Nora staggered across Isabel’s room toward the landing. She paused in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, as another surge of blinding pain convulsed her body. That’s when she finally realized what was happening. Because she wasn’t alone at all. Her baby, her little Polly, was coming.
Jess leaned back against the garden seat, short of breath. She’d read the pages fast. Daniel Miller must have spoken to Nora at length to synthesize so much into a single scene: the police visit, Nora’s reaction to it, her actions afterward, and the surreal, terrifying start to her labor with Polly. It seemed that Nora had dissolved into a state ofpanic and terror after the policemen left, even if she’d evidently maintained a brave public face as they delivered their news. Jess could just picture her grandmother telling the officers she didn’t need anyone to stay, that she’d be just fine, thank you very much. That was Nora to a tee. Proud and as strong as nails.
And then there was Isabel’s journal. She couldn’t assume that Nora had given the journal to Miller, just because she was the one to find it. Her grandmother placed great value on privacy: it would have taken a lot for her to break those bonds of loyalty, especially where Isabel was concerned. But for Miller to depict it in his scene, she must have told him about her discovery that night in the storm...
Jess glanced at her watch and saw that it was well past time to leave for the hospital. She’d brought everything she needed with her when she left the house and now packed Miller’s notes into her bag.
She hurried toward the Darling House driveway, pulling out her phone to call a taxi as she went. As soon as she’d made the booking, her phone began to ring again, and Jess felt a stab of guilt when her mother’s name appeared on the screen. Readying herself to apologize for being so late to get in touch, she pressed the button to answer.
Later, she would look back on the day and struggle to remember the order of everything that came after. It was as if a mirror had been shattered, and the sharp, clear shards could not be put back together to form a whole.
There was:
The lonely taxi ride to the hospital. The surreal staleness of the warm back seat, the hot wind buffeting her face through the driver’s open window, the smell of carpet deodorizer and petrol fumes.
The shock of the tiny body in the bed, so frail, so quickly reduced, so empty.
The cold fingers, decidedly lifeless. The ribbon of memories of other versions of the same hand, warm.
The kindness of the nursing staff, whose work as caretakers of the dead Jess had never truly appreciated before.
There was a lot of business to be seen to after a death. The hospital had reassured Jess that they would keep Nora’s body safe until Jess had made arrangements with a funeral home; they had given her brochures to help. She had called Nora’s solicitor, who’d confirmed that Jess was her grandmother’s executor and suggested they meet in a week or so to run through Nora’s last wishes in more detail. Somehow, Jess had found herself able to converse quite articulately, hearing terms like “the body” without flinching.
Now, though, back in her grandmother’s house, a cold shudder passed through her. Darling House felt different. Jess had been staying there by herself since Monday, but that had been in the knowledge that Nora was only away temporarily, soon to return. Everything seemed to have lost its luster; the curtains, the cushions, the paintings on the wall had all slumped their shoulders in despond. Jess moved self-consciously among them, aware of herself as an interloper on their grief. She didn’t think she’d ever felt so alone in her life.
She wanted to ring someone, to hear a familiar voice. She considered calling Rachel, but it was still only four in the morning in London. She’d be sure to wake the kids and for what? To tell her best friend, a busy working mother, that her grandmother had died? Even saying the words in her mind, she knew that they failed to convey the gravity of the situation. It wasn’t just that her grandmother had died. Nora had died.
The afternoon stretched ahead interminably. Jess knew there were people sheshouldtell—Mrs. Robinson, Patrick, Nora’s friends—but she preferred to live in denial for just a little bit longer. When Polly had first told her, all those hours and deserts ago, Jess had made her repeat the news, thinking, as her shock-shattered mind sought a way to put things right, that perhaps it was a dark joke of some sort. Polly did not make such jokes, as a rule, but the only other possibility was that her mother was speaking in earnest, and that was impossible to accept.
Jess was aware of every minute increment of the clock hands, making their way around the dial above the doorway. Eventually, desperate to turn her attention somewhere—anywhere—else, she took out Miller’s book and opened it to where her bookmark lay. Here was the start of the investigation, just as Nancy had foreshadowed. It was something concrete and structured for her to lose herself in. Wasn’t this the theory about crime and mystery books? That their appeal lay in the promise of order restored in a disordered world?
Jess couldn’t remember. All she knew was that Daniel Miller’s book was what her grandmother had been reading when she died, and within its pages she would find Nora, still alive and with her whole life ahead of her; still able to surprise Jess with the things she said and did.
As If They Were Asleep
Daniel Miller
13
The South Australia Police Force Headquarters stands at 1 Angas Street in the middle of Adelaide’s central business district. Even at its busiest, Adelaide, with its wide streets and elegant two-story buildings, is more like an amiable country town than a bustling metropolis. On the afternoon of Thursday, December 24, 1959, it was a ghost town. Inside the police offices, a small but cheerful Christmas tree in the corner of the reception had been stripped of its edible decorations and the office staff sent home. Only Sergeant Peter Duke, who’d stayed behind to tackle a mountain of paperwork, was on deck to take the call when it came through. “Jesus,” he said when his Adelaide Hills colleague, Mounted Constable Hugo Doyle, finished his brief report. “How many kids did you say?”
His first call after that was to the government analyst, where he was met with a distant ringing that fell away eventually to dial tone. He glanced at the clock above the portrait of Her Majesty and, seeing that it was only quarter past five, tried the number again. Drumming his fingers on his desk, he sat through the ringing all the way to the end before pressing the receiver buttons to clear the line.
His second telephone call was to the West Terrace morgue, where Dr. Larry Smythson picked up on the first ring, just as Peter had expected he would. The two men had started in their prospective fields at the same time, two decades ago, and enjoyed a mutual respect, each having recognized in the other a similarly dogmatic attitude toward duty. “Larry,” said Sergeant Duke. “Glad I caught you.”
“G’day, Peter. I take it you’re not ringing to wish me a happy Christmas?”
Peter Duke’s third call was to his wife, Annie, who was at that moment putting the finishing touches to the crystal compote of glazed cherries she was readying for the dining room buffet table. She’d bathed Samantha and Pete Jr., and the pair were playing with the new puppy on the front lawn, waiting for their father to get home and the guests to start arriving for the annual Duke family Christmas Eve dinner. The tradition was one that Peter’s Lutheran family had brought with them on the boat from Germany, and Mrs. Greta Duke, Peter’s mother, took its proper continuation very seriously indeed.
Annie wiped her sugar-dusted fingertips on her apron and took up the telephone receiver from the kitchen wall, tucking it beneath her chin. “Duke residence.”
“Annie, it’s me.”
“Oh, Pete, no—”
“I’m sorry, love.”
“Peter!”
