Kiwi fixed Lisa with a ruby eye as she wandered into the kitchen, Mojo coiling around her ankles. Lifting a muesli packet off the shelf, Lisa considered the unpredictability of life. Years could pass, sometimes decades, in a rut of routine. Changes were slow and subtle enough to be barely noticeable. Children grew slightly taller, facial lines a little deeper. It was easy to be lulled into a false sense of security, boredom even, and allow yourself to settle like oatmeal grains inside a muesli packet.
Then someone—or something—picks it all up and gives it a damn good shake. Seeds that were sitting at the bottom of the packet suddenly get thrust to the surface. Raisins collide with nuts. Oatmeal spills over the floor. People get divorced and change countries.
As she watched the muesli tumble into the bowl, her phone bleeped with a text from Maxine: ‘OMG! A.C. left a note @ retirement home demanding cardboard coffin.’
Maxine was in her element, organising the life out of their aunt’s funeral.
‘Was she an environmentalist?’ Lisa typed.
‘No. A cheapskate. Am upgrading to veneer.’
Portia glided into the kitchen, her hair gleaming like spun gold. ‘This new shampoo’s great, Mom. Where did you get it?’
‘Belle left it here.’
Portia opened the fridge and pulled out a plate of leftover lasagne. Lisa tensed—the child was actually going to eat! Excitement flattened to disappointment as Portia tore off a corner of pasta and fed it to Kiwi.
‘Can we go see the old people across the road?’
Lisa regretted sharing Aunt Caroline’s revelations about the murder with Portia the night before. Now Portia was bursting with curiosity.
Lisa hadn’t been near the Wrights’ house since the fire. Workmen’s vehicles had been parked outside the cottage for some weeks. The roar of chainsaws had gradually morphed into the buzz of saws and the tap of hammers. The old Holden was back in their driveway, but Lisa was nervous about rocking up.
‘I’m not sure they want to see us.’
Kiwi tugged another square of pasta from Portia’s hand.
‘Only one way to find out,’ Portia said.
It was unlike Portia to take interest in anyone outside her generation, so Lisa put on a sunhat and tossed another across the table. Portia inspected it briefly and cast it aside with a smirk. Cancer Council protection was painfully uncool.
Lisa maintained a slow jog to keep up with her daughter’s lolloping stride as they crossed the road. A magpie warbled at the top of the Wrights’ dirt drive, the bird’s black and white plumage contrasting with the flush of red flowers on the bottlebrush tree, a miraculous survivor of the fire.
One for sorrow . . . Lisa wasn’t superstitious, but it was impossible not to search for the second magpie. She couldn’t remember when her father had first recited it to her. No doubt Alexander had taught it to him the way she’d passed it on to her kids.
‘There it is!’ Portia cried, pointing out the magpie’s mate strutting through the undergrowth. ‘Two for joy.’
Lisa stopped looking for any more magpies. Three for a letter didn’t make sense. Unless you counted emails.
As they walked through the corridor of blackened tree trunks, Lisa was impressed by the vigorous new growth sprouting from branches. Clumps of green were springing to life on the ground. The Australian bush had much to teach human beings about resilience.
The Wrights’ cottage was freshly painted in an apricot shade with a green trim under the windows. A new corrugated iron roof glinted in the sun. Weeds and a few tufts of grass fought through scorched earth that had once been lawn. Lisa glanced around the side of the house. The concrete gnome was still chortling into his pipe under the birdbath, but the tip of his hat was missing. He must’ve lost it when she’d hurled him through the window.
Mrs Wright opened the front door. A floral apron encased her tiny, stooped body. White hair frothed around dark brown eyes that flickered with confusion. Lisa felt her cheeks redden. She felt like a little girl trick or treating at the wrong doorstep.
The old woman’s face suddenly softened and beamed with recognition. ‘Oh, it’s you!’ she said. ‘Come on in.’ Leaning on her walking stick she beckoned them up the steps.
Portia and Lisa followed her into the front hallway.
‘I can’t thank you enough,’ the old woman said, taking Lisa’s hand and gazing into her eyes.
It occurred to Lisa only old people and babies could light up spaces with smiles that were incandescent. Perhaps those living close to life’s extremities experience each moment with full awareness and intensity. Overcome with shyness, Lisa mumbled they must be going soon.
‘But you’re just in time for a cuppa,’ her neighbour insisted. ‘And please. Call me Aunty May.’
Lisa and Portia removed their shoes and trod reverently down the hall. The house smelt of fresh paint and lavender. Lisa glanced into the bedroom. Net curtains shifted in a breeze. A 1950s wedding photo presided over a candlewick bedspread. A battalion of pill bottles stood to attention on the dresser. Without the clutter of boxes and old junk it seemed almost stark.
In the kitchen at the end of the hall, Mr Wright sat hunched over a Formica table peering at the horseracing page of the Herald Sun through a magnifying glass.
‘This is the young lady who saved our lives,’ Aunty May shouted.
He raised himself to a semi-standing position and offered a hand wrinkled as brown paper. Lisa shook it and smiled into the oil pools of his eyes. He creaked back onto his chair and raised his magnifying glass.
‘Never mind him, he’s deaf,’ Aunty May said. ‘Do you like living here?’
‘I’ve had my ups and downs, but I love it.’
Aunty May hobbled to the sink and filled the kettle, while Portia admired photos of dark-haired children on the window ledge.
‘I hear we have a few things in common,’ Lisa said, clearing her throat.
‘What’s that, dear?’
‘Trumperton Manor.’
‘Oh, that.’ Aunty May sighed, easing herself onto a chair. ‘We were happy there, but the garden got too much for us and I couldn’t handle the stairs any more . . . .’ The old woman’s voice trailed off.
‘I know what happened,’ Lisa said, digging into her pocket and retrieving the pieces of locket.
‘My grandfather, Alexander,’ she said, offering her the photo.
The old woman nodded politely, as if someone was showing her a scarf they’d knitted. Lisa produced the second half of the locket.
‘Do you know who this is?’
Aunty May pointed at her glasses on top of the fridge. Portia reached for them and passed them over. As the old woman perched them on her nose and studied the photo of the woman and child, she lurched forward. She let out a cry so weak and cracked with emotion Lisa thought she might collapse.
Mr Wright glanced up at his wife and assessed the situation. ‘Women’s business,’ he lisped through stumps of yellow teeth. He raised the magnifying glass and resumed his interest in tomorrow’s race.
‘That’s my mother, Maggie,’ Aunty May said, after she’d regained composure.
‘Your mother?’ Lisa said.
The old woman took a handkerchief from the pocket of her apron and dabbed her eyes.
‘Then who’s the baby?’
The old woman removed her glasses and rested them on the table. ‘That’s my half-brother, George,’ she sighed. ‘A lovely boy. He died of TB when he was sixteen.’
Lisa struggled to absorb the connection between herself, this woman and her own daughter standing solemn and white as milk next to the refrigerator. Her brain felt limp as a sponge.
‘So you need to hear the story?’ Aunty May said. Her tone was flat and grave.
Lisa nodded.
Aunty May raised a wrinkled hand at the two kitchen chairs that were free. ‘Mind that one,’ she said as Portia took a seat. ‘It wobbles.’
Portia and Lisa exchanged glances while Aunty May put her glasses back on and gazed at the photo of the woman and child in the locket. ‘People said my mother, Maggie, was heartbroken when things went bad at the manor. She got very sick. After Alexander left for New Zealand she kept going back there at night. Some thought she was a ghost . . .’
Nausea churned Lisa’s stomach.
Aunty May curled the locket inside her hand and gripped it. ‘But she was strong. And she loved little George. After a while she started to get better. She met a good man called Bazza. He worked in the brewery. They married and had five kids, including me.’
Lisa felt overwhelming relief Maggie’s story had some happiness in it.
‘Nobody wanted to live in the manor after what went on there. There were no cars in those days and it was miles from anywhere. It was derelict for a while. In the end, Mum and Bazza bought it for a song and moved in with us kids. When Mum died she left the place to me.’
Lisa’s family tree was beginning to look more like a monkey puzzle than a straightforward pine.
‘So Alexander was your half-brother’s father?’ Lisa said, slowly piecing the branches together.
The old woman turned the locket in her hand. The sadness of the past weighed heavily in the room. Lisa slid onto her knees and put her arms around Aunty May’s fragile waist. ‘I feel terrible for what my ancestors did to yours,’ she whispered. ‘My grandfather committed a brutal murder. You must feel outraged he was never punished. I’m so sorry . . .’
Aunty May rested her hand on Lisa’s shoulder. The old woman’s eyes clouded. ‘There are tears in every family,’ she said, patting Lisa’s back in a gentle, soothing rhythm. ‘Let go of the past. We’re family now.’
The two women wept quietly together.