The Shifting Light

by Alice Campion

‘Hang on a sec.’ Ben struggled to a sitting position. ‘Your locket – the circle within a circle, with water …’

  ‘No way!’ cried Izzy. She pulled herself onto the rim and looked upwards, shading her eyes. ‘We need Nina,’ she said. ‘And both lockets.’

  The old phone booth in the corner of The Commercial smelt of stale beer, damp carpet and sweat. Lachlan balanced his glass on the small shelf next to the phone. With shaking hands, he held up a well-thumbed business card and dialled the number.

  He had put things off as long as he could. Now he had no choice.

  ‘Yes?’ came a familiar gruff voice.

  He swallowed. ‘It’s Lachlan Wright.’

  ‘Fuck! Where the fuck’ve you been? We need the money – now. No more fucking stalling. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m … I’m … steady on. Everything’s under control,’ Lachlan replied.

  ‘Under fucking control? I seriously doubt that, mate. See, you have no control over what happens next. None! Understand? Now where is the money?’

  Heavy breathing. Lachlan felt the hair on his arms stand on end.

  A thump on the side of the phone box made him jump. It was a red-bearded giant of a man in a flannelette shirt holding a fistful of betting slips.

  ‘How long you gonna be, mate? I have a sure thing in race eight at Flemington and my phone’s fuckin’ died. Get outa there.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ barked the voice down the line.

  Lachlan held up his hand to the betting man and steadied himself.

  ‘No-one. Look, Richie, I need six weeks, tops,’ he replied into the receiver. ‘Then it’s all in the bag. There’s no need to involve anyone else. Steph knows nothing – she doesn’t even know where I am. I’ll get it to you, it’s just six weeks.’ He’d have to head off, cover his tracks, maybe go overseas.

  ‘Six weeks, my arse,’ said the voice. ‘One week, one point seven mill. No excuses. Otherwise we know who to visit. You’ll be paying up, one way or another.’

  ‘Maaate! For fuck’s sake,’ cried the bearded man, pounding on the booth again, pointing at his watch.

  ‘Okay,’ Lachlan mouthed.

  ‘Sure,’ he said down the phone line. ‘One week it is.’ His legs felt unsteady, a wave of nausea washed over him.

  ‘You’ll be hearing from us.’

  He heard a click and the line went dead.

  What now? He should’ve taken some of those paintings weeks back. But he thought he was on a winner with Hilary. Now she had slipped through his fingers and Nina was offside as well.

  Could they trace a public phone? What about his mother? They wouldn’t try and find her – would they?

  His harasser swore as he yanked the door open and shoved Lachlan out of the booth. Lachlan stumbled and almost fell on the sticky carpet while the other two drinkers at the bar averted their eyes.

  Don’t panic, don’t panic. He needed another drink. A double. No need to get back to The Springs just yet. He wasn’t welcome there anymore. He had to get some air. Had to collect his thoughts.

  He ordered a double scotch and carried it to the back of the pub, leaving the change on the counter. If he just had some space. Peace. Thinking time. He stumbled along the river bank. The brown water ran fast, deep. He threw a stick in and watched it get caught up in a rapid dance before disappearing around a bend.

  There was no way out. He was stuffed this time. He had no choice.

  He took another long swig of his drink that burned his throat yet made him immediately want more.

  He stared for a few moments at the swirling water.

  Well, there was that one other option …

  ‘It’s not a goat’s head. It’s Cupid!’ cried Nina. ‘Look.’ She held out her locket.

  ‘What?’ asked Heath.

  ‘The outline. See.’ It really did mirror the misshapen engraving they had all thought was Goat Rock.

  ‘You’re right, that’s it,’ said Heath, peering closer and then up at the statue.

  ‘And the other symbol on my locket,’ said Izzy. ‘We thought it was a spear …’

  ‘But it’s an arrow,’ she and Nina called in unison.

  ‘Holding a golden future, just like mini Madame Zena said,’ continued Izzy. ‘The arrow must point towards the gold.’

  ‘Quick. Something straight!’ It was Ben.

  ‘Got it.’ Izzy pounced and held up a stick from the magnolia tree. Syd danced around her feet hoping for a game as she passed it to Nina.

  ‘Put it in Cupid’s hand,’ called Ben. The original stone string and arrow had crumbled away long before their childhood.

  Nina pulled off her boots and waded to the centre of the fountain. Using the ornate stone carvings on the pedestal, she managed to get a hand and toehold and edge herself upwards.

  ‘Hang on, I’ll help you,’ offered Heath. In moments he had joined her in the pool. ‘Here,’ he said, ducking down so Nina could scramble onto his shoulders.

  ‘Nearly there.’ As Heath stood, Nina came face-to-face with Cupid’s knowing smile which seemed to say, ‘It’s taken you this long?’ She stroked the mottled surface of his cheek and then, with an outstretched arm, strained forward and balanced the stick between his two hands, one pulled back at the elbow and the other pointing forwards.

  ‘Got it!’ she shouted.

  ‘What do you reckon the 15 means?’ Ben asked. ‘Feet? Yards?’

  ‘Paces?’ suggested Heath, lowering Nina to her feet.

  ‘That way,’ added Izzy, pointing. ‘We’ve got to go that way.’

  ‘Let’s get the old metal detector from the shed. It’s there some where,’ said Nina.

  Not bothering to put his boots back on, Heath tore towards the house.

  ‘I can’t believe it!’ said Izzy. ‘Either we’re completely mad or we’re about to strike gold.’

  ‘Shut up, all of you. I can’t hear!’

  They stopped their excited chatter and listened to the wailing sound as Heath covered the ground with steady sweeps of the metal detector. The gesture took Nina back to when they’d searched fruitlessly around the waterhole for the same treasure after her father’s body had been found.

  Ben had wanted to do it this time, but his wheelchair had sent the machine into a frenzy, so now he, Izzy and Nina had been banished to the edge of the fountain to watch the proceedings.

  ‘Is this really happening?’ whispered Nina, trying to keep her excitement tamped firmly down. ‘Maybe we just want it to be true. Like Dad did.’

  ‘No way,’ said Izzy, holding up the two lockets side by side. ‘It makes perfect sense with both sets of clues. Look, the water, the cupid’s head, the two circles, the arrow …’

  She broke off as the metal detector let forth an undulating scream. Syd howled.

  ‘Think we’ve got something,’ Heath called. Sure enough, a second sweep produced an even louder noise. ‘Yep – shovel, please!’ he called over Syd’s now-raucous barking.

  Heart pounding, Nina rushed forward with the others to the mark he had made with his foot in the grey dust. Ben handed Heath the shovel.

  ‘You do the honours, mate.’

  Heath’s powerful arms drove the shovel into the tightly-packed soil, the edges neat and straight. The pile of earth gradually grew as the hole deepened, each spadeful a small let-down. The suspense each time Heath dug into the earth was reflected in the tension in his jaw.

  Nina couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘Can I have a turn?’

  ‘Sure, here,’ he said, standing aside and handing her the shovel.

  She bent down and concentrated on the rhythm of dig and dump, dig and dump. It was good to be doing something, finally. Occasionally, she hit a rock or rubble but otherwise it was just grey soil. When the hole was half a metre deep and wide, Nina leaned on the spade. ‘It couldn’t be deeper than this, could it? Can we do another sweep?’

  Heath leaned over the hole and the detector came to life again.

  ‘No, no, I’ll keep going,’
said Nina, shaking her head at Heath’s offer to take the spade.

  It took another 15 minutes of digging. About a metre down, Nina’s spade finally struck something that gave a hollow thud. Wood. She scrabbled with her hands until she uncovered a square of splintery timber. She glanced at Heath. Was this actually happening?

  ‘It’s a box. Break it open! I can’t wait any longer!’ cried Izzy, dancing with excitement.

  Nina poised the pointed end of the spade above the wooden surface and pushed her full weight down with her foot. It gave way much more easily than she had thought, sending her reeling. But in a flash, she was on her hands and knees, pulling out shards of wood to uncover a layer of hessian.

  ‘This is it!’ called Izzy.

  ‘Here.’ Ben threw his pocket knife down to Nina and she cut the fabric away.

  In the afternoon sun, the unmistakable glow of gold shone with a burnished hue. Nina looked up at the three of them, mouth agape.

  ‘Geez! The size of it,’ breathed Ben, wheeling forward.

  And then the four of them were hugging, whooping and dancing around the hole, Syd yapping at their heels. ‘We’ve found it! We’ve found it!’ cried Nina.

  ‘Let’s get the thing out of the ground,’ said Heath. Jumping into the hole, he lifted the nugget, still lying on fragments of hessian, out of its tomb. Straining, he reached up and placed it in Nina’s arms like an offering. ‘Careful, it’s heavy.’

  She gasped and staggered under its weight. ‘I can hardly hold it.’

  Taking the gold from Nina, Heath carried it to the fountain and laid it on the broad lip. Nina drank in its beauty. She knelt and ran her fingers over its surface. It was about the size and shape of a half-deflated rugby ball, with a sharp-edged bulge at the top. Much of the surface was pitted with dents where it had moulded itself against small stones over millennia.

  Izzy and Ben rushed to touch it.

  ‘So this has been under our feet the whole time,’ said Ben. ‘And the legend’s right – it is the size of a liver.’

  ‘Amazing,’ chorused Izzy.

  In all the noise and excitement, Nina didn’t realise at first that Lachlan had returned. He stood perfectly still next to the magnolia tree.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said coolly, folding his arms. ‘You’d better get it in the house while there’s still light.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we take it to Trent at the bank?’ asked Heath, looking at Lachlan uneasily.

  ‘It’s Sunday, mate,’ replied Ben. ‘We’ll head there first thing tomorrow. It’ll be right till then. Izzy and I’ll sleep on top of it tonight, won’t we? She’s terrifying if you wake her up suddenly. She’s the new Cerberus.’

  ‘We need champers,’ insisted Izzy.

  ‘First I’m hitting the phone,’ said Nina, heading for the house.

  ‘Like flies at a barbecue,’ declared Moira as a small but eager crowd jostled to touch the nugget in all its glory.

  ‘How did they all know?’ asked Nina. Excited locals had been gathering for the past couple of hours to get a look at their find. Francine Mathers was holding court on a picnic rug while Sergeant Barry Kemp had taken up a secret-service-type stance at the gate, surveilling newcomers suspiciously through reflective aviator shades.

  ‘News spreads like Vegemite out here, you ought to know that by now,’ replied Moira. ‘This is the biggest thing to happen since Lobby Murphy drove the combine harvester all the way to the pub when he lost his driver’s licence.’

  Nina eyed the lump of gold, now sitting on bathroom scales at the foot of the fountain. It was in its natural state, whereas a smaller nugget buried next to it appeared to have been melted down. It was the size of a pack of cards and must have been used to make the two lockets.

  ‘Yoo hoo!’ Dorothy Crane emerged from the Wandalla Argus sedan with a photographer in tow. ‘May I come in and get the scoop, you lucky, lucky people?’ she trilled. Syd growled a warning.

  ‘Sure, Dorothy. Come on over,’ said Heath, wearily.

  ‘Oh, my, so this is it,’ she gasped, moving towards the fountain. ‘How much does it weigh?’

  ‘Exactly 20.71 kilos, not counting the little one,’ replied Heath.

  ‘And what’s the big one worth?’ she asked Nina.

  ‘We need to get it valued and find out if …’

  ‘Well, if you consider that one troy ounce is 31.1035 grams, then that gives us 665.84 troy ounces,’ said an authoritative voice. It was Lachlan, who had taken up a proprietorial stand in front of the gold.

  ‘At $1414 an ounce that comes to $1.068 million. Or thereabouts,’ he added. ‘And being a complete nugget, it’s worth even more.’

  Dorothy scribbled busily in her notepad.

  From her position curled in Ben’s lap, Izzy flashed Nina an exasperated look. ‘Wanker,’ she mouthed.

  ‘So, who owns the gold exactly?’ asked Dorothy.

  ‘It’s Nina’s,’ said Ben emphatically. ‘It belonged to her ancestor and it’s on her property. It’s definitely a Larkin heirloom.’

  ‘Well, we haven’t really thought about any of that …’ began Nina.

  ‘I’m a Larkin too,’ interrupted Lachlan. ‘My mother lived here long before Nina was even born. She probably played on this very spot a thousand times.’ He laughed, but his voice seemed strained, thought Nina.

  ‘There’s something wrong about that one,’ Moira whispered in Nina’s ear. ‘I thought he was the ant’s pants at first but, I dunno …’

  ‘I know,’ replied Nina. ‘But he’ll be out of here soon, thank god.’

  ‘Alright, let’s have all the intrepid gold discoverers here around the nugget,’ called Dorothy. She bustled them into a group by the fountain’s edge.

  ‘Look surprised,’ she directed. ‘More drama! That’s right, girls, big eyes. Now, boys, I want some animation from you as well.’

  Nina smiled until her cheeks ached as the photographer snapped away. But her mind was on Moira’s words. She glanced uneasily at Lachlan, who was prowling around behind them. She felt a shot of anxiety. Still, they would take the gold to the bank first thing tomorrow before Heath flew out to Sydney for his meetings. And Barry Kemp had declared he would stay overnight as guard.

  Nina took a deep breath. The last few hours had been amazing but now she longed for some peace and quiet and for the gold to be safely tucked away somewhere. She looked beyond the fountain, past the gate to paddocks where kangaroos grazed oblivious in the fading light. The nugget! After all these years. People had said Jim was mad when he talked about it, but he had been on the right track all along. He’d just misread a clue. ‘We found it, Dad,’ she whispered. ‘Not where you thought it was, but we found it.’

  Behind them another car door slammed. Syd barked and shot through the gate.

  ‘No, no, Dorothy. Move them into a circle, boy-girl-boy-girl. It’s a much better composition.’ It was Hilary.

  Nina took another bottle of champagne from the fridge. Thank god for Hilary who had brought over a case. Most of the visitors had gone but Hilary, Moira, Roy and Barry Kemp looked like they’d all be bunking down at The Springs.

  ‘How are you doing?’ Heath wrapped his arms around Nina’s waist from behind and snuggled his chin into her shoulder.

  ‘Still stunned, amazed and freaking out,’ she replied.

  ‘Me too. It’s a lot of money.’

  ‘You know, I’ve been thinking …’

  ‘Yes?’ Heath said, turning her to face him.

  ‘I reckon we split it five ways.’

  ‘Five?’

  ‘You, me, Izzy – I mean, she had the other locket, and we’d never have cracked the code without her. And Ben – he worked out the first clue. And you’re both Blacketts. Barkin’ would have liked that.’

  ‘And the fifth?’

  ‘We’ve got to give a share to Janet, Lachlan’s mother. It’s only fair – she should really have ended up with The Springs after all.’

  ‘Janet?’ Heath raised his eyebr
ows. ‘Okay. Your call,’ he answered. ‘As long as I have you.’

  How she loved this man.

  As they kissed, the landline rang.

  Nina leant against Heath’s chest and closed her eyes. ‘God, not another rubber-necker,’ she sighed. ‘Maybe we should put a message on the answering machine.’

  ‘Yeah – safe arrival of a 20 kilo bundle of joy. Mother and nugget both doing well …’ laughed Heath. ‘It’s okay, I’ll get it. You go back out.’

  Nina headed outside but when she reached the verandah, she paused. A full moon hung like a pendant over the inky sky, casting a silvery glow on the straggling partygoers. Silver and gold, she smiled. It looked so incredible she wanted to share it. She turned to call Heath but he was still on the phone.

  The sounds of laughter and shouted comments from the fountain floated through the still, cool air.

  ‘… And so, I said to him, “Take the bloody lot up. No cottoning on for me this year.” He was livid,’ Hilary was saying as Nina arrived. She was standing barefoot in the fountain waving her wineglass at a reckless angle. Around her, the others lounged in the moonlight, finishing the last of the pizza.

  ‘She’s here!’ called Hilary, gesturing towards Nina, who was putting the champagne in an Esky. ‘I can tell you the whole story now.’

  ‘Go, Hils!’ said Ben, raising a beer in her direction.

  ‘Settle down.’ Hilary perched on the lip of the fountain, facing the group. She took a long draught, a deep breath and began. ‘My involvement in this story starts 20 or so years ago, when Jim came back to Wandalla just before he went missing. Phillip and I had recently moved back, with Deborah, from Tamworth and I was out driving alone. And all of a sudden he was there – just standing with a backpack on the corner of North Road. It was like he appeared out of nowhere. I couldn’t believe it after all that time. I pulled over and offered him a lift to The Springs. We got talking but he only had one thing on his mind – he was convinced he knew where the nugget was.’

  ‘Yes, we know all of this. And …?’ prompted Nina.

  ‘He was in a pretty bad way. In one of his manic phases. He was talking a million miles an hour. Told me the story we all know now, that he and Harrison Grey were going to run away together.’