6. The Ache Under Nell’s Primrose Cardigan

The mist lifted late and returned early in the Valley of the Unicorns. It tasted like a baby’s kiss, felt like damp velvet and smelt like the beginning of time. It hung like a magic cloak from ghostly gum trees and floated like an angel’s wing above the crystal stream.

Nell collected an apron-full of dry twigs while Ben arranged river rocks to make a fireplace. Once the fire was lit, Nell unfolded her canvas deck chair and sat beside the leaping flames. Ben wrapped a tartan picnic rug around her shoulders, filled an old black billy with water from the stream and set it over the fire.

‘I’ll fill the bottles with mineral water now, Mum,’ he said. ‘By the time I’ve finished the billy should have boiled. Then we’ll have a cup of tea and something to eat.’

Nell watched Ben pick his way carefully across the slippery stepping stones, carrying the crate of empty bottles on his shoulder. Once he was safely across to the other side of the stream, she unpacked enamel mugs and plates, egg and lettuce sandwiches and melting moments.

The fire hissed and spat. A kookaburra laughed a beak-sized hole in the curtain of mist, then fell silent. Nell leant forward and poked at the fire with a stick. The coals broke open and showed their red hearts. Nell felt a sudden ache under her primrose cardigan. She’d had this ache before, but wasn’t sure what caused it.

Perhaps it was because the children weren’t with her today. They were growing up now. They did things and went places by themselves, all as it should be. It wasn’t that Nell was lonely; when the children were at school there was always something to keep her busy — people to be visited, flowers to be picked, socks to be knitted, stories to be read, cakes to be baked. It was just that she noticed the ache more when she was alone.

Often it happened at the same time as a tiny tender moment. Like the week before, when she had been digging in the garden bed and dislodged a handful of freesia bulbs. After all these years, the sight of them had set Nell’s heart aching for Johnny and her girls. Her thoughts went back to when she was given the freesias …

On her wedding day, Nell couldn’t afford a bouquet. But when she arrived at the church, Johnny was waiting outside and handed her a posy of fresh freesias. Afterwards, Johnny explained how he’d noticed the perfume of some white flowers near the stop where he caught the tram to work. On the morning of the wedding, he plucked up the courage to knock on the door of the cottage where the flowers grew and to ask if he could pick a few for his sweetheart’s wedding bouquet. The lady who answered told Johnny to take as many as he wanted, and, in turn, Johnny invited her to come along to the church to meet his bride.

That afternoon, when Nell and Johnny walked through the arched doorway and out into the sun together, the lady handed Nell a parcel wrapped in butcher’s paper and tied with yellow ribbon. Inside were a dozen freesia bulbs she had dug from her garden and on the paper was a handwritten message. Nell kept the paper with her wedding things: her mother’s gown, her blue garter and her veil. She could almost remember the words by heart.

My name is Pearl Brady. On our wedding day, my husband, Maurice, gave me a dozen freesia bulbs wrapped in butcher’s paper and tied with yellow ribbon. We planted them in the front garden of our home, where we hoped they would multiply. We planned to have children and to share the freesia bulbs with them when they grew up and had gardens of their own. Maurice was a good man and would have made a wonderful father, but sadly we never had any children. So I’d like you to have these bulbs. They’re white freesias, the sweetest kind. Maurice passed away last year, but I’m sure he’d have wanted you to have them. I wish you health and happiness and children to give the freesias to.

Before long, Nell and Johnny had a beautiful daughter and they named her Katie. Nell remembered thinking how lucky she and Johnny were. They picked a posy of freesias from their garden when they took Katie for her first visit to Pearl Brady’s house. Pearl had had her ninetieth birthday the day before and said that holding Katie was the best gift she could have wished for. Pearl passed away before Nell and Johnny’s second daughter, Ella, was born.

The air was growing cool in the Valley of the Unicorns. Nell nudged another log of wood on to the fire. Steam rattled the billy lid and she tipped in a handful of tea leaves and stirred them with a eucalyptus twig. Ben should be coming soon.

Ben had filled the emptiness in Nell’s heart after the accident that took Johnny and Katie and Ella away from her. He was only seven years old when he came from the orphanage to live with Nell. And when Ben became a man, he and Annie took Nell to live with them in the house on the hill that became the Kingdom of Silk. On the day they arrived, Nell presented Ben with a parcel. It was wrapped in butcher’s paper and tied with yellow ribbon. Nell had written a message on the paper.

Dearest Ben, I couldn’t have asked for a better son than you. Johnny would have loved you too. These bulbs were grown from the ones given to Johnny and me on our wedding day. They’re white freesias, the sweetest kind. I call them Pearl’s freesias, after the lady who gave them to us. I hope you’ll plant them at our new home and that they’ll grow and multiply. I wish you health and happiness and children to give Pearl’s freesias to.

The sound of bottles clinking together brought Nell back to the present. Ben was on his way. She unwrapped the sandwiches, arranged them on a plate and poured tea into the two enamel mugs, and by then the ache had eased.

On the way home, Nell decided she was going to start writing all her rememberings into a book, just in case she ever forgot them.

She would tell how her daddy, Jack Rose, used to ride his bicycle thirty kilometres to work in a mine and thirty home again, and how he made his fiddle sing at the dances on Saturday nights.

She’d write about the dresses her mother made for her and her sisters, with hand-stitched smocking and embroidered rosebuds. Ruby, Florence and Alice Rose had all worn them before they were passed on to Nell, who was the youngest. When she grew up, Nell kept them wrapped in tissue paper, with dried lavender to keep the silverfish away. Katie and Ella wore them and then the Rainbow Girls. They were as frail as dragonfly wings now.

On the wall of Annie’s studio is a portrait of another little girl: a baby with yellow curls and chubby cheeks, wearing another of the dresses Nell’s mother had made. This child was Tishkin, the youngest of Ben and Annie’s daughters. She left in the night while the others were sleeping, without a kiss or a cry or one last goodbye. Nell would write that in her book too, so other people would know how glad she was that Tishkin was laid to rest in a dress that once was hers: a tiny gown of memories.

Nell was still thinking about what she would write in her book, when Ben steered the Bedford into their driveway. Perry, Layla and Griffin were swinging on the gate, cheeks as red as rosehips, hair as wild as brambles and smiles stretching from ear to ear. The Rainbow Girls had gone with Anik; Grandma Mosas had promised them a weaving lesson. But Perry, Layla and Griffin had come straight home with Annie. They wanted to tell Nell the good news about the festival. Before they left, Scarlet reminded them not to say anything about the dance.

There are good secrets and bad secrets. Good secrets always make you feel happy. If you feel bad, it is a sign you shouldn’t keep the secret to yourself. You should talk about it with someone you trust. Perry Angel knew the difference. This secret was one of the best he’d ever had.

The children rode the rusty gate until it clicked shut then raced up the red gravel drive behind the truck, laughing as they ran.