Portraits of Celina
Read Portraits of Celina Online
Authors: Sue Whiting
It’s as if the chest is luring me, urging me to open it – daring me almost.
Open me up. Look inside. Come on, just for a second;
it won’t hurt
.
Celina O’Malley was sixteen years old when she disappeared. Now, almost forty years later, Bayley is sleeping in Celina’s room, wearing her clothes, hearing her voice.
What does Celina want?
And who will suffer because of it?
A ghost story. A love story. A story of revenge.
The day I turned sixteen we buried my father.
No one realised what day it was. Not even me. We were too stunned. How could someone you love die – just like that?
Memories of the day he died are muddled. Some so sharp and full focus, they almost hurt; others so foggy and distorted, it’s as if I am viewing them through the thick end of a bottle.
I remember the sky, dark and broody.
I remember Amelia going out, and Loni coming over.
I remember the sound of the downpour.
Seth wailing about his Batman toy.
The sweet smell of rain.
Then comes the full focus part – the part I long to erase, for fear of reliving it forever more.
But it refuses to go away, and I can still see every detail; still hear that thud as Dad falls and cracks his skull on the stone bench. See the angle of his head to the rest of his body, the thin stream of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
Feel the stillness of him, the rain pelting his face.
Did I scream? Cry out? I don’t know.
I can only remember standing in the soaking rain, water dripping from my chin, not knowing what to do. How could he be laughing, breathing, living one minute, and then gone forever the next?
Looking back, I realise it was the first time I experienced how cruel life can be. How swiftly a simple act can change it.
It wouldn’t be the last.
The following January
It’s a simple act, the pulling on of jeans. But for me, the snug fit of Celina O’Malley’s jeans is uplifting – heady almost. Every nerve ending tingles. I swirl in front of the mirror, admiring the way the faded denim hugs.
I am wearing Celina O’Malley’s jeans
. Celina O’Malley. A name I have, my whole life, associated with family legend and secrets, with tragedy and loss. With death. Is Celina dead? Murdered? Am I wearing a dead girl’s jeans? I am at once exhilarated and appalled.
I pull off the singlet top I wear for pyjamas and slip on a tied-dyed T-shirt. Again, it fits as if it was made for me. I almost yelp, catching myself in time as I remember that everyone else is asleep.
There’s no reasonable explanation for the odd cocktail of emotions racing through me, and what is especially weird is a feeling of connection.
What is going on?
How can I feel connected to some distant relative who vanished from the face of the Earth almost forty years ago? But it feels good, and it is the first time I have felt any kind of happiness for a very long while. It’s as welcome as a sun-filled sky.
I slide onto the floor on my stomach and prop myself up on my elbows. I stare at the wooden chest with its contents – the possessions of another life – spilling onto the floorboards, filling the spaces between the packing boxes and plastic bags that are jammed with the remnants of my own life.
My old life.
A stale smell fills the room. Camphor wood. Cheap perfume. Age.
I reach out and caress the items lying nearest to me: a cheesecloth blouse, white knitted bikini, stripy poncho.
Inside the chest I find an ugly belt made from knotted rope and wooden beads. Next, a fistful of multicoloured scarves and a pair of silver hoop earrings stuck into cardboard. I tie a scarf covered with bursts of bright purple around my head, slip the earrings on and find myself giggling. If only Loni was here – she’d love this.
How old was Celina when she disappeared? I wonder, fingering the silver hoops absently. Fourteen? Fifteen? Sixteen, like me? I’ve heard whisperings of Celina’s story many times, but it’s a topic that only the brave of the clan bring up – and I am not one of that fold.
I empty the chest, inspecting each item, conscious that my behaviour is kind of odd, manic even, but I am gloriously driven. And with each new piece, I am tickled by the thought that I am, somehow, getting to know this Celina O’Malley. Strings of beads; a stack of old vinyl albums, still in their plastic covers, Neil Young, Cat Stevens,
20 Explosive Hits ‘71
; brown woven leather sandals and a clunky pair of cork platforms; a daggy old photo album.
I am pulling open the sticky cover of the photo album, when my door groans. It’s Mum. A thin cotton nightie hangs from her bony frame like a sack, and her hair is frizzy from restlessness. She looks much older than her forty-nine years, as if every one of those years has been intent on wearing her out.
“What are you doing?” she whispers. “For God’s sake, Bayley, it’s almost three.”
It’s as though I am five again, with my hand in the biscuit tin – or worse, as if I have been caught robbing a grave. What
am
I doing? How can I even touch this stuff, let alone wear it?
Mum’s eyes lock on the open chest and its contents. I watch as my mother tries to make sense of what she is seeing, and worry about how she is going to react.
She slides onto her knees beside me. In the mellow one-light-bulb glow, carved tigers and elephants parade across the sides of the wooden chest. Grime fills cracks and varnish sticks up in sharp peeling daggers. Mum reaches out and traces her finger over the crude peace sign painted on the inside of the lid, then the rainbow and butterflies surrounding it.
“Christ,” she says and frowns at me. “I don’t understand. Gran said the place was emptied years ago. Emptied and boarded up …” She picks up a red spotted dress and holds it to her cheek. “Oh, Bayley. Look at me; I’m going goosy. This must be
Celina’s
. But I don’t understand how it’s still here – after all this time.”
I nudge closer to her. “Did you know her? Celina?”
Mum nods. “Of course. She was my cousin. Your gran’s favourite niece. We used to come out here for holidays – Easter, Christmas. The whole summer, one year when I was about nine or ten.” She peers into the chest, hugging herself tight, as though suddenly cold.
“What happened to her?” I dare to ask. “Really.”
Mum eyes the floor as if the answer is contained in the grains and knots of the floorboards. “No one knows for sure,” she says after a while. “Set off to school one day and was never seen again.” She pushes herself clumsily to her feet, the memory of it seeming to weigh her down. “It’s ancient history, Bails. Best put this stuff back and I’ll let Gran know it’s here. It’ll throw her – but she needs to know.”
Mum pauses at the door, staring back into the room. “Jeez, it’s draughty in here.” She rubs her arms. “I’ll have to get the builders to take a look. Now, get some sleep. Lots of unpacking tomorrow.”
The door closes and I am left sitting in the midst of all this
stuff
, feeling like I’ve woken from some bizarre and slightly disturbing dream.
I climb onto my bed, part the stiff new curtains and press my forehead against the coolness of the windowpane. Even in the murky darkness, peering through the shadowy fingers of a Norfolk pine, it is beautiful here. There is no denying it. The lake, surrounded by silhouetted hills and untamed bushland, glistens in the moonlight. It is still. Quiet. Alone.
Why on earth are we here?
I ask the lake. What was Mum thinking, uprooting us and moving us away from everything and everyone we love, right when we need them most? I can’t understand the logic of it.
A sad family moving into a sad house.
I curl up under my doona. Behind closed eyelids, I try to imagine my life here, in this broken-down house, set in a wild field in the spoon of the hills on the shores of such a lonely, lonely lake. But it’s futile; I can’t even begin to imagine a life here, for any of us.
Instead, I imagine Celina O’Malley.
Celina in her tiny bikini, tanned and lithe, diving off the jetty into the lake.
Celina, long dark curls tumbling over her shoulders, strumming a guitar and singing, her face lit golden by a small camp fire.
Celina in jeans and T-shirt, purple scarf around her head, weaving through the paddock beside the lake – laughing, squealing, deliriously happy …
I allow these visions to reel through my head, trying to bring Celina’s face into focus – but she remains slightly fuzzy and out of reach. Despite this, in some peculiar way, these glimpses are a comfort to me and I wonder if there
is
actually a chance for happiness for us here.
As I feel myself drifting off, a strange uneasiness wafts through the dreamy darkness, and I burrow deeper under my doona.
Finally, sleep takes me.
I sleep like a lamb.
It’s the alarm in the voice, rather than the loudness, that snaps me awake.
“Bayley! Wake up! Wake up!” Seth leaps onto my bed and shakes my shoulders. “Wake up. It’s Mum – she’s gone.”
I sit upright, see the terror in my brother’s eyes and jump out of bed. “What do you mean?”
Seth wipes the snotty stream under his nose with his Batman cape and gulps down a sob. “Bayley, she’s gone. Gone.” He grabs hold of my hand and drags me out of the room. We thump down the stairs, barely missing the holey third step, into the front room and out the open door.
I am momentarily blinded by the harsh glare of sunlight on the lake. I shield my eyes and take a step backwards.
But Seth is frantic – won’t allow me the time to adjust. “See!” he says, pointing. “The car’s gone and she’s not inside anywhere. And her phone’s still on her bed.” Seth crumples onto the steps, pulls his cape around him and gives in to his tears. The sight tugs at my heart. How many times has he cried into that cape these last eight months? Sometimes I feel like ripping it off him and tossing it away. How are we ever going to be able to forget if we constantly wrap ourselves in the past?
I sit beside him, rest my arm over his shoulders and do my best to jolly him.
“She’ll be back, you’ll see,” I say, hoping that I am right – Mum being so unpredictable these days, I can’t be sure of anything any more. “She’s probably gone into town – to the shops.”
I help Seth up and guide him inside and through to the kitchen.
“But why didn’t she say – or leave a note? She always leaves a note.”
“She probably couldn’t find a pen,” I try, and wave my hand at the towers of unpacked boxes.
I open the fridge, pull out the small carton of orange juice and pour some into a glass – there is barely enough to bother. “Here, have a drink and we’ll make some brekkie. She’ll be back before you know it.”