by Mark O'Flynn
Tom wouldn’t say how he got the constable from the yard of the Biles Hotel to the tennis court. Maybe he employed the technology of a wheelbarrow. Perhaps he had assistance from a person or persons unknown. Perhaps one of those unknown persons was Douglas Wilson or Ossie Farnell or Abe Thornycroft, who could tie a knot in rope that no one could undo. It could have been anyone, really. Either way it was too late for me to ask Douglas, who would have taken any such secret to his miner’s early grave (pneumoconiosis, 1906). Soon, soon, it will all be forgotten. All Tom would say in conclusion was: ‘Waste of good rope.’
I waited while a coughing fit took him. I held the spit bowl under his chin. ‘But how did you come by the jewellery box?’
‘Clancy came back … I think he wanted … to give it to Violet … before he left … I intercepted him … Little bastard … Sent him packing …’
A part of me, a tiny fragment, seized on this information. Tom was the one. He was the reason Clancy had gone. The larger part of me, though, understood this was wrong. The responsibility was mine. I had betrayed my only brother, for that is how I must still regard him. It has left me, when I sometimes see myself in a mirror, with a diminished feeling of sour emptiness, of being a smaller man than I should have been. Then Violet would come to me and our life would shuffle along once more.
And now, in the time of my forgetting, Tom Kefford is long dead. Douglas also, Emma, Ann too. How old am I again? How do I even know it is my birthday? Haven’t they all blurred into one by now? Because here is the door opening, and here are my children, grown adults themselves now, with their children coming into the room, my daughter bearing the cake with an unknown number of candles. And behind them their mother, Violet, leaning on her stick, but smiling, looking lovelier than I can ever remember. And in the open doorway behind her, where I might have half expected Clancy to appear, the hard, bright light of morning.
Author’s Note
The following books and publications were of immense help and interest in conjuring the detail of The Forgotten World.
Baker, Sydney J, A Dictionary of Australian Slang, Currey O’Neil, Melbourne, 1959
Barrett, J, Narrow Neck and the Birth of Katoomba, self-published, Katoomba, 1996
Bennett, JR, ‘The Katoomba Coal Mine’, A paper written for the Blue Mountains Historical Society, BMCC Library, 1971
Katoomba Rotary Club, Old Leura and Katoomba: A Collection of Historical Background Articles, Katoomba Rotary Club, 1982
Kay, P, The Far-Famed Blue Mountains of Harry Phillips, Second Back Row Press, Leura, 1985
Low, J, Pictorial Memories: Blue Mountains, Atrand, Sydney, 1991
Pells, PJ, and Hammon, PJ, The Burning Mists of Time, Philsquare Publishing, Katoomba, 2009
Thomas, M, The Artificial Horizon: Imagining the Blue Mountains, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2003
In and out of parliament, Sir Henry Parkes gave many famous speeches, such as the Tenterfield Oration, 1889, from which I have gleaned in order to give him some attitude. Poems in Murmurs of the Stream, 1857, were also useful. The thoughts, behaviour and opinions of Parkes and other historical figures I have entirely imagined. Some of the incidents are based on real events such as the Geological Exhibition for which JB North did win third prize. I have embellished to make North’s specimen larger than it actually was. However, there was no Midnight Tunnel to collapse at the time suggested. To my knowledge no one was ever killed working on the Katoomba Coal Mine. Lady Carrington did not lose her jewels. Where I have alluded to an historical event I have invented its detail, and sometimes changed dates, in order to suit the lives of my characters.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am indebted to a number of people who read various drafts of the manuscript and whose feedback and criticism have been invaluable.
Thanks to Irini Savvides, Philip Dodd and Peter Bishop whose suggestions were very useful in my early imaginings.
Thanks also to my agent, Gaby Naher, whose enthusiasm was contagious, and whose faith in the story reinvigorated my own.
At HarperCollins thanks particularly to my publisher, Jo Butler, and my editor, Clara Finlay, who asked the most wonderful questions at just the right time. Their support has been awesome.
Some of the later writing of this novel took place while on a residency at Hill End, courtesy of the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.
About the Author
Mark O’Flynn was born in Melbourne and now lives in the Blue Mountains. After studying at the Victorian College of the Arts, and working for a number of years in the theatre where he produced several plays, Mark turned to fiction and poetry. He has published four poetry collections and a novella, Captain Cook. Mark’s first novel, Grassdogs, was published in 2006 after he participated in the HarperCollins Varuna Manuscript Development Program. His short stories, articles, reviews and poems have appeared in a wide range of journals and magazines both in Australia and overseas. In 2013 he published the comic memoir False Start.
Other Books by Mark O’Flynn
Untested Cures
What Can Be Proven
Grassdogs
The Good Oil
The Too Bright Sun
Paterson’s Curse
Captain Cook
False Start
Copyright
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2013
This edition published in 2013
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Mark O’Flynn 2013
The right of Mark O’Flynn to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
O’Flynn, Mark.
The forgotten world / Mark O’Flynn.
978 0 7322 9477 9 (pbk.)
978 0 7304 9967 1 (epub)
Polygamy – Fiction.
Brothers – Fiction.
Katoomba (N.S.W.) – Social conditions – Fiction.
A823.3
Cover design by Matt Stanton, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover images: Trees in Mist © Paul Chantler Photography
