On Saturday, I ran up and down the beach until every part of my body felt on fire, then I spent the next couple of hours trawling the wild shoreline, finding all sorts of things I knew would make Elsa happy. It wasn’t a day I was meant to be working, but it was nice to get out onto the beach.
‘Gwen,’ Ben said. I hadn’t noticed him coming up. He was soaked from the drizzle. ‘Have you seen Amber?’
I frowned. ‘No, should I have?’
He looked pretty annoyed. ‘She’s taken off.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep my eye out?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’
I glanced back a few times over my shoulder, watching Ben jogging the other way through the rain. A shiver snaked down my spine and I broke into a run.
I ran into town along the beach, cutting inland before the main Clunes Beach so that I didn’t have to run past the café by myself. I kept my eye out for Amber, but didn’t see her. It seemed kind of weird, how annoyed he’d seemed. I nicked off all the time without telling people where I was.
I stopped outside Crystal Quotient, hesitating. But I wanted to see Elsa’s work and I knew I needed to check in on Mau, so I pushed inside.
‘Hello?’ I called.
‘Pearlie!’ Mau trilled, coming out from the back. The shop smelled like patchouli. ‘Oh, it’s so lovely to see you.’ She leaned in for a hug and I caught a whiff of the stingy scent of green tea.
‘You look great!’
‘Things are turning around,’ she said. ‘Have you seen the jewellery? Talk of the town. I can’t get enough of it! Isn’t it wonderful?’ She pointed to a large, beautiful display of sea-themed items. They were all subtle and elegant.
I walked over and brushed my finger against a mother-of-pearl brooch. ‘Did Elsa make these?’
‘Elsa? Yes. See?’ Mau pointed at a little bio, accompanied by a picture of Elsa, who looked just as weathered and serious as she did now. I read the bio, but it was nothing I hadn’t already picked up from her. Elsa Kirk. Grew up in Sydney, art school, an early solo show, artwork displayed in Italy, America and Ireland. Now living locally and exploring themes related to the sea.
‘Mau? Have you seen Elsa’s niece by any chance? She’s taken off.’
‘No, can’t say I have.’
‘Never mind. I’m sure she’s just with Ruby or something. These are beautiful.’
‘Yeah,’ said Mau. ‘Makes me sort of want to get back into art.’
‘You did art?’
‘Oh, as a kid,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I haven’t touched a brush in years. I was never much good, you see. But this makes me want to get back into it all.’
‘I get that. I’m awful at making things, but I want to a bit, as well.’
‘Tea?’ asked Mau and I nodded.
We sat in the little tearoom out the back of the shop. She was tiling the brick walls with lots of different colours. We didn’t talk much. Mau fiddled with her tiles and I drank my tea and watched her. Some days she told stories about my mother in a flood of words, and other days she was so quiet. It was hard to pick, but I didn’t really mind either.
‘What happened to your hand?’
‘Accident,’ I said. Mau took my hand and gave it a gentle pat. ‘Mau,’ I began, ‘can I ask you something?’
‘Of course, Pearlie.’
‘Why didn’t I stay with you?’ I bit my lip. ‘After everything happened with Jamie, I mean. Why did I stay with Biddy?’
Mau sighed. ‘Oh, sweetheart. I was too heartbroken. I couldn’t even look after myself. I stayed with your mum a lot, after Jamie. While you were at Biddy’s.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘She loved you so much.’
‘I know. I know she did.’
‘And when your mum went . . .’ Mau shook her head. ‘Well, I wasn’t much good to anyone after your mum went.’
The little bell above the door tinkled. Mau stood up to see who had come into the shop. ‘I’d better get back to work. But pop in anytime. It’s always so lovely to see you, Pearl.’
I walked out into the drizzling afternoon and across the road to Martin’s. He was out, so I didn’t stay. Running home, I spotted Ben, heading into town.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Did you find her?’
He shook his head. ‘Not yet.’
‘Listen – can I help? Maybe take your bag back to Elsa’s?’
‘Thanks,’ he said, handing it to me. ‘I was at the library when Elsa called to see if Amber was with me. Haven’t gotten back to Songbrooke, yet.’
‘Mau hasn’t seen her.’
Ben ran his hand through his hair. ‘Bloody Amber.’
‘Does she do this a lot?’
‘Recently? No. Back in Castlemaine? Yeah.’
‘You’re from Castlemaine?’ I asked.
Ben half-smiled. ‘Thanks for taking my bag. I’m going to head down the other side of town, stop by Nina’s and Ruby’s.’
‘Okay. Where should I go once I’ve dropped off your bag? Where does she hang out?’
Ben frowned. ‘Are you sure?’
‘’Course I am.’
‘But Amber’s been so awful to you.’
‘Yeah, but her brother’s been pretty nice.’
‘Wait,’ he said, as I began to walk off. ‘I need their addresses. Ruby and Nina.’ He grabbed his bag off me and started rummaging, handing me photocopied papers and notes from his classes.
Photocopied articles about the drowning. I cocked my head to read one of them and my breath caught painfully in my throat.
‘What is it?’ Ben asked, looking up from his bag.
I had this sensation of not being able to move that lasted longer than I thought possible. I stared at Ben, my mouth hanging open.
John, the drowned boy. His little sister was Lucy. His little sister was my mum.
***
I left Ben at a run. Ben called out my name, but I couldn’t stop running. I had to run. I realised a few hundred metres down the road that I didn’t have Ben’s bag with me.
‘Chill,’ I told myself. But I wasn’t even sure if I’d got the words out or just spoken them in my head.
I still didn’t understand Mum. I never would. But there was this sense of all the different, confusing parts of her falling into a pattern I could recognise.
Jamie . . .
Jamie. Her brother and her son both had drowned. They’d both drowned because of her.
‘How could you live knowing that?’ I whispered out loud to myself, the road blurring in front of me.
Because the truth was, she couldn’t.
The truth was she was dead.
***
When I got home, Biddy’s and Dad’s cars were both gone. I was crying hard and panting and so snotty that I bent over into the garden bed closest to the verandah and retched, except nothing came up. I sat outside, waiting for my tears to stop. But they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t stop.
Tyrone came out and squatted down beside me. ‘Gwen. What’s up?’
I just shook my head.
He reached out to me but I shied away, running into my room and slamming the door.
I didn’t run to Wade’s Point. Because it suddenly occurred to me that I’d been running from Mum. And she was there. She was everywhere. In the same way Jamie was nowhere, aside from the lilting violin CDs that Tyrone had bought me over the years.
I threw myself onto my bed and I sobbed because I wished I’d hugged her that little bit tighter the last time I saw her. I wished I’d told her how much I loved her with more feeling and I wished I’d stopped Biddy and Dad from dragging me out, because if I’d stayed Mum would’ve lived.
I would have kept her alive. I was her Little Pearlie, destined for great things. I was all she had. But I wasn’t there. I was with Biddy.
Biddy had me, Biddy had Dad and Mum had lost Jamie.
Mum had lost everyone.
***
Tyrone sat outside my bedroom door for two hours. I knew because I could hear him sighing impatiently and occasionally trying the doorknob. But every part of me was hurting. I couldn’t move. I heard Ben’s voice and Tyrone’s, both quiet, both thoughtful. Then I heard footsteps and the door closing and I knew that Ben had left.
I kept thinking about Mum. About the smashed window at the café, which for some weird reason had shaken everything up again, like sand kicked up underwater.
‘Think of the mermaids,’ I murmured to myself out loud, like Mr Blended-family-therapist had told me. But I could only think of them in my dream, stranded and stuffed full of jewels. Then I thought about my mum, and how she’d never let us go to the beach. Sometimes Dad would sneak us there without telling her, grinning as we splashed in the shallows and taking us to Mau’s to shower and change before we went home.
Tyrone knocked again. ‘Gwen, this is stupid. Will you please let me in?’
I buried my head harder into my pillow, trying to muffle the sound of his voice.
I heard him sigh yet again. ‘To be honest, I haven’t seen you cry like that since . . . and I’m a bit freaked out. No one’s died, have they?’
‘No.’ Well . . .
‘Do you want a drink?’
I paused for a moment. ‘Yeah.’
‘Water?’
‘Thanks.’
I heard him clomp down the hallway. And I sat up and rubbed at my eyes and knelt down for the box of CDs that Tyrone had given me over the years. Always violin, always beautiful. I unlocked the door.
‘So what’s up? Do you want to talk about it?’ He sat down on the floor opposite me.
‘No.’
Tyrone just stared at me. ‘Should I call Loretta to come over?’
I shook my head. I needed quiet and, as much as I loved her, Loretta wasn’t good at being quiet.
I looked away. Out the window. To the sea. ‘It’s about my mum. I just found out she watched her brother drown down at Wade’s Point.’
He let out a low whistle. ‘Oh,’ he said, not meeting my eyes when I turned in his direction.
‘Oh?’ I snapped. I’d expected more of a reaction. ‘Oh?’
‘I mean, oh, your poor mum. That’s awful, Gwen.’
I wiped my eyes. I’d started crying again. I couldn’t stop. ‘And I can’t get the bloody CDs out of their cases. My hands are shaking too badly.’
Tyrone scrambled up on his knees. ‘You kept them all?’ he asked, his voice almost shy.
I nodded.
‘Which one do you want?’ he asked.
I sat back down on the edge of the bed. ‘Any of them. All of them.’
Tyrone considered them for longer than I thought he would. And he put on a Celtic one, full of drums and chirpy tunes that were still kind of serious.
And I sat on the edge of the bed and Tyrone sat next to me. And the music filled the room, as loamy and lilting as sand still slick from the tide. And I could hardly keep my eyes open. I just sat on my bed, blinking heavily and staring out the window. And Tyrone held me and I cried and cried, listening to the soaring music. Thinking, again and again, of Jamie. And of Mum.
***
FROM THE DIARY OF GWENDOLYN PEARL PEARSON
The secrets are mine, now. I know them. But it means that Wade’s Point cove has changed. A thought surfaces, slowly and dreamlike at first, then faster and sharper until I know it’s a memory. I know that I was tiny and wearing my jelly sandals. I know that I pulled Jamie into my room and under my bed, where I shushed him, even though he was quiet, watching me, wincing at the sound of each smash.
It was the day Mum punched in all the glass of our living room. Shimmering shards of glass. The sound of it crackling under my shoes. How she lunged at each window like it was something dangerous that needed to be subdued. How she lurched from one window to the next, muttering to herself.
I’d forgotten about that day. I can’t remember what had set Mum off and I can’t remember what happened afterwards. But I remember being scared and being with Jamie. I remember the sound of the smashing glass.
I remember Martin being there, and scooping up both me and Jamie. He smelled like jellybeans and black tea. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be fine.’
***
The next morning dawned still and clear. Loretta came over and nestled her hand into mine. I supposed Tyrone had called her.
‘Has Amber turned up? Do you know?’ I asked Loretta.
She shrugged. ‘Yeah, saw her down the beach on my way here. Why?’
I just closed my eyes.
Tyrone pulled on his shoes and the three of us wandered to the beach, stopping just before we reached the cove. We stood there, staring at it. I was sort of hoping Ben would appear, but he didn’t. He’d texted me, asking if I was okay. But I was pretty sure I’d blown it. Who’d want to date a crazy girl like me?
‘I’m so sorry,’ Loretta said.
‘Me too,’ said Tyrone.
I sat between them and looked down the beach, where I could just make out the point. I stared out to the ocean, flecked with salt and cold from the air that was pooling in from the sea. I tried to blur the waves into the shapes of mermaids, but I couldn’t. Not this morning. Instead, I thought of my mum, clambering over the rocks as a small child. What she might have been like as an adult, if she’d never found this cove at all.