‘What are you doing with this?’ I yelled to Biddy, shaking with the fury that had overtaken me. ‘This is my mum’s!’
Biddy came in from the kitchen, looking startled. ‘Gwen . . .’
‘This is hers and you just stole it!’
‘Gwen!’
‘You killed my mum! And now you’ve stolen her special fabric!’
She looked as though I’d slapped her. ‘What?’ she whispered. ‘Oh, Gwennie. How can you say that?’
‘This is all because of you! You had an affair with Dad! Right when Mum needed him! So don’t think for one second you have the right to go through her stuff!’
She felt blindly behind her, face blanched of colour. Feeling a kitchen chair, she sank into it, trembling.
‘And you and Dad threw all her stuff away! Everything!’ I was crying. ‘And I’ll never forgive either of you, as long as I live.’
‘Alright,’ she whispered.
I felt a firm hand on my shoulder. I glanced around and came face to face with my father, who looked pale and drawn and furious.
‘Don’t you speak to Biddy like that ever again.’
‘Take her side, I knew you would.’ I shrugged him off. ‘You’re just as bad.’
He gazed at me, angry and hurt. ‘What’s got into you lately?’
‘Nothing,’ I yelled. ‘I’m just sick of your and Biddy’s bull!’
‘Bull, kiddo? What bull?’ He sounded upset now.
‘You and Biddy had an affair! You should’ve been helping Mum, but you weren’t. You – both of you – are the reason she’s dead!’
They stared at me, mouths open.
‘I should’ve been with her!’ I was sobbing hysterically now. ‘After Jamie died – I should’ve been with her. But you took me away from her and then she died.’
‘Gwen . . .’ Dad reached out for me, but I pushed him away. As I left the room, I glanced at Biddy. She just ran a shaking hand across her forehead and didn’t say anything.
Puzzled, Evie followed me out onto the verandah and hugged me. ‘I’ll help you keep the pretty fabric safe, Gwennie,’ she said wetly into my ear. She smelled of biscuits and leaves. ‘I’ll help you keep it safe. I promise.’
***
That night, I pulled my blankets up to my chin, changed my mind and pulled out the crinkled quiche recipe from my bag and I put it up on my wall. Mum wasn’t big on cards or letters or anything else that was written. Her writing was fleeting and beautiful. It was something precious.
I stared at the recipe, up on the wall, ignoring Evie as she crept in and curled up in a ball at the end of my bed, like a cat.
‘Why are you mad with Mum and Dad?’ she asked.
‘I’m not.’
‘Mum’s been crying.’
I gritted my teeth. ‘It’s complicated, Evie.’
‘It’s about your mum and your little brother, isn’t it?’ she asked.
I sat up and looked at her. ‘Who told you about that?’
‘You’ve been thinking about them a lot, lately,’ she said. ‘I can tell.’
‘Oh.’
‘Mum’s really sorry. I can tell that, too.’
‘Come here,’ I said, peeling back the blankets. She snuggled in next to me.
‘Gwennie, I’m sorry you’re mad.’
‘Me too.’
‘I’ve started running down the beach,’ she said.
‘How far?’
‘Far enough,’ she said, sounding a bit coy.
‘If you’re going down to Wade’s Point, promise me you’ll be careful. The tides around there are dangerous.’
‘And the boy drowned.’
‘You know?’
‘Of course I know! I have dreams about him and he looks just like you.’
***
I woke up through the night, but Evie curled up in a ball next to me was comforting. A couple of times, half-asleep, I pretended she was Jamie. Jamie’s hot little feet pressed against my shins. Jamie’s biscuit breath in my face. And then I cried into my pillow, because there was no way I’d wish Evie away. Not really. Not even if it meant getting Jamie back. Or even Mum.
When I woke up, Evie had made me a hot chocolate and was drinking her own at the end of the bed.
‘I can be Jamie,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘If you need to pretend sometimes. To make you less sad. That’s okay,’ she said.
I pulled her into a hug. ‘I don’t need to pretend.’
‘But if you do. I don’t mind.’ She bit her lip. ‘I wish I could’ve met him.’
‘I wish that too.’
***
Later that morning, I collected Elsa’s sea treasures and headed to Songbrooke to look after the animals. I couldn’t stop thinking about Biddy touching my mum’s fabric. Hadn’t she done enough to my mum? I stalked along, snaking my hand down for driftwood and sea glass and muttering under my breath. I kept waiting to feel guilty about yelling at Biddy and Dad, but I didn’t. It had felt good. If Mum had been around, I probably would’ve yelled at her, too. I was angry at all of them. Adults were meant to keep kids safe and they’d let me down. They’d also let Jamie down.
When I got to Songbrooke, Elsa was locked in her studio and Ben was making a coffee. He looked surprised when he saw me, and then smiled.
‘Mau’s coming over soon,’ he said. ‘You know her, don’t you?’
‘She was friends with my mum,’ I said.
‘Well, she’s picking up some more of Elsa’s jewellery. She keeps selling out. Do you want a coffee?’
‘Yes, please.’
We didn’t say much. We just sat and drank our coffees. And when Mau arrived, she hugged me the moment she walked in and kissed my forehead.
‘Oh, Pearl! What a treat!’
I saw Ben tilt his head. ‘It’s what my mum always called me,’ I told him.
‘Oh, your mum.’ Mau sat down at the table and sighed. ‘I miss her so dreadfully.’
‘A drink, Mau?’
‘Black tea, please. English breakfast, if you have it.’
Elsa came in, squeezed Mau’s shoulder and sat down opposite her. ‘Good to see you, Mau,’ she said, but Mau was still looking at me.
‘Your poor mother. I wish I’d been there, in the last few days. I took off, you know. Down the coast. How was she? Towards the end?’
I crossed my arms as Ben sat down next to me. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, her sickness.’
‘Sickness?’ I echoed blankly. ‘What sickness?’
I sensed Ben shifting next to me.
‘Well, mentally she was pretty unwell. She got diagnosed when she was fifteen. It was part of the reason that she and her brother Luke drifted apart so much. You’d know all about that, how difficult she could be.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘She wasn’t. Mentally ill, I mean.’
Mau frowned. ‘She was, Gwennie.’
‘No! She couldn’t be. She . . . she made quiche! She used to plait my hair! And vacuum! She vacuumed.’
‘People can still do those things and be very unwell, Gwen,’ Mau said, very gently. ‘Fate’s an extraordinarily funny thing. You know that she lived at Songbrooke? When she was little?’
‘What?’ I yelped. I could feel Elsa staring at me. ‘Here? I knew she’d lived in Clunes, but I always thought it was over on the other side, on one of the smaller blocks. She hated the water!’
‘Luke, your mother and John all grew up here.’
Elsa’s face suddenly flickered. ‘Wait here.’
I stared at Ben and he stared steadily away from me. I kicked him under the table. ‘Are you hearing this?’
He winced and said nothing.
Elsa came back in with a big canvas, draped carefully with thick cotton sheets.
‘This is the painting I was showing Gordon the other day.’ She pulled off the covering. It was a beautiful, watery portrait of a young boy of about twelve, staring out to sea. And, standing next to him, was a t
welve-year-old version of my mum. Young and beautiful, painted in dripping blues and greens and purples, with white flakes delicately fanned everywhere. It was a painting of Mum as a mermaid, in the snow.
I stared at the painting again and noticed the name in the corner of the work. ‘Hang on! Mau painted this?’ I whispered. I turned to her. ‘You painted this?’
‘Yeah, I was a few years older than Luke and your mother. I was studying art at this fancy school and ran away for a semester when I was eighteen.’ Mau smiled. ‘But I haven’t been quite right since John died. And then when Jamie and then your mother died . . . well.’
‘You were a Songbrooke artist? I didn’t even know you were an artist until the other day. How could I not know? How can that be? I’ve known you my entire life.’
‘I haven’t painted in a long, long time,’ said Mau.
‘Do you think you will again?’ I asked.
Mau shrugged.
‘Oh, I hope so.’ Elsa smiled.
I stared at the portrait of Mum. And without warning Elsa started laughing.
‘Lately, I’ve been fiddling around with a painting of you. All in blue. It’s been driving me crazy. Particularly with this exhibition coming up. All I’ve been able to think of is this bloody canvas.’ She went into her studio and came out with it. It almost matched the other painting, but it was clearly by a different artist. It was a portrait of me, staring out of the canvas. My hair was wild, as though caught in a stormy southerly wind. It was all painted in blues and greens.
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she said. ‘It’s not for a show or anything, it’s just something I’ve been playing around with.’
‘They look like a pair,’ Ben said, very quietly.
I’d never noticed how different I looked from Mum. But apart from the same-coloured hair and eyes, I realised how much I looked like my dad. And I was puzzled, suddenly, by how long it had taken me to realise this.
***
Later, I sat out on the beach with Loretta, staring up at the clouds, which she said were full of snow. I hadn’t told her about what had been happening, yet. I didn’t have the words for it all. I’d tell her tomorrow, once I’d straightened it all out in my head. I’d tell her and Gordon then.
‘They’re not,’ I said. ‘Maybe if we were inland, up the mountain, but not here.’
‘They are.’
‘It’s not going to snow!’
‘It is! Maybe not today, but this winter. It is.’
Tyrone came down onto the beach, shivering and swearing. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Supervising.’
We stared out at Loretta, who was now running up and down the shoreline, apparently doing some sort of come-hither snow dance.
‘What’s she doing?’
‘She thinks it’s going to snow.’
Tyrone gazed, glassy-eyed, out at the water. We sat quietly for a while, with only the sound of the gently lapping waves and the bitter, strong stench of seaweed, which had washed up in great mounds further down the beach.
‘Should we go inside? It’s freaking freezing out here.’
‘Give her a bit longer – she’s having fun!’ I said, watching Loretta running up and down, shaking her hands at the sky. ‘Ty . . .’
‘What?’
‘You knew about my mum and the cove, didn’t you? You knew already.’
He sighed. ‘Yeah. I did.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘I thought about what it’d do to you, all dumped on you at once when you weren’t sleeping and calling out for Jamie again. You hadn’t done that in years! And I just wanted to keep you safe. I’m so sorry. I know I shouldn’t have.’
I wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Ty?’
‘What?’ He sounded more vulnerable than I’d ever heard him.
‘Do you remember that day?’
‘More specific, please.’
‘When Jamie died. You comforted me.’
‘Yeah. That was a horrible day.’
‘Well, it meant a lot to me, you know. Heaps.’
‘Good,’ he said gruffly, and then stood up. ‘Let’s go in.’
***
Later, I got up to get a drink of water and my dad was sitting at the kitchen table. He didn’t look up when I came in, but when he spoke I knew he was talking to me.
‘We didn’t have an affair,’ he said.
I turned on the tap.
‘Gwen? We didn’t have an affair. Biddy and me. I promise you.’
‘But you wanted to,’ I said. ‘You loved Biddy before Mum died.’
‘I don’t know what I felt. Your mum . . . I loved her so much, Gwen. I only ever talked to Biddy.’
‘I’m angry at Mum,’ I blurted. ‘I never realised it, but I’m furious at her.’ My voice caught. ‘And now I can’t remember what Jamie looked like, or even what he sounded like.’
‘I found these,’ Dad said. I realised he hadn’t been just sitting there. He’d been sorting through photos. Photos in a taped-up box that I hadn’t seen in years and years. The photos of Jamie that Dad had dropped off to Biddy all those years ago.
I slowly sat down, taking them in my hands. He was so beautiful. I could see him frowning. Giggling. Cradling his violin. Picking the Vegemite off his toast. I wanted to run my fingers over his face and only just managed to stop myself. I didn’t want to damage the photos. But, somehow, they weren’t enough. ‘Why’d you send me away? After Jamie died?’
Dad seemed to turn a bit paler. He picked at the bed of his fingernails and released a long breath. ‘Because your mum . . . she wasn’t good, Gwen. I don’t mean grieving or furious or whatever. She stopped sleeping. She wouldn’t eat. I was organising to have her put into hospital when . . .’
‘When she died.’
‘When she died,’ he said.
‘I’m so mad at her,’ I said. ‘I’m so mad. I’m mad at her for letting Jamie die. And I’m mad at her for leaving me, for dying. But I can’t be mad, because she’s gone.’
‘You can be mad, Gwen. You’re allowed to be mad.’
‘I’m mad about everything,’ I said.
He studied me intently for a moment. ‘I don’t know if I did the right thing,’ he said finally. ‘I probably didn’t. Maybe if I’d made better decisions, everything would’ve been different. I did the best I could, Gwen. But I’m sorry.’
I didn’t know what to say to that. I reached for his hand. ‘I never knew Mum was that sick,’ I said, after a while. ‘I always just thought she was a bit eccentric, you know? A bit different.’
‘I know.’
‘Dad?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Where are all Mum’s things?’
He looked so tired. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I can’t remember. I know it’s terrible, but I can’t remember if I cleared everything out or if it was Biddy or Mau. I can’t remember.’
I sagged. ‘I can’t remember either.’
We didn’t say anything after that. I slowly pulled my hand away. I set down the photos and picked up my water and then I went very slowly to bed.
***
I dreamed of my mum. I dreamed of her being young and on the cliffs. I dreamed of her dragging her brother up there. I dreamed of her shielding her eyes against the sun, talking to him about mermaids.
‘You can see them in the arc of the waves.’
I dreamed about her trying to find them. They had a pair of binoculars that they pointed out towards the unsettled, grey sea.
And I yelled at her. I yelled at her to get down off the cliffs. I yelled at her to pay attention. And they couldn’t hear me, but it felt so good to yell. In my dream, I turned towards the sea and yelled until my throat was on fire. Even in the damp sea air. Even then.
And when I woke up, it was light outside. The murky morning light of the coast in winter. And I thought, I am Pearl. I’d slept through the whole night.
***
At school, I told Gordon and Loretta about the wee
kend I’d had. Gordon immediately started asking me questions, but Loretta did something I’d never seen her do.
She didn’t say a single word.
I frowned and nudged her. ‘Rets? You okay?’
She started crying and latched onto me like a limpet. I struggled for breath, but she only clung on harder. ‘I love you so much!’ she wailed. People looked over at us and I knew there’d be jokes about it for weeks.
‘Keep your voice down,’ said Gordon, rubbing at his ears. ‘You’ve burst one of my eardrums!’
‘I love you so much and you’ve just had so much to deal with!’ Loretta sobbed. ‘And you’re so wonderful and I wish you only the happiest happiness and why is life so cruel?’ She cried on and on until about five minutes before class. She blew her nose on Gordon’s hanky and wiped her eyes.
‘Amber’s from a tiny town outside Castlemaine called Clagsville,’ I said hopefully.
Loretta started crying again. ‘You know just what to say to cheer me up!’ she sobbed.
***
I walked along the beach that afternoon, taking my time. Loretta had had to go to her grandmother’s place for dinner and I felt pretty sorry for Loretta’s family. She was liable to continue bursting into tears for the rest of the night, if the afternoon was anything to go by.
‘Hey,’ said Ben, catching up with me. I braced myself, expecting him to bump into me, and he looked sheepish. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘About what?’
He sighed. ‘Just, don’t move. I don’t want to risk spitting on you or groping you or knocking you over or . . . anything. Okay?’
‘Um, okay.’
‘Okay. Gwen, I’ve liked you since I first saw you. And then I . . . I kept botching things up and I’m sorry.’
‘Botching what up?’
‘This,’ he said and he kissed me. His lips were cold and soft and I found myself leaning into him and kissing him back. It was slow and beautiful. And it suddenly stopped mattering that I didn’t know what Mum would have thought of him, it didn’t matter that I’d never know. I could still make the right decisions without her. I had to. And it was okay.
P is for Pearl Page 20