Rosie
Snowy Mountains, New South Wales, July 1967
They followed the Snowy Mountains Highway from Tathra through Nimmitabel and Cooma, which saw them traverse through some of the most mountainous country in Australia.
Rosie shivered, pulling her light cardigan tightly around her, rubbing her hands for warmth. They had driven straight through the night, leaving with only the clothes on their backs. Her body was running on fear-filled adrenaline that now was sapping away quickly. On a few occasions, her lids would droop and she would fall into an uneasy slumber only to be jolted wide awake by a bump in the road or her head hitting the side of the car.
Before they left, Jack had made a few phone calls, checking to see if there had been any accidents and a man and young boy brought in. When he exhausted all possible emergency rooms between Sydney and Cooma, there was only one option. Tom had fled with Jimmy. Jack had wanted to call the police then and there, but Rosie hadn’t wanted to admit that they’d been fooled. Jack made a futile call to the landlord—there was no answer. She knew that Jack wasn’t happy to leave without something concrete, but even now as they were hurtling down the highway, there was a small sliver of hope that there was a plausible explanation for it all.
‘Maybe he got the dates mixed up,’ she mused.
Jack kept his eyes trained on the road, expelling an audible breath. ‘Rosie,’ he warned. All week there had been an underlying tension between them. If Rosie was being honest, the tension had started the day Tom arrived. When Tom and Jimmy had failed to return and Rosie’s panic had set in, Jack’s eyes said it all. He knew Tom was capable of this—he had warned Rosie. Even when she had floated the idea of looking for Tom, he hadn’t liked it.
She should’ve listened.
She rubbed her gritty eyes, stifling a yawn.
‘We should rest first,’ said Jack as they approached the bridge over Wambrook Creek.
‘No. I want to go straight there. It’ll be daylight soon and I want to find Jimmy and take him home.’
Please, God, let me take my boy home.
It’d been years since she had prayed. Even when she’d lost the baby, Rosie didn’t feel like she’d needed God, but now, she felt helpless. Lost. The thought of not knowing where Jimmy was—it was killing her.
‘Rosie, I think—Jesus Christ!’ The car fishtailed, swerving from left to right as it lost traction. Jack slammed on the brakes, gripping the steering wheel.
‘Jack!’ she yelled in a panic as she white-knuckled the edge of her seat.
‘Hold on!’ he yelled over the noise of screeching tyres.
The sight of a tree, dead ahead, had white spots blurring her vision.
Please, God, don’t let it end like this.
Her heart hammered as Jack veered right, narrowly missing the tree, the car coming to a stop a few feet later.
‘Are you alright?’ Jack wheezed, his breath as ragged as her own.
‘I think so,’ she managed, waiting for her breathlessness to settle before asking, ‘What happened?’
‘The best I can tell, it was black ice.’
‘Black ice?’ She remembered just how dangerous clear ice was on the roads. ‘But it looks like it hasn’t been snowing.’ In the distance, she spotted rugged mountain ranges dotted with smatterings of white. It looked so beautiful, so picturesque, and somewhere in that beauty was an evil that had her son.
‘We’re almost there. We just need to take it easy the rest of the way.’
Jack drove carefully for the remainder of the trip, and when Rosie’s eyes drooped, he tried to convince her once again to stop and rest.
‘No.’ She was adamant. ‘I want to go straight to Tom’s.’
‘Alright,’ he said quietly, but she knew what he was thinking. Chances were that if Tom hadn’t shown up in Sydney, he wasn’t in Tumut either, but they had to start somewhere.
They pulled up in front of a white fibro house about half an hour later. Even though it was relatively newly built, it looked desolate and drab. Barren trees seemed to barricade the house from every direction, giving Rosie the impression that perhaps in the height of summer, they would be bursting with lush green foliage. She spotted a couple of citrus trees—orange and lemon bare save for a couple of sad and lonely fruit. The grass, or what was left of it, was the colour of wet hay, but it was mostly dirt patches that were covered in sludge.
Rosie went straight up the porch steps, knocking obstreperously while Jack peered in the windows. ‘It’s empty, Rosie,’ he declared, grimly rendering her thumping redundant.
‘What do you mean?’ She shivered, her breath forming white puffs of clouds as she spoke.
‘I mean there is no sign of life.’
Not wanting to believe him, she rattled the doorhandle, but it didn’t budge. Her mind was spinning, not knowing what else to do, so she ran around to the back of the house. ‘Jimmy! Tom!’ she screamed like a banshee, shaking off Jack’s attempts to stop her.
‘Eh!’ came a voice from the other side of the wooden fence. A moment later a man appeared, his head covered in a brown beanie. ‘Why screaming?’ By his dark-olive skin and accent, Rosie hazarded that he was either Greek or Italian.
‘I’m looking for my son, Jimmy.’
‘Jimmy?’ The man looked at her, confused. ‘No Jimmy. Tom here before. Now he gone.’
His English wasn’t very good and her Greek virtually non-existent, despite Spiro’s various attempts to teach her. She was able to grasp Italian, so she hoped against all hope that this man spoke it.
‘Are you Italian?’
‘Sì, parlo italiano?’ he asked hopefully.
‘Parlo po’di italiano,’ she replied, stressing the ‘some Italian’ and crossed her fingers he wouldn’t launch into rapid conversation. ‘Sono Rosie Hart, e sto cerando mio figlio, Jimmy,’ she said slowly, trying to pronounce clearly. ‘He was here with his father, Tom Fuller.’
‘No Jimmy. Tom fosse qui, ma ora ha sparito.’
Tom was here, but now has gone. Where did he go and what did this man mean no Jimmy?
‘Dov’e Tom?’ Jack asked.
‘Ha lasciato qualche settimana fa. Cooma. New job.’
Cooma? Tom was in Cooma? He left a couple of weeks ago for a new job? A couple of weeks ago he was in Sydney. Did this mean he never came back? Terror tore through her. She turned to Jack, who flicked his gaze towards her. There was no mistaking the panic in his eyes. He reached out to grab her hand and Rosie clung to him. ‘They could be anywhere.’ Her lips felt like ice, her fingers numb, but heat pumped through her, making her ears pound.
‘We’ll find him, Rosie,’ he said quietly, before turning back to the man. ‘Do you know where in Cooma?’
He shrugged. ‘Mi dispiace. Sorry. I not know more.’
‘Molte grazie.’ Rosie managed a tight smile. He had given them something—she just had to pray Tom had been telling this man the truth.
His name was Luigi Silvani, recently arrived from Venice, Italy, to work on the Snowy Hydro Scheme. His wife, Maria, and their children, Enzo, Ilaria and baby Carlo, were still in Italy. At least that’s what they discovered as Jack made small talk and Rosie tried the back door. When that didn’t budge, she peered through the window for any sign of Jimmy. A toy, a piece of clothing. Anything.
‘He has a key.’ Jack came up from behind. Rosie spun around to face him, eyes wide in anticipation.
‘What?’
‘I explained that Tom had taken Jimmy without permission.’ Not the complete truth, but Rosie was desperate. She wanted to kiss Jack for his quick thinking.
Luigi appeared carrying a coat, scarf and gloves. They were the same colour as his beanie, but he was offering them to Rosie. When she showed hesitation he added, ‘Take. You cold, Miss.’
They found nothing that showed any sign of Jimmy’s presence in the house, but Rosie would never forget Luigi’s kindness, nor would she forget his parting words before he pressed the cold key into the palm of her hand.
‘Una severa l’inverno sta arrivdano.’
A harsh winter is coming.