Lil was late. Only ten minutes, but she hated letting the women down.
The Kurrajong Players was an all-female drama group. Most of its members were former residents of the Northern Tablelands Women’s Refuge. From humble beginnings, the Kurrajong Players now put on a yearly production – always musicals, dear to Lil’s heart – mostly sponsored by local businesses. Two years ago their version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe won rave reviews, as had last year’s Pirates of Penzance. Best of all, their efforts garnered a tidy profit.
Lil made her apologies and got down to business.
Gundara Hospital was in urgent need of modernisation, and the women were keen to make a decent contribution. The building really needed a full-scale renovation – way beyond the scope of an amateur drama group – but Lil could dream.
Twenty years ago, she had retired as the women’s refuge coordinator. She hadn’t realised until then how much her work had meant to her. Seeing the women arrive in tears, broken and despairing, often with little ones clinging to them. And then watching so many of them recover their lives and even blossom. It had given Lil’s life purpose.
At her retirement party, many of the women had returned to shower her with thanks. So much warmth and love, she had been too overcome by emotion to say what she really felt. That helping ‘her girls’, as she’d called them, was the least she could have done. That she was the one who owed thanks to them for saving her.
After retiring, she had returned to the refuge as a volunteer. She’d grown close to the new coordinator, Diane. Close enough to consider her a friend, which for Lil was a first. She had shied away from friendship over the years. Joe was all she needed. But there was something about Diane Abernathy that brought Lil out of her shell. Diane was a large woman with a frizz of carroty hair and a friendly nature. When she boomed out a laugh at the most inopportune times, it proved infectious. Lil often found herself swallowing giggles at board meetings or wiping her eyes in church, all thanks to Diane. Lil credited that laugh with startling many of the women out of the doldrums, helping them to find joy in the ridiculous, in the mundane. In things that might otherwise depress them.
‘Lil?’
She blinked. There were ten other women in the room, and all eyes were on her. Diane, who had spoken, wore a quizzical expression. ‘Off with the fairies again, Lil?’
Lil ignored the remark and took out her clipboard. ‘As I was saying, I think it should be another musical. Only this year, something more challenging. If we’re serious about raising the money we need for the hospital, then I don’t think Gilbert and Sullivan is going to cut it.’
‘But the turn-up last year was brilliant,’ Diane said. ‘Who doesn’t love a good Gilbert ’n’ Sullivan?’
Lil looked around the room. There were a couple of frowns, one or two hesitant smiles. All eyes were wide. A small woman at the back of the room, her narrow face bruised purple after a recent run-in with her boyfriend’s fist, looked worried.
Lil took a breath. There were some talented vocalists in the group who had proved their skills at last year’s performance. But she was being too ambitious. Pushing them too hard. Proving skills was one thing, wowing an audience enough to create a publicity buzz was entirely another.
‘I know this’ll seem daunting to most of you, but I think we should raise the bar. Test ourselves.’ She nodded at another volunteer. ‘Claire, how would you feel about doing the lead again?’
The young Aboriginal woman had arrived at the shelter four years ago, so downtrodden and self-conscious that she’d barely been able to utter a word. It had taken a great deal of time and love to draw her out of that protective shell. She’d vanished for a while, and Diane had worried about her. But Claire had turned up again, a changed woman. She’d found a job she loved in a tiny rural school that catered for Aboriginal children, and was on a quest to help others the way the shelter had helped her. Then she’d surprised everyone by offering to sing the lead at last year’s performance. To their delight, she had the voice of an angel.
Claire flushed. ‘I’d feel better if you sang it, Lil.’
Lil shook her head, ignoring the skipped heartbeat. ‘I don’t sing, love. But the lead role would be perfect for you.’
The younger woman smiled shyly. ‘What’ve you got in mind?’
‘Yes, Lil.’ Diane sounded impatient despite her smile. ‘We’re all chafing at the bit to know what you’re planning. Come on, spill the beans.’
Lil took a breath. ‘Anyone familiar with Les Miserables?’
Silence. Then Diane let out a whistle. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘It would draw the crowds.’
Claire raised a hand, then let it drop back on her knee. ‘I know it, Lil. Um . . . There’s a lot of blokes in it, isn’t there?’
‘Not to mention a cast of thousands,’ Diane said.
Lil had anticipated this. ‘You’re right, Claire. A lot of blokes. A lot of parts to sing, full stop. Whole choirs, in fact. But the solo songs are beautiful. They tell the story well enough without the choral groups. If we trim the story back to its bones, we might just pull it off.’
A tall red-haired woman, Fiona, raised her hand. ‘Bones?’
Lil smiled. No one had given her an outright no. At least not yet. She sat taller in her chair. ‘It’s the story of a man who gets a second chance. But when times get tough, he blows it. He’s a crook, you see. Then one day he meets this old fella who shows him there’s another way. So the crook chooses a different path. A better path. And in the end finds he’s created a life of meaning.’ Lil looked around at the women’s faces. ‘Sound familiar?’
A murmur went around the room.
Claire half-raised her hand again, this time letting it hover. ‘What about the blokes? Last year we had Dave and them from the men’s shed. Will they help us out again?’
Lil took a breath. Something warm was moving up from her depths. Hope. Expectation. She found herself smiling widely, a little giddy, the thrill of the chase, the challenge, bringing life back into her veins.
‘Well.’ Here goes nothing. ‘I was thinking we might tackle the whole thing ourselves.’
Claire looked puzzled, but a bit hopeful too. ‘You mean just women?’
Lil nodded. ‘Just women.’
Diane’s booming laugh made them all jump. ‘What do I always say to you girls about blokes?’
‘Who bloody needs ’em?’ Fiona said.
Suddenly everyone was laughing and chattering excitedly. Lil and Diane exchanged a look.
When the ruckus died down, the new woman, the quiet one at the back with the bruised face – Jenny, Lil remembered – raised her hand. ‘What if you can’t sing?’
Diane gestured at Lil. ‘Love, this woman here could coax a song from a toad. As Lil always says, it’s not about being born with talent, but how you use what you’ve got. Confidence is everything. Right, Lil?’
Jenny shifted in her seat. ‘But I mean, what if you . . . um, what if you don’t—’
Lil stepped in. ‘We never ask you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. Anyone who’s not okay with being on stage can help me. There’s always lots to do. Sewing costumes, designing sets, helping others learn their lines. If you’re good on computers you can help design brochures, or email local businesses about donating funds or materials.’
‘Whew!’ Diane wiped imaginary sweat from her brow. ‘Thanks, Lil, you’ve got my head spinning. I’d almost forgotten about those endless to-do lists. Almost. I don’t know about anyone else, but I could use a cuppa. And a big wedge of caramel slice.’
A thunderclap outside made everyone sit up. Lil stood and went to the window. In the hour she’d been here, the afternoon sky had grown overcast. An enormous cloudbank was drifting from the southeast, its underbelly smudged with the telltale haze of rain.
‘I’ll forego the tea this time,’ she told Diane. ‘Better hit the road before that storm sets in.’
• • •
Lil hurried across the carpark, still smiling. Considering the bombshell she’d dropped on the women, they’d taken it in their stride. Les Mis. How about that? All-female cast, the story cut back to its bones. Best of all, sung by women who had lived the kind of life portrayed in the story. Victor Hugo would be proud.
She unlocked the Forester and was about to get in when someone called out to her. She turned, expecting to see Claire or Diane racing after her with something she’d forgotten – her reading glasses or a book or the plate from last week’s morning tea.
But the young woman was no one she knew. A tall girl in her early thirties, with thick brown hair and creamy skin. She wore a jean jacket over a pretty floral dress and black lace-up boots.
‘Mrs Corbin?’
‘Yes?’
‘My name’s Abby Bardot, I’m sorry to approach you out of the blue like this. I’m trying to track down Joe Corbin, and my brother told me that a Mrs Corbin volunteered at the guide hall on Saturdays.’
‘Joe’s my husband.’
‘Do you think he’d be up for a chat?’
‘About what?’
‘I’m doing an interview with the man who bought Ravensong from your husband a few months ago. His name’s Tom Gabriel, he’s an author. You might remember him?’
Lil frowned. ‘If there’s a problem with the property, then I’m afraid we can’t help you.’
‘There’s no problem.’ Abby stepped closer. ‘Quite the opposite. The house is amazing, and I’m keen to know more about its history. I was hoping Mr Corbin might be able to help me?’
Lil gathered her wits and tried to smile. ‘Joe never went to the house, dear. It was an investment. I’m afraid he won’t be able to tell you anything of its history.’
Abby looked thoughtful. ‘Did you ever go there?’
Lil held very still. ‘No. Never.’
Abby took a creased page from her pocket. ‘I found this in an upstairs room. It’s been torn out of a diary. I did a bit of digging and think it may have been written by Frankie Wigmore, a girl who went missing in the 1940s. I’ve pulled the house apart looking for the rest of the diary, but . . .’
Lil barely heard another word. She stared at the rumpled page, the smile withering on her lips. Her heart must have stopped beating because her brain felt starved of oxygen, her lungs as useless as dishrags.
‘Where?’ she managed to whisper. ‘Where was it?’
Abby frowned, tucking the page back in her pocket. ‘Inside an old book.’
The image of a colourful children’s book popped into Lil’s mind. The Chinese emperor in bright silks, and the drab little bird he had trapped inside a golden cage. She had the vague flash of an argument, of Frankie snatching the diary from her fingers, and of trying to hide the page she’d torn out to spite her sister—
‘Mrs Corbin?’ Abby moved closer and touched Lil’s arm. ‘Are you all right?’
Lil shut her eyes. The torn diary page floated behind her lids, taunting her. Endless times she had run her finger along that ragged edge inside the diary, wondering. Wondering what was written there, what thoughts Frankie had jotted down. What awful truths she had given away.
All she had to do was ask. The girl had a kind face, gentle eyes. She would let Lil read it. But the words jammed in Lil’s throat. Her legs shook, she needed to sit down.
‘Help me into the car, would you?’
Once she was seated, she took a sip of water from the bottle she kept beside the driver’s seat, and cleared her throat. ‘Come and see me tomorrow, say eleven. Bring the . . .’ She gestured at Abby’s empty hands. ‘We can talk more then. My husband’s going fishing, so it’ll just be us.’
She tore a corner of paper from her clipboard notes, and scrawled her address. Abby beamed with pleasure and thanked her. Lil nodded, then hoisted her legs into the footwell, slammed the car door and shut her eyes.
For a long while after Abby left, Lil sat without moving. Then she fumbled in her bag for a Xanax and washed it down with a gulp of water. As it kicked in, her crashing pulse returned to normal. When she felt strong enough, she started the ignition and drove out of town.
If only she’d been faster. Snatched the page from Abby’s fingers, ripped it into a thousand tiny shreds. She’d do anything to get her hands on that page. Anything. Which meant she would have to tell Abby a little of her history at Ravensong. Not all of it, mind. Just enough to quench the girl’s curiosity so she’d hand over that page.
Wednesday, 26th April 1950
I haven’t written here for weeks, we’ve been in a whirlwind rehearsing for our Anzac Day concert. Working out the songs, adjusting some of our old clothes to make funny hats and collars, even cutting paper flowers from one of Lilly’s press-out books.
And finally, yesterday, we were ready.
We transformed one end of the bright room into a stage, dragging aside the table and arranging the chairs at the other end for our audience of one. We had bedsheets for a curtain and Ennis brought up an old birdcage and two gilded chairs for props. When dusk fell we lit an assortment of candles and lamps, and began.
Lilly sang like an angel.
Meanwhile I danced and acted out the story. We had turned Hans Christian Andersen’s The Nightingale into a musical fable of sorts, rewording our favourite songs and carols so they told the story of the emperor and his two nightingales. To honour the brave Anzac diggers – our dad and Ennis among them – we turned the emperor into a war hero, and Ennis wore his uniform and bowed and even joined in some of the songs.
As our play unfolded, I watched him from the corner of my eye. Our plan to win his trust was working. He seemed entranced, and during a mournful song his eyes became wet. Afterwards, he clapped and roared for an encore, while we curtsied and blushed, beaming in triumph.
When the concert was over, he brought up an old bottle of sherry still dusty from the cellar. He peeled away the wax seal and popped out the cork, glugging the ruby-red liquid into three fancy gold glasses. He swallowed his in one gulp and then poured another, while Lilly and I sipped ours slowly. We’d never had liquor before. That was always Mum’s domain. It was sticky sweet in our parched throats. After all the play-acting our faces had flushed like beetroots and we were breathless. We would have preferred water to the sickly liquor, but we got swept away in the moment and it all seemed very grand and grown-up.
After only half a glass, Lilly began to giggle and twirl about, re-enacting bits of our play and shrieking her songs. By the time I bundled her into bed, she was shivering. I closed the shutter to block the icy breeze, then went back to the bright room.
‘It’s cold,’ I complained to Ennis. ‘The air’s got bitter all of a sudden.’
He brought up firewood and stacked it beside the Warmray. He scrunched up sheets of newsprint and built a pyramid of sticks and split logs inside the firebox. He was about to strike a match, but then looked at me.
‘Here,’ he said, handing me the matchbox. ‘You do the honours.’
I sank to my knees beside him, struck a light and touched it to the paper, which crackled and burst into flame. As I handed back the matchbox, Ennis took my hand. He squeezed my fingers gently around the wooden box, and gazed into my eyes.
‘You were lovely tonight, Frankie.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Lilly has a wonderful voice, hasn’t she?’
I smiled. Thinking, Yes, she does and what a shame, don’t you think, to keep her trapped here like a bird in a cage? But of course I didn’t say it aloud. Remembering our plan, I looked up into his eyes with as much sweetness as I could muster. ‘We did it for you, Ennis.’
His face lit up. The sheen in his eyes made me sit back, and an unexpected warmth settled through my bones. Silly boy. Was he really blind to our tricks? I almost pitied him.
Later, curled beside Lilly in our bed, my head swam from the sherry. Around and around, my thoughts whirled. I kept thinking of his face. His handsome, brooding, whiskery face. The way his eyes shone with pride when we sang. And his wistful words. You were lovely tonight, Frankie. And then the warm, melting feeling that had touched my bones.
We had gone to great trouble to win his trust, and tonight we’d succeeded. But I couldn’t help feeling a tiny bit bad. He kept us locked up here, true, but he spent so much time with us, almost as if he was trapped too.
And he never complained that we were an inconvenience, the way Mum sometimes did. Rather he rushed back to us at every opportunity. He read to us, gave us lessons. Telling about his war adventures, or quizzing us about our lives before we met him. Eating his meals with us like a family, and bringing little gifts from town when money allowed. Back at Stanley Street our mother had been too busy, too caught up in her grief over our father to pay us much mind. We ate alone while she bustled off to the club. We put ourselves to bed long before she staggered home with whichever of her boyfriends she lured back to fill our father’s side of the bed. We had been ghosts at Stanley Street. Sad, abandoned little ghosts. But at Ravensong we’re the stars in the midnight sky that everything else revolves around.
That he revolves around.
Sometimes I daydream of not going home at all. Of living downstairs, the three of us like a normal family. Bathing in the washhouse instead of in the tin tub Ennis carries up. Eating our meals in the big dining room, sleeping in beds of our own.
But I don’t tell Lilly such things. She’s so bent on getting out of here, returning to Stanley Street at all costs. The idea of going back to Mum obsesses her, keeps her going. And I don’t have the heart to argue.
Without that purpose to anchor her, I fear she might slip away somehow. Like a feather adrift on a swirling gust. Go a little nutty, the way she did tonight after the sherry. She’s always been that way – needful and intense. Without me by her side, I fear she’d burrow too far into herself and get lost.
Lil pulled into her driveway, parked the car, and decided to use the front door tonight as the back path was boggy. She’d almost reached the house – hunched under her umbrella as the rain hammered around her – before she realised something was wrong.
Where were the lights?
It was just on dusk, but the storm had turned the sky to night. She had lingered too long on the roadside, remembering. Meanwhile the afternoon had slipped away. Now the weather was black, and Joe had forgotten to put on the lights for her.
She climbed the stairs, her knees complaining as they sometimes did in the damp. Then she saw the door.
It was wide open. Rain was gusting across the verandah, splashing through the screen door into the sunroom, puddling on the floorboards. Going inside, she shut the door behind her, half-expecting to find Joe plonked in front of the telly, absorbed in cricket reruns. But all the lights were off. She went to the closest switch, flicked it repeatedly, but nothing happened.
Going across to the phone, she lifted the receiver. No dial tone; it was dead too. Being Saturday, it could be hours or overnight before they got reconnected. Blackouts were common out here, especially in a storm, so they kept a torch in every room. She collected one from the cupboard and went along the hallway.
‘Joe, I’m home. Where are you?’
She checked the bedrooms, then the sewing room – thankfully it was just as she’d left it – and then rushed out to the kitchen. She flicked the switch here just in case, but wasn’t surprised when the light failed to come on. She shone the torch around.
The pantry door gaped open. A chair had overturned. On the floor next to the chair, a lump of shadow.
Oh, please . . . not my Joe.
He lay on his back, one arm outstretched. Lil went to her knees and bent over him, pressing her palm against his face.
‘Joe! What’s happened?’
He moaned, gazing around. Blood trickled from a gash on his eyebrow. One eye was swollen and he seemed unable to focus. The tightness in Lil’s chest loosened. Alive. He was alive. He needed a doctor, but he was alive. Words jumbled in her mind. Dangerous words that turned her blood to water. A bad fall. Concussion. Heart attack, stroke.
‘Joe, can you hear me?’
Blinking hard, he shoved her hands away. ‘I’m all right.’
‘Listen to me, I’ll drive back to the turnoff. There’s mobile reception there, I can ring an ambulance.’
He grasped her hand. ‘Help me up, would you?’
‘What? No! After a blow to the head, you shouldn’t move.’
‘I’m starting to feel better.’
‘Oh, love. Can you sit up?’
‘I think so.’
Lil drew up his swollen eyelid, shone the torch into his eye. He protested, tried to pull away, but she held him firm. The pupil dilated normally. Her fingers went to his throat. The pulse was strong. Digging her hands under his arms, she gripped his shirt and hauled him forward, helping him to sit up. He managed to shuffle back until he was resting against the cupboard.
He rubbed his head. ‘I’m all right, Lil. Sorry to scare you.’
‘What happened?’
His fingers went to his chest. ‘Must have seen a shadow and got startled. Crazy old coot, eh?’
‘Oh, Joe.’ Could she love him any more than she did now? When the time came, as they both knew that one day it must, could she bear to let him go? Taking off her cardigan, she draped it gently around his shoulders. She would need an ice pack for his eye, a cold face washer to revive him. And a cup of hot tea with sugar. She’d have to fire up the wood stove to make the tea. It could take an hour. Better to get him tucked up cosy in bed first.
Lil took off her glasses, rubbed the bridge of her nose.
Joe wasn’t the sort of man to be shaky on his legs. Then again, he wasn’t the sort to overlook Band-Aids in the first-aid box and clang about in her sewing room. And he wasn’t prone to seeing things.
Getting to her feet, she took the torch and crept along the hallway. She stood there for an age. Listening. Joe was eighty-nine in July, twelve years her senior. Time had dimmed his eyes, stolen the strength from his body, and replaced his once-strong limbs with frail bones and arthritic joints. Meanwhile Lil was as strong and able-bodied as she’d always been, thanks to her passion for gardening. She would protect Joe with her life, if need be. Swing her torch and go down fighting. There were things worse than death, in her view, and being alive without Joe was one of them.
‘Hello?’ Her voice echoed in the stillness. Rain pounded the roof and rafters creaked as they expanded in the damp. If there’d been an intruder, they’d taken whatever it was they’d come for and fled.
She went back to Joe.
He had picked himself up and was standing by the pantry, puffing on the little spray bottle the doctor had given him. She put her arms around him and held him for a moment. ‘Think you can walk?’
He nodded.
She helped him along the hall. Joe held the torch now, and they moved slowly, following the beam of light to the bedroom. Lil undressed him and then helped him into bed. She stripped off her damp clothes and put on a clean nightie, then climbed in after him. They lay in the dark, whispering until Joe drifted to sleep.
Lil was wide awake, listening to him breathe. After a while, she pressed her face into his bony shoulder and began to weep against it.