Stars Across the Ocean

by Kimberley Freeman

  I stop in the threshold ‘Mum?’

  She looks up. She has changed out of her hospital gown into what I presume she was wearing the day she had her accident. A pale pink wool top with dark brown blood stains, and a long grey skirt. Her feet are bare. She sits at the desk where I have made organised piles, but the piles are gone. There is chaos again. ‘Hello, darling. I thought I’d come and find the rest of Moineau’s letter.’

  I move towards her and put my hand over her shoulder. ‘Did a doctor say it was okay for you to leave the clinic? How did you get here?’

  ‘No, and a taxi,’ she answers, turning her attention back to the papers in front of her. ‘What’s happened here?’ she asks. ‘It’s all out of order.’

  ‘It was in order.’

  ‘What kind of order? See … 1840s, 1850s, 1860s …’

  I had never thought of ordering things by decades, because it makes no sense. I had organised by categories: articles, journals, letters, pamphlets … but here she is mixing them all up again.

  ‘Mum, you shouldn’t be here. You should be in the clinic.’

  She glares up at me, suddenly defiant. ‘Oh, should I? And would you? If you were me, would you be in the clinic? Or would you rail against the nurses treating you as though you were a child? And despise those doctors who speak to you as though they know you better than you know yourself?’

  ‘All right, but then let me take you home. You oughtn’t be here. I’ll take you home, and I’ll call Doctor Chaudry and we’ll sort all this out later, okay? I saw the Dean yesterday, and he isn’t going to empty your office. He’s not, I promise.’

  ‘Then why are all my things in disarray?’ she cries.

  I open my mouth to tell her about the storm, the cleaner, about the fact that I’ve been in here reorganising things as she asked, but I don’t know if I can talk reason to her any more. I don’t know if the words will fall just beside her, rather than making their way into her mind. I don’t know if I will sound as though I am part of her imagined conspiracy of villains. So, I say, ‘Let me take you home now. You haven’t been home in ages. You can have a cup of tea and your own sofa and your own bed. How does that sound?’

  Mum smiles weakly. ‘It does sound nice. And my own bath. Not that hideous little shower at the clinic.’

  ‘Wonderful idea. I’ll draw you a bath and I’ll cook for us too.’

  Mum stretches out her hand to me, and I help her up and for the first time I notice she has shrunk. Perhaps only a centimetre or so, but she seems small to me.

  As soon as I have her home, I am happier. Mum has her bath and we eat dinner together, and soon she is reading in her own bed, a little yellow light visible under the door. I sit on the sofa. The television is on. It’s a real-estate show about people so rich they can afford a house in the country and a ‘crash-pad’ in London: the kind of show that makes poor people despair and middle-class people feel they have failed. I am not really watching, because I am thinking about Professor Garr. Andrew. I wonder if he has any idea where the rest of the letter is. Maybe there are depositories for papers around the college that Mum has forgotten about. I pull out his business card and look at it, put it down, pick it up again. He did say I could call.

  I pick up my phone. There is a missed call from my work. I frown, thumb it aside, and call Andrew.

  My heart is beating hard until he says, ‘Tori, how lovely to hear from you,’ and I feel reassured that I’m not overstepping some boundary I didn’t see him put in place. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘My mother is looking for some papers, an old letter, a rather long one. In her … confusion, it’s become separated into chunks and she can’t remember where they are. But it gives her a lot of joy, so I think it’s worth me trying to locate the rest of it.’

  ‘It’s not in her office?’

  ‘Not that I’ve been able to find.’

  He is silent for a moment, then he says, ‘She left some papers on an outside table at the refectory one day, perhaps six months ago. A cleaner found them and returned them to one of her colleagues. I wonder if he still has them. I remember him being quite distressed that priceless old documents were left out in the open. Anything could have happened to them. Would you like me to check with him?’

  ‘Could you?’

  ‘I’d be happy to.’ A short silence, but before I can say thank you and goodbye he says, ‘Why don’t you meet me for lunch tomorrow, and I can tell you if I’ve tracked them down?’

  ‘I … yes. That would be … nice.’ Lunch. The least sexy of all the meals. Surely I needn’t tell him I’m married, that I don’t wear a wedding ring because I lost it at the beach months ago and Geoff still hasn’t noticed. I can’t mention Geoff at all. That will just make things awkward.

  •

  I arrive at his office the next day at one o’clock and I’m shown through to a boardroom where a platter of sandwiches waits. My fear (hope?) that the lunch will be intimate or romantic is quickly quashed. This is a straight-up business lunch, and I sit alone for three minutes – long enough for condensation to form on the orange-juice jug – before Andrew comes in. He has a folder under his arm and apologies on his lips.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ he says, and indicates the sandwiches with a sweep of his hand. ‘For this.’

  ‘It’s fine. The sandwiches look very nice.’

  ‘Yes, but the point is …’ He turns and shuts the door behind him. ‘I have a new PA and I asked him to book a lunch meeting for two at the Chancellor’s Club, and he got it mixed up with a board meeting this time next week. Electronic calendars … you know.’

  ‘I honestly don’t mind,’ I say, helping myself to a ham sandwich.

  He sits across from me and slides the folder onto the table. ‘It’s here.’

  ‘Really?’ I put the sandwich down and dust crumbs off my fingers, then open the folder. Familiar handwriting. I leaf through to the end. ‘Ah, still incomplete.’

  ‘Is it? These are the only papers she left behind.’

  ‘I’m sure the rest of it is somewhere,’ I say. ‘Perhaps she’ll remember.’

  He pours himself an orange juice and offers me one and we sit in awkward quiet for a few moments, eating. Then he says, ‘Let me make it up to you.’

  ‘Make it …’

  ‘Let me take you to dinner to make up for messing up the lunch.’

  ‘There’s really no need—’ Tell him you’re married.

  ‘I insist. I really do want to take you to the Chancellor’s Club as there’s a wonderful museum attached that your mother was instrumental in setting up. I … I don’t want to raise your hopes but I’m in the process of applying for it to be renamed the Margaret Camber Gallery.’

  The wind is knocked out of me.

  ‘No guarantees, you understand,’ he says quickly. ‘Bureaucracy being what it is.’

  ‘I won’t hold you to anything. But I would love to see the collection.’

  ‘While you are in town?’

  ‘Yes, while I am in town. I expect that eventually I have to return home to Sydney. Geoff will …’

  ‘Geoff?’

  ‘My husband. Geoff. He’s a solicitor.’ Conveyancing law. Nothing interesting. Nothing he’s passionate about.

  The awkward moment that I feared passes. He rallies. ‘Well, perhaps you can take some photographs of the gallery to show him,’ he says.

  ‘He wouldn’t be interested,’ I reply, smiling tightly.

  ‘Nonetheless.’ Another moment passes, and he is looking at me but I can’t read his expression. But I like the way he looks at me. There is patience there. I am not used to patience.

  ‘I would love to have dinner with you,’ I say, and I am pleased by how warm and sincere my voice is. ‘What night would suit you?’

  ‘Next Friday?’ he says. ‘Seven o’clock?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I say.

  •

  I am in a daze of sorts as I drive home. I miss a green light and the Peugeot behind me honks fu
riously. Not as bad as running a red light, I suppose. I would love to be able to tell Mum about Andrew and ask her opinion, but she hates him; or at least, a version of him that she has created in her mind.

  Mum is in the sunroom, dozing. I take a moment to watch her. Asleep, she looks old. My heart pinches. I am acutely aware that I won’t have her forever. She opens her eyes, sees me, pulls focus, then smiles.

  ‘Victoria.’

  ‘I have the next part of the letter.’

  She sits up, excited. ‘Do you now? Where did you find it?’

  ‘Andrew Garr found it for me.’

  Her face closes up. ‘He was hiding it from me.’

  ‘No, you left it outside the refectory and one of your colleagues has been taking care of it.’

  She frowns, deep vertical lines drawing themselves between her eyebrows. I can tell there is a glimmer of memory there, and I let her take her time. It’s important to me that she doesn’t think ill of Andrew.

  ‘Well, then,’ she says. ‘Perhaps I did. It was kind of him to hunt it down for me.’

  I want to say more, that Andrew is kind and patient and admires her greatly; but I know not to test her patience. ‘Shall I read it?’ I say, dropping into the brocade chair opposite her.

  ‘Oh yes. Please do.’

  CHAPTER 18

  Moineau

  —me or know I was there. So, I sat through the whole service, yearning and in misery. My future, ever more certain, was rushing towards me now and I had never been so desperate to escape it.

  I managed to slip away from my family and Mr Shawe when Aunt Harriet stopped to talk to the vicar and all eyes were away from me. I smuggled myself out of the church with the departing crowd and turned towards the churchyard, even though it was teeming with rain by now. The hazel branches that hid the pathway to the Hawthorn Well were bent under the weight of water, and as I pushed through them my dress became instantly soaked. How I managed my way down that slippery, muddy path without misadventure, I do not know. But I had my mind bent on a strategy, and I was determined to see it through.

  At the wishing tree, I pulled free the red ribbon from my hair, letting it fall loose about my shoulders. I wasn’t sure how the wishing tree worked, so I pressed the ribbon against my lips and said, ‘Let me be with Emile.’ I reached up to the highest branch I could and tied it tightly, reverently. Then I hurried home, soaked through.

  •

  The rain kept me away from Emile’s dog, Marin, the next day and the next, and of course my good breeding and Harriet’s eagle eye kept me away from Emile. Harriet was particularly keen to see that I stay in. ‘Even little sparrows like you must roost from time to time, dear,’ she said. I sat inside and did little. I had my sister to distract me, and we played cards together and pinned each other’s hair in increasingly elaborate and silly styles. Mr Shawe didn’t visit, on account of the rain, and for that I was glad. But being still did not agree with me, not when I had so many wild feelings inside my body. I thought about my red ribbon, out there in the hawthorn bush in the wind and the rain, and it made me sad, as though I had left something precious to chance.

  I could not leave this to chance. I could not trust in wishes. Should not a woman, if she desires something so greatly, take the reins?

  I heard the rain ease on the Wednesday morning, very early, when I woke from a dream that dissolved upon waking. I closed my eyes but didn’t sleep well after that, composing letters to Emile in my head. Before breakfast I rose and sat at the little writing desk, fumbling around with tired fingers for ink and paper. Marin wore a collar, and I planned to leave a note folded under it, for Emile to find.

  Dear Master, your sparrow took me walking today. She told me she has missed me very much. There is a sad gleam in her eye, though, and I think she is missing somebody else. Love and licks, from Marin.

  I read it, laughed at myself, scolded myself, told myself I was bold, told myself I was silly, changed my mind a score of times. Finally, I folded the note and tied it with a little ribbon, and slid it under my pillow for the moment I could get away.

  ‘Good morning, Aunt. It’s fine today,’ I said as I sat down at the breakfast table next to my sister, who grunted at me in greeting. She is not fond of mornings.

  ‘I see that with my own eyes,’ Harriet said, and slid a piece of paper across the table. ‘Mister Shawe sent a note around not ten minutes ago. He’s invited us to dinner tonight. Do you have something splendid to wear?’

  My heart sank, but I managed to smile. ‘I am sure I can find something.’

  ‘The green velvet suits you well,’ said my sister. ‘The one with the brocade on the bodice.’

  ‘It is too warm for velvet.’

  ‘How you look is more important than how you feel,’ she said with a smile, over the top of her teacup. ‘You don’t know the first thing about catching a husband.’

  ‘What a lot of nonsense you girls go on with,’ Harriet said, but fondly. ‘I’m sure I wasn’t such a ninny at your age. Mind you, by your age I had been married four years. It’s a terrible thing your parents have done, making you wait so long. Perhaps one of you can force Mister Shawe to make a decision tonight. So, yes, Little Sparrow, the green velvet if it makes you beautiful.’

  I ate dispiritedly, but tried not to show it. My sister, more animated after a boiled egg and three cups of tea, asked if I wanted to take a carriage to the next village, where there was a famed milliner; but I told her I had a delicate stomach and would stay in. Once she was gone, and Harriet had retreated to the drawing room with Madame Azhkenazy, I was free to slip away.

  Marin wasn’t waiting for me, but one call of his name and he came galloping out of his kennel and had his paws on the top of the gate, wagging his tail furiously. ‘Hello there, my friend,’ I said. ‘Let’s go roaming.’

  We headed out of town and up the hill, all around past a chestnut grove, and finally back down. I was flushed and warm, and Marin’s tongue was hanging from his mouth, when we returned to Emile’s house. My heart ticked hard as I pulled the note out of my bodice and tucked it under Marin’s collar. It instantly fell out, so I loosed the ribbon and tied it on. It slid around his collar and hung from the bottom, and I wondered if the note might fall off or be spoiled before Emile saw it. Perhaps that would be for the best.

  I latched the gate behind me, called goodbye to Marin and made my way home to prepare myself for dinner at Mr Shawe’s rooms at the New Inn.

  •

  I did not wear the green velvet. I wore grey silk, with a modest bustle, and my hair scooped directly back without any rolls or curls. I thought if I could be plain, then Mr Shawe would set his heart on my sister and I should be afforded a respite.

  We made our way to the New Inn shortly after six, our spindly afternoon shadows walking beside us. Aunt Harriet seemed quite distracted by something, but she would not say what. My sister was beautiful in a pink satin gown, and was very pleased to notice the villagers who turned their eyes her way as she walked past. The New Inn was actually a very old building – six hundred years old, according to Harriet – built of wattle and daub and featuring very uneven floors. My sister rushed to hold Harriet’s elbow as they made their way up the narrow staircase to Mr Shawe’s rooms. I followed behind them. Perhaps I was sullen; I know my sister whispered that accusation sharply to me at some point during the evening. Shawe’s man stood at the door and opened it to let us in. We stepped inside a large, low-roofed room, where several people stood about chatting, Mr Shawe among them. Everyone was very well dressed. Only I looked as though I might be a vicar’s wife. A long dining table was set for dinner, candles burning.

  ‘Oh,’ Aunt Harriet said to us, her tone disappointed. ‘I had hoped it would just be us.’

  ‘Who are these people?’ my sister said. Clearly she had made the same assumption as my aunt.

  ‘The Clovelys and the Lamberts,’ she said. ‘And their daughters. Oh, blast. We must make sure we rule that dining table.’

&nbs
p; But she could say no more because then Mr Shawe approached with his hand extended and greeted us.

  I suppose I should tell you what Mr Shawe looked like, lest you think him some kind of monster. In fact, he was a handsome fellow indeed, with thick golden hair and blue eyes that were almost girlish in their roundness and long-lashedness. He wore tidy sideburns that ended on the sharp angle of his jaw, and a thin moustache. He was dressed in a dark coat and a brocade waistcoat, a white cravat tied about his neck. He had the best teeth I had ever seen: white and even. He was above thirty but below forty, and his fortune was as much earned as inherited. He was a very fine suitor indeed, but for his lack of a title and for his northern manner, which some in the south still found vulgar.

  ‘Mrs Parsons,’ he said to Harriet, then to me and my sister, ‘Miss Breckby and Miss Breckby.’

  ‘I am quite tired,’ Harriet said. ‘Would you be so kind as to seat me at the table? Directly across from you, sir, if I may. As the oldest in the room,’ here she glanced around, ‘do not deny me the conversation of a lovely young man such as yourself.’

  ‘Of course, Mrs Parsons,’ he said.

  He led her off and sat her at the table, and my sister hooked her arm through mine and said, ‘Stay close.’ So, we did. We greeted my aunt’s neighbours and made small talk. My sister mentioned her visit to the next village and was told she simply must get to Raven’s Head, which was one village further along the stream, because there was a very talented glove maker there. I had once enjoyed such social events, but tonight I felt outside of it all. Had Emile arrived home yet? Had he found my note? What did he think of it? How I longed to see him again, have his hot lips on my wrist again. I fanned myself without thinking of it, and somebody said yes, wasn’t it abominably hot and somebody else opened a window.