by Kim Wilkins
The garden was empty. She felt almost certain that her intruder hadn’t been a thrill-seeking kid on a camping holiday. In fact, she had an awful suspicion that it wasn’t even human.
Adrian waited in a cafe at Darling Harbour: a tastefully decorated place in oak and chrome, soft lights glancing off polished surfaces, and the smell of ground coffee hanging heavy and sensual in the air. Even though he lived in Roland Fielding’s house, he still felt apprehensive about meeting him here. Of course, it made sense for them to meet up for lunch while they were both in Sydney working on the same production. It was just that the two of them were so rarely alone together. Usually Maisie was there, calling Roland “Dad” and making fun of the way he couldn’t keep his hands still if music played in the background, even if it was the neighbour’s radio playing middle-of-the-road seventies rock. But to be alone with Roland Fielding, internationally acclaimed conductor, an imposing man with silver hair, an erect back, and a distracted gaze. It was all Adrian could do not to call him “maestro” when he arrived.
“Hi, Roland.”
“Hello, Adrian.” Roland settled across from him and picked up the menu. “Last night went well, don’t you think?”
Adrian nodded. “I think so.” He knew he wouldn’t get a compliment on his personal performance out of Roland, so he didn’t wait for one. “I thought I might have the pasta. What about you?”
“Hmmm…I’ll have the salmon.”
Roland motioned for a waitress, who came to take their orders. When Roland had handed her the menus and she was on her way back to the kitchen, he turned to Adrian.
“Have you heard from Maisie?”
“I spoke to her yesterday.”
“How is she?”
“She’s fine. She spent the weekend with a friend in York, and she sounds a lot less homesick than she was last week.”
“Next time you speak to her, tell her to call her mother.”
“Sure.”
“Janet’s too stubborn to call her, but I’m sure she’s worried sick.”
Adrian opened his mouth to ask Roland about Maisie’s grandmother and the arrests, but a loud burst of laughter from a neighbouring table interrupted him. Roland looked over his shoulder and bestowed on the group one of his trademark looks of disdain, but they didn’t notice him. By the time he turned back, Adrian had thought better of delving into personal matters.
Lunch arrived and they slipped into a discussion of difficult scores and errant flautists while they ate. Roland ordered a bottle of wine between them and started to relax into an afternoon reverie, reminiscing about other orchestras and other concerts, long ago and in faraway places. A three o’clock sunbeam lay across the table when he began to describe his years conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in the seventies. His eyes glinted with excitement as he spoke about the concerts he had been part of, the famous musicians he had worked with.
“So why did you leave Berlin?” Adrian asked.
“Janet was pregnant.” He refilled his wine glass. “But I don’t regret it, of course,” he continued, in a voice that suggested he may actually regret it but was trying to convince himself otherwise. “Maisie has been worth it.”
“But why come to Australia?”
“Berlin felt unsafe, and anywhere in England was too close for comfort to Janet’s mother. We both agreed that we wanted to bring up the child back here at home.”
Maybe it was the two glasses of wine – Adrian rarely drank alcohol – but he found himself asking, “Why did Janet and her mother fall out?”
The waitress stopped by to ask if they wanted to order dessert, but Roland waved her away. “I don’t know what to say in answer to that,” he replied finally.
“Maisie thought it might be to do with her fortune-telling business, then Janet let something slip the other day about her mother being arrested.”
Roland nodded. “So you already know a little.”
“Just enough to make me curious as hell.”
Roland tapped his cheek and considered for a moment, then decided to answer. “All right, I’ll tell you what I know. Janet and Sybill – that’s her mother’s name – had widely different values. Janet was a neglected child. She learned piano not because of a doting, encouraging mother, but because her neighbour was a music teacher and took pity upon her. Sybill never dressed her properly or took proper care of her. The silly woman had strange people over all the time, conducting seances and probably taking drugs. Janet had an enormous talent for music, but Sybill barely recognised it. Thanks to her neighbour, who could see something special in her, Janet won a scholarship to a music school at ten. The school was in Sydney and at the time they were living in country Victoria. So Janet left home while still a child and boarded with another family. Sybill, who was originally from Yorkshire, moved back there soon after.”
“Left the country?”
“Yes. Absolved herself of responsibility for her child. You can see now why Janet’s will is fired in iron.”
“I guess I can.”
Roland sighed and ran a hand through his silvery hair. “Unfortunately, I confused the issue when Maisie was born. I had some traditional ideas about parenthood, and thought that Sybill should be informed. I contacted her without telling Janet, and was delighted when the old woman said she would come to Australia to see the child. I imagined there may be a tearful reunion, a forgetting of old grudges. I was very, very wrong.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Sybill arrived, as a surprise. Janet could barely conceal her hostility, but Sybill was very friendly, very relaxed. There were no apologies, and I think Janet needed to hear an apology. Maisie was only a few weeks old, and Sybill sat next to Janet and cooed and made all the noises a normal grandmother would. I still held out hope that things could be resolved. But then Sybill said, ‘You know, Janet, your daughter has the Gift.’ This upset Janet terribly, and she ordered her out of the room, crying and clutching Maisie to her chest.”
“The Gift?”
Roland finished his wine and pushed the glass away from him. The CD playing in the background was jumping, and a waitress hurried across the room to turn it off. Silence. Adrian waited.
“She meant that Maisie had inherited her psychic ability.” Roland shook his head. “I feel ridiculous even saying it, but Janet took it very seriously. Janet is far more superstitious than she lets on. She likes to pretend she thinks it’s all nonsense, but I think she saw some frightening things as a little girl in her mother’s house, things that have traumatised her.”
“You mean supernatural things.”
Roland shrugged. “Who knows what really happened? To a small child, all that talk of communicating with the dead would have been terrifying whether it was real or not.”
“I suppose you’re right. So Sybill went home?”
“No. She stayed for a few more days, and I convinced Janet to let her baby-sit Maisie while we went out for lunch. I wanted to give Janet a break from the baby – she’d been working and worrying herself to exhaustion over the little thing. We were only gone a few hours. When we came home we found Sybill leaning over Maisie’s cot, mumbling some strange incantations, and dropping some kind of sweet-smelling powder over her. Like something out of Sleeping Beauty, with the three fairy godmothers. And I’m sure it was just Sybill’s way of blessing the child, but Janet…” He paused, shaking his head sadly. “It was all over. Sybill left the next morning, and Janet never, never forgave her.”
“What did she think Sybill was doing?”
“Casting a spell. Which she was. Of course she was. The woman believed she was a witch. But even if I believed in spells, I wouldn’t have been too concerned. Sybill clearly doted on the baby, and would only have been acting with benevolent intentions. Janet thought otherwise, Janet thought…” Again he paused. An embarrassed smile. “Janet thought that Sybill was trying to turn Maisie into a witch too.”
Adrian leaned back in his chair. “Wow,” he said.
“I kno
w. It’s all a little hard to believe.”
“And so what was the deal with the arrests? She was arrested twice, right?”
“Actually, it was three times. I managed to keep the first time a secret from Janet. Her solicitor contacted me to ask if we’d help with the fine. We paid all three fines, but never heard a word of thanks from Sybill.”
“But what did she do? What was she arrested for?”
“Desecrating graves.”
Adrian was astonished. “What?”
“She desecrated some graves in the local cemetery.”
“Vandalised them?”
Roland glanced away. “Something like that. I think she was senile, but once again, Janet has other ideas. But she won’t talk about it. She simply won’t be drawn on the subject. She didn’t even shed a tear when we found out Sybill was dead. I think she was more relieved than anything else.” He nodded at Adrian. “So you can understand now why she was upset over Maisie wanting to track Sybill down.”
“Of course. My god, why didn’t Janet just tell her?”
“Because she’s stubborn. And besides, do you think it would have made a difference? Maisie probably would have been twice as interested.”
Adrian nodded: he knew Maisie. “Perhaps you’re right.”
The waitress discreetly slipped the bill onto the table, and Roland laid his American Express card on top of it. “Now you mustn’t let on that you know. Janet would throttle me.”
“Of course not. But I can tell Maisie, right?”
“I don’t know. You decide. Let’s just make sure Janet never knows that we’ve had this conversation.”
“You have my word.”
“To bring it all into the open would be pointless,” Roland said earnestly. “Let’s just leave it in the past where it belongs.”
After she had changed her bra three times, Maisie stopped to admonish herself. It didn’t matter if she was wearing her white lacy bra, her cute gingham bra, or the black one that made her skin look creamy. Sacha was not going to see her underwear.
“Sacha is not going to see my underwear,” she said to Tabby, who watched her from the bed. “Not tonight. Not ever.” She wriggled into her long, black skirt and a dark grey top, smoothing both as best she could over that curve on her midriff, and turned to her make-up bag. Kept everything understated except for the red, red lipstick. She had taken care blow-drying her hair, coaxing it into glossy ringlets. If Adrian saw her, prettied up for company, he would have said she looked like a china doll. He always said that.
Out in the lounge room, she selected one of her new CDs – she only had two – and inserted it into her new portable CD player. It squeaked reluctantly for a few moments and then decided that, yes, it would play. The trip to Whitby that morning had been worth it. The place felt more comfortable already with music playing. Though she’d probably soon get sick of listening exclusively to Jeff Buckley and Tori Amos.
Five minutes to six. He might not be here for another half an hour. She hated waiting, the rubber band winding up in her stomach. She fed a couple of pine cones to the fire, checked on the lasagne that she had prepared in advance – anything to make the evening proceed more easily – and peed for the fifth time in an hour.
Why was she so nervous?
Because he was cute. She was always nervous around cute guys.
A knock at the door. He was punctual. She liked punctuality in a man.
“Hang on,” she called, checking her reflection once more before answering the door.
“Hi,” she said, offering her most dazzling smile.
“Hi.” He handed her a bottle of wine. “I wasn’t sure what to bring. I hope red is okay.”
“Red’s great. Come in.”
She closed the door behind him. He shrugged out of a brown leather coat and hung it on the hook by the entrance. Underneath, he was wearing black cords and a dark blue shirt.
She motioned towards the lounge room.
“You’ve done loads of cleaning,” he said.
“I sure have. I’ve got a stack of things to go to Oxfam. Would you mind taking them in your van? I asked the second-hand place in the village to collect them, but they wouldn’t come up here.”
“Of course.”
“Sit down,” she said, pointing to the armchair nearest the fire. “Would you like a drink?”
He sat down, stretched out his legs. “No, thanks.”
“Oh. Okay, I’ll just…I’ll be in the kitchen for a moment.”
She went to the kitchen and dropped the wine on the table. It was set beautifully for two, but she hadn’t put candles out. Candles screamed intimacy. She took the lasagne from the fridge and slid it into the oven, guessed where medium was on the dial – hard to tell with figures still in fahrenheit. Now to make conversation. She had carefully prepared a mental list of topics that day just in case things got uncomfortable. And she had to remember to drop Adrian’s name in there somewhere: she couldn’t have Sacha getting the wrong idea about her intentions. When she returned to the lounge room, Tabby was purring happily in Sacha’s lap.
“She won’t sit on my lap,” Maisie said, feeling hurt.
“She’s probably still getting used to you.”
Maisie sat in the chair opposite him. “Do you have any idea how old she is?”
“Four or five, I think. She was a little stray when Sybill took her in.”
“She probably misses her.”
“Probably.”
“She sits on the washing machine all the time, gazing out the back window. Do you think she’s watching for Sybill?”
Sacha shook his head. “No. Tabby always did that. Sybill used to joke about her seeing the spirits that hung around the magic circle.”
A little chill ran up Maisie’s spine. She leaned forward. “Were you and my grandmother very close?”
He seemed to be considering his answer carefully. “I suppose I was the closest person to her in the last few years. I mean, I saw her more regularly than anybody else. But Sybill wasn’t a chatty woman. She didn’t divulge any secrets, if that’s what you want to know.”
“Yeah. That’s what I want to know. I want to know what she used her magic for.”
“It wasn’t anything…black. I promise you, your grandmother was a white witch.”
“I saw a figure in the back garden last night. I called the police, but it disappeared. It seemed…I don’t know, not human.”
“If it was dark, windy, moonlit, anything would look scary. A lot of kids camp nearby. I used to do it when I was a lad. There’s a great little cove about a half mile from here, with a cave in the cliff face. It’s always been a popular spot. Most kids usually wouldn’t come anywhere near Solgreve, though. The reputation of the locals isn’t good.”
She nodded. “The locals don’t like me much.”
“I’m not surprised. You have Sybill Hartley genes.”
Maisie stretched her legs, settled back into the chair and vowed not to think about creepy things while Sacha was here. He and Constable Blake were probably right, it was some mischievous teenager trying to scare her. Or even a mischievous villager trying to scare her out of town. “They wouldn’t deliver my groceries to my door, they wouldn’t pick up the second-hand stuff, they all went silent when I walked into the pub the other night…”
“Sybill liked to go up to the pub and sit by the bar listening to everyone’s conversations. They hated it.”
“I’m trying to give them the impression I’m not staying long. Trying to disarm them.”
He tilted his head to one side, scratched Tabby behind the ears. “Noticed how many old people there are around here?”
Maisie considered. “I suppose there are a few.”
“Next time you’re in the village, count the wrinkled heads. You’ll be surprised.”
“I suppose it’s the kind of place people would want to retire. It’s quiet, it’s near the sea.”
He shook his head. Tabby jumped off his lap and curled up in fron
t of the fire. “They don’t retire here. They grow old here. Really, really old. And they stay healthy. Sybill told me she knew of at least twelve people who are over a hundred.”
“You’re kidding.”
“It’s true. Must be something in the sea air. Or something in all that fervent praying they do. A local television station tried to do an article on them late last year, but everybody refused to talk. They didn’t like the idea of the place being overrun by people wanting to live longer. Though I can’t think of anything worse than living to that age. Surely you’d be tired enough to die by eighty or so.” He looked up and smiled. “Sybill had dated Reverend Fowler to be at least ninety.”
“What do you mean ‘at least’?”
“She hadn’t found a record of his birth and the church records weren’t helpful. She was really obsessed for a while with finding out how old he was.”
Maisie considered this for a few moments, the fire crackling between them. “Sacha,” she said, looking up, “did Sybill ever mention to you a diary she had found? A really old one?”
“Yes, I think so. Is that the book she found hidden around the house in parts?”
“In parts? Then there’s more than one piece?”
“I think she found three. But she put them all back where she found them. Don’t ask me where.”
Maisie sighed. It was all too much. Strange shapes in the garden, unnaturally old priests and diaries stashed in floorboards.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Sorry?”
“You sighed. What’s up?”
Maisie smiled. She didn’t have to solve any of it now, she just had to entertain Sacha. “Nothing’s up. I’m fine. It’s just that Sybill left so much junk behind, I don’t know what to chuck and what to keep.”
“I don’t think she would have expected you to keep anything. She had a healthy disdain for all things material.”
“So why didn’t she throw away some of this stuff?”
Sacha shrugged. “Can I have a drink after all?”
Over a glass of wine each, they knocked off every topic on Maisie’s list – from siblings to favourite movies – except her boyfriend. There was no help for it, she simply had to bring it up. It couldn’t go unspoken any longer, not with the way Sacha was looking at her (though he may have just been squinting against the fire).
