Tracing Invisible Threads

by C. Fonseca

  Alexa admired Eleanor’s passion and sincerity. Was she really only thirty-six years old? Alexa smiled ruefully to herself, at nearly forty-one, suddenly finding herself lacking. As a historian, she was knowledgeable about a lot of things and could recite nuggets of information with ease; however, her own lived experience of other countries and cultures was limited.

  Gran placed her glass on the table. “You’ve more than proven your ability,” she said to Eleanor. “Alexa didn’t tell me much, but I looked you up on the Google.” When Eleanor’s eyes widened, Gran tapped the table with her hand, her wedding ring making a clunking sound. “Don’t look surprised, dear. I am computer literate. I surf the Net too. You, Eleanor Heysen, have achieved a lot already. I’m prepared to give you a go.”

  “I really appreciate your confidence in me. Maybe, by the time I’m ninety-nine, I’ll get it right,” Eleanor said with a cheeky grin.

  Alexa blinked and watched her grandmother’s jaw drop. Eleanor had recited Granny’s by-line from the magazine column she’d written in the 1950s and 1960s. “Looks like you’re not the only one who’s been surfing the internet,” Alexa said, impressed that Eleanor had researched her potential subject.

  “Oh, my word.” Gran gasped. “Fancy you unearthing that after all this time. Uncle Oswald gave me a job with his magazine when my darling Gerald passed away. I needed something to keep me busy and an income as well.”

  “You managed to bring up Mum on your own and write a successful column for over ten years,” Alexa said proudly. “Life with Grace was ahead of its time.”

  “It was a challenge being a woman working in publishing.” Her grandmother clasped her hands together. “Some of the stories I could tell you, Eleanor.”

  “That’s another reason I’m keen to photograph you, Grace, and if you allow me, I’d love to take the pictures here. In this house filled with your treasures and memories.” Eleanor made eye contact and Alexa gave her an encouraging wink. Eleanor pushed up the sleeves of her checked shirt and folded her arms in a self-assured manner.

  Eleanor stood up and walked over to the fireplace where framed photographs and several small objects were displayed on the mantlepiece. She peered at Gran’s peculiar little blue glass bottle filled with tiny dried flowers poking out of its narrow neck. Was she gathering inspiration for the photo shoot?

  “Of course, I’ve lived here for a long time and accumulated a lot of trinkets,” Gran said, leaning forward in her chair, and Eleanor walked over to stand beside her. “Father gave Gerald and me the down payment for this house just before our daughter, Eloise, was born. We had dreams for at least three or four children, then,” she said sadly. “This house was much too large for a widow with one child. But I couldn’t leave then, and I can’t leave now. I’m attached to the place; it’s my home.” She sat back in her armchair and raised her chin. “I’m independent here.”

  Even though her grandmother had Patrick and other trusted home-help, Alexa couldn’t help but feel concerned that she lived alone. Gran was fiercely independent and there was no point interfering; she was determined to stay put as long as possible. That didn’t mean Alexa didn’t worry about her physical safety, though, and the ever-growing threat of internet and telephone scams.

  “Girls, I’m going to sit here with Bruce and have a short rest.” Gran called out for her handsome orange cat and he sauntered in, plonking himself on her lap. “Alexa, please show Eleanor the rest of the house so she can plan our photo shoot.”

  Alexa was proud, and not surprised, that her grandmother was jumping in with both feet, accepting Eleanor’s challenge. “Okay, Granny. I’m all but finished here. Thank you for preparing lunch for us.” Alexa put away the last of the dishes in the china cabinet and turned the small brass key, locking it firmly.

  “Your chicken noodle soup was really delicious. Thank you, Grace,” Eleanor said. “Enjoy your nap with Bruce.”

  “You’re welcome. Once upon a time, I made the chewy egg noodles myself. The store-bought ones just aren’t the same, but I do still enjoy cooking, and it’s always lovely to have company.” She gave them a little wave and patted Bruce until he purred loudly. “We’re all set. Off you go. I’ll close my eyes for twenty minutes.”

  “We’ll try and be as quiet as mice,” Alexa said. “Follow me, Eleanor. I’ll show you around, but I’m not taking you up to the attic. It’s full of dusty relics and rodents. You can hear them scuffling around at night.”

  “I heard that,” Granny said dozily. “And you’re right. You don’t want to go up there.”

  Alexa shook her head vigorously. “No problem, Gran. I’m sure Eleanor doesn’t want to crawl amongst your ancient things covered in mountains of dust anyway.”

  The attic had always been out of bounds when Alexa was a child, and so naturally, she’d romanticised about what her grandmother had hidden up there. She’d imagined boxes of love letters from her grandfather, Gran’s secret old diaries, and funny out-of-date hats and clothes.

  At age ten, her curiosity finally got the better of her, and she’d lifted the large key from the biscuit jar and sneaked to the back of the house. Granny had been occupied, serving afternoon tea to Sister Mary Rose, when Alexa, torch in hand, had unlocked the door and climbed the wooden stairs.

  She’d entered the spooky roof space, walked headfirst into a thick net of spiders’ webs, panicked, and tripped on an unseen object, falling into a heavy layer of dust. Insects scurried, and rodents scattered. Alexa had run, vowing never to return again.

  From that day on, sleepovers here had never been the same. Alexa would lie awake imagining rats chewing through piles of cardboard boxes or birds flapping in the roof space. Even now, the mere thought of creepy crawlies inhabiting the attic made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

  “This is a fascinating house.” Eleanor stopped at the beginning of the long hallway where a red patterned runner brightened the floor, and the walls held a collage of framed photographs. “Are these all of your family?”

  “Mostly, and some of Gran’s friends,” Alexa said. “I’ve been helping her with the restoration and display.” She joined Eleanor, pointing to a dark wood-framed image. “This is my mother, Eloise Beth Bellamy. She died suddenly from a ruptured aneurysm.”

  “Oh, Alexa, I’m so sorry.” Eleanor’s voice cracked.

  A surge of pain welled up inside Alexa, and she tried her best to push it away. “It was two years ago. One moment she was here—so full of energy and life.” She tried to quell the emotion in her voice. “And then she was gone.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Eleanor repeated, placing her hand on Alexa’s forearm. “She was beautiful, Alexa. Would you like to tell me about her?”

  Staring at the image of her mother in her florist shop surrounded by blooms of every shape and colour, Alexa swallowed the lump in her throat. Her mother’s hour-glass figure was concealed behind her customary uniform of tan leather bib apron, chino pants, and grey utility shirt. Her chestnut brown hair held back by a leaf green headband. Alexa reached out and touched the smiling face in the picture. “I was surrounded by flowers from birth. We lived above Mum’s North Fitzroy flower shop. After school, I’d sit in the back of the shop, amongst the pots, doing my homework.”

  “Is that one of your favourite memories, being in the flower shop with your mum?”

  “Yes.” Alexa sighed, placing her hand on her chest. Just one of her favourite memories. There were so many and yet there would never be enough.

  “You must miss her very much,” Eleanor said softly. “In this picture, it looks like the two of you were selling flowers from the back of a donkey-drawn cart.” She pointed at Alexa’s skinny legs in the photo. “You were leggy, much taller than your mother.”

  Alexa squinted at the picture. “That was in 1997. It was a fundraiser for the Abbotsford Convent. Mum was part of the coalition formed to fight a property developer
who wanted to buy the land and build a huge number of apartments.” She pointed to the placard she and her mother were holding which read: Daffodils against demolition. I’d just turned eighteen in that picture, but I was already taller than Mum before my thirteenth birthday. She took after Gran.”

  Eleanor took a step closer, as if measuring her height against Alexa.

  “You know, my place is a hop, skip, and a jump from the convent. If you’re interested in going there, give me a ring; we could meet up for coffee.” Alexa tried to sound casual, as though it wasn’t important, but she realised she actually wanted to spend more time with Eleanor, and not just for the pursuit of physical pleasure. She was drawn to people who were out of the ordinary and Eleanor, in her quiet way, hinted at mystery. She was a highly accomplished woman, yet humble—not to mention, effortlessly sexy. Alexa’s heart skipped a beat.

  “I may just do that,” Eleanor replied with a slow smile before turning her attention back to the wall of photographs. “Tell me more about these.”

  Was that a flush in Eleanor’s cheeks? Maybe she is interested in more than photographing my grandmother.

  Alexa leaned against the wainscoting on the opposite wall, while Eleanor continued studying the pictures.

  “Who are these distinguished-looking people?”

  Sliding in beside Eleanor, Alexa peered at the photo. “That’s Granny’s mother Elizabeth and her three brothers,” Alexa replied. “They do look rather stiff and formal, don’t they? Those beards on the men make them look like hipsters. They were the Hamptons.”

  “Are there any photographs of your dad?”

  “Definitely not here.” She scoffed at the idea. “My father is not in Gran’s good grace or favour.”

  “Oh.”

  “He’s been absent the majority of my life,” Alexa said in as dispassionate a voice as she could. She’d learnt as a young child to hide the distress caused by his absenteeism. “After my parents divorced, he took his new wife back to Dampier where he’d grown up.”

  “In Western Australia?”

  “Yep. Way across the other side of the country.”

  “Do you see him very often?” Eleanor asked, curiosity resonating in her tone.

  Alexa shook her head. “I used to visit Pop Bellamy occasionally, but since he passed away, I’ve had no reason to go there. I did shadow one of my stepbrother’s Facebook pages for a while. But I got sick of seeing Stephen Bellamy Junior’s happy family posts. So, I quit it.”

  “I’m so sorry, Alexa. That must have been really tough.” Eleanor placed a hand on Alexa’s shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze.

  “It’s been tough on my step siblings. The old man divorced their mother, too. If anything, he is consistent.” Alexa waved her hand in dismissal.

  Eleanor looked at her sharply. “Okay,” she said. Clearly getting the message that the subject of Steven Bellamy was closed, she turned once again to the photographs on the wall. “Are there any photos of Grace’s father here?”

  “No. It upsets her when I ask about facts and photos of my great-grandfather, William. He passed away before I was born. Granny said there was a fire and whatever photos might have existed were lost. My grandmother is the only person I can ask, and she won’t talk about it except to say he was a lovely man.” Alexa crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I know it seems incongruous, but I am not ready to pursue it yet. Not without Granny’s blessing.”

  “In your line of work, you’d have access to hundreds of images and heaps of information. There may be records in the library.”

  “Yes, I know. Please drop it, Eleanor. I know there are millions of images in the archives.” Alexa took a few deep breaths. In a gentler tone, she said, “Once I start searching, I’ll be like an echidna. I won’t stop digging.”

  Eleanor grinned. “I have trouble picturing you as a spiny insectivorous mammal with a long snout and claws.”

  “Funny.” Alexa nudged Eleanor’s arm. She strolled the rest of the corridor, contemplating the gap in her family history. “I just can’t bear to upset Granny,” she said, half to herself. Alexa turned to find Eleanor following her slowly, while she studied the remaining pictures.

  “If you were to find photographs of Grace’s father, she may feel like sharing stories about him.”

  Alexa scowled and shook her head. Eleanor was scratching at a sore spot.

  “Okay, okay. I get it,” Eleanor said, turning back to the pictures with a fond smile. “I like how you’ve displayed the photographs. Precious possessions, displayed properly, not shoved into storage boxes or albums in an attic.” She stopped near a photograph of Alexa, taken by her mother on their holiday together in the South of France. “I particularly like this one of you, with the sun hitting the lens so it creates a halo around your head; the vineyards behind you turning splendid shades of gold.”

  “Oh, you are poetic.” Was Eleanor a Renaissance woman, gifted with many talents? Spontaneously, Alexa squeezed Eleanor’s shoulder, boldly running her hand over her bicep. She teased the skin of Eleanor’s forearm with her fingers and lingered on her finely boned wrist. “Have you always been known as Eleanor? Or do you have a nickname?”

  Eleanor blinked rapidly. “Pretty much. Dad likes to call me Nell,” she stammered.

  “And what do you like?” Alexa gently brushed Eleanor’s closed fist with her thumb.

  “Eleanor.” She flipped over her hand and held on to Alexa’s fingers. “Nell makes me feel like I’m five years old,” she said with a gleam in her eyes.

  Alexa laughed. “We can’t have that, can we, Eleanor?” For a few moments they smiled, staring at one another.

  Unnerved by the sudden tug of attraction that flickered between them—the unmistakable gravitational pull, Alexa let go of Eleanor’s hand. “Do you want to see the rest of the house? Where would you like to start?”

  Eleanor’s eyes widened, and she took a step back. “What’s that scuffling I can hear? How about the attic?”

  Alexa looked up at the ceiling, dragging her gaze away from Eleanor’s big brown eyes. “No, way.” Alexa wagged her finger playfully before beckoning for Eleanor to follow her down the hall. “Come on, I’ll show you where I used to hide and spy on the neighbours.”

  Chapter 9

  Prevailing wind

  “Mother. Give me a break.” Eleanor raised her voice as much as she dared. Her father was taking an afternoon nap, and, although there was little chance he would hear them in the studio, she didn’t want to risk causing him distress.

  “But I don’t understand why you are spending so much time fussing with Helen’s slides.”

  “I’m only following my aunt’s wishes,” Eleanor said in a controlled voice.

  She studied her mother carefully; her arms were crossed, and a crease etched her forehead. Eleanor couldn’t understand why her mother was being so unreasonable. Sarah Heysen, the principal of the family’s law firm, was known to dislike showy emotions. Eleanor stared, bewildered by her mother’s extraordinary behaviour, but even though she was losing her cool, Eleanor knew that she shouldn’t forget her mother was a formidable litigator.

  “Yes, it was Helen’s wish that we hand them over to the Library. It’s done now. Can’t we leave it at that?” Her mother ran her hands down the sides of her crisp black pencil skirt.

  Eleanor took a deep calming breath and released it slowly. “In her notebook, Helen only wrote she wanted the slides to go to the state library, sure, but I know she’d be pleased that I’m taking it further. I’m an investigative photographer just like she was. By learning more about the slides, I may discover something about Helen’s disappearance.”

  Her mother stared stonily at her for a moment. “Don’t forget, I’m the one who arranged your meeting with Katherine.”

  “Thank you for that,” Eleanor said softly.

  “However, now that
you’ve carried out Helen’s wishes, Eleanor, we need to put Helen to rest so you can move on to more important things…like what are you doing with your life? After all, it has been over eleven years.” She strode up to Eleanor, interrogating her with the intensity of her gaze.

  Eleanor’s body tensed, and she flinched at her mother’s tone. “I’ve only just got home.”

  “And soon, you’ll take off again.”

  Eleanor hesitated, hating the inevitable trajectory of their argument. “I’ve had to give up my room at the flat in London because I didn’t know when I’d be back there.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Who knows? I don’t know how long I’ll stay in Melbourne. All I know is I won’t accept any overseas assignments until Dad gets better.”

  Her mother had her arms folded tightly across her chest as she began to pace up and down the length of the studio. “Then you’ll be offered work in some godforsaken place, and off you’ll go. There are plenty of reasons why you shouldn’t go back into those danger zones.”

  “It isn’t always dangerous,” Eleanor retorted. Sometimes it was necessary to take calculated risks to capture the true story.

  “What about when you were stuck in the middle of that battle in Mosul, for five days?”

  “I was documenting an archaeologist who was helping with the rebuild of her bombed city.” Eleanor wanted to appease her mother, but in reality, she had been in very real danger. She recalled the pile of dead bodies visible in the open trunk of a battered car, causing a wave of nausea to rise in her throat. Eleanor swallowed hard. “It was a photographic assignment.”

  “Or the time in Sri Lanka when you went missing during the floods and landslides? We didn’t know if you were alive or dead.”

  “As you know, I was following a group of human rights lawyers. We were caught in the middle of a natural disaster.” Eleanor ran her hand through her hair. Why did it always feel as if she was having to justify her career choice to her mother? “It was my ethical duty. I had to stay to document the plight of all those suffering people.”