by Judy Nunn
‘Tell me about him.’
‘There’s nothing to tell. I was young, eighteen, I’d had one minor and very disappointing sexual experience.’ She shrugged. ‘I think I was just desperate to find out what it was like to be in love. Poor Pete,’ she said with a rueful smile, ‘I literally threw myself at him. But somehow,’ she added thoughtfully as she recalled Fareham and Chisolm House and the stables, ‘everything around me seemed to lend itself to romance. I remember it was the first time I’d seen snow.’
That Christmas Day, it was so clear in her mind. The view from the loft windows of the stables. The courtyard all clothed in white. The walk to Titchfield, Pete waiting for her when she’d returned. He’d rejected her that night, she remembered.
She broke from her train of thought and scoffed self-consciously, ‘Oh really, Jason, you don’t want to hear all of this.’
‘I do, I do,’ he said, enthusiastic, topping up their glasses. He was prepared to listen until dawn. ‘I want to know everything about you.’ He handed her the champagne. ‘Go on, go on,’ he urged, ‘tell me about Pete, tell me about absolutely everything.’
He was irresistible in his eagerness, she thought. The remote man she’d first met was no longer there. Nor the enigmatic creature who had intrigued and even tantalised her. She was seeing the real Jason Thackeray now. This was the man who loved her, and whom she loved in return. She took a deep breath and started.
‘It was my first time out of Australia and I was doing a pantomime in the south of England. Cinderella to be exact, and I was playing Cinders.’ She gave a theatrical moue; he surely couldn’t be interested. ‘We were performing in an obscure venue called Ferneham Hall in an obscure place called Fareham. You wouldn’t know it, I don’t think many people do, but it’s a little market town in between Portsmouth and Southampton.’
As she talked, the past flooded back. ‘I loved it there,’ she said. ‘I loved everything about Fareham, its past and its present.’ She’d forgotten her self-consciousness now. ‘It’s so pretty.’
‘I agree,’ he said. Then, amused by her surprise, he added, ‘I visited the place in late 1994, just after Mamma Jane died.’
‘Really?’ Her look was one of incredulity. 1994, that was when she’d done the pantomime. What a remarkable coincidence, she thought, the two of them might well have been in Fareham at the very same time.
‘I wanted to see where she grew up,’ Jason explained. ‘You’re quite right, it’s a very pretty town.’
‘Jane Thackeray grew up in Fareham?’ Sam put the glass down on the small wooden table, her hand felt shaky.
‘Oh yes, she often talked about her childhood, and her life there as a young woman. Go on,’ he nodded, ‘so you met Pete doing the pantomime. Was he an actor?’
‘What did she say about her childhood?’
‘That it was poor but happy. That she lost her mother at an early age, but she adored her father, that she had a best friend called Phoebe. Go on, Sam, tell me about Pete.’
Jason waited for her to continue her story, but she didn’t.
‘Phoebe?’
Sam gripped the armrests of her chair. Phoebe Chisolm’s friend Jane. She remembered her dream that night. Two young girls, not yet women. And the following day how she’d asked the housekeeper, Mrs M.
‘Did Phoebe Chisolm have a particularly close friend when she was a child? A girl about the same age?’
‘Oh dear me, yes. Jane Miller.’
‘Her best friend was called Phoebe?’
‘Yes, I never knew her last name.’ Jason, so accustomed to Sam’s obsession with his grandmother, reluctantly accepted the change of topic, although he would far rather have heard about Pete. ‘Mamma Jane talked about her a lot. Throughout her life actually. They wrote to each other until the end of the war when Phoebe went to America. I think they lost touch after that, I don’t know what happened. But Mamma Jane still talked about her. She said she owed her life to Phoebe.’
Sam remembered how she’d asked the old woman in the park about Jane Miller. Maude, that’s right. Maude, who’d visited her during her hallucination that night saying, ‘We’re a team, you and I, dear.’ Old Maude with the pretty smile.
‘Jane had such lovely fair curls, just like you,’ Maude had said.
And outside the real estate office. She’d asked Jim Lofthouse.
‘What happened to Jane Miller?’
‘She went to some island in the South Pacific. Nobody heard from her again.’
The mysterious Jane Miller. Sam realised that her fingernails were digging into the wooden armrests.
‘Jane Thackeray’s maiden name was Miller, wasn’t it.’
It was a statement, not a question, and Jason was surprised. ‘How did you know?’
‘Your grandmother’s best friend was called Phoebe Chisolm.’
Jason suddenly noticed that she looked shaken. He was concerned. ‘Are you all right, Sam?’
‘Jason.’ She clasped his hand, spilling his champagne. He put the glass on the table. ‘Jason, I own Phoebe’s house where they played as children. I’ve heard them. Two little girls. Your grandmother and Phoebe. I’ve heard them.’
The initial shock was receding, and Sam felt light-headed, even euphoric. It was meant to be, she thought. Some force was at work, everything had been planned. The dreams she’d had, the voices she’d heard, the love that she’d felt in the old house. The house, which she now owned. Mamma Tack, Jane Thackeray, the movie, Jason, it was all meant to be.
The words tumbled out, and she told him everything as clearly as she could remember, each intimate detail of all that she’d experienced. Not only the voices and dreams and Maude, the old woman she’d encountered in the park, but, most important of all, the sensation of the past that she’d felt so strongly in the house.
‘It was as though the past and the present were entwined,’ she said. Sam was drawn back to their own present, to the rustling leaves of the nearby pandanus trees and the warm, salty breath of the breeze on her face. ‘I believe there’s a force at work, Jason, a force that’s making things happen.’
Jason was surprised that someone as practical as Samantha had embraced the fanciful notion of a supernatural force; it was so out of character for her. Of course she’d been affected by the past, he thought, a modern young woman, an actress with a sense of drama, alone in an old Victorian mansion. But he didn’t wish to sound dismissive.
‘It’s weird, I grant you,’ he replied with his customary reserve, ‘very weird that you bought the house which belonged to Mamma Jane’s friend Phoebe. But it’s a freak coincidence, Sam,’ he said gently. ‘That’s all it is. Just a freak coincidence.’
‘No it’s not.’ She was perfectly calm now. ‘It’s not a coincidence at all. It’s meant to be. Everything’s happening by design. You, me, everything. And it’s the house that’s making it happen.’
He took her hand and they stood. ‘Well, if that’s the case,’ he said as he drew her to him, ‘then I’m very, very grateful.’ And he kissed her.
‘Make love to me, Jason,’ she whispered, ‘make love to me.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘Hey, Sam!’
The moment Sam walked into the lobby of the Quay Grand with Nick Parslow, Brett swooped on them. He picked her up bodily and whirled her about.
‘Nick wouldn’t let me come out to the airport. He told me he wanted you all to himself.’ He put her down. ‘Although why, I have no idea,’ he said with a camp moue at Nick. No malice was intended and Nick took none, but he didn’t bother responding. Brett Marsdon’s heavy-handed humour simply wasn’t his style.
‘Man, it’s great to see you, I’ve missed you. How was Perth? How are your folks? Did you have a good Christmas?’
Sam laughed. Brett was at his eager-puppy best and she was glad to see him too. ‘Yes, I had a fabulous Christmas, thanks. How was yours?’
‘The best! Sydney’s one cool town, I tell you.’
Sam had spent the
ten-day Christmas break in Perth with her family, but Brett had chosen to holiday in Sydney rather than return to the States. He’d never been to Sydney before, and a number of his Hollywood buddies who’d worked there had raved about the place.
‘Let’s do the bar thing.’ He draped an arm around her shoulders and was about to drag her away, ignoring Nick altogether.
‘I haven’t booked in yet.’
‘Later, later.’ He waved a hand airily. ‘Do that later.’
‘You go and grab the best table with a view,’ she said firmly, ‘and I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.’
‘You’re on,’ he agreed. ‘A Capriosca, okay? They make the greatest Caprioscas here.’
‘Sounds fine.’ She had no idea what a Capriosca was.
Nick bowed out of ‘the bar thing’; he still found Brett Marsdon a bit much.
‘Thanks for picking me up,’ she said as she kissed him fondly. ‘I’m glad it was just the two of us.’
‘Me too. Congratulations, Sam, I’m happy for you, Jason’s a really beaut bloke.’
‘I agree.’
‘See you at the studio tomorrow. Oh,’ he turned back, ‘and while you’re chatting to Mr Hollywood, tell him to cut down on the partying. He hasn’t stopped since he got here.’ It wasn’t a bitchy remark. Nick had realised since their return to Sydney that Brett Marsdon had a serious coke habit and he was surprised that he hadn’t twigged earlier. It explained the man’s erratic behaviour in Vanuatu, but it worried him. Brett wasn’t required for filming until the end of the week but he’d been flying so high his brains would take some time to unscramble. ‘It mightn’t be a bad idea if he used the next few days to dry out a bit,’ he said.
‘Why do you think he’d listen to me?’ she asked.
‘You’re the only one he does listen to, Sam.’
A ‘Capriosca’ turned out to be the latest fashion – vodka, fresh limes and sugar syrup, a refreshing drink with a kick in its tail – and Brett was astonished that she’d never heard of it.
‘Hey babe, where have you been?’
The taste of the fresh limes reminded her of Vanuatu.
As they started on their second, he cosied up to her, thigh to thigh. ‘So tell me, now that the Doc’s off the case do I stand a chance?’ He gave her the grin his publicist loved best, the furrow-browed one that magazines paid a fortune for, and because she wasn’t sure whether or not he was serious, she decided it would be kinder not to laugh.
‘I’m afraid the Doc’s still very much on the case, Brett.’
‘But he’s gone back to England. Nick told me.’
‘Yep, and I’m meeting him there in a week, after we finish filming.’
‘Oh. That serious, huh? Well, we’ve still got a bit of time up our sleeve. You know?’ He wiggled his eyebrows and looked her up and down lustfully. ‘While the cat’s away …’
He was joking, she realised, it was all right to laugh. And she did.
‘We were married last week,’ she said.
The comedy act stopped. ‘You what?’
‘We were married in Perth. At Christmas.’
‘Oh.’ He’d known when he’d returned from the POW filming at Quoin Hill that she and the doctor were an item, but he’d thought it was just a location fling. Hell, everyone had them, that’s what locations were for, a regular love-fest.
‘Married!’ He could barely get the word out.
‘Yep.’
Sam remembered the morning at Tamanu Beach when they’d lain entwined in each other’s arms, discussing their plans.
‘I don’t believe in long engagements,’ he’d said.
‘I don’t believe in engagements at all,’ she’d answered.
Brett seemed in a state of shock, and Sam grinned. ‘Married, for better or for worse,’ she nodded, ‘the whole box and dice.’
The expression on her face as she said it took Brett by surprise. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d seen anyone look so completely happy. He wondered what it would be like if, some day, someone looked like that when they spoke about him. He envied Jason Thackeray.
‘That’s great, Sam,’ he said, and he smiled. ‘The Doc’s a lucky man.’
The smile this time wasn’t his publicist’s favourite, and Sam thought that the genuine article, which showed just a little too much gum in the publicist’s opinion, was infinitely more attractive.
‘It’s great, really great,’ he said. ‘I mean it.’ He planted a brotherly kiss on her cheek, and eased his thigh away from hers as he raised his glass. ‘Here’s to you and the Doc then.’
‘Thanks, Brett.’ It was a pity so many misunderstood Brett Marsdon, she thought, there was a really nice bloke beneath Mr Hollywood. They clinked glasses. ‘I could become addicted to these.’
The following morning, in the makeup room at Fox Studios, it felt strange to Sam, looking in the mirror and seeing Sarah Blackston. Over the past ten days the film had been the farthest thing from her mind.
But an hour later, when she entered the vast space of Sound Stage 7, it felt even stranger to be confronted by Huxley House, Sarah’s childhood home, the eerie replica of Chisolm House.
During the three months since they’d shot the opening scenes, the set had been dismantled and kept in storage, and it had now been reconstructed for the final moments of the film. It had been a laborious and costly exercise, but Simon Scanlon, ever the perfectionist, had insisted from the outset that the procedure was essential.
‘Bugger the expense,’ he’d said to the producers who’d wanted to shoot the opening and closing scenes in the first several weeks of studio production. ‘We’ll make budget cuts elsewhere. The actors’ll change on location, it happens every time. The relationship between them will develop, the characters they’re playing will broaden …’ Christ how he hated having to convince the money men of artistic necessity, he’d thought. ‘The integrity of the film demands that we shoot in sequence!’ He’d won, as usual. And, as usual, he’d been right.
Simon stood beside Sam in the deserted studio and together they looked at the house. He wanted Sam to explore it alone, and he’d ordered the lights up and the set cleared for the purpose. The crew, the other actors and extras were all drinking coffee outside.
‘Take a look around, Sam,’ he said, ‘reacquaint yourself. Sarah has come full circle, she’s back in the home of her father that was once so oppressive. But it’s not going to be a prison any longer, she’s decided. She’s a fulfilled woman, she’s changed. Take a look around, get the feel of it.’ And he left her to it.
Sam did as he instructed, and she tried to see the house through Sarah’s eyes as she wandered its rooms.
Sarah Blackston had returned to the family home, which she’d inherited upon her father’s death, shortly after the war. She had opened it as a convalescent home for wounded soldiers, and devoted her life to the cause. The final scene, the ‘Hollywood happy ending’, as Simon so scathingly called it, and the one battle he had lost with the producers, was the return of Wily Halliday. Upon his liberation from the Japanese prisoner of war camp, Wily had traced Sarah and the two would be reunited.
Try as she might, Sam found that she could no longer see Huxley House through Sarah’s eyes. Sarah had ceased to exist, and so had Huxley House. She was wandering the rooms of Chisolm House, and it was her own eyes she was seeing it through. She would be back there soon, she thought, sharing her life with Jason in the house that had somehow made everything happen.
She chastised herself. She must stop being subjective, she must get into character, she must become Sarah. But, as she looked at the painting of Amelia Huxley above the mantelpiece, all she could see was the portrait of Phoebe Chisolm. Jane would have looked at that portrait, she thought. Phoebe’s best friend, Jane Miller. And as she pictured Jane looking at the portrait, Sam suddenly realised how simple it was. In Vanuatu, Jane Thackeray and Sarah Blackston had become one. Sarah was not lost to her at all.
She caught sight of herself in on
e of the gold-leafed mirrors that adorned the walls, and the new Sarah looked back with all the strength and purpose that Jane Thackeray must have possessed. Sarah and Jane were still one, she realised, and again the house was helping her. It pleased her to think that, for one short while of film fantasy, Jane Miller would be returning as Jane Thackeray to the house she had known so well in her youth.
Over the first few days, they shot the scenes of Sarah’s return, and the metamorphosis of Huxley House into a welcoming home for convalescent soldiers. The old stalwart actors, Anthony and Fiona, were reprising the roles they’d played in the opening of the film, the butler and housekeeper having remained in service after the death of their master to prepare Huxley House for the arrival of their new mistress. And in their eyes the transformation of the claustrophobic mausoleum mirrored the transformation they saw in Sarah.
‘Huxley House is to serve a purpose other than a prison,’ Sarah said, ripping down the ancient drapes of the drawing-room bay windows. Sunlight flooded in. The servants, shocked, followed her as she marched into the next room. ‘There will be love in this house.’ She ripped down the drapes there too. ‘As there should always have been.’
It was a happy three days; Sam enjoyed working with Anthony and Fiona and the actors playing the soldiers whom Sarah befriended. And then the day arrived when they were to shoot Wily Halliday’s return.
They were late starting that morning. The entire unit was waiting for Brett Marsdon who was still in makeup. He’d been partying until all hours in a Kings Cross nightclub, despite Sam’s warning, or perhaps rebelliously because of it, and he’d arrived forty minutes late.
‘So much for your opinion that he listens to me,’ Sam said to Nick as they sat in the studio drinking their third coffee apiece. ‘I tried, really I did.’
‘Oh well,’ Nick shrugged, ‘so long as he comes up with the goods.’ He couldn’t be bothered discussing Brett Marsdon, who was a lost cause, in his opinion. ‘Just one more day to go. I’ll miss you.’
