Bungalow on Pelican Way

by Lilly Mirren

  There might be something helpful in one of them they could use at the funeral. She didn’t have time to look through them right now, so Kate decided she’d take them back to her room and look through them later. She closed the lid and pushed the box to one side, admiring the carvings on the lid and sides — a horse on top and birds, in full flight around the outside. The box was chipped in a few places, and she’d had to tug hard to get the lid to come free. It was obvious the box had been around a long time; dust had settled into the crevices where someone’s knife or implement of some kind had whittled the carvings in the wood.

  Kate turned her attention back to the pile of albums, intent on finding a picture that summed up Nan’s vivacious, adventure-loving personality in a single snapshot. How could you sum up a life with a couple of photographs and a few tearful words on a beach? It didn’t seem possible, yet, somehow, they had to find a way to do it. They owed Nan so much, the least they could do was to plan her funeral well, and find a way to honour her final wishes, whatever they were.

  6

  August 1995

  Cabarita Beach

  Black clouds skidded across the sky. A sly wind whipped up suddenly, tugging Kate’s hair into her face. She pushed it behind her ears and strode along the water’s edge faster still. Her arms pumped in time with her footsteps, and her breath huffed in short gasps.

  She wanted to make it back to the inn before the clouds opened above her head. It’d rained most days since she arrived in Cabarita. Today’s sky threatened with a growl, and she picked up the pace to a jog as she made her way from the hard, wet sand and into the dry, soft sand, then up the steps toward the inn. Smoke curled from the chimney, the cool air fragrant with its acrid scent.

  As she hurried past Nan’s garden, she couldn’t help noticing it looked a little drab. Most of the produce was dotted with splats of mud from the rainfall, some had been pummelled into the ground. The flower beds looked sodden and sad. No flowers this time of year and the greenery seemed patchy.

  She stopped and rested both hands on the bleached timber fence to study the garden. It’d been Nan’s pride and joy, and though Nan had only been gone a few days, the garden had suffered from neglect in that time. That, along with the cold and rain, had given it a haggard look. Not much of a gardener, Kate wasn’t sure if the look was normal for a garden in the last month of winter, but she didn’t remember ever seeing it look so bad before.

  With one hand, she pushed open the garden’s gate and stepped inside. She stooped to study some of the plants and noticed they looked as though they’d been cut off at ground level. She frowned, pressing her hands to her hips.

  A fat drop of rain landed on her head and her head jerked upward to stare at the sky. This time a raindrop landed right on the tip of her nose. She shook it off, then broke into a run as the heaven’s opened, pulling the gate shut behind her and heading for home.

  Kate shook the raindrops from her coat and hung it on the coat rack inside the back entry. Mima was in the kitchen, a white apron tied around her waist, stirring something in a pot on the stove.

  “Phew! It’s wet out there,” said Kate with a shiver. Then she peered into the pot. “What’re you making?”

  “Custard,” replied Mima, “To go with the apple crumble that’s in the oven.”

  Kate sniffed the air and her stomach growled. “Mmmm. That smells delicious. I can’t wait.”

  Mima chuckled. “I thought we might like something hot to eat with the weather we’ve been having. Something to warm us, body and soul.”

  Kate sat on one of the worn timber bar stools that lined the other side of the bench, ran her hands through her hair and watched as droplets of water rained onto the off-white laminate surface.

  “Something’s been at Nan’s garden. Half the plants have been eaten down to ground level,” she said with a grunt.

  Mima arched an eyebrow and kept stirring. The wooden spoon moved in a slow arc around the saucepan, never stopping. “It’s probably possums.”

  “Mima, that reminds me: do you know if the inn has a rat problem?”

  Mima’s brow furrowed. “I should hope not!”

  “It’s just that I was upstairs in my room the other night and I heard a scratching sound in the roof cavity, and then something that could’ve been chewing — you know, on the timber beams.”

  Mima laughed. “Oh that, that’s our ringtail possum.”

  “Our possum?” Did possums chew on timber?

  “There’s a possum living in the roof. She doesn’t bother us, so we let her be.”

  “But she’s chewing on the timber beams… that could be a problem.” Kate ran a hand over her face. Well, wasn’t that wonderful? Now she had a vermin problem to deal with as well, that was, if possums could be called vermin. Although, if one was living inside the roof and eating the inn piece by piece, that seemed to qualify her for the category.

  “Don’t worry about her, she won’t eat much.”

  Kate stared at Mima in astonishment as the cook returned her attention to the pot on the stove. No wonder the place was falling apart, none of them seemed to care about keeping it all together.

  Kate’s mouth puckered. “Do we have any possum traps or anything like that around here? I can’t believe it’s eating up Nan’s garden. She loved those plants, it’s like… they’re a part of her.”

  Mima shrugged. “She loved it, that’s true. But Edie’s gone, so if we want to keep her garden, someone is going to have to take it on, and it’s a big job to keep something that size in shape. Even without the possums.”

  “How is it getting through the fence, that’s what I want to know?” Kate groaned, then covered her face with both hands. It seemed everything was coming undone. Her boss was replacing her, her fiancé hadn’t returned her calls, and now Nan’s garden was dying right in front of her eyes.

  It was that darned possum. If she could catch it, then it’d all be over. Nan’s garden would survive, and she could focus on getting through the funeral and back to her life in Brisbane.

  “There’s probably a hole in the fence somewhere, you’ll have to investigate.”

  They’d have to do something about that possum. They couldn’t have her living in the roof cavity, chewing up the supporting beams, destroying Nan’s garden. She was an outlaw living on borrowed time. And like all outlaws, this possum had a reckoning coming her way.

  “What’s got you so fidgety?” asked Mima as she moved the saucepan away from the heat and onto a cork pad.

  Kate hadn’t realised her fingers were drumming on the bench. She laced them together with a sigh. “I don’t really know what to do with myself.”

  “Oh?” Mima chuckled. “Not a feeling you’re accustomed to, I’d say.”

  “Not at all. My life is so full, so busy, I rarely have much time to do nothing. And when I do, it’s usually after a long shift at work, and I’m exhausted, so I lay on the couch and watch television or read a book.”

  “Now there’s an idea,” said Mima with a wink. She checked on the apple crumble, then straightened, one hand pressed to her lower back, her face pinched.

  “Are you okay?” asked Kate.

  “My back is playing up. Nothing out of the ordinary. Getting old isn’t as much fun as you’d think.” She winked again and Kate couldn’t help smiling.

  “It’s just that, we don’t know what’s happening with the inn — we still haven’t found Nan’s will, or her solicitor. I really wanted to get everything sorted out before I go home.” She hesitated. “And my sisters — we haven’t spent this much time together in years. I don’t feel like I know them anymore. Not really.”

  “Sounds like there’s a lot going on in that head of yours,” replied Mima, setting her hands on her hips. “If you ask me, you need to relax a little bit. It’s good that you’re spending some time here at the inn, saying your goodbyes. No one doubts Nan left the place to you girls. We’ll find the will, but in the meantime, you should probably assume it’ll be yours.
And you do know your sisters — they haven’t changed as much as you might think. You’re all still the same little girls that used to visit and sit on my knee while I read Enid Blyton books to you or showed you how to make the perfect choc-chip biscuits, all those years ago.”

  She brushed a strand of wet hair from Kate’s face with two bent fingers. “You’re going to be fine, love. Just fine.”

  Something caught in Kate’s throat and she swallowed, her eyes blinking back tears as memories swamped her. “I feel so lost.”

  Mima’s arms wrapped around her and pulled tight. “You’re not lost, love, you’re grieving. It happens to the best of us. Grief makes us look in, to see if we’re on the track we want to take. If we’re not, we can adjust our course. Losing someone gives us back the perspective we need, if we let it.”

  Kate sobbed, her head spinning. She hadn’t thought she was off track. The drive to succeed, to chase her career goals, to meet and marry the perfect man, all of it had been what she wanted. Those things had been her dreams. All she was doing was pursuing her dreams. Wasn’t she? Something inside her tightened and made her want to cry harder. She inhaled slowly, then dabbed the tears from her eyes.

  “I’m going upstairs to rest.”

  Mima beamed as if Kate had given her a gift. “Good idea. And when you come down for lunch, there’ll be apple crumble with custard. Dessert makes everything better.”

  The mattress was soft, perhaps a little too soft, and Kate flung herself from one side to the other, trying desperately to fall asleep. After an hour of restless thrashing, the bed looked like it’d been through a war zone and irritation burned in her chest. There was no point, she wasn’t going to get to sleep no matter how tired she felt.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed. A scratching in the roof caught her attention. She glared at the ceiling, her eyes narrowed.

  “That possum again,” she hissed. Anger burned in her cheeks.

  Her left calf muscle contracted and spasmed. She grabbed hold of it with a yelp of pain. Cramps happened often enough that she was used to them, but the pain always caught her by surprise when it first hit.

  She slid onto the floor and got to work doing the stretches she always did whenever her calf muscles cramped up. Usually the cramps came while she was sleeping and jolted her out of a dream or deep REM cycle. This one wasn’t so bad. It subsided quickly and soon was gone. Only a dull ache reminded her it’d happened at all.

  She set her hands on the floor to push back up onto her feet, then noticed a small, timber box beneath the bed.

  Nan’s journals.

  She’d forgotten she put them there. She tugged the box from beneath the bed. A sliver of light fell through the curtains and lit up the box, highlighting its age and the dust motes disturbed by her movements, floating through the air above it. She leaned back to reach the curtains and tugged them fully open, flooding the room with daylight. The rain had stopped, yet still dripped from the gutters. Sunshine peeked between the clouds, and everything smelled fresh and new.

  With her back pressed to the side of the bed, Kate opened the first journal. Inside the front cover was written a date.

  1985 - 1993

  She frowned, set down the book and opened another. This one was dated as well.

  1967-1984

  How far back did they go? With a gentle push, she upended the box and let all four notebooks fall to the floor. Something silver caught her eye. It dropped to the hard timber floor then rolled under the bed with a faint tinging sound. She set the box on the floor by the pile of journals and crouched low to peer under the bed. What was it? Something small, maybe a ring? She couldn’t be sure; she’d only caught sight of it out of the corner of her eye.

  With her head held as low as she could get it, she inched forward on her stomach, leveraging herself under the bed. It was a tight fit, and she huffed and puffed her way forward little by little until she could reach it if she stretched her arm out as far as it would go and held her breath. Her fingers closed around it and she let out a squeak of victory, unable to do more. Then, she backed out from beneath the bed, knocking her head on the side slat as she did.

  She groaned and held a hand to her head as she sat up, pushed the hair from her eyes, and stared at the thing she’d recovered. It was a ring, but not like any she’d ever seen before. It looked homemade, and it didn’t sparkle or shine but had a dull, silver look to it, and was tarnished with a brownish hue.

  Why would Nan keep something like that? It was obvious the ring wasn’t valuable, and yet there it was, in a carved timber box with her diaries. Kate pushed it onto her finger and found she couldn’t get it past the knuckle on any but her pinky. With a shrug, she set it back into one corner of the box. Then, she stared at the pile of journals.

  The bottom book had a black cover, like the ones she’d seen Nan carrying around. Another had a purple, floral cover. She reached for the most tattered book on the top of the pile. A few pages fluttered free when she opened it, and she did her best to put them back in place. The hard, dark-green cover was made of fabric and had frayed in places. The leaves of paper that filled the book were yellow and stained, and filled with Nan’s looping scrawl, though the letters were less jagged than she remembered them being.

  When she turned to the first page, the date set her heart racing.

  1935-1950

  As she calculated the figures in her head, her mouth fell open. If the dates were true, Nan would’ve been ten or eleven years old when she wrote the first words lining these pages.

  She flicked slowly through the journal. Each page was covered in Nan’s handwriting. Black ink scratched across the page in lines, filling front and back with words, dozens of exclamation points, and a few sketches.

  Her heart in her throat, she turned back to the first page and began to read.

  * * *

  I went riding today. Eliza propped when I tried to send her up a hill. She can be stubborn at times, but in the end, she gave up and did as I asked.

  Mother made roast lamb for supper, which was a treat. I could do without eating mutton ever again in my whole life.

  Tomorrow it will likely be rabbit stew since Bobby went shooting with Charles Jackson today. Charlie has the bluest eyes and smiles a lot when he talks to me.

  I think I will be a hairdresser when I grow up. Mother says it’s not a fit career path for a lady, but I think it would be nice to make people pretty and talk all day long. Still, there wouldn’t be any horses, so maybe I’ll have to think more about it before I decide…

  7

  July 1935

  Bathurst

  Edith Watson was ten years old and the best hack in the Bathurst area for her age. At least she was in her own mind, and that was all that mattered. Horse riding was the thing she loved more than anything else in the world. Well, besides Mother and Father. They were her parents, so she loved them most. Actually, according to the minister at their church, she was supposed to love God more than anyone or anything else. So, after God, Father, and Mother, she loved her bay mare, Eliza.

  Eliza was a young horse, so of course that meant occasionally Edie lost her seat. With Eliza’s disposition, anyone would. When Eliza decided to buck rather than gallop, even the best rider would be thrown. Father said so. At least she hadn’t broken an arm like Arnie Merriweather, riding that big black thoroughbred with the white star on his forehead Arnie’s father had bought at auction. She was certain it’d been a racehorse before it found its way to the Bathurst livestock auction, by the way it pulled at the bit whenever he tried to bring it to a stop.

  Eliza clip-clopped up the hill behind the small, white timber farmhouse on a narrow trail, worn bare by sheep and horses over many years. Two days off from school. She’d ride as much as she could, though Mother would insist she help around the house. There was also a cross-stitch project Mother was pushing her to complete, though Edie couldn’t see the point of it. Cross stitch didn’t seem to her like a good use of her time, but
according to Mother, every young woman should learn it. For some reason or other. Edie thought horse riding a far more valuable skill for anyone, young woman or not.

  She raised a gloved hand to her face and rubbed a cheek. It tingled, numb from the cold. Mother didn’t like it when she rode so early in the morning. She said it gave her dry skin and red cheeks. Still, it was the most beautiful time of the day to be outside, even if the air was so clouded by fog in every direction you could barely see what you were coming upon until you were there.

  She heard the dogs rush someone on the driveway. There must be a visitor at the farmhouse. The dogs’ baying echoed, caught in the thick, cold air. Eliza’s ears pricked and she pranced a few skittish steps sideways.

  “Hush, Eliza. It’s nothing to worry about,” she admonished.

  She found her brother, Bobby, beside the house with his friend from town, Charlie Jackson. Charlie was twelve, but not much bigger than Edie herself. He and Bobby hadn’t had their growth spurts yet, according to Mother, who liked to talk about such things with their neighbour, May Hobbes, when she thought Edie was busy with her cross stitch.

  She pushed Eliza into a canter, steering her directly at the boys. Then, pulled her up when they drew close. Charlie had a rifle slung over his shoulder, one foot rested on the pedal of his bike, the other planted firmly on the ground.