Thornwood House (10 page)

‘Bron, where are you?’

Thudding down the back steps, I ran along the brick path, past the neglected hydrangeas and through a corridor of overgrown pomegranates and loquats. The bench beneath the jacaranda was empty.

I strained to listen over my crashing pulse.

To my city ears, the booming silence at first seemed absolute. But soon a symphony of noise unravelled around me: cicadas droned, bees mumbled in the flowerbeds, cockatoos screeched and chattered in the treetops. Myriad bird species whistled from unseen hiding places . . . and there beneath it all, like the base note in a complex orchestral movement, came the deep-throated bark of bullfrogs in the creek.

Through the din, I recalled Bronwyn’s words.

If one of us died, the other would be alone
.

‘Bronwyn!’

Still no comeback. I was engulfed entirely by white hot panic. I raced downhill, ducking through a garden arch smothered by a wild wig of jasmine, my feet thumping over ground that was barren and dry. Gnarled trunks of grevillea and bottlebrush were choked by an impenetrable wall of blackberry brambles, and on the other side of the brambles I glimpsed a paddock dotted with citrus trees. From somewhere lower down the slope came the babble of water. Hoisting onto tiptoes, I peered into the paddock. A smudge of white hovered on the dark bank of what must be the creek. Someone was there, seemingly crumpled on the ground, motionless.

A flash of dream. Tree-shadows and swirling, frantic shapes. Shouting, and a hazy figure with its arm raised, the arm lunging down again and again, the darkness disjointed and crackling with fear –

If one of us died
 . . .

Heart thudding drunkenly, I stumbled downhill, seeking a way through the wall of vines. Each stout blackberry branch sprouted hundreds of sharp thorns, their lethal points tipped scarlet in the sun, barring my way as effectively as a barricade of barbed wire.

I lost sight of the figure. A bolt of panic went through me. Making a hasty decision, I threw myself into the first narrow breach I came to. Long arms of blackberry sprang across my path, their spiky barbs snagging my clothes, clawing my skin, tangling in my hair. I got trapped, felt the red-tipped spines stab into my arms and back. Then just ahead I saw open ground. With one final push, I broke through the vines and staggered into the orchard.

Bronwyn jerked around, her face blotched by the sun, her eyes filled with alarm. I registered only her shock and, driven by primal instinct, I rushed to protect her. With my first step, my foot snagged in a loop of vine. Before I could stop my
momentum forward, the ground flew up and slammed into me. The breath left my body with a grunt, and I lay there stunned.

‘Mum – ?’

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Then, with a hoarse wheezing gulp, my squashed lungs recovered and the world swam back into focus. Twisting my head around, I squinted into the mottled sky. A face was peering down at me, pale eyebrows furrowed, nose wrinkled.

Disengaging the noose of blackberry vine, I struggled to my feet, brushing at my clothes. The paddock spun, so I rested my hands on my knees and tried to breathe. When my vocal chords regained consciousness, I gasped, ‘What in blazes do you think you’re doing?’

The eyes – so blue they eclipsed the sky – widened.

‘Mum, look at your arms!’

I stood upright, glaring at her. Her cheeks were flushed despite her sunhat, and she was holding a jar of dirty water. The water was swarming with small black wriggling things. Tadpoles.

‘I told you to stay inside,’ I said hoarsely. ‘I’ve nearly had heart failure.’

She blinked, then gave a quick shrug, feigning indifference. ‘There’s rain coming, so I brought the washing in,’ she said with a vaguely accusing tone, ‘and you were gone for ages, I thought you’d forgotten about me . . . Anyway, I didn’t go far.’

I hiccupped. ‘Bron, you don’t know who might be lurking around this place . . . weirdos, or anyone.’

She hooked her neck out and stared around, eyebrows raised, making a performance of it. ‘Nope, just us.’

‘Next time, please just do as I ask, okay?’

‘Mum, you’re a mess. Your arms – ’

I looked down at myself. Every inch of my skin was filthy, criss-crossed with nasty-looking scratches and trickles of dark blood. My T-shirt was littered with leaves and my favourite jeans were ripped at the knees.

Tears began to leak out of my eyes.

Bronwyn wrinkled her brow. ‘Mum?’

I sniffed, wiping my nose on the back of my hand, brushing blackberry dross off my ruined jeans.

Bronwyn took a clean hanky from her pocket and unfolded it. I blew my nose, dabbed my eyes, and gave the hanky back. She was staring at me as if I’d grown horns, and I knew I should at least try to explain myself. But how do you admit to an eleven-year-old that she is all you have, and that the idea of losing her – even just the idea of it – is enough to unhinge you?

It was too big a burden to put on a child, of course, so I held my tongue and stowed my fear back in the shadows where it belonged.

‘It’s lunch time,’ I said instead. ‘We can order pizza, if you like. Or fish and chips?’

Bronwyn gazed across the distant hills, avoiding my eyes. She swirled the muddy water in the jar, swilling the tadpoles at breakneck speed around the inside of their glass prison.

‘Fish and chips’ll be fine.’

‘Great,’ I said bleakly, and limped back up the hill toward the house, this time taking the scenic route through the jasmine.

Later that night, reeking of Dettol and smothered in bandaids, I paused in the doorway of Samuel’s bedroom.

Breathing the scent of rain that hung in the air, I wondered why so many outside noises were rushing in. Water gurgled in the guttering, raindrops drummed the wet leaves. A bullfrog’s lonely serenade echoed off the walls.

Then I realised I’d left the window open.

Switching on the light, I cast around for damage. The curtain was sodden, rainwater puddled the floorboards. Everything else appeared intact . . . until I saw the solitary nail on the wall where once a framed photo had hung.

Crazy, the sudden panic. I dashed across the room, my limbs all at once loose and hot with dread. Why hadn’t I put the picture somewhere safe, out of harm’s way? Why hadn’t I remembered to shut the window? I imagined Samuel’s portrait buckled by water, the emulsion curling away from the backing paper, the image lost forever because of a stupid oversight . . .

The silver frame lay face down on the floor. Picking it up, I found the glass was smashed, and all that remained was a perimeter of jagged splinters like shark’s teeth. The photo was unharmed. Picking out the loose shards, I took the frame over to the bedside lamp and tilted it to the light. Without the glass, details I hadn’t noticed before became apparent: shallow creases etched his forehead, laugh lines radiated from his eyes; a light growth of stubble shadowed his jaw, and there was a mark on his cheekbone under his eye – a freckle or mole, maybe a scar.

Turning the frame over, I removed the buckled backing board and peeled away the photo, intending to stow it somewhere safe until I could have it remounted.

That’s when I saw the slip of paper.

It had been tucked behind the photo, but the passage of time had bonded it flat against the cardboard backing. As I peeled it free, and – with wobbly fingers – unfolded it on my knees, I saw it was a letter.

Wednesday, 13 March 1946

My Darling Samuel,

For four and a half years I feared that you’d forgotten me, or worse – that you’d died in a distant land. Knowing you’re alive is both a prayer and a dream come true. I’m sorry we argued in the street today, please understand it was not my intention – I was overwhelmed to see you alive. Forgive me, darling?

I must see you again soon. I can’t wait until tomorrow. I need to speak to you tonight, somewhere where there’s no one to pry or judge. I’ve so much to tell you, and there’s so much
I need to hear – your travels, how you fared in the war, your plans now that you’re back, and most pressingly – although I’m terrified to ask – if you, after all these silent years, still want me for your bride?

Please agree to meet me, dearest. Tonight at our secret place, nine o’clock? I’ll be the one wearing a big happy smile for you. And though I know you hate surprises, prepare yourself, my beloved Samuel. I’m bringing someone to meet you, someone very special.

Yours forever,

Aylish.

The looping copperplate had been dashed off hurriedly. Some of the words ran together, others were so faded against the yellowing notepaper they were nearly unreadable.

Smoothing the letter on my lap, I tried to read between the lines.

Something told me that Aylish was Tony’s grandmother . . . the young woman Samuel had been accused of murdering. Of course, I couldn’t know this for sure, there was no concrete evidence . . . just the mention of ‘someone special’ who I guessed had been a child, and Aylish’s obvious devotion despite Samuel’s years away at war.

What had happened between them, why had they argued? Had they met at their secret place that night, had all been forgiven? Or had Samuel misunderstood the letter and assumed Aylish guilty of a more odious crime? Samuel may have been unable to send or receive mail while he was away, which would explain Aylish’s fears that he’d forgotten her or been killed. But I couldn’t help wondering if there was more – much more – to their story.

Forgive me, darling?

I read the letter several more times, then drew it close and breathed its scent. Dust and old paper. Bitter ink. And very
faintly, a waft of rose. Refolding it, I stowed it in the bedside drawer. Then I looked at the photo again under the lamplight.

Yes, a woman had taken the snapshot, I could see it in Samuel’s eyes. His seductive smile had been trained on her, deliberately and fiercely, as though no one else in the world existed.

Once, many years ago, I had been besotted with Tony – but he had never smiled at me that way. I had clung to his affection like a drowning mouse clinging to a stick of driftwood; desperately and fearfully, with all the tenacity of someone who has been lonely before and dreads going back there. Tony had loved me, I knew that. Yet he’d never really
loved
me –

‘Samuel,’ I breathed, and his name on my lips was both intimate and desolate. I looked closer. His eyes were small and slanted like a cat’s, intensely dark, maybe black. The broad cheekbones and strong jaw might have been sculpted from stone, but any ruggedness was softened by the perfect, full-lipped mouth.

I was drunk with looking.

Or maybe it was sleep deprivation. My eyelids kept wanting to close. My sluggish brain teetered on the brink of oblivion, my body was suddenly too heavy to stay upright. The blackberry scratches covering my skin made me burn and ache and I longed to lie down.

A possum growled in the rafters then bumped away to its nest. The bullfrog in the grass outside resumed its lonely song. I switched off the bedside lamp. In the moonlight, the walls and ceiling glowed soft pearly-grey like the inside of a shell, like a dream into which I was already stumbling.

Somehow I was on the bed. Dust tickled my nostrils, making me sneeze. The room tilted, I was lying down. Settling my head on the pillow, I breathed a weary sigh, and let my eyelids droop shut . . .

Aylish, September 1941

B
reathlessly I ran along the shady track, through ferns and moist tangles of wonga vine, dodging the bluebells and wild orchids that sprouted from the shadows. Uphill I ran, plunging through ribbons of late sunlight that streamed through the overhanging canopy, my body light as a bird’s, my heart singing.

Samuel, Samuel –

Bursting into a grassy clearing, I paused to catch my breath. At the centre sat a ramshackle cottage. It had been built by the pioneer owners of the property eighty years ago, using timber from the surrounding forest and foundation stones dragged up from the gully. The rough-hewn walls bowed inward, and the ironbark shingles on the roof were blackened with age, but there was a happy, homey look about the little place that drew me nearer.

Wildflowers sprouted through the verandah railings – flannel flowers and purple-pea, wild jasmine and yellow-buttons. There were tall stalks of cherry-pink hippeastrum that waved in the breeze, and roses struck off a cutting from the arbour at Thornwood, reaching leafy tendrils toward the sun-warmed roof, their blood-red blooms scenting the air with perfume.

Dashing up the stairs, I pushed through the door and blinked into the cool dimness. Faint light filtered through the
tiny window, illuminating the rough walls, the small table and chairs, the tallboy decorated with a vase of rose sprigs. Jutting from the far wall was the narrow cot with its single pillow and modest grey blanket tucked around the edges.

Samuel sat on the cot’s rim. His shirt strained around his arms and chest, and his hands were clenched so tight on his knees that, in the gloom, his knuckles shone bone-white. He rose to his feet, his face betraying both pleasure and – by the knotting of his brows – a degree of anguish.