Bitterwood, May 1993
With trembling fingers, he opened the wardrobe and lifted out a silk dress. It almost slithered from his grasp, its shiny folds taunting, as if to say, See? See how lovely I still am, while you, old man, have all but crumbled to dust.
The silk looked black in the moonlight, but he knew that if he flicked on the bedside lamp the colour of the fabric would leap and shimmer like a splash of blood.
Scarlet, she’d called it, with a prim emphasis on the ‘t’.
He raised the dress to his lips. Even now, her scent lingered in the fold. Cherries and sugar syrup. Mulberry leaves, and a warm musk that was somehow all her own. He breathed deeply, letting the aromas of the past settle around him, comforting and – even after all this time – agreeably familiar.
At last, his heartbeat slowed. His breathing became less erratic. A figure materialised from the dark. She stood before him, her long copper-bright hair cascading over her shoulders, gleaming against the deep red of her silk dress. Her eyes were so clear and blue he wished he could drown in them.
How he loved her.
He could still picture her the way she’d been that late summer night in the orchard, before his departure. The night the rift had finally swallowed them. She had glared at him in the lantern light, shifting her body impatiently, making the dress flare around her shapely hips.
God help him, that red silk dress.
Clarice had reared the silkworms that spun the fibre to make that dress. She had fed the worms three times a day, bundled them into the nesting frames so they could spin their cocoons. Later, she had collected basketsful of wooden spools, wound around with thousands of yards of silk thread. Edwin had driven those baskets of thread to the mill in Geelong. There, skilled labourers had hooked the thread into their machines and woven it into bolts of fabric so fine and silky a man could die of joy just to run it through his fingers. Then the dyeing, where the bolts were plunged into bubbling cauldrons of mauve, forest green, pale pink.
And her favourite, the deep bright scarlet.
To everyone’s surprise, she had proved herself an exceptional seamstress. Bent over his mother’s old Singer sewing machine, her legs pumping the treadle, her long fingers manoeuvring the fabric this way and that until, with a final flourish, she would hold aloft an exquisitely tailored skirt or blouse.
He saw it now so clearly. The way it had shimmered in the lantern light beneath the orchard trees, teasing him, rendering him helpless. Reminding him of what he had lost.
Clarice had spoken fiercely. ‘He abandoned them, his wife and his little girl. What right has he to claim her now? No claim, I tell you.’
‘She’s his child,’ Edwin had countered.
‘Why can’t she stay? We’ve always wanted another daughter. Just tell her you were unable to find him. Please, Edwin.’
‘I can’t do it,’ he’d told her. ‘I can’t lie to her.’
‘You must.’
‘Clarice, I cannot.’
‘Please, Edwin. My heart will break.’
Around them, the mulberry trees seemed alive. He was not aware of the breeze, but the leaves fluttered as though stirred by invisible hands. The boughs creaked nervously. A lone owl hooted somewhere in the branches over their heads, its song shrill with warning.
‘I’m sorry, my love. I can’t betray her trust.’
‘So instead, you betray your wife?’ Clarice wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘What sort of a man are you?’
The words struck at his heart. Edwin’s brother had often asked that very same question. Edwin’s thoughts flew to Ronald, to that morning in France. The crack of gunfire, the stink of mud and fear. The captain’s shout in his ear, For the love of God, hold your fire!
After the war, he’d been a shell of a man. Withdrawn into himself, disillusioned by the cruelty and pointless waste he’d seen on the battlefields. Bowed beneath a guilt so heavy he knew it must eventually crush him. Then, miracle of miracles, Clarice had accepted his fumbling proposal. Back then she had been a bright butterfly in his colourless world, a creature of whimsy and aching beauty who had helped him forget.
‘Your happiness was all I ever wanted,’ he said.
‘Once I thought I could love you, Edwin.’ Her tone was low and accusing, but her voice trembled. ‘You were sweet and sincere, always kind. Now, I see what you were all along. Weak, spineless. The sort of man I find so easy to despise.’
She turned suddenly as though to rush away, but in her distress stumbled over the gnarled root of a tree. She hit the ground hard, and the air left her lungs in a breathy grunt. Burying her face in her arms, she began to sob.
Edwin might have fallen to his knees beside and begged her forgiveness. It struck at his heart to see her there, crumpled in the dirt as she wept her bitter tears. But he heard movement behind him.
Twisting around, he stared into the trees. It hadn’t been a noise, not exactly. Rather, a disturbance in the air. An indrawn breath. A sigh that rustled the leaves. The blink of watchful eyes. Then he saw it. A shadow, a man’s shadow. Brass buttons glinted in the lantern light as the shadow reached its arms towards Edwin, its fingers splayed as though beseeching. Edwin inhaled sharply, and the scent of rotting cherries filled his lungs.
The orchard faded back into the past, making way for the dim and somehow unappealing light of reality. Edwin stared across the cavernous expanse of his bedroom. The dark had grown deeper, the moonlight from the window gone.
So many memories. So much to ponder before he died. How could he bear to leave it all? The answer was simple. He could not.
At least, not yet.
Carefully, he placed the dress back on its hanger, returned it to the wardrobe, and tucked it away from sight.