Poet's Cottage

by Josephine Pennicott

  Although the market was five minutes’ walk from the fishing pier, it was a more picturesque spot for a meal break and several people had already arrived there from the market. Sadie managed to find an empty bench and sat admiring the view until Maria returned, carefully carrying the coffees and slices of carrot cake.

  ‘I just ran into Simon,’ Maria said, setting the drinks and food on the table. ‘I invited him to join us but he was taking Liam to a friend’s. It’s probably just as well because what I have to say concerns him.’

  ‘Not more match-making, Maria!’ Sadie protested.

  ‘Sadie, I know Simon would hate me saying this because he’s such a private person, but I can’t stand by and watch Gary working his usual smarmy charm without telling you why I dislike him so much.’ She glanced about to ensure they couldn’t be overheard before continuing. ‘I feel terrible about last night. I barely slept thinking over how you must have felt and how Simon and I came across. As I started to say last night, Clare was a good friend of mine. Gary was all over her, and to cut a long story short, she fell hook, line and sinker for him. She was having problems with Liam, Simon was working very long hours and Clare, bless her, was a very needy, insecure person.’

  Maria bit into her slice of cake, eyes hardening as she relived some painful memory. ‘When Clare was diagnosed with the cancer, it was hellish. Simon was prepared to do anything for her and then she gave him a double whammy with a confession about her affair, and said she was leaving him for Gary.’

  ‘Don’t tell me Gary threw her out?’ Sadie said, feeling distressed for a woman she’d never met.

  Maria nodded. ‘You got it in one. He was starting an affair with Princess Venus and a woman battling cancer held no appeal for him, I guess. I know I can’t blame Gary for Clare’s death but if he hadn’t dropped her so brutally, she might have had a bit more will to fight the cancer. She was dead only a few months after her diagnosis.’

  Tears welled in Maria’s eyes and Sadie touched her friend’s hand. Maria searched in her bag for a handkerchief and blew her nose. She drained her coffee and stood.

  ‘I have to go. Allister and I are heading to Burnie to the hardware store. Allister told me to mind my own business, but I consider both you and Simon good friends. I hope I haven’t been out of line, Sadie?’

  Sadie assured her that she appreciated Maria’s concern and thanked her for confiding in her.

  After Maria left, Sadie nursed her coffee as she mulled over Maria’s story. Now she understood Simon and Maria’s antagonism towards Gary and Simon’s distant manner towards her.

  Walking back to the markets, Sadie reflected on Betty’s dislike of the dentist. My own daughter has better insights into men than I do, she thought. As she browsed the stalls she began to feel ashamed, remembering her earlier attempt to avoid Simon. She hoped she would run into the stern-faced headmaster again so she could at least say hello. What a terrible time he had been through! Sadie knew only too well how painful it was when a long-term partner fell in love with someone else. But it wasn’t Simon she ran into but the Lothario himself, as she was examining a stall selling whimsical creatures made from seashells.

  ‘Hello, gorgeous!’ Gary stood, balancing a box of vegetables and dressed casually in trousers and a long-sleeved black t-shirt. ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes. Fancy a coffee?’

  ‘I’ve just had one with Maria and I was about to leave,’ Sadie replied coolly.

  Gary’s eyes narrowed at her tone. ‘I bet Maria’s been filling you in on all the local gossip,’ he said with a petulant note to his voice. ‘Can’t say I wasn’t expecting it. Thanks to that woman’s big mouth, I’ve lost quite a few clients in this town. She wants to be careful how she talks about people. I’ve no idea why she’s got it in for me. Probably because I rejected her advances a few years ago.’

  Sadie noticed he didn’t deny Maria’s story. ‘Maria’s a friend of mine,’ Sadie said. ‘Goodbye, Gary.’

  As she walked away Gary called after her, causing a few shoppers to turn their heads. How could I ever have thought he was attractive? Sadie thought.

  Walking the short distance home with her purchases, nodding greetings to locals and weekend tourists, Sadie tried to forget the unpleasant encounter. As much as she had been flattered by Gary’s attention, the feeling had now soured. Maybe she was better off forgetting about male company altogether for a while.

  As she approached the front of Poet’s Cottage, a sudden sense of unease came over her. She was surprised by the sensation: visually, she loved the house so much that her reactions made no sense. As she stood and looked at the house a large black bird cawed on the roof; she could smell freshly mowed lawn from next door. She must ring Gracie to talk about Gary, she thought. Why did everything have to be so complicated?

  Entering the house, Sadie called to Betty but there was no reply. Disappointed that she had missed her daughter before she left for her date, Sadie went upstairs and paused at her bedroom door. The manuscript of Webweaver was on her bed, opened at a random page. Had Betty been reading it? There was a letter that Birdie must have clipped to the pages. Had the publishers decided against using it in the published version of the book?

  15 February, 1936

  Dear Pearl,

  With much regret I must send ‘Death of a Kookaburra’ back to you. We do know what is best for your career, dear girl. After the spread in the Women’s Weekly and Home, it would be a very foolish move to kill that kookaburra. We’ve been through this several times before. Kenny must stay. He’s far too popular to simply kill off. Do something happy with Kenny, dear girl. Give him a mate, or send him on a holiday to England. Anything set in England sells!

  As your friend and publisher for several years I must bring to your attention that there have already been murmurings about the darkness of your tales. Sales for Silver Valley have been slipping steadily. You were mentioned in The Argus recently in an article about the deterioration of children’s fiction and the effect on their growing minds and imagination. I’ve enclosed the clipping. I do not need to tell you the impact on sales this may well have due to concerned parents. Thankfully, your name is only mentioned once and near the bottom, so hopefully it will be missed.

  I hope your beautiful girls are well. Best wishes to Maxwell. I’d love to visit you all there one day. Poet’s Cottage sounds a haven for a writer. Perhaps when you rewrite this Kenny story you might set a little tale where he visits Poet’s Cottage? I urge you to consider the England backstory.

  If you wish to discuss anything further, call Helen and make an appointment.

  Yours,

  Brian Hollow

  Red Lion Print Publishing Ltd

  Little wonder Pearl had started to fall apart! Her once-flourishing writing career now looked precarious and she hadn’t been happy with her own creative direction. Perhaps it’s the house, Sadie thought with a morbid shudder. She glanced around, shivering; there was a strange odour in the room and she couldn’t shake the sense that somebody else had been there not long before. Chiding herself for being an idiot, she lay on the bed, flicking through the manuscript to find the place she had been up to, and resumed reading.

  Teddy

  Pencubitt, June 1936

  I was going to marry Victor. He didn’t know it yet, but that was my New Year’s resolution. He would be my ticket out of Pencubitt, away from Mother and Father Kelly. I’d make a home for the two of us and be so busy with domestic duties that I’d no longer think about Maxwell. It was a good plan, a safe plan. How different my life would have been if I had been able to follow it. How arrogant I was believing I had any control over my destiny!

  When Maxwell’s note arrived I read it several times, feeling the familiar sensation of sick longing. I forced myself to ignore his invitation. No good could come from continuing a friendship with the occupants of Poet’s Cottage. In time, and once I was safely married to Victor, I would forget Maxwell. I even daydreamed about the mainland house in Melbourne we would
buy. A home with all the modern conveniences I’d read about in the papers. If events hadn’t occurred as they did, I believe Victor and I would have been married. Instead he became a bank teller in Sydney. He died in his early sixties, shot during a hold-up, leaving a wife and three adult children.

  It was a Thursday; I had slept poorly the night before due to an electrical storm. Torrential rain, lightning and thunder had kept me awake for a good part of the night. Mother had also slept badly and due to her foul mood I decided to go to the beach for a refreshing morning walk with Snowy. When I reached the docks I saw the white van from the hospital surrounded by a jostling crowd. My feet hastened with my heartbeat as I drew nearer. I thought vaguely of heart attacks or even shark attacks. I was unprepared for the sight of Teddy, lying on the ground with Dr Nettles standing beside him, his head bowed.

  I could see that there was no point in the doctor attempting to revive him. Teddy was obviously dead. I have never seen a more chilling sight than his drowned body staring upwards with eyes half nibbled away by the sea and its creatures. An expression of surprise masked his face as if he couldn’t believe where he found himself. His skin was tinged blue-grey and seaweed ringed his hands, head and legs. I saw the fingers on his left hand were only bloody stumps as if some large fish had gnawed them. A couple of women cried. Others stood silently. Men had removed their hats.

  ‘He’s got a crab up his nose!’ a young boy sang out, earning him a clip around the head from his father.

  A few fishermen stood nearby with the local policeman, Victor’s father George Watson, who was taking notes. We had all known Teddy. His brother, Arthur, sat near his boat, the Siren’s Tresses, head in hands, as a woman sought to console him.

  Suddenly a screaming fury burst into the assembled crowd. It was Pearl, her feet bare below her crepe-de-Chine negligee. ‘Where is he?’ she cried. A murmur rippled through the crowd; whether of disapproval or empathy, I could not tell. ‘Teddy! Please don’t die, don’t leave me!’ Throwing herself onto the corpse, she covered his face in kisses as if she could wake him from his deathly sleep.

  A woman in the crowd jeered at the sight. Several men attempted to remove Pearl, but she became even more hysterical, kicking out and screaming at them to leave her with her love. That he would wake, he had to wake, he was only pretending. ‘I love you,’ she kept sobbing. ‘You love me, Teddy; please don’t do this to me. Don’t do this to me.’ When Teddy didn’t respond, she put her head back and howled at the sky like a wild animal. ‘Blast you, God! I hate you!’

  I had to do something before she provided Pencubitt with even more gossip. I grabbed her shoulder. ‘Pearl! Come with me. He’s gone, Pearl. Let’s go home to your family. There’s nothing more you can do for him now. He wouldn’t want this.’

  ‘How would you know what he wants, Tricky? What any man wants? You dried-up, frigid spinster!’ she hissed at me.

  There was more jeering from the women and somebody called out, ‘Hit her for that, Birdie!’

  Arthur stood up and walked towards Pearl. ‘If you’d left him alone, he wouldn’t be where he is now!’ he shouted. ‘Playing your games with him all the time. That’s why he got so drunk and we lost him, because of you fighting with him, you whore!’

  ‘Go to hell!’ Pearl screamed back. I had to hold her hard to restrain her. ‘Just because I preferred him to you!’

  ‘Pearl! Come with me, right now!’ I sounded like my mother, but my sharp words had the desired effect. She clung onto me and allowed me to lead her away.

  ‘Take the whore away, Birdie! She’s got no business here,’ a fisherman yelled and Pearl uttered a moan.

  ‘Birdie, how could they?’ she said like a child. ‘Why do they hate me so much? What did I ever do to them? I’m a human being, for pity’s sake! I love him! I love him so much. I don’t want to live without him.’ She began to cry, huge cannonball sobs. I stopped to embrace her. I could feel her thin bones against me and smell her stale breath. It was like holding a tiny, defenceless bird.

  We had left just in time. Maggie, Teddy’s mother, ran past us to the docks, still wearing her slippers and apron. I was grateful I’d removed Pearl. For the first time I had felt afraid of the local community. In their overheated emotion they seemed capable of stoning Pearl.

  Maxwell, weary and pale, opened the door to my repeated knocking. ‘Why did you go there?’ he demanded of Pearl. ‘You’d no business to disobey me.’ He barely noticed me. ‘For God’s sake, Pearl. You’re not even dressed. What will people think? Is it true? Is he really dead?’

  ‘Take your wife, Maxwell,’ I said, and pushed Pearl forward. ‘Yes, it’s true. Teddy is dead.’ I saw Maxwell’s shocked face as he held his sobbing wife. ‘Keep her inside until the town calms down. I don’t know how safe she is in Pencubitt.’

  As I left them at the doorway, half dragging Snowy, who wanted to play with the children, I was crying. For all of us. Pearl, Maxwell, Teddy and myself.

  At home, Mother bristled with smug judgments as she made an egg and bacon pie. ‘There are some women,’ she said, whisking eggs overzealously, ‘who bring disaster to unfortunate, simple-minded men of low morals. Mark my words, she’ll come to a bad end,’ she said happily as she pricked the pastry with a fork.

  I often remembered that moment, after Pearl’s body was discovered. Mother, in our tiny kitchen, hair restrained in a severe bun, face streaked with flour and excitement. Her gingham apron barely covered her enormous breasts. Despite her domestic surroundings, she had seemed like some Old Testament prophet. I felt uneasy as I sipped my tea, watching Mother rant. Should I warn Pearl? She was grieving for Teddy, and I knew she would laugh at me for taking Mother so seriously and for caring what the ‘grey people’ of Pencubitt thought.

  For the rest of the day I escaped Mother in the local library, where I worked on my book about Blackness House. Images from that morning kept flashing into my mind: the body, so empty, as if all that had been Teddy had been sucked away by the ocean; Mother, with her spiteful eyes; and the expression of resigned bitterness on Maxwell’s face when he saw Pearl. I almost felt sorry for her; and yet at the same time I couldn’t help envying her her lust for life, her passion for her dead fisherman. Pearl’s cruel tongue had spoken truly: what did I know about such things? Even my fantasies about escaping from Pencubitt involved dreary domesticity, a role as homemaker to Victor. As selfish as Pearl was, at least she had the courage to sip deeply from the chalice of life. I felt as if I was merely existing, slumbering the days away.

  The heavy rain that had started up again ensured there was only one other person in the small library. The townspeople were either seeking relief in afternoon slumber or down at Shelley Beach. From the small Tasmanian historical section I collected a pile of books I thought might be of some use to my project. I was leafing distractedly through a handsome hardcover edition of Historical Tales of North-West Tasmania when I found a brief chapter devoted to Edward Frick Hellyer. I studied his photograph with great interest; he was handsome in a brooding sort of way. I remembered how the male Hellyers were rumoured to have been uncommonly good looking. I skimmed over the material about his tragic family history – the deaths of his children, his wife, and his subsequent suicide – but then one paragraph pulled me up short.

  It has been widely acknowledged that Mr Hellyer was a genius when it came to design. His innovative architectural abilities extended to hidden rooms and tunnels in both houses. Poet’s Cottage is said to have a tunnel running to the ocean which was used for smuggling convicts out of Tasmania. A tunnel is also rumoured to run between Blackness House and Poet’s Cottage.

  I put the book down, staring into space as if hypnotised. Perhaps it was just a wild story. I had never heard either Pearl or Maxwell mention any tunnels connected to the house. I recalled the workmen’s fear when they discovered the hidden room at Blackness House; the room had obviously been one of Hellyer’s secret additions. If that part of the story was true, perhaps Poet’s Cottage d
id have hidden tunnels. I felt a rush of excitement and resolved to ask Maxwell if he knew of the existence of these tunnels, totally forgetting my earlier pledge to keep away.

  I stared again at the photo of the dark-haired youthful Edward. Such a tragic end for all that talent and potential! I felt a bond with him that I couldn’t rationally explain. How I would love to write his biography and allow his story to be told.

  I heard voices and glanced up. The librarian was whispering to a local woman and I caught them looking my way. Gossiping about Teddy, no doubt. The librarian’s manner was awkward when I checked out my books. He had known me for years – was his behaviour a consequence of my friendship with Pearl? Had Mother been right all along and my name was now tainted because of Pearl and her scandalous ways?

  A couple of horses pulled a cart through the rain as I made my way home. My floral frock was damp and my hands were clammy in their cotton gloves. It was difficult to breathe for I felt nervous and wildly excited simultaneously. I paused by the fishing docks to catch the sea breeze. There was no sign of Teddy’s family, who were likely barricaded at home with their grief. Living in a small village was annoying when everybody knew your business, but when disaster struck, neighbours never failed to rally. Women would be baking for the coming weeks so Mrs Stephens wouldn’t have to worry about family meals. The men would be sitting with a sobbing or silent Mr Stephens, offering cigarettes and beer. Numerous kind acts would happen with no expectation of thanks or recompense: money left anonymously in an envelope, bouquets of fresh flowers at the door. The Stephenses were mourning their flesh and blood; Pencubitt mourned the loss of one of its sons.

  I sat on an old wooden bench by the docks, uncaring of the wild weather, and closed my eyes. I remembered Jean, the medium at Pearl’s party, the warning in her eyes as she’d said, Two present now – dead within two years; the two bound by a love that should not be shared. The fires of hell enveloping more guests. And one other in this house has blood covering their hands. Blood I could see and smell from the moment I entered. The bloody hands will escape the noose but not the wrath of the Red Dragon. Had she seen Teddy that night, so young, virile and smug, an empty shell claimed by the sea? What of her other predictions? Would they also come to pass? Or was Teddy’s death just a random, cruel coincidence?