Half Moon Lake

by Kirsten Alexander

  ‘Another,’ he said to the barman. The whiskey was fire in his throat, and Walter was whining to get back outside. The bartender seemed decidedly disapproving, Tom thought. Maybe he’d heard Esmeralda. But who cared what a bartender thought? Tom was tired of other people’s opinions.

  Even last night, in his own home, he’d been mocked by a man he’d never met. A poet, of all people. Tom had sat down happily enough to his book, Frost’s Mountain Interval, fresh off the presses. He’d heard the poems were uplifting, inspiring, and he was in need of that. But the first poem he read was nothing of the kind. It read like a personal attack. Had the writer watched him from afar? It was possible. Tom’s name had been on every story about the Davenports from the get-go. He’d even penned the celebratory piece that had appeared the day after they were awarded custody of the boy: ‘Pure Joy in All Our Hearts’. Good grief.

  Frost wrote of a wanderer who, coming to a fork in the road, chose a path that set the course for his life. Tom heard no positive note in the poet’s surety that there was no going back, no chance to revisit the fork and choose differently. It was defeatist. He’d slammed the book shut.

  Tom would never tell her as much, but Esmeralda was right. He’d walked the wrong road, left his integrity by the wayside, attracted by beauty and power and the possibility of small fame. He couldn’t rewrite his past, but he could back up and return to the place where his life had forked. He could. He knew which road he’d walk from here on in, and it sure didn’t end in leaping flames.

  Tom slammed his glass on the bar and threw some money down. ‘C’mon, boy,’ he said to Walter. ‘Let’s go.’

  A half-dozen blocks away, Mrs Billingham and Gladys were strolling back to their motor car through the city square. The square was more crowded than it would usually have been, since the last few children from the most recent orphan train were being auctioned off.

  ‘Don’t gawp, Gladys. Do come along.’

  But Gladys kept her eyes fixed on the auction block. She edged closer.

  ‘Gladys, I am not staying for this spectacle. It’s charitable, I’m sure, but it’s not ours to watch.’

  When her daughter didn’t reply, Mrs Billingham followed Gladys’s gaze to the stage where a thin, bedraggled, fair-haired boy stood waiting to be bought. Crying, clipped on the head each time he tried to speak, though he seemed desperately to want to. ‘Impossible,’ she murmured.

  ‘You see it, too? Why, that boy is the very image of Mary. Mother, what if he’s –’

  Mrs Billingham grabbed her daughter’s arm in a hard pinch, making Gladys wince. ‘Ow!’

  ‘Be quiet.’ Mrs Billingham glanced around to see if any of the men and women near them had registered Gladys’s words but they were craning forward, concentrating on the bidding.

  ‘But if that’s their boy, then –’

  ‘Then nothing. Absolutely nothing, Gladys. We go home and never speak of it.’

  ‘Mother, if that’s Sonny, we can’t possibly let him be bought by a stranger. He’s a Davenport.’

  ‘There are three Davenport boys and they’re safe at home. That child is an orphan. By tonight he’ll have a family and a new name. In any case, it’s been years. I doubt you paid enough attention even back then to recognise him for sure.’

  Gladys stared at the boy. ‘Oh, but I am sure. Very sure. We must do something – tell the auctioneer, tell Mary.’

  ‘We’ll do neither of those things. Can you imagine the trouble you’d cause John Henry and Mary, and everyone who stood by them? The public disgrace, the mayoral election. No, Gladys. We’ll not utter a word about this to anyone. We walk away.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thank you Dave, Liam and Milo for your love, support and patience. Writing a book takes years. This one felt like it took decades. And while it was thrilling for me to sit down day and night with my invented people, I know that made me unavailable to you for large chunks of time. I appreciate you tiptoeing around me, most likely wondering when I would ever finish, and why I was so intent on doing something that had delivered me no success. It must be strange to live with a writer … Thank you for accommodating the strangeness with such good humour.

  Thank you, also, to the many friends and family members who continued to ask me how the book was going, long after politeness required. You’ve been unfailingly encouraging, even as I squirmed at the thought I would never live up to your kind words. To those friends who didn’t know I was writing a book, my apologies. I wasn’t sure it would see the light of day so it felt unwise to spread the word too confidently. And I wasn’t lying when I said I was a dog walker: I do that, too.

  I’m hoping I don’t offend anyone by singling out two friends. Thank you Cathy Ford for being so smart, generous and empathetic, and showing me how a real writer conducts herself. I’ve benefitted from knowing you in ways I can barely articulate (while knowing it’s not your job to benefit me in any way). I’m terrified at the thought of you reading this book. I mean it when I say I can’t write as well as you, though it’s good to have a goal.

  Martine Thompson, thank you for years of friendship. I treasure every moment of it. Thank you for sending me gum leaves when I was in Banff. And thank you for letting me finish this book in your home: it was a perfect sanctuary (except for the part where I scared your cats).

  Writing is a solo activity but publishing is not. I’m grateful to the people who stepped up to do the things I cannot. My thanks to my agent, Jacinta di Mase. You didn’t throw me off your books even when my first manuscript was rejected by twenty-six publishers, though you could have. You calmly persisted and found a home for it and this one, simultaneously. I appreciate your hard work, dedication and talent.

  Thank you to Penguin Random House publisher Beverley Cousins and editor Tom Langshaw. Beverley, I can only imagine how many manuscripts cross your desk. Thank you so much for choosing mine. Tom, I aspire to your impressive combining of wide vision and attention to detail. Both of you offered feedback and expertise that improved the manuscript immeasurably. (And offered it so diplomatically!) It’s been a pleasure to work with you.

  Elizabeth Sheinkman wrote a report on an early version of this manuscript in which she suggested that my attempt to braid together an historical and modern telling of this story wasn’t working and that I had, in fact, two books on my hands. Her advice that I focus on the historical story first was right. And I thank her very much. The second book is in the offing. (A sidenote of gratitude for kind people who share their friends: thank you Joanna Hershon for introducing me to Elizabeth – and for your beautiful novels – and to Emma-Kate Croghan for introducing me to Joanna.)

  Phil Dwyer gave detailed legal advice in language I could understand, and in a warm and thoughtful manner, for which I am forever thankful.

  And a sweeping but heartfelt thank-you to writers everywhere. Reading is life-changing. It has brought me joy, information, enlightenment and solace. At every difficult or confusing juncture, I’ve turned to the written word. Reading has taken me across the world, across time, to other planets, into people’s lives and minds. So, thank you to writers of fiction and nonfiction. You make humanity better. And to anyone aspiring to be published: please know the number of rejections I cited above is true, and only for that one manuscript. I’ve lost count of various other pitches that went nowhere. Rejection is awful, but readers like me are hoping you succeed. Please keep going.

  READING GROUP NOTES

  How do you think Mary Davenport’s disquieting upbringing – her mother’s miscarriages and sadness, her father’s coldness and Mary’s isolation on the plantation – has affected her role as a mother and wife?

  The Boy Scout movement that John Henry Davenport so admires was founded in England in 1908. Baden-Powell wrote Scouting for Boys for use by existing youth groups, but his book was an immediate success and people set up Boy Scout troops across the world. What, do you think, was it about the Scouts that so appealed to people like John Henry during this era
?

  At Sheriff and Mrs Bird’s house in Mobile, John Henry agrees when Mary declares the boy is theirs. Was he right to put his wife’s happiness and health above the truth? Was that, in fact, what he was doing?

  George Davenport was seven years old and Paul was six when their brother went missing in the forest. How would this episode in their lives change the type of people they become? How do you think they understand the choice their parents have made?

  What was it about John Henry’s deception in the library that spurred Esmeralda to take the enormous risk of travelling to the Pennys’ farm at night: her sense of justice, concern for the boy, identification with the mother or some combination of those things? Would you have done the same in her position?

  In real life, the Orphan Trains movement transported an estimated 200–250,000 orphaned and homeless children from crowded and dangerous East Coast cities of the United States to rural parts of the Midwest and South, from 1854 to 1929. While Anne of Green Gables (1908) and Pollyanna (1913) offered up happy endings for rehoused orphans, the true stories weren’t all as cheery. Do you think this was a good approach to housing hundreds of thousands of homeless children? Was Mason right to suggest the Davenports take in a train orphan?

  Mary and Grace Mill meet for the first time in the hallway outside the Opelousas courtroom. Do you imagine that moment might have gone differently had there been no other people there?

  Ned Mill won’t be a child forever. Do you think that as a young man he might seek out his mother, despite what John Henry said about her not wanting him?

  Do you think Grace and Sheriff Sherman might end up together? Would she be able to forgive him for not believing her earlier on?

  At the end of the novel Tom decides he can do better – be better – and leaves the bar with a head full of steam. Where do you think he goes, and why?

  On 6 April 1917, America joined the Great War. How do you think that might affect the characters in Half Moon Lake? Would Tom, Eddie or the sheriff have signed up? How would it have changed the lives of the women, if at all?

  In the true story of Bobby Dunbar, the lost boy’s descendants conducted a DNA test in 2004. It revealed that the boy had been given to the wrong family. How would you react if you discovered your ancestors had effectively kidnapped another woman’s son?

  A Bantam book

  Published by Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd

  Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060

  penguin.com.au

  First published by Bantam in 2019

  Copyright © Kirsten Alexander 2019

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, published, performed in public or communicated to the public in any form or by any means without prior written permission from Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd or its authorised licensees.

  Addresses for the Penguin Random House group of companies can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com/offices.

  ISBN 9780143792079

  Cover images: lake © Mark Owen/Arcangel; kite © George Marks/Getty

  Cover design by Blacksheep, www.blacksheep-uk.com

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