Poet's Cottage

by Josephine Pennicott

  ‘Yes, this is Betty,’ Sadie said, feeling the familiar faint sadness that she had been unable to have another child.

  ‘You’ve been blessed to have one,’ Birdie said, somehow reading her expression. ‘Maxwell and I tried for a child but God didn’t grant us that gift.’ Her eyes glistened as though she was revisiting an old memory. Her gaze remained as sharp as ever but her voice softened to a whisper, as if she was aware the topic might be uncomfortable for Sadie. ‘It was one of the sorrows of my life. I do miss Maxwell terribly. Your grandfather was a wonderful man.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Sadie said, although she had never known what to make of the love affair between her grandfather and Birdie, Pearl’s friend. Still, she felt a twinge of sympathy for their infertility. Marguerite had been a closed book on the subject of Maxwell and Birdie and had had minimal contact with them over the years. In Sadie’s more romantic and lurid imaginings she had wondered whether her mother had suspected either – or both of them – of involvement in Pearl’s murder.

  Birdie simply nodded. ‘I suppose you’ve come here to work on your book about Pearl?’

  ‘How did you know?’ Sadie wondered why she even bothered being shocked; there appeared to be no secrets in Pencubitt. The villagers seemed to know your business before you did.

  Birdie laughed. ‘When I heard Pearl’s granddaughter was a writer, I knew it would only be a matter of time before she came looking for Pearl. I knew you wouldn’t be content with journalism or ghosting for other people – or even writing your own fiction. Seed, wasn’t it?’ She smiled at Sadie’s astonishment. ‘I try to keep up to date. The Sydney newspapers are expensive here but I buy them for their arts sections, the Spectrum and Review. I do think Kevin Blainey’s review was unfair. Seed may have had some faults but nothing like his dreadful books! I thought your book had some interesting ideas and lovely writing. All the faults of a first book, but also all the daring and the passion. Oh yes, you have Pearl’s blood in your veins and you’d want to know her story.’

  ‘Would it be too much of an imposition to interview you for some parts of my book?’ Sadie said.

  ‘I think you would discover there’s little more I can add to what I’ve already written,’ Birdie said crisply.

  ‘Time alters memory,’ Sadie said gently. ‘There might be pieces that you hesitated to reveal in Webweaver that in retrospect you wish to have recorded after all.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Birdie said. ‘How do you know that you’d want or like that story told?’

  ‘I just want the truth,’ Sadie said.

  Birdie smiled knowingly. ‘You might think that, but in my experience people rarely appreciate the truth. There were things I did omit in Webweaver, out of respect to Pearl and her family. Times have changed and the modern trend – which I don’t like – is to air everybody’s dirty washing.’ She glanced at Betty and clearly thought better of continuing with the conversation. ‘I won’t hold you up but if you’d like to come and visit me one evening then you are more than welcome. I tend to retire early these days, so no later than seven would be appreciated. Before you leave, help yourself to my daphne.

  ‘Look at the wrens!’ she added, pointing to the sky, but Sadie couldn’t see a thing. ‘The birdlife in Pencubitt has always been one of the great joys of my life,’ Birdie continued. ‘You can learn so much from birds and we have such a wonderful variety of them here: swifts, gannets, gulls, shearwaters, falcons, parrots. One of the bonuses of growing up in my day was no television or computers – as a result we were out in nature more. From a very young age, the birds, the trees, the sea were my friends.’ She smiled at Betty. ‘I sound like the very old woman I am. Times have changed and I haven’t changed with them and now I never will. Don’t forget to take some flowers with you, dear.’

  As she and Betty walked away, Sadie could feel Birdie’s eyes searing into her back.

  In contrast to the twee, quirky cafés in the town centre, near the village green was a lone garish fish and chip shop with an oversized prawn sprawled atop. It was obvious this was the locals’ preferred chippery; young schoolchildren in the grey and burgundy Pencubitt Primary School uniform were sipping milkshakes outside while their mothers chatted to friends, hugging small cardboard boxes of takeaways to their chest. Sadie and Betty went inside and ordered some lunch, which they ate sitting near the docks adjacent to the village green, watching fishermen unloading their catch of the day. Across the bay, vivid emerald-green hills were a perfect tonal contrast to the cool, grey-blue of the sea. Seagulls and plovers hovered above, hoping for a scrap of fish. A few tourists walked past, pausing to photograph the sea or the memorial on the green. A couple out walking their dog sang out a greeting to Sadie and Betty. Sadie suspected they already knew who she was. Suddenly she saw the two of them through their eyes: she with her bobbed, dark hair, vintage black lace dress and ribbed stockings, and Betty in a pink faux-fur coat with a long hot-pink silk skirt and man’s fedora hat.

  She watched Betty cramming hot chips into her mouth and felt the stabs of happiness that never failed to come when she witnessed her daughter eating. The Tasmanian air had made her hungry and the hot chips and vinegar tasted as good as they smelled. ‘I was famished!’ Sadie said. ‘The food’s so much better here than in Sydney.’

  ‘I reckon!’ Betty could barely reply; her mouth was full of fish.

  Why were the simple moments often the best? Sadie wondered. Long-awaited events never matched the expectation, but just sitting eating fish and chips with her daughter brought so much pleasure.

  After they had eaten, they wandered across to the village green, which recalled an English village, encircled by whitewashed bluestone cottages. There was a large stone memorial in the green’s centre heavily inscribed with Celtic-inspired drawings of mermaids and fishermen and mysterious symbols. Fresh flowers were placed at the base of the memorial. Sadie already knew the words engraved on it.

  In loving memory of Edward Noah Stephens

  Died 11 June 1936

  Swept to sea from the Siren’s Tresses. Despite all brave efforts to retrieve him he was taken to our Lord to sleep in eternal peace.

  Memorial erected by his grieving parents

  Dennis and Maggie Stephens, and remaining brother Arthur Dennis Stephens.

  May our boy rest in peace.

  ‘It’s tragic, isn’t it?’ Sadie commented. ‘The poor parents. All that grief.’ As she had done in the past, she ruminated over the possibility that Teddy Stephens had been the trigger for her grandmother’s death. Before his own death it had been widely speculated that he and Pearl were having an affair. ‘Don’t you find history amazing, Betty? All the great passions and dramas that create a person’s life linking like a spider web to the next generation.’

  ‘Not really,’ Betty said. ‘I prefer the present. They’re just dead people, Mum. Eaten by worms and decayed into dust. I think people can get too hung up about the past. Now is what’s really important.’

  Sadie looked at her daughter, her heart seeming to contract and flutter as it always did when she truly registered Betty’s beauty – her caramel-coloured hair that fell down her back, her slender body and her dark doe eyes that saw so much and reflected an inner sadness that Sadie could never penetrate. How did I ever create anything so beautiful? she thought. Aloud, she said, ‘Well, my now is perfect because I’m with you.’

  They linked arms and walked slowly back to the house.

  The cat’s meow

  It was a fortnight before Sadie was able to visit Birdie. There were appointments at Burnie High, which Betty would be attending as there was no high school in Pencubitt, as well as shopping trips for the house, and a deadline for Woman’s World magazine. Once her article on women in midlife had been emailed, she was finally free to follow up Birdie’s invitation.

  ‘Come in, dear. Oh! It’s cold outside tonight! No, dear, it’s not too late. I’ve had dinner and I was just about to make some tea.’ Birdie drew her wrap tighter aroun
d herself and took Sadie by the arm. ‘So lovely to welcome you to my home. Don’t mind Dash. Dash! Be quiet! Show some manners. Sadie is our visitor!’ The little Maltese terrier was yapping and jumping frantically at Sadie. ‘Dash!’ Birdie shouted, and the dog finally subsided and collapsed panting on the floor. Birdie turned to Sadie. ‘Come into the sunroom, dear. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘That would be lovely. You don’t have to wait on me, Birdie. Let me get it.’

  ‘Nonsense! I may be old but I’m not infirm. You wait with Dash and I’ll pop the kettle on.’ She disappeared into the corridor, leaving Dash glaring and snarling at Sadie.

  Trying to ignore him, Sadie took out her mobile and sent an SMS to Betty. She never felt confident leaving her daughter alone at night, but Betty had insisted she was content to go to bed with her book. Waiting for a reply message, she studied the books lining the walls: as well as Dickens and the Brontës, there were books on photography, art, Mondrian and Tasmanian history. A sculpture of a rather ugly bird wore a red velvet hat in the corner, and a collection of seashells and silver-and-red-painted starfish were placed on the windowsill. There were also framed portraits of Dash, black-and-white snapshots of what looked to be Birdie’s relatives and friends together with a cluster of black-and-whites of Pencubitt. A large framed photograph showed a younger, smiling Birdie in her front garden next to a genial-looking, handsome white-haired man wearing a purple velvet jacket and tartan scarf. Maxwell. Sadie had to fight the impulse to pick up the image of her grandfather to study him. For so long he had been an unmentioned silent presence in her life. Here, in the house of his lover, he suddenly became real.

  ‘Here we are! Oh, what’s that noise?’

  Sadie hurriedly checked the text from her daughter – COOL. CU xx – before taking the tray from Birdie. Chunky slices of homemade fruitcake nuzzled a pot of tea. Birdie insisted on pouring for Sadie.

  ‘Was that from your daughter?’ She gestured towards the mobile and kept talking without waiting for an answer. ‘Lionel from the hospital was trying to talk me into getting one of those. I’ve no interest. He said if I got into trouble then I could call them at any time, day or night. Fancy people wanting to be called day and night! I do think all those microwaves going in your ear all the time must affect the brain. She really is a pretty girl – your daughter, I mean. Takes after your grandmother in looks. But so do you, with that lovely dark hair. You wouldn’t believe how beautiful Pearl was,’ she said sadly. ‘Like something from the films. She had a face from a chocolate box. It was her blessing and her curse.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Sadie wished she had thought to put her tape recorder on. Too late now; she couldn’t risk disrupting Birdie’s train of thought, already haphazard enough.

  ‘It made her lazy. Less inclined to develop other areas of herself. She was rather spoilt by all the attention. Gifted by Venus, but the gods demanded a price for their gift. I was often relieved that I was only ever of average looks.’ She sipped her tea, her eyes never leaving Sadie’s face.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t describe you as being average,’ Sadie said, feeling as if a response was expected from her. ‘You looked like a young Vivien Leigh.’

  ‘It’s funny, your grandmother said the same thing,’ Birdie said. ‘I couldn’t see it myself. I had no confidence. We weren’t brought up that way, to think anything of ourselves. I look back on photos and can see I was actually a little pretty, but at the time I thought nothing of myself. Not like Pearl! Now, she really did think she was the cat’s meow! Do you feel her in the house?’ she asked suddenly.

  Sadie was at a loss to answer. ‘Not in the sense of chains shaking and her spirit walking the floors at night,’ she finally said slowly. ‘I do feel Poet’s Cottage is her house, though. As if we’re the guests and the soul of the place belongs to Pearl.’

  ‘Yes. She never did like to let anything go, poor devil,’ Birdie said. ‘Eat more cake! It’s from the local bakery – Mrs Pennyquick makes it. She lost her twins seven years ago, poor love. Both killed on the road – a hit-and-run. A mainlander, I would say. They always drive like bats out of hell around here. She never got over it. Her husband ran off with the postmaster’s daughter a year afterwards. It must have been the shock. A young snip of a girl, only twenty, with a face like a sheep. Now she was no beauty, but Mr Pennyquick must have seen something in her. Mrs Pennyquick stayed and baked and built up the business far better than he ever did, the rotten sod. Last I heard he was living in Hobart and had two more children. Men are funny beasts, aren’t they? I’m always grateful I had Maxwell; he was so unlike the feeble type of man you usually see around. A lot of men only seem to care about women, races and drink. Have you tried their bread yet? People come from Launceston on the weekends to buy her pies and bread. Perhaps all the grief and loss she went through added extra taste, a richer energy to her baking? Sadness and sorrow sprinkled with the sesame seeds and grain . . . People are always trying so hard to be happy these days, aren’t they? Poor fools with their self-improvement books and shows. When I was young, people were so much more accepting of life. You just got on with things. I’m sure it’s the television creating impossible standards.’

  ‘What things didn’t Pearl like to let go of?’ Sadie asked, trying to steer the conversation back on track.

  Birdie cast her a mischievous glance. ‘Well, Maxwell for a start. He told Pearl he wanted to leave her months before her death. She took it very badly. It was difficult for her to fathom that he really was totally fed up with all her shenanigans and no longer loved her. Pearl believed it was her divine right to have people genuflect before her altar – she had no idea that she could push someone too far. It’s strange how mortals can be so shrewd in some areas and so dense in others. I suppose we are complex beings.’

  ‘Maxwell wanted to leave because he had fallen in love with you,’ Sadie dared to say. ‘That must have been very hard on my grandmother.’

  ‘She didn’t like it, no. But Pearl had her own love interests. I can tell you honestly that she didn’t waste any sleep over Maxwell walking out.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who murdered my grandmother?’ Sadie asked.

  Birdie tapped the side of her head. ‘She was weak in there,’ she said. ‘Today they would probably label her bipolar or obsessive compulsive and medicate her. Back then there wasn’t a lot of knowledge about or empathy for mental illness. We knew a lot of the men that returned from the war weren’t right in the head but everybody just got on with it – no counselling or medication. Those men might have taken their moods out on their wives and families, but that was another thing that was accepted. Your generation are much more sensitive. In my day people just tolerated eccentric behaviour – like Madge Bunning’s son. He was always a very strange boy. Had a certain loose look in his eye, if you catch my meaning. If you tried to talk to him he’d just giggle, make pig grunts or pretend he was a German soldier or other nonsense. One day he took off all his clothes and marched down High Street brandishing a rifle, screaming that the worms were eating his insides and his eyeballs were on fire. Frightened all the shoppers. He was sent to New Norfolk not long afterwards. Madge had eight other children and lived in a tiny cottage in Earl Street before it was burnt down. No doubt it was a blessing to her when Errol was sent away. Oh dear, I’ve rambled away.’

  ‘What did Pearl do that made you think she was mentally ill?’

  ‘What did she do? Far too much to cover in this brief conversation!’ Birdie slowly pulled herself to her feet, holding her hand up to reject Sadie’s offer of help. ‘No, that’s alright, dear.’ She made her way to the sideboard and opened a drawer, from which she extracted a moss-green photo album. She lowered herself onto the couch beside Sadie and placed it on her knee.

  ‘Now,’ she said, flicking through the pages. ‘Where are we? Oh – here!’

  Sadie’s heart missed a beat when she saw the images of her grandmother. There she was in a swimming costume with a small skirt, a large s
unhat on her sleek dark hair, posing at an unchanged Shelley Beach. A handsome young Maxwell sat beside her, smiling up at the camera. Smiling at Birdie taking the photo? Thomasina and Marguerite were all pigtails and swimmers, surrounded by buckets, spades and dolls. It looked to be a happy family shot.

  ‘Photographs lie,’ Birdie said, as if she had read Sadie’s thoughts. ‘I remember that day so well. Pearl was in one of her moods because she wanted to be at home writing – or, more likely, she was itching to meet Teddy or some other man – and Maxwell put a spoke in her wheel by insisting on a family day at the beach.’

  Sadie heard a strange voice in her head: A family day with you there, Birdie. The woman who ended up with Maxwell. It was almost as if the thought wasn’t Sadie’s. Aloud she said, ‘Teddy? Do you mean Edward Stephens?’

  ‘Yes, Edward, but we called him Teddy. The fisherman whose memorial is on the village green. Like most men and women over thirteen in Pencubitt, he was infatuated with Pearl. And she returned his ardour.’ Birdie leant forward, her eyes glinting. ‘She had an affair with him that Maxwell was aware of. It nearly destroyed him, poor man.’

  And so he turned to you, Birdie. Pearl’s great friend only too willing to lie with her husband. Ignoring the voice in her head, Sadie turned the pages of the album, trying not to react to the few photographs of Marguerite as a child. A lump came to her throat; tears in her eyes momentarily obscured her view. She looked up to find Birdie watching her with sympathy.

  ‘Take the album home to study; there are only a few photographs of the girls. Nobody took many in those days. Most people couldn’t afford a camera, but somehow Pearl always managed to get her hands on luxury items. Please take good care of it,’ Birdie said. ‘I have something else for you, too.’ She got up again and unlocked the bottom half of the sideboard, bringing out a box. ‘Here, this might help you with your research. It’s the manuscript of Webweaver.’