Thornwood House (16 page)

I attempted a smile, squirming under Danny’s close scrutiny. I took advantage of the uncomfortable lull to berate myself: why hadn’t I thought to wear my good jeans instead of this old patched pair I’d thrown on . . . and what had possessed me to wear such a daggy T-shirt?

Danny made a lazy sign, knowing full well I couldn’t read it. His hands were large and lightly freckled, graceful. I looked up and met his gaze, and a jolt of awareness went through me. He was unsettlingly gorgeous, but it was more than that. Maybe his silence, his intensity of focus; or maybe the intimate way he
searched my face as if trying to see under the skin. Whatever it was, it was making me edgy.

I tapped Bronwyn’s arm, and started backing away.

‘See you Saturday,’ I called to no one in particular, and made a hasty beeline for the car.

‘You like him.’ Bronwyn’s long fingers drummed the dashboard. ‘And Jade thinks he likes you.’

I snorted, glad to be inside the familiar cocoon of my Celica and out of the rain. My brain was throbbing – not with pain, but with a tangled knot of thoughts that would take some serious unravelling to get in order.

‘I barely spoke two words to the man.’

‘Mum, you babbled.’

‘And that’s a crime, is it?’

‘Not a crime . . . just a dead giveaway. You like him.’

‘I was only trying to be polite because he’s deaf.’

‘Jade said he was looking at you a bit gooey-eyed.’

I snorted again, trying to sound incredulous. ‘Which makes me think that Jade’s imagination is as equally out of control as yours.’

Rain pounded the roof. The cloud-bellies came alive with threads of flickering light.

Bronwyn looked at me. ‘Did you know Jade’s mum died?’

‘Yeah . . . Corey told me.’

‘She was deaf, like Jade’s dad. It was really sad, she got caught in a thunderstorm and a big heavy tree branch fell on her.’

I looked at Bronwyn, aghast. ‘That’s awful.’

‘Jade said her dad never got over it. He and Jade’s mum got married young. They met at a peace rally in Brisbane, love at first sight, that sort of thing.’

‘Oh. I see.’

‘Jade thinks it’s time he met someone.’ She looked pointedly at me. ‘You know. Moved on.’

‘Hmmm.’

‘What about you, Mum? Jade thinks you’d be perfect, and her dad’s obviously keen.’

I blinked at the glossy blacktop unrolling ahead of us, willing the rain to fall harder, willing the sky to crack open and flood the road – anything to create a diversion from the current conversation topic. When the sky failed to respond to my internal command, I sighed. ‘And you had time to discuss all this, did you? In the few seconds before we said goodbye? I didn’t realise that speed-gossip was now part of school curriculum.’

‘It’s not. I’m just getting good at reading the signs,’ Bronwyn said mysteriously.

‘Oh? After ten minutes of lessons?’

‘Signs are not just about hand signals, Mum. Jade says that because her father’s deaf he’s good at reading a person’s face and the way they move their body. He’s sensitive to shadows and temperature, too, even the feel of movement in the air. Jade says that a deaf person’s other senses grow keener to make up for the one that’s missing.’

I changed gears and eased the Celica up to ninety.

I’d once shared student digs with a deaf girl – years ago, pre-Tony, at the start of my first year of art college – and her loud, garbled sentences had taken ages to decode. It occurred to me at the time to learn a few phrases of Auslan, but despite my efforts she was determined to speak rather than sign, even though it meant endlessly repeating herself. Danny Weingarten was the opposite; judging by the notes, and by his daughter’s easy role as translator, it seemed he was equally determined to remain silent.

‘You and Jade certainly covered a lot of ground in one day,’ I told Bronwyn. ‘I’m glad you’ve made a new friend.’

‘Not in one day, Mum. One
afternoon
. We didn’t even sit together at lunch . . . I was having a bit of a bad morning,’ she added quietly.

I looked at her. ‘Why?’

Bronwyn twisted her schoolbag strap. ‘Oh, you know . . . first day at a new school and all that.’

She looked small, vulnerable. My heart tightened.

‘I hated first days,’ I confided. ‘Every time Aunt Morag got itchy feet, I was thrown into a different school, and the kids weren’t cool like they are now, and the teachers – well, let’s just say they’d have been right at home in a Charles Dickens’ novel . . . My life was a veritable nightmare,’ I concluded mock-gloomily.

Bronwyn giggled. ‘Mum, you’re such a drama queen.’

I grinned. ‘You were telling me about Jade.’

‘Well, she found me in the library. She’d just come back from lunch with her Aunty Corey, who’d told her they were coming over to our place on Saturday. Jade and I hit it off straight away. Then later, in class, she put her hand up when the teacher asked if someone would like to volunteer as my buddy.’

‘Buddy?’

‘You know, because I’m new – a buddy is someone who shows the new kid where the toilets are, where to line up for assembly, that sort of thing.’

I’d reached the turn-off. If I hooked left, the road would veer west towards Thornwood. Driving straight through the intersection would take me north to the airfield and from there – if I continued past the landing fields – I’d reach William Road.

I flicked the indicator and slowed to turn toward home . . . but then kept going straight. The Celica rattled as the tarmac gave way to gravel, and the crack in the windscreen inched off on another tangent. The trees along the verge grew thicker, so tall they appeared to join with the low-hanging stormclouds, crowding out the last shreds of colourless daylight. Was it really only four o’clock? It looked more like midnight.

Bronwyn noticed we weren’t on our way home. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I want to show you something.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a secret. You’ll see.’

‘A secret?’ She pondered this morsel, her brows pinched. ‘You
do
like him, then? Jade’s dad, I mean?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘When have I ever liked anyone?’

‘Never.’

‘Well, I’ve no intention of starting now.’

‘You said we came to Magpie Creek to make a new life.’

‘We did, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to lose my head over the first guy who comes along.’

‘Did you really see him half-naked?’

‘He was just washing the blood off his arms after whelping the old man’s dog.’

‘Did he have nice muscles?’

‘Bron!’ I actually growled.

‘Well, did he?’

‘I didn’t notice,’ I responded frostily. ‘Anyway, that’s beside the point. Your dad was the only man for me. I could never love anyone else.’

Bronwyn affected a theatrical eye-roll. ‘So you keep saying.’ Unzipping her bag, she retrieved her drink bottle, took a noisy swig, then palmed shut the sipper top. ‘So what’s this secret? If it’s not your mad crush on Jade’s dad, then what is it?’

There were only two dwellings on William Road: one was a small boarded-up shanty that was obviously abandoned. The other – which came into view now – was a beautiful highset Queenslander sitting in the midst of an overgrown garden. Slowing the car, I pulled onto the verge opposite and cut the motor.

‘I found a couple of photos.’

‘What – that’s your big secret?’

‘Have a look in the glove box.’

Bronwyn yanked open the compartment and withdrew the envelope. She examined each photo carefully, her head bent nearly to her knees.

For a long while we sat in the steamy silence – me listening to the patter of raindrops on the roof, and Bronwyn scrutinising the photos as though they held long-sought answers to her life’s most puzzling questions. When she thought to flip the larger photo over, the sight of the handwritten inscription made her gasp.

‘I knew it,’ she said excitedly, ‘it’s Dad as a boy. Who are the other kids? That blonde-haired girl looks like me.’

‘That’s your father’s sister, Glenda, who died. And the redheaded girl is Jade’s Aunty Corey . . . The other little boy is Jade’s dad. They all grew up together.’

‘Jade told me her dad and my dad were friends when they were kids.’ She considered the photo for a long time. ‘I wish Dad was still here. I miss him.’

I let my gaze fall on the dark-haired boy in the photo, seeing in my mind’s eye the man he would later become – attractive, intelligent, sexy and wickedly funny, a brilliant artist . . .

‘I miss him, too.’

The Celica’s cooling engine ticked noisily. Steam rose off the water-slicked hood. The rain was so light now that I could hear individual drops pattering on the roof. Bronwyn’s attention drifted to the window, focused on the house across from where we’d parked.

It was much like other houses I’d seen in Magpie Creek – the weatherboards could have done with a coat of paint, and the guttering was flecked with rust – but its period features were intact: decorative iron lace, stained-glass windowpanes, a leafy verandah and wide stairs. Pink roses frothed along the front gate, shadowed by tall poincianas that partly obscured the house from the road. On either side of the boundary fence was bushland, thickening behind the house as it escaped uphill. A massive black bunya pine towered over the rooftop, its great arms jabbing the sky. The pine hadn’t changed much since the photo of Tony and Glenda and their mother had
been taken beneath it, and its curiously contorted trunk was unmistakable.

Bronwyn’s gaze lingered on the tree, then darted back to the photo. When her mind made the connection, she shot a questioning look at me.

‘It’s the same tree,’ she said. ‘Is it Dad’s old house?’

‘Your dad grew up there, but it’s your grandmother’s house.’

‘I have a grandmother?’ Bronwyn’s eyes went wide. ‘A grandfather, too?’

‘Honey, I’m sorry . . . your grandfather Cleve died a long time ago.’

She latched her gaze back on the house. ‘Oh, Mum, does my grandma know we’re here? Have you spoken to her? What’s she like? When can I meet her?’

‘Well, this is the secret bit, Bronny. Your grandma – Luella – never leaves her house. Apparently she’s a bit of a hermit. And now, after what happened to your dad, I’m worried she might be too upset to see anyone.’

Bronwyn looked thoughtful. ‘She’ll want to see us, though, won’t she, Mum? I mean, we’re family.’

‘I don’t know, Bronny. I hope so.’

‘Can we go in? Do you think she’s home?’

‘It’s a bit late in the day. Why don’t we come back on the weekend, bring her something special?’

‘Flowers, you mean?’

‘Sure.’

‘Maybe a box of chocolates.’ Bronwyn studied the house, her eyes alight with curiosity and longing. ‘I’ll make her a card, too. Oh, Mum, I can’t believe I’ve got a grandmother!’

Her excitement infected me. My heart rate picked up. My hands grew damp. Questions began to tumble through my mind. Then, one question in particular. And though I knew I had no right to ask it, and knew as well that the time when
I might broach the topic was a long way off – it niggled like a thorn in my psyche, sharp and all-consuming.

Luella, what really happened the night your mother died?

As I examined the lovely old house with its boisterous garden and daisy-sprinkled lawn, I sensed that even if did win Luella’s trust enough to ask, the odds were that she would have no answers.

Her cosy nest of a house seemed to be hiding beneath the protective arms of the great bunya pine. I imagined her inside, pottering in her darkened rooms, trapped for the past twenty years in a self-imposed prison of sorrow and loneliness. Did she have other family? Or was she – like me and Bronwyn – adrift without relatives, a solitary unit forced by circumstance to stand alone?

As the old Celica rocketed back along William Road in the direction of town, Corey’s words echoed in my ears.

It’s not worth the heartache . . . Not for you, not for Bronwyn
–

But Corey was wrong. Bronwyn and I had weathered heartache before and survived it. If it came to that, we would survive it again.

After a dinner of pizza and salad and shared jam lamington, we flopped on the couch in front of the TV and channel-surfed for a while before bedtime.