Lyrebird Hill (32 page)

‘What lovely players,’ I told him. ‘Wherever did you get them?’

Lucien watched me in the candlelight.

‘I made them,’ he said dismissively. ‘Would you care for a drop of tea? It’s freshly brewed.’

I nodded and took my place at the table. As I stared at the carved players sitting on their polished board, I drew out my ebony wood talisman and sat her at the edge of the table.

‘For luck,’ I told Lucien, as he arranged an enamel pot of tea and two tin mugs carefully on the tabletop.

‘You’ll be needing plenty of that,’ he remarked as he poured the tea, and then gestured at the game. ‘Black goes first.’

I moved my central pawn, rethinking my strategy. I would clear a path for my rook, take out Lucien’s queen, and corner his king.

Lucien mirrored my move, and I gained confidence. Moving my second piece into the path of a white pawn, I watched as Lucien bypassed my bait and instead positioned his pawn in front of my bishop. I collected his piece, then realised I’d fallen into a trap.

My game went badly after that. Rather than attack, I seemed to continually move in a defensive manner. When I made a gap for my knight, Lucien positioned his bishop in readiness for the conquest. When I sent my queen out, she was immediately threatened by Lucien’s rook.

Lucien sat back, examining the board. At last he looked up at me and smiled, then slipped his queen in direct line with my king.

‘I’ve won your kiss,’ he said softly.

I withdrew my hands to my lap; they were suddenly damp. My heart pumped so furiously that my roaring blood deafened me. I dared to peek at Lucien.

‘You’re supposed to say, “checkmate”.’

His eyes gleamed in the candlelight. ‘Whatever you call it, you owe me a kiss.’

My tea had gone cold, but I drained the cup in a long swallow. I looked at Lucien. His hair coiled over his collar and his dark eyes watched me intently. Since our meeting in the glade, I had daydreamed of a moment where we might be alone
again; I had even constructed scenarios where he drew me near and kissed me.

Yet now that my dream was reality, I quaked with a sort of delicious fear.

‘Where shall I collect my prize?’ Lucien wanted to know.

My limbs were suddenly unreliable, so I gestured vaguely at the table. ‘Here’s as good a place as any, I suppose.’

Lucien got to his feet, and helped me to mine. I stood before him, just out of reach of the candlelight. My fingers shook, and warmth was rippling through me. I waited, leaning ever so slightly towards him.

Lucien gazed at my face, as if committing every detail to memory. Then he smiled regretfully. ‘I enjoyed our game, Mrs Whitby. I’m pleased you agreed to play with me; you are a worthy opponent. Your company is enough reward for me. Come on, I’ll walk you back to the house.’

I had not realised, until disappointment struck, how very much I had been looking forward to his touch; to feeling him, breathing him in; having him near.

‘But we had a wager.’

The candle wavered in the draught. Lucien’s smile seemed sad. ‘I really didn’t expect you to kiss me. I’m flattered that you’re prepared to, but . . .’ He shrugged, and his gaze softened. ‘You’re so very beautiful, Mrs Whitby. And I’m an ugly brute.’

I searched his face. In the muted light, he looked angelic, a boy with hair made ragged by the wind, and a bittersweet smile that, all of a sudden, filled me with warmth.

‘But a deal is a deal, Mr Fells.’

Moving nearer, I stood on my toes and reached up, gently cupping his damaged face in my hand, intending to perhaps place a dry, motherly peck on his cheek. At my touch, his eyes locked to mine and his lips parted, and I felt my inhibitions fall away, replaced by a yearning of such power that it drew me to
my toes and made me lift my mouth to his; but in the instant before our lips touched, Lucien jerked away from me and back-stepped into the shadows.

‘You mock me,’ he breathed, and his eyes gleamed with sudden tears.

‘No,’ I said, moving towards him, inexplicably desolate. ‘I would never—’

‘Please leave.’ He backed away and turned his face from the candlelight so that shadows engulfed his features.

‘Lucien . . .’

Moving through the shadows, he stalked to the other end of the room, where he slipped behind the heavy curtain and into his makeshift bedchamber.

Ashamed, I stared after him. When he didn’t reappear, I gathered my skirts and hurried to the door.

We’d all love to travel back in time and do it differently – avoid those mistakes we’re so ashamed of, work out more, save more money, say the right thing to that special girl or guy. Of course, time travel is a science-fiction dream; the only thing you can change now is your future.

– ROB THISTLETON,
FIND YOUR WAY

Ruby, May 2013

T
here should have been rain for a funeral. Grey skies, thunder. Boggy lawns and a generally dank, dreary atmosphere. But Granny H had never been conventional in life; why would she have been any different in death? The sun blazed in a perfect blue dome, and rainbow lorikeets dive-bombed the acacias, screeching and fighting over seedpods. It was a raucous day, a bright and dazzling glory of a day, and I wished that Esther could have been here to enjoy it.

In her honour I chose a fifties-style dress – deep indigo with neat collar and sleeves and a full, flattering skirt. I pondered my reflection for a while, then realised that my face didn’t match my outfit. Rummaging in the bottom of my make-up bag, I found a cherry-red lipstick that I hadn’t worn for ages. It was
an old favourite, but it hadn’t coordinated with the slimming black or charcoal hues that now dominated my wardrobe. I daubed it on, blotted on a tissue, and then stood back to admire the effect.

At nine o’clock I went onto the verandah to wait for Pete.

The ute pulled up on time, and the dogs craned over the side of the tray and wagged their tails – but I barely recognised the man who stepped out and strode towards me.

The beard was gone. He seemed a little lost without it, and his unease made him enticingly vulnerable. He had a square jaw and full mouth that, even as I stared, softened into a smile. It was a slow, sad smile, and it made the breath catch in my throat.

‘Hey,’ he said as he approached, and then stood at the base of the steps, looking up at me. He had combed his hair, and his face and hands were spotlessly clean. He wore an expensive-looking navy shirt, which enhanced the blueness of his eyes. The suit was dated – maybe as far back as the 1970s, which impressed me enormously; it had wide lapels and a light pinstripe, snug-fitting around his muscular arms and chest.

‘You scrub up well,’ I told him, unable to keep the admiration out of my voice. I could hardly believe my eyes when a faint flush of colour infused his cheeks. The dimples came out, and his teeth were white and straight behind the embarrassed smile.

I rattled Esther’s car keys from my pocket. Earlier in the week, Pete had given the old Morris a jumpstart and a clean-up. He’d handed over the keys, insisting that Esther wouldn’t have wanted me to be stranded out here. Today, I had decided, we would forego the dusty old Holden and travel to Esther’s funeral in style.

Two hours later, we were sitting at the front of the church, an arm’s length from Esther’s coffin. The casket was glossy black, simply decorated with a wreath of gumnuts and red roses.
While the minister spoke about a woman who had worked tirelessly for the environment, and had given most generously of her time to Landcare, and to WIRES, and was a benefactor of the local Indigenous organisation, my thoughts drifted to the wonderful storyteller I’d known as a child.

She had kept her door open to a pair of misfit kids, and given them the gift of stories; she had baked scones and brewed hot chocolate, and transformed the simple act of reading a book into an experience so thrilling and rousing that it had inspired endless hours of enthralment – acting out the tales, talking about them, living and dreaming them.

I had barely thought of her in the last eighteen years, but suddenly I missed her terribly. I wanted to go over to the casket and lift the lid, and see her kind face one last time. I wanted to rain tears on her and wake her up, like in the fairytale. And I wanted to tell her that I was sorry that I’d run away and forgotten her; sorry that the whole Jamie mess had turned me into someone I didn’t want to be, someone I’d hated so much that running was the only way I could stand to be around myself.

Sorry, too, that I’d huddled in my car and taken shelter from the storm beneath my cosy picnic rug, while she lay on the cold riverbank, pounded by the downpour, her blood trickling into the rocks. And later, while she lay dying in the sterile whiteness of the hospital, I had stalled and dithered, listening, in my mind’s ear, to Esther’s younger self as she related one final story.

Pete must have sensed the tremble that overtook me then, because he reached for my hand and enclosed it in his warm fingers. But although I felt a rush of gratitude for his kindness, I found myself withdrawing, giving his hand a quick light squeeze, then sliding it out of his grasp and back into my lap.

Pete was one of the pallbearers, so when he got up to attend the coffin, I trailed behind the stream of people making their way to the cemetery at the back of the church. Afterwards, Pete
found me and we lingered by the graveside until everyone was assembled, then he stepped forward and read a short verse – not from the Bible, but from Bram Stoker.

How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads, to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams. Well, here I am tonight, hoping for sleep, and lying like Ophelia in the play . . . I feel sleep coming already. Goodnight, everybody.

He placed the book on the coffin and said quietly, ‘Thanks for everything, old girl. Sleep in peace.’

Then he returned to his place by me, and as the coffin was lowered into the ground, he shifted so that his arm pressed against mine. We stood like that, shoulder to shoulder, while the minister recited the final benediction.

But it was Pete’s short reading that lingered. The beautiful words had brought to mind a very different scenario. I was sitting in Granny H’s tiny cottage, cross-legged on a mat on the floor, gazing up at Granny’s flushed face as she recited those very same words to us.

. . . sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams
.

Beside me on the mat, his arm resting comfortably against mine, sat a boy. A boy with freckles and dark unruly hair, a cheeky grin, and eyes the colour of a kingfisher’s wing.

I stole a look at Pete.

He hadn’t changed so very much. The face was older, craggier, carrying a few more scars and fewer freckles. The hair was longer, and the beard had, until today, finished off the job of hiding his boyish identity – but I knew him, and now that recognition had kicked in, I wondered how there had ever been a time when I
hadn’t
known him.

I tugged his sleeve.

He looked at me and his eyes were wet and his face raw with grief, yet somehow he found a smile for me.

‘I remember,’ I told him softly. ‘I remember you.’

Tears welled up out of my eyes, and I reached for his hand. He squeezed my fingers, and for a moment his strength and warmth were an anchor that held me secure in the violent deluge of emotion. Then he released me and I floundered, but only for an instant; suddenly I was in his arms, held firm, engulfed by the scent of pinewood and motor oil and Esther’s handmade rosemary soap.

And all the while, in my mind, the same words, over and over.

Why had I forgotten him? Why had I ever let him go?

Jamie was standing in the kitchen. She was red-faced, out of breath. Her hair was a windblown mess.

‘What’s up?’ I asked.

She ignored me.

Even when she was being a snobby cow, she was still the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. Once, her prettiness had made me feel proud; now, it only made me cranky. Answering her snub with a rude face, I went over to the sink and pulled out the strainer.

Mum came in from the garden with a basket of carrots and parsnips and leafy celery. She dropped the basket onto the benchtop and began unpacking the vegetables onto the sink. The silence must have alerted her that something was wrong, because she glanced around.

‘For heaven’s sake, Jamie. Look at your hair! What do you girls think it is, bush week?’

I gritted my teeth. It irked me how, if I did anything wrong, it was
Ruby, Ruby, Ruby
, but if Jamie acted up, it was
You girls
. I didn’t say anything, though, just filled the sink with water and grabbed the vegie brush. Cutting off the carrot fronds, I started scrubbing away the dirt.

‘Well?’ Mum said to Jamie. ‘Spit it out.’

Jamie flopped onto a chair with a loud sigh. Always the drama queen, making sure she had everyone’s attention.

‘You know that foster kid at Mrs Drake’s?’

My ears pricked and I glared at Jamie, feeling a rush of possessiveness. The Wolf was
my
friend, not hers. And why did she keep glancing across at me, her normally smooth brow puckered in a frown?