‘Nick, please,’ Nick protested, sitting up straight and ruffling his hair.
‘I’m the last link to the past – apart from Wanda in a nursing home, and her.’ Ginger jerked her head to the left. At Nick’s quizzical expression, she snapped, ‘Miss Bloody Sharp – the dollmaker’s daughter, Dolly. Cute name for a dollmaker to christen her bastard with, isn’t it? She was a nipper of seven when I first arrived. Her mother used to terrify me. But the daughter was striking: long black hair to her waist and onyx eyes. We used to joke that Dolly was a changeling from Owlbone Woods left by mischievous fairies. Or that the dollmaker had made a doll to keep her company. A doll woven of bark, twigs, stone and native berries in her bush cottage and come to life.’
‘Who’s we?’ queried Nick, as he tried to make himself more comfortable among the pile of magazines and papers sharing the couch.
‘The Flowers,’ Ginger replied, relocating a stack of Vogue magazines that had slipped onto the floor. ‘Rupert would have been hard pressed to know that Dolly existed. He was only interested in his work and Shalimar. The Dollys of this world wouldn’t earn his glance. Doris was kind to Dolly, I’ll give her that. I wasn’t over-fond of Dolly Sharp – nor Shalimar. They were both far too indulged and defiant. There was something not right with the pair of them.’
As Ginger paced past her, Elizabeth caught a waft of her heady perfume. Regardless of her age, there was no denying that Ginger Lawson still had ‘it’. Despite being in her seventies she could have passed for a woman twenty years younger. Her complexion was lined but glowing. Elizabeth longed to ask her more about her grandfather and Shalimar. If the rumours were true about Ginger having an affair with Rupert, how much could she trust the elderly woman’s version of events? Could Ginger have felt jealous of Rupert’s love for his daughter?
‘You’re wondering if I’ve had work done,’ Ginger said in her forthright manner. ‘I haven’t! I could have in the States, but I saw too many crap jobs that made the women look like they’d been sucking on a lemon. I watch my diet, do yoga – and get plenty of sex when I can.’ She gave Nick a challenging look that made him shift uncomfortably. ‘In case you’re lonely for a girlfriend one winter night!’
Elizabeth put her head down to hide a grin at the alarm on Nick’s face. No doubt Nick was used to being propositioned by women, but probably not by a seventy-year-old. Though Ginger was not your average septuagenarian. She still had the voluptuous figure that had inspired Rupert to depict her as an Amazon or huntress in some of his paintings of her nubile, naked body.
Clumsily, Nick changed the subject. ‘From what I’ve read about Shalimar’s death, I believe all the rumours about Rupert being responsible were an injustice against him.’ He jumped slightly as Ginger settled herself on the sofa next to him, her thigh resting casually against his. ‘Er . . . I-I know he disappeared, but anything could have happened to him.’
‘There was never any proof that Rupert had anything to do with Shalimar’s death.’ Ginger pointed out. ‘But that never stopped the Mount Bellwood gossips coming out with their hatchets raised to hack his name to pieces!’ Her face twisted briefly as she spoke, and Elizabeth wondered whether Ginger’s air of detachment and distance was purely a mask. But if it was so difficult for her to discuss, why had she agreed to be involved with the book, to provide her story?
‘But Rupert hadn’t been right for a while, had he?’ Elizabeth said. ‘The war had unleashed his demons. How do we know the rumours weren’t right, or how he was interpreting things?’
‘How do we know the war didn’t tip an already fragile man over the abyss?’ Ginger leant forward, frowning. ‘He wasn’t a well man, and Shalimar was the great love of his life. She could be very sweet at times, when she wanted to be, but she was also capable of being a torment. I’m not going to put her on a pedestal as everyone did when she was alive. Perhaps you’ll both be able to help me? With all your experience I might come nearer to the truth of what really happened here in 1945.’ She pressed her thigh against Nick’s once more, the momentary shadow gone. ‘We could work together,’ she said suggestively, fluttering her false eyelashes. Elizabeth half expected her to order him to mix a martini while she slipped into something more comfortable.
‘I’ll need whatever source material you can supply,’ Nick said, glaring at Elizabeth, who was enjoying his discomfort. ‘Photos, letters, anything you remember – no matter how insignificant – that didn’t feel right at the time.’
‘The gossips nearly died of excitement, speculating a cover-up, that it wasn’t a terrible accident, but murder,’ said Ginger. ‘But Rupert loved Shalimar to hell and beyond.’
‘What does your mother think?’ Nick asked Elizabeth. ‘I’ve tried to contact her several times, but she always hangs up on me.’
‘Don’t waste your energy,’ Elizabeth sighed. ‘You won’t get anything from her. She turned her back on the Ruins a long time ago. Anyway, Lois was far too young to know anything – she was only a baby. None of it adds up.’
‘It will by the time we’ve finished,’ Nick declared confidently. ‘Ginger, if we work together, we could get a screenplay out of this. A movie they could film at Currawong Manor. You could even have a role in it.’
‘I don’t want a bloody movie about me as one of the Flowers. There’s been a lot more to my life than being one of Rupert’s Flowers!’ Ginger snapped. ‘I want our book to cover my formative life: growing up in inner-city Sydney in the depression, the war years and the effect of that on the city and its people. And then there’s the period afterwards when I worked in television. My years in the States. I’ve had a full, rich life and I want it all recorded. Not just the short time when I took my clothes off for Rupert and happened to be here when his family suffered multiple tragedies.’
Elizabeth saw the expression on Nick’s face and knew he was wondering if there was a market for Ginger’s full and rich life.
‘Ginger, I know Holly is encouraging you to write your memoirs as she’s desperate to publicise Currawong Manor,’ he said carefully. ‘But Holly doesn’t understand the publishing industry. I honestly believe that what will hook most people is the time you spent as one of the Flowers – and your role in the tragic saga of the Partridges. I don’t want to get your hopes up – and I realise that Holly keeps banging on about an elaborate coffee-table book with past and present-day shots of the manor. But are people going to care enough to invest in an expensive coffee-table book about the Flowers? It’s my role to find the most interesting angle on the material, to ensure the public will be seduced into buying our book. Trust me, the most compelling part is your time at Currawong Manor.’
Elizabeth was impressed by the conviction and confidence in his voice. Nick had obviously given the book a lot of thought, and was determined to do the right thing by Ginger and Holly. She couldn’t help admiring his professionalism. Ginger didn’t look quite so pleased, pursing her lips.
‘Because of Wanda’s dementia, you’re the sole surviving voice who can tell us what really happened here. You’re the only link to the truth of Currawong Manor,’ Nick said.
For a moment, Ginger shivered, as though she felt death’s shadow. Perhaps Nick sensed her momentary sadness, as he quickly changed the subject, saying cheerfully, ‘All this information you’ve brought is going to be very useful. Perhaps we could take a box each? I’m sure Liz wouldn’t mind sharing.’
Elizabeth smiled sweetly at Nick. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said with an edge of steel in her voice. ‘I think we should keep all the research material with Ginger and pool all of the information. And my name is Elizabeth. Only close friends call me Liz.’
Nick looked surprised for a moment, then a half-smile spread across his face and he turned those dark eyes on Elizabeth in a keenly attentive way that sent a strange tingle through her. It was as though he had suddenly noticed her properly for the first time. She wondered if he liked what he saw, and then immediately rebuked herself – she had to work with Nick Cash, and
she certainly wasn’t going to fall for this man’s charms.
Ginger stood up and grabbed her coat, knotted a scarf around her neck and found her wellington boots. ‘I’m going to take a stroll in the gardens.’
‘We could come with you,’ Elizabeth offered, but Ginger shook her head.
‘No need,’ she said shortly. ‘You can get started on the boxes.’ And with a flirtatious glance back over her shoulder at Nick, she sashayed out the door.
***
Ginger smiled to herself as she left on her late-afternoon walk. Soft-spoken, studious-looking little Elizabeth Thorrington, with her watchful brown eyes, pale skin and chocolate-brown shoulder-length hair, had a will of iron. She looked so unthreatening with her tiny body enveloped in that demure trench coat, but she’d certainly made Nick Cash sit up and take notice.
As for Nick, Ginger didn’t quite trust the handsome man with his tousled hair, designer stubble, expensive clothes and warm smile, but she liked him. There was something about that sudden sexy smile that reminded her of Rupert. Men were often easier for Ginger to relate to than women. Men, with the exception of Rupert, were usually so uncomplicated, and often more fun. One of the greatest compliments Ginger had ever received from her late husband was that she was a ‘real old-school dame, almost as good company as a man’.
As she passed it, Ginger glanced at the cabin where Elizabeth was staying. The Nests . . . what a ridiculous name Holly had come up with! Thinking she was clever playing on the Currawong name. Holly hated the term ‘the Ruins’, but she was stuck with it, as all the locals used it. It was as if they avoided referring to the birds by name . . .
It seemed wrong for Rupert’s granddaughter to be staying at the rear of the Ruins in a tiny cabin, rather than in the manor itself. Not that the place had done any of the family any good, Ginger reflected as she walked over to the old swing. In 1942, shortly after the death of his eldest son, Christopher, Rupert’s father, Reg, had either walked out on the family or jumped five hundred metres from Devil’s Leap in Owlbone Woods. No one knew for sure what had happened to him: his hat and jacket had been found at the edge of the treacherous cliff face, but Henry Kelly claimed to have seen him boarding a train to Sydney on the day he had vanished. Certainly his body was never discovered. Rupert’s mother had died soon after, stricken with grief over Christopher. Ivy was rumoured to be a shilling missing, according to Wanda, who knew all the gossip, and the favoured son’s ultimate sacrifice for his country had upped it to a pound. Lois was wise to steer clear of the place, Ginger thought.
Night was approaching. The immense gum trees leading to the woods resembled ancient warriors guarding the land. Diana proudly, defiantly, raising her bow to heaven in Rupert’s love folly never failed to move Ginger. Life had ended so cruelly for the Partridges, that same indifferent moon bearing silent witness. Was there no meaning to love and life? Were all artistic endeavours futile, terminating with the last breath of the artist?
The bush breathed in harmony with Ginger’s melancholic musings. The scarecrow, half glimpsed through the mist, seemed to taunt her. With its drab cardigan and grey woollen hair it looked rather like Dolly Sharp. Was that Holly’s idea of a joke? Ginger scrutinised Owlbone Woods, biting her lip as she remembered the sight of Dolly at Kitty’s service. It was the first time she had seen Dolly in fifty-five years. Dolly had kept out of her way when Ginger had arrived at the Nest. How typical of her to choose the most inappropriate moment to show herself to Ginger. She hated thinking of her still living near Currawong Manor, perched there in one of the Nests, so close to Ginger, like a malevolent spirit from the past.
The swing creaked. Ginger turned slowly, a chill pressing her spine. But the swing was as empty and poignant-looking as ever. Only the memory of the long-dead child moved the rope handles – but Ginger still dreaded ghosts that could wander the manor’s grounds at evening. Ghosts who would view Ginger as a trespasser.
She looked up to the slate roof of the manor, experiencing the familiar dread at what she might spot. A few currawongs were gathered near the towers, but not enough of them to shadow any grim doom. How Doris used to scoff at Rupert’s superstitions! Little good her scorn had served her on that unforgettable, savage night. Poor Doris! Poor Shalimar! Poor Kitty! And poor Wanda with her gossipy tongue, which now wagged only nonsense at her nursing home as she waited to die. Only Ginger remained to relate the story of the Devil’s Flowers. The last Flower. She felt a melancholic twinge that the beauty, youth, hope and vitality of the other two life models had been silenced forever. What was the point of life when it all wilted away to the same misty shadowland?
It was only recently that Ginger had been able to bear to return to this dangerous, magical spot that had haunted her for years. And throughout the meeting with Nick and Elizabeth earlier today, images of the past had kept coming back to her. Memories she had worked hard to overcome now flew through her mind like giant birds. Birds escaping, taking flight from the place deep inside. She could still see Shalimar, thirteen years old, with the most beautiful face a child ever possessed, her long blonde hair streaming behind her as she ran across the lawn in a red velvet cape hand-stitched by Miss Sharp.
‘Ginger! Ginger!’ A cry echoing through the years. ‘Daddy’s found some fairies and he’s trapped them in bottles! Oh, Ginger, do come and look! We can feed them ginger biscuits!’ And that long-ago Ginger, squealing with excitement, running with Shalimar, her long legs giving the child a challenge to keep up with. Kind, pretty, merry Kitty running behind them, while Wanda cheered them on. And then the four of them holding hands, playing ring-a-rosie as Shalimar’s long hair covered her face.
They had all believed in fairies back then. Every full moon the household would leave sugar crumbs outside as a tithe to the small wild creatures and pray for wishes to be granted. If Ginger gave any thought to them nowadays, the fairies she imagined slipping through the woods were the grimy, malicious, twisted kind, with eyelash-thin arms, foul winter breath and tiny razor-sharp fairy teeth that could crack your bones. Fairies playing sinister night games, tormenting sleeping children in their dreaming. Ginger could well believe that type of fairy lived in Owlbone Woods. Not the beautiful fairies Rupert had created to enchant Shalimar. Weeks of work he’d spent on the tiny, delicate, gold-dust-sprinkled beings made of wood, wax and love. He had placed them gently inside glass jars, pretending he had captured them. Ginger could hear his deep, cultured voice now. ‘They’re sleeping, Shalimar. Don’t touch them or make too much noise.’ The only time Rupert ever sounded truly happy was when he spoke to Shalimar. It was obvious to all – Shalimar had his heart.
There had always been something strange about Owlbone Woods. They belonged to the Partridges, and Rupert was set against anybody from the town or the manor going into them. But Shalimar was determined to disobey instructions. The child was wilful to a fault, spoilt rotten, and she had a nasty tongue on her as well. Ginger’s got red hair down there! Ginger’s got a fat bum and tummy! Ginger could hear Shalimar’s taunts as if she whispered in her ear now. And that poor kangaroo of the dollmaker’s . . . Ginger was always convinced Shalimar had known the truth of Buster’s grisly end. And then there was Dolly. The two girls were always fighting as soon as they were put together, each claiming the other one was responsible for mischief. You never knew who to believe when it came to the girls. Shalimar’s blonde fairy face and soft, girlish voice had bewitched Rupert and the locals, but Ginger had seen darker shadows in the child.
Now the memory birds came at her again, dragging her with their talons back to that night in 1945 when screams had seared the sky and trees of Mermaid Glen. In death, Shalimar had resembled a broken angel as she lay in her father’s arms. And Rupert, holding the body of his daughter, wailing, sobbing, beyond caring about anything. The grief of a parent who had lost a child was a sound so awful that no soul should have to hear it.
More memories of that night came back to Ginger, as vividly as though it was yesterday: Wanda in hy
sterics; Kitty wailing; Ginger herself had joined in with the raw grief and screamed till her throat was red raw. And the vow the Flowers had made afterwards. The secret they had agreed to keep while Miss Sharp ordered them to cut their fingers and drip their mingled blood onto the doll. They had been so young – so terrified – they had easily become accomplices in the lie.
All these years later, and after burying a husband, Ginger was roaming in the garden Shalimar had once ruled. She automatically checked the roof again – still only a few birds – and realised she was holding her breath. She consciously relaxed her muscles. What did she fear that caused this shallow breathing, this ache in her bones? Was it the currawongs with their cruel eyes that saw everything and forgot nothing? A ghost child smiling, mischief in her eyes, the moon balanced on her lap as she swung on a wooden swing, legs turning to silver stars? Or was it death she really dreaded? Half hidden behind one of the gum trees, was Death stalking her patiently, knowing her time was near? Was this raw and primal urge to confess because Death had her in its empty-socketed gaze – and she had to finally face the secrets she had buried?
Behind her she heard again the slow creak of the swing. Shalimar? Is that you? Are you still here, Shalimar?
A currawong landed near the drystone wall leading to Owlbone Woods. Ginger tensed. One bird for sorrow. Ginger knew the shadows in Owlbone Woods were cold and dangerous. The mist was thicker now and soon it would no longer be possible to see Shalimar’s swing. But would the seat still creak and her voice grow louder as she called Ginger from across time? Why wouldn’t the child leave her in peace?
Currawong Manor Page 7