by Di Morrissey
The woman’s mouth tightened. ‘My son don’t like strangers here.’
‘Does your son run the mushroom farm? We’re farmers too,’ said Sally.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘You girls got no right t’be here. You’d better skit before he comes back. Like I said, he don’t like strangers here. You get going.’ She sounded agitated.
‘Well, thanks, Mrs . . .?’ said Jessica, with a querying raised eyebrow. But when the woman ignored her, she added, ‘We don’t want to make trouble. We’ll post you Thomas’s things.’
‘Don’t you bother. Just stay away from here. Gordon knows what he’s doing and it’s nobody else’s business.’ She slammed the door and they heard the latch lock.
‘What the heck was all that about?’ said Jessica, glancing at Sally with raised eyebrows. ‘Who’s Gordon?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t care. She gives me the heebie-jeebies. Let’s get out of here.’ Sally turned away.
Jessica paused, looking up, and saw the curtain in an upstairs window drop back into place.
North-west Tasmania, 1942
Stella’s silk scarf fluttered around her in the breeze from the open car window. With a leather-gloved hand she tugged at her French beret, sitting it more firmly on her head.
‘Too windy for you, my dear? Roll up your window,’ said her husband.
‘I’m enjoying the fresh air. I think I can smell the sea.’
‘Yes, we’ll be heading down towards the coast any minute.’
They drove in silence for a short while.
‘I see smoke,’ said Stella as a wraith of white smoke dissipated into the grey-blue sky.
‘Probably the stamp battery from the old tin mine. It had closed up but in these difficult times a few hardy souls are having a go again.’
‘I can see the tiny miners’ cottages. What a harsh life,’ Stella said. ‘And how barren the hillsides look.’
‘The water is probably contaminated too,’ said Stephen. ‘I fear these old mines are leaving a bad legacy for the future. But people have to make a living. The coalmines are far worse for the men’s health, I’m afraid.’
‘There’s the sea. How refreshing. I’m so glad we’re near the coast.’
‘It’s not very accessible here and there’s no beach, but there is a dramatic coastline view from the clifftops if you wish to take a walk.’
‘It sounds like a Miss Brontë novel,’ said Stella with a smile.
‘Hmm. Perhaps.’
‘And who is the man you have come so far to see?’ she asked, having received only vague responses from her husband when she’d asked him earlier that day.
‘Old family connection. I promised I would maintain contact and keep an eye on the family. They seem to have fallen on hard times.’
Stella had noticed the exchange of letters but had said little, as Stephen kept his correspondence to himself, and she’d learned not to ask in case it concerned his patients. He also insisted on handling all business and household mail and bills, telling Stella ‘not to worry her pretty head’.
‘I feel rather badly leaving the Jameses to manage everything for a few days, with their boy not long back from the rehabilitation home. He was there for so long and it’s been such a difficult time for them.’ Stella knew how Mrs James adored her youngest son, Terry, and how concerned she’d been when they’d seen and heard such terrible stories of other children suffering from polio, and some dying. But Terry had pulled through, and for such a young child was showing great resilience and learning to adjust to the impairment the polio had left him with.
‘The lad will be moving around all over the place before they know it. He’s lucky only his feet were affected.’
‘Oh, is that where we’re going?’ Stella pointed to a sign reading Seawinds and with an arrow indicating the way.
‘Yes.’
‘And are we staying there this evening? Or at a hotel?’
‘We’ll go to the local guesthouse in the township. I don’t wish to put them to any trouble. I will need to have a private conversation with the man who lives here and perhaps with his son too. I haven’t seen the young fellow since he was a boy.’
‘Of course. I understand,’ said Stella.
‘They have a pleasant garden you might enjoy.’
*
Stella strolled around the grounds, admiring the newly planted rose beds and the large house, thinking that if it had a thatched roof it would look like a very traditional English home. She was intrigued by the glasshouse and popped her head inside, where she was surprised at the difference in temperature. Assorted orchids and ferns covered the shelves and long boxes of soil were stacked in the corners. There was a faintly pungent smell that somehow seemed familiar.
She turned away and saw a side door that went into the house, so she decided to see if it led to the kitchen. She was thirsty, and while she’d been invited to take tea with Stephen and his friend, she knew it was merely a polite gesture and they wouldn’t talk business or discuss anything personal while she was there. The man of the house was widowed, and she hadn’t liked to ask if there was a housemaid. She could help herself to a glass of water.
A dim electric light bulb showed a doorway to the right and to the left a flight of stairs leading downwards, probably to a cellar. She went to the right, only to find that the door she’d thought would open into the kitchen was locked. The door to the stairs was ajar, and a pocket flashlight was hanging on a hook next to it. Impulsively she took the torch, turned it on and headed down the stairs.
It smelled dank. When she reached the bottom she saw a dangling string in the middle of the room, which she pulled, and a light came on. She saw she was in some sort of storeroom. There were shelves with bottles, cleaning items, boxes with seemingly seldom-used tools and on the far side, stacks of wooden crates and hessian bags. Again she caught that same pungent smell from the glasshouse. Tantalisingly, at the far end of the room was another narrow doorway. She looked around for tubs or a tap but there was nothing. Suddenly Stella was overcome with the sense that she was trespassing and shouldn’t be here. But as she walked towards the stairs she heard footsteps at the top coming down. In a swift move she pulled the string, clicking off the light. Shading the beam of torchlight with her hand, she hurried to the small far doorway and slipped through, leaving the door ajar and turning off the torch.
In the darkness behind the door she pressed herself against the wall. From the short glimpse she’d had, she thought she was in some sort of brick-walled tunnel. She felt embarrassed at being there, and more than a little afraid.
The light in the cellar came on.
Someone was looking for something. Boxes were being dragged. She peeped around the door, wondering if she should announce herself but not wanting to startle whoever it was.
But as Stella watched from the dark doorway, she saw the figure of a slim man lifting one of the crates, and she couldn’t stifle a gasp.
He turned, and she flattened herself behind the door again, holding her breath. She heard footsteps coming towards the entry of the tunnel and she closed her eyes in fear.
Then the door was pulled shut with a jerk and she heard the latch turn. She leaned against the wall, trying to clear her head and catch her breath, rubbing her eyes in the darkness. Why? How? Surely it couldn’t be?
The man with the wispy hair, the narrow face, the straggly moustache. This time he wore a leather jerkin, not his deerstalker hat. But it was him, there was no doubt. Then it hit her. Did Stephen know this was the man she’d caught trespassing in their woods?
The door handle rattled and Stella jumped. Should she run, wait, or confront him? She now regretted the impulsive and, as Stephen would see it, incredibly rude and peculiar behaviour that had led her into the cellar in the first place. Her desire for a simple glass of water now seemed very far-fetched.
Stella waited, her eyes closed, taking deep, slow breaths to steady her nerves. When she could no longer hear any movement in the room beyond, she drew one more long breath, then found the handle and pulled the door.
But it was latched and locked. With mounting panic she rattled and then pulled and pushed and finally shouted for someone to come and help her, but nothing stirred on the other side. She turned on the torch and fumbled with the lock, but the door was firmly secured.
Her breathing started to come in short, anxious gasps. As she waved the torch around, all Stella could see was a narrow tunnel, initially lined with bricks and then with walls of packed earth, leading into darkness. There seemed to be no choice but to hope the battery in the little light would hold out as she hunched over and made her way along the narrow tunnel.
It could have been minutes or hours as she groped her way behind the thin beam of light along the earthen tunnel, longing for fresh air and daylight. What time was it, how long had she been down here, trapped like a blind animal?
Should she turn out the light to save the battery and just feel her way? she wondered. This tunnel could go on for miles. And it suddenly occurred to her: why was it here?
She tried to hurry, stumbling on the rough earth, telling herself all the while to keep calm, to keep her senses alert. She couldn’t hear anything, but her hopes lifted when the smell of rich earth, of clay, and something else she didn’t recognise, began to change. Was the air cleaner, easier to breathe, or was she just getting used to fumbling along like a wombat in its burrow? Stella paused, cocking her head. Every sense, every hair on her body seemed to strain and quiver. Was that a sound in the distance?
‘The sea! The ocean. This is going to the coast!’ she exclaimed aloud. She hurried forward.
There was no mistaking it now: the air was cooler; there was a faint hint of salt water on the breeze, and a distant pounding. It wasn’t her heart or the blood throbbing in her head. This was the thundering of waves on rocks.
The darkness was gradually lifting. The faster she moved forward the lighter it became, and the louder the pounding thud of waves against rocks. And then she saw a perfect craggy archway, opening to sea, sky and air. Almost crying with relief she stumbled forward, turning off the torch as she came into the daylight.
To Stella’s surprise, the tunnel opened onto a ledge with stepping stones cut into the rocks leading to a small, sheltered spot where the water flowed in and bobbed calmly against a flat rock – a landing platform. It was a perfect place to retreat from the surging sea beyond. In the shelter of this cliff overhang one could stop and . . . what? Load? Unload? Was it for contraband? In or out?
A smugglers hideaway, Stella decided. But for what? And how to escape from here with no boat, and no return route except back through the cave to the locked door?
Standing on the exposed rocky platform, the wind whipping above her head but the water curiously calm around this secret inlet, she faced the wild sea, the dark tunnel behind her.
A voice hailed her. ‘Madam, madam, are you coming ashore?’
Turning towards the source of the voice, Stella saw that a man in a squat little dinghy with a mast but no sail was rowing towards her, pulling at the oars, his muscular arms bulging beneath tightly rolled sleeves.
‘Do ye want a ride to shore, lass?’
‘Ashore? Thank you, yes! Anywhere!’ Stella was almost weeping at the ludicrousness of it all.
‘Stand by. I’ll throw you a rope, you tie it on that bollard.’
She looked around, confused, as he lightly spun a lasso of coiled rope which landed at her feet, and she realised there was a loop, and there, in the rock, was a metal stake to tie it to, so as to moor the boat.
In minutes the little craft was snuggled beside the rocky landing and the short stocky man was helping her into the stern of his boat.
‘Haven’t had a collection here for a mighty long time,’ he said, grinning, as Stella stared at the rocky coastline and the cliffs above, and sighed at the sight of the small inlet with calm water close to shore.
‘I can’t thank you enough, how did you know . . .?’ she began.
‘Me ship is out to sea; this is the quickest way in. I don’t ask you how come you were where you were, and you don’t ask me why I’m landing in here,’ he said simply.
‘How can I thank you . . .?’ she said, but seeing his closed face as he concentrated on guiding them in, Stella realised with some primeval instinct that should they ever cross paths again, they would ignore each other.
When they arrived at a tiny stretch of beach, he held the little boat, reaching out his hairy arm to help her step ashore. If the tide were in, the sand would be covered. ‘You follow the track up, lass. And never explain. You was lost and then you found your way.’
‘Yes. I understand,’ said Stella, who really didn’t, but that instinct had kicked in and she trusted it. ‘Thank you.’
‘And we never see’d each other, lass.’
‘No. Indeed we did not.’ Stella almost smiled as the strange sailor pushed away and rowed out of sight, and she turned to face the path around the headland.
*
She was panting when she reached the top of the headland and saw Seawinds. Her husband and an older man were walking down the hill towards her.
‘Stella! Stella, where have you been?’ exclaimed Stephen.
‘Exploring! Looking at the seabirds.’
‘That’s quite a trek,’ said the unsmiling man beside her husband.
‘Joseph, this is Mrs Stella Holland. My dear, Mr Broadbent owns Seawinds. He lives here with his sons.’
Stella started. Broadbent was the name of Stephen’s first wife, Hilda. Stephen almost never spoke about her, and had certainly never mentioned that he was still in touch with her family.
Biting her tongue and avoiding frowning at her husband, Stella held out her hand. ‘A charming and very interesting home, Mr Broadbent. Has it been in your family a long time?’
‘Long enough. It’s been here since settlement days when the island was known for its colourful history, which had a lot to do with its geography.’
‘Its remoteness?’ said Stella.
‘It may be isolated, but over the years we’ve attracted archaeologists, inventors, snake oil salesmen, smugglers, thieves and lotharios to this area.’ He gave a tight smile and glanced at Stephen. ‘These are calmer times.’
‘And your sons?’ asked Stella, keeping her voice light.
‘They keep themselves occupied since their mother died so tragically. My sister, your beloved wife, Hilda, was a great comfort to all of us,’ he added to Stephen.
Stella blinked, even more surprised to discover that this man was Hilda’s brother, not some more distant relation. Stephen had said nothing to her about it before they arrived. She kept her expression bland and said nothing.
‘Yes. Well, we must be making our farewells, old chap.’
‘A cup of tea, a sherry to see you on your way?’
‘I would very much like tea,’ said Stella quickly, as the men turned and strode back towards the house.
No one else appeared when Joseph Broadbent carried a small tray with tea for Stella into the library where they sat. Then he poured a small sherry for himself and Stephen.
‘I appreciate your visiting me, Stephen.’ He raised his glass.
‘I’m pleased to find you in good health.’
‘And do you and your sons plan to visit us?’ asked Stella innocently.
‘We don’t travel far these days.’
‘Oh, I see.’ She glanced at her husband, who was sipping his sherry, eyes downcast.
‘I’m sorry not to formally meet your sons. I thought I saw one of them in . . . the grounds,’ said Stella.
‘They’re busy chaps. Working on a project, and running this place,’ said Broadbent.
Stephen swallowed the last of his sherry.
‘And what project might that –’ began Stella, but her husband signalled her to rise.
‘We must be leaving. Do say goodbye to your sons for me.’ He followed the older man down the hall, and Stella had no choice but to follow.
*
As they drove into the nearby village, questions tumbled through Stella’s head, but some instinct made her refrain from saying, I am sure that the son, whatever his name is, has been to Arcadia. I’m sure I saw him in our woods. More than once. Nyx knocked him over one time. He sneaks around. And I did run into him today, though he didn’t see me. And most of all, why didn’t you tell me that we were visiting your first wife’s brother and nephew? She decided that talking about Stephen’s first wife could be awkward in the confined space of the car, when neither of them could walk away. And she knew she couldn’t admit that she had been poking around in the cellar. ‘I saw a tunnel and a cave at the shore,’ she said instead.
‘You heard what Joseph said, there were smugglers around in the old days. A lot of ships were wrecked off the coast here.’
‘And his sons, what do they do? What is this “project”?’ asked Stella.
‘I have no idea. I haven’t seen either of them since they were schoolboys. They both went to university and I believe studied chemistry, science, some such thing. Before Hilda died I promised her that I would keep a friendly eye on her brother and nephews. Now, here is the guesthouse.’
Stella knew when a subject was closed. She drew a deep breath. Exhaustion now overcame her. She was physically tired from her ordeal, but her mind was spinning. She longed for sleep.
North-west Tasmania, 2018
‘That woman was pretty strange. Didn’t give us her name, and seemed to be a bit scared of her son,’ said Jessica as she and Sally drove away from Shelter Bay.
‘She didn’t ask who Broadbent was, though,’ said Sally. ‘It seemed to me like she’d heard the name before. She knows more than she’s letting on, I think.’
‘Maybe she was afraid of us. Who do you think drove away from Seawinds while we were there, and who was upstairs? We need to go back there,’ said Jessica.
