Thornwood House (22 page)

A shiver in the darkness. An unspoken whisper.

Not Samuel. For her sake, don’t let it have been him.

But if not Samuel, then who?

Sixty years had passed since Aylish’s death. If the police had failed to trace her killer back then when the clues were still fresh, what chance did I have of discovering anything now? Aylish was gone, and whoever had cut short her young life was gone, too. There was no point searching, because I already knew what I’d find: Nothing.

And yet how could I abandon her?

There were moments – when I sat in the derelict old arbour, or lay on Samuel’s bed, or caught the ghostly scent of roses drifting in the warm air – when I felt so close to Aylish that I had trouble discerning where she finished and I began. It didn’t make sense, this obsessive fixation, but somehow the fragments I was learning about her had burrowed under my skin. Each
new slice of her story scared me, disturbed me . . . and excited me beyond explanation. Sometimes I liked to imagine that her heart pulsed within me, flooding me with feelings I’d never thought possible. Not for me, anyway. Aylish had opened a window into what it might be like to deeply love, and to believe that love wholly and unconditionally returned.

Only now I had to ask, had it all been a lie?

I shut my eyes, then wished I hadn’t. A new image of Aylish came to me: She was lying on the edge of a bush track, the ground around her striped with shadows, its leaf-littered surface splashed with blood.

Despite her injuries she hadn’t died immediately. She had tried to crawl away from the scene of her attack, taking shelter in the darkness. She’d drifted through the endless night, teetering on the brink from which there was no return, hovering through the clammy dawn, tasting the dew, feeling the crawl of insect-legs on her cooling skin, watching the bush around her come to life as she prepared herself to greet death. And she had waited. Patiently, because time was no longer a burden to her. Waited for someone to come along and find her.

Waited for Samuel.

Aylish, March 1946

T
he scent of fresh-baked bread lured me to the bakery window. There were scones today, and even a small hard-crusted raisin cake, and I stood a moment mentally counting the coins in my purse.

The main street of Magpie Creek was busy for a Wednesday. Young mothers hoisted along their grocery bags, or dragged toddlers by the arm. Older women collected at the kerbside to chat. Most managed to look smart despite the lingering shortages, and I knew first-hand the effort this took. Like me, they taxed their precious rations to boil up their own sugar-and-water setting lotion, and rouged their cheeks with beetroot juice. The clever ones cut up old curtains to refashion using dress patterns from the
Women’s Weekly
, while the rest of us were still patching and mending and darning the clothes we’d purchased before the war.

In contrast, the men seemed shabbier, somehow depleted; their trousers shiny with wear, their shirts grey from too many washdays, their shoes thin-heeled and scuffed. The happy glow of victory still burned bright in most hearts, but the papers and newsreels were full of bad news. Prisoners of war, concentration camps in Europe, war criminal trials, and the devastation
caused by two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Grief and fear and the pain of separation had changed all of us; not a single soul was left untouched.

There were a lot of servicemen about, some on crutches or bandaged, others thin and hollow-eyed, looking at everything, curious and engrossed as though seeing their hometown for the first time. I’d stopped searching their faces. Stopped hoping. Become accustomed to keeping my thoughts trained on simple, undemanding things.

Like bread and cake.

Which, despite their tempting aromas, lost the battle against my frugality. I wandered a little way further down the street, but stopped again in front of the pharmacist’s display. What was wrong with me? Normally I’d grab supplies and rush home to be with Lulu and Poppa . . . but for some reason I was lingering today, as if I had nothing better to do with my life than shop.

A jumble of jars and bottles filled with coloured powders were appealingly displayed in the pharmacist’s window. Blocks of finely milled soap, a set of brass weighing scales, a copper mortar and pestle. I thought of the soap I’d been making through the war, a rough old brew of goat fat and water filtered through wood ash, scented with wild jasmine picked from the gully, then cured for a couple of months on a drying rack in the laundry. It did the job, but left my hands red raw. I examined the pretty paper-wrapped blocks in the display, calculating whether I could stretch my budget to such an extravagance –

‘Hello, Aylish.’

I tensed. That voice. Whirling around, I faced the man who’d spoken . . . then slumped. Not him, not the one I’d been half-hoping, by some impossible miracle, to find before me. A stranger, this gaunt man with hollow eyes and an untidy growth of stubble. His uniform was shabby, his lanky body wasted. Sharp bones jutted from beneath his yellowish skin as if trying to push through.

‘Aylish, it’s me.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t – ’ The words I’d been about to say died on my tongue. His voice. I knew his voice. Then, as I searched the haggard visage, the features shed their mask of unfamiliarity and reassembled into a face I’d once known almost as well as my own. My heart stopped beating; the air became unbreathable.

‘Samuel . . . ?’

He watched me, not bothering to nod or acknowledge my recognition. Just watched, as though fascinated by the array of emotions that must be swarming across my face. Disbelief. Uncertainty. And then . . . hope.

I allowed myself the rare luxury of a smile. When he smiled in return – a ghost of the bewitching half-smile that had once captured my heart – the gauntness and scars and jutting bones receded, and I saw my beloved Samuel clearly for the first time.

‘It
is
you.’

He nodded.

Unable to contain my joy, I rushed at him intending to throw my arms around his neck and, not caring who saw, give him the loving welcome home I’d been dreaming about for so long.

Samuel flinched, stepped away.

‘You’re well then, are you?’ he asked stiffly.

I froze mid-flight. The chatter and wash of voices from the street eddied around us. A motorcar rumbled past, churning up a slipstream of dust.

‘Yes,’ I managed through my shock, ‘well enough.’

All of a sudden my neck itched, my skirt needed adjusting, I became aware of the pebble I’d collected in my shoe. The urge took me to look anywhere but at him, to hide my stricken embarrassment. And yet I couldn’t tear away my gaze.

Samuel observed me with hollow eyes. ‘How’s Jacob?’ he said flatly. ‘Still up to his old tricks?’

‘He’s been ill,’ I said with equal flatness, ‘but he’s on the mend now.’

This was ridiculous. Better Samuel was dead, than this. Better I was dead, than endure this chilly reception. Better to have lost him, after all. At least then my memories of him would have been sweet. I recalled that long-ago night at the hut when he’d loved me so ardently, and been so determined to protect me. Our soft words, our passion; the moonlit bed, and the warm rose-scented darkness. Wasn’t it better to remember the man I’d once loved and believed lost, than to face this cold-eyed stranger?

‘You never came to see me,’ he said gruffly.

I blinked, not understanding.

‘At Greenslopes,’ he clarified. ‘I wrote and told you I was in the hospital, but you never replied to any of my letters. I even telephoned the post office in February, but you didn’t respond. I thought . . .’ He pinched his lips together, as though unwilling to say more.

‘What are you talking about, Samuel? What letters?’

He swayed on his feet. ‘You promised, Aylish. You promised to write, but you never did. How could you ignore me like that, after . . . after . . . ’ He cleared his throat. ‘We talked about marriage, about a future together. Then you ignored all my letters, never wrote back. It was as if all we had together suddenly meant nothing to you. As if
I
meant nothing.’

Passers-by were staring now, openly curious. An annoying tear wobbled on the edge of my eye, and as I paused to dash it away, the meaning of Samuel’s words finally took root in my scrambled brain.

‘You wrote?’

He nodded, leaning nearer. ‘Whenever I could, sometimes every day. Sometimes not for weeks. Then in forty-two when Singapore fell – ’ He rubbed his mouth and glanced along the street. ‘There were no more letters after that. I guess you heard about the Jap camps? Frustrating, it was, to be stuck there while the rest of Australia was off winning the war. Made a man feel worse than bloody useless.’

‘I never got any of your letters.’

He looked back at me with those flat, empty eyes and went on as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘I was repatriated in December. I wrote from Greenslopes to let you know I’d returned.’ He lifted the walking stick I’d failed to notice. ‘I would have come to see you earlier, but I was a bit laid up. I thought if I sent a letter, you might come to visit.’

‘Samuel.’

He blinked. ‘What?’

‘I didn’t get any of your letters. Not one. Nothing came from Malaya, and there were no Red Cross postcards from the camp. And nothing from the hospital.’ A horrible thought pressed into my mind. ‘I sent you a ton of letters. Did you get any of them?’

He shook his head.

‘Any parcels, or cards?’

‘No.’

‘Then where . . . ?’ My question died on my lips.

At the end of the war the Red Cross had discovered thousands of letters and parcels rotting away in storerooms in some of the Japanese camps – letters that might have offered comfort and hope to countless prisoners. The contents of any parcels had been ransacked, the food eaten by guards, the cigarettes smoked, the photos and notes of encouragement from loved ones discarded, with not so much as a postcard delivered to its intended recipient.

Did that explain why Samuel hadn’t heard from me? Possibly. But what of the letters I’d written before he was taken prisoner? The endless missives about life at home and how I yearned for him? The photos of Lulu, the cakes, the dreadful hand-knitted socks, the little blocks of soap? And why had the letters he’d written – sometimes every day, he’d said – never reached me?

‘You told me you telephoned the post office. Who did you talk to?’

‘Klaus Jarman’s young fella, Cleve. He said he’d ride over to Stump Hill Road and give you my message the minute he finished his shift.’ Samuel gave me a searching look. ‘You didn’t get the message?’

‘He must have forgotten. Samuel, if I’d known you were in the hospital, wild horses wouldn’t have kept me away.’

Samuel swallowed. The ice in his eyes showed signs of melting. His voice, when he spoke, had lost its edge of anger. ‘Just now, a moment ago. You didn’t recognise me, did you?’

‘No.’

‘Am I so very different?’

A moment passed before I could speak. ‘It’s true,’ I said at last, ‘you have changed. These past few years have taken their toll on everyone. But Samuel, it’s time to put the war behind us and get on with life.’ I dared to reach out and grasp his hand, to give his fingers a quick squeeze, shocked to feel how icy they were. I drew back. ‘I have a little girl now. Her name is Luella . . . Lulu, I call her. I’ve told her all about you.’

‘About me?’

‘Of course, Samuel. Every time I look into her sweet face, I see you. She has your eyes and smile, and she’s very smart. Cheeky too, just the way you – ’
Were
, I almost said, as if he was past tense. But that was how I’d come to think of him: The man I’d lost in the war. The man who came to life in my dreams, but who only inhabited the grey shadowland of the past.

Samuel apparently didn’t notice my blunder. A slow smile transformed his gaunt face. The remoteness in his eyes dropped away and something else dawned there: a flicker of almost startled pleasure. He cleared his throat.

‘Luella . . . Lulu, I’ve always loved that name. May I, if it’s all right with you . . . oh, hell, Aylish. I’d love to meet her. Do you think I could perhaps visit – would this afternoon be too soon?’

Hope, at last. A glimpse of my old Samuel, the one who’d held me all night at the settlers’ hut and chased away my ghosts.
The sweet man I’d wept over and prayed for every moment since he’d climbed into that old red rattler four and a half years ago and been transported out of my life. A smile began to bloom in me, starting at my feet, a fireball of love that coursed upwards, setting my whole body ablaze.

‘Of course you must visit – ’

Right then a truck clattered past, its exhaust pipe firing off a loud explosive pop. Samuel lurched away from the sound, grabbing my arm and pulling me into the pharmacy doorway, looking around to find the source of the sudden noise. The truck rattled off, and Samuel turned back to me. His already grey face had turned paper-white and broken into a sheen of sweat.

‘Samuel . . . ?’

‘I’m all right,’ he said quickly, letting go my arm, brushing at his chest with trembling fingers, nodding as though to reassure me. ‘Just a bit . . .’ He wiped his mouth. ‘A bit jumpy.’ He stared along the street. More and more people were sending us curious looks, some turning their heads as they passed, nodding in acknowledgement of Samuel’s uniform. Once or twice a male hand shot out to pat him on the back, several voices called to him.

‘Welcome home, mate.’

‘Good on you, son.’

‘Your father would’ve been proud, Samuel – ’

I braved reaching again for his fingers. This time I grasped them and didn’t let go.

‘Of course you must visit us,’ I resumed. ‘I’ll be taking Poppa to the doctor in Ipswich this afternoon, but tomorrow’s his birthday, we’ve planned a little shindig, nothing flash, just the three of us. Would you like to come? Please say yes, Poppa would be so thrilled to see you, and Lulu . . . well, she’ll be over the moon.’

Samuel’s large fingers curled around mine. A tiny, almost insignificant show of warmth, but it caused my heart to drop
open like the petals of a great soft flower. Everything was going to be all right. Samuel was alive, he was home. And he loved me still, I knew he did, it was there in that gentle squeeze of his fingers, and there in his dark eyes as they searched my face with evident longing. I didn’t mean to race ahead, but the honey-sweet words were already forming on the back of my tongue. We’ll be a family, I yearned to say. At last, we’ll be a proper family. You and me and Lulu together, just as I dreamed. We’ll be married and put this whole sorry wartime episode behind us –