‘Hello, Mike,’ she said. ‘How are you?’
He nodded. ‘I’m fine.’ But he wasn’t fine. He was a broken man. Nothing would ever be the same again.
‘Do you mind if I sit here?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
They got talking, about when they were young, and life was fun, and they didn’t give a sod for anything. ‘You were always a wild thing, but I did love you,’ Mike said. Admitting it after all this time was like coming alive. ‘I should never have left you,’ he confessed ashamedly. ‘It was the thought of being a father. I was too young for that… we both were.’
‘It’s all in the past.’ She nudged his arm. ‘There’s a lovely little café in Bridport. You can treat me to a sticky bun and a coffee if you like.’
‘You always were one for sticky buns,’ he remembered.
The café was packed. Bridport in summer was a favourite spot for tourists. ‘Two sticky buns, one pot of tea, and a coffee.’ While the waitress wrote down her order, Rosie studied her features. ‘I’ve seen you somewhere before, haven’t I?’ she asked. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Alice Henshaw.’ Slimmer and happier, she said, ‘There was a time when it was Nurse Henshaw, but that was a long time ago’ – before she realised there were more men on the horizon than Mike Peterson; young men, men of her own age. ‘Hello, Mr Peterson,’ she said, and went away with a smile on her face.
‘I’ll walk you back, shall I?’ All these weeks she had watched him and bided her time. Now, she felt the time was right to make her claim.
‘If you like.’ He needed her. He knew that now.
They walked back together, talking as if they had never been apart. For the first time in ages, he smiled, and even laughed occasionally.
‘My wife’s left me, you know that, I suppose.’ It seemed everyone knew his business.
‘Yes.’
‘She and Jack have gone to live abroad with her mother. From what I understand, they’re running a high-class restaurant in Marbella.’ When they arrived at the house, he told her, ‘She left me this, if nothing else, signed her half over to me before she went.’
‘What else could she do, Mike?’ Rosie was angry. ‘It was probably bought with your hard-earned money in the first place.’
‘Do you want to come in?’ he asked.
‘You know I do.’
‘I can’t offer you much.’
As she followed, her face was filled with love. ‘You’ve invited me into your home,’ she said softly.
It was a start.
Part 4
July 1996
There Once Was a Girl
18
For weeks now, the old woman had been ill. Only when the girl insisted did she let her call for an ambulance.
Now, after the doctors had examined her, it was plain the old woman would not see the night through. ‘I’m sorry,’ the nurse was kindness itself, ‘we’ve done all we can, but she’s very old. Is there someone you want me to call for you?’
The girl shook her head. ‘No,’ she murmured, her blue eyes swimming with tears. ‘Mary is all I have.’
‘She wants to see you now,’ the nurse told her. ‘Stay with her for as long as you like.’
The old woman had been sleeping, but somehow she seemed to know when the girl came to sit by her. ‘Hello, my lovely,’ she whispered. ‘I wondered where you were.’
‘I was talking to the nurse,’ the girl answered. ‘I’m here now. I promise I won’t leave you again.’
The old woman smiled. ‘I wish I could promise you the same,’ she answered sadly, ‘but I can’t.’
‘Please, don’t say that.’
‘I heard them talking and I know I don’t have long.’ She looked at the girl’s sad blue eyes, and that wonderful mane of fair hair, and she thought of her own colouring, dark like a gypsy. ‘Listen to me now,’ she murmured. ‘I have something to tell you. Something I should have told you a long time ago.’
‘Ssh! Don’t tire yourself.’
The old woman took the girl’s hand in her own. ‘I must go to my maker with a clear conscience,’ she said. ‘It was a long time ago, so long I’ve almost forgotten – eleven, twelve years. You were only five or six when she brought you to me. I was travelling the road then, free as a vagabond. I didn’t know until afterwards what had happened. When I found out they were searching for you, I couldn’t let you go, not then, not after I had come to love you so.’
Confused, the girl didn’t want to hear any more. But as the old woman went on, a memory of something long ago was triggered in the back of the girl’s mind. Curious now, she listened intently.
‘She was evil, I know that now, and I should have told them. But they would have taken you away, and I didn’t want that.’ She smiled, taking a breath, drawing courage. ‘She stole you from your father and brought you to me. All these years and I’ve never told you. I’m sorry, child.’
‘The woman… why did she take me from my father?’
‘Because she wanted to hurt him. She wanted them to put him back in the hospital where she could have him all to herself. I learned all this when she was… when she…’ Even now, she couldn’t bring herself to talk about the awful deeds committed by that woman. ‘Your father was devastated when he lost you. His loss was my gain, and I couldn’t let him have you back.’ Tears ran down her face. ‘I’ve been a wicked woman, I know. But, oh, you have been such a joy to me in my lonely life.’
As her mind opened up, the girl recalled something of what the old woman was saying. ‘There was a storm…’ Vaguely, she remembered. ‘I called out for him, but he didn’t come.’
‘Echoes. Sometimes the valley plays tricks, you see.’
‘My father, where is he now?’
‘Oh, he’s still there. He won’t move from that place. They say he still wanders the valley, searching for you, calling your name.’ She stroked that lovely face. ‘Not the name I gave you,’ she said. ‘Your real name.’
‘What is my real name?’
‘Susie.’ The old woman closed her eyes. ‘Susie Peterson. In my bag you’ll find everything you need to know.’ She gazed at the girl, the light in her eyes dimming. ‘Go to him,’ she pleaded. ‘He needs you. Tell him… I’m sorry.’ Her eyes closed, and she was gone.
A short time later, the nurse came to comfort her. ‘There’s nothing more you can do,’ she said. ‘Come away, child. Go home now.’
* * *
Sometimes, Mike could hear her calling. He would sit here, listening to the wind blowing in the trees, and she would call him: ‘Daddy! D… a… d… d… y.’ It tore him apart.
‘Mike?’ Rosie was near. ‘Someone’s come to see you.’
When Mike turned, Rosie stepped aside, and there she stood, a tall, slim girl with long blonde hair and blue eyes. For a long time, Mike stared at her, hardly daring to believe. Then she called his name and he knew. ‘Oh, dear God!’ Like a child he sobbed, helplessly, unable to speak.
Tumbling into his arms, her tears mingled with his. ‘I didn’t know,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, Daddy… I didn’t know.’
Behind them, Rosie cried too, her happiness complete. Softly, she crept away, leaving them together, letting them learn to know each other all over again.
Over the years, Mike watched his girl blossom into womanhood. He and Rosie stood proudly in the church when she married a boy from the next town. And, when his first grandchild was christened, Kerry came to see him. ‘It’s time we made our peace,’ she said.
Mike and Rosie took her into their home, and while the christening party got underway, the sound of laughter emanating from that house was like sunshine after the storm.
19
Dressed in jeans and carrying rucksacks, the couple trudged through the valley. ‘Looks like a bad storm brewing.’ The man peered up at the skies. ‘I think we’d best find some shelter.’
Like him, the woman was in her thirties, unkempt and in need of a wash. ‘There’s a café about
two miles away,’ she remembered. ‘We can stop there. I’m hungry. We’ve been walking since early light.’
Thoughtful, the man sighed, ‘I think I’ve had enough of the wandering. We’re getting too old for it… never knowing where we can lay our head, or if we’ll get a farmer’s pitchfork up the arse. And it’s getting harder to earn a crust.’ He hitched his load up over his shoulders. ‘This bloody rucksack gets heavier every time I strap it on.’
‘You could have a point,’ she agreed. ‘When the weather’s fine, it’s OK, but I’m getting so I can’t stand the cold any more.’ Glancing at him, she recalled, ‘Last winter, when I got the flu, and we had to hole up in that derelict shed, I really thought I was a goner.’
He thought about that for a time, before softly laughing, ‘Remember that bad storm, the year we first set out?’
‘Somewhere out Bridport way, wasn’t it?’ She smiled wistfully. ‘We were just kids.’
‘Jesus! I really thought we were goners then… the way that wind whipped us up and carried us along. I’ll never forget that.’
‘It was a long time ago.’ She quickened her step.
‘You’re right!’ Striding out to keep up with her, he licked his lips. ‘I fancy you. How about it?’
Pushing him aside, she laughed, ‘I’m hungry. You’ll have to settle for a pint and a fat, juicy burger.’
He licked his lips. ‘Lead on,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘There’s always another time.’
Another day.
Another chance.
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Read on for a preview of
1880: Hauntingly beautiful Rebecca Norman is condemned to die. As she awaits the hangman, she fashions two crude dolls from candle tallow.
Over a century later, one of the dolls falls into the hands of young, newly married Cathy Slater. Under its malign influence, Cathy beings to change, tormented by emotions she does not understand and cannot control.
Only one person can help her – a frail old woman who has waited with dread for an ancient evil to surface…
Foreword
The lunatic asylum in Fremantle and now featured in The Tallow Image is a formidable place, built by the convicts themselves and today preserved as an art and craft museum.
What initially happened to Matt and Cathy is an actual reconstruction of what happened to me and my husband; though what followed, thank God, is created only within a storyteller’s mind.
The memory I have of that vast and aged building will stay with me for ever. To stand in that tiny padded cell, to see the narrow iron bed and to imagine the many wretched souls who may have wept themselves to sleep there, was an experience that gave me many a sleepless night. When I put my hand inside that crumbling wall where Cathy finds the tallow doll, a feeling of icy cold came over me, a feeling that someone unseen was watching me. It wasn’t long before I was hammering on the door, desperate to be let out.
That night in the hotel I couldn’t sleep. The name Rebecca Norman seemed to haunt me. And though my husband and I had thumbed through many convicts’ names during the researching of this book, neither of us could recall the name Rebecca Norman. Even on our return, when we retraced our steps to Liverpool docks and searched the records again, we could find no mention of such a convict ever having been transported.
Her name, and the experience I felt in that cell, induced me to write The Tallow Image. Rebecca Norman is not real. She is only a figment of my imagination. I have to believe that!
Part 1
1880
Fremantle
Western Australia
Through the flames
Eye to eye
Only then
The curse will die.
1
‘They say I should watch out for that one. I’m told she’s bad… evil.’ The warder’s curious gaze was drawn to the dark-haired figure below in the prison kitchens. ‘What a woman, though,’ he murmured, lapsing into deep thought, ‘have you ever seen such a beauty? How can anyone who looks like that be so shockingly wicked?’ Shaking his head, he murmured, ‘Even when I suspect it to be true, I still can’t believe it of her.’
Below them, Rebecca Norman applied herself to the laborious task of drawing the dark, coarse loaves from the blackened ovens. Captivated, the two men watched her every move.
‘You’d better believe what they say, matey!’ returned the other man sharply. ‘Unless yer ready to trade souls with the divil!’
With stern expression he quietly regarded the young officer, at once being cruelly reminded of how different were the two of them: himself approaching the age of fifty, a weathered and red-necked fellow with drooping jowls and a drinker’s pock-marked nose, while his companion was no more than… what… twenty-seven… twenty-eight? Brown eyed and handsome, and cutting a dash with his tall, uniformed figure. Prime meat, he thought with crushing fear and not a little envy, prime meat for a particular woman who would swallow him up and suck the life blood out of him.
‘Mark my words,’ he warned the young man now, ‘if you value your sanity, you’d best stay clear o’ that one.’ He regarded his colleague closely. ‘You’re on loan to the prison, ain’t you?… A minder at the lunatic asylum, ain’t you?’ He sniffed and wiped his hand along the flat uninteresting contours of his face. ‘Since the ‘flu took two of us off sick, we’ve been dangerously short-handed. How long is it before you’re sent back to your duties at the asylum?’ He softly laughed, then pressing his palm against the side of his nose he squeezed a trailing dewdrop between finger and thumb. ‘I couldn’t look after crazy folk,’ he remarked sourly. ‘Is it right you have to wipe their arses?’
For a long uncomfortable moment the young officer gave no reply. Instead, he watched the woman, seeming bewitched by her. Mirrored in his warm brown eyes was a degree of compassion, and a dangerous admiration for the convict woman; a woman of volatile character, a stunningly attractive woman, a secretive woman who during her twenty years’ imprisonment had made no friends but nurtured too many enemies. In the authorities’ records she was listed as Rebecca Norman, known to some as ‘the silent one’, and feared by others as ‘the devil’s messenger’.
‘She’s magnificent!’ whispered the young officer. ‘The most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. Such dark, soulful eyes.’ When suddenly the woman boldly smiled at him, perfect white teeth flashing in an olive-skinned face and black laughing eyes appraising him, he was visibly shaken. Looking quickly away, he turned to the older guard, saying in a harsh whisper, ‘She doesn’t look dangerous to me.’ He gazed at the woman again. ‘Well, not unless you count her dark beauty as being a wicked temptation.’
Amusement over-riding his deeper fears, the other man chuckled. ‘Fancy ’er beneath the blankets, do yer?’ he taunted. ‘Long for the feel of a divil woman underneath yer, is that it, eh? You horny bastard!’ It pleased him to see how his words brought embarrassment.
Suddenly, though, his mood was serious. ‘Yer ain’t used to hardened convicts, Ryan,’ he warned. ‘You’ll find they ain’t so tame nor manageable as them poor soft-headed inmates in the asylum. Still… there’ll be time enough for you to know what you’ve let yerself in for, I reckon. Time enough to find out the badness in this place.’ His expression was grim. ‘Until then, you’d best listen to them as knows!’
Disgruntled now, he swung himself round to face the convicts who were using the lapse in discipline to indulge in a flurry of whispering; all but the one known as Rebecca Norman, and she was standing upright, legs astride and her black eyes beseeching the young officer. At once the old guard sprang forward, flailing the leather bullwhip in the air as he yelled, ‘Back to ye
r work, afore I lay the whip across yer shoulders!’ In an instant the whispering stopped, the woman lowered her dark gaze, and an ominous silence descended. Above it only the occasional clatter of metal was heard as the convicts’ leg-irons chattered to one another.
Ralph Ryan took up a strategic position, surveying the scene from a curve in the upper level. All was well. He tried not to gaze on the woman, but she was strong in his mind; the bold, slim figure, the way her sack-dress had slipped on one shoulder displaying the tantalising rise of a plump firm breast; the idea of long slender legs beneath a brown, shapeless convict gown; the short-cropped hair that was like a black skull cap over a proud handsome head, and those secretive dark eyes! Powerful and hypnotic, they put him in mind of a moonlit ocean. Even now, though his gaze was deliberately averted, he could sense her eyes playing on him, burning his thoughts, erupting the pit of his stomach and exciting him deep within himself. He could see no evil in such rare beauty. Neither did he feel threatened. Instead, he was exhilarated by the experience; acutely aware of her nearness, yet afraid to turn his head and look on her, being deeply conscious of the turmoil she had wrought in him.
For the remainder of his duty, Ralph Ryan deliberately concentrated his attention on the other convicts – four in all, three men and one old hag. To his mind, it was the men who demanded extra vigilance; surly of mood and devious in mind, they were already labelled as troublemakers. Down here in the kitchens, shackled in leg-irons and closely guarded, they presented little threat, but their dark resentful moods infiltrated the air, creating a brooding atmosphere. As the convicts went sullenly about their duties – fetching and carrying and generally following the well-practised routine that went into the preparation of food for many inmates – Ralph Ryan allowed his secret thoughts to dwell on the one known as Rebecca Norman.
He was not yet fully briefed on her background. All he knew was that she was some thirty-four years of age, although to his mind she looked younger. In 1860, at the tender age of fourteen, she was transported to the shores of Australia to serve out a sentence of twelve years. She might have long since been released, but she had proved rebellious and violent; numerous clashes with both prison guards and inmates had brought severe punishment. Time and again her sentence was extended, until now it seemed she would end her days incarcerated here: or dancing on the gibbet from the end of a rope.
Hiding Game, The Page 21