He was showing no signs of recovery, even though modern medicine was soadvanced, and her herbal remedies had been religiously dished up and she had prayed and prayed, to God and Allah and Shiva and Apollo. All gods were welcome to contribute, because who knew how miracles worked? She had not given up, but she needed to hurry. ‘David is in there.’
‘What? Your boy?’
‘Yes.’ She looked down at her feet and noticed that for some inexplicable reason she was wearing her gardening shoes. She hadn’t gardened for weeks. There was a surreal sense of detachment, a numbness, so that she was not herself and yet she walked and stood as if she were her ordinary self. She had walked through the tulip gardens to get here and thought about all those times David had run around those gardens as a boy each September or October, and all the photographs of him in the climbing tree in those gardens, or holding fairy floss during the tulip festival. Photos with grins and poked-out tongues and then acneas the years went on, until fairy floss was no longer cool and he wouldn’t pose anymore. That was when he was fifteen, which was when everyone said they were difficult—and that was barelyyesterdayfor goodness’ sake.God help her, it was moments or minutes later now, and Tom was still staring at her while her beautiful boy was wasting away.
‘He’s sick?’ said Tom, frowning, a fleeting panic in his eyes as he realised this was not the conversation he expected. And that perhaps he was ill-equipped for such a conversation. Henrietta took care of their conversations. Tom was the backup. He fetched the tea. Henrietta would know what to say. Tom had no clue.
Phyllida looked at her shoes again and realised the caked-on dirt from her garden might be a problem, because of germs, which might be fatal to the people inside the hospice where her son was lying, and then she almost laughed except her breath fell out of her. Her mouth was dry so that thick spittle coated her tongue, making her words sound strange. ‘I need to go in.’
He nodded, this near stranger from her garden club, whom she saw just a few times a year. ‘I’m sorry, Phyllida.’
She nodded back at him, and for some reason she could not explain, she reached out and took his hand. ‘You are a good man, Tom Thompson.’ Her eyes flooded with tears as his warm, weathered hand squeezed hers. Deep brown eyes, unwavering. She felt the rough hands, was returned to childhood, to the steady wisdom of her grandmother in that dark shed; the love of a silent heart. And for some reason she didn’t have time to ponder now, she felt less alone.
31
PHYLLIDA
NOW, NSW SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS, AUSTRALIA
Lottie has been in. She has been sitting by the bed. Phyllida felt the warmth of Lottie’s hand holding her own and had focused on its comfort. The warming of her cold skin.
It is strange, this existence between life and death. Phyllida hovers, right at the edge of something. It’s as if she is about to reach out and grab it, but when she does, it slips through her fingers, like smoke. Her whole life has been like this. Indelibly true, and yet not quite …there.
She has not allowed herself to wallow in regret. To think about her life without a partner, or about what she had stolen from Francis. To think about Cricket; the girl’s reckless rage; her damaged soul. She cannot abide it. She writes her sadness, her remorse at times past, and seals the letters and puts them away. She carries on. Sometimes the smile is an effort, butlife is for living. The letters kept her grounded in the present with one eye to tomorrow.
Occasionally, Phyllida still thinks of her first affair of the heart,James.Is he still alive? Did he marry an American? What went through his head each time he read the newspapers that blared out her name—her old name—Dorothea Stewart? Did he flinch, wondering how he had once made love to a thoughtful, bookish girl but had somehow missed her potential to shoot a gun at a man’s heart? She pictures his dear earnest face. Poor James.
She wants to say to Lottie, to Miriam,happiness is a choice. Yes, she was lonely, after David died. She was still a young woman. Only fifty. Still had the remnants of her looks. Plenty of energy. If she’d married it might have changed things. Might have given her someone to chat to about the state of things; whether Australia should become a republic for example, back when that was all anyone talked about—she’d prefer it not to be, but she’d probably forfeited the right to an opinion when she’d burned up so many resources of the British police. Their bungled efforts to find her had come as no surprise; her father had called in a favour; used the best master forger for their false passport and other documents. Cost a fortune for a rush job, he’d complained. (The chance to lament the extortionate cost was never going to be wasted simply because there was a hurried final goodbye to get through in the dead of night. Her father loved her dearly, but he was a Scotsman first and foremost.)
Phyllida pondered the qualities of this imaginary husband of hers. He would have been solid. Unflappable. He would have talked her out of her momentary insanity when she’d stockedthe pantry with so many cans of vegetables before the Y2K bug arrived, even though she’dknownit was all silly.
A husband might have soothed her too over the injustices of the world. The things she couldn’t change. Instead, she’d read books and pondered life and the nature of death. She had remained single and stayed in the background. The orphanage she supported; the charities, they were not using her skills, simply her funds. Money was not enough to put things right, but it was all she could think to do.
She certainly hadn’t done the only thing that might have made a difference. Return to Francis. Is that the reason she is still alive?
She wants to break from this heaviness. She wants to wake. There is obviously more to understand. More to do. She will work to get better.
Phyllida wills herself to live.
32
LOTTIE
NOW, NSW SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS, AUSTRALIA
The blackness is almost complete, clouds shrouding the earlier hint of moonlight. As I walk towards the bookshop there is the rustle and scurry of a possum up a tree, the distant hum of the highway and the high-pitched sounds of night insects. My phone torch is a feeble shimmer into the pre-dawn darkness. I couldn’t sleep, and a sense of disquiet has settled through me since we found the newspaper articles. A feeling that the past needs to be shaken free. Sooner rather than later.
Streetlights in our village are sparse and the towering cypress hedges cast walls of shadows onto the already black footpaths. At the granary door, I fiddle with Phyllida’s shop keys, stabbing in near blindness at the lock. Inside, I lock the door behind me and step carefully, with only the light of my phone until I reach the lights further along the wall.
I breathe deeply to keep my nerves in check. It’s not as if I’m breaking in. I’m in charge, at least until Phyllida gets better. I’msupposedto be here. There is a burgeoning sense of something opening up inside me; a sense of arrival. I can no longer rely on my mother. She is doing her best, sorting through her own problems in therapy, but I need to create some distance between us until I work out my feelings about all this. And now the tables have turned, I need to provide the support for Phyllida that she’s always provided for me.
What must she have gone through if she really is Dorothea Stewart? What could cause her to kill someone? Could she really have taken a baby from that house and raised him as her son? It had all felt impenetrably difficult to comprehend, and then it occurred to me yesterday, there must be something in the locked room below the shop. Is that why Phyllida has never let me down there? I picture her face. Her kind, calm way of distracting me from things she does not wish to discuss. She has done this for my whole life. But I’m not a child anymore, and if she needs my help, this feels like the obvious next step.
I stand at the trapdoor to the cellar, examining the padlock, then remove the bolt-cutters from my bag. Last night I’d asked the guy at the hardware shop for some big-arse metal snippers that would break the padlock into a secret underground cellar, and he had looked at me as if I might be the most incompetent serial killer he’d ever met. He’d then mansplained the history of bolt-cutters and their limitations unless the padlock was bad quality, in which case I could get lucky. This padlock is small, and as I fit the blades and push, there is a satisfyingthwunkas the metal breaks.
My mouth is dry as I step into the blackness of the cellar, heart thumping wildly in my chest. I feel around for a light switch. Nothing. I head back to the kitchenette and grab Phyllida’s torch from beneath the sink. The stairs are narrow and I have to step carefully. The roof is barely six feet high and the temperature has dropped markedly. I edge forward, feeling around, until I eventually find a light switch. A bulb flares from across the room. Cobwebs hang in artistic patterns across the faces of the sandstone blocks. Along one wall are four clear plastic tubs that appear to hold paperwork. I open one. It is full of sealed letters. I pick up a handful and look through them. All of the envelopes are pristine. They are sealed, stamped and addressed but have never been postmarked. It seems they were never sent. Each letter is addressed to the same person.
Francis Fitzhenry.
