The kids’ play came to a sudden halt and Macky held out his hand to Charlie. They walked over to where his brother and sister crouched on the grass. All four kids squatted, looking at something on the ground, their heads close, then they all stood at the same time, smiling. From where Anna sat, it seemed choreographed, a short, sweet dance. Charlie still held Macky’s hand, and gazed up at him while he explained something with emphatic nods of his head.
How could Anna remember so well that first day back at school, and also the moment her dad told her that her mother was dead, but not remember a thing about the last time she saw her mother? Was it so awful that she’d blocked it out? The last memory she had of her mother was from way before she went to hospital; she was sick but still had her hair, and Anna had woken her from a nap by running her fingers over her mother’s face. She’d thought it would amuse her mother, but she had swatted at Anna and sat up in fright. The look on her mother’s face was scared. That was the last memory Anna had.
Beatie reached Macky and rested a hand on his shoulder. After a moment, the kids returned to the game of badminton, Charlie holding a racquet and swatting at the shuttlecock when it came near her.
Beatie returned to the kitchen and topped up her own cup.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘by the sound of it, your girl’s safer here, even with my wild kids, than she’d be at home.’
‘Yes.’ Anna’s voice croaked and she cleared her throat. ‘You’re right.’ She wanted to talk about something else. ‘Pat said you home-school your kids.’
‘Unschool, we call it.’ Beatie smiled.
‘Unschool?’
‘Not many formal classes. We do a bit of maths but mostly they do projects. They’ve built a raft by themselves. And a treehouse.’ She tilted her head towards the garden. ‘They have a kids-only veggie bed where they’ve planted everything they need to make a curry.’ She smiled. ‘Except the coconut.’
‘Sounds blissful,’ said Anna. And it did sound idyllic, although she wondered how well unschooling would prepare them for living in the big world out there.
‘Most of the time it’s bliss.’ Beatie smiled and pressed a finger to a few cake crumbs on her plate. She had thick fingers with very short nails: a gardener’s hands, a potter’s hands. She’d made the white-glazed plates she served the cake on. ‘I oversee it. Will works in town, at the council. So, have you worked? Or been a full-time mum?’
‘I’ve been a graphic designer.’
Anna knew someone else would come up with something witty here to ease the discomfort she knew she was emanating, despite Beatie’s best efforts. Anna was used to feeling awkward with people she didn’t know well, but having to lie made it so much worse. Could Beatie tell that Anna was not telling the truth?
‘Oh. What kind of things do you design?’
‘Websites mostly. Logos. Branding.’ Anna thought of the fancy, expensive websites she designed, and how they weren’t remotely necessary or functional like the plates Beatie made, or Pat’s furniture. Websites were not even real, for god’s sake.
The kids ran down the yard, towards the forest, Charlie close behind Macky.
‘Look at your girl. She’s joined in now.’ Beatie smiled.
You’re not my mother! Charlie could so easily undo it; she might be telling the kids right now who Anna really was.
Beatie gazed at her and smiled tentatively. ‘You look worn out, Anna.’
She laughed and ducked her head. ‘Yeah. I look old. I looked in the mirror this morning and this is how I remember my mother looking.’ She couldn’t see Charlie outside. She should go and find her.
‘She died when you were young, didn’t she?’
Anna nodded. Beatie remembered. Anna didn’t recall anything that Beatie might have told her about her parents.
‘How old were you?’ asked Beatie.
‘Eight.’ The kids appeared and ran across the lawn to a small corrugated-iron shed.
‘Cancer?’
‘Yeah.’
‘God, how agonising it must have been for her to know she was leaving you.’ Beatie shook her head. ‘I’m less worried about something happening to them than something happening to me and taking me away from them.’
Did Anna’s mother let herself think what it would mean for Luke and Anna to be motherless? Had she any inkling of how badly their dad would cope?
Claudy’s red cape disappeared around the corner of the shed. Anna stood up. ‘Where do you think they are going?’
‘Maybe the orchard, or the waterhole.’ Beatie stood. ‘Does Charlie swim?’
Anna didn’t think Charlie knew how to swim, with or without a sore arm. ‘Not really. I’d better go with her.’
Beatie carried the plates to the sink. ‘Yeah. Let’s go down for a swim. Macky will look after her until we get there. He’s super responsible.’ She smiled. ‘We call him the Health and Safety Officer.’
‘Beatie, can you please not tell anyone we’ve been here? Not anyone. I’m afraid of . . .’
‘Oh, don’t worry. I won’t mention you to anyone, although Will knows you’re here.’ She slotted the plates into the dish rack. ‘And feel free to come over for a visit any time.’
Anna handed Beatie her cup. ‘Thanks but we’re moving on later today. Heading off . . . I think us turning up has been a bit unsettling for Pat and Sabine.’
‘Oh. Where are you going?’
‘North.’
Beatie nodded. ‘I think things have been pretty unsettled at Pat’s since they found out she’s pregnant.’
‘Oh?’ So the tension at Pat’s was not just about Anna and Charlie turning up.
‘Well, they only found out about the baby a couple of months ago.’ Beatie laughed lightly and shook her head. ‘Tell me, is there any way on earth you could have missed being four or five months pregnant?’
Anna looked out the window. Beatie was waiting for a response. ‘I guess not.’
‘Jo said she met you.’
‘Jo.’
‘Sabine’s midwife. She’s one of my good friends. She was my midwife for the youngest two.’
‘Yeah. I met her. Briefly.’ Anna shouldn’t have come to see Beatie; her first instinct was right. Everyone knew everyone here. Although it sounded like Jo hadn’t told Beatie the whole story.
‘Shall we go and find them?’ said Anna. ‘We have to get home soon to meet Pat.’
It was so quiet out there now. Something fluttered in Anna’s chest whenever Charlie was out of sight.
As Anna and Beatie crossed the lawn, the kids ran from behind the shed, four abreast. ‘Getting towels!’ called Macky then he stopped near the badminton net and pointed to the sky. He hollered, ‘Chopper!’
Anna heard the distant thwack thwack of a helicopter. Where was it? Where was it? The cloudless sky was empty but the rhythmic sound grew louder.
She ran to the cover of a tree at the side of the lawn. The sound was so loud now that the helicopter must be right over them.
Her breath tight, she called to Charlie, ‘Come here, come over here, Charlie!’ If the chopper came from the south, whoever was on board would be able to see her where she crouched, her back pressed against the tree trunk.
Charlie stood beside Macky, her shoulders hunched, peering up at the sky. The boys danced on the lawn and waved at the sky. Anna still could not see the helicopter.
‘Charlie!’ she called again.
Then the sound faded, and Macky ran to the verandah and picked up an armful of brightly coloured towels.
Beatie stood watching Anna, her eyes narrowed. ‘Loud, eh?’
Anna nodded. She straightened up and stepped out into the sun. ‘Yeah.’ She steadied her voice. ‘Loud, alright.’ Her heart still thumped. ‘Did you actually see it?’
Beatie pointed behind her. ‘It was over there. I only got a glimpse. It was probably the cops looking for dope crops, although it’s not really growing season. Or it could be a rescue chopper. Maybe something’s happened further up or o
ver Uki way.’
‘Right,’ said Anna. ‘I’m just a bit jumpy about . . . being tracked down.’ How ridiculous to suggest that a violent husband would hire a helicopter to find his wife and child.
Beatie nodded and set off towards the forest.
Chapter Twenty-five
Up on the mountain the air was very still, and the bird calls floated and drifted through the trees. Pat led them along the narrow path and they emerged from the forest into a big grassy clearing. He pointed ahead. ‘That’s it.’
‘Where?’ asked Anna. ‘I have to put you down again, Charlie.’
As the girl slid from Anna’s back, Anna saw the cottage over the other side of the clearing. It almost merged with the trees, the walls and high-pitched roof a muted green. Behind it rose a mountainside of forest, and Anna guessed the peak of the mountain would be at least another half hour’s walk.
‘Is that it?’ asked Charlie, squinting into the sun.
‘That’s it.’ Pat adjusted the shoulder straps of his backpack and set off across the clearing.
‘It looks a bit like a house in a fairytale, doesn’t it?’ said Anna. The cottage had the comforting proportions Anna remembered from picture books and Christmas cards.
Charlie looked up at Anna blankly. Anna reached for her hand and they followed Pat, the knee-high grass swishing against their legs.
A couple of times during the walk up the hill from his place, Pat had lost the path and they had to backtrack. Charlie had run out of energy at the end, and Anna piggybacked her for the last few minutes.
It was so quiet and still up there. Birds called and the cicadas buzzed incessantly, but there was a fundamental quietness, almost a heaviness, to the air. Anna found it reassuring, like a blanket coming to rest on her.
When they reached the brick-paved area outside the house, Pat lowered his backpack to the ground and fished in his pocket for the key. A long branch lay shattered on the bricks by the front door. The edge of the forest was just ten metres away: a stand of luminescent silver-trunked gums, a few sturdy trees with brown bark peeling off in great strips, and all about, low, soft-leafed bushes and shrubs, and a carpet of fallen leaves.
While he jiggled the key in the lock, Anna peered in the window at an open living area and kitchen. Pat pushed the door open and ushered them inside.
The main room was all golden-red timber floors, timber-lined walls and ceiling, and thick slabs for the kitchen counters. At one end was a woodstove, a burgundy forties-style couch, and a double mattress on the floor, made up with sheets and a cotton blanket. At the other end of the room was the small kitchen. An oil painting of the ocean hung on a wall, and on a low set of shelves, a dozen books were roughly stacked.
Anna turned to Pat, who slid open the window beside the mattress. ‘They left all their stuff here?’ she asked.
‘Well, they had to walk everything out.’ He used the blade of his knife to lever something from the window runner. ‘They thought their driveway was on a legal right of way, over the land of the mad guy on the next property. Turns out they didn’t have right of way after all, and he didn’t want them on his land, so he dropped a massive tree across the driveway. There’s no way in now except the path we just came up.’
Inaccessible and quiet, it was the perfect place for Anna to make them a temporary home.
Pat slipped his knife back into the scabbard on his belt. ‘Half an hour’s walk up a hill was just too much with three little kids.’
Charlie knelt in front of a wooden dolls’ house and walked her fingers up the tiny staircase. She looked up at Pat. ‘Where are the dolls?’
Pat crouched beside her and ducked his head to look into the house. ‘I guess Lily took them with her. I’ll carve you a couple, what do you say?’
Charlie nodded and poked a finger through a scrap of pink fabric covering a tiny window.
At the kitchen bench, Pat pulled paper bags from the backpack and laid them in a row, neat packages of oats and pasta, tomatoes and cheese. Bread. A jar of honey.
‘How far away is this mad neighbour?’ asked Anna and opened the window facing the clearing. ‘Will he know we’re here?’
‘His land’s not for another kilometre down that way.’ He gestured over his shoulder. ‘Don’t go on his land. He’s fenced across the old driveway now. If you go walking, you’ll see it. Just stay on this side of the fence.’
Pat re-screwed the lid on a jar of milk from Beatie’s cow and put it in the small fridge. ‘We’re going to keep it quiet that you’re here. Only Sabine and I know.’
‘A chopper went over yesterday while we were at Beatie’s.’
‘I know. I saw it. It was a police chopper.’
‘Was it?’
‘Yeah. It gave me a fright but I don’t reckon it was searching for anything. You know, it wasn’t hovering.’
He opened a door in the short hallway, releasing a waft of musty air. ‘This is like a storeroom. Some of the family’s stuff is in here. Ivan said you should just use anything you want.’
Anna peered in. Cardboard boxes had been stacked higgledy piggledy in the small room, and beside the door was roughly bundled cloth that looked like curtains.
‘Where’s the family now?’
‘Over near Nimbin. Ivan comes back every now and then and picks up something.’ He opened another door across the hall. The room was just big enough for two double bunk beds. The mattresses had been taken.
‘We’ll sleep in the main room,’ said Anna.
Charlie walked towards them, carefully carrying a glass jar of purple flowers. ‘Look.’ She grinned up at Anna. Small green grass seeds were stuck in her hair.
Anna took the jar of flowers from Charlie, and turned to Pat. ‘Is this your work?’
He smiled sheepishly and nodded. ‘This morning. And those are clean sheets on the mattress. Composting toilet is out the back. Just scoop some sawdust in after each visit.’
‘Thank you.’ She tried to catch his eye, but he crossed to the kitchen and fiddled with the knobs on the stove then disappeared outside.
Anna set the jar of flowers on the kitchen bench and ran a finger through the dust. There were a few scattered black fragments that could be mouse poo. At the sink the water ran clear and cool, and she rinsed a cloth she found in a drawer. Also in the drawer were matches and thumbtacks, rubber bands and pens. How strange that these people left so many of their things behind. Were they afraid of the man on the next property, and had to flee in a hurry? She wiped down the bench while Charlie inspected the books on the shelf.
Pat walked back in, a small blue plastic elephant in his hand. ‘This was out by the gas tanks.’ He set the elephant down on the damp bench. ‘There’s not much gas left, and the fridge will use it up so I’ll get a small tank for you next time I go to town.’
He slid open a few drawers. ‘The solar system seems to be busted, so no electricity, I’m afraid.’ He laid a box of candles on the bench. ‘I think it’s the inverter. I’ll see if I can fix it next time I’m up.’
‘Thank you.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll bring you food every couple of days. I like coming here.’ He looked out the window. ‘I would have built my house higher on the mountain if there’d been a road.’
He picked up the blue elephant and turned it over. He nodded his head a couple of times, as if about to say something, then he looked at her properly, for the first time that day, it seemed to Anna. ‘And how are you going with everything? Are you okay?’
‘I feel better being up here.’
She was counting on the forest to steady her. She hated this feeling of groping and blundering her way through decisions. Her life in Sydney had become so routine that she’d lost the tools – assuming she ever had them – for managing uncertainty or quandaries. But she was good at pretending she knew what she was doing; if there was one thing she’d learnt in the years after her mother’s death, it was that.
Anna squeezed the cloth into the sink. ‘Pat, I’m really so
rry for how complicated things have become for you and Sabine since we arrived. I’m sorry I dragged you into this.’
He frowned and wobbled his head. ‘Oh well, life’s messy sometimes, isn’t it?’ He gave her a half-smile. ‘I hope it doesn’t feel like I’m shunting you off . . .’
‘No, it doesn’t. I get it . . .’
‘Sabine lived up here for a while, you know.’
‘Oh?’
He nodded. ‘When she left me, she moved up here.’
‘Right.’ So they’d separated.
‘Actually, we were split up when she found out she was pregnant.’
‘Oh. Messy.’
He looked up, his face pained. ‘I really want to make it work with Sabine. For the baby.’
‘Yes. You need to put her first. I really get that.’ Anna had the awful feeling that she was going to make Pat’s life even more complicated.
He ducked his head. ‘Thanks.’
At the bookshelf, Charlie pulled down a boxed jigsaw puzzle and hundreds of pieces cascaded to the floor.
‘It was an accident,’ blurted the girl, her shoulders hunched.
‘I know,’ said Anna. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
Charlie frantically swept the pieces into a pile and tried to shovel them back into the box.
Anna crouched beside her and placed her hand on Charlie’s back. The girl’s whole body trembled.
‘Let’s have a look at this puzzle.’ Anna turned over the lid of the box. It was one of Monet’s waterlily paintings. ‘We can do it together. Would you like that?’
Charlie nodded, her eyes teary.
‘Let me take these grass seeds out of your hair first.’ Anna gently extricated the sticky seeds from the girl’s hair.
Pat pulled a plastic bag of their clothes from the bottom of his backpack. ‘Alright. Time for me to go. I told Ivan you’d be here for a month. Michael’s going over to visit him next week so if you give me two hundred bucks he’ll take it over.’
‘Thank you.’
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