‘Who are they, Uncle?’ Lisa asks, but Uncle Alan pretends he cannot see them.
Lisa insists. At last he relents. ‘If you really must know, they’re Robbie, Angie, Brün and Peggy. The ones we never talk about.’
Lisa woke to the sound of her mobile ringing. She had overslept.
‘You sound terrible! Are you okay?’
Lisa couldn’t stop herself from smiling at Luke’s frankness. She loved the sound of his voice and realised how much she had longed to hear it again.
‘Thanks a lot.’ She laughed. ‘Well, to be honest, I’ve had a shocking night’s sleep. The weirdest dreams.’
‘I guess that’s not so surprising,’ said Luke. ‘Under the circumstances.’
‘I spoke to Ulli last night. He’ll be here on Friday. Are you okay to join us for dinner at my place? Maybe have a drink first up at the Carrington and watch the fireworks?’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll bring dessert or something if you like.’ Luke sounded a bit strained. Could he be jealous? Of Ulli? How silly was that! The thought cheered Lisa immensely.
‘I just wanted to let you know I made a call today to my friend out at Lithgow, about Brün Faber,’ Luke continued. He could have emailed her this information but had rung instead. Maybe he too ached to hear her voice and this gave him the perfect excuse for a phone call. Did they need excuses anymore?
‘That’s great.’
‘She sent me some excellent information. I’ll bring it with me on Friday. But in a nutshell, Brün took over the brewery from his father and ran it until he sold the business in the 1990s. He had a family of his own and died of a heart attack in 2004.’
Poor Monika. She would not meet her love again.
‘I have some interesting news too. I think.’ She realised even as she said this that Peggy’s existence was still only conjecture. ‘But it can wait.’ They chatted a little longer about their plans for the week until Lisa looked at the clock and realised it was time to get ready for her morning visit to Monika. ‘See you Friday then!’
What Lisa hardly dared utter was her strong suspicion that this coming Friday she would be meeting her cousin: her half-sister Peggy’s son, Monika and Brün’s grandson. The thought both excited and terrified her.
Ulli had made it clear how eager he was to meet Monika. He was coming all the way from Germany for this meeting. And then it hit Lisa: if Ulli was in fact Monika’s grandson, she had to be forewarned. It was time for Lisa to gently tug at the veil that had for so long hidden Monika’s past.
‘How is she doing today?’ Lisa asked Fiona as soon as she arrived, shaking out her umbrella and unwinding her scarf as she entered the soupy warmth of the nursing home. It was cold and wet outside and everyone was predicting snow again for the weekend. It would not be the first time there had been snow on a Winter Magic Festival weekend. People flocked from Sydney whenever it began snowing in the upper mountains, so if anything it would boost the number of people attending.
‘She’s doing really well,’ Fiona said. ‘She’s talking, making jokes. Even writing again. I haven’t seen her this good for quite a while.’
Lisa discovered her mother writing in her notebook in the library. Most of the other residents must have decided to spend the morning in bed or in the TV room, as Monika had the sombre, bookshelf-lined room to herself.
She sat with one elbow on the heavy oak table while the other arm pivoted busily back and forth, her silver fountain pen hovering and skimming over the pages like a small bird over water. She was writing in her favourite lined notebook, the one she kept by her side at all times.
‘What are you working on, Mum?’ Lisa asked.
She could recall so many scenes identical to this one, repeated in endless variations, over the years of her life with Monika. How often she had seen her mother like this, eyes focused elsewhere, brow furrowed, tongue clicking against the roof of her mouth, breathing slightly rapid, as her pen raced over a page or her fingers over her keyboard. And then pausing, contemplative, with her right hand cupping her chin and her index finger resting against her cheek.
‘A story,’ Monika replied with a sly smile, like the cat with the proverbial cream, savouring the unique pleasure of cornering such an elusive, secretive thing. Monika was never happier than when her writing was flowing well. Sometimes, when her children had been small, she had read one of her stories out loud to them, partly to test its robustness and the music of its language but also just to see their amusement. Lisa included these among her favourite memories, these scenes of her and Tom tucked inside Monika’s arms as she performed the voices of all her characters, chuckling at her own jokes and her children’s peals of laughter.
‘I am one of the luckiest women alive,’ she had told journalists who interviewed her about her success. ‘My job is my greatest love. Bringing pleasure to my readers is my greatest joy.’
Given her mother’s considerable international reputation and success, one thing had always mystified Lisa. After the divorce had gone through and the Beecroft house was sold, Monika had the means to live anywhere in the world she chose. But having always made it clear how glad she was to escape her childhood, she then surprised everyone by deciding to buy a bungalow in Katoomba. ‘For the quiet and solitude,’ she said. But that had never convinced Lisa. There were plenty of quiet and remote spots. No, there was something else that drew her back. And Lisa wondered if she now held the key to the mystery. Brün, Monika’s first love, had wanted her to live here with him. Maybe she came back for the memory of him: the young man who had loved her without compromise or betrayal. Or maybe it was the bush itself – the bush that had almost killed her when she was little and had never really let her go.
Lisa sat down and produced the box of chocolates. ‘I think you’ve earned a cup of tea and a break,’ she suggested. As if on cue, Fiona wheeled in a trolley with the makings of a nice hot cup of Earl Grey.
Monika nodded. ‘I agree. Here, you should have one too.’ Monika had already slipped off the ribbon and lifted the lid. She proffered the open box. A laugh escaped Lisa’s lips. She studied her mother’s face with disbelief. Was this the same woman she had left here two days ago? The woman who had refused her meds and wandered off to Bloome Park?
Given everything that had transpired since she last saw Monika – the night with Luke, the reading of the diary, the discovery of the fairy story and the photo, the lurid dreams – this meeting of mother and daughter took place in a greatly altered world.
They both thanked Fiona for the tea and she withdrew with her trolley, leaving them in peace.
‘I have something I want to show you, Mum,’ said Lisa, pulling a package out of her bag. ‘It’s another story. One of yours.’
Monika smiled with mild curiosity.
‘Can I read it to you?’ Lisa asked.
‘Why, yes. That would be nice.’
With her heart beating faster, Lisa skipped the dedication and began to read the story aloud. She devoutly hoped that Monika wouldn’t feel ambushed or betrayed. She watched her mother’s face as she read, alert to any signs of distress.
Monika listened closely, a half-smile on her lips. She seemed genuinely entranced. Did she recognise the story? Did she have any comprehension of what it had meant to her once?
Lisa read the final sentences: ‘“The bear-prince’s spirit could still be heard, roaring in the woods, every winter. Within earshot of the mighty waterfall and by the banks of the new river that flowed through the Wald, Sparrow and her daughter made their home in the witch’s cottage, where they lived together happily ever after.”’
Monika closed her eyes and sighed. ‘Fairytales always have such happy endings.’
‘Do you remember this story, Mum? I found it hidden away. Inside your trunk.’ There, Lisa had made her confession. The truth was out. It fluttered anxiously about the room like a bird newly freed from its cage.
Monika put down her cup of tea. She looked straight at Lisa and there was a different kind
of light in her pale blue eyes. An unwavering light of understanding.
‘Well, well, well,’ Monika whispered. ‘And what else did you find?’
‘This.’
Lisa pulled out the photo of Brün and placed it on the table before her.
Monika’s hand flew to her mouth. The cry she uttered expressed surprise and delight, grief and tenderness.
‘Ah, my Brün, my liebchen. I had almost forgotten you.’
CHAPTER 31
* * *
Adam
Leura, December 1957
Adam gestured to the drinks waiter. ‘Another round here, please.’ He clipped his Henry Clay cigar and threw the finished tip into the fireplace. Adam’s guests – his son Alan and fellow hotelier Jimmy Sparks – sat opposite in oxblood leather armchairs. Haloed in smoke, the three men puffed contentedly on their cigars and sipped tumblers of Scotland’s finest single malt, both indulgences courtesy of Adam. They had gathered in the smoking lounge at the Chateau Napier in Leura to raise a toast to the coming year even though it was still only the first day of December.
‘To 1958,’ declared Adam when the waiter had poured a second round from Fox’s precious bottle of imported whisky.
‘To 1958,’ the other two echoed, raising their glasses. The present year had proved to be one of exhausting highs and lows for all three and, ever hopeful, they looked eagerly to the opportunities offered by the future.
Adam had handed the keys of the Palace to his son two years earlier. The fact was he had been enjoying life with Laura so much he was ready to let someone else worry about the hotel. Adam and Laura’s marriage had weathered the crisis of his jealousy and her bitter grief over the forced adoption of Monika’s baby. Now their marital fortunes prospered and thrived. As Adam surrendered his control of the business, he and Laura resumed one of their greatest passions: travel.
There had been trips to Japan, Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia, Italy and Russia, revealing more wonders than could ever sate photographer Laura’s appetite for beauty. She and Adam realised they shared the collector’s tireless impulse to possess the world entire, through curios and souvenirs for Adam, and pictures for Laura. He built her a darkroom at the Jersey Avenue house and ordered the best German camera bodies and lenses.
Adam’s adoration and generosity knew no bounds when it came to his beloved queen. They ate and slept in first-class comfort on flights along the Kangaroo Route to London, with stops in Bombay, Tehran and Zurich. They took suites at the Savoy and the Dorchester and dined at Mirabelle in Mayfair. Now in her fifties, Laura still commanded attention in her custom-made suits and gowns by Dior, Givenchy and Balenciaga.
‘You look supremely lovely tonight, my dear,’ Adam would whisper in her diamond-studded ear as they made their entrance.
‘You look pretty presentable yourself,’ she would reply.
Adam looked around at the Napier’s heavy chesterfields and armchairs, the quaint Art Nouveau reading lamps and the reproduction landscape paintings. The four-storey guesthouse, opened in 1910, had become a picture-postcard treasure like the Palace. She was a grand old dame and Adam loved her dearly. But every time he returned from overseas, the more the hotels and guesthouses of the mountains looked tired and twee, relics of a bygone era.
By the middle of the decade, it was clear that even the Palace needed to spruik herself harder than ever. She could not survive on nostalgia alone. To Adam’s surprise, Alan had inherited some of his father’s flair for showmanship. It was his idea to build an in-ground swimming pool with a concrete mermaid diving into the deep end, suspended for eternity inches above the water. It was also his idea to use the pool to host bathing-beauty competitions and swimsuit parades.
Adam was impressed when Cinesound sent a camera crew up to film a swimsuit fashion show at the Palace. Wearing their alluring smiles and cats-eye sunglasses and admired by a large holiday crowd, the models strutted and twirled around the pool in bathing costumes with names like ‘Sweet Talker’, ‘Modern Miss’ and ‘Moulin Rouge’. The newsreel was seen by thousands of cinemagoers who chuckled when the narrator admonished, ‘No wolf-whistles, please, gents. Echo Point is just around the corner and those whistles will just go on and on!’
Adam was greatly respected by the local aristocracy of business leaders. A ‘tourism pioneer’ they called him. He did care deeply about the survival of the Blue Mountains and generously supported new ideas. In 1953, the prime minister’s wife had come to Blackheath to launch the town’s inaugural Rhododendron Festival. Adam sponsored the street parade led by a district beauty, crowned as Rhododendron Queen and enthroned on a float carpeted in blossoms. The following year, thousands gathered to see another queen – recently crowned at Westminster Cathedral and now on a royal tour of Australia – as she made a half-hour stop in Katoomba, blessing the lookout platform at Echo Point with her presence.
Once upon a time, the mountains’ natural beauty – its views, clean air, tranquillity and bushwalks – had been enough to lure visitors. Was it enough anymore? Nubile maidens in swimsuits and floral crowns were the latest novel attraction, but by the summer of 1957, Adam Fox and his son had serious doubts that even this was enough.
So where had everyone gone? The answer was simple: they were at the beach. Adam had watched as seven gold medals at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics gave birth to a new national hero: the swimmer. Now families packed their cars and sped along highways up and down the coast for summer holidays, staying in cheap motels and caravan parks or visiting the blue rectangles of Olympic pools dotting every suburb.
They built public pools in the mountains, too, but tried to find other good reasons for people to visit. Mel Ward moved his thirty-thousand crabs and God-knew-what-else into a long fibro shack up the road from the Palace. Tourists flocked to this eccentric Gallery of Natural History and Indigenous Arts, stuffed to the rafters with ‘native curios’, fossilised remains and vast collections of insects, reptiles and shells. Meanwhile Mr Harry Hammon started construction of his Skyway, a viewing cabin suspended on a steel cable over the cliffs at Katoomba Falls.
Horrie Gates’ amusement park in the big gully behind Katoomba boasted fairground rides, a Ferris wheel and a ‘giggle house’. But the main attraction was a Catalina Flying Boat anchored in a manmade lake; inside, ‘passengers’ watched aerial footage while a speedboat made choppy circles to rock the Catalina from side to side. The park folded after four years. Now Adam was excited by a new project: a motor-racing track like the one at Bathurst. He was convinced this would bring thousands of tourists to the mountains. Bulldozers had already started clearing the trees and shanty dwellings of the blackfellas who had been living in the old gully for years.
‘For years!’ Monika had protested loudly at a recent dinner with the family. ‘That’s their home. How can you allow this?’ She had remonstrated with her father but the conversation had been nimbly switched to another topic.
Adam took another gulp of his whisky and studied his son. Alan was a conscientious chap but he worried far too much. It would drive him mad. All three of his children had inherited his drive and his appetite for hard work. How Adam wished he could teach them one further lesson: all the worry in the world changes nothing.
He still had a special place in his heart for Monika. She was one of the great joys of his life even when they argued. She was still a sentimental girl in many ways, despite some tough times in her childhood. But he was immensely proud of her success as a writer. And her marriage to that smart young fellow Michael, who’d just taken up a job as a solicitor at Gordon and Hines. He seemed to have his head screwed on right. Adam knew he would always look after Monika.
They had met at her publisher’s head office in North Sydney over a year ago. A member of the company’s legal team, Michael Evans had dark eyes, black hair and a dimple in his chin, all of which was a promising start, improved by the fact he was also intelligent, well-read, charming and cosmopolitan. The attraction was instant on both sides. Michael invited the
author out to lunch and told her, ‘If we do this again, someone else will have to work on your contracts.’
When it was published last year, Kitty Koala’s Furry Adventure had proved an instant success both critically and in the Christmas sales. Everyone fell in love with soft-hearted, scatter-brained Kitty and her bush gang, including Lottie Lyrebird and Billy Blue-Tongue. Monika had dragged her big sister from store to store to admire the displays in the windows. Neither of them could have foreseen the wave of fame that was about to carry Monika away.
Monika and Michael married in the spring. It was the high point of 1957 as far as Adam was concerned. Despite Monika’s protests, Adam organised a lavish wedding at St Mary’s and a reception at the Palace. ‘Come on, Monz, it’s not every day I have a daughter get married. You know this is the way I like to show my love. It will be a day to remember!’ She hugged her father. He would never change and, as he had rightly pointed out, this was the way he showed his love.
The ceremony and reception made the social pages of all the major papers. For better or worse, the Foxes had always lived in the spotlight. Monika accepted that the wedding was inevitably going to be a piece of public theatre to impress Sydney’s rich and powerful. It was all just part of being a Fox. Laura cried as Adam gave Monika away in the crowded cathedral. She rejoiced to see her daughter made strong and happy by her new love. Adam choked back tears that day too and felt truly blessed to be Monika’s father.
The conversation in the smoking lounge had inevitably come round to one of the lowest points of the year. It had happened back in October and was still the talk of the mountains. A world-famous Australian archaeologist, Professor Vere Gordon Childe, had plummeted to his death from a well-known lookout. He had stayed overnight at the Carrington, and the following day caught a taxi to Govett’s Leap, where he asked the driver to wait. Four hours later, the poor driver discovered a jacket and wallet on a rock alongside the path and then a hat, glasses and a compass on the ledge outside the safety fence. The professor’s body was discovered at the base of the cliff. The coronial inquest made a finding of accidental death but gossip continued to insist that Childe had stage-managed this ‘accident’ around a well-planned suicide.
Palace of Tears Page 37
