Portraits of Celina (10 page)

I drop to the floor, draw my legs up to my chest and wrap my arms around them. I know I have been ranting, that I’ve lost my temper for no good reason.

Gran and Mum seem too shocked to answer. They examine the photo album in silence.

Finally, Gran shuts the album with purpose. “You have no idea what it was like, young lady.” Her mouth is tight, lipless, her shoulders tense. “It was a very dark time for the whole family. It nearly killed your pop. And it was in our faces all the time – everywhere we went: in the papers, on the TV, the radio, in the sympathetic expressions of our friends and neighbours. There was no relief – not for a minute and after a while, it gets to you, Bayley. It really gets to you.”

Gran’s agitation vibrates through me. She gets up and walks to the window. Parts the curtains, peers out. “I don’t know if you realise,” she says more to the lake than to me, the tiny crystals dangling from her ears glinting in the mellow light, “but Celina was more than a niece to us. We were close – she was almost like another daughter. And when Pat and Mary died it was the last straw; it had been heartbreaking enough for Pop to watch his favourite little brother and his beautiful wife suffer so much, trying to come to terms with something too terrible even to contemplate … then for them to die in such tragic circumstances, well, it was more than we could bear. Pop collected up the photos and articles and other bits and pieces and put them in a special box in the trophy cabinet. He couldn’t stand having them stare at him all the time. We came up here and sent everything off to charity – it’s what Pat and Mary would have wanted. But the house was loaded with too many painful memories and that’s why we boarded it up and abandoned it. I wanted to sell – but your pop couldn’t. Is that enough information for you?”

Gran turns to face me. “I know you have had your fair share of tragedy, Bayley, but that doesn’t give you the excuse to take it out on me like that.”

I hold back my tears. I want to say that it has nothing to do with Dad, nothing to do with what we have been through. That it has everything to do with the hammering in my head that is telling me that for some reason Celina is communicating with me. And I don’t know why. Or what to do. But I clamp my lips and hug my legs tighter.

“I think I’ll go for a bit of a walk,” says Gran. “Check out that lake.” She leaves the album on my bed, steps over the air mattress and pushes past me. She is close to tears, and I feel like a bitch.

Mum slips past me without a saying a word – she also is ready to bawl.

Well done, Bayley. Proud of yourself?
I kick out at the chest and the lid slams shut with a resounding thud.

I have to face it. Celina O’Malley has become an obsession.

It is middle-of-the-night still, and I close the kitchen door behind me, turn on the light, place my laptop on the table and boot it up. The curtains puff in the wind, making me jump. I yank down the window. I am so edgy these days.

I type “Celina O’Malley” “missing persons” into Google and am amazed initially that we actually have internet connection, and then to discover numerous hits.

I click on the first link. It is a New South Wales police force site. I scroll down the page until there, right before me, in stark black-and-white, is a photo of a serious-looking Celina with the caption:
Celina O’Malley, missing since April 7, 1975. Aged 16
.

Seeing this documented in such an official way makes it much more real. I click out of the site, out of Google. I can’t bear to see Celina’s face like this – in a police file, among the countless other missing persons. Empathy for Gran and Pop, and Aunty Mary and Uncle Pat and what they must have gone through, followed by disgust at my own outburst, swamps me.

But with a ghoulish fascination, I reopen the link.

Celina was last seen as she left for school at around 7.30 am. She had arranged to meet a friend at the bus stop on Greenhill Road, but never arrived. Despite an extensive search of the area, she has not been seen or heard of since. Police hold grave concerns for her safety
.

Reported to Tallowood Police Station
.

Was she meeting Deb? Or Suzie? Or this Robbie – if he’s real and not someone I’ve dreamed up? Did they think something was wrong, or did they get on the bus, thinking Celina was sick or late? How did they feel when they realised something terrible had happened? I can’t imagine how I would cope if Loni disappeared like that.

I skim through the other links and trawl through the information. The other sites say much the same thing, but with each site and each listing, my insides tighten and twist. I feel as if Celina is standing behind me, peering over my shoulder. I snap my head around. There’s no one there. Of course. But I have come to realise that just because you can’t see something, it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

I keep trawling. I note the continuous mention of the “extensive search”, the “thorough investigation” and how they had “exhausted all leads”. I find an article about how a band of about ninety volunteers from the surrounding district, led by the shire president himself, searched for more than six weeks after the police search was called off.

I lean back in my chair. My brain checks through all the things that have happened since I got here, the information I have gathered. Celina wants me to do something – I’m sure of it. It’s as though she has been waiting all these years for me to open the peace chest and put on those jeans.

But what is it? And why doesn’t she simply tell me, instead of giving me tiny glimpses of her life? Does she want me to find her remains? Uncover the truth? Find her killer? I go all goosebumpy. And for some reason the image of that stranger and his haunting words
Holy mother of God! Holy mother of God!
come back to me. Instinctively, my eyes lift to gaze out through the window towards the lake, and my nostrils fill with that sickening smell. That snarling face looms large in my mind’s eye. But why? Wasn’t that Oliver’s pop?

This is crazy!

I turn my thoughts to the phantom Robbie and whether he existed or not, and whether the other things I have “seen” actually happened. The best person to help me here is Deb. I search for a website for Deb’s store and find a rudimentary homepage with contact details.

I compose an email.

I press send before I can change my mind.

I know the questions about Celina running away are stupid though. I know Celina is dead. Know that a dead girl is communicating with me.

I step into the stillness of the early morning. The air is crisp and, setting out across the gravel towards the lake, I am transported back to happier times – to those mornings a lifetime ago when the world was barely awake and I would slip on my joggers and head down the hill to the beach with Dad before even the streetlights had blinked off. The sun’s first rays bursting from the horizon. The surf fresh and silvery-blue. Sand squeaking beneath my shoes. The wind in my hair.

This morning, the lake is smooth and shiny, but to the south, banks of towering dark clouds loom, threatening to spoil the early brilliance.

I take what seems like a track leading from the jetty to the southern edge. The track follows the shoreline for as far as I can see. I am almost tempted to run. Here. Right now. To stride out, pound my way along the track. But I don’t. Running was part of my life before. It has no place now.

I round a bend. The landscape here is very different to the rocky northern side. Here it is open paddocks. Fences. A few horses grazing in the distance. This land can’t belong to us, and I wonder if I am trespassing. The hills roll into the darkening horizon, leading, I suppose, to Oliver’s house somewhere.

Oliver. My attention turns to the lake.

And I am not disappointed. In the radiance of the low sun on the lake, I see that I am not alone. A single kayak is making a path from south to north.

Oliver. Training.

Oliver. Determined. Disciplined.

Working hard to achieve his goals. I envy him – wish I had the guts to be following my dreams, to be training again.

I stop and watch – the strength of each stroke, the smooth efficient pull through the water – and wonder what is going on between him and Amelia. Where and when did they meet? I feel a stab of jealousy.
Jeez, Bayley, get over yourself
.

I shrink back into some bushes before he spots me, just as the first spits of rain wet my face. Crap! I hadn’t noticed how swiftly the dark clouds had won over the blue. I turn up the collar of my jacket, say a silent farewell to Oliver and charge off – aware of the maddening nervous flutter in my chest that seems to erupt whenever I set eyes on him.

I scoot round the back of the house to slip inside through the laundry. It’s about half six and I am soaked to the skin. The damp drizzle had given way to a sharp downpour with little warning. What is it with the weather round here?

I yank off my jacket, toss it on the floor and grab a towel from the shelves that are masquerading as a temporary linen press. I dry off my face, then tip my head over to towel my hair dry.

There are voices in the kitchen. I wind my hair into a towel turban on top of my head, and lean my ear to the door. Who could be up this early?

“Now, don’t be getting yourself in such a stew, Kath.” Gran.

I wait for Mum to respond, but all I hear is what sounds like crying. “I’m just hopeless,” is my mother’s eventual reply. “I’m here, what – three days – and I have to call you to come to my rescue. Again.”

“That’s what mothers are for, Kath, you know that. Don’t beat yourself up – you’ve been through a heck of a lot, what with David, and then Amelia acting up …”

“I don’t know if I’m strong enough to face this out here, alone. What was I thinking?”

“You’re only trying to do what’s best, love.”

“But my best isn’t even near good enough, is it? I thought this was going to be perfect. That it would be what David would do – we were planning to come out here anyway, once the girls were off at uni or whatever. It seemed like the most logical solution. But it’s stupid. So bloody stupid! It’s been a struggle to get the power and water working, let alone anything else – I didn’t think it through.”

“Hey, Kath. Shush. You had to do something – you had no choice. Amelia’s one angry young woman with her finger planted firmly on the self-destruct button; you had to get her away. It’s brave, what you’ve done. And David
would
be proud of you.”

At this, Mum dissolves. “I can’t do it,” she sobs. “I haven’t a clue how to handle her. Can’t seem to handle anything or anyone.”

“Yes, you can. You’re made of stronger stuff than you realise.”

“Don’t patronise me. I’m not one of your clients at the Soup Van who needs their ego stroked–”

“Kath, stop it. I don’t stroke egos – yours or the people at the van. Far from it. I tell it how it is. And you
are
strong. You
can
do this. Many of the people I deal with can’t. But
you
can.”

Mum blows her nose. “Can you ring up and cancel Saturday for me? I can’t handle meeting new people at the moment. I feel too raw.”

I hear tap water swirling into the kettle. “I’ll do no such thing. You need people, Kath. You can’t hide yourself out here. It’ll do none of you any good. Part of the reason Tallowood was your answer, was the community, remember? Have a cuppa, you’ll fee–”

“The community. Ha! If the other night is any indication, the community is not going to help one iota. Busybodies – the lot of them – throwing so many questions at me, I felt like I was under interrogation. They may as well have sat me down in the middle of the restaurant and shone a light in my eyes.
Are you really related to the O’Malleys? Has the family recovered yet? Why have you moved way out here? Did you know that house is cursed?
I don’t know if I can hack it, Mum.”