Those Hamilton Sisters

by Averil Kenny

  Zephyr sat with a grin and Olive shrugged. ‘She’ll get used to him quickly enough.’

  ‘Or maybe we’ll have to steer clear of his house.’

  Zephyr was promptly removed to the veranda. His gaze followed the Hamilton sisters longingly as they girded themselves with suitcases.

  Bypassing the main house, they climbed an orchard hill filled with exotic fruit trees. Fable reached out to touch a swollen fruit with reptilian skin.

  ‘My custard apples,’ Olive began. ‘And wait till you try . . .’

  But Sonnet wasn’t stopping for anything now.

  Atop the hill, they gazed over a flood-plain paddock stretching to a thick remnant ribbon of rainforest-shrouded creek. Nestled at the base of the slope was a ramshackle wooden cottage encircled by trees and a garden choked with allamanda shrubs, molasses grass and climbing mandevilla. In the falling darkness, the cottage was a beacon of homeliness against lush, dark forest.

  Fable sighed.

  ‘The cottage is Edwardian era, built by your grandparents,’ Olive explained as they trotted, with increasing momentum, down the hill. ‘I lived in the cottage myself during my early married life, and after me, it was always promised to your mother. Even after she . . . left Noah Vale, it was still hers. We’ve used it as a guest house, and more recently as a storage shed. But now, it’s yours.’

  As the younger girls streaked off ahead, Olive stopped. Sonnet turned questioningly.

  Olive sighed, long and hard.

  ‘Here,’ she said, pressing her key into Sonnet’s hand. ‘You go ahead, make yourselves at home. I wish you’d believe me – it’s really quite unliveable. But at least there are clean sheets on the beds, hurricane lanterns, and on the bench you’ll find sugar bananas, fresh bread and passionfruit curd for your supper. I had suspected you’d insist on staying here tonight. You are your mother’s daughter, after all. It will be rough for you, but if it’s what you really want . . . ?’

  Sonnet was a horse, already bolting.

  *

  Fable was first to step through the rickety gate and under the rotting arbour. She paused to admire the crumbling gables and attic windows winking in the last golden light; lifted her nose to receive the scent of gardenias blooming in the wild overgrowth; tiptoed over frangipani blossoms scattered on the stone pathway; and, hearing the creek song, felt her pulse beat double. Here was more beauty than she’d ever beheld in her young life. Here, her broken heart could heal.

  *

  Sonnet, striding up the stairs, picked at the peeling clapboard paint as she entered the fusty darkness, and began her inspection with a mental spring cleaning – obliterating years of dirt by force of imagination. She scoured the claw-foot tub in a mould-acrid bathroom, swept cobwebs from the exposed beams, chased dust bunnies down the long central hallway, banished clutter from the window seat in the sunroom, excavated furniture from debris, and scrubbed grime from the front bay window. She traced a finger along a grimy bookcase, counting spaces for each book she might one day display, and nodded approval at a simple, albeit cluttered kitchen. She finished her inspection with a sigh, as if after physical work. In all, she saw potential for a real home at last.

  CHAPTER 2

  HEARTWOOD

  T

  he greasy sizzle of eggs, announced by an insistent rainforest dove call, brought Sonnet, stomach clenching, to consciousness. Her eyes panned the attic bedroom, waiting for any of it to make sense: faded chintz curtains at the dormer windows letting in warm light; lumpy, left-sliding bed; vintage tallboy and dresser buried in bric-a-brac; and, in an imposing wardrobe, floral dresses and beaded gowns hung like limp, grandmotherly wraiths. Sonnet was home.

  But without Mama, how could it ever truly be home?

  ‘Saudade,’ Sonnet whispered into the musty air – one of her favourite words from her collection, and lately a lifeline. Nothing else came close to describing this new existence: the presence of absence.

  Now she had an aunt, and endless work ahead of her. Sonnet cringed to recall the tension of the previous afternoon. She hoped she hadn’t put Olive offside already, but the woman was persistent as hell. Something about Olive’s earnestness had immediately irked her. Though to be fair, many things annoyed Sonnet about many people. She should wait to see exactly what Olive had to offer them before she wrote her off completely.

  Surveying the mess around her, Sonnet felt a spasm of panic in her gut, remembering the tiny, neat rental they’d left behind in Canberra as something like a castle. That flat had housed them longer than any other – three whole years – and was the only home Plum had ever known. There, for the first time, life had been stable, even bright; as if a shadow had fallen away from all of their lives.

  Sonnet had spent her senior year at a single high school, a miracle itself, graduating with excellence. Not that there was much point in academic overachievement, or secret dreams of attending university. Straight out of school, Sonnet had eschewed higher learning to join Mama in her dressmaking work. It was the least Sonnet could do to help support the girls, and she’d suspected it was her destiny since the first stitch Mama insisted she sew in girlhood. Fable, nearing adolescence, had been thriving too – cherishing the new private art classes Mama scraped every last dollar together to afford. Plum, meanwhile, had been lovingly cared for by Esther’s new friend, Maria, who lived across the hallway.

  Plum had always known a different version of Esther Hamilton from the one Fable and Sonnet were born to. That dimpled darling had heralded such change in their mother, it could scarcely be believed. With Plum’s arrival, Mama had finally seemed . . . well, you could never say content, but something like settled. Sonnet supposed much of it owed to Esther’s close friendship with mother-of-five and devout Christian, Maria. Despite Sonnet’s distrust of religiosity, she conceded to Maria’s calming effect on their mother. Life had been conventional, even banal. Almost forgotten were the days when Mama would uproot their lives without notice, desperate to outrun something, or someone.

  Had Mama managed to stay ahead of her demons in recent years? Sonnet wanted to believe so. There had been less of the chaos and calamity of earlier years. No more of the month-long periods tiptoeing past the door as Mama tried to sleep her way out of hell. And none of those mystery lovers, experienced only in fragments – a sonorous voice on the telephone, a familiar scent on Mama’s skin, the shadow passing their window in the wee hours. There had been more of Mama’s buoyant, creative episodes, her literature quoting, that folksy alto drifting through the flat. Mama had still dripped with turquoise, incense and allure, but there had been maturation, at last.

  Normality and predictability, after all, had always been hard won with their quixotic mama: vivacious and ferociously loving one moment, the very next blankly distant and overwrought. No one else seemed to have a mother as young and beautiful – or as sad. Esther was the girl play-acting a mother’s role, and forgetting her lines. She who dragged them out to art galleries and literary festivals at late hours, though it always ended in tears – her own – yet avoided the school gate, school parents, schoolwork, even the mere mention of school itself. Esther would happily live in domestic squalor for months on end, and then embark on manic cleaning enterprises as if she expected any moment to entertain royalty. Perpetually tired, Mama could rarely muster the will after a long shift to make lunches, serve supper, or indeed provide nutrition at all. Her ‘nerves’, Mama described as constantly ‘afire’. Sonnet might have corrected: No, Mama, burning out.

  That was where Sonnet had always stepped in, wasn’t it? She’d tried her hardest to lighten Mama’s burdens. Sonnet: cook and cleaning lady; clothes mender; grout scrubber; school-bag packer; grocery shopper. Sonnet had realised at a young age what sort of girls they were – poor and fatherless, the kind to pity. Shrewdly, she’d learned to decode the prying aid of neighbours, and the recruiting charity of churchy do-gooders. Each claiming concern for the ‘safety’ of young girls left alone while their mot
her worked long days and nights to support them, with no father to guarantee moral decency – or rent, paid in full, and on time. Sonnet had learned, like Mama, to reject such charity with scathing pride. She’d embraced the lesson Esther had imparted in word and deed: ‘We don’t need anyone else; we Hamilton girls will always have each other.’

  Until death came romping in and, suddenly, we didn’t.

  Plum seemed to suffer most, keening for weeks on end for the mother who would never, this time, come home. Plum had spent her infancy attached to Esther whenever she wasn’t working. She was carried constantly, loved desperately and slept curled around Esther’s breast.

  But Plum had also adapted most quickly, scrambling for what she needed from Sonnet. She slept in Sonnet’s bed by night, and clung tenaciously to her by day. All her pain was visible, treatable.

  It was Fable, unnervingly serene since Mama’s death, who kept Sonnet frozen awake at night. Fable was a smooth, mirroring pond of unfathomable depths; hidden waters always unplumbed. Mama always had a special way of reaching Fable there. But would Sonnet? Wailing and railing Sonnet might have soothed, but inner turmoil would go unchecked. And long had Sonnet vexed over Fable’s propensity for secret worlds that could not be guessed at or entered into.

  Fable Winter had arrived at a heartbreaking time for Esther, abandoned by another mysterious lover, who, in his absence, managed to fill their lives entirely. Fable’s absconding father stole away with him most of Esther, too. The petite baby girl with the dark violet eyes, who rushed into the world one August morning, was placed into the arms of a hollowed-out mother. Sonnet was only eight at the time, but well she remembered the heavy-hearted mother who drifted from room to room with her bundle of strawberry-gold held near, yet so far. She had insisted Mama should ‘send back’ the baby who’d brought such sadness with her.

  Fable seemed to know, from the moment she was born, that she ought not to make a fuss; rather, to soothe herself and be thankful for the smallest ministrations. Where Sonnet before her had been fractious and demanding – still was, she could admit – Fable was an obliging, placid child. She was also the sole recipient of Mama’s creative passions; an avid writer, and a precociously talented artist. Yet while Esther’s literary endeavours were frenetic and dispirited, Fable’s artistic heart was sweet, steady and dreamy.

  Or had been.

  Frighteningly, Fable hadn’t touched brush or pencil since the day Mama had died. The stillness and cleanliness of Fable’s hands terrified Sonnet. It was for Fable, more than anyone, Sonnet had brought them here. Fable, heading into the tumultuous last years of girlhood, needed stability, quietude, security – all of which Noah Vale offered. From Sonnet’s research, this valley sounded like an idyllic Eden.

  In bittersweet irony, Mama’s passing had presented the girls with a new station in life. Two unexpected treasures arose from Esther’s carefully structured will: a cottage of their own and a generous fund for the girls – an inheritance Esther apparently had been too proud to spend on herself. Enough to set them up independently, in a real home, within walking distance of an aunt, who, by their mother’s vague testimony, had a ‘good heart’.

  Too right Sonnet had jumped at this opportunity! Whatever the reasons Mama had come to despise her family and community, they were not Sonnet’s. Mama was fond of saying, ‘small towns breed small minds’, and she’d avoided ever stepping foot outside a city again. But as the daughter of an unwed mother, even a seasoned city-dweller, Sonnet knew all too well: conservatism reigned everywhere.

  How much worse could a small town really be?

  Sonnet was pinning a nomadic lifetime of hopes on this move north; a clean slate and brand-new life for the Hamilton sisters. She had it all mapped out: do up the old cottage, ease the girls into the local school, get herself work, save like the dickens, and send the girls off to join the ranks of aspiring modern women at university.

  Then it would finally be Sonnet’s turn, too.

  That, after all, was the one personal thing this regional move had cost Sonnet, at least in the short term: the tertiary education she’d long coveted. Sonnet had no intention of fulfilling the prescribed housewife’s role; counting children instead of accomplishments.

  But there was no way she could leave her sisters now. They needed her, as they always had. Sonnet’s brilliant career would have to wait – but not forever.

  No one was promised forever.

  Her gaze went to the urn set gingerly last night on a grimy shelf, releasing Mama from her crude travel arrangements – the socks and undergarments that had protected her from bumps.

  You’ll be free soon, Mama.

  It was a priority to choose where her ashes should be spread. Their mercurial mama would never be at rest in a ceramic urn.

  Plates clattered, jarring Sonnet from her ruminations. She swung legs out of a bed conspicuously empty of the smallest Hamilton, and headed down creaking stairs to investigate.

  *

  Olive was in the kitchen, salted-ginger head bent over the gas stove, with an unlikely audience at her side. Timid, terrified-of-strangers Plum stood on a chair beside her, gripping teddy bear to baby cheeks. Outside the front door, Zephyr rested in panting silence.

  Plummy, calm in the vicinity of a dog and keeping company with a virtual stranger? They’d been here all of five minutes and already Olive was trying to change things.

  ‘Good morning, sleepyhead!’ Olive called. ‘Knew you’d be hungry after your light supper, so I let myself in. Thought I’d cook something nourishing.’

  Forced breeziness poorly covered the absurdity: Olive sneaking into the cottage she’d always known as her own, to minister to nieces she knew no better than strangers.

  ‘Who collects newspapers?’ Sonnet asked, pulling up a chair at a Formica table cluttered with paper stacks and empty jam jars.

  ‘My Gav,’ Olive replied, cracking another monstrous egg into the pan. ‘Uses them for gardening mulch.’

  ‘Yours are the jars, then?’

  ‘Yes, I’m a keen jam maker, well known in Noah Vale, if I may be so bold, for my pineapple butter and mangosteen chutneys. I’ll clear up this clutter. In fact, I was thinking of shutting my shop for a couple of days, to help you.’

  ‘Oh, no thanks, we’ll manage.’

  Olive flipped an egg expertly. ‘Plum was telling me about your train trip. Certainly has been a long journey for you girls, coming all the way from Canberra.’

  Plum talking? The line between Sonnet’s eyes deepened. ‘Yes, it took us half a week.’

  ‘You must have been glad to sleep in a stationary bed last night.’

  ‘Sure was. Still felt like I was rattling along, though. Or maybe it was the general slide of my mattress.’

  Olive pounced. ‘Quite dilapidated here, isn’t it? Surely you’d be glad to shift to Heartwood and try some modern hospitality now?’

  Sonnet gave the woman credit for her pig-headedness, if nothing else.

  ‘The cottage has everything we need.’

  ‘Well—’ Olive sniffed ‘—it doesn’t have cutlery, for a start. I had to bring these down. And good luck trying to take a hot shower this morning without electricity!’

  Sonnet smiled, in spite of herself. Olive smiled because of herself. Plum looked warily between aunt and sister.

  ‘I want to make you a deal,’ Olive said. ‘Or at least try to.’

  Sonnet braced.

  ‘How about you come stay with us for a few days while we fix up the cottage. We’ll connect the electricity, and Gav will attend to the maintenance issues. We can clean this whole place out, top to bottom, and then—’

  ‘Olive,’ Sonnet interrupted. ‘I appreciate your offer. But I’m worried “a few days” will turn into a week with some problem or other, then a month, or six, and so it goes until we’re permanently leeching off your charity.’

  ‘Oh, would it be so terrible living with Gav and me?’

  ‘I’m not going to waltz into Noah Vale and
abandon my independence.’

  ‘Not abandon it – just lay it down for a rest.’

  ‘No.’

  Olive turned away to scrounge in the pantry, sighing. She returned with a vintage salt-shaker, and banged it hard against the table. Salt was not forthcoming. Sonnet watched all of this pensively.

  Stay strong! If you give in now, your life here will be a series of concessions to the woman.

  ‘I hope you like your food bland and unflavoured,’ Olive said, pushing a plate of eggs in front of Sonnet.

  ‘My favourite, thank you.’

  At the stove, Olive’s back twitched with words unsaid. Sonnet raised her eyes to the heavens, stifling a groan.

  Maybe this one time?

  She eased out a quiet huff.

  Just this one time.

  ‘Fine,’ she said, tone indicating otherwise. ‘We would be willing . . . glad, to stay a few days at Heartwood.’

  Olive turned, brows lifting.

  ‘School starts back in two weeks,’ Sonnet said. ‘I want to have a comfortable home by then.’

  ‘Oh good, I love a deadline!’

  ‘But you have to promise you’ll let us move back to the cottage by week’s end.’

  ‘Promise.’

  Sonnet nodded dubiously. ‘Okay, thanks, Olive.’

  ‘Would it be too soon to petition for the title of “Aunty”?’

  ‘Let’s not push the friendship. And what is that blasted bird carrying on outside my window?’

  ‘Wompoo fruit dove.’

  ‘Right, first up I’m going to need a slingshot.’

  *

  Sonnet was a woman on a mission, ever mindful of the urn awaiting the cottage’s resurrection to its former glory. Olive worked alongside her for a solid week, proving herself indefatigable. Sonnet was beginning to see how her aunt had developed those strong calves and arms – the woman was a powerhouse, tackling every task with grit. Grudging collaboration slowly softened into something almost like respect.