“I don’t know all the details. I was more concerned with supporting Nora. But I know there was evidence: things Mrs. Turner had written that suggested a depressive state of mind, loneliness, a desire to be free of it all, that sort of thing. From memory, there was a consequential tip-off to police; someone testified—a priest, maybe?—that she’d asked him whether it was ever justified for a parent to leave her children behind. Her own mother had killed herself, as I understand it, leaving her alone in the world. Evidently, she decided it was better for all concerned to take her kids with her.”
It was difficult to know what to say after that blunt assessment. Jess’s gaze fell upon the toddler, who was growing fractious, less stable on his feet as he capered wildly away from his weary mother.
“I’m sorry, I know I sound unkind,” Mrs. Robinson said, without a lick of contrition in her voice. “But as a mother, it’s impossible to accept that a woman could do such a thing. It changes you, motherhood. Gives you a whole new range of feelings.”
Jess smiled with stiff politeness. She refrained from pointing out that being childless did not mean she was incapable of finding filicide abhorrent.
Mrs. Robinson remained blissfully unaware that she had caused offense. “And then, after Nora had finally put all of that behind her, twenty years later the little one’s remains were found, bringing it all back home again. Thea—such a pretty name. Police were confident from early on that she’d been taken by dogs, but it was still a shock for your grandmother to have it confirmed.” Mrs. Robinson watched as the group of teenagers gathered up their bikes and backpacks, ready to head for home. “The bones turned up in a garden bed near the house, Mrs. Turner’s rose garden. Nora could never stand roses after that. No way she could have known, but she’d heard those dogs in the night. There was a brutal storm, she said, and in the break between bouts of rain they were howling to one another.”
Over by the swings, the toddler’s good luck had worn out and he tripped to fall forehead first against the steel support. Jess winced as she watched, but the boy’s mother didn’t panic, sweeping him into a cuddle and hushing him as she bore him back to the stroller, where he was strapped into place for the walk home.
“It’s horrible, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Robinson, who had also been observing the scene. “To think of that little baby, all those years alone in the garden. So many people looking for her and she’d been right there, close to the house, all along. I know it haunted your grandmother.”
Jess felt a shadow of melancholy fall across her. The thought that her grandmother had withheld so much on a subject so intrinsic to her inner life was deeply upsetting. She wished Nora had trusted her. She wanted to tell her grandmother that she shared her grief and understood what she’d lost.
The playground had emptied, the teenagers having disappeared over the crest of the hill, and the conversation seemed to have reached its natural conclusion. Jess walked with Mrs. Robinson back towardthe street. As they reached the edge of the playground, Mrs. Robinson said, “How are things at the house? Does it need a clean? I usually call on Fridays, but I didn’t get a chance to finish things last week.”
Jess told her there was no need. “It’s only me there. Wait and come before Nora gets home. That way it will all be perfect for her return.”
They shared an awkward embrace. “Thank you for agreeing to meet,” Jess said. “I really do appreciate it.”
“I’m glad I did.” Mrs. Robinson hesitated, as if choosing her next words carefully. “It feels right to have told you. In certain ways, I’ve often thought all of that business explained why your grandmother was so close to you.”
“How do you mean?”
“When they found that poor little baby’s remains, you were a tiny new thing yourself, only just a year old. You and your mother were still living at Darling House, and I’d find your grandmother standing in the open doorway to your room, just watching, reassuring herself that you were okay. I sometimes think she felt that by keeping you safe, she could somehow make up for what she saw as her failure to save that little baby.”
Jess smiled; she didn’t mention to Mrs. Robinson that Nora had confided once that she’d had good reason for worrying about her safety when she was a baby.
“She adored you. Near broke her heart when your mother moved you both out. You didn’t go far, but Polly was never one for visiting. Poor Nora was so alone, there were times I thought it was more than she could bear. Even after everything she’d suffered, I think that was her lowest point.”
“But I came back in the end.”
Mrs. Robinson’s eyes had glazed with tears, but now she smiled. “You did. And my goodness, that made her happy. It was like a second chance, she said. Those were her very words. And she was determined to take it.”
By the time Jess arrived back at Darling House, it was nearly half past eight. Dusk was falling across the garden and the last of the day’s sun had turned the western horizon a luminous pink. The Opera House sails were in silhouette, and she was struck by a memory of Isabel Turner’s black cockatoos, their feathered quiffs raised as they wreaked havoc in the walnut tree at Halcyon.
Jess had never been to Isabel Turner’s garden in South Australia, and yet she saw it in her mind’s eye with the clarity of a childhood place, buried deep within the visceral part of memory: the gracious sweeping driveway, the line of gum trees on the highest ridge, the kitchen garden with its small fishpond and greedy cat...
She was still processing everything Mrs. Robinson had told her as she let herself into the entrance hall of Darling House. That her grandmother had been at Halcyon when the bodies of Isabel Turner and her children were found by the side of the creek was a shock—even more of a shock that she’d been pregnant then with Polly.
Jess was doubtful that the Turner tragedy would have had any direct impact on a newborn baby, but it had certainly been traumatic for her grandmother. The distress, as Mrs. Robinson said, had been enough to send her into labor... No wonder Nora had felt herself so tightly bonded to her baby.
Jess heated up a slice of Mrs. Robinson’s lasagna and ate standing at the bench. When she was finished, she stacked her plate in the dishwasher and headed upstairs. She took a shower but cut it short when she found herself leaning against the tiles with her eyes closed, drifting off to sleep while the warm water rained over her.
Exhaustion always made her senses raw, and the smooth, cool sheets were a delight as she climbed into bed. The window was ajar, and Jess was aware of every sound outside: the boughs of the great oak creaking, an eastern koel making its “coo-ee” call, an ambulance siren wailing across town. She opened her phone to have a last scrolland found the news sites full of ads offering Christmas suggestions. A list promising “the perfect gift for Mum” brought a crashing reminder: she had meant to try Polly again before the day was done.
Jess considered ringing now, but decided she was too tired to face it. She promised herself, sternly, that she would call first thing the next morning and programmed a reminder in her phone to be sure.
There were no new emails to read before bed. No surprise there—it had only just gone 9:00 a.m. in London—but the email she’d tapped out to Daniel Miller’s trust, she noticed, was still sitting in her drafts folder.
Jess read it over, her finger hovering above the send arrow. Finally, satisfied with what she’d written, she sent it into cyberspace. The whooshing sound caused a small current of excitement to zip along her spine.
With a broad yawn, Jess plugged her phone in to charge and nestled back against the pillows. Picking up Daniel Miller’s book, she opened to the next chapter. She smoothed the page, enjoying its powdery age against her fingertips, and paused just for a single anticipatory instant before letting her gaze find the first words.
Jess had expected the new chapter to lead her back to Christmas Eve morning in Tambilla, where a family was just waking up to the happy chaos of a festive morning, no idea yet of the horrifying events awaiting them.
What she hadn’t anticipated, bringing with it an immediate, incandescent sense of something very much like déjà vu, was finding her grandmother’s name at the start of the first sentence.
