As I trod along the dim hallway, the floral carpet muffled the thud of my boots. I entered my father’s bedroom and stood a moment, breathing the dry air. The last time I’d been here, Dad and I had argued. I didn’t even remember what it was about, just that three days later he was gone, leaving me nursing a heart that was too bruised to admit I’d been wrong.
I went over and opened the wardrobe. Inside was a rack of neatly hung clothes – unworn for nearly half a year and with a thin haze of dust on the sleeves and collars – were long overdue at the Salvos. Each one of Dad’s shirts was a memory: the yellow one he’d worn that last Christmas; his favourite green check with the ragged cuffs; the pale blue stripe he kept for good. Once they were gone, would those memories be lost?
The front door clattered open. ‘Abby?’
‘In here.’ I swiped at my cheeks.
‘Jeez, sis! I can’t believe you’ve finally—’ He froze in the doorway.
I glanced over at him, and shoved my hands in my pockets. I attempted a bright smile, but my lips were quivering, my eyes bleary, and tear trails were stinging my cheeks.
Duncan’s sandy brows knotted and his mouth fell open. He took a step towards me.
‘I’m all right,’ I said, waving him away.
‘No, you’re not.’ He pulled me against him, soothing my hair and murmuring. A faint clean whiff of soap and something sweet – caramels and sugar – wafted from his T-shirt, and I flashed back to the little mother hen he’d once been, his skinny body wrapped in one of Mum’s old aprons as he fussed over the people he loved. ‘It’s okay, Abby. Wherever Dad is now, you can bet he’s happy. Hey, maybe they have polluted sediment in heaven? He’d be a pig in mud.’
I wiped my eyes. ‘More chance of pollution in hell, wouldn’t you think? Maybe the old coot went there?’ It wasn’t much of a joke, but at least we were smiling. ‘Anyway, Dunc. I wasn’t crying about Dad. I’ve cried about him so much over the years. Wishing things could have been different between us, you know? The silences shorter, the postcards more frequent. Our visits less awkward.’
‘Yeah, sis. Dad was a bit of a goose sometimes, but he did his best.’
‘I’d forgotten that the frowning man nursing a beer bottle in front of the television was the same guy who had, a long time ago when I was twelve, threatened the police with hell and high water.’
‘Dad pretty much threatened everyone with hell and high water.’
‘I really miss him, Dunc.’
‘Me too. It doesn’t seem to be getting easier like people say.’
I gazed about Dad’s room. ‘Maybe it won’t ever get easier. Sometimes I feel as if my life is just one big regret. How do you get past that?’
‘You know what I always say.’
‘Shag anything with a pulse?’
‘Besides that.’
‘Forget the past and enjoy the now.’
Duncan reached over and gently brushed his thumb under one of my eyes and then the other. ‘Come on, I’ll show you where Dad kept the rubbish bags.’
We grabbed a bunch of bags from under the kitchen sink and returned to Dad’s room. We began clearing the wardrobe, cramming Dad’s clothes and shoes and belts into the huge bags until six stood like lumpy sentinels by the door.
While Duncan dragged out some big dusty suitcases from under the bed, I went over to the dressing table. On it sat a pair of cufflinks, Dad’s wedding ring, his old-mannish glasses, and a large flat stone the size of my palm.
‘Hey, Dunc. Check this out.’
He stood beside me as I turned the stone over. Bev, Abby, Duncan and Col, was inscribed there. Best Day Ever, January 1993.
I placed the stone in Duncan’s hand. ‘Do you remember? We went for miles into the reserve along one of the remoter tracks. Had a picnic on the edge of an ancient beech forest – chicken sandwiches and leftover Christmas cake, a flask of frozen lemonade – it was heavenly. The wind sighing high above us in the casuarinas, the river murmuring below.’
Duncan laughed softly, trailed his fingers over the inscribed letters. ‘I do remember. How old was I, seven?’
‘Six. And you should remember, you were the star of the day. Racing around looking for trees to climb, the higher the better. You were quite a little nutter, and your antics had us all in stitches.’ A warm feeling engulfed me and I felt somehow lighter. ‘It was one of our best days, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah, it was.’
‘Maybe you’re right about remembering the good times and forgetting the bad.’
Duncan took my hand and placed the stone on my palm, then closed my fingers around it. ‘Keep it, sis. A little piece of that heavenly day, to remind you.’
I slipped the stone into my pocket.
• • •
A package was waiting for me when I got back to the cottage. It was a document-sized envelope addressed to me, and I recognised Tom’s handwriting immediately. I took it inside and propped it on the coffee table, then switched on all the lights and perched on the edge of my sofa, trying to fathom what it was. Tom’s novel about the Wigmore sisters, finished already? It seemed too thin to be a novel. A love letter then? Unlikely. It was probably hate mail. Or worse – and this had me sinking back into the cushions, cradling the sudden queasiness in my stomach – what if he’d decided to sue the paper, after all?
I sat there for an hour, brooding and sweating as dusk turned to night. My mouth was dry, but my limbs too rigid and tense to force into motion and get myself a drink of water. Finally, hands shaking like wind-rattled leaves, I tore the envelope in half in my haste to get it open, and drew out a wad of photocopied pages. The instant I glimpsed the lines of handwriting, my pulse started to skip. Was it Frankie’s diary? But it wasn’t Frankie’s writing. The scrawl covering the pages was so messy it was almost unreadable.
A note was stuck on the top page. I ripped it off and held it in my shaky fingers.
I got in my ute the other day, determined to drive into town and see you, plaster cast or not. I sat there for an hour, then gave up and returned inside. Whatever your reasons for staying away, I have to respect them. So I want you to know that I miss you, and if you need anything at all, I’m here.
Always, Tom.
PS: I’ve enclosed an article that might be of interest.
I set the note aside and looked at the document.
A slip of paper clipped to the top bore the logo of the New South Wales Government State Archives and Records, and a neatly printed note. Tom, colour copies of the documents, as requested. I took off the slip and scanned the first photocopied page, still not understanding why Tom would send it to me. ‘Gundara Police Station record of occurrences Feb–Nov 1953.’ Settling back into the cushions, I tilted the page to the light.
• • •
At 10 am I left the station and patrolled Main Street. Was approached by the publican of the Royal Hotel, who had concerns about a vagrant loitering outside his doors last night after closing time. I assured him the night patrolman would follow up that evening. I returned to the station at about 10.30 am. The rest of the day was quiet with no further incidents until about 5 pm. Harry Horton, a woodcutter aged 41 of Downey Street, entered the station with a distressed young girl who looked to be about fifteen. She was filthy, hands and knees cut and ingrained with dirt. Mr Horton seemed agitated and sweaty, casting nervous looks at the girl.
He stated as follows: ‘I was driving back from the reserve after cutting wood with my son Roy, who’s ten. My permit’s in order if you care to see it. Anyhow, halfway back to town I pass this young lass wandering along the reserve road. I pull over to ask if she needs help, but can’t get a word of sense from her. With all them bruises, here’s me thinking she’s hurt. So I coax her into the truck. Consider getting her to hospital but she seems well enough, aside from the bruises. Reckoned you lot had better see her first. She’s clearly a runaway.’
After signing the above statement, Harry Horton departed the station. I telephoned the hospital, who sent over a nurse, one Sadie Emerson, aged 29, to check the girl. At first the girl resisted being touched, and grew upset when Nurse Emerson tried to remove the satchel the girl wore across her chest. Finally, after a brief inspection, Nurse Emerson stated as follows: ‘Poor little thing has nasty grazes on her hands and knees. She has black bruising around her throat, which seems to have affected her ability to speak. She is otherwise in a healthy condition, although a little thin and obviously traumatised.’
After some time the nurse was able to elicit the girl’s name as Lilly Bird, aged fourteen. She stated that she lived with her mother and sister in Sydney.
Lilly Bird stated as follows: ‘Mum works in the hospital. She’ll be worried about me. I want to go home.’ When questioned as to how she came to be in Gundara, she did not reply. When asked what she was doing out at the reserve road and what had caused the bruising on her throat, she would not say. Nurse Emerson offered to put her up for the night. Before I shut the station, I made arrangements for the child to be transferred to Central Sydney police first thing in the morning.
Wednesday, 3rd June 1953
When I arrived on duty at 8 am, Nurse Emerson was waiting outside the station in an agitated state. She reported that the young runaway, Lilly Bird, had fled in the night, taking a small amount of cash. Enquiries at the railway confirmed that a young girl of Lilly Bird’s description had bought a one-way ticket to Central Railway Station in Sydney.
• • •
For a long time I sat there, wilting into my sofa cushions, staring at the bundle of photocopied pages in my hands. Had Lilly given the wrong name intentionally, perhaps hoping to give Frankie and Ennis time to get further away? Or was there another reason she didn’t want anyone to know her real name?
Lil hadn’t mentioned the black bruises on her throat. She had fought with Frankie, but otherwise her departure from Ravensong had been uneventful. At least, that was what she’d claimed. Had the row with her sister been more physical than she’d let on? Had Frankie tried to hurt her, strangle her even? Or were Lilly’s injuries – the scratches, the black bruising on her neck – merely the result of clambering through unfamiliar bushland? And why had she been clambering through bushland in the first place? Lil had been adamant: Frankie and Ennis dropped her off in Gundara. So how had she ended up at the reserve?
Going back through the pages, I found the line about Harry Horton seeming agitated and sweaty, casting nervous looks at the girl. Nervous? Had the duty officer misinterpreted the body language? Harry might have been distressed over Lilly’s condition. But then wouldn’t he have lingered, made sure she was all right, instead of leaving the station in haste?
I tucked the document back into the torn envelope and flopped back on the sofa. Someone was lying. Lil, or old Harry Horton.
Perhaps they both had something to hide.