Thornwood House

by Anna Romer

  She kissed me.

  On the lips, with her tongue, the way I’ve told her I’d like to kiss Ross. Dammit, what was she thinking? Me and Corey have been besties forever, how could she do this to me? Worse, she knows I love Ross, why did she have to go and get all weird?

  Sigh. I like Corey, love her I suppose . . . just not like that.

  Not like she wants me to.

  We haven’t spoken since. I admit I was horrid to her, pushing her away, shouting at her. Shock talking, I guess. Normally when we fight she rings me, only now it’s nearly 11 p.m. and I still haven’t heard. I feel like shit.

  Thursday, 11 September 1986

  In answer to Monday’s question: Yes, the whole world IS mad. And me? I’m the maddest of them all.

  Bloody Tony.

  Just found out he’s the reason we’re not going to school camp next week. He fessed up that he accidently (on purpose?) let slip to Mum that I was keen on someone at school – the dork! Him and Mum are thick as thieves, I should have bloody well known not to trust him. He was really sorry, panicking that I’d go ballistic and do something crazy – which I nearly did, but then he gave me a funny little drawing of a bird with Ross’s face and love-heart wings, which was so daggy and annoying of him, but what can you do? He’s a shit sometimes, but a loveable shit.

  Sigh. I’m hunched in bed with the blanket over my head writing by torchlight, sweating like a porker. There’s a pain in my chest, probably just my stupid heart breaking. I hate knowing that after next Friday I’ll have to wait for next term to see Ross again, two scummy weeks! All the while knowing he’s at the mercy of those pathetic Gorgon sisters at camp, they’ll be laughing and flirting, the bitches, and Ross no doubt having a grand old time. Rats. It’s going to be torture.

  Friday, 19 September 1986

  Good news on the romance front, though a sad day as it’s the last before the hols and I’ll have to wait forever to see Ross again. I painted my nails pink for the occasion, though it’s against school rules. Just for luck, you understand.

  Look, I know he’s happily married, and I know he’s got two little boys who he adores (which only makes me love him more), and his wife seems nice – but what can I do? Everyone knows you can’t help who you fall in love with.

  So the good bit was this: Ross says to me, ‘Hey, Glenda, since you’re not coming to camp I’ve got just the thing to keep you busy over the holidays.’

  I rolled my eyes as if to say, Great, more homework – which made him laugh. He handed me a page torn out of the newspaper.

  ‘I was reading the weekend Courier-Mail and found this. It’s a short story competition, the prize money’s pretty good. I reckon you should enter.’

  I took the page. There was a picture of last year’s winner, a dumpy woman in slacks, and a blurb about what sort of story they wanted. Family drama, totally humdrum. The entry form at the bottom caught my eye, though. In particular the dollar sign next to the winnings.

  ‘Wow,’ I gaped, ‘that’s more than I earn in a month of babysitting. But . . . family drama.’ I wrinkled my nose. ‘My family’s boring. What would I write about?’

  Ross shrugged. ‘Remember what I said in English: no one’s boring once you scratch the surface. For some people you might have to scratch a bit harder, but there’s always a story lurking. So have a think. I’m sure you’ll come up with something.’

  He smiled one of his big heart-stoppers and looked right into my eyes. Of course, I melted. My hands shook just a bit as I walked away, folding the entry form and slipping it into my bra against my skin. I was pleased that Ross had been thinking about me on the weekend, pleased that he thought my writing was good enough to maybe win a competition. I would win, too. Never mind the pink nail polish. Take it from me. Winning a great big juicy story prize is a far better way to impress your teacher.

  Thursday, 25 September 1986

  The holidays are duller than dishwater but I’ve decided to pass the time working on my prize-winning story.

  So there I was this arvo on the back verandah, trying to rustle up ideas. Basil was flopped in the shade beside me, snorting in his sleep, no doubt dreaming of hunting rabbits, as rabbits are the love of Basil’s life. While I pondered, I shelled peas for Mum, popping a few in, they’re yum. If Mum has one talent it’s growing vegies. We’ve got a freezer full that she forced early in her hothouse, they’re small but they out-flavour those soggy prepacked ones in the shop. Mum says to let them thaw before shelling, but I never do. Straight from the Kelvinator, frosty and sweet.

  The days are heating up, soon it’ll be stinking hot. Since Dad’s a retard and won’t let me and Tony have iceblocks like every other living person on the planet (on account that they’ll rot our teeth), I have to make do with frozen peas.

  While I shelled, I spied on Tony. Had a bird’s eye view from my perch on the back steps. He was down in the bush paddock sitting on a big old stump, his head bent over his drawing book, sketching bark or seedpods or dragonfly wings, God where does he find this stuff? You’d never know it to look at him, but he’s really clever. Mum’s got his little paintings framed and hung up all round the house, and Dad’s forever spouting on at the post office about his talented kids. I always roll my eyes when he says that, but of course I’m secretly pleased.

  Anyway, there I was mulling over story ideas, when I saw Mum sneak along the side fence. Hello, I thought, what’s she up to? She doesn’t usually go into the paddock. Her face shone pink in the heat and she was wearing her good apron. Tony must have heard her coming because he looked around. They spoke for a moment, and then Mum slid something from her apron pocket – it looked like an envelope. Tony took it, and then Mum put something into his hand, a five dollar note? My sneaky brother squirrelled the money away and leapt to his feet, packing pencils and sketch block into his satchel. Then he trotted off along the track in the direction of Grandfather’s.

  Mum watched until Tony vanished, then came back to the house. A minute later she disappeared inside.

  Tossing my peas aside, I raced down the stairs and through the gate, hurtling along the track after Tony –

  Damn. Mum’s calling, dinner’s ready.

  Gotta go.

  Friday, 26 September 1986

  So anyway, yesterday. Tony’s nowhere. Gone. Vamoosed. Can you believe it? As if he’d racked off down the Bermuda Triangle. Nowhere.

  So I just kept walking along the track. I’ll go to the hollow tree, I decided. It’s a monster white beechwood tree, blackened by a long-ago lightning strike, really old. It’s on Grandfather’s property, worth the forty-five minute hike it takes to get there.

  By the time I got to the gully I was puffed. Only another thirty minutes to the tree, but the heat was out of control. Sweat drenched my T-shirt and I was parched. As soon as I went down the track and into the gully, I sighed with relief. It was shadowy and cool, all ferny and dark. Down there the air smells like creek water, muddy and delicious. Like another world. Millions of bell miners inhabit the trees. You can’t see them but you can hear them. It’s like being in a huge jar with these bright little chirps echoing at you from all sides. On and on they go. Sometimes there’s a gap in their song, and it’s dead quiet. Eerie. Then off they go again, dizzyingly beautiful. People say they sound like bells, that’s why they’re commonly called bellbirds, but to me they’re more like thousands of girls’ voices singing the same ringing note over and over and over.

  I reached the creek and paddled for a while. Sitting at the edge, resting my feet on a big mossy rock, enjoying the cool tug of the water. Lacy ferns grew along the bank, nodding in the stillness. The place was like a fairy glade, green and spotted with sunbeams, bright with birdsong.

  I got to thinking about Grandfather – at first, how awesome it was that he left this property to me and Tony when he died, and how we can come here whenever we like. Over two thousand acres of bushland, all ours. Then I remembered how much I miss him. He was such a cool old guy. He and Mum never saw
eye to eye, but it wasn’t on account of what happened back in the war days. If Mum thought for a minute that the rumours about Grandfather were true, she’d never have let us kids within cooee of him.

  Murder. God, how awful.

  I don’t know how Mum coped, knowing her own mother was killed. If it was me, I’d have cracked up. I couldn’t imagine growing up like she did, putting up with all the gossip and shame. I guess that’s why she and Grandfather didn’t get on – he stayed away from her when she was little, Mum says, because he couldn’t cope with seeing her after her mum died, that he was just too sad. But I reckon it was something else . . . like maybe Grandfather wanted to spare her more heartache by not reminding her of what she’d lost.

  It happened yonks ago, back in the forties. Mum was a toddler, three or four. Grandfather would’ve been a young man. Me and Tony used to talk about it sometimes, but only in a hush. We didn’t know much, and never asked. Could tell it was too painful for Mum to talk about. Dad stayed silent out of respect, too. Even so, we heard things. Whispers, snatches of gossip.

  Sometimes one of the oldies at church will cluck her tongue and mention Grandfather, but no one else much remembers. Once, I went into the post office to give Dad the lunch he’d forgotten, and overheard one old biddy whisper to another, ‘She’s the granddaughter of that girl the doctor murdered . . .’

  Crows picking over dry bones, that’s what Dad would’ve called them.

  So there I was in the gully, sitting in the cool shadows and thinking about my poor old grandma, when all of a sudden I get this full-on rash of goosebumps. I looked around. My grandmother had died right here at the gully. Maybe on this very spot.

  I started shivering, as if a wintry change had come over the gully. The creek water looked dark, the shadowy ferns no longer quite so friendly. High in the trees the bellbirds were chiming away, but now they sounded shrill, almost urgent, as though their song was a warning.

  Crazy, I know, but I couldn’t stop shivering.

  Ross is right, I thought. All you have to do is scratch the surface . . .

  And that’s when I had my brilliant idea.

  Saturday, 27 September 1986

  ‘Mum, I’ve got an idea for that story competition I was telling you about,’ I began, testing the water. ‘But I’m going to need your help.’

  ‘Oh?’ She looked up from the ironing board, which she always insists on dragging into the kitchen so she has a view outside. She smiled encouragingly. ‘What’s that, love?’

  ‘I’m going to write about my grandmother . . . only I don’t have much info about her.’

  Mum looked taken aback. ‘But Glenny, you’ve got a whole album of photos of Grandma Ellen, and Dad’s told you plenty of – ’

  ‘I don’t mean Dad’s mother.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It’s all right, isn’t it? I mean, it was a long time ago. And we both know Grandfather didn’t kill her, he couldn’t have. So it’s a mystery . . . and a kind of love story, all mixed into one.’

  Mum set the iron aside and went over to the sink, turned the tap on full and washed her hands. She grabbed the soap and washed and washed, as if my question had somehow made her feel dirty.

  ‘Mum – ?’

  She splashed her face and gave it a good scrub with her palms, then groped in the drawer for a clean tea towel. ‘I don’t think you should, pet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She looked over her shoulder at me. Her face was blotchy as if someone had squeezed lemon on it. Her eyes were big and brimming with worry.

  ‘I just don’t. I’m sorry.’

  I sighed, realising my mistake. I could have argued with her, pointed out that I had every right to know about my grandmother – but I knew it would hurt her too much. Mum must have had a horrible time after her mother died, she’d only been a little kid. It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t talk about it.

  ‘Never mind, Mum,’ I said. ‘I’ll think of something else.’

  And I tried. I really tried. In the end, the story of my grandmother nagged. It was as if her ghost was restless now that I’d raised the topic of her with Mum. As if her story had sprouted wings and flown free of its box, impossible to tuck back out of sight. One way or another my grandmother would have her tale told . . . and I would be the one to tell it.

  Sunday, 28 September 1986

  Mum was at church, rostered on morning tea. Dad was out in the garden, planting spring onions. He’d made neat little rows in the soil with a broom handle, and was using a length of old wooden ruler to space the seeds.

  ‘Dad,’ I began, cautious after Mum’s response, ‘I have to ask you something, but I’m scared you’ll be angry.’

  It was a joke, of course. Dad’s never angry. Taurus the bull: stubborn and reliable, slow to lose his cool. On the rare occasion that a Taurean does fly off the handle, say the astrologers, then watch out. It must be true, because I’ve never heard Dad raise his voice, not once. I like to think of him as ‘mild-mannered’ – a regular Clark Kent, except no Superman hiding beneath his crisp white shirt and boring brown workpants. Of course Dad wasn’t wearing his good gear today, just old King Gees and a khaki shirt rolled at the sleeves, but you get the drift.

  Dad looked up and grinned, his ears pink from the sun despite his hat. A bit of hair flopped into his eye and he blew the strand away.

  ‘What’s that, Glenny?’

  ‘Well . . .’ I looked at the sky, then checked my fingernails. The pink polish I’d put on for the last week of school to impress Ross was mostly chipped off. Just lots of little flakes bravely clinging, but I didn’t have the heart to remove them. They’d been lucky, after all.

  Dad gave a snort and went back to his onions. ‘Out with it, then.’

  I sighed. ‘I’m writing a story, it’s going to be really good, I might even enter a competition.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Dad said, marking out the next row with his broom handle. ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘My grandmother.’

  My voice was kind of tight when I said it, maybe that’s why Dad looked up. He gave me a curious look.

  ‘Mum’s mother,’ I explained, then hurried on. ‘It’d make a great story – you know, the mystery about how she died and all that. The problem is I hardly know anything about her. Mum doesn’t like talking about her, and all I’ve got to go on are rumours and an old newspaper clipping that doesn’t give much away, and . . . well, not much else.’

  Dad set aside his broom and stood up. Hands on the small of his back, he stretched his spine and looked at the sky. I heard a bone pop, and Dad sighed.

  ‘You want to hear what I know about her.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not much, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Did you ever meet her?’

  Picking up his ruler, he went to the next row and shook some black seeds from a packet into his palm. He was silent for a time, as if he’d forgotten I was there. He walked the seed line, measuring, and making little indents in the soil with his thumb, then poking in the seeds.

  I waited. Dad loves his privacy, a quality he shares with Mum. He rarely speaks about the past, and when he does you get the feeling he’s making half of it up as he goes, embroidering the facts to be more amusing or maybe just to disguise the bits he doesn’t want to give away. I suppose that’s where my love of stories comes from.

  Dad cleared his throat. ‘I knew your grandmother in the war days. I was just a lad of eight or nine. She was . . .’ He paused to smile up into the overhanging trees. ‘She was beautiful. Long dark hair and brown eyes. Slim, and as graceful as a bird.’

  ‘How did you know her?’

  ‘She was all alone, so she came to stay with us.’

  ‘She stayed with you? I never knew that.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why was she alone?’

  Walking along the row, compacting the soil over his onion seeds, Dad trained his eyes on his feet. ‘Her mother had died, and her father was interned on account of him bei
ng a German immigrant. That’s what happened in the war, the government was worried about security – though you’d never meet a more patriotic fellow than Jacob Lutz, your great-grandfather. He loved Australia, always said this country saved him . . . Anyhow, Jacob had been Magpie Creek’s Lutheran pastor for years, but on account of him being born in Germany, the Commonwealth Investigation Bureau made all these ridiculous accusations and sent him down to Tatura, an internment camp in Victoria. He was there for nearly three years.’

  Dad fell silent. I waited. And waited some more. Then sighed. Dad was fifty-four, which was pretty old – but sometimes he acted really old, if you know what I mean. Staring into space, pondering. Forgetting things, getting his facts mixed up. He loved relating yarns about the old days, but they never quite seemed to match up from one telling to the next. This was one story I hoped he’d get right.

  ‘Dad – ?’

  He smiled distractedly. Picking up his broom, he began re-marking a seed line he’d scuffed.

  ‘Your grandmother was happy living with us. She became one of the family – helping my mother with the chores, churning the butter, feeding the chooks, tending the little cornfield we had out the back, keeping the house nice. And your mum, she was just a tiny tot, a chirpy little thing with these big green eyes and a smile that made your heart melt like ice-cream in the sun. My mum – that is, your Grandma Ellen – adored her little Lulu, and spoilt her rotten. We all did.’

  ‘I can’t believe Mum never told me.’

  ‘Well, Glenny, it wasn’t all fun and games. There was a war on, and life was hard . . . but it was exciting, too. We had a couple of servicemen billeted with us. Most families in Magpie Creek had two or three boys staying with them. Army, or Air Force. A few Navy. Your grandmother used to cook up big shank stews with beef, and corn from the garden, and split peas. We had cream and buttermilk, and eggs from the chooks. Fresh vegies and fruit. Families in town – or worse, in the cities – did it hard, eking out their coupons for a measly pound of butter a fortnight, or two pounds of sugar. They were interesting times. Rewarding if you kept your wits about you.’