by Di Morrissey
When Isabella eventually wove up the track to her mountain property, she had an odd sense of foreboding. There had been a good shower of rain that morning, yet the moisture-enriched bush air she loved to breathe had developed a strangeness, no, a foulness, that made her frown. An odd smell. Something burning? There were no signs of any recent bushfires.
She broke through the thicket with a smile, ready to look down on her magnificent home. But it wasn’t there any more. Where her home had stood, the finest in the region, were the blackened remains of the building. Two chimneys stood amid the charred beams, tumbled stones, burned fine furniture, fixtures, chandeliers, clothes, possessions brought from England. All around was untouched. The outbuildings and stockyards were still there, but there were no animals, no movement, no sense of habitation.
She halted the horses and stood in dismay, then collapsed back into the seat of the dray and began to sob, trying to comprehend the nightmarish vision. This was no accident of nature. What cut her most, above the shattering loss, was the immediate knowledge that this had been deliberate destruction. Someone, or some people, hated her enough to destroy her mark upon the land. All that was precious to her. It was a heartless, vindictive, malicious act that almost caused her to faint.
Isabella’s sadness at her loss turned to determination that something must be done to find the culprit. Or culprits. In spite of his gaol sentence Rowley was still the resident magistrate and the only person with authority over the local constable to launch an investigation. Rowley refused, taking little interest in Isabella’s ‘unfortunate accident’.
So Isabella journeyed to Port Macquarie to see the police magistrate. But when she complained about Rowley’s inaction, the police magistrate was off-hand and not prepared to pursue the matter, which angered Isabella, though it didn’t surprise her, knowing that the police magistrate was a friend of Rowley’s.
‘Then I will find out who is responsible myself,’ snapped Isabella.
The aide to the police magistrate shook his head. ‘I would not like to be in your shoes, Miss Kelly. The police magistrate is a vindictive man.’
Nevertheless Isabella decided to show them she would not be intimidated or bullied. She would build a small slab cottage at Mount George and live there, in some discomfort, while her home at the river was being constructed. ‘I will not be chased from my land,’ she promised herself. ‘I will show these men I am stronger than they think.’
Lara
Dani and Lara sat on the front verandah of Cricklewood enjoying afternoon tea. There was a faint breeze and the late sunshine caught the cheerful bright red geraniums in the brick boxes on either side of the front steps.
Dani put the blue and white delft china cup in the saucer beside the plate of lemon drop cakes Kristian Clerk had left for them. ‘If I had the talent of Margaret Olley I’d put the cup and the biscuits by those geraniums and paint it. I love how she paints what’s around her. So, do you feel settled in?’
‘I didn’t have much to unpack. Kristian left everything so orderly. But it does feel . . . nostalgic. I used to sit out here with Nana and Poppy. Nana would put her feet up on the wicker chaise, tea things on a tray with doilies. All that’s missing is the occasional steam train,’ said Lara.
‘Where are you going to start with the great family search?’ asked Dani. ‘I mean, what are you trying to find out?’
‘I wish I’d talked more with my grandparents about the family’s past,’ sighed Lara, avoiding the last question. ‘And my mother. I wish she’d kept a diary. It’d make everything so much easier.’
‘You can talk! You don’t keep a diary either. I keep sketches, I suppose that’s something,’ said Dani. ‘I’ve got notebooks filled with drawings of places I’ve been, people I’ve spotted on a bus or something. It’s hard to paint from memory without a reference. Anyway, you haven’t gone through all those old letters. You don’t know what you’ll find there.’
‘That’s where I’m starting. Plus, going to the historical society. When he was young Henry knew my grandfather, it’s a link. What about you and Isabella? How’s that coming along?’
‘Carter has come good on his offer to take me and Max out to where she first settled. I want to see the views she saw, walk over the land she walked.’
‘Is that where the Birimbal development is going to be?’
‘Partly. They haven’t done much work on the hilly part where she planned Georgetown. They’ve started on the land closer to the river. Apparently some of her original land, where the home was, is owned by a company.’
‘Are you taking photographs? I’d like to see it. Sounds too much of a hike for me,’ said Lara.
‘Yes, but I’ll also sketch it. I’m not painting realistic imagery, otherwise a photo would do.’ Dani gathered up the tea things. ‘Well, Mum, I’d better go and get Tim, school will be out. I hope he’s settling in okay.’
‘It’s only been two weeks, don’t fret, he’ll be fine,’ said Lara.
‘You always put a positive spin on things. He was fine the first few days but the reality has hit. He’s moody and miserable,’ said Dani.
‘He’s got friends – Toby, Tabatha, Len, aren’t they looking out for him?’
‘They’re not all in the same class. And being out at The Vale he’s feeling isolated. Though Toby and Tab are coming to spend the weekend as Angela and Tony are going to a wedding somewhere.’
Lara changed the subject. ‘So how’s the movie coming along? And the Roddy relationship?’
‘Nothing to report on Roddy. He’s nice, Mum, but he’s busy, this movie thing seems to be taking off. He won Patricia over and she had him address the council and they’re all for it.’
‘Why wouldn’t they be?’ said Lara.
‘It’s not that simple, Roddy wants them to put in some money. Help with building the infrastructure and in return they get to keep it as a permanent tourist attraction.’
‘Good idea. He’s quite the wheeler-dealer. He’ll be a good executive producer,’ said Lara dryly.
Dani went indoors. The house needed a few skylights, she decided, it was too dark, too many doors. Lara had explained each room could be closed off for warmth. There was a smell she couldn’t put her finger on, an old smell. Floor wax, wood smoke, it wasn’t unpleasant, but unlike The Vale, which didn’t feel lived in, Cricklewood was crammed with past lives and memories. Especially for Lara. Dani hoped her mother would be all right here alone. Maybe Tim should stay with her mother during the week and be closer to school friends. She didn’t dare raise that with him just yet.
When her daughter had driven off to collect her son and return home, Lara made yet another walk through the garden of Cricklewood, hosing the flowers and small veggie patch, remembering the perfume of the orange trees. She ate dinner at the kitchen table, listening to the radio, then went along the hallway to the lounge where lamplight glowed through the frosted glass doors. As her fingers closed around the metal door handle it felt just the same as it had from the time she could reach it.
The room was softly lit and cosy. She decided against turning on the television – how out of place it looked in the still old-fashioned room – and pulled up the coffee table in front of the lounge where she’d stacked the boxes and folders of letters and photographs she’d brought from Sydney. Where to begin?
The first box she opened was full of photographs, some loose, some in envelopes, many in albums. Photographs of people, places, events. Men with rolled up sleeves in front of a tractor, a dray, a 1930s’ car. Formal functions, parties and weddings, and casual pictures taken for no apparent special reason. Yet these casual shots were intriguing – someone having a haircut in the garden, a sheet over their shoulders, a smiling woman waving scissors. Kids at the beach, in a rowboat on a river. A baby in a white cane pram; a haul of watermelons from the garden; a pet dog and girl, whose hair was styled like Joan Crawford, posing with a cumbersome 1940s’ bicycle. Lara hoped she would be able to put names and stories to the
m eventually.
At the bottom of a box of letters she found a small parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. She unwrapped it to reveal an old leather belt with a tarnished metal buckle featuring the words ‘Gott Mit Uns’ embossed over a crown. Had her grandfather taken this from a dead German soldier as he groped around in the dark slush of no man’s land? Thinking of all that suffering she pulled a letter from an envelope on Buckingham Palace letterhead and read:
The Queen and I wish you God-speed, and a safe return to your homes and dear ones.
A grateful Mother Country is proud of your splendid services characterised by unsurpassed devotion and courage.
George R.I.
Was it all worth it? Lara wondered.
And then she came across a photo of her grandparents, sitting in the same room, on either side of the fireplace. A bit posed perhaps but just as she always remembered them. Nana with her knitting, Poppy with the newspaper, logs burning brightly in the fire. She glanced at the fireplace where an electric heater now stood on the whitewashed bricks. If she lived here she’d put an old grate back and burn wood. It was a double fireplace, its chimney shared with the kitchen where the wood-burning stove had been. She’d put an Aga range in there and the electric stove in another part of the kitchen.
Lara chided herself. Ridiculous, she was only housesitting for a month or so, she shouldn’t feel so proprietary. She began to read the letters at random.
Had she fallen asleep? Was that a clock chiming somewhere in the house? Lara stirred and lifted her head from the back of the sofa. It sounded just like her grandmother’s clock on the mantelpiece above the fire. Except it was no longer there. A letter slid off her lap. Lara bent to retrieve it. She knew it was late. As her hands touched the blue aerogram, she froze, overcome with the feeling someone else was in the room.
She leapt to her feet. The French doors onto the front verandah were closed. She knew she’d shut up the house after dinner. As she stared at the glass doors she remembered her grandmother had lace curtains fitted to them. It seemed everywhere she turned in this house she found a memory. But as her heartbeat began to steady something in the dark to the side of the hall door caught her attention.
The figure of a man was watching her. Before she could move or make a sound, she took in everything about him with the speed of a camera shutter. Then he was gone. Lara expelled her breath, unaware she’d been holding it. Had she really seen him, had someone been there? Who was he?
‘I am not seeing ghosts,’ she said aloud, firmly, but hurried from the room, shutting the doors to the hallway, leaving the lights on. In the kitchen she poured herself a glass of red wine and sat at the table. She was strangely calm. Whoever he was he was a benevolent spirit, she decided. She closed her eyes and recalled the image impressed in her mind from that one instant. Young, early twenties. Fair haired, light hazel eyes, slight build. He was half smiling. A gentle face. He looked . . . nice. He was wearing khaki, a military uniform of some kind.
Lara got up. Kristian’s cuckoo clock pointed to five past two. That wasn’t the clock she’d heard chime. Lara rubbed her eyes feeling utterly exhausted. She went straight to bed in the guest room, the room her mother and her sister Mollie had shared as kids, and fell fully clothed into bed, pulling the cover over her, leaving the bedside light on and her book untouched.
When she awoke she knew she’d slept without moving, and felt stiff and ravenous. Sun streamed into the room, she heard a rooster crowing down the road, there was dew on the grass. No need to go to the dunny down the back garden now there was inside plumbing. All that was missing from the familiar childhood mornings was the smell of toast.
Dani rang to see what her plans were for the day. ‘How’d you sleep in the old house?’
‘Like a log. I fell asleep in the lounge room. Woke up and saw a ghost,’ said Lara cheerfully.
‘What!’ shrieked Dani. ‘Who? Not your grandparents?’
‘Some bloke. A soldier. No idea who he was. Don’t think he belongs here. I’m tucking in to bacon and eggs and after I’m cleaned up I’ll get a few more groceries and go to the historical society.’
‘You seem very calm,’ said Dani. ‘I’d be packing and moving out. You can come here, Mum.’
‘Nonsense, it’s fine. Over-active imagination from reading letters and looking at photos.’
‘Call me if it happens again. Middle of the night, whenever. I’ll come and get you,’ said Dani firmly.
Henry greeted Lara warmly. ‘You picked the right day to visit our museum. All the troops are here. Tuesdays and Thursdays.’ He introduced Lara to the group working in the backroom and archives.
‘Ah, your daughter was in here a few weeks back. Mentioned you might be doing some family research. The Williamses, right?’ A smiling grey-haired woman leant across the littered table to shake Lara’s hand. ‘I’m Ellen Brooker.’
‘Yes, did you know them? Are you a local?’ She looked to be Henry’s age so it was possible, surmised Lara.
‘No. I’m a recent arrival. Haven’t come across them in my filing.’ She indicated the piles of folders.
‘Don’t think we have your gang in here,’ said Henry. ‘I’d remember if the old fellow had brought in something.’
‘My grandfather served in the First World War with a lot of blokes from the Newcastle area. He came up here after he married. He proposed to my grandmother when he was on leave in England just before being shipped back to Oz,’ said Lara.
‘Are you going to look at all the family, like the kids they brought up here, back in your mother’s day?’ asked another of the men at the table sorting through files.
‘Yes, I’m trying to fill in a few gaps in recent history,’ said Lara easily. ‘Who knows, I hear you can get hooked on this genealogy stuff. I might end up going back centuries.’
‘Many do, many do,’ said Henry. ‘Can I treat you to a cappuccino across the road?’
Settled with their coffee in a quiet corner of the cafe Henry looked puzzled. ‘I’m intrigued that Harold served in the Great War and apparently never acknowledged it publicly. Must have taken a toll on him, post-traumatic stress thing. There are some very moving stories in letters in the museum. Stuff the blokes wrote, or their loved ones left behind.’
‘I don’t think there was any scandal, that he was ashamed or that he did anything wrong,’ said Lara quickly. ‘I think he just got on with things, put the war behind him.’
‘He was a decent man all right. Everybody liked Harold. Your grandmother, she was a bit more . . . conservative. Don’t think I ever said more than “Good morning, Mrs Williams” to her.’ He stirred his coffee. ‘Odd that, how he put the war behind him. So many of them had bad memories, guess they didn’t feel there was anything to celebrate.’
Lara was thoughtful, remembering the many walks with her grandfather when he’d tell her stories about all sorts of little incidents in his life from boyhood days in South London to settling down as a married man in the valley. ‘He used to tell me amusing anecdotes about the war, not often, mind you, about escapades with his mates and the like. He never mentioned bad times.’ Lara opened her shoulder bag and found an old brown envelope. From it she extracted a postcard. ‘I found this yesterday among the old family papers.’
Henry took the postcard. It featured in colour the flags of Britain and her European allies in the war, and the words ‘To MY Boy Who is doing HIS DUTY to His King, Country and to us AT HOME.’ On the back was a brief message congratulating him on his twenty-first birthday.
‘Touching stuff,’ said Henry and handed it back.
Lara gave him a one-page letter, yellow with age, and a little torn around the edges. ‘So is this. I cried after reading it.’
The letter was from her great-grandfather to his son written in November 1915.
Dear Harold,
Just a few lines as I see by your last letter that you are likely to be sailing in a few days. I hope that you will be happy and that you have a
good voyage wherever you go. Always do the best you can and be obeying the officers at the same time look after yourself. Let us know whenever you can where you are and don’t spend your money foolishly because it will be handy to you when you get back.
Next week will be Christmas so I must wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and if I don’t hear from you before you go I wish you good luck and a safe return. Goodbye and God bless you.
Your affectionate Father.
Henry put the letter on the table and gave a nod of understanding. ‘Where did his unit end up?’
‘In Flanders on the Western Front. He was with the 56th Battalion. I found his discharge papers. Did a lot of work as a stretcher bearer apparently.’
‘Flanders, eh. He would have had a rough time.’
Péronne, 1917
Harold
It was the silence that got to him. After so much noise.
He’d never forget the first time he went into the trenches in France and experienced shellfire: the splintering of the duckboards and trench breastworks, the exploding shells that almost concussed them with sound, sending them numb, the smell of explosives and death. He’d had to climb through the shattered trench littered with the bodies of the men of his brave battalion who’d been waiting for zero hour to go over the top at six pm, only to be hit by heavy bursts from the deadly German 5.9s. The men had fought through the night to establish a defensive line where they’d been told there was a German support trench. It didn’t exist and bungled information from above, along with no backup from the Tommies, had seen countless die consolidating no more than a ditch.
Harold hated fighting. But not one to shirk his duty he had enlisted in the medical unit and was proud of the red cross emblazoned on his uniform sleeve. He was serving as a stretcher bearer with Scooter Munro, a raw-boned, big bush lad from inland wheat country. Harold and the football-mad Scooter had formed a bond, forged in the gut-wrenching work of retrieving the wounded, dragging back the dead.
