42

Sara stared at the well-groomed stranger, trying frantically to make something familiar out of the man before her. She smiled weakly.

‘Hello, I’m Sara. I . . . ’

She had no idea what she wanted to say except that this was not him, not the golden-armed laughing god of her dreams. He was old. Of course he’s old, her mind mocked as her gaze moved over him chronicling the evidence. His brow was lined, his eyebrows grey, the column of his neck creased. He must be in his sixties, sixty-five or sixty-eight perhaps. Frank was older but this man had no right to be. She felt a sense of loss and realised as the silence lengthened awkwardly that the moment in which they might have embraced naturally had gone by.

John Randall realised it too. He came towards her, his right hand rising but not to shake hers – it would have been faintly ridiculous given the circumstances – but to take her elbow and lead her back to the lounge. They were close enough for her to smell his cologne, to see the crease in his earlobe, so unlike her own small, lobeless ears. His voice was a pleasant baritone but that too woke no echoes in her mind.

‘My God, I can scarcely believe . . . Chris – or do you prefer Sara? But you are Christine Mary Randall. Never mind the scientific nonsense, your looks shout the fact. Seeing you just now gave me quite a shock. You’re the image of her, of Mary.’

‘Didn’t Paul Markham send a photo?’

‘The journalist? No. The media and I – well, let’s say our relationship hasn’t always been amicable. Here, sit. Would you like tea, or something stronger?’

‘Tea would be nice, thank you.’ Sara sank onto the couch, setting down her handbag and smoothing her skirt. Her mind was a complete blank, or at least speech seemed to have deserted her, for although a thousand questions teemed in her head like a ball of wool whose end had been hidden, she couldn’t seem to tease out the strand that would free her tongue to ask them.

The man – no, her father – returned, from speaking to the automaton and seated himself at the opposite end of the couch. He leaned back and folded his hands over one knee, assuming a posture of ease. The pose flexed the muscles of his forearms that were blemished with sunspots. The hair along them was no longer golden. And something in her broke open. She looked at this stranger, all that was left to her of her own blood, and was suddenly six again, locked in that room without her twin, knowing that the night, which she must face alone, was coming, and if they heard her crying either the horrid man or the nasty lady would come in and beat her. The words hurtled from her, accusing and cold.

‘You didn’t come! I opened the window and broke the screen and jumped out because Benny was gone and I knew you would come and f-find me and you didn’t!’ She was horrified by the childish wail that was escaping her, but helpless to control it. Her throat tightened and her chest heaved and she bawled her heart out, blinded by the tears that flooded her cheeks and choked by the breath that caught in her throat. In the midst of it all she was unaware of the besuited young man who appeared with a tray of tea things, then discreetly vanished with it again. She sobbed for all the years of abandonment, and the pain of loss, for Benny and her mother, whom she now knew she resembled, for the father she had lost and, in a muddled way – because she was far past being able to differentiate between her feelings – for Sam’s sickness, her heartbreak over Jack and the horrors of the drought as well.

When it ended she was clutching a man’s sodden handkerchief and John Randall’s arm was around her shoulder holding her firmly against him. She hiccupped a final sob and sniffed, mopping damply at her eyes.

‘Better now?’ he asked tenderly, and it was as if a door had suddenly opened in her mind. She saw herself at the foot of the garden wall from which she’d tumbled, sobbing over a grazed elbow, and her father scooping her up in his arms to kiss the sore spot and ask that same question.

‘I’m sorry, Dad.’ Fresh tears sparkled in the green eyes that lifted to meet his. ‘I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t mean – I shouldn’t have said . . .’

‘You did, and you were right. It’s a father’s job to keep his children safe and I didn’t. I failed both you and Benny.’ His arm tightened around her and his voice thickened with pain. ‘Everything that happened to you I should have prevented. For that I can never forgive myself, any more than I can for Benny’s death. I never dared believe that your body wasn’t out there with his – my poor innocent little Bryant and May.’

The names triggered another memory. ‘I remember you calling us that. I never knew what it meant.’

‘Matches.’ John Randall blinked something from his eye, and gave the ghost of a chuckle. ‘Bryant and May made Redhead matches.’ He nodded at the corner of the room. ‘There’s a ladies’ behind the screen if you need a moment. I’ll order us some fresh tea.’

Staring into the mirror above the handbasin, Sara discovered a face streaked with mascara and eyes almost as red as her hair. There was a container of small hand towels above the basin so she made a cold compress of one to clean and repair the damage, then reapplied makeup, taking her time. She felt shaken to her core, but curiously relieved as well, as if some titanic struggle she had been engaged in was finally resolved. After all, her father must have come here seeking a ghost too. If he was no longer the strong young giant of her dreams, then neither was she a six-year-old child.

They moved from the lobby into a cafe space beyond the lift where the tables were widely separated with banquettes about them. A waitress served them, and over the tea and little cakes they began tentatively to question and learn each other’s history.

‘Tell me about my mother.’ Sara spoke first. ‘You said I look like her.’

‘You do, even to the way you hold your head. I never noticed it in you as a child. What do you remember of her?’

‘Not much. Her smell: powder and cigarettes. She could stand on her head. And she used to blow fairy kisses. When we were in bed and she was going away, she’d turn and blow them to us from the door. Blowing us dreams, she called it. Why did she kill herself?’

Randall sighed, and ran his hands over his cropped grey hair. ‘It happened when they found Benny’s body. It took away all hope of ever getting you back. When I told her about Benny and that I thought you were both gone – and you do see, Chrissy, that I couldn’t not tell her – she screamed like her mind was going, and I really think it did. The news broke something in her. She couldn’t conceive of you separately, you see. Well, to be honest, neither did I then. That’s why the memorial plaque has both your names on it.’

‘I know,’ Sara said. ‘I saw it.’

‘Did you? It was the last straw for Mary. A week later she was dead and I’d lost you all.’ His gaze was on the tablecloth, his face so bleak that she was moved to touch his hand.

‘Paul, the journalist who found me, said no ransom demand was ever made. Is that right?’

‘There was nothing.’ His hand clenched on the white tablecloth. ‘Nothing! No reason, no demand. If there had only been contact I’d have given anything, everything. But the months went by and when Benny’s body turned up, I knew it was over, that neither of you were ever coming back.’

‘And yet here I am.’ Sara sipped, put her cup down. ‘You married again.’ It came out more abruptly than she intended, like an accusation. ‘What’s she like, your wife?’

‘Fran?’ He lifted his shoulders. ‘She’s good for me. Kind, understanding. We have three children, Chrissy. A son, Justin, and two daughters. Mandy, she’s ten, and Sophie the baby, she’s eight. No redheads. The kids take after Fran, who’s a brunette.’ His small rueful smile twisted Sara’s heart for something she couldn’t share. ‘Well, she colours it now. But you’ll see them for yourself. It’s why I’m here – not just to meet you, but to take you home, if you’ll come.’

‘But —’ Sara abandoned the half-uttered protest. There was nothing to keep her here – the job at Redhill was over and Jack had made no attempt to prevent her leaving. The knowledge was bitter.

‘Tonight. I’ve two seats booked on the evening flight. We’ve got till six p.m., so there’s time enough to pack.’

‘The packing’s already done. I’ve been staying with friends – they’re my employers, or they were. My job’s over now; I’ve no immediate plans.’

He was pleased, she could see. ‘Good, then. So you’re free? I could send a car for your stuff now or we can call in and pick it up on our way to the airport. It’d be a bit early but we could probably get dinner here, or would you rather eat on the plane?’

‘Oh, the plane because I have to see my friends before I go, Dad.’ The name came out hesitantly this time and Sara’s smile was uncertain. ‘It’s so odd to say that. I never called him by that name, you know, or Father – Vic Blake, I mean. I never called him anything.’

He grunted. ‘I’ve called the murdering bastard a few things. I’ve killed him so many times and in so many ways – I used to fantasise about what I’d do to whoever took you both . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Enough of that. There are so many things I want to know about you, Chrissy. The journalist sent me his paper with the story in it – there was a grainy pic with the article but it gave no real idea. I want to know about your growing up, how those people treated you. And who you are now, what you do, all the things a father should know about his daughter’s life. You’re twenty-seven, so what about men? Is there someone special?’

‘No,’ she lied. ‘But I’ve been married. It didn’t work out.’

‘I’m sorry about that. The paper said you work as a gover­ness?’

‘Yes, but only recently. It’s a long story.’

‘I’m listening.’

So she told him everything, re-examining the days of her life, going off on tangents at times as something prompted further memories to emerge. Her father was able to frame her six-year-old recollections with the background of their settings. He placed the garden, the dog and the stone wall at Vinibel Downs, a property outside Winton in Queensland, and the poultry and egg collecting on the sheep stud in New South Wales. Still talking, they moved from the cafe back to the lounge and later to the gardens, walking slowly over the grass in the shade beyond the pool, talking, talking . . . John Randall spoke of Benny and the closeness of the bond her twin had shared with her, of their secret language until the age of four when they suddenly began to speak properly.

‘Mary was worried sick about your brains,’ he said. ‘She thought you’d both been damaged at birth. It took a nursing sister in Winton to convince her that it wasn’t unusual in twins, though it mostly happened with identical ones.’ Sara heard the pain in his voice when he spoke of his first-born son and she wept again, but these were gentler tears for her long-lost companion whose ghost had lived on in her heart.

‘I think some part of me always knew – if not about him, then that something was missing,’ she said slowly. ‘It was like I was always listening, always waiting.’

‘I can believe it. We marvelled, Mary and I, that as tiny babies each of you was so aware of your twin. Even fast asleep you’d reach out to one another. And when you both began to crawl, it was always towards the other. We could put you on opposite ends of the verandah at Vinibel, and you’d both continue moving till you met.’

‘Did you sell the properties?’ Sara asked abruptly then.

John Randall stopped his pacing and sighed. ‘Yes, because there was no point in holding them. Land is there to pass on but I had no one left. Nothing mattered. As far as I was concerned it was all finished, the dreams, the planning, everything. Of course you learn in time that pain doesn’t kill, and that’s the worst bit. Around then I could so easily have ended it all – I thought of it more than once – or I might’ve drunk myself to death; instead Fran saved me. Made me see there might still be a future.’ He scrubbed his hands through the short hair on his nape and looked at her. ‘I’m an entrepreneur, Chrissy. I have a talent for turning a buck, always have – it’s part luck, part know-how, part timing. So with Fran’s help I put my life back together and success followed. Since losing you all I have had my share of fortune,’ he said soberly. ‘Don’t think I don’t know it. Having Fran and the children, now finding you again. Despite everything, I’m a lucky man.’

‘Your children.’ Sara stared at the pool, the surface of the sky-blue water trembling from the breeze that moved across it. ‘Do they know about me yet?’

‘Yes, I rang Justin before I left, and I imagine he’s seen the papers by now. He was with his study group when we spoke. This is his senior year; he’s a bright boy. He intends to do a degree in business studies at university.’

‘And the girls?’

‘Oh, Fran will have explained it to them. They’re madly excited at the thought of a big sister. They were desperate to come along and see you, but Fran thought that we’d manage this first meeting best alone. She’s a clever woman, Chrissy, and ready to welcome you. Don’t worry about that. And the kids’ll love you to death. They can’t wait for me to bring you home.’