told the ending the same way twice. We must have heard that story a thousand times, but each time Granny told it, Beauty changed – sometimes she was tomboyish, other times a priggish little princess. And the poor old Beast got uglier, more wretched with every telling. Sometimes he turned out not to be the handsome prince after all, but the evil witch in disguise.’

  ‘That was the best part,’ I said, smiling through my tears. ‘Not knowing how it was going to turn out. She always kept us guessing. We were never sure whether the ending was going to be happy or sad, do you remember? I suppose she liked to keep us on our toes, so things never got boring.’

  Pete looked at me a long time. Then he leaned forward again, and this time pressed his lips ever so gently against the corner of my mouth. ‘A bit like life, wouldn’t you say, Roo?’

  I pondered this. And then, inexplic
ably, I began to shake.

  It started in the vicinity of my diaphragm, subtle at first, as if I’d grown a second, tinier heart right in the middle of my body and it was beating out of time with my real heart. The little heart sped up, began to race. And then, like ripples spreading outward from the centre of a lake, the tremors took hold.

  Pete gathered me into his arms and held me tightly, stroking my hair, whispering against my scalp. And I rained tears onto his chest, overwhelmed that a woman I hadn’t known since childhood had given me a gift of such resounding love.

  Later, I lit a fire in the donkey burner and waited for my bathwater to heat. I was looking forward to immersing myself in a tub of steaming water; my neck muscles were tight and I felt strangely restless. Good news always seemed to have that effect on me; rather than bubble over with joy, I tended to brood.

  As I sat on the rim of the bath, I gazed up into the trees. I had hoped to find answers here at Lyrebird Hill, and I had – but they still weren’t slotting as neatly into place as I had hoped. Rationally, I understood that life was not that simple; not every question had an answer, and you could do your head in trying to find one.

  But buried in the dark folds of my logical mind was a granule of frustration; it niggled and nagged, an irritating particle that refused to go away.

  Jamie’s killer was still unknown.

  I turned on the tap. The water that rushed out was still cold. I huffed, impatient. Withdrawing my hand, I wiped my fingers on my jeans, but didn’t turn off the tap. Water gurgled down the plughole. It was a waste to let it run, but there was something about the sound of it that made me uneasy. The splash and patter as it drummed the base of the bath, the noisy burble as it flowed away down the drain; and now the quiet thrum of my pulse in my ears, that made it sound almost like—

  Rain.

  I stared glumly at the window. It had been pouring all day, all last night, too. It was Saturday, and the yard had turned into a bog.

  Mum and Jamie and I were trapped inside together like a trio of bedraggled battery hens, cranky and ruffled after harsh words from Mum at breakfast when she’d managed yet again to burn the toast.

  Rain always seemed to draw out the smells. Aside from burnt toast, there was woodsmoke from the stove, and Jamie’s wet hair, and the earthy pong of the root crops Mum had harvested yesterday. Huge yellow potatoes, fat purplish turnips, long skinny parsnips with bulbous heads, and a grotesque Jerusalem artichoke that would later add the stink of our farts to the mix.

  I sighed and turned my mind back to my jigsaw. Because of the rain, I had been allowed to set it up on the kitchen table. Mum had lit the old Warmbrite, which sent wafts of smoke curling into the room whenever she opened the door to stoke the fire. It took the damp out of the air, though, and sometimes – when Mum had her act together, which, after the burned-toast fiasco, obviously wasn’t today – she baked bread or carrot-and-walnut muffins, or cooked stew on the stovetop.

  My jigsaw was an old birthday present from Jamie, given before she had become an insufferable snob. We’d spent a ridiculous amount of time together in those days, our heads bowed over various jigsaws, nattering or absorbed in contented silence. This one was one of my favourites – a thousand-piece mind-bender depicting a bunch of swans – and I had hoped Jamie might remember that we’d once been close, and maybe show some remorse for how she’d been treating me . . . and more importantly, over her part in Bobby’s betrayal of the Wolf.

  No such luck.

  Jamie sat by the window gazing out at the overcast sky, as if nothing else in the world existed. Her normally perfect face was puckered in a frown, her brow as bumpy as an old piece of corrugated cardboard. I knew she was mooning over Bobby, probably planning to meet him that very afternoon. She’d been acting a bit cuckoo the last few days; doing a lot of window-gazing, rolling her eyes behind Mum’s back, trying on all her clothes then complaining she had nothing to wear. She didn’t look as pretty as she normally did, either. Her face was always pale, and she was developing a permanent frown line—

  ‘Ruby?’ Mum was standing in the kitchen doorway, watching me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m off to the market now. Don’t forget to check the rain gauge at nine o’clock and make sure it’s written in the book.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I frittered around in my room after she’d gone, then spied on Jamie for a while; she was still hunched at the window. I went back to my room, and when nine o’clock arrived, I dragged on my gumboots and was just about to head out to the rain gauge when I noticed that Jamie was no longer moping by the window.

  Not bothering to slip off my boots, I ran out to Jamie’s room. It stunk of deodorant, and the perfume that always made me think of insect repellent. She’d left her jeans and sweatshirt in a heap on the bed. I looked in the cupboard – sure enough, Jamie’s new dress and her best black sandals were gone.

  Rushing to the window, I searched the yard outside. Jamie was nowhere, but there on the lawn, cutting through the wet grass, was a trail of footprints.

  ‘Bugger the rain gauge,’ I muttered, rushing along the hall to the back door. I burst outside and squelched over the wet grass, following my sister’s trail down the slope to the river.

  Steam was rising from the release pipe on the donkey burner; the fire had burned low. Pulling myself back to the present, I twisted on the tap. This time, there was no eerie patter of half-remembered rain – just the regular gush of scalding river water as it filled the tub. I added cold, then dipped in my toe and deemed it perfect.

  Taking off Esther’s locket, I slipped it into my dressing-gown pocket. Now that I was brave enough to bathe naked, I abandoned my clothes on the wrought iron chair and sank into the tub, sloshing water over the rim and onto the granite pavers.

  This afternoon I had lingered in front of my dressing table, examining my reflection and thinking about Brenna. My features showed no trace of an Indigenous heritage, no evidence that I was anything other than what I appeared to be: a thirty-year-old woman with brown eyes and brown hair. But if I turned my thoughts inwards I could feel a sort of double-beat inside me. One that whispered of the people whose blood I shared, and another for the land that had claimed me as its own.

  Closing my eyes, I sank deeper into the bath.

  Water dripped from the tap. Butcherbirds sang their afternoon serenade in the apple gums. Bees mumbled in the rosemary. Waves of bliss washed through me. If I wanted to, I could stay here forever—

  ‘Hey, babe.’

  Yelling in fright, I shot out of the water, scrambling as my wet limbs slid from under me. As I fell backwards into the tub, hot bathwater washed up and engulfed my face, leaving me blinded by a curtain of wet hair. I knuckled the water out of my eyes and sat up, trying, without much luck, to cover my nakedness with a washcloth. I glared at the man sitting on the end of the tub.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Rob reached into the water, grasping my ankle firmly in his large fingers. He must have meant to steady me, but his touch had the opposite effect. I flinched away, causing another tidal wave.

  Despite all the water, my mouth was dry with nerves. I looked past Rob to the entrance of the bottlebrush hedge.

  ‘Where’s Bardo?’

  Rob looked at me, puzzled. ‘Who?’

  ‘She always sits in the doorway over there when I have a bath.’

  ‘Doorway?’ Rob’s brow shot up and he shook his head, amused. ‘God, Ruby, next you’ll be getting around in an Akubra and flannelette shirt. Aren’t you tired of all this rustic crap? When are you coming home?’

  ‘I am home.’

  Rob fixed his gaze on me, and his mouth downturned. ‘You’re making a mistake, Ruby. You’re throwing away everything we built together, and for what? To wallow in the past out here, rather than standing up in the real world and facing your problems. I never picked you as a coward, babe – but now I’m starting to wonder.’

  His words had a toxic affect on me; t
hree years of frustration bubbled up. Rob’s veiled criticisms over the years, the self-satisfied way he always pointed out my failings – and me falling for every word of it.

  ‘You cheated on me,’ I said, not bothering to keep the venom out of my voice. ‘Worse, you lied about it. You can think what you like, Rob, but I don’t want anything more to do with you.’

  ‘Hey, I understand you’re upset. I made a stupid mistake.’ He lifted his hands as if in surrender. ‘I’m only human, Ruby.’

  ‘I don’t care what you are,’ I growled. ‘This is my property now. I want you to leave.’

  Rob’s smile vanished. Springing to his feet, he stared down at me. He didn’t exactly frown, but a narrow look came into his eyes. His gaze roamed over my nakedness; he seemed to regard me from a great distance, a bird of prey considering his quarry.

  Abruptly, he leaned forward and dashed his hand in the bathwater, splashing my face. ‘Your property,’ he said nastily. ‘Who the hell do you think you are, Ruby Cardel? Miss high and mighty, you sound just like your stuck-up bitch of a sister.’

  I was shaking so hard my teeth wanted to clatter together, and my pulse hammered my eardrums; but I tightened my jaw and held my ground.

  ‘Please leave, Rob.’

  His mouth screwed up in scorn as he gave me a cursory once-over, then he turned on his heel and stalked away.

  Staring after him, I waited until I was sure he was gone. Shakily, I climbed out and wrapped myself in the relative privacy of my dressing gown. For a long time I stood in the sunlight, waiting to hear Rob’s car start up and drive away – but all I could hear was the short rapid rasp of my breathing.

  Finally my trembling subsided. I slid my hand into my dressing gown pocket, and drew out Esther’s silver locket. Sunbeams spangled on its ornate face, picking out the intricate design as it swung back and forth, back and forth, liquid bright. Then the light and warmth faded. In their place, the overcast sky of a rainy day; and drifting in the damp air, a smell: sharp and sweet and vaguely artificial, almost like insect repellent. It made me think of Jamie.