Melbourne

‘Darling, your father and I both feel the very best thing would be for you to move back here to Melbourne and live with us.’

Anna didn’t say anything. She was traipsing along in her mother’s wake as she made her very determined way around the Queen Victoria Markets. Caroline was on a mission, buying up big for the Easter Sunday luncheon she was hosting this weekend.

She glanced at her daughter. ‘Now I don’t want you thinking we’re being clingy, Anna. Neither of us wants you wasting your life looking after us in our old age. We’re not talking about forever, only until you get yourself sorted. We could help you find a place. You know the real estate in Melbourne is much more affordable than it is in Sydney.’

‘Mum, are you forgetting I have a job?’

‘But you’ve just been telling me that you’re not even sure it’s what you want to do any more.’

Anna had flown down yesterday. She couldn’t stay in the house another day, especially with the procession of prospective buyers coming through at odd times. And she really didn’t want to spend Easter alone. Eggs everywhere, fluffy bunnies, chocolate on tap. Could there be anything more depressing?

‘You could start afresh, Anna,’ her mother was saying, charging ahead into the throng. ‘New place, new job, new life.’

Right back where she started from. How could Anna explain to her mother that it would feel like a backward step? She loved Melbourne, and she did have a stronger attachment to it than Sydney. But it wasn’t that. It was the idea of moving back to the place of her childhood, to a time when she was happily married, before she was even aware that she couldn’t have children of her own. She didn’t see how she could move on by hiding out in the comfort zone of her past.

Caroline was waiting for her a little further along. She was looking at Anna expectantly. ‘Well, what do you think?’

‘Look, Mum, for the moment I just want to get through the auction and settling up with Mac–’

‘I still can’t bear thinking of it,’ Caroline sighed. ‘I don’t understand him. He’s having some kind of midlife crisis, Anna. He’s going to snap out of it and wonder what on earth he’s done.’ She lifted her eyebrows. ‘Is that why you don’t want to leave Sydney?’

‘No, Mum, it has nothing to do with him.’ She decided not to enter into yet another conversation about Mac’s crisis, midlife or otherwise. Caroline was constantly trying to nut it out, as though understanding his motivation would prove something, or solve something, or in some way make things better. ‘I want to tackle one thing at a time, Mum. And I don’t want to go through any more changes than I already have to right at the moment.’

‘But coming back here is not a change, Anna, it’s your home.’

‘Be that as it may, Mum, I’ve been in Sydney for seven years and I’m not going anywhere until I’ve worked out what I want to do with my life.’

Caroline looked at her squarely. ‘Well, you know you have our support whatever it is you decide.’

Anna leaned over and kissed her cheek. Caroline could flog a dead horse as well as the next person, but she would never actively push her daughter to do anything she didn’t want to.

‘Well,’ said Caroline, taking her arm as they proceeded along, ‘perhaps you’ll follow my footsteps this time, become an academic.’

‘But I only have a bachelor’s degree. I’d need to do more study.’

‘That’s right.’

‘I think I’m getting a bit old.’

‘Nonsense, Anna. We regularly had students at uni who were in their sixties. And even a few older than that.’

‘But I don’t think I want to do any more study in psychology.’

‘Who says you have to continue with psychology? Why don’t you try something different?’

Anna shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know what.’

‘When you were young I always thought you might end up in the arts, studying literature or something along those lines.’

‘Why?’

‘You always had your head in a book. You loved reading, and when you weren’t reading you were scribbling away in one of those exercise books you were always getting me to buy for you.’

Anna was frowning.

Caroline glanced at her. ‘Don’t you remember?’

‘Vaguely. How old was I?’

‘The exercise books were primary school. I think you might have kept a journal in high school, and you were still a voracious reader. You always did very well in English and History. But then you became hell-bent on becoming a psychiatrist like your father and you had to focus on the science subjects. You didn’t even seem to read much after that. Oh, I want to get olives from here. It’s the best place,’ said Caroline, steering Anna towards one of the stalls.

She was right. Anna had forsaken everything else in the vain attempt to get into medicine. She’d never really returned to reading with the same enthusiasm, it seemed an adolescent indulgence to lie around and waste whole days absorbed in a book. Anna remembered the exercise books though, she wondered what had happened to them.

‘Mum, you know those boxes of my stuff you brought from the house?’

Caroline nodded, moving up to the counter as a customer ahead of her departed.

‘They’re still at the apartment?’ Anna persisted.

‘Yes, dear, but don’t concern yourself. I know I’ve been nagging you to do something about them, but that’s the least of your worries at the moment.’ She was interrupted by the stall keeper. ‘Yes, I’ll start with two large tubs of the kalamatas, please.’

Later that night after her parents had gone to bed, Anna carried the stepladder into the guestroom and climbed up to investigate the very top shelf of the built-in wardrobe. She remembered seeing the row of boxes, each one simply marked ‘ANNA’, and her mother prompting her from time to time to sort through them. She reached in and slid the first box out. It didn’t feel too heavy, so she lifted it off the shelf and stepped carefully back down the ladder. She rested it on the bed and opened the lid. Anna smiled. It was packed full of stuffed animals. She’d had a bit of an obsession during her teens and even though she outgrew it eventually, she had never been able to bring herself to part with them. But Caroline had finally made her cull the collection when she was getting married. Anna had narrowed down her favourites to one box, she supposed with the idea of keeping them for her own child. She picked up a koala nestled on top and smoothed the fluffy fur on its ears. What on earth was she going to do with all these now? Anna felt a prickle in her nose, and then she sneezed loudly. She replaced the koala and the lid and climbed back up the stepladder.

The next box felt heavier, so Anna only pulled it part way out and lifted the lid, peering inside. She sneezed again. It looked like university stuff. She removed the lid completely and drew out a cardboard folder from the top. She was right, it was one of her final assignments. She decided to leave that box for the moment, doubtful she would find what she was looking for there. The next box felt heavy as well. Anna slipped her hand under the lid, feeling around inside. She drew out a book and looked at the cover. Anne of Green Gables. Anna was suddenly catapulted back in time, lying on her bed, tears streaming down her face as she read. She slid the box out, and though it was heavier than the first, she managed to climb back down the stepladder and dump it on the bed. As she sifted through the contents it was like her childhood flashing before her eyes. There were more books: Black Beauty, The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, Wuthering Heights. There were school reports, ‘Attendance – perfect; Uniform – perfect; Conduct – perfect; Anna is a model student, serious, diligent, with poise beyond her years.’ There were photos from school, from formals, from her debutante ball. There was one from her graduation, all gowned up, her parents on one side and Mac on the other. He looked so young and his eyes were full of pride as he gazed down at her. It felt like another lifetime.

There were certificates and merit awards and birthday cards, but no exercise books. Anna sneezed again. Her nose was itchy and she was beginning to feel weary. Maybe she’d look through the other boxes tomorrow. She replaced the lid and carried the box over, putting it on the floor against the wall. Then she returned for the box of stuffed toys. When she picked it up she realised it felt a little heavier than it should. She gave it a shake, there was something solid in the bottom. She set it back down on the bed and opened the lid. After extracting a couple of bears, a tiger, a monkey, assorted bunnies, she finally came to a flat rag doll lining the base of the box. It was a pyjama bag, Anna remembered. She picked it up, giving an almighty sneeze at the same time. There was something inside. She turned the doll over and unzipped the back, pulling out a bundle of exercise books tied together with a green ribbon. Anna sat down on the bed and unravelled the bow. Some of the books were covered with wrapping paper, some had doodles scribbled all over them. ‘Private’, ‘Keep Out’, ‘This Book is the Private Property of Anna Caroline Gilchrist. No Peeking.’ Anna kicked off her shoes and shifted backwards up the bed till she reached the bedhead, propping the pillows and settling herself against them. She ran her hand across the cover of the first book in the bundle. It was as good a place to start as any.

At two-thirty Anna rubbed her eyes and told herself she had to get some sleep. She had read almost every word through eight exercise books. She’d worked out that they must have been written throughout grades four, five and six, when she was nine up to about eleven or twelve years old. There was mention of going to high school in the future, but not of being there yet. Parts were autobiographical, like a diary, but mostly they were filled with stories and poems. The poems were often clumsy and self-conscious, though Anna was impressed by the vocabulary she had used at such a young age. The stories were sometimes bizarre fables with talking animals or fairies and goblins, or girlie tales of best friends and sleepover parties, or blatant ripoffs of books she’d obviously been reading at the time.

But throughout, to Anna’s surprise, there was a great deal of anger, anger that Anna couldn’t even recall feeling, let alone expressing. And she was quite sure she never had, but clearly she had found a way of venting it. Some seemed to be directed towards her parents for not being around as much as she would have liked, though other people earned her ire as well – various teachers, some of the girls from school. It was a strange feeling, like looking into a mirror and seeing features she had never noticed before.

Anna was too exhausted to even change for bed. She rolled over on her side, drawing the covers around her and hugging her pillow. That night she dreamt of a little girl. At first she thought it might have been her daughter, but then she realised it was herself.