by Averil Kenny
‘Now, don’t get caught up thinking you’re undeserving. I’d wager he had your mother’s name on his will for the past twenty years, hoping she’d come home.’
Sonnet imagined Mama flitting around a busy bookstore; saw herself banging through the front door in school uniform, with a sweetly smiling Fable trailing after.
Tears pricked. She coughed forcefully, pushing off the ground.
Olive stood alongside her, brushing off her knees. ‘I was going to offer you some of my carambolas, Sonnet, but I think life has handed you a gold star far sweeter today.’
Sonnet shook her head. ‘Bookstore and a cottage both thrust upon me in the space of two years!’
‘Got to say, someone up there’s looking out for you Hamilton girls!’
‘Actually, all my windfalls have come from six feet under . . .’
CHAPTER 16
WHAT’S PAST IS PROLOGUE
October 1957
T
he knock rattled Sonnet as much as it did Alfred’s old front door. She crept from his overcrowded study to the head of the staircase, eyes fastened on the drawn blinds of the shop windows. Noonday light seeped through the slats, filtering weakly across the silent lower level. Colour flashed on the front stoop, and the knock sounded again.
Sonnet took a few steps down, before hesitating. She had no desire to see another townsperson, much less listen to any more of their infernal bloviating! She was not working at Emerson’s Fashion and Fabrics today, Plum and Fable were at school and the shop was her one private sanctuary where she could pretend not to be an orphaned guardian with a small business thrust upon her.
Moreover, no one ought to know Sonnet was inside; she always snuck in the back entrance. And the now-faded CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE sign on the front door was usually enough to ward off busybodies.
A voice came through the crack at the door. ‘Knock-knock! I know you’re in there, Sonnet! Just want a second! Yoo-hoo!’
Sonnet harrumphed down the stairs. She wrestled with the deadlock and flung open the door, scowling. If the waiting middle-aged woman, vaguely familiar in that way peculiar to small towns, was offended, she didn’t show it.
‘Oh finally, you’ve appeared. I’m Marg Johnstone, Ned’s wife, nice to meet you. Can I come in for a jiffy?’
Sonnet stood back, racking her brain for a Ned Johnstone. Nearly two years in, she still struggled daily with the all-important who’s who of small-town life.
Marg’s eyes raked the cluttered gloom. Sonnet’s arms crept across her chest.
‘What can I do for you, Mrs Johnstone?’
‘I can see you’re not burning books for firewood. Goodness knows what you have been doing, squatting in here all this time. Some were afraid you might have gutted Alfred’s precious shop.’
Sonnet gritted her teeth, thinking of Olive’s honey analogy. It wasn’t coming easily though. This woman was almost certainly another ladies-fellowship-slash-quilting-club-friend of Delia’s. Probably sent to spy, because wouldn’t it be driving Delia nuts not being able to keep tabs on Sonnet behind the closed shutters. Well, now she’d have all the gossip: Alfred’s bookshop was in chaos and Sonnet had been hiding out for months, letting it fall apart around her.
‘What is it you’re looking for?’
Having finished with the lower level, Marg homed in on the second floor. Sonnet pictured the secret pandemonium of Alfred’s office, and squared her shoulders.
‘Listen,’ Marg said, ‘I know exactly what I’m after: a large box, heavy, marked in red, addressed care of the CWA. I’m the vice-president, you know. Have you come across anything like that?’
Sonnet wanted to run from the intensity of Marg’s look. She was like a dentist drilling for a nerve. ‘No,’ she answered, hands rising to her hips.
An oddly weighted silence ensued.
‘You haven’t,’ Marg mused. ‘I see. Well, it’s probably best if I pop upstairs then and have a gander in his office for you.’
‘No thanks!’ Sonnet spluttered. ‘I know where everything is!’
‘Not everything, by the state of it.’
‘If there’s something particular you want, I’ll help you with it.’
Marg stared at Sonnet’s red bun; the turning cogs in her brain almost visible.
Sonnet tapered indignation, with effort.
Finally, Marg spoke. ‘Just before Alfred passed on, I put in a book order. Some hard-covered classics for my son, Dane. Have you met Dane? He’s coming up for Dux of St Ronan’s. Seventeen, and the world at his feet!’
Sonnet smiled tightly. ‘Great, we’ve got our classics over here—’
‘No, Alfred was ordering them for our Dane specially. First class, gilt-edged and all. Have you seen any books in a box like that?’
There Marg went again with the penetrating look. Sonnet’s fists clenched at her waist. ‘I already told you, no. But I’m sure I have something that will please Dane.’
‘I’d like to get my box before anything is thrown out.’
‘Mrs Johnstone, I have no intention of throwing books out.’ I might throw them at you, though.
‘Let me just check. I’ll know the box when I see it. Then we can go through it together, and see what we find.’
Sonnet, pre-empting Marg’s start towards the staircase, shifted boldly in her way.
Marg was immovable. ‘I can wait here while you look, then. I only come into town from the farm once a week, you see.’
‘A week? Perfect. That will give me plenty of time to go through my orders. Now let me see you out.’
Marg allowed herself to be led only as far as the old counter. She stopped and looked Sonnet dead in the eye. ‘I only want to help you.’
‘I can handle it myself, thank you.’
Marg’s eyes ran over her face and hair, before sliding to the second floor. ‘You say that now, Sonnet,’ she said significantly. ‘But call me when you’re ready to talk about it.’
*
‘The hide of that woman!’ Sonnet cried as she paced back and forth. ‘What the hell was she even on about?’
‘You’re going to wear my carpet out,’ Olive noted from behind her counter.
‘I’m sorry, but that woman! Accusing me of burning books and squatting in Alfred’s shop! What box was she harping on about, and why would I want her help? She certainly did not order books. It’s a big, fat lie; a cunning ploy to stick her interfering nose in my business and report back to all her cronies. She’s as obnoxious as Delia Hull. How do you bear this town with all these awful women?’
‘Oh, Marg’s not too bad on her own, but when the ladies of the CWA get a bee in their collective bonnet about something, she takes her role as Vice President very seriously.’
‘But that’s just it! What on earth does my shop have to do with the CWA or Marg Johnstone?!’
Olive suppressed a smile. ‘Your shop now?’
Sonnet whirled off on another circuit. ‘It is my shop, and they’re going to have to get used to it! I’m not babysitting a shop for a dead man. I’m the owner now and they’d better start treating me like it!’
Olive came out from behind the counter, moving to embrace her. Sonnet stepped quickly out of reach, but her breath was held for Olive’s response.
‘Gav and I had been hoping for this. I can’t tell you how glad I am to finally hear it. There’s been plenty of conjecture floating around town about what you’re planning. Even some suggestions you’re going to deny townsfolk the bookstore they routinely neglected but now consider indispensable to Main Street.’
Sonnet exhaled forcefully.
‘I didn’t mention it before, because I knew you were taking your time to grieve and consider the responsibility left to you. But I can see you’re ready now.’
‘Hell yes, I am! Alfred left me the bookstore because I loved it as much as he did and he knew I’d modernise it the way he couldn’t.’
‘You bring that old shop right back to life, and show them all!’
Sonnet harrumphed. ‘First, I’ve got to burn a few boxes, but after that I have some renovations to plan . . .’
*
Sonnet slammed the back of Gav’s Ford coupé utility and motioned for her uncle to pull away from the shop with yet another load of books – bound for storage at Heartwood. If the town had been worried Sonnet was gutting Alfred’s store before, they were convinced of it now.
For weeks, folks had been watching Sonnet empty out the old shop, with no clue as to her plans. The Emersons had remained as tight-lipped as Sonnet herself. The newspapered windows spoke more of paranoia than privacy, perhaps. But Sonnet wasn’t giving anyone a look-in!
A full makeover was under way. It was far more than she could have achieved on her own, and Gav had pushed his resources upon her with more knowledge and expertise than she would ever have asked for herself. Gav had even brought in some painters and chippies from Innisfail – tradesmen happy enough to walk in and out as needed, without sharing progress reports with every nosy parker circling for gossip.
When Sonnet’s moniker finally hung on Main Street, announcing her claimed ownership, then, and only then, would the locals be invited back into her domain.
CHAPTER 17
WHIMSY
Autumn 1958
W
inter was Fable’s middle name but her least favourite season, shipwrecked halfway as it was between Raff Going and Raff Coming. And the winter of fifteen and three-quarters was proving interminable. The summer of fifteen had been full of Raff sightings and even, remarkably, close encounters. The latter being the only thing sustaining her now through the months of Raff gossip laid on thickly by Adriana. Had Adriana known how famished Fable was for any word of Raff’s faraway uni adventures, or how much her gloating reportage of Raff’s latest model-beautiful, college-sophisticated girlfriend hurt, she couldn’t have wielded more power. Enduring Adriana all through autumn, winter and spring just for the summertime boon was tough going.
A sigh escaped Fable. She reached automatically to cover her mouth, but there was no one awake for miles – the splendorous dawn hour was hers alone. Orchard Hill, here overlooking Heartwood, was her favourite place to watch as morning light limned the valley with gold. It wasn’t a perfect vantage point. Enclosed within their steep mountain basin, Fable could only invent the full, theatrical colour of the coastal dawn from the spilling crescendo which lipped the ranges. She might one day come to begrudge these restricted horizons, to resent being left behind in the small antechamber of regional life. But here and now, on Orchard Hill, Fable felt herself an enchantress, conjuring forth the day. Magic quivered in every atom. The future was a green bud, perfect and complete, already curled within her.
This was Fable’s morning pilgrimage: escaping secretly through her bay window, from behind her now lockable sunroom doors.
Following Sonnet’s degrading announcement of her menarche to all and sundry, Fable had gone privately to Gav to petition for a lock on her doors – which he had done without question, and without consulting Sonnet. Sometimes, when especially irritated with her sister, Fable enjoyed a revenge daydream of the door-rattling moment Sonnet tried to sneak into her sunroom, and met unyielding physical resistance.
Fable kept her door locked at all times.
Some mornings, Fable slipped out of her window bare of foot and hand, threading between the giant golden orb webs built in the garden overnight, tiptoeing past the grass spiders’ faerie handkerchiefs. Other times, she carted watercolours, pencils and notebooks along with her. She had not yet mastered either the description or depiction of the valley sunrises and despaired of her skills, which failed her dreaming heart, time and time again.
Every morning so far, she’d managed to sneak back in through her window before breakfast, with no lectures from a bossy sister. But Fable’s hackles rose when she even thought of Sonnet having the nerve to criticise her for secretiveness, when the whole town knew Sonnet had been hiding out in Old Man Shearer’s bookstore for over a year.
What Sonnet was doing in there behind the newspapered windows was anyone’s guess, and Fable heard people make plenty of guesses: pawing through his undies drawer, maybe sniffing his pillow, burning books, spying on passing townsfolk, or playing some imaginary game of bookstore owner; serving make-believe customers and giggling with the ghost of Alfred Shearer.
Fable snorted. Thank goodness Sonnet’s shop renovations were almost finished. The Hamilton girls should not provide any more cause for ridicule. The bullseye on Fable’s back was already big enough without Sonnet making a spectacle. After the shop’s grand reveal next month, they could finally put this whole strange chapter behind them.
Fable reached for the sugarcane flower rescued earlier. She held it before the sunrise, squinting so that light flared through the silvery-lilac feather duster. Inflorescence: the name of the flower faerie she was currently working on, though her sun-speared sugarcane skirts were coming out all wrong in sketches. She needed more time for practice.
If she could evade Sonnet late this afternoon, she’d come out again, armed with her sketchbook. The golden hour, as the sun slipped towards the western ranges, suffusing the valley with light, was Fable’s second favourite. Sunset was best enjoyed at the creek: sunlight glittering on the water even as darkness slid up from valley floor to looming peak, swallowing mountains whole. ‘Darkrise’, Sonnet had coined it, and though it nearly choked Fable to use her word – Sonnet was right.
It was much harder to get out for a sunset. Sonnet was always in a mad flap – hurrying them into baths, hushing Plum’s pre-dinner whingeing with both exaggeration and ineffectualness, packing lunches with one hand and ironing uniforms with the other, while stirring saucepans with her foot. Sonnet’s amplified stress made Fable’s own heart beat faster, her breath come shorter. Sonnet called it the ‘witching time’, referring, Fable supposed, to the way she turned into an unbearable witch. Evenings were calmer when lucky Plum had escaped to Heartwood for a sleepover. If only Fable were permitted the same freedom.
Fable’s coping strategy had been to hide down the creek at dinner time, until her aunt had put a stop to it with a distinctively Olive lecture about Sonnet’s job being hard enough and how Fable’s help could make such a difference. Blah, blah, blah. Fable couldn’t understand how her casual flinging of knives and forks onto the table made one iota of difference to Sonnet – nevertheless, she had reined in her sunset forays.
Well, mostly . . .
She’d made stubborn exceptions for herself during Raff’s last homecoming, after the serendipitous discovery that she was not the only one who enjoyed meditative time alone in the rainforest. Close to dusk, Raff could be found scything quietly along the creek in his kayak, arms moving confidently at the paddle. Or, he might be encountered walking home again, strong, tan arms holding aloft the kayak as he negotiated the narrow pathway. And though her face froze up and all words were sucked into a gormless whirlpool, just raising wide eyes to Raff’s as he passed by with a chummy greeting, was everything.
One afternoon, Zephyr had followed her to the creek, and Raff’s grin as the dog bounded up to him with a bark of long familiarity was heart’s elixir. When he gently stroked Zephyr’s tawny pelt, it was her skin which shivered with pleasure; her hair that stood on end. From that afternoon on, she made a point of whistling for Zeph every day as she set off on her meanderings. That Olive and Gav were soon singing her praises daily as diligent dog-walking niece did not cause Fable a moment’s guilt. In the realm of contrived coincidences, she was comfortably innocent.
If Raff thought it odd that Fable was always at the creek at the precise time of his solitary kayak, he didn’t let it show. In her most regularly played fantasies, he actually slowed his pace to ensure they caught each other.
On Raff’s last day in Noah for another long year, a miracle had occurred. Standing aside for Fable on the cane bridge, Raff handed her a treasure: one solitary Ulysses butterfly wing cast asunder, and f
ound glistening on a rock.
‘Got any use in your scrapbook for this, kiddo?’
Fable received the iridescent blue wing in her cupped hands with the reverence of one taking communion. And, looking up at him, finally found her words. ‘So, you’re still pulling wings off bugs, then . . .’
He chuckled, and his serious lips stayed curved to one wry side long after she had passed by.
For days, Fable petted that delicate wing like a lucky charm capable of bringing Raff home again, or speeding up the endless months of school ahead. Eventually, the wing had disintegrated in her hands; turquoise glitter falling through her fingers. In a fit of fancy, she smeared the last iridescent shimmer on her forehead, behind which she guarded his image.
Sonnet, predictably, had ruined it with one swipe of pungent tea towel.
So now, Fable was waiting the long way. How long? Still five dry months to go!
Fable sighed again, and blew hard at the cane arrow; scattering the shiny motes into the golden light.
CHAPTER 18
SONNET’S BOOKS
September 1958
M
ain Street on a Sunday morning held a reverent, sleepy stillness, but for the hymns that swelled across Raintree Park, spilled over the long lines of cars baking in the heat, and swept past the respectfully shuttered shopfronts, hushing all.
Sonnet felt like the only heathen in town. And, thankful as she was to be free of the sanctimony and superstition which drove them to church, there was an indefinable sense of being . . . left out. The satisfied placidity with which they returned only magnified her irritation.
While Olive and Gav were at church with the girls, Sonnet had slipped into the bookshop to make the last preparations before her grand opening on the morrow, well over a year since Alfred’s passing. A respectful period of mourning, Sonnet liked to think of it, though in truth it had been cowardice, and conviction of unworthiness.
Sunshine splashing through the bay window – which now featured a satire book display, her favourite genre – cast a flattering light over her hard work: gleaming whitewashed shelves and front counter; newly polished wood floors and book ladder; freshly papered walls; dark window blinds replaced with light muslin curtains; and, most importantly, every book dusted to within an inch of its life, and slotted neatly back into position. It had been a labour of love removing every last one of Alfred’s books to Heartwood and back again, without damaging or misplacing a single one. Her modernised front counter was now sparse and neat. She hadn’t changed the old cash register, its vintage bells and whistles evoking the many happy hours working under Alfred’s tutelage. Gav had built Sonnet a high bar extension off the counter, which she’d coined her ‘Story Bar’. On the bar waited mismatched vintage teacups, plates and teapots, collated from Grandmother Lois’s collection, ready to serve Devonshire tea with every purchase. Her hand-lettered sandwich board, footpath bound, promised as much.