Palace of Tears

by Julian Leatherdale

  Adam knew the stories from the local police officers who drank at the Palace. Suicide was alarmingly common in the mountains. People made pilgrimages, some of them from as far away as Europe and Japan, to end their lives at the scenic lookouts, leaving shoes, bankbooks, coats, handbags, pipes and spectacles as their final calling card. Suicide was a tourist market all of its own.

  ‘He was a communist, a spy for the Soviets,’ said Jimmy confidently, blowing – in his imagination – an ‘atom bomb’ ring of smoke towards the ceiling. ‘ASIO had been watching him for years. He knew the game was up so he took the only way out.’

  Adam was not convinced but nodded politely. Jimmy was full of crank conspiracy theories. It was a symptom of the times.

  ‘Whatever the reason, this kind of tragedy is bad for business,’ said Alan, jiggling the ice in his tumbler. ‘It gives people the creeps.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ mused Adam, staring moodily into the fireplace and feeling philosophical after his second whisky. ‘When Robbie died, Adelina insisted on erecting a plaque at the lookout and I respected her wishes. I was worried it would be bad for the hotel, scare people away.’

  ‘And did it?’ Alan rarely heard his father talk about Robbie, the brother he never knew. The family ghost. To be honest, he preferred it that way.

  ‘No, strangely enough, it did not. In fact, some people came to Sensation Point just to look at the plaque and the spot where my son fell.’

  ‘So why is that, do you think?’ Jimmy asked.

  ‘We’re all fascinated by death, I guess.’ Adam shrugged. ‘Especially other people’s. It’s the safest way to confront our own. Despite our best efforts to put the whole thing out of our minds for as long as possible.’

  He patted Alan on the shoulder. ‘Ah, sweet arrogance of youth! How I miss it! Not to have to contemplate the end.’ He paused, then added, ‘Except for that gloomy, dramatic lot, young poets and painters and the like.’

  He knew that wasn’t fair. In his experience, painters had given Adam some of the most exalted, life-affirming moments of his own trek from cradle to grave. He thought of Freya’s watercolour of a grevillea on his study wall. He thought of her father’s oil painting The Valley, now no more than a magnificent memory. They were assertions of life’s beauty and preciousness, shouted into the dark abyss.

  Adam had been thinking a great deal recently about the Blue Mountains and the fact that, despite his impulse to travel the world and bring back souvenirs, he had never wanted to live anywhere else. The appeal of this long sandstone plateau, carved by waterfalls into rugged ridges and deep valleys, was at times elusive and subtle, at others melodramatic. It drew countless people here to savour its melancholic splendour. It forced others, like him, to find reasons and ways to make the place home.

  Nothing was achieved without risk and cost. The allure of the mountains had taught Adam that lesson. The place gave up its riches readily enough: its panoramas, its bracing air, its waterfalls and forests and cliffs. But it exacted a cost as well: the ever-present threat of danger. Venomous snakes and spiders. Visitors lost in the bush, vanishing without trace. Tourists falling or jumping to their death. The regular trials by fire as the bush was engulfed in flames which swept towards the townships.

  Why did Adam love it so? He had no definitive answer.

  The mountains offered up vistas of inspiration, horizons of wonder where the mind dared to leap and the imagination soar. It enriched the spirit, breathed hope back into the wounded heart. Yet there was always that reminder of the fall: vertigo’s strange seduction that dragged you down the bright waterfall into the valley of shadow below. Mortality, failure, despair – all these must be acknowledged. Adam realised, over time, that his beloved mountains expressed the inner drama of his own soul. It was possible, even probable, others felt the same.

  ‘By my age, of course, death becomes just a matter of time,’ said Adam with a chuckle. He drained his glass. ‘Another round, gents?’

  Laura lay in her bed, half asleep. Adam was up at the cottage tonight so she was alone. It was still his favourite retreat: quiet, cosy, hidden away. He had been out drinking late with Alan and Jimmy Sparks at the Chateau Napier and they had then gone on to the Palace for a nightcap. He decided not to drive back to Leura. He rang her around eleven, his voice honeyed and hoarse with affection.

  ‘I just wanted to wish you sweet dreams, my darling,’ he said, apologising for the lateness of the hour and not coming home to warm their bed.

  ‘Did you and Alan have a good time?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, yes. He’s growing into a fine young man. I’m so proud of him. I have left the Palace in good hands.’

  ‘Night, night, Adam. Get a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘You too, my darling.’

  Laura could not sleep, however. After tossing and turning for an hour, she rolled over and switched on the bedside lamp. The postcard from New York stood on her bedside table.

  I love this place. I want to travel and write and never stop. Michael is the most wonderful husband anyone could wish for. My life is perfect right now. I love you, Mum. Take care.

  Monika xxxxx

  Laura was pleased for Monika. She and her daughter had grown closer over the last year or two. She deserved to be happy after the misery she had endured as a young woman. Fortune seemed to be smiling on Lottie as well. She had found an administrative job in an advertising agency and was dating a young man from Melbourne. There were hints of an impending engagement.

  Laura thought fondly of her own honeymoon in Europe, the first of her many trips abroad, thanks to Adam. Travel had not just given Laura a wider window on the world but also an artistic calling. She loved the fact Adam took her photography so seriously.

  Her skill as a photographer had made her the family archivist. It was she who took, printed, arranged and captioned the photos of family life in Moroccan leather-bound volumes. A few days earlier she had sat flicking through these albums. Photo after photo that told a story of marital harmony and carefree prosperity. Children playing games on the lawn. Captain Pogo in a pram. Adam in front of the Hudson 8. It was a true story as far as it went. She and Adam and the children had enjoyed a privileged life. But it was not the whole story. The missing faces, the shameful secrets, the life-changing events outside the photo frame, they told another story.

  Would there ever be a right time to tell that story? Would these revelations ever do more good than harm? This decision required a careful and delicate calculation. Monika was making a new life as a young wife and successful writer. Lottie and Alan were making their own way in the world with bright prospects. Laura could not imagine any justification for burdening her children with a past they did not need to understand. She would keep her vow of silence.

  Laura placed the postcard from Monika back on her bedside table, switched out the light and went to sleep.

  There was a light rap on the window and Adam woke up. Probably a leaf blown against the glass. Except that he couldn’t hear a puff of wind outside. The night was calm. He had grown accustomed to the bed at the cottage but his back was playing up, making for a night of broken sleep. He had only just drifted off again after readjusting his position to relieve the pain in his lower spine. He had also had one too many tumblers of Scotch and his head was foggy and full of broken thoughts.

  Woken out of this doze, Adam swore. He decided to get up and make sure the latch was properly secure. He would not be able to relax and get back to sleep if he did not perform this ritual. He tightened the latch. Through the black square of the window pane, he saw something moving in the garden. The moon, a blue-white scimitar, was half buried in a bank of cloud so that the cottage garden was bathed in a dim light that provided little helpful detail. Even so, there was no mistaking the movement in the middle distance. A figure in white.

  ‘Thief!’ murmured Adam, his lips forming the word even before his mind had fully fleshed out any possible scenario.

  According to his wristwat
ch it was ten minutes shy of four o’clock. He dragged on a pair of trousers and tucked in his nightshirt. The figure in the garden moved to the left, towards the hedge. It then stopped and began to move back. Adam stepped into his boots and pulled on a light jacket. He could feel a chill in the air as he opened the door of the cottage and came out onto the veranda. He picked up the hatchet that was leaning against the woodpile near the front stairs. He sincerely hoped that the intruder was not armed. He carried the hatchet more as a prop, a gesture of bravado, than a weapon.

  ‘Hello! Who’s there? Can I help you?’

  Adam tried to sound businesslike, even friendly, rather than jumping straight to a tone of confrontation. He would give this stranger the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they were lost. A drunk from the hotel. A guest sleepwalking. Such things were possible. He hoped that, if it were a thief, he might have the common sense and decency to run off, saving them both an unpleasant encounter.

  ‘Hello there!’

  The figure, obscured by foliage, continued to drift to the right under the big old gums that Adam had never had the heart to chop down. He had cleared away the rest of Freya’s native cottage garden but he had left this stand of Blue Mountain ash. Almost comically, Adam was irritated now that the figure did not bother to stop or slow down or respond in any way. His irritation threatened to boil over into anger. ‘Hey, you! What are you doing here? What do you want?’

  As Adam closed in on the stranger, the figure halted. Adam gripped the handle of the hatchet more firmly to steady his nerves. Then the mysterious figure moved off again, further under the trees. Its outline appeared to blur like a moving image in a photograph, leaving a cloud of streaky phosphorescence in its wake.

  Adam stumbled forward. His heart broke into a gallop. Was he losing his mind? He did not believe in ghosts. This must be a dream, so extraordinarily vivid that he felt as if he was standing in the chill air of a summer night. He knew this familiar and, at the same time, utterly strange cottage garden where all the tortured history of his life had begun. And now – it seemed inevitable – where it would end.

  The figure stepped away through the garden towards the cliffs in the distance. Adam knew it was insane but he could not resist the impulse to follow. Was it her? Freya? He whispered the name to himself. He wanted to look on her face one more time. Just like her son’s. How could anyone have failed to see Freya’s face in Robbie, the same fire in the eyes, the same insolent grin and intelligent brow?

  Adam dropped the hatchet and staggered through the long native grass, oblivious to the rocks and overgrown stone borders under his feet. His hands clawed and his legs and thighs pressed against branches of straggling wattle and grevillea in this wilder part of the garden where the bush had pushed its way in.

  ‘Is it you?’ He realised he had spoken out loud; was this an admission of madness? He was speaking to a figment of his own mind. Did he want to confess his love, his guilt? Was this the meaning of this dream, this sleepwalk, a last chance to repent for his cruel sins? When would he wake up? Soon. Soon.

  The moon emerged from behind the cloud bank. Ahead of him, Adam saw the needles of the she-oaks glisten as moonlight flooded the valley. Adam gasped to see the beauty of it. Beyond, the snaking ridgeline flamed orange and Adam caught a whiff of smoke. A path led away and down towards Sensation Point. Was this the fate intended for him, for history to repeat itself? He was sorry for the past but he refused to atone for it in this way. To follow in Robbie’s footsteps. Or Adelina’s. He would not give in to despair. He would turn back now. In defiance.

  Adam’s right boot caught on something sharp and angular in the grass underfoot. His leg twisted severely and he heard the sound of bone cracking. Dear God, the pain was excruciating. It filled his head with lightning and blood, driving a bolt of electricity through his left hip. He crashed forward, his arms flung out, falling too fast to save himself. At the last moment, before blackness mercifully swallowed up his mind, Adam saw what he had stumbled on. His lips twitched into a grim smile.

  It was Robbie’s memorial plaque. The marble rectangle that Adelina had hugged to her chest and that Adam had ordered be thrown away into the bush, banished from his sight, so he would not ever have to lay his eyes on it again.

  Adam was unconscious when the security guard from the hotel found him the following morning, his lips blue, his face chalk-white. An ambulance took the stricken hotelier to the Blue Mountains Anzac Memorial Hospital in Katoomba, where he was rushed into the emergency department.

  The doctor on duty rang Mrs Fox at her home. ‘I’m afraid there’s been an accident. Your husband is in a serious condition and I urge you to come to the hospital immediately.’

  The meaning of this statement was clear. Laura steadied herself for a moment as the house shifted under her feet and she thought she would pass out. It was the moment she had rehearsed in her head and dreaded for a long time.

  The phone rang again. It was Alan, who had just arrived at the Palace to learn the news of his father’s accident from the duty manager. ‘I’m coming right now. I’ve already rung Lottie and told to her to catch a taxi up here.’

  ‘Thank you, Alan.’

  This will be hard on the children, she thought. What a shame she should have to tell Monika in the middle of her honeymoon. But she would never be forgiven if she did not give her daughter a chance to see Adam one last time.

  It is the second day of December, 1957. Just before eleven-thirty am, Laura Fox stands by the bed of her husband Adam in the emergency ward. His eyes are closed and he is as white as wax. At her side, Alan and Lottie squeeze their mother’s hands in spasms of grief and affection. Adam Fox’s own personal doctor, Dr Karl Hertz, arrives soon afterwards and is briefed on his patient’s condition. The registrar explains that Adam has fractured his hip in an accidental fall. There has been some internal bleeding and organ damage which they are still investigating. His condition is critical but stable.

  Just before lunchtime, a man runs into the emergency ward shouting, ‘There’s a big fire coming from North Katoomba. It’s moving fast just behind the hospital and is headed for Queens Road. We may have to evacuate.’

  Alan runs through the corridors to find a public phone to ring Jimmy Sparks, who lives on Queens Road, only a few streets away. Out the windows of the hospital, he can see a large plume of grey smoke, like a filthy ruffled blanket, smothering Katoomba. There’s also a brassy glare, that ominous light that comes with bushfire. A large fire is out there alright, but how close is it to the town? Hard to say. Alan can’t hear any sirens so it seems the brigades have not been alerted yet.

  ‘Hi, Jimmy. Is that you?’

  Alan hears a voice on the other end. It is shouting. ‘I’ve got to go, Alan! It’s coming! It’s coming fast!’ The line goes dead.

  Alan runs back to the ward.

  ‘We have to get back to the house. The hospital will look after Papa. But I think something big is headed towards Leura.’ Laura and Lottie look at him in mute astonishment. When they get to the car park, the eerie light, thick as syrup, makes every metal surface glint like hot embers. Smoke stings their nostrils and the wind whips up dust into their eyes. As they climb into Alan’s Jaguar, Laura sees the giant plume, taller than any storm front, towering over north Leura.

  Alan grips the steering wheel, white-knuckled, as they head east along the highway. Several houses between Queens Road and the intersection are already on fire, smoke streaming from their roofs and eaves like blood gushing from a dying animal. A couple of homes have already had their exterior walls stripped away and they can see flames gnawing at the black skeletons of their frames.

  ‘Dear God, it’s happening! It’s happening!’ Laura moans over and over, as if she has imagined this cataclysm before but cannot bring herself to believe it has finally arrived. As they drive up the hill towards the intersection, a sea of flame has completely engulfed the houses along Highland Road. There are people running along the highway, girls in uniforms from the lo
cal Catholic school and nuns in their black habits, flapping absurdly in the hot wind, heading into the village of Leura itself.

  As they approach the top of the hill, the familiar scenery of the town has changed into a war zone. On the north side of Leura Mall, the shops with the big ‘Peters Ice Cream’ advertisement on the side wall and the La Rana block of flats next door are well ablaze. Cars parked in the street are burning, oily black smoke pouring from their petrol tanks. Telegraph poles are on fire, turning black as their ceramic insulators detonate in the heat. The sky has disappeared behind a vast cloud of thick greyish-white smoke which casts a torrent of hot molten light over the whole scene.

  Most shocking of all is the sight of the Chateau Napier high on the hill on the corner of the highway. As the Jaguar speeds through the intersection, everyone in the car sees flames ignite the row of cypress and radiata pine trees at the rear of the guesthouse. The trees flare like giant torches. When flames leap onto the guesthouse itself, the explosion that follows sounds like air being sucked through a tube, a great woof that reverberates in their ears. (‘It went up like a bomb!’ Lottie would say later.) They watch in horror as a bright orange ball of flame consumes the entire guesthouse and its grounds. Out of the pyre of collapsing walls and burning roof timbers, a pyramid of glowing embers is thrust into the sky, leaving the building an incandescent ruin.

  Lottie is sobbing and gulping for air. Laura cannot speak. The car windows and doors are hot to the touch. Alan leans forward, trying to see through the choking smoke and blinding dust powered by high winds. ‘The fire front’s right behind us,’ he shouts over the deafening din of flames and wind. ‘It’s crossing the highway.’