Ember Island Page 4

  •

  Even though it wasn’t the example of Eleanor’s writing I hoped to find, I was disappointed when it ran out. Through her writings, I knew Eleanor—Nell as her father called her here—only as an adult. This insight into her childish mind made me feel fondly towards her and I wished, certainly not for the first time, that I had been able to meet her. Mum met her and remembered her as a nice old lady who gave out lollies and wore bright pink earrings; but she died when Mum was a little girl.

  I switched off the lamp and lay down to sleep. I thought about Eleanor, once a young girl, now passed away. All times pass. Death came for us all and it would come for me. And that wasn’t the worst feeling in the world because then nobody could expect anything from me anymore. At length, I slept.

  •

  Stacy arrived on the first ferry service, a wheelie suitcase in each hand. One was mine, picked up for me from my mother’s house.

  “Thank you so much,” I said, taking the handle of my own suitcase and leading the way down the wooden jetty. The suitcase wheels bump-bumped in a rhythm over the old boards. “Did she ask any questions?”

  “Your mother? No. She’s used to you being a flake.” Stacy smiled at me from behind her big sunglasses. Her lipstick was bright red and her hair was in a tidy bun. She knew the long history of my reputation within my family.

  I’d known Stacy since primary school. We’d both started law school together, but I’d dropped out and she’d gone on to become a partner in a property law firm. Unlike my sisters, she never judged me for being flighty; and her pride in my creative achievements was genuine, not puzzled and forced.

  “There’s no pleasing her, so I’ve stopped trying,” I said.

  “I think she’s pretty proud of you now. She has your books on the mantelpiece, I noticed.”

  “She probably put them there because I was back in town.”

  “How far is it?” Stacy said, eyeing off the hill in front of us.

  “Half a kilometer. I should have told you not to wear heels.”

  “They’re wedges. They’re the most comfortable shoes I own.”

  “Should’ve brought flip-flops.”

  “Flip-flops? I don’t think so.”

  We bumped up the road with our suitcases, and shortly we were in the shade of the verandah.

  “So this is the legendary Starwater House,” she said, leaving her suitcase and leaning on the verandah railing. “And what a view. The bay is spectacular, isn’t it?”

  “One of the most beautiful places in the world,” I said. “Coming in on the plane, seeing it there below me . . . it always makes me so glad to be home.”

  Stacy turned and flipped up her sunglasses. “So this is home? You’re not a born-again Sydneysider?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t really know where I belong, Stace. I just know I don’t want to be in Sydney for a while. I’m happy here for the next few months.”

  “As am I. I miss you.”

  I smiled, probably awkwardly. I’m not great with openly stated affection. Blame my mother for that. “Come in. I’ll show you where you’re sleeping.”

  I took Stacy through to the other guest room and showed her where the bathroom was. While she was settling in, I upended the contents of my suitcase onto my bed. Fresh clothes. Toiletries. I gave myself a quick spray of deodorant. And the last four Widow Wayland books.

  Stacy was at the door. “I brought morning tea.” She held up a packet of chocolate biscuits.

  “I’ll put the kettle on.”

  We sat at the kitchen table with tea and biscuits. Stacy was beautiful—china-doll beautiful—with white skin and dark brown hair. I had always felt plain and undignified around her. It had been difficult having a beautiful, accomplished friend in every lecture theater with me at university, but that wasn’t the reason I dropped out. It was simply because I couldn’t keep up. I only scraped into the program, and there weren’t enough hours in the day for the amount of study I had to do to catch up. My sisters were both so clever—both of them had been head of our old high school in their senior years—and I was ordinary by comparison. It frustrated my mother, a fact she didn’t try to hide. She noted my lack of achievements, my dropping out, my running away to get married to a jazz musician and live under his parents’ house in the outer suburbs of Sydney as a teenager, and she interpreted it all as laziness or lack of motivation. She simply couldn’t believe that she and Dad had produced two geniuses and one dud. I had to be a genius who simply didn’t work hard enough.

  I hadn’t even told Mum when the first novel was accepted for publication. But then seven different countries began bidding for it after the Frankfurt Book Fair and long before I’d even seen the first printed copy of it, I had been in the media as the Australian girl made good. In that first newspaper photograph I looked like a deer in the headlights. My success ballooned out of all proportion to my talent. Ridiculous amounts of money began to flow towards me. At first Mum hadn’t taken a great deal of notice: Dad was sick and then he died, so her heart and mind were, of course, elsewhere. But when the BBC series went into production and one of her favorite period actors was cast as the Widow Wayland, then she started to talk about my books with grudging admiration.

  “It takes a lot of work, I imagine,” she said, “to write that many words all in the right order.”

  Meanwhile, my sisters worked very long hours building bridges and saving people’s lives, and my feelings of being a fraud intensified and intensified. In some ways, becoming a best-selling author was the worst thing that could have happened to me. Because one good book wasn’t enough. I had to do it again, and again. And, somehow, again.

  But sitting here with Stacy in Starwater’s kitchen, eating chocolate biscuits, I didn’t feel so singular, so apart from the rest of the world. I told her all about Cameron and Tegan, and I had a little cry and she patted my hand, and then she filled me in on gossip about old school friends and we laughed about the old days and she told me hilarious stories about her disastrous love life, and the morning passed sweetly and slowly.

  The kettle whistled, and Stacy said, “I can’t drink more tea. My stomach’s already sloshing. I packed my bikini. What’s the beach like?”

  I was already shaking my head. “Oh, no, no, Stace. It’s not that kind of beach. The sand is only there at low tide and I’m pretty sure there are sharks. But we can go for a walk down there if you like. We might see birds. Maybe dolphins.”

  “I’ll get my hat.”

  •

  The Aboriginal name for Moreton Bay was Quandamooka, which meant bay of dolphins, and Stacy and I both squealed with excitement when we saw a pod swimming past while we were sitting on the jetty that afternoon. Stacy had her phone out and was taking pictures within seconds, but none of them captured the glossy silver of their backs.

  “Ah, this is the life, Nina,” she said to me, slipping away her phone and leaning back. “I need more of this. Less of conveyancing meetings and more of dolphins.”

  “It’s whale season,” I said. “Though they pass through on the other side of the island. There’s a white one, like Moby Dick.”

  “Really?”

  “Apparently. I had a look through some of George and Kay’s whale-watching brochures.”

  “Ah, George and Kay. I wonder what they’re doing now. Probably spending up big on the money they owe you in rent.”

  I pulled my feet up under me. “I presume not. Things must have gone pretty badly for them to fold right before peak tourist season.”

  “You want me to find them for you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I should let it go . . . Though, Joe told me they left their boat here and he thought I should take it in lieu of rent.”

  “Well, you can’t do that legally, but I can contact them and see if they’ll do a deal if you like. Keep them out of court.”

  “I wouldn’t take them to court.”

  “You’re too kind. And who’s Joe?”

  “He worked for
them. Now he’s working for me. Handyman jobs and so on.”

  “Is he trustworthy?”

  I smiled and pushed her shoulder playfully. “You know, I can look after myself. I’m thirty-five.”

  “And you’re worth a small fortune. Be wary of who sniffs about.” She sighed, lay back on the warm boards. “With that in mind, can I come back soon? There’s nothing as relaxing as an island where my BlackBerry can barely pick up a mobile signal.”

  “You can come back any time. I’d be happy to have you.”

  •

  Another storm blew in that night, around midnight. The wind rattled at the windows and the rain bucketed down. I couldn’t imagine how the tarp could stay in place, and I couldn’t sleep worrying about how much water must be pouring into my lounge room. So I rose and turned on the hallway light, hoping it wouldn’t wake Stacy, whose door was ajar, and made my way down the corridor.

  I switched the light on. A steady drip fell from the ceiling next to the chimney, so I found a bucket in the kitchen to place under it. Joe had stripped the chimney wall back to the bricks and there was a lot of dust and plaster chunks on the floor, mostly caught by the sheet of painter’s canvas he had put down. It made it difficult to see if there was any other water seeping down the wall, so I ran my fingers along it. They came away dry. I found a torch in the drawer under the coffee table and shone it carefully on the wall up high, running it along the pattern of the mortar.

  Which is when I saw it. I would have missed it if I hadn’t already seen the same thing in the fireplace two days ago. A thin sheaf of papers. Standing on the coffee table, I couldn’t get my fumbling fingers into the crack to remove it, but with the help of a butter knife I set them free. I scanned the first page. More of her childhood diary; and while I was disappointed, it lit the fire of hope within me. There were a lot of bricks in Starwater, and I would simply get Joe to strip the wallpaper and plaster off them.

  If there were stories in the walls, I wanted to find them. I needed to find them all.

  FIVE

  Waiting on a Letter

  1891

  The last mail service for the day came and went, and Tilly finally conceded defeat. Another day without a letter from Jasper. That made twenty days in a row now.

  She slid away from the window, where she had been watching Mrs. Granger, the housekeeper, greet the postman with the most recent letter Tilly had written. But the postman had nothing to give her in return.

  Twenty days. Twenty letters she had sent. And nothing from her husband, nothing at all.

  Tilly sat on her bed for a few moments, struggling against her anxiety. In her darkest moments, she imagined Jasper dead, her letters being delivered to a silent house. But she couldn’t let Grandpa see her anxiety. He was so ill, hanging by such a fine thread, that if he believed his beloved Tilly was in some kind of distress it might very well kill him in an instant.

  She gathered herself, found her smile, and left her bedroom. She crept down the hall, listening for Grandpa’s breathing. In the quiet, she heard the turning of a page. He was awake and reading.

  Tilly knocked lightly, and Grandpa looked up. His pale face was lined and his cheeks drooped. She smiled at him, and he managed a breathless, “Hello, Tilly.”

  “Would you like me to read to you?” she asked, indicating the book.

  He nodded, and she pulled up a chair next to the bed. The late afternoon sun caught in the filmy white curtains across Grandpa’s wide windows, yellow-gold and soft. The night rolled in late at this time of year, which seemed cruel to Grandpa who was so very tired and needed soothing dark to sleep well. Tilly took his book from him—it was Victor Hugo’s Les Travailleurs de la Mer, one of his favorites—and began to read. Latin and Greek she had learned from the stern governess who taught her in her youth, but her French was from Grandpa. It was a language he adored, and he had taught it to Tilly in the precious, private hours they spent together since he had taken her in, orphaned, at the age of four.

  She read as the shadows lengthened outside the window. Grandpa’s turn at the wedding had been the start of an alarmingly fast decline. Tilly had made the decision—with Jasper’s unequivocal blessing—to stay with Grandpa and nurse him in his last days. Her husband had returned to his home in the Channel Islands, unable to take any further time away from his business.

  “I will write to you every day,” she’d said.

  “As will I, my dear,” he replied, and she’d believed him. She’d watched the carriage go and she’d believed him. And when the first week passed with no letter, she presumed the sea between her home and his had slowed it down and his letter would arrive in the second week or the third.

  Now she didn’t know what to presume. Where had his letters gone? Where under the stars was her husband and did he know she was worried about him?

  “That’s enough, Tilly,” Grandpa said. His wheeze had become a terrible rattle. “I’m tired now.”

  “Do you want me to draw the curtains so it’s dark enough to sleep?” Tilly said, closing the book.

  “No, no. I think a sunset is a beautiful thing. I have only a few left to see. I will lie here and watch the colors in the room change.”

  “I can stay with you, if you need company.”

  He waved her away. “You shouldn’t even be here now. You should be at your husband’s side. In your beautiful house.” Here he smiled and that familiar twinkle was briefly in his eye, before fading again to weak dullness.

  “I have a lifetime to be at his side, Grandpa,” Tilly said. “You didn’t turn your back on me when I was alone in need and nor shall I turn my back on you.”

  “I didn’t even turn my back on you through all those tantrums,” he said with a smile.

  Tilly’s cheeks flushed. “Well . . . I did learn to manage my temper eventually. Just.”

  “You are a good girl.” He patted her hand. “I wish things could have been . . . different.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m glad you met Jasper when you did.”

  “So am I.”

  Grandpa’s estate was entailed. His own father had specified only male descendants could inherit it. That meant Tilly’s cousin Godfrey could—and would—turn her out quickly and coldly when Grandpa died. The urgency for her to marry had been pressing on Grandpa in the last few years. He had money to offer the right suitor, money that Godfrey would never part with if he had the choice. There had been talk of Tilly marrying a family friend who was old enough to be her father, but Grandpa loved her too well to force her into a lifetime of companionship with a man she did not love.

  So yes. Meeting Jasper had been perfectly timed. Now if only Tilly knew if he was still alive. Because without him, when Grandpa died, Tilly had nothing.

  She smoothed Grandpa’s covers over him and kissed him good night, then let herself out of the room and headed down the stairs. Grandpa kept a small staff, and only Mrs. Granger was on tonight, quietly setting the table for Tilly’s supper.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Granger,” she said.

  “How is he?”

  “Much the same. Still very tired.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be up and about again soon.”

  Tilly didn’t answer. Mrs. Granger did not want to believe that Grandpa would die; she had worked for him for forty years. Tilly waited for her to finish setting the table, idly picking off the mantelpiece the card that Jasper had given her when they first met. On it was a woodcut engraving of his house, Lumière sur la Mer, on an island in the English Channel. The front path wound up between poplars to a tall house with arched windows. She hadn’t seen the inside, but knew it intimately from Jasper’s descriptions. The tiled entrance, the sweeping curve of the internal stairs, the ceiling-high bookshelves in the library. On the one hand, she longed to see it. On the other hand, she wanted Grandpa to live forever.

  “Will you eat, Miss Kirkland?”

  Tilly smiled at Mrs. Granger. “I’m Mrs. Dellafore now, remember?”

  �
�I am so sorry, ma’am,” she said with a deferential drop of her head.

  “We all have other things on our minds. Thank you. The soup smells delicious.” Tilly sat down to eat, but had little appetite. She couldn’t blame Mrs. Granger for forgetting she had a husband. He was nowhere to be seen.

  •

  The weather stayed fine and warm, boldly cheerful in the face of her cheerlessness. Another week passed without a letter, and Tilly spent a good many hours of every day debating with herself in her head about what this lack of correspondence meant. He was dead. He was busy. The letters had all become lost. They had been addressed incorrectly and would arrive in a bundle at the very next mail delivery. She tried not to let her terror seep into the letters she wrote to Jasper. She wrote lightly, gave news about the weather and the village, but always ended with a “please write soon; I long to hear from you, my love.”

  As always, she found her comfort in the garden. Summer rain had made the flowers riot through the beds, and between taming them and pulling weeds the long afternoons took care of themselves. She returned to the house in the evening, filmed with perspiration and soil, and sank into a perfumed bath to enjoy the dull ache of her muscles. She would go mad without the garden to tend. She didn’t know how other women could school themselves to an indoor life of watercolor painting and soft etudes on the pianoforte.

  Tilly spent as much time as she could in the mornings and evenings with Grandpa, reading to him and listening to his stories. It seemed the nearer his death drew, the better his memory of his early life became. He told her childhood anecdotes until he was hoarse. Her mind often wandered, but she did her best to listen to every small detail and smiled and laughed in all the right places. She could imagine nothing sadder than Grandpa being without company in his last days, and the gentle squeeze of her hand every time she left told her that he was glad she had stayed.

  •