Portraits of Celina (28 page)

“Hey,” says Amelia, rubbing my back. “It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s over now.”

Is it? I wonder. All I can see ahead for me now is despair. With no way through it.

“Bayley,” says a voice nearby. Female. “My name is Officer Phelan. You can call me Joanne, if you like. An ambulance is on its way and so is your mum. Are you hurt? Any injuries?”

I want to answer, but my brain has turned to mush.

“I think she’s okay,” says Amelia. “She just needs to get home.”

“And she will, but she will have to go to the hospital for a check-up first. And we’ll have to ask a few questions of the both of you. Work out what has happened here. Okay, Bayley? Will you be able to answer some questions for us? Amelia, you too?”

Amelia tightens her hold around me. “Shit a brick. She was nearly thrown off a freaking cliff!” Her tone is full of enough Amelia fierceness to scare off even a police officer. And I love her for it. “Leave us alone, will you?”

I hear the officer slide across the seat and out of the car. I lean into Amelia. The only way I have to say thanks.

“You are okay, aren’t you, Bails?”

I honestly don’t know.

Out the corner of one eye, I watch as Oliver is escorted towards another police car, and I wonder if I’ll ever see him again, if there will ever be an “us” again. I don’t know what he is going to tell the police, have no idea if he even heard me before, but it’s out of my hands now.

Suddenly, I hear running, scurrying. A voice shouting. Shouting my name. And Mum is there. Clutching Oliver. Looking around her. Shouting.

Then she is beside me, scooping me up in her arms. Hugging. Sobbing. She pulls Amelia to her also, and we are one big hug. A family hug, of tears and dirt and snot and heartache and joy all mixing together. Then Mum pulls away from us, sits cross-legged on the dirt beside the car, holds her head in her hands, and sobs. Deep and mournful and long.

“Mrs Anderson,” Joanne’s voice intrudes. “Are you okay? Can I help you up?”

Mum ignores her as if she hasn’t heard. The police officer sits beside her and places her arm across Mum’s shoulders. Mum pushes her off and curls onto her side, bringing her knees into her chest. And my worst fears are being acted out before me, as I watch my mother retreating into herself once more. Perhaps for the last time.

Somehow, someone coaxes Mum off the ground and helps her to the waiting ambulance. Amelia and I cling onto each other as we clamber from the police car and into the ambulance behind her.

As the door is pulled to, I take one last look out over the gorge, to the place where almost forty years ago Celina O’Malley’s life was cut tragically short, where my life so very nearly ended as well. I take in the blue cloudless sky and the windswept trees, and try to be thankful that I am still here to see them, and hopeful that Mum will recover, and confident that Oliver will forgive me. But it’s a struggle, and I realise that I am not ready to leave yet.

I shrug out of the blanket, push open the doors and step out onto the dirt.

“Bails?” says Amelia. “Where are you going?”

I ignore her and walk towards the cliff. People move out of my way, but their eyes follow me. I have some unfinished business to take care of, though I am not sure what. Perhaps I need to somehow rid myself of Celina, once and for all, or to make sense of all that has happened.

I am at the cliff edge now, the wind dancing in my hair. I imagine Celina’s spirit out there somewhere: feel her strange energy, sense her freedom, her joy at finally getting her revenge. Will she be able to rest now? Will she leave me be? Am I free of her?

Someone holds my arm firmly. I pull out of it.

“Bayley.” It’s Amelia. “Come on. Let’s go back now.”

“Hold on.” I step closer to the edge. Something is niggling me, something I need to figure out. I just need some time.

“Bails?” I feel Amelia’s arms around my middle, urging me back.

I turn and see her fearful face close to mine, and feel the strength of her hold. Behind her I see Mum, confused and disoriented, and Oliver, tormented and broken, never to be mine again.

I turn away.

Then Oliver’s warm breath is in my ear. “Bayley, step away.” His lips brush my neck. “Please. For me.”

I gaze down at Bud’s lifeless body, now covered by a dirty white canvas and flanked by two police officers hanging from ropes. I didn’t want any of this. I only wanted some happiness. Is that too much to ask?

Bud’s final scenes play over in my mind. I try to take it all in. Work it all out. How did it go so wrong? I stand teetering on the edge, and I am sent back to the other time I felt as though I was teetering on the edge – at Marco’s, looking at Bud’s artwork – and I understand now what Celina was showing me. I shudder.

“Bayley. Come away.” Mum’s voice this time. And there is a steel in it that surprises me – shocks me – into swinging around. “It does you no good to look,” she continues, her eyes holding mine. “It’s in the hands of the police and soon everything will come out. Everyone will know the truth.”

Yes, they will
. Just like Celina wanted. I guess that was something about Celina Deb did get right – Celina certainly got me to do her bidding.

Make him pay. It’s up to you, Bayley, to make him pay. Peace sister
. Celina’s words come back to me. They pound away relentlessly in my head.
Make him pay. Make him pay. It’s up to you, Bayley. Make him pay
.

I made him pay all right. Well, Oliver did. And now Oliver is left to explain to the world how his own grandfather came to end up dead in the gorge. How did that happen?

Something twists inside me.

I am so gullible.
Celina didn’t save me
. She didn’t care about me – or Oliver or anyone but herself. She needed to make sure history didn’t repeat itself. She had to be certain that Bud was exposed, that he didn’t get away with it this time. That he paid, one way or another. If I had gone over the cliff, it would have all been for nothing. That’s why she wrote that note.

And right this minute the
real
Celina is laid bare before me. And she is nothing like the sweet loving girl that Deb remembers, or Gran’s favourite niece, or Robbie’s sweet pea. Perhaps, like one of Bud’s paintings, they were all too close to see the real picture. The Celina I know is bitter and callous and manipulative. She stops at nothing to get what she wants – no matter who she destroys along the way.

I go weak at the knees at the betrayal, and stumble backwards.

“That’s the way, honey.” Mum’s voice is soft against my face. “Come on. Away from the edge.”

“For me, Bails.” Oliver again. “Please.”

I give in to them – gladly. I am done here. I am done with Celina.

Oliver drapes his arm across one shoulder, Mum drapes hers across the other and together they guide me away from the cliff and back towards the ambulance, and I am shaking with the knowledge of how close I had been to becoming Celina’s ghostly playmate.

I stop suddenly then and swirl around.

Bud is dead. So is Celina.

Together forever
. They so deserve each other.

And despite all the grief and anguish of the day, my mouth twists into a sly smile.

Careful what you wish for, cousin
.

The day I turned seventeen we buried Celina.

Not her body, of course. But her peace chest, and all its memories and secrets, her purple scarf and a single jar from Bud’s shelf labelled, COM.

It was my idea and everyone thought that I was more than a little nutty when I suggested it, but to me it felt right. Besides, I wanted to put Celina to rest – for good.

Oliver has never mentioned anything about the note – it’s as if he has wiped it from his memory. And I am glad, mostly, though it kills me keeping from him all that happened with Celina. Maybe in time I will be able to share the freaky truth, but for now it stays locked inside.

Apart from Deb and Amelia no one knows about my stalker ghost. It wasn’t an easy thing for Amelia to believe. Nor was it easy to deny. But between us we concocted an almost-true, ghost-free story to tell the police and the rest of the family. We told how I had gone looking for Amelia and ended up at Bud’s studio. How Bud thought I was Celina and how he cracked me over the skull and then confessed everything to me in his dank little back room. How when Amelia and Oliver drove past, Amelia glimpsed a flash of red in the bushes and persuaded Oliver to investigate. It made sense. In fact, I prefer this version of events.

Of course, it was Bud’s sick little fetish that clinched it, that, and a wonderful thing called DNA. The police are still collecting his body of work for examination and evidence – much to the repulsion and disgust of the owners. It could take quite a while before it is all sorted, though it’s his portrait of Celina that is the key piece of evidence.

The day of the “funeral” was gloriously sunshiny, the sky and lake competing to take out the most dazzling blue contest. Oliver and Bob dug a pit under the Norfolk pine and lowered the chest into it. We gathered round, a semicircle of new friends and old: Oliver holding my hand in his; Mum and Amelia, standing together; Gran in the wicker garden chair with Seth on her knee (minus his cape); Annie and Bob, side by side. Loni was there too – Gran had brought her up for the weekend for my birthday (though she was pretty shocked when I told her we were going to have a funeral to celebrate it). Even Deb drove in for the occasion. I haven’t had the heart to tell her the truth about Celina. I can’t see the point.

Bob said a few words. He spoke about love and loss, about mistakes and the healing nature of time and the powerful poison of dark secrets long held. And, with Annie’s arm around his waist, he announced that he was starting up a charity with Bud’s money to support the families of the hundreds of people who go missing every year.

Afterwards, we sat at a long table under the poplars and enjoyed a feast, with a calorific birthday cake supplied by Deb. We toasted Dad and Celina, and even Bud. We toasted my birthday, Amelia getting into TAFE to do hospitality, Mum’s new design studio, the future.

I looked across at Oliver at this point and our eyes met and, for a second or two, we held each other’s gaze. What would the future hold for the two of us? I wished I knew. Such a lot had happened since the day we lay on the bank of the creek and his finger stroked the bridge of my nose.

What I was sure of though, sitting there among those people, laughing and eating and sharing stories, was that the Anderson/O’Malleys had turned a corner. And despite being convinced that Celina was so intent on exacting her revenge, she was willing to destroy our whole family in the process, I believe she actually helped to save us. Somehow, the horror of that awful day shook us enough to push us through our pain and out the other side. We were still on wobbly legs, and had a way to go yet, but it seemed that the troubles of the past had strangely brought us a little closer together and that maybe, just maybe, we had even started to heal.

This story would never have been told if it wasn’t for the slightly brutal but “right on the money” feedback from my daughter Lizzie after she read the first chapters of the first draft of a completely different story. She basically told me to ditch my original idea, keep my characters and setting and start again. And I did. Because she was right. So big thanks to Miss Lizzie!

And the story would never have been told if it wasn’t for the enthusiastic response from Virginia Grant who read the first draft of the first chapters of the story where I had “ditched” the original idea and “started again”. Her enthusiasm was such that I was spurred on to see the new story to the end, no matter what. Thanks Ginny!

Thanks also to everyone at Walker Books Australia. When you are published by the house that you also work for, there is potential for awkwardness, but the dedication and professionalism of Team Walker is such that this never figures – and I really, really appreciate this. Very special thanks go to Sarah Foster for her constant encouragement and belief in my writing – something that means so much to me – and to the entire publishing team, especially Nicola Robinson for her expert guidance through the editing process, and Gayna Murphy for her amazing cover design.

Lastly, a big thanks to my loving family who have to put up with a mum/wife who has a very time-consuming and at times all-consuming passion.

After developing a passion for children’s literature as a primary school teacher, Sue Whiting now works fulltime in the field she loves, dividing her time between working as a children’s book editor and writing stories for young people. Sue has had almost sixty children’s books published, ranging from rhyming romping verse for the very young to novels for pre-teens. For more information about the author, please visit her website: www.suewhiting.com