Alice watched them intently. June touched Brooke’s arm and Brooke returned the gesture. She was probably comforting June, explaining it was all a big mistake – Alice wouldn’t be leaving. Then Brooke handed June Alice’s bag of belongings, which consisted entirely of books, and turned back towards the truck.
‘Be good,’ Brooke mouthed to Alice, lifting her hand in a wave. She lingered by the entrance with the empty wheelchair. After a moment, she pushed it towards the automatic doors and disappeared through them.
Alice was struck by dizziness, as if Brooke had walked away and taken all the blood in her body with her. She’d left her with this stranger. Alice rubbed her eyes to push the tears back in, but it was no use. She’d made the mistake of thinking her tears disappeared to the same place as her voice. But now they streamed down her cheeks as if they ran from a broken tap. June stood at the passenger window, her arms hanging at her sides as if she didn’t know what else to do with them. After a few moments she opened the passenger door, stowed Alice’s bag behind her seat and shut the door gently. She walked around the truck and climbed into the driver’s seat to start the engine. They sat together in silence. Even Harry the enormous dog.
‘Let’s head on home then, Alice,’ June said. She put the truck into gear. ‘We’ve got a long drive.’
They pulled out of the car park. Exhaustion tugged on Alice’s eyelids. Everything hurt. A few times Harry tried to nose her leg but she pushed his face away, turned her back to both of her companions and kept her eyes closed to shut out her new world.
Brooke jabbed the elevator down button and rummaged through her handbag until her fingertips grazed her emergency packet of smokes. She gripped them in her fist. When the elevator pinged, Brooke walked in and punched the button for the car park harder than she meant to. Again she recalled the happiness on Alice’s face at the sight of that box of books; the light that filled her eyes made the lie Brooke had told about where they’d come from worth it. Alice was with her grandmother now. Her family, Brooke reminded herself, was what Alice was going to need most.
In her whole life, Brooke had never witnessed anything like the aftermath of what had happened at the Hart property. Police were calling it a perfect storm: dry lightning, a child left alone with matches, and a family trapped in the cycle of a man’s violence against his wife and daughter. Brooke hovered nearby when the police approached June to explain: Clem had beaten his child unconscious in her bedroom then, realising there was a fire, dragged her outside before going back in to rescue Agnes. But by the time the fire brigade and ambulance arrived, Agnes couldn’t be resuscitated, and Clem died at the scene shortly after from smoke inhalation. At that point June was such a sickly colour that Brooke had intervened and suggested a break.
The elevator reached the car park with another nauseatingly cheery ping. Brooke took deep lungfuls of fresh air, holding off from lighting her smoke. That poor woman, Agnes. Only twenty-six years old, and in such fear of her husband that she’d made a will for guardianship of her children, one of whom would never know her. Brooke pressed a hand to her stomach at the thought of him, the baby boy, pulled from Agnes’s dying, beaten body. She swallowed a rising wave of bile. How could a husband do that to his pregnant wife, to his young daughter, to his unborn son? What would become of Alice, the daughter who survived fire?
Images of Alice unconscious, beaten and inhaling smoke overwhelmed Brooke. She threw her smokes and lighter into a bin, got into her car and left the hospital in a squeal of tyres on concrete, desperate to put as much distance as she could between herself and Alice’s empty room.
The summer dusk was thick and balmy. Along the seafront the Norfolk Island pines teemed with parrots screeching drunkenly, singing their sunset song. Brooke pulled over and wound down the windows to inhale the heavy fragrance of salt, seaweed and frangipani. Alice had mumbled incessantly about flowers when she was in the grip of her night terrors. Flowers, phoenix birds and fire.
‘C’mon,’ Brooke muttered to herself. ‘Get your shit together.’
She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and turned the key in the ignition. Speeding away from the sea, she cut the corners of the empty streets in her neighbourhood, pulling hard into her driveway. Once she was inside, Brooke went straight to the phone, lifted the receiver and began to make the call she’d been dreading all day. She willed herself to press the last digit of Sally’s phone number, which she’d known since she was twelve.
Blood pulsed in her ears as the dial tone turned to a ring.
And her light
stretches over salt sea
equally and flowerdeep fields.
Sappho
6
Striped mintbush
Meaning: Love forsaken
Prostanthera striatiflora | Central Australia
Found in rocky gorges and near outcrops. Very strongly mint-scented. Narrow leathery leaves. The white flower is bell-shaped with purple stripes inside the bloom and yellow spots in the throat. Should not be ingested, as it can cause difficulty in sleeping. Vivid dreams are also symptomatic.
The drive was long, hot and filled with yellow dust. There was no hint of the sea on the breeze. The air from the truck’s vents was hot on Alice’s face, like Toby’s panting breath. At the thought of his face, his drooling, wolfish smile, she sucked on her bottom lip, staring hard out the window at the strange and unfamiliar surroundings. No silver seagrass or salt pans, no soldier crabs or sea tides to read, no seaweed necklaces to wear, and no skies filled with ghostly wisps of virga, warning of storms out at sea.
On either side of the flat highway the land was thirsty, dry as a cracked tongue. Somehow, though, the strange landscape teemed with life. It hummed in Alice’s ears, the clicking buzz of cicadas, the occasional wild cackle of kookaburras. There was the occasional blur of colour where wildflowers grew at the base of gum trees. Some had trunks as white as fairytale snow while others were an ochre colour, as glossy as if covered in a slick of wet paint.
Alice squeezed her eyes shut. Her mother. Her unborn brother or sister. All her books. The garden. Her desk. Toby. Her father. She rubbed the heel of her palm over the left side of her chest. Opened her eyes. In her peripheral vision June reached a hand out towards her but, seeming unsure of where to rest it, let it hover before eventually putting it back on the steering wheel. Alice pretended not to have seen. That seemed as good a way as any to manage the situation. She angled herself away from June, turning more directly towards her window. Stretching an arm behind her seat, she reached into her bag for her books, choosing to ignore that they’d come from June and focusing instead on them belonging to her. Alice tugged from the bag the first one her fingertips touched and almost smiled at the sight of it. A perfect comfort. Clutching it, Alice took solace from its solid, sturdy shape, its reliably straight edges, its papery smell, its beckoning story, and its hard cover bearing an image she’d spent countless hours studying, of a girl with her name, who fell into a strange and wonderful land but still found her way home.
June kept her eyes on the road and both hands firmly on the steering wheel for fear of what would happen if she glanced away or slackened her grip. She couldn’t stop the tremors in her limbs. Only a nip of whisky from the flask in her side pocket would do that. But she didn’t dare. Not today. Not with the child in the truck, sitting so close June could have reached out and touched her. Alice. Her granddaughter, who she’d never laid eyes on. Until today. In sidelong glances June observed the girl pressing her book to her chest like it was the very thing keeping her heart beating. She’d agreed to go along with the nurse’s suggestion that they tell Alice the box of books came from her grandmother. Apparently Alice loved them so much, it seemed the simplest way to establish a connection between them. The most important thing right now is that Alice is protected from any further stress, the nurse had said.
Looking across at Alice, June felt ridiculous for believing any untruth might help to alleviate the situation. She chided herself for her stup
idity. She should have just bloody well sat down and talked no nonsense with the child. Hello, Alice, I’m June, your grandmother. Your father is – June shook her head – was my son, who I hadn’t seen for many, many years. I’m going to take you home, where you’ll never feel unsafe again. June blinked her tears away. Maybe it only would have taken a few words. I’m so sorry, Alice. I should have been a better mother. I’m so, so sorry.
When the local police knocked on the front door at Thornfield, June had hidden in the pantry to take a long guzzle of whisky from her flask before answering. She let them in, thinking they’d come about one of the Flowers. Instead they removed their hats and told her that her son had been killed in a house fire, along with his wife. They were survived by their children, a newborn son and a nine-year-old daughter. Both of June’s grandchildren were receiving medical care, and she was listed as their next of kin. She should know, it was clear Clem was responsible for the serious abuse of his wife and daughter. After they left, June barely made it to the toilet in time to vomit. Her deepest fear about her son, which she’d kept at bay for years, had become reality.
Taking another sidelong look at Alice, June was nauseous again. The girl was so much like Agnes. Wild hair, thick lashes, full lips, and big eyes, deep with curiosity and yearning. They both wore vulnerability like it was a vital organ, on the outside of their body. If Alice looked like her mother, did she take after her father in her personality? Was she like Clem? June couldn’t tell yet. Alice’s silence was deeply unsettling. Selective muteness is common in children processing deep trauma, Dr Harris had reassured her. Usually it’s not permanent. With proper counselling and support, Alice will speak again when she’s ready. Until then, we won’t know how much she remembers.
June gripped the steering wheel, her bracelets tinkling. She glanced at them. Five yellow petals set in silver charms, each dangling from one of five silver bracelets. Butterfly bush flowers all had the same slightly unequal five yellow petals. A red mark appeared on the upper petal of every bloom, and at the centre of each flower were three stamens, the largest of which was shaped like a little paddle boat. June had made the bracelets for today specially. Every time they chimed on her wrists, they repeated their meaning to her like a secret prayer. Second chances. Second chances. Second chances.
Alice gasped, twitching in her sleep. Her head was bent back at a painful-looking angle. June thought about reaching out to reposition her, but after a moment Alice coughed and shifted on her own.
June focused on the road. Pressed her foot harder to the accelerator. Hoped that whatever dreams the child was wading through, they were gentle.
Late afternoon sunlight poured into the cab. Alice started. She’d fallen asleep without realising; dried tears cracked in the corners of her eyes and there was a kink in her neck. She straightened up and stretched. Harry licked her hand. She let him; she was too tired to push him away again. No longer on the highway, they were bouncing noisily along a rough dirt track. A pink bruise had formed on her knee where it had knocked against the door handle as the truck jostled over bumps and dusty pockmarks. Alice craved salty sea air.
June had her window down, one tanned elbow resting on the open sill. Her greying curls moved gently in the wind. Alice studied her profile. June didn’t look anything like her father, but felt so familiar. When she tucked a curl behind her ear, the silver bracelets jangled on her wrists. From each one a small charm dangled, with a pressed yellow petal inside. She glanced at Alice, who was too slow at acting asleep.
‘You’re awake.’
Through the blur of her pretend-sleep eyelashes, Alice saw June smile and shake the bracelets on her wrist. ‘Like them? I made these myself. All the flowers, they come from my farm.’
Alice turned her head away to look out the window.
‘Each flower is a secret language. When I wear a combination of flowers together, it’s like I’m writing my own secret code that no one else can understand unless they know my language. Today I thought I’d wear just one flower.’
A muscle twitched in Alice’s cheek. June changed down gears, the bracelets chiming in response. ‘Want to know what they mean? I’ll tell you the secret.’
Alice ignored her, focusing hard on the tinder-dry bush streaming past the window. Her stomach lurched as they drove over a cattle grid. The noise of cicadas drowned out her thoughts. June was still talking. ‘I could teach you.’ Alice glared at the strange woman beside her. For a while, June didn’t speak. Alice closed her eyes. She wanted to be left alone.
‘You just missed town. Never mind. Plenty of time for exploring later.’ June worked the truck’s pedals and gears; the engine grumbled as it slowed. ‘Here we are.’
They turned off the dirt track onto a smaller, smoother driveway. The ruckus that had filled the truck while they were on graded dirt dissolved to a hum. The air changed; it was sweet and green. Flowering grevillea bushes appeared alongside the truck. Monarch butterflies hovered – flap, flap, swoop – over wild cotton. Alice couldn’t stop herself sitting up straighter. The droning of bees came from a cluster of white hives by twisted, silver-green gums that all pointed towards the biggest house Alice had ever seen. One she realised she’d seen before.
The house was more vivid than in the old photo she’d found in her father’s shed, the photo that had shared a hiding place with a lock of hair, blue-black, tied with a faded ribbon. Alice checked June’s hair. Though it was silvered it might have been that dark once.
When they reached the end of the driveway, June swung the truck around and parked it by a garage blanketed in thick vine. Harry sat to attention, his tail beating Alice’s side in unison with her heart. The trees were dense with birdsong. At home, this was close to Alice’s favourite time of day, when the world was dusted blue by the approaching dusk, and the air was pungent with whatever the tide brought in. Here, it was different. Drier and warmer. No hint of the sea. No pelicans drifting, no call of the currawongs. Alice dug her fingers into her thighs, steadying herself. A monarch butterfly tapped at her window. It hovered, almost as if it could hear all the things Alice couldn’t say, before it fluttered away.
‘Welcome, Alice.’ June had hopped out of the truck and was standing at the top of a short stack of wooden steps that led onto the verandah. She held one hand out.
Alice stayed in the truck. Harry kept to her side, and her fingers found their way to his ears and scratched the place Toby had loved most. He groaned in appreciation. No one else had come for her at the hospital. No one but June, a stranger she’d been given away to like a lost dog. June’s smile was starting to falter. Alice closed her eyes. She was tired, so tired she felt she could go to sleep and not wake up for a hundred years. She made a bargain with herself: she’d go inside just to get to bed.
Avoiding June’s eyes, Alice climbed down out of the truck with Harry. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and trudged up the steps.
The house had a wide wraparound timber verandah, strung with glowing kerosene lanterns. Birds and crickets sang the sun down. The wind rustled through the trees, releasing the cool scent of eucalyptus. Alice followed June across the verandah, stopping when she got to the front door. The screen opened and closed behind June, without Alice. Harry stayed by her side.
‘Alice?’ June walked back to the screen door. ‘I’ve made up a room for you. I know it’s not the one you’re used to but it’s a place you can make all your own,’ she said through the screen, gently pushing it open.
Alice’s nose was running. She wiped at it with the back of her hand.
‘Why don’t you come in, wash your face, and lie down. I’ll bring you something to eat.’
Alice’s vision swam.
‘Would you like a hot facecloth? The bathroom’s just here, at the end of this hall.’ June walked out to Alice.
Too tired to protest, Alice allowed herself to be guided through the front door. Her head bobbed like a drooping flower. Harry sauntered alongside them.
The sh
eer size of the house loosened Alice’s jaw. The long hallway, pale as a seashell, was lit with lamps, all different sizes, throwing shades of soft light. They followed a runner mat down the hall. Potted plants sat in every nook. Books lined the shelves, interrupted by jars of white stones, vases of feathers, and dried bouquets of flowers. Alice wanted to touch everything.
June led her into a spacious timber and white-tiled bathroom. She ran warm water in the hand basin. Opening a mirrored cabinet she took down a small brown glass bottle, unscrewed the cap, and shook a few droplets from it. A warm and calming scent rose from the water. Alice’s eyelids drooped. June doused a facecloth in the sink and offered it to Alice, who covered her face and inhaled deeply. The heat dismantled some of the aching behind her eyes. When she finished wiping her face, she saw June hadn’t moved.
‘I won’t leave you. I’m not going anywhere,’ June whispered.
After they were done in the bathroom, Alice and Harry followed June up a lamp-lit flight of winding stairs. At the top was a little door. Alice hung back as June opened it, then trailed in after her. As June flicked the light switch, the sharpness of the light made Alice gasp and cover her eyes. June quickly turned it off.
‘Here, I’ll help you,’ she offered. Alice stiffened as June put an arm around her and they crossed the room. She scurried away from June and climbed into the soft bed, pulling the sheet up in the dark. It settled like feathers on her skin. She waited for the sound of June’s departure. Instead, she felt the weight of her grandmother sitting on the edge of the bed.
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Page 6