While she waited for the biscuits, Alice drummed her fingers on her belly. Sunlight fell in thick, bright beams through the patchwork of giant tropical leaves at the window. The scent of tobacco mixed with sugary wafts from the kitchen. Every now and then Candy’s humming floated into the lounge room.
Eventually, footsteps approached from the kitchen, bringing a gust of syrup-scented air with them. Alice struggled to sit up.
‘No, sweetpea. Rest.’ Candy dragged a little side table to the couch and set a plate of Anzac biscuits and a chilled glass of milk on top of it. ‘Rest. With a treat.’ Alice took an Anzac biscuit warm from the oven. She pressed its edges between her thumb and index finger. Firm. She pressed its middle the same way. Doughy. Alice looked at Candy in astonishment.
‘Oh, totally. Crunchy edges, chewy middle. Only way they should ever be eaten,’ Candy said with a firm nod. In that moment, Alice loved her. She took as big a bite as possible.
‘Your cheeks are bulging like a possum’s,’ Candy snorted.
The screen door swept open and the sounds of someone stomping and scuffing their boots on the welcome mat filled the hall. A moment later Twig came into the lounge room, her brow knotted in worry. When she saw Alice and Candy, her face relaxed.
‘Perfect timing, Twiggy Daisy.’ Candy offered the plate. Twig looked at Alice with an eyebrow raised in question. Alice nodded with a shy smile.
‘Who am I to say no, if Alice says so?’ Twig took a biscuit from the plate and groaned as she bit into it. ‘You’re an alchemist, Candy.’
Alchemist. Alice promised herself she’d look it up in the dictionary later.
‘Reckon that chamomile and honey tea worked a treat, Alice. Feeling a bit better?’ Twig smiled warmly at Alice. Alice nodded. ‘Good. That’s really good.’
‘Where’s June gone?’ Candy asked, immediately looking like she wished she hadn’t.
‘June’s, uh, had to run a few errands in town.’ Twig shot Candy a pointed look and briskly changed the subject. ‘Ready for the Flowers to come up for morning tea?’
Candy nodded. ‘Coffee and tea urns and biscuits are out on the back verandah ready to go.’
‘Great. I’ll –’ Twig was interrupted by the beep of a car horn as tyres crunched up the driveway. She craned her neck to look out the window.
‘Boryana’s here to get her pay. Can I take her a biscuit?’ Twig pinched two biscuits from the plate, then took a third, which she held between her teeth, smiling. She disappeared into the hallway, only to come back a moment later with her boots on. ‘God, they’re sinfully good, Candy.’ Twig turned to leave then stopped. ‘Why don’t you show Alice around the workshop if she’s up to it? Good chance while the Flowers aren’t in there. I’ll see you ladies later.’ Twig waved and walked outside.
‘Boryana’s a Flower too, the only one who doesn’t live here,’ Candy explained. ‘She and her son live on the other side of town. Bory comes every week and keeps Thornfield clean and tidy. She’s Bulgarian and totally lovely.’
Alice wondered what ‘Bulgarian’ was. A type of flower, maybe?
‘So listen, I’m going to run up and get your boots and stuff, and maybe once you’re dressed we’ll check out the workshop?’ Candy asked. ‘If you’re up to it I’ll introduce you to Boryana.’
Alice nodded. She would have been up for anything as long as it was with Candy Baby.
While Candy was upstairs, Alice went to the window to see what a Bulgarian looked like. Outside, talking to Twig by an old and battered car, was a woman with strong, tanned arms, long black hair and bright red lipstick. They laughed heartily together. But it wasn’t the women that captured Alice’s attention. It was the boy sitting in the front seat of the car.
Alice had never been so close to a boy.
She could only see his profile, most of which was hidden by shaggy wheat-coloured hair. It hung over his face, just like hers did. He was looking down, at something in his hands. She wondered what his eyes were like. He shifted his weight and lifted the book he was reading to rest it on the window. A book!
As if he could hear her heart drumming, the boy looked up and straight at her. Something strange shot through her body. Her limbs wouldn’t work, as if she was frozen to the spot. Alice stared back at him from behind the window. Slowly, he raised his hand. Waving. He was waving. Bewildered, Alice lifted her hand and returned the wave.
‘Ready?’
Alice spun around. Candy had her farm clothes under one arm, and was dangling her blue boots by the shoelaces. She shook her head. Her insides felt all wrong, like they’d been taken out of her body and put back in different places.
‘What is it?’ Candy asked, coming to her side. Alice turned back to the window, pointing, but Boryana had driven off in a dust cloud with the boy.
‘Oh, don’t worry sweetpea, you’ll meet her another time, soon.’
Alice pressed her hands to the glass, watching where the dust settled.
Alice followed Candy past the dormitory where the Flowers lived. When they reached the workshop, they stopped at a doorway covered in thick vines. Candy held the vines aside, took keys from her pocket and slid one into the keyhole.
‘Ready?’ she asked, grinning. The door swung open.
They stood at the entrance of the workshop together. The morning sun warmed their backs, but the air conditioning inside gave Alice a sudden chill. She rubbed her arms, recalling the boy raising his hand to wave.
‘That was a big sigh.’ Candy raised an eyebrow at Alice. ‘You okay?’
Alice wanted so much to speak, but all that came out was another sigh.
‘Words can be totally overrated sometimes,’ Candy said, taking Alice’s hand in her hers. ‘Don’t you think so?’
Alice nodded. Candy gave her hand a squeeze before letting go.
‘C’mon.’ She held the door open. ‘Let’s take a look around.’
They walked inside. The first half of the workshop was filled with benches, stacks of buckets, a row of sinks and a line of fridges set against the wall. Shelves held tools, rolls of shade cloth, and all sorts of bottles and sprays. From hooks on the wall hung broad-brimmed hats, aprons and gardening gloves, below which stood pairs of gumboots lined up, like a row of invisible flower soldiers standing to attention. Alice turned towards the benches. Each had more shelving underneath, filled with tubs and containers. The workshop smelled like rich soil.
‘This is where we bring flowers after they’ve been cut from the fields. Every single flower is checked before it goes out. They have to be perfect. We get orders from buyers all over the place; our flowers are shipped near and far, to florists and supermarkets and petrol stations and market sellers. They’re carried by brides and widows and –’ Candy’s voice wavered, ‘new mothers.’ She smoothed her hands over one of the benches. ‘Isn’t it a magical thing, Alice? The flowers we grow here speak for people when words can’t, on pretty much every occasion you can think of.’
Alice mimicked Candy’s movements, running her hands over the worktop. Who were the people that sent flowers instead of words? How could a flower possibly say the same things as words? What would one of her books, made of thousands of words, look like in flowers? No one had ever sent her mother flowers.
She crouched to inspect the tubs of cutting tools, balls of string, and small buckets of markers and pens in all colours under the bench. She took the lid off a blue marker and sniffed it. On the back of her hand she drew a straight vertical line, an I. After a moment, she wrote next to it, ’m h-e-r-e. As Candy came towards her, Alice rubbed the words off.
‘Pssst. Alice Blue.’ Candy popped her head over the bench Alice was squatting beside. ‘Follow me.’
They wove between the benches, past the sinks and fridges, into the other half of the workshop, which was set up as an art studio. There were desks covered in blank canvases, dotted with tins of paint and jars of brushes. In one corner stood easels, stools and a box filled with tubes of paint. At another desk sat coils o
f copper foiling, pieces of coloured glass and jars of tools. By the time Alice reached the closed-off area at the back of the studio, she’d forgotten about the boy. She’d forgotten about June and her father’s statues. She was too absorbed by what was right in front of her.
‘X marks the spot.’ Candy chuckled.
From a frame overhead hung dozens of flowers in various stages of drying. One long bench ran alongside the makeshift wall. Sat upon it were tools and cloths, all blackened from use, and dried flower petals, scattered, discarded like clothes left on shore. Alice pressed her hands to the wooden surface, remembering her mother’s hands floating over the heads of the flowers in her garden.
At one end of the bench a velvet sheet was laid out, adorned with bracelets, necklaces, earrings and rings, all decorated with pressed flowers in resin.
‘This is June’s place,’ Candy said. ‘This is where she makes magic out of the stories Thornfield was built on.’
Magic. Alice stood in front of the jewellery, each piece catching the light.
‘June grows every flower here.’ Candy picked up a bangle; the pendant hanging from it contained a pale peach-coloured petal. ‘She presses every one and casts it in clear resin, then seals it in silver.’ Candy returned the bangle to its place on the bench. Alice inspected the rainbow of other flowers pressed in necklace pendants, earrings and rings. Each one was sealed forever, frozen in time while still coloured with life. They would never turn brown or waste away. They would never decay, or die.
Candy came to stand beside her. ‘In Queen Victoria’s time, people in Europe talked in flowers. It’s true. June’s ancestors – your ancestors, Alice – women who lived a long time ago, they brought that language of flowers all the way over the ocean from England, down the generations, until Ruth Stone brought it right here to Thornfield. People say that for a long time she didn’t use it. It wasn’t until she fell in love that she started talking in flowers. Except, unlike the flower language she’d brought from England, she only used flowers that her lover brought her.’ Candy stopped, her face flushed. ‘Anyway …’ she trailed off.
Ruth Stone. Her ancestor. Alice’s cheeks tingled with curiosity. She wanted to slide a ring onto every finger, press the cool silver pendants against her warm skin, slip the bracelets onto her wrists and hold the earrings up to her unpierced ears. She wanted to wear this secret language of flowers, to say for her all the things her voice wouldn’t.
At the other end of the bench sat a small handmade book. Alice inched towards it. The cracked spine had been repaired many times, bound together with multiple red ribbons. The cover was hand-lettered in faded gold calligraphy, with an illustration of red flowers that looked like spinning wheels. The Thornfield Language of Australian Native Flowers.
‘Ruth Stone was your great-great-grandmother,’ Candy said. ‘This was her dictionary. Over the years, women who descended from Ruth have grown the language as they’ve grown the flowers here.’ She ran a hand down the edges of the musty pages. ‘It’s been in June’s family for generations. Your family, actually,’ she corrected herself.
Alice hovered a fingertip over the cover. She so wanted to open it, but wasn’t sure if she was allowed. Its pages were yellowing and stuck out at odd angles. Snippets of handwritten words were visible on the outer margins. Alice turned her head to the side. She could only read a few complete words. Dark. Branches. Bruised. Fragrant. Butterflies. Haven. It was the best book Alice had ever seen.
‘Alice.’ Candy bent down so she was at eye level with Alice. ‘Have you ever heard this story before? About Ruth Stone?’
Alice shook her head.
‘Do you know much about your family yet, sweetpea?’ Candy asked gently.
A sense of shame Alice didn’t understand made her look away. She shook her head again.
‘Oh, what a lucky girl.’ Candy smiled sadly.
Alice looked at her, confused. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand.
‘You know Alice Blue, the woman I told you about in my letter, the daughter of a king?’
Alice nodded.
‘Her mother died when she was young, too.’ Candy took her hand. ‘She was heartbroken and sent away to live with her aunty in her book-filled palace. Later, when she was all grown up, Alice Blue said it was the stories her aunt told her and those she read in her books that saved her.’
Alice imagined Alice Blue, a maiden in her signature-coloured gown, reading in pale light falling from a window onto the pages of her book.
‘What a lucky girl you are to have found this place, and with it your story, Alice. What a lucky girl you are to get the chance to learn and know where you come from and who you belong to.’ Candy turned her face away. After a moment, she wiped her cheeks. The air conditioners clicked and hummed in the background. Alice studied the old book, daydreaming of women who might have bent over it through time, maybe holding a bunch of native flowers in their fist as they added a new entry in their secret language.
Alice’s legs started to twitch from idleness. Candy turned back to her and asked a question that flooded Alice’s body with longing.
‘Want me to show you the way to the river?’
10
Thorn box
Meaning: Girlhood
Bursaria spinosa | Eastern Australia
Small tree or shrub with furrowed dark grey bark. Smooth branches are armed with thorns. Leaves yield pine-like fragrance when bruised. Sweetly scented white flowers bloom in summer. Provides nectar to butterflies and safety to small birds. Intricate architecture of thorns is much sought after by spiders for constructing webs.
Alice shielded her eyes from the sun. Although autumn had cooled the nights, the days were still broiling. Candy lifted the vine, locked the workshop door behind them, and let the vine fall back over the doorway. On the back verandah the Flowers had finished morning tea and were ferrying their cups and plates from the tables into the kitchen. Candy called out to Myf, with the bluebird tattoo at her throat, to ask for the time. After Myf replied, Candy turned to Alice, her face filled with dismay. Alice’s heart sank.
‘Oh sweetpea, I’m sorry. It’s later than I’d realised. I have to get lunch ready I’m afraid, or else we’ll have neglected Flowers, in every sense. I’ll have to take you to the river another time.’
Alice searched her face.
‘No, don’t give me that look. Please. I just can’t let you go by yourself.’
Alice kept her eyes on Candy’s face.
‘Dammit,’ Candy muttered under her breath. ‘Listen, only as long as you promise to be more careful than you’ve ever been. In. Your. Life.’ Candy frowned. ‘And as long as you promise to come back as soon as you’ve had a quick look at the river. Straight back. I mean it.’
Alice nodded vigorously.
‘And one last thing: you cannot tell June or Twig I let you go off by yourself the very first time they left me to look after you.’
Alice raised her eyebrows.
‘Oh. Right. That won’t be a problem.’ Candy folded her arms. ‘Okay, Alice Blue,’ she surrendered, smiling despite herself. ‘You can go to the river by yourself and explore. But don’t let me down, okay? Second chances aren’t easy to come by around here.’
Alice ran to Candy and threw her arms around her waist. I trust you.
For the next ten minutes Candy repeated the directions to the river: go to the path at the end of the flower fields. Follow it through the bush to the river. Do not leave the path. Do not go into the river. Do not try to cross the river. Do nothing at all other than follow the path to the river.
After Alice had nodded along to every word three times, Candy was satisfied.
‘Okay, then,’ she said. ‘I’m going to prep lunch. See you soon, sweetpea.’
Alice hesitated, not quite believing that she was allowed to leave. At the back steps Candy turned. Go, she mouthed with a grin, shooing Alice away with her hands.
She took off around the flower field with Candy’s directi
ons ringing in her ears. She didn’t stop, look back or falter. If her voice was working she would have thrown back her head and crowed. She didn’t let her eyes stray from the chalky path at the bottom of the garden that cut away into the forest. To the river, Alice sang to herself. To the river.
Once she was within the arms of the bush, Alice slowed to walking pace. Streams of light fell through the canopy and pooled at her feet. Crickets and bellbirds sang together, joined by the occasional whump-whump of a tree frog. She gazed at the gum trees overhead, their branches and leaves hushing each other in the wind. Monarch butterflies flap-flap-swooped over wild cotton bushes. She stopped to study lichen-covered rocks, the hairy curls of tree fern buds, and patches of sweet-smelling purple wildflowers. The air was rich with the smell of dry earth, vanilla and eucalyptus.
She’d almost forgotten why she’d come until she heard it. She stopped and listened. There it was, faint, but unmistakable; water called to her as vividly as if it were her mother’s voice. Alice bolted for the river, her hair streaming behind her.
The path came to an end at a clearing on the banks of a wide, green river. It didn’t curl, roar or crash like the ocean; it was calm, one flowing constant song. Alice was drawn to it the way everything else around her also seemed to be: tree roots reached into the river, as did long and wispy strands of moss that clung to half-submerged rocks.
Do not go into the river.
Alice made a silent apology to Candy as she kicked off her boots. She’d just peeled off her socks when she noticed a thin trail leading off along the riverbank.
She strained to see where it led. Candy had made no mention of another trail. Second chances aren’t easy to come by around here. Alice crept towards it. She’d just take a peek. But, to her disappointment, the trail didn’t lead anywhere. It ended abruptly, almost as soon as it began, at a tiny circular nook in the shade by the river, big enough for maybe two people. Alice scuffed her feet in the dust, sighing in disappointment. But as she turned to go back to the river, something caught her eye: the gilded edge of something big enough to block the sun. Her eyebrows shot up as she took in the size of the giant river red gum. Its trunk was wider than she was tall. Alice looked into the arms of the tree that reached so high she couldn’t see its top. The thought of climbing it made her hands clammy. Its branches were heavy with flowering blossoms and fragrant, crescent-shaped leaves. Its roots ran into the river, creating pockets that were filled with gum nuts, leaves and flowers. It was a king of trees. But more mesmerising to Alice than anything else was the spot on its trunk where a list of names was carved. Although they started above her eye level, when she stood on tiptoe with her head leant back, Alice could read them all. She recognised Ruth Stone’s name but didn’t know any others, until she got to the last two.
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Page 10