They walked along the foreshore, even though it took longer than going via the streets. Jess liked to walk with her mother. Polly was shy with other adults, but not when it was just the two of them. She knew a lot about nature, and although she wasn’t one for volunteering information or lecturing her daughter, she could always be counted on to notice and share small instances of beauty. The curled side of a gray-green gum leaf, a delicate discarded nest, the way an Illawarra flame tree in flower was a firework against a deep blue sky. They never managed a trip down to the beach without amassing a collection of seaweed and shells and elegant pieces of driftwood that would then be carted home and displayed on windowsills or turned, by Polly, into a striking mobile, or even, on one occasion, a spidery dreamcatcher for Jess. Polly had nailed the delicate creation into the ceiling directly above Jess’s bed. “Don’t tell the landlady,” she’d said. “I don’t think she’d approve.” And then they’d smiled at one another, because the apartment was owned by Jess’s grandmother and not by a “landlady” at all. Moments like that were Jess’s favorite. Her mother didn’t make many jokes. She had a face that always managed to look slightly sad, even when its owner was not.
On this walk, however, Jess’s mum was quieter than usual. She was thinking about the funeral, Jess supposed, as they emerged from the trail, removed their shoes, and walked down onto the white sand of Queens Beach. Jess’s mum hadn’t known her English uncle, but she was the sort of person who felt other people’s unhappiness as if it were her own. Once, Jess had told her about a girl at school bullied by the other children. They called her names, rushing to jump off the monkey bars if she tried to use them, yelling excitedly to one another that they’d “catch” something if they didn’t move quickly. Polly’s eyes had welled with tears as she listened, and ever since she made a point of chatting with the girl at the school gate if they happened to cross paths.
Now, Jess’s mum went all the way down to the shoreline, but she wasn’t hunting for shells or sticks or the pale, faded skins of sea creatures. She was standing, looking out across the water, her arms by her sides, a finger through the straps of her good sandals. Jess went to stand beside her. She had a feeling they were thinking the same thing. It would be sad to leave the ocean when they moved to Brisbane, but her mother said there’d be a river there instead, and lots of sunshine, and in the summertime big storms that would end as quickly as they arrived, leaving the air behind them clean and fresh. Polly had a new job. She’d told Jess over dinner one night and the ends of her sad mouth had flickered when she said it so that Jess could see that the prospect made her happy. They were going to live in a place called Paddington, in their own house, which would be made of a type of timber called chamfer boards, and have a roof not of tiles but of shiny corrugated iron.
Jess had liked that word—“corrugated”—and her mother had smiled when she said so and found a picture in a magazine to show her what it was. The reality had been very satisfactory, the word a perfect fit for the undulating waves of iron sheeting. She—Jess—would have to start at a new school, Polly cautioned, which wouldn’t be as fancy as the one she was due to attend in Sydney, and she would have to make new friends, but Jess said that was fine with her. The truth was, she didn’t have many good friends to leave behind, though she never would have told her mother, who’d only have seen it as another thing to worry about.
“Did you tell Nora about Brisbane?” Jess asked.
“Not yet. Not today.”
“When?”
“Soon. When she’s not so sad about her brother.”
Jess considered this. It made sense, but she couldn’t help noticing that her mum always seemed to have a reason to put off speaking to Nora about the move. Ordinarily, Jess might have pushed harder, but today she had other matters on her mind.
They were holding hands now, and the air smelled of salt and brine, and a sailboat was balancing on the very edge of the horizon, and Jessdecided there was no time like the present. “What is halcyon?” she asked.
Her mother’s grip on Jess’s hand tightened. “I don’t...” she began, the sentence catching in her throat. “Where did you hear that word?”
“I heard Nora say it today. I looked it up in the dictionary, but it didn’t sound like a good thing when she said it.”
Jess wondered whether her truthful answer was going to lead to further questions as to how she happened to overhear her grandmother’s private conversation, so it was a pleasant surprise when her mother said simply, “It’s a house.”
She’d spun on her heel and was walking back toward the grass.
A house. Jess turned the answer over in her mind as she ran after her mother. It was difficult to understand how a house could be a millstone, particularly to her grandmother, who collected houses as keenly as Jess collected words. “Where is it? Where is Halcyon?”
“In the middle of nowhere. Far away from here.”
And then Jess understood. “Halcyon” was the name of her grandmother’s brother’s house—a burden, she supposed, because it was so very far away. All the way across the sea in England. “That’s why Nora wants to sell it.”
Jess’s mother glanced at her and the little frown line appeared between her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“She wants to sell itat once.”
“How do you know?”
Jess hesitated. To say more risked inviting admonishment for eavesdropping. But Polly really did look worried, even more so than usual, and so Jess said, “I heard her today. She was talking to a man. She said that Halcyon was a millstone and must be soldat once.Was it her brother’s house?”
Jess’s mum nodded.
“Maybe it makes her sad to think of her brother’s house sitting all alone in the middle of nowhere?”
“I’m sure that’s what it is,” said Polly, and then they’d reached thewinding set of concrete steps that led back up to the road, and Jess had started running to the top the way they always did, turning to call over her shoulder for her mum to hurry up because she was being unusually slow.
“Hello, stranger!”
Jess looked to where someone was standing now at the top of the Darling House driveway. It took her a moment to reposition herself in the present and let the ghost of an afternoon thirty years before recede. Mrs. Robinson had one hand lifted against the glare of the setting sun and was waving the other.
Jess returned the greeting: “Hello!”
“I bring offerings,” the housekeeper called, pointing toward the basket on the ground as Jess started making her way up the grass hill. “Some mail for your grandmother and a lasagna for you.”
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” said Jess, as she reached Mrs. Robinson’s side.
They embraced, and Jess was surprised by how easy it was and by the depth of fondness she felt for the other woman. “Come inside for a cuppa?” she suggested.
