Dreamscapes

by Tamara McKinley

  She returned from her wanderings to the garden behind Demetri’s apartments at the back of the hotel. Velda was sitting in a cane chair, an umbrella shielding her from the sun, a drink in a long glass on a table beside her, and a book in her lap. Catriona didn’t disturb her, for she appeared to be sleeping.

  Despite the hustle and bustle and all the wonderful sights and sounds of the hotel, Catriona preferred the tranquillity of this back garden. It was shielded from the guests by a stand of trees and an ornate wooden fence, the grass sweeping away to become immersed in the lush greenery of the surrounding rainforest. With a broad lawn and formal flower-beds it was a peaceful haven – a place of contemplation and rest where she hoped her mother would find some benefit.

  ‘Good morning, little one. I hope you slept well?’

  Remembering Kane’s warning of the previous night, she looked up at Demetri warily. ‘Yes thank you,’ she replied. ‘It was lovely having a room to myself for a change.’

  He looked down at her and smiled. His dark hair shone almost blue in the sunlight, his brown eyes touched with gold. His dress was less formal than yesterday, she realised, for the suit had been exchanged for baggy trousers that had obviously seen much use, a check shirt and heavy boots. ‘I too like to be alone,’ he admitted. ‘Is good to have place to think – to be oneself.’

  ‘Then why did you build the hotel?’ she asked in amazement.

  ‘I have money to spend. It has always been my dream to have such a place.’ He grinned, but his eyes were remorseful. ‘Sometimes to wish for something is enough. For when it becomes real it is perhaps not as what one imagined.’

  He was talking in riddles and she frowned.

  ‘That is why I ask Mr Kane to come,’ he explained. ‘He has the education, the English voice and manners my guests understand.’ He looked down at his boots. ‘I am a peasant, a man of little education. I have nothing in common with these people with their fancy cars and clothes and strange ways.’

  Catriona grinned up at him. She liked Demetri, and despite Kane’s bitter tirade against him, she knew instinctively she would come to no harm with him. They walked together across the lawn and into the rainforest where he named every flower, shrub and climbing vine. He reached into his pocket and pulled out seeds and breadcrumbs and when he whistled the rosellas and parakeets flew down from the trees and fed from his hand.

  ‘Come,’ he said finally. ‘I will show you where I spend most of my time.’

  She followed him willingly back through the bush and into the distant corner of the garden. The shed stood in the shadows of the trees, surrounded by wildflowers and long grass. ‘No one comes here any more,’ he told her as he fetched the large key from under the rock by the door and turned it in the lock. ‘This was the outhouse and laundry once upon a time, and when I make this old house into my palace, there was no need for it any longer.’ He opened the door and stood back to let her go in.

  Catriona gasped as she stepped inside. It was dark, but not gloomy, and smelled of hot metal and strange potions. Dusty bottles stood on shelves with names inscribed on them that she couldn’t pronounce. There was a wood-stove in the far corner beside which sat a large cauldron and several odd-looking spoons that were surely meant for a giant. There were ragged old tents and ancient boots, shovels and spades and picks and wheelbarrows filling every available space. A giant wooden sieve leaned against the wall and an old desk was covered in books and papers and odd bits of wire and metal.

  ‘I keep everything here in case I want to go prospecting again. You Australians call it going walkabout, but I prefer to think of it as time to gather myself up again and be my own man, the true Demetri.’ He saw her puzzlement and laughed. ‘I like being a rich man, little one, but I am a gypsy at heart, a Russian gypsy, with the open road in my veins.’

  Catriona could understand that; after all, she reasoned, she’d spent her entire life, all twelve years of it tramping the tracks. It would indeed seem peculiar to be settled in one place for more than a few days.

  ‘What do you do in here?’ she asked as she looked around at the strange tools and the cauldron.

  ‘I make things,’ he said with a mysterious air. ‘Come, I show you.’

  He settled her on a rickety chair and hastened over to the wood-stove. Having stoked the fire to a roaring blaze he lifted the great ladle and put something in it. ‘Watch now, Catriona. It’s magic.’

  She came to stand beside him. The gold sizzled in the ladle sending a strange smell into the air. She watched as he carefully poured the liquid into a metal mould. Within moments he had a finely wrought gold ring in the palm of his hand. It was as if Merlin himself stood at her shoulder.

  ‘I make something for you one day,’ he promised. ‘You would like that?’

  ‘Please.’ She knew her eyes were shining and her cheeks were aglow not only from the heat of the fire.

  ‘Then it will be,’ he promised. ‘Now, you must go, for I hear your mother calling.’ He looked down at her with fondness and the hint of a tear in his eye. ‘You remind me very much of my darling Irina,’ he said sadly.

  ‘Who was Irina?’

  ‘My daughter,’ he said as he took a large handkerchief from his pocket and lustily blew his nose. ‘But she is dead, like my wife, mother and father and my brothers. The Cossacks come to my village and kill all – all. I was away, hunting for food in the forest. It was winter, deep snow. I return to find death and blood where once there was warmth and love. I never go back.’

  Catriona could feel the tears well and blinked them away. She took his large hand and squeezed the fingers. There were no words to say to him that would ease his pain, but she hoped her touch might console him a little.

  ‘Then I come to this great country and find gold,’ he said with a watery smile. ‘Wealth will never heal the pain of losing Irina and Lara, but it gives me a life I could never hope for in Russia. Here is freedom, the chance to live as I wish.’

  Catriona smiled up at him as she heard her mother calling for her. ‘I have to go. It’s time for my singing practice, and if nothing else, it seems to keep Mam focussed.’

  He raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘So? It is I think the only thing she cares about; of course you must use my piano. It is in my apartments. Feel free to use it at any time.’

  *

  As the weeks carried on into months Catriona settled into her new way of life. She had made firm friends with Phoebe. Yet the little maid worked long hours and as she lived with her parents on the other side of Atherton, they rarely had a chance to do much together but snatch a few moments during the hectic days. Phoebe was also in the throes of first love and every spare minute was spent rushing out into the garden to flirt and giggle with one of the young garden apprentices.

  The hotel was full, and apart from the glowering presence of Edith Powell, her new life was beginning to take shape. She had grown to like Demetri more and more. He was the father she’d lost, the grandfather she’d never had, and she realised they found in one another a bond that filled the aching void in their hearts. He might have been an uneducated Russian émigré, but he was a true friend, who never seemed to mind how many hours he spent with her. He taught her the names of the trees and the birds, showed her the secret places where the wombats slept with their young, took her deep into the forest where they would sit and watch the wallabies and their joeys feed. But the most exciting thing of all was when he turned the nuggets of gold into a fiery liquid, and then fashioned it into exquisite jewellery.

  Demetri had also taken Velda under his protective wing. Each morning he would sit with her in the garden and talk to her, his deep voice a rumble in the warm stillness. Yet, despite his care, Velda had grown even thinner during the past months. She kept away from Edith and the patrons of the hotel and moved around the garden and Demetri’s apartments like a wraith, her face as pale as paper. At night Catriona would hear her sobbing herself to sleep and it broke her heart. She longed to comfort her and be comforted –
longed for Velda to notice that she too was hurting. But apart from the morning singing lessons, Velda’s days were spent in an almost dream-like state, her nights in tears – she didn’t appear to have the energy or time to notice her daughter needed more than singing lessons to help her through her loss.

  Catriona’s relationship with Kane had changed. It was a subtle change, one that had happened so slowly over the months she’d hardly noticed it. Where once she’d accepted his embraces, his innocent kisses on her brow, his hand on her arm or at her waist, she realised she was uncomfortable with his touch and uneasy with his over-familiarity. And yet he seemed to offer sympathy and support where her mother had failed, and had offered solace and quiet friendship as he had always done. Perhaps it was the changes within herself that made her uneasy with him, for he had done nothing specific to warrant this sense of something not being quite right.

  It was a few weeks before her thirteenth birthday and Velda had, as usual, gone to bed early, leaving her alone with Kane in Demetri’s drawing room. Catriona was bored with the book she’d been reading, and had set it aside to go and stand at the window. She loved looking out into the garden, for the fireflies danced in the bushes like tiny fairies.

  ‘Come and sit with me and tell me about your day,’ Kane drawled. He reached out his hand.

  Catriona turned from the window with reluctance.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ He grinned. ‘Surely you don’t begrudge me a few minutes of your day? I remember a time when you were always running to me with tales of what you’d been up to.’

  She remembered those times out on the tracks, when she’d sought out his company. Remembered how good he’d been to her and Mam during those awful days after Da’s death. It made her feel foolish standing there and she took the proffered hand.

  He grasped it and before she realised what was happening, he had pulled her on to his lap.

  ‘I’m too big to sit on your knee,’ she protested, her face hot with embarrassment.

  ‘Nonsense,’ he said as he drew her closer. ‘You’re only a little thing. Weigh less than a sparrow despite all the food you’ve been putting away.’ His fingers roamed up her arm to the capped sleeve of her dress. ‘So, what have you been up to all day?’

  ‘This and that,’ she muttered. She tried not to move, but she was hot and uncomfortable in his embrace. She wasn’t a little girl any more, she would be thirteen in a matter of weeks, and she knew instinctively that it wasn’t seemly to be in such a position. She could smell the cigar smoke on his breath mingled with the port he’d been drinking, and could feel the rapid drum of his pulse against her bare arm. She didn’t know what to do or say, how to express the tide of emotions that swept through her.

  ‘Flirting with the gardener’s boy with Phoebe, I suspect,’ he said softly as he nuzzled her ear. ‘You want to be careful, or you’ll get a bad reputation.’ His fingers brushed against the buds of her breasts and traced a line at her throat.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said all in a rush as she tried to pull away from him. ‘Mam will wonder where I am.’

  ‘Give us a kiss goodnight then,’ he murmured, his grip relentless on her waist.

  Catriona hesitated. If she did as he asked he would let her go, perhaps a peck on the cheek would satisfy him.

  He swiftly turned his head and returned her kiss, his lips crushing hers, his fingers tight on the back of her neck as his other hand swept beneath the hem of her dress to her underwear.

  She shoved away from him and stood up. Her legs were trembling and she was finding it hard to breathe. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ she spluttered.

  His blue eyes widened. ‘What’s this?’ he said with a snort of laughter. ‘I thought we were friends?’

  She shook her head. She didn’t have the words to explain her feelings; was confused and frightened and suddenly terribly shy in the light of his easy dismissal of her protest. And yet something told her his actions tonight were a precursor of something more unpleasant and that he was enjoying her discomfort. She hurried from the room to the sound of him chuckling over his port and went in search of her mother. She would understand her predicament and would know what to do.

  Velda was in bed, the light casting a warm glow over the frosty white sheets that covered her thin frame. ‘Go to bed, Kitty. I’m tired,’ she murmured with a sigh.

  ‘Mam,’ she began, the tears making her voice rough. ‘Mam, there’s something I need to talk to you about.’

  Velda sighed and sat up, pulling the sheet to her chin, barely disguising the sharp bones of her chest. ‘What is it now, Catriona?’

  ‘It’s Mr Kane,’ she replied, determined to have her say. ‘I don’t like him.’

  ‘Why ever not?’ Velda’s violet eyes widened.

  Catriona searched for the right way to express her feelings, but she was so confused and unsure of exactly what to say it came out all wrong. ‘He treats me like a little girl,’ she said finally.

  ‘Is that all?’ Velda’s words were impatient. ‘Perhaps that’s because you are,’ she said flatly. ‘Go to bed, Catriona. It’s too late for tantrums.’

  ‘I’m not a kid,’ she retorted. ‘And I don’t like it when he …’

  ‘Go to bed, Catriona,’ her mother repeated. ‘Kane’s a good man. He loves you like a daughter and would be horrified to think you didn’t like him after all he’s done for us.’

  ‘He’s not my father,’ Catriona snapped. ‘And I don’t care if he knows I don’t like him. He’s, he’s …’ She faltered beneath the cold glare of those violet eyes.

  Velda sighed and slid back down the pillows. ‘For goodness sake, Catriona, it’s late and I promised Demetri I’d join him early in the morning for a walk. Stop being dramatic and calm down. No doubt it’s your hormones playing up – you’re of an age for things to have started, but we’ll talk about all that tomorrow.’

  ‘But…’

  Velda cut her off. ‘Goodnight,’ she said firmly.

  Catriona hovered.

  Velda sighed. ‘You want to thank your lucky stars you have a roof over your head and a comfortable bed to sleep in. Perhaps you should remember who made all that possible.’

  ‘Demetri made it possible,’ Catriona snapped. ‘It’s his hotel, not Mr Kane’s.’

  Velda turned over on to her side and switched off the light, leaving Catriona standing in the doorway mute with misery and frustration.

  Chapter Seven

  Christmas had come and gone and now they were into the new year of 1934. Edith Powell stood at the window and watched Demetri take the Irish gypsy’s arm as they crossed the lawn and went into the rainforest. The anger and frustration were mixed with despair, for her long-held dreams of having Demetri to herself were shattered. He barely had the time to talk to her any more; it was as if she’d become a part of the fabric of this hotel – invisible.

  She clenched her fists as he opened the umbrella to shield the woman from the sun, and her mouth curved in a sneer. That Irish bitch had snared him from right under her nose. She’d come here, all doe-eyed and mournful, her precocious brat in tow, and Demetri, soft-hearted and kind to a fault, had fallen for it. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. Life had treated her cruelly and she knew she’d become bitter and ugly because of it.

  She dipped her head and sighed, no longer able to watch them. Her fiancé had been killed in the Great War and she’d nursed her parents to the end of their lives. With so many of the young men of her generation killed on the battlefields of Europe she had become a spinster, to be derided and talked about and, worst of all, pitied. The opportunity to work for Demetri had come as a thrilling proposition. He was single, handsome and rich, and as his new building rose on the hillside, she had looked after him, making sure he ate properly and that his clothes were always clean and neat. She had been easily persuaded to take on the enormous task of overseeing the running of his hotel, because she loved him and thought that by easing
his workload, he would see her as a woman rather than a housekeeper and realise how good they would be together.

  Yet, kind as he was, she knew she meant little to him, and the thought of her lonely little cottage on the outskirts of Atherton made her depressed. Where once it had been a haven, it was now the place where she spent each night plagued by dreams of Demetri. Did he sleep with the gypsy? Did he run his fingers through that long dark hair and kiss her face? Oh, how she longed for his touch, for the sound of his voice soft in her ear, his hands upon her body, bringing the life and warmth she could only imagine to her parched soul.

  ‘How very touching. I’m sure Demetri is delighted you take such careful interest in his affairs.’

  Edith whirled round, her face flushed with embarrassment. ‘I came in here to change the flowers,’ she said, aware that her voice was too high, the words garbled.

  His fair eyebrow lifted and his blue eyes were mocking. ‘I’m sure you did,’ he said dismissively. ‘But rather than snooping, you would be better occupied with the details for Catriona’s birthday party.’

  Edith gritted her teeth. She despised Kane. His very Englishness grated on her and made her yearn to lash out and claw his supercilious face. But years of reining in her emotions wouldn’t allow her to do that and she clasped her hands tightly at her waist. ‘There will be tea and an iced cake in here on the afternoon,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘I think not,’ he drawled. ‘Her mother and Demetri are planning something on a far grander scale. I have already organised a dance band, and there will be a formal dinner with champagne to toast the occasion.’

  ‘She’s only a child,’ Edith gasped. ‘Far too young for that sort of extravagance.’

  ‘Demetri has ordered it.’ Kane towered over her, his tone giving her no choice but to acquiesce. ‘Please make sure Cook is prepared and the stores ordered. The hotel will be full that night and I want nothing left to chance.’

  Edith was quivering with rage. ‘You mean that gypsy brat is having her party out there amongst the guests?’ she hissed. ‘I suppose her tart of a mother thinks she can lord it over me as well, making me run around after her doing all the work?’ She was finding it hard to breathe. ‘I won’t have it,’ she snapped finally.