Cedar Valley

by Holly Throsby

  An hour later, sitting at the kitchen table, he stared at the newspaper article and was satisfied with the description Gussy had written.

  Dawn said, ‘Dad, Dad, Dad,’ from the living room, the sound of her voice below the radio, and Tony wondered if anyone would come forward with information. Why wasn’t anyone missing a man in a vintage suit? Had he no family? No loved ones? Perhaps he didn’t. There was certainly something about him that seemed itinerant, but maybe it was just his lack of belongings.

  And something that kept returning to Tony’s mind was the man’s shoes. They were so newly polished. He couldn’t have walked a kilometre in them—the soles were near immaculate.

  Tony needed to start piecing all of this together in some logical fashion. He needed to speak to Ping Williams first thing on Monday and discuss the further analysis of the organs. The stomach, liver, kidneys; the blood and the urine samples. The more he thought about it, the more he knew Gussy was right: the man didn’t want anyone to know who he was—but why would that be?

  Dawn went, ‘Dad … Daaaaaad,’ somewhere in the outer edge of his consciousness.

  They would all go to see his mother in a few hours, the whole family. He was so worried about his mother, Elsie Simmons. She was beginning to forget things that had happened just a day earlier, or she’d tell him the same story two or three times. The week before, he’d been helping her change the batteries in her radio, Elsie sitting there in her armchair holding two spent AAs while Tony fixed the new ones in the plastic slots, and, mid-conversation, she’d looked down at her hand and said, ‘What are these for?’ Tony had never seen anything like it. Wily old Elsie, so confused.

  ‘Tony!’ said Jenny’s voice now, with anger in it.

  He wheeled around and saw little Dawn on the floor of the living room, trapped under an armchair. She’d managed to tip it somehow and got herself wedged there and was crying.

  ‘Daaaddy,’ she wailed, big tears rolling down her cheeks.

  ‘For God’s sake, Tony, she was calling for you,’ said Jenny. She lifted the armchair off Dawn and wrapped her arms around the girl, and Dawn cried, ‘Daad … Daaad.’

  Tony Simmons said, ‘You’re okay,’ to Dawn. And then to Jenny, more coldly, ‘She’s fine,’ and he got up and tripped on the cat dish as he went to put his coffee cup in the sink.

  28

  Even though it was only a short distance by foot, Cora Franks drove her car out of her garage, up to Valley Road, along past the park, and turned right at Bell Street, where Elsie Simmons lived in a yellow weatherboard house with a frangipani tree out the front and a plastic Christmas wreath hanging on the screen door.

  Cora was tired. As of this morning, she had an ache in her right hip. And it was peculiar that such minor complaints, which previously she would have brushed off with an aspirin and a lie-down, had taken on a heavy kind of significance since the unknown man had died against her window. She drove to Elsie’s, because the thought of walking in the December sun, even with her parasol, was beyond her, and her weariness and pain weighed on her as potent symbols of her own mortality.

  ‘Els, it’s Cora,’ she said loudly, a brown bag of banana bread in her hand.

  Stooped Elsie came along the dim hall in her housedress and slippers.

  ‘Oh, love,’ she said. ‘Good.’ And she opened the door so the two women could embrace there on the landing.

  ‘Good,’ said Elsie again. ‘Come in, Cor.’

  The hallway of Elsie’s house was narrow and carpeted, and framed photos of a young Tony—a twiggy kid—hung along the wall, as well as a set of flying porcelain ducks and some of Elsie’s needlework. Cora followed Elsie down the hall and Elsie popped the kettle on, and Cora set the banana bread on a board so she could cut off two thick slices for them to eat.

  Soon enough, the two women were sitting in the living room, where Elsie had a small fan.

  ‘It’s a bit dark in here, Els. You want me to open a curtain?’

  ‘Oh no, Cor, don’t,’ said Elsie. ‘My eyes have gone off. I like it better like this. When did I see you last? I remember seeing you, but I don’t remember when it was.’

  Cora forced out a smile. ‘I’m afraid to say it was last week. Or was it the week before? Oh, bugger, what if my mind’s going too?’

  Then the two women laughed and sipped their tea and were happy that it didn’t matter when Cora was last there, for she was there now and they were so fond of each other.

  ‘I could tell you every detail of the day Tony was born. All of his school years. A book I read ten years ago. A book I read one year ago. All of it! But all of a sudden it’s the day-to-day stuff that just disappears. You know how I never forget a face? I’ve always said that, Cor, because it’s true. Now I’m worried I’ll start to forget faces.’

  ‘Oh, Els, I know. But I bet you’ll remember my face,’ said Cora, and she put her cup down and gave a big theatrical grin, her hands on either side of her cheeks.

  Elsie laughed loudly. ‘Cora!’ she said.

  Big Tony Simmons, in his police uniform, stared out proudly from a framed photo on the side table. There was a doily under the frame and a lamp next to it with a frilled shade. Another photo showed Tony with Jenny and their two daughters, and there was one of Elsie with the girls when Dawn was just a baby. But there was not a photo on display, anywhere in the house, of Elsie’s husband, the late Neville Simmons.

  ‘He’s been very good, Tony has,’ said Elsie. ‘I do worry about him moving here because of me; he did love living in Clarke. But he’s been very good. He brings me dinners.’

  Cora said, ‘Well, he’s not just here for you. Jenny loves it here; she tells me so when she comes in, and that’s quite often. She bought some big terracotta pots last week. Lovely woman. I like her.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Elsie. ‘I just hope Tony doesn’t bugger it up.’ And she shrugged and laughed faintly, which was a thing Elsie did when she felt bad about something.

  Cora knew what Elsie meant, since they’d discussed all that before. All that and much more, over the many years they had known each other. In fact, being there in the sitting room with Elsie was the calmest Cora had felt since all the kerfuffle with the man dying on the footpath. All those feelings of wanting to be alone had grated on her, and had made her not want to come and sit with Elsie. But now that she was here, it reinforced for Cora what an altogether decent person Elsie Simmons was, especially given the things she had endured.

  ‘I have a new neighbour,’ said Cora.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Remember Vivian Moon?’ said Cora, raising her eyebrows.

  ‘Oh, of course I do. I haven’t heard that name in a long time,’ said Elsie Simmons.

  ‘Neither had I,’ said Cora, and she paused. ‘She died, Els.’

  ‘No,’ said Elsie. ‘How? She would’ve been young.’

  ‘I don’t know how,’ said Cora. ‘Can you believe I didn’t ask?’

  Elsie Simmons chuckled so that tea almost spilled out her cup. ‘I do find that hard to believe,’ she said.

  ‘I’m trying to be more sensitive,’ said Cora, grinning, and then she set her teacup down and picked up a plate with banana bread on it. ‘Well, Viv had a daughter. Her name’s Benny. Odette has her staying at the cottage. You should see how much she looks like her mother!’

  ‘She had a child?’ said Elsie. ‘Gosh. I can’t picture Viv nursing a baby. Benny—what’s that short for?’

  ‘I didn’t ask that either,’ said Cora, and Elsie laughed again.

  Then they discussed Benny Moon—or whatever her last name was—and how thin and shy and young she was, and how pleased she’d been when Cora brought her some home-cooked food. Imagine her on her own like that in the cottage? Cora would make her something else, too. The girl had to eat. And you really couldn’t hold someone’s mother against them, especially when that mother had died.

  Elsie thought that was very good of Cora, given the circumstances, and the right thing to do. And
besides, as Cora said, what a time for her to arrive! She no sooner sets foot in Cedar Valley than a man drops dead on Valley Road.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Elsie. ‘What’s that all about? I heard it on the radio, I think. Or maybe Tony mentioned it the other day. He just keeled over, did he?’

  ‘No, he sat,’ said Cora. ‘Right outside Curios. I was inside with Therese and—oh, you’ve missed a bit of book club drama—but Therese was there and Mary Anne. I saw this man sit down against the front window, and I thought, what’s he doing? But then I was serving and talking, you know, and the next thing I know I went to close and he’s still sitting there. And he’s stone dead!’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Elsie. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Well, Lil and I called triple-o. And then everyone came over to have a look, as you can imagine. It was quite dramatic.’

  ‘Goodness me,’ said Elise, quite entertained. Then: ‘Oh, this is delicious, Cor,’ as she had a bit of banana bread, spread thick with butter.

  ‘It did look odd,’ said Cora. ‘He was in this lovely vintage suit. A proper wartime suit. With a jumper, too—in December. I don’t know what that was about. And he was just slumped there, quite a good-looking man. He looked a bit like an old movie star. And now they still don’t know who he is, or what killed him. Can you believe that? It’s our own little valley mystery.’ Cora was enjoying being able to relay the whole saga to an interested audience.

  Elsie was gazing at her, rapt, and then her eyes moved to the fan. She stared at it, her mind off someplace else all of a sudden.

  Cora looked at her friend and thought: Oh God, here she goes. Poor old Elsie is losing her mind, and this is what it looks like. Look at her, staring at the fan; she’s entered a fugue state, right here in the living room.

  But Elsie hadn’t lost her mind at all.

  ‘This is very familiar,’ said Elsie, looking back now at Cora Franks. A little crumb sat at the side of Elsie’s mouth in the way that crumbs tend to stick to older people.

  ‘What is?’ Cora asked. ‘The banana bread?’

  ‘No, Cor, not the banana bread,’ said Elsie. ‘I’m from Adelaide—I grew up in Glenelg. You know that.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well, something just like this happened, not long after the war. We talked about it forever! A man in a brown suit was found dead on the beach at Somerton. He was a normal-looking man—not unhealthy. He sat down and people walked past him, not sure what he was up to. And then he just died. And to this day—to this day—as true as I’m sitting here, Cor, they don’t know who he was, or what killed him.’

  Cora Franks stared at Elsie, wondering if this was all a strange figment, some symptom of her deterioration, but Elsie went on.

  ‘The Somerton Man,’ said Elsie. ‘That’s what they called him. It’s famous in Adelaide. And you know there’s a lot of darkness in Adelaide, a lot of mystery. Somerton Beach is the next one along from Glenelg, which of course was where the Beaumont children went missing. That was in the sixties, after I’d left.’

  ‘Oh God, I remember the Beaumont children,’ said Cora. ‘Were there three of them?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Elsie. ‘Three siblings, and they never found them. Never found out what happened. Oh, it was awful. Just awful. But the Somerton Man … I mean, I know the poor man died, but it was almost a bit fun, as far as mysteries go. Is that a terrible thing to say? It’s just that you wouldn’t believe the strange clues and things they found, trying to work out who he was. Codes and hidden messages, stuff like that. Some people think he was a spy. That’s what I think. It was just at the start of the Cold War. Apparently, there were Russian spies everywhere, with communism and everything. Remember all that, Cor? Remember communism?’

  Well, that last bit had Cora on the edge of her armchair. To think that Lil Chapman had just been making jokes about the KGB! All of it sounded like utter madness, yet she could see that Elsie Simmons had her wits about her.

  ‘The Somerton Man,’ said Cora. ‘I’ve never heard of him.’

  ‘Well, now you have,’ said Elsie Simmons matter-of-factly. ‘You telling me about this fellow on Valley Road brought it all back. I haven’t thought about the Somerton Man since Mum was alive. Isn’t it funny that this man outside Curios sounds so similar?’

  29

  Benny Miller considered walking the distance to the river, but the sun was hot and the air was clammy, so she decided to drive instead. She put her swimmers on and a dress over them, and took a bath towel from the linen cupboard. Then, with the map Odette had given her, she set off with the windows rolled down, turning left before the big sandstone bridge, and driving to the swimming spot that Odette had marked with an X.

  Benny parked her car where the narrow dirt road ended. It was a picnic area with a few tables under a grove of trees. Another car was parked there and Benny could see two men upstream fishing. She went the other way, to where the water was deep, and she lay the bath towel on the thin sandy grass near the edge.

  At this spot the river was a wide, slow-moving thing. From the bridge it had looked brown, but up close it was clear, with smooth flat rocks along the bottom. Benny pulled off her sandshoes and stepped in so the water covered her feet. She bent down to pick up a particularly nice stone—oval, with some rough indents in the edges—and cupped it firmly in her hand.

  Then she stepped out again, her feet dripping, and rested the stone on her towel—it would go in her collection—and she sat down and lay back on her elbows, watching the river, wondering if Vivian Moon had ever swum at this exact spot. And then her mind went to another river that was apparently good to swim in: the Murrumbidgee. Odette had spoken about it the night before, and how it provided a beautiful swimming hole for the people of Hay, New South Wales. That, Benny had learned, was where Odette Fisher was originally from.

  ‘Where’s Hay?’ Benny had asked.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Odette. ‘My brother sent me a bumper sticker for my birthday that says, Where the hell is Hay?’

  So Odette had explained to Benny a little about Hay: where it was; its general character. Hay was in the Riverina, halfway between Sydney and Adelaide, an agricultural town on the alluvial Hay Plains, which were mostly treeless and extremely flat. ‘The second flattest place on earth,’ Odette had said.

  ‘What’s the flattest?’ asked Benny.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. The Sahara? The salt flats of Bolivia? I think it’s just something people from Hay say.’

  Odette took a bite from one of the chocolate biscuits Benny had bought from the bakery. After she had chewed and swallowed, she said, ‘I was happy to go to boarding school. Can you imagine that? I was desperate to go! And I took my elocution lessons at Ascham very seriously. I thought I was so posh.’ Odette laughed and shook her head.

  After boarding school, and university, and her travels, Odette had bought the green cottage in Cedar Valley in 1967. Houses were cheap then, and she had a little money from her parents. She had spent school holidays in the area; she loved it. The mountain was so dramatic and the coast was so close. She had an old friend who lived nearby, in a small town to the north, and this friend introduced Odette to the man who would eventually become her husband.

  Lloyd.

  ‘What happened to Lloyd?’ Benny had asked.

  ‘I happened to Lloyd. But we’ll get to Lloyd some other time,’ said Odette, and Benny could not tell what kind of emotion went with that statement, or if there was any emotion at all.

  Vivian Moon had come here to Cedar Valley to visit as soon as she returned from Europe—while Odette and Lloyd were romancing. She came back again and helped Odette repaint the inside of the cottage, the two of them dressed in men’s shirts and headscarves, listening to Jacques Brel. Odette had had a job in town at Hargraves Books.

  ‘I loved working there, and that’s what got me into editing. One of our customers, Arden Cleary, was a writer. I was an early reader for him, and then I became his editor. I’ve done
eight books with him now, and I somehow managed to pick up more work as I went along.’ Odette ran a hand along her thick braid, the colour of a storm.

  Vivian was drawn to Cedar Valley, just as Odette had been. When Odette and Lloyd decided to buy the land on the mountain, Vivian decided to set herself up in the cottage in town.

  ‘That was 1971, and I was pregnant.’ Odette’s smile went away. ‘But that didn’t work out. And I will always be indebted to your mother—she was so supportive. She let me cry on her shoulder. I think I cried for months.’

  Vivian stayed in the green house for over a year, with Odette and Lloyd mostly, although they spent more and more time up at the bush house, sleeping in a makeshift shed while Lloyd laid the slab, and built the frame, and wandered around collecting firewood in his striped pyjamas.

  Vivian had met Frank already by this stage, but Odette wouldn’t speak much about that. Frank was up in Sydney, chewing his fingernails and restoring his furniture, and Vivian found a job in Cedar Valley, and she lived in the green cottage and walked and read books.

  ‘My dad always said she was in Europe then,’ said Benny.

  ‘Oh, did he? Well, no. And now I’ve gone and landed him in it, haven’t I? This was the kind of thing I was afraid of, Benny—saying the wrong thing and confusing matters. But that is how it was. She’d been in Europe a long time, but after that she was here in Cedar Valley, until she went back to Frank. And the next thing I heard, she was pregnant with you.’

  Benny lay on the towel on the thin grass now, thinking it all over. Maybe her dad just hadn’t known where Vivian was and thought Europe was likely. Or maybe he had lied. If he had lied, why he would do that? She stared at the branches and listened to the sound of the river, which was a constant watery sound, and she felt troubled by all of it. If Frank Miller had lied about Europe, then what else had he lied about when it came to Vivian?