by Averil Kenny
‘There were some pages missing for a while. But they’re all here now. I want you to have the whole book. You’ll hold them for me.’
Tears, hidden by the spill of rose gold, wet the ground; the book.
‘I have to go away tomorrow – just for a while. But I’m not leaving you, I promise. Keep my book safe, Mama.’
Fable rose, sniffling, to thread out between the roots.
Behind her, pages stirred, and turned.
*
The lantern flame danced as Fable floated back along the creek-side path. Closer to the cane bridge, a violent flap of wings in the canopy sent her heart rate rocketing skywards.
Only a bat, frightened away, taking all her courage along with it.
Darkness seemed to press in on her circle of light now, shapes leapt forward, and shadows loomed.
A moment later, she heard the crack of branches underfoot, followed by a muttered cursing. Fable stilled, peering breathlessly into the creek gloom. A carried light on the opposite bank bounced into view, travelling parallel to her path. At the bridge, the light turned towards her, and began to cross the tracks.
Fable’s lantern trembled wildly as she raised it to her face, straining to make out the advancing figure.
‘Hello?!’ she called.
Closer, relentlessly closer, came the light.
‘Oh, it’s you . . .’
CHAPTER 33
ROOTS AND WINGS
S
onnet juddered awake in the light-saturated attic. She lurched up and fell back against her pillow in one hastily aborted motion.
‘Urrrrrgh.’ Her throbbing head, roiling stomach, the stink of her skin, the fur on her teeth.
Outside in the garden: murmuring and light laughter, rustling garbage bags, a broom screeching across the pavers.
Sonnet fumbled for her watch, staring at it disbelievingly.
An hour past midday?
To the dormer window, she pitched. Gav and Olive were outside, cleaning the mess from her party in her garden, while she slept the day away. Malingerer . . .
Downstairs she slanted, a foul-smelling hunchback, to take cleansing refuge in the bathroom.
It was a freshly scrubbed, though no-less-rotten-feeling Sonnet who emerged weakly into the sunshine sometime later.
‘Hello, sleepyhead!’ Olive trilled.
Bloody teetotallers, Sonnet thought.
‘Just getting a head start here, hope we didn’t wake you.’
‘Leave it, I’ll do it.’
Olive’s dry grin swept her from head to toe.
Sonnet grimaced, plonking into a chair. ‘Maybe not, then. I can cheer you on.’
‘There’s bacon and eggs on the stovetop,’ Olive said ‘It’s probably cold by now. Just heat it up to share with Fable.’
Fable! Leaving! The afternoon train!
‘Holy hell,’ Sonnet said, staggering back to her feet so quickly, she felt her brain rattle.
‘Language,’ Olive said mildly, turning back to her tray of glasses as Sonnet flew, holding her head, for the stairs. ‘And there’s aspirin above the fridge!’
Sonnet hammered on the sunroom door. ‘Fable? Fable!’
‘Chill out, Sonny,’ came a voice, from behind her.
Fable: returning from the bathroom, with towel-wrapped hair, face and limbs pink, eyes inflamed from a dearth of sleep, or a surfeit of decadence, or could she have even been . . . crying?
In any case, she looked exactly how Sonnet felt.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked, as Fable swept by on a draught of soap fragrance.
‘Fine. Why wouldn’t I be.’ It wasn’t a question, rhetorical or otherwise.
Sonnet dallied for a moment, unable to justify her sense of unease, eyes boring into the slim back turned against her.
‘We’re late now,’ she said. ‘Train leaves at three. I need your bags out front in half an hour.’
‘I’m not going,’ Fable said quietly.
Sonnet was neither surprised nor alarmed by this attempt on Fable’s part. She realised now: she’d been anticipating it all along.
‘Nonsense! That’s only last-minute nerves. Nothing stands between you and that train today.’
‘I mean it, I’m not going. I need to stay here.’
‘Under no circumstances,’ Sonnet replied. ‘If I have to tie you to the carriage and drive the train out of Noah myself, I will.’
‘Sonny, I can’t go, I—’
A knock at the front door made both women jump – Fable, perhaps more so. A male voice was heard conversing with Olive and Gav outside.
‘No, you’ve got to be ready!’ Sonnet said, intercepting her sister’s improbable move to answer the door still half naked. ‘I’ll go. You get dressed.’
‘Marco,’ Sonnet said, opening the door to a bloodshot, nonetheless grinning young man.
‘Morning!’ he sang.
Sonnet had a rankling memory of his unendorsed, though mercifully thwarted speech, and hardened. ‘I’m sorry, Marco, we’re quite late.’
‘I’ll keep out of your way then, I’m only here to say goodbye to Fabes. Did you guys hear the news from Hulls yet? I ran into Raff on my way over and he told me first hand.’
Fable emerged from the sunroom, with clothes thrown on, blinking warily.
‘Hear what?’
‘Eamon went missing last night!’ Marco answered. ‘He was drinking heavily at Summerlinn, got violent – you know how he does – and disappeared near the creek. He still hasn’t come home! The Hulls are all going out of their minds about it. Apparently, Eamon’s been beside himself over old man William; they’re afraid he could do anything in the state he’s in. They convened a search party before lunch. I was gonna go help look, right after I saw you off.’
Will the Hull-led melodramas in this bloody town never end? Can’t you see what you’re escaping from, Fable!?
‘Guess you better get going then, Marco,’ Sonnet said, not bothering to affect neighbourly concern. ‘We’re leaving momentarily.’
Sonnet clapped her hands. ‘Right, come on, Fable! We’ve got thirty minutes to get you Brisbane-ready.’
*
They skidded into the train station at five to three. Sarah’s pinched face in the rear-view mirror – perturbed by either the speed at which Sonnet had swerved kerbside at Canecutter’s Hotel to pick her up, or the haste at which she was taking the tight mountain corners – relaxed only as the car boot clunked and handbrake screeched in one victorious declaration of arrival.
Fable was inscrutable as ever, not uttering a word the whole way to the station. Which was fine by Sonnet, she had copious pearls of wisdom to impart before releasing her charge into the big, wide world. In any case, Fable seemed grateful for the coverage Sonnet’s lecturing provided. Sonnet had not missed the way Fable’s hands roamed from cheeks, to heart, to mouth, to belly – as though to hold herself together.
Olive and Gav, already waiting responsibly at the station, and having by now procured the travel passes and dinner menus, in addition to locating the correct carriage, seats and nearest bathroom, were already assuming the mantle of calm, parental farewelling. It was into their words of comfort and courage Fable leant now, in a three-way cuddle. Sonnet did not push forward in competition, neither did she interrupt their progress towards the carriage, nor did she push herself to the forefront of the party. She’d been forgotten in the rush, and this time, she didn’t object.
Sonnet could feel it already: the final yielding in a long line of concessions to their competency, signalling her cue to step back into her true role, as sister.
She’d given her all as guardian and substitute mother. Now Fable was free of this damned town. Sonnet had nothing left to do.
And look; Fable hadn’t even missed her sister’s part, or marked the transition. It was Olive and Gav handing her off now to climb the ladder, Plum begging for souvenirs through the window, her publicist settling in beside her as seatmate and new journey’s companio
n.
Tears came, stinging, to Sonnet’s eyes as the sleek, silver carriages wound around the verdant bend, a plume of smoke in their wake. It was Olive, drawing near to squeeze her shoulder, who triggered the waterfall. Olive was to blame, entirely.
‘Remember,’ Olive said, as the last carriage was swallowed up. ‘We gave her roots, and now she finds her wings – or draws them, same thing.’
Sonnet smiled, despite her misery, and stepped out of Olive’s touchy-feely reach.
Her brain clobbered at her skull. She wanted to hurl. Most of all, she needed to see Kate, pronto, and have a bloody good gasbag about all of this.
CHAPTER 34
PRODIGAL DAUGHTER
Late October 1964
F
or the first time in her life, for over seven wondrous months, Sonnet lived the life of an unfettered woman. She had expected to miss Fable exceedingly, and stress every second she was out of her reach. To her surprise, however, Sonnet mellowed out. Freedom was having the cottage all to herself, and only the demands of her own work to consume her. Cutting the apron strings turned out to be as liberating as a haircut – another invigorating experience she’d had lately.
Shoulder-length locks swished, loose and glossy, around her face now. Most people said the haircut suited her – though they meant ‘softened’ – and Sonnet was inclined to agree. The loss of her high bun was akin to dropping years. Sonnet didn’t feel almost-thirty anymore, more like the fancy-free young woman she’d never got to be.
She knew folks in Noah said Sonnet Hamilton had a ‘big head’ now her sister was gallivanting about Australia calling herself an ‘author-illustrator’ – and the new city haircut, new bookstore furniture and new spring in her step were proof of her increasing pretentiousness. Not to mention her scandalous Brave New World-themed window book display!
But this time? Sonnet didn’t even care. Freedom was its own reward.
When Fable had rung Heartwood from Brisbane after her book tour ended to confirm she would be staying close to her publisher for another six months to collaborate on several children’s books, Sonnet nearly leapt in the air to click her heels together. She wasn’t even envious of her sister’s exodus from the valley. Though by all rights, she should have been. Fable, living in a flourishing city, an author-illustrator already earning real dosh and creating her own reputation, while Sonnet was stuck in a tropical backwater – in years gone by, it would have been enough to make her scream!
But Fable’s triumph felt like her own. Almost the moment Fable steamed out of town, Sonnet noticed the effect on her own disposition. She just . . . stopped thrashing. It was like the expectant lull between the agitation of a wash cycle and the rattling spin dry. Suddenly, she found inconsequential all manner of small-town idiosyncrasies and injustices, which might once have nettled. She even seemed to detach from matters closer to her heart.
Take, for instance, the Marco Lagorio rumours arising after the book launch. Sonnet had weathered the incessant blabber-mouthing down the street about Marco and Fable with uncharacteristic restraint. She could easily have flown into a corrective rage at every busybody to bring it up: They’re only mates! Never been a spark of attraction between them! Instead, she simply shook her head. What did it matter? There was no way Fable would be coming home to this staid old existence after her taste of glamorous city life.
Marco seemed to know it, too. He’d frequented the cottage for weeks after Fable’s departure, hunting news of his friend. Sonnet had been gently fobbing him off, until the day he asked for Fable’s book-tour itinerary, or an address to write her. No way she’d let anyone in Noah have contact with Fable at such a pivotal time. Sterner words of advice had been necessary then.
Marco had left Noah in recent months too, apparently after non-farming work. It looked like he went as far abroad as London, based on the fat airmail letter that had arrived at the cottage not long afterwards. Fable never even had to know about that. Sonnet had unceremoniously trashed it, unopened.
And that was that: small town rumour forestalled, and successful, independent author-illustrator none the wiser!
*
The most surprising example of Sonnet’s new-found serenity was during the Hull family dramas, which first erupted with a week-long disappearance of Eamon Hull the night of Fable’s launch party. They had volunteers out dragging dams, walking the canefields in long lines; even put divers in the creek, before he finally washed up in town at the end of a wild bender. He would have looked better as a bloated water carcass, actually.
Two or three weeks after Fable left, William Hull died and then the whole town seemed to fall into a fit of depressive, nostalgic pandering, promptly followed by opportunistic scandal-raking.
First, there was the grand funeral cortege down Main Street with an informal public holiday declared for all, whether or not shop owners gave two hoots about attending the Hull funeral. Strangely, even that didn’t seem to faze Sonnet. She just went home and enjoyed some therapeutic cleaning.
Following that, the CWA windbags organised an enormous shindig for the Hulls over at Summerlinn. Olive and Gav insisted the Emerson–Hamilton clan should be in attendance. Sonnet squirmed successfully out of that one (she was mellow, not stupid), but for the rest of the day, she had such an unsettling feeling of something strangely like . . . guilt?
Then there was all the salacious speculation about conflict over the Summerlinn distribution of property, which had preoccupied the town for months on end. Normally, Sonnet would have gloated over the Hull discord, at Delia’s perfect world torn asunder. Or, at least revealed for the fallible family it was. Instead, Sonnet moved right on by the Main Street broadcasters and bank-line rumourmongers.
One day, Sonnet happened to spot Delia and her golden boy outside the General Store. Delia was standing uselessly by their car, staring off into the distance with what, if Sonnet didn’t know better, might have been construed as normal human vulnerability, while her son packed bags into the car for her. After slamming the boot, Rafferty moved to take her in his arms – and stood there holding her for the longest time, while cars streamed slowly past, faces peering. It looked like Delia was crying, genuinely shaking with grief, and for a moment Sonnet wanted to cross the road and extend condolences to her worst enemy. It was only the fact that Mr Bloody Perfect himself, sighting Sonnet, looked to be coming over to try to speak to her that sent her streaking away on the pretence of anything else than converse with a Hull.
Dodged a bullet there.
The Hulls finally were pulling themselves back together again, anyway. Rafferty went back overseas after the harvest, Eamon’s transgressions were neatly forgiven and forgotten, and Adriana continued to think she was Lady Muck. Delia had even brushed past Sonnet in the post office the other day with a magisterial sneer, which was a great relief. Imagine if Delia had known how close they’d come to rapprochement?
Sonnet would never forgive the way those Hulls had treated Fable, so soon after Mama’s passing. Sonnet had many reasons to relish this calm new phase of life, but paramount among them was Fable having transcended the bitter friends and strictures of her childhood.
Never would Sonnet forget, but thankfully never again would she have to bear the sight of that stooped and tragic strawberry-gold figure trudging down the hill, towards home.
*
Until, one ordinary October afternoon, she was.
At first sight and from afar, Sonnet thought it was a traveller having lost their way to Moria Falls. The young woman descending the hill was heavily laden with bags. Her face was obscured by a baseball hat as she seemed to watch her every footfall home.
Reality crashed in like a tree through the roof in a cyclone. Sonnet had to grab a wall against collapse. That was her lost, laden sister limping home.
Sonnet flew across the paddock to meet Fable.
They’d never spent so much time apart in all their lives, and Sonnet imagined they might fall upon each other now in tearful reunio
n. But Fable stopped at her approach, keeping a stiff distance. Sonnet, for her part, felt an intense desire to slap Fable.
‘What are you doing here? You’ve got another six months in Brisbane still! How the hell did you get home? What happened to your new books?’
Fable hoisted a bag higher on her shoulder, grimacing. ‘Well, nice to see you, too. Mind if I put these down first before we start with the Sonnet Inquisition?’
Once inside, Sonnet sat, stupefied, across the table from her travel-worn sister, watching her throw back another glass of ice-water. Sonnet’s body twanged with curiosity.
Would Fable ever open her mouth?
And she looked terrible. (Sorry, but that was the truth.) If freedom from guardianship had loosened Sonnet’s hair and temperament, liberation clearly had the opposite effect on Fable. Her mane, lank and oily, was tightly coiled beneath that bizarre hat. She was ashen and rumpled; bloom of youth replaced by a weary strain only another adult could empathise with. A bath was the first thing Fable needed, squeeze her out of those awful pants and flannel shirt; spray her down with deodorant . . .
‘Would you stop staring at me like that?’
Sonnet choked down a sigh. How quickly it came flooding back, the barely tempered rage at Fable’s smooth evasiveness. Well, she wasn’t going to beg for info this time. She sat back, crossing her arms.
‘I like your hair,’ Fable said.
‘Thanks.’
‘Can see you’ve been changing things up in the cottage, too.’
‘Yep.’ Sonnet refused to make small talk. Refused!
Fable resumed an ice-cube-swirling contemplation of her empty glass.
Sonnet checked an offer to refill the cup.
‘Hope you left my room the same.’
A retort here was inevitable. ‘Oh, is it your room again? No one let the concierge know.’
The flash of hurt – dorsal fin quickly submerging – was not missed by Sonnet. Fable’s reply, however, was petulant. ‘Didn’t know you needed a personal copy of my itinerary.’