Portraits of Celina (3 page)

“The dead chick? The one that got murdered? And you’re wearing her clothes? You’re seriously weird, Bayley.”

My stomach clenches, and all I can think to do is flee, taking the stairs two at a time to my bedroom and flinging my door closed behind me.

I yank off the jeans. Throw off the T-shirt. Ram them into the chest and pull down the lid.

I rummage through the plastic garbage bags littering my floor until I find my favourite shorts and singlet top. Once dressed, I flop onto the tangle of sheets on my bed, my cheeks burning with humiliation.

I know I shouldn’t let Amelia get to me like this. But her words ring in my head –
The dead chick? You’re wearing her clothes? You are seriously weird, Bayley
– and they sting more than they should. She always makes me feel like such a baby.

My eyes are drawn back to the chest and I am filled with a furious urge to flip open the lid and wear whatever I choose.
To hell with them all
.

“Bails!” Mum’s voice filters up from the kitchen. “Lunch.”

With a sigh, I push myself up off my bed and head downstairs.

“The whole bush retreat thingy might be fine for you, Mum.” Amelia’s never-ending argument meets me before I get to the bottom stair. “But I need
people
. A social life. Not endless fields of colourless grass and a weedy lake. And I mean, how can we even live here? There is rubble – actual rubble! – piled up at the end of the hallway. The place ought to be condemned. Not to mention that overgrown tip out the back – there could be anything in there.”

“Put these on the table,” Mum says in response. “Seth, pour some juice for everyone, will you?” As I enter, Mum hands me a bowl filled with fresh green grapes. “Here, have a grape.”

“Mum!” Amelia, holding a plate of sandwiches, stamps her foot in frustration. “Stop ignoring me.”

“What do you want me to say, Amelia? ‘Oh dear, what a big mistake; let’s pack up everything and go back to our house in Cronulla and kick out the new tenants because, gee, Amelia refuses to give it a go!’ Really, Amelia, you are nearly eighteen – try acting it for once.”

Amelia fixes Mum with a hatred-filled glare. “Try treating me like it,” she says through clenched teeth. She slams the plate on the table and walks out.

Mum collapses onto a chair, rests her elbows on the table and holds her head with her hands. I ache for her, feel guilty about my own outburst only minutes before.

She raises her head and runs shaky hands through her messy curls. Dark circles shadow her eyes – she looks fragile, as if sculpted from tissue paper.

Just as she slides the plate over to Seth, Amelia bustles back in, grabs two sandwiches then bustles back out.

“Here, have a sandwich,” Mum says to Seth. “And tell me about Bayley’s boyfriend. Not like her to be such a fast worker.”

“Ha-ha,” I say, and bite into a cheese and tomato sandwich.

“Ol-i-ver,” says Seth in a singsong voice.

Mum hoists up her eyebrows and pretends surprise. “Oliver, is it? And where did he spring from?”

“From across the lake,” I say. “He reckons he’s our neighbour. You didn’t say anything about neighbours.”

“Well, this isn’t exactly the outback, Bails. Of course there are people on the surrounding properties. I think a kid from across the lake somewhere used to hang out with Celina a bit …”

At the mention of Celina’s name, sharp pins prick my arms. A lump of sandwich wedges in my throat. I swallow hard and endeavour not to let my face betray my unease.

Fingers to her lips, Mum squints, as if trying to remember something. “Now what was the property called? Lakeview or Lakeside or was it Lakelight?”

“Do you think it would be the same family? Living there?”

“Gee, we’re talking forty odd years here. I doubt it – farming families don’t seem to do that old generational thing much these days. Anyway, how did you get to meet this Oliver?”

Mum’s question floats past me. Inexplicably, I am lost in a dense jungle of thoughts and questions about Celina.

“Bails?” Mum says. “Hell-oo? Anyone in there?”

“He was in a boat,” I hear Seth answering for me. “A rowing one. Bayley wouldn’t let me have a go and her face went all gooey.”

“Shut up, you,” I say, and dig my finger playfully into his ribs. “Actually, Mum, it was scary. We’re pretty alone out here. I didn’t know who he was and you weren’t around and the phone isn’t working yet and we had no car or anything if we needed to escape. We really need another car …”

“Letting that imagination run again, Bayley?” says Mum. “We’ll have the phones sorted by the end of the week and, yes, once you get your licence, we’ll talk about a car for you and Amelia. But in the meantime, I think you’ll find you’re perfectly safe here. Country people tend to look out for each other and–”

“So who was looking out for Celina then?” The words slip out before I can call them back.

The moon glows faintly through wispy lines of cloud, its rays tracing a silvery path across the lake – across to Oliver and to Lakeview or Lakeside or whatever it’s called.

I turn away from the window and rest up against the wall, listening to the irregular beat of frogs bleating in the distance.

Everything seems so odd here and I can’t seem to settle. I’d give anything to be able to send a message to Loni, to tell her how much I miss her already.

Sigh. Second night blues, I guess.

My thoughts turn to the chest and I flick on my bedside lamp. The chest sits against the wall and beckons to be opened. Why not? I think.

I grab my doona and stuff it across the gap between my door and floor to prevent light spilling into the hallway, then pad over to the chest and open the lid. The hairs on the back of my neck bristle. It is kind of eerie, peering into the life of a dead girl, but also strangely thrilling.

“Peace, sister,” I say to the painted peace sign on the inside of the lid, holding up my fingers the way I have seen people in movies do. I stifle a giggle. I really am cracked, aren’t I? What would Loni think if she could see me now?

I pull out the piles of clothes, examining them, holding them up to the light, until I decide on a cheesecloth peasant blouse and denim shorts.

I tie the purple scarf around my head like a headband, knotting it above my ear, and examine my reflection in the mirror. Not bad, I decide: the scarf sort of suits me, keeping my curls at bay and accentuating my eyes. I make a Loni-style Sexy Pout at the Seventies me in the mirror, followed by Uber-Cool Supermodel. Ha! I am such an idiot. Grinning, I run my fingers over the embroidered yoke of the blouse. It is rather gorgeous and reminds me of pure happiness – a daisy-filled field on a perfect day – and its puffiness suggests that I actually have boobs worth noticing.

The outfit is completed with a couple of strings of beads and the cork platforms. The buckles are tarnished with age and take some convincing before I can clip them in place and take off on a practice walk. I wobble across the room; heels are not something I am used to wearing and guilt stabs at me. Dad always chucked a mental at the mere mention of me wearing anything other than joggers or sensible grandma-style sandals – wouldn’t let me risk turning an ankle. That would have spelled disaster – hard to win the states with a turned ankle.
Sorry, Dad
, I whisper – and nearly go over on my ankle.

To steady myself, I prop up against the end of my bed, and stare out of the window. I take in the shadowy view through the branches of the pine tree, and ponder on how Celina would have looked at this exact same view. How she could have stood in this exact spot, wearing these exact clothes. A shiver runs through me and I have that unsettling sensation of deja vu.

How tall would the tree have been forty years ago? Would the lake have changed much? What would Celina have thought about as she stood and took in the view?
My stomach tightens. These are very strange thoughts and I know I am obsessing.

I cast my eye across to the far side of the lake and think about Oliver, unsure if I am pleased or annoyed by the presence of such a good-looking neighbour. Loni would label him a hottie and be hooking up with him behind the barn by now.

If only I had Loni’s spark – her knack of making the world fizz and bubble around her; her way of putting boys under her spell without even trying. But I am no fool; I know I am not the type ever to weave magic over anyone, much less someone like Oliver. Besides, once Amelia has him in her sights, I won’t stand a chance.

Still, I can’t help wondering if he goes to Tallowood High. If he will catch the same bus as me. If he will be in some of the same classes. It might be good if there is at least one familiar face when I start at Tallowood in a few weeks time …

Jeez, be honest with yourself, Bayley! You’d give anything to be hooking up with Oliver behind the barn right now
. Loni may lament that she is already seventeen and still a virgin, I lament that at almost seventeen, the sum of my experience with the opposite sex is playing spin the bottle at Eleni Christofi’s thirteenth birthday, and I am pretty sure that accounts for zilch. But what can you do when every boy you are interested in doesn’t seem to know you exist and all the boys who seem interested in you, you don’t want to know they exist?

Suddenly, the stillness of the lake is broken. My breath catches in my throat. Something is moving on the water again.
No way!

Gliding across the glowing track of moonlight, it is obviously a boat. I grab my mobile from my bedside table. It’s 1.13. Why would anyone be out in a boat at 1.13? Training? Yeah right! What is this Oliver up to?

Without pausing to think, I flick off the platforms, pull my doona from under the door and tear down the stairs. I pick my way through the lounge room, my hands leading me through the darkness to the front door. The stubborn old beast lurches open with a screech and in the still night air it sounds as loud as a scream. Heart thudding, I pause, waiting for some kind of response from the rooms above. When there is none, I scoot into the darkness, sprinting across the gravel drive – wondering, as the stones dig into the soles of my feet, at the wisdom of dashing out like this without shoes. In fact, as I am swallowed by the night, I wonder about the wisdom of the whole escapade. What am I doing?

But still I run, run like I haven’t for months and months: into the paddock that fronts the lake, the grass rustling and scratching as I mow through it; across the lake edge, gritty sand flicking behind me, not stopping until I am ankle deep in water.

Feeling suddenly exposed, a lone figure on the empty shore, I search for some kind of cover. I edge to the jetty and slip behind a hefty wooden pylon, lean heavily against it. Gone are the days when I could run ten kays without raising a sweat.

I stay this way for a few moments, until I have summoned the nerve to take another glimpse at the lake. I bend out from the pylon and scan the expanse of water before me. It is still. Empty. Not even a ripple marks the surface. I stand upright, out of the cover of the jetty. Had I imagined it? A boat couldn’t disappear into thin air, could it?
Only if it didn’t exist at all, you pinhead!

I peruse the lake one final time, before turning to head home.

Then I hear it. The crunch of sand to my right, as if something is being dragged through it. A night bird is startled into flight, and I duck behind the pylon, my heartbeat a drum in my ears.

I peer into the darkness in the direction of the noise. The moon is now totally obscured behind cloud and the night has closed in on me. Is there something on the shore? I can’t be sure, but I can’t stay here. What was I thinking? Why am I out here alone?

I worry that the dash back across the paddock will leave me too exposed. Exposed to what? To Oliver? And if so, why am I this afraid? He seemed harmless enough. But something – call it instinct, intuition, whatever – tells me that I have every reason to be afraid and that I have to find a way to get back to the safety of the house, unseen.

I recall the scraggly bushes in one corner of the paddock and the row of poplars hugging the fence line to the south. If I could make it to the bushes, I would have a better chance of being concealed. I don’t pause to think about it. On hands and knees, I slip out onto the sandy shoreline and edge towards where I hope to find some cover. I can make out some bushes to my left, and dart towards them.

I only take a few steps.

“Holy mother of God!” A face materialises right in front of me. I reel backwards. The face, veiled in shadows, contorts – seems as shocked as I feel, then repeats: “Holy mother of God! No! Nooo!” and a knobbly hand reaches out for me.

I scream and bolt – dumping the plan to stay concealed, replacing it with the plan to
get the HELL out of here
. I don’t look back. Don’t want to know if the “face” is following. The face – a man’s face – wrinkly and saggy and snarling at me, with a sour chemical aroma wafting from it, seemingly suspended in the darkness. Though I know this is only a trick of the night. The face must have a body attached – surely?

I run and run. My breath is ragged and my head pounds. I fly up the verandah stairs, heave open the door and slam it behind me. I push across a rusty bolt, willing it to be strong enough to hold out whatever danger lies outside. I push my back against the door and slide down to sit on the boards. I am shaking.

It is then, as my bum hits the floor, that my chest heaves and I start to cry. And when the lights flick on and Mum tears down the stairs, face stricken, falls to her knees and gathers me in her arms, saying, “What is it, Bails? What happened, baby?” I am sobbing so hard I can’t speak.