The Valley of Lost Stories Page 10

  An army tent had been set up just within the hotel grounds and that’s where she spotted him. He must have been volunteering for the search. She almost didn’t recognise him dressed as he was in casual clothing. His hair wasn’t slicked back as it had been at the party, and he wore army boots and loose cotton shirting. She fought the urge to wave to him, instead becoming self-conscious. She was dressed differently too, in her faded cotton day dress and an old sun hat. He headed out towards the mines with a group of men and disappointment swelled inside her. It had just been one magical, dangerous night. She needed to forget she’d ever met Magnus.

  The afternoon shadows were lengthening along the dusty road as she farewelled the children and their mothers at the door of the hall. The air was still warm and smelled of eucalyptus and the early beginnings of supper being made in the township. She had been distracted the whole class. Usually she loved her lessons with the older girls as they were so much more focused than the little ones Liv’s age, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Clara. She knew the search party would be reeling in as night approached. Another night that Clara would be out there all alone. Guilt crushed against her chest.

  A small crowd was gathering on the front steps of the church adjoining the hall.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked one of the departing mothers.

  ‘I think it’s a meeting for an update on the search for Clara Black.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jean, wishing she wasn’t in her ballet costume, so she could go and listen.

  ‘I don’t think the news is good. They’re probably calling it off soon.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Jean, the doom that had been building like a storm these past days thundering inside her.

  She waved as the last of the mothers and children filed out of the hall and dispersed into the street. From her vantage point at the hall’s entrance she could see that the crowd was growing. It was mainly men but some of the women lingered with their children. Someone important-looking was standing on the top step in front of the church. He held a bible in his hands. No, it didn’t look good at all. Regret and guilt mingled together, and she felt tears build behind her eyes.

  She saw him crossing the lawn in front of the hall, those same loose confident strides that she’d spotted this morning. She gasped and pressed her hand to her mouth. Their eyes met and she disappeared into the hall. No. He couldn’t see her like this. In her flimsy black leotard and second-hand ballet slippers with the satin fraying around the edges. Thank God Liv wasn’t here.

  ‘Hello there.’ His voice was the same. Melodious. Confident. ‘I wondered if this might be the ballet hall when I saw all the little ballerinas filing out with their mothers.’

  ‘Oh, hello,’ she said, her hand fluttering to her throat, her heart hammering. She was trapped, exposed, almost naked in her nude stockings, her figure-hugging leotard. And yet part of her was giddy, as though she’d just executed a triple pirouette. ‘Are you here for the meeting at the church?’

  ‘Yes, sadly they’ve not had any luck finding the missing woman. I’ve been out there and there’s so much land to cover. You could search for days. This valley is a strange place. There’s something rather mutinous about it. Something ancient. Women shouldn’t be walking around alone at night with all those restless spirits. Not to mention the miners, with dark things on their minds.’

  Jean bit her tongue. The only thing the miners had on their minds was sleep, a feed and a bath. So, he’d heard of the massacres, heard the ghost rumours. An Aboriginal tribe was slaughtered here at first settlement. They did not want to give up this place, their place. But the white men stole it from them anyway with their rifles and their horses and their awful self-righteousness. Some said those unsettled spirits still lingered here. Perhaps the stories of what had taken place had been passed on by the ancestors, to become a kind of whispered lore. Jean found herself drawing her arms around herself.

  ‘Oh, that’s very sad they’ve not found anything,’ she said. ‘I saw you at the volunteers’ tent this morning.’

  ‘You should have come and said hello.’

  ‘Oh no, I–’

  He took a step into the hall and she took a step back. Like a dance. ‘Well, isn’t this charming. You look like the perfect ballet mistress,’ he said, his eyes crinkling in a way that she wished she found less attractive. ‘I bet all the little girls adore you.’

  She saw up close and in the daylight that he was a bit older than she had thought in her over-excited state at the party. Possibly late 30s or early 40s. He ran a hand through his dark hair. She hadn’t remembered his hair being so black, nor his skin so tan. He had the look of a Mediterranean heritage. Everything about this man was dark, except his pale blue eyes.

  ‘Yes, the children are very sweet.’

  ‘I bet they bring their pretty ballet teacher gifts. Things they’ve picked up and slipped into their pockets.’

  He reached into his own pocket and brought out a beautiful smooth jade-coloured stone. He placed it in her palm. His hands were rough and warm and the touch took her back to the way they had danced.

  ‘Oh, this is beautiful. Where did you find it?’

  ‘By the riverbed on the search. I thought of another rare jewel I’d just stumbled across.’

  Her face coloured, the rush of blood making her even more dizzy. She laughed, unable to find the words to reply to such unwarranted flattery.

  A loud horn sounded outside the hall and Jean jumped. Shadows were gathering in the corners of the hall. Pam would be expecting her to pick up Liv, and Robert would be home soon.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Varesso, that’s so very kind of you,’ she said, shyly meeting his eye. The rush she felt when he held her gaze made her breathless.

  ‘Please, call me Magnus.’ His eyes were intensely blue. She could feel them burning her skin, like the summer sky.

  She nodded. ‘Magnus.’ His name felt strange and foreign on her tongue. ‘I should really go now, it’s getting late.’ She collected up her bag.

  ‘You won’t join me for a drink at the hotel bar?’

  Her heart lifted into her throat, but her head dropped. How to explain to a man like Magnus that women like her didn’t go into the hotel bar. That the night they’d met had been an anomaly and one that couldn’t happen again. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came.

  He must have read her expression because he bowed his head in some kind of apology. ‘Oh, I see I’ve been too hasty. I can be a little like that when I see something I like. I do apologise. And you’re in your dance costume, no less. Where are my manners?’

  He took a step backwards towards the door and bowed as though he were a butler at her service. ‘Well, I’ll take my leave. I know where to find you, Miss Rose.’

  Jean watched him disappear out the door as though he’d been a mirage, a spectre. She realised she was clutching her bag to her chest, her heart beating as though she’d just finished dancing a concert.

  PART II

  Mummy always says, ‘If you get lost you know my mobile number by heart, so you should tell a stranger and they will call me.’ She said that only some strangers are safe. We need to look out for other mums with kids. That they’re the ones to go up to if you’re lost. Not men. Not security guards because they look like they can be trusted but they can’t always be trusted. It’s the mums who can always be trusted. She also said bananas are the best thing to have if you get lost and hungry. They’re the perfect package without packaging. That’s why I can’t understand how it’s Mummy who is lost. I can see all these people who are looking for her, policemen and other strange men in uniforms, but I can’t see her, not anywhere. I hope she has a banana with her but whose mobile phone will she call? I don’t have one to answer. It was me who was meant to get lost and someone would find me because I know how to get a stranger to ring Mummy off by heart.

  CHAPTER 16

  Nathalie

  January

  She unwound the window and let the air rush
in, caressing her face with its hot, dry breath. Nathalie inhaled deeply. Grass, eucalyptus, sunshine, dust. It felt like they were so far from everything. The last signs of civilisation had been 40 minutes ago – a set of run-down shops with a bakery and a dilapidated Chinese restaurant on the highway, just before the turn-off. It had been such a small sign she’d nearly missed it. And now they were driving through a vast, empty valley with only green grass and bush on either side of the car. She felt a rush of emotion. Uncertainty at being somewhere so remote. Elation for the same reason.

  Farmland stretched before her, delineated by long, low fences and the occasional rusty car that was slowly being swallowed by the land. This country felt so foreign sometimes. So ancient and unknowable and vast. She had only lived on the coast, in the city. Every time she went into the bush, she realised how much of a stranger she was. The unsealed road was the only man-made thing as far as the eye could see. A few cows dotted the pastures. The car rounded a corner and the valley’s cliffs rose into a cerulean sky, like rough hands cupped in worship.

  She glanced in the rear-view mirror. The low roar of the engine had lulled the girls to sleep. The car rounded another bend and the countryside opened up like the pages of a children’s picture book. Hillsides covered in wildflowers and carpeted in green grass. Greener than she’d seen it in months, as though this place drank from a deep secret well. And then the foliage encroached. White-trunked gums gleamed as they formed a tunnel, steepled, like fingers. The sun flickered through the branches, light and shadow making a play for dominance. She was reminded of the stories of enchanted forests from her childhood. She shivered despite the warm air.

  She drove on and on. The mild sense of panic mixed with a heady sensation of freedom. Did she have enough petrol? Should she have brought more snacks for the girls? This place was a lot more remote than Alexandra had made out. She’d envisioned a ten-minute drive into a small valley, not this place of majestic cliffs and wide, empty grasslands.

  Now the cliffs were on either side of the car, sheer walls of rock honeycombed by the sun. The road petered out to a dirt track. It was the only way to go as the valley narrowed in the distance to an end point. No signage. No reception. She drove carefully, pebbles and rocks pinging against the body of the car. She eased the car over a narrow wooden bridge, a gently flowing stream glistening and edged with greenery below. She passed the façade of a shop but realised it was derelict; an old pharmacy with signage that looked frozen in time. Further up the dirt road to her right, she could see the shells of other buildings. The remains of a tiny township. But they too seemed empty, abandoned, their tin roofs rusted, and bricks crumbling, eaten away by time. This really was a ghost town. She was tempted to drive up to take a look, but just ahead she could make out the hotel behind a stone wall and metal gates.

  She slowed as she reached an ornate gate flanked by two palm trees, tropical interlopers in the native bush. The sign had a dilapidated elegance: The Valley Hotel. She got out of the car and opened the gate. Beyond it the hotel crouched self-consciously in the shadow of the cliffs, an anomaly of elegance in the middle of the bush. It was a structure from another time, another place. And yet here it was, like a lady all dressed up with nowhere to go.

  It wasn’t exactly going to be the luxurious coastal holiday they’d all been anticipating, but everyone had been so thrilled to be able to keep the plans. And maybe they’d be able to go to the beach house next school holidays, if this one went smoothly. It was always a little nerve-racking going away with other families, but she was so desperate for some time away from her life. Her mother-in-law had insisted on having Richie for half the week, and Mike had stepped up to the plate and said he’d take two days off work to mind him. She had been surprised that he would offer such a thing. She had felt herself softening towards her husband. It was the biggest indication yet that he was actually trying. She knew it would pain her to be away from her baby, she was still getting used to not feeding him from her own body, but she couldn’t deny there was also a sharp sweetness to that pain. Like a tight muscle being forced to relax. She knew with just the girls she’d be able to let go, because women forged a kind of organic community, a net that held everything together, helping each other without the need to spell it out.

  Nathalie pulled into the gravel car park under the shade of the poplar trees that lined the drive. The girls were still asleep. She stretched and took a sip of water from her bottle. She opened the window and heat pressed down on her and sleep felt close suddenly. She wanted to curl up and doze for a moment like her sweet girls. There was no sound except the soft twittering of birds. It felt peaceful. She looked at her phone. No reception. Again, that feeling; mild panic, mixed with relief. She opened all the car windows and her door to let the air circulate. She grabbed a warm apple from the food bag beside her and got out.

  The flesh was sweet, and she walked across the gravel to the garden that flanked the hotel’s entrance. Crepe myrtle trees flaunted pale pink and white blooms, urns overflowed with lavender and wild rose vines crept and weaved knotty tendrils up walls and over statues. There was a bank of fledgling citrus trees – the smell of tart fruit was intoxicating. Nathalie crushed a sprig of rosemary between her fingers and held it to her nose. Statues of women in languorous repose surrounded a fountain at the garden’s heart. Winged angels, children holding water jugs and bird baths were hidden throughout the foliage. She might have been in the English countryside except for the raw sandstone cliffs above and the calls of currawongs.

  At the side of the hotel Nathalie spotted a large trampoline, the old style with no safety nets and behind that a horse munching grass in an adjoining paddock. The kids were actually going to love it here. There was no sound coming from the car, so she headed over to the horse. The smell of manure and freshly turned earth enveloped her and she felt her shoulders drop as she ran her hand along the animal’s flank. She took her sandals off to feel the soft grass between her toes and fed him the rest of the apple.

  She heard the high note of her younger daughter’s voice calling out. There was an edge of panic to it. Nathalie ran back to the car. Sim’s eyes were puffy with sleep and heat. Findlay was just rousing.

  ‘We’re here,’ she said, smoothing their sweaty hair off their foreheads. ‘It’s a magical garden in a secret valley.’ The girls got out of the car and walked on unsteady legs into the garden. The sight of their little fingers trailing in the cool water of the fountain, their sleep-flushed cheeks among the flowers, calmed her. They played hide-and-seek behind the statues, picked wildflowers from the grass. The only sound was birdsong and the soft rush of the breeze in the willow trees. She adorned their hair with daisies and kissed their hot cheeks until they laughed. She looked towards the hotel, with its majestic white stone pillars, bright against the dark escarpment behind and wondered what was inside.

  CHAPTER 17

  Emmie

  Nathalie and her children already looked at home in this valley. They all wore light summer dresses, and flowers in their hair, as though they were the living embodiment of the nymph statues that appeared to dance in the garden. Nathalie was reading a picture book to the girls under the shade of a crepe myrtle. She waved and Emmie waved back and cut the engine. She cracked the car door and felt the thick heat seep in. It smelled like sweet roses, eucalyptus and freshly turned soil.

  They’d just passed the old township and Emmie hadn’t been able to resist driving up past the abandoned pharmacy, the crumbling post office and the rusting remains of a few other shopfronts. Further up she could see the bones of old miners’ cottages, bricks bleached with age under the bright sun. The bush had encroached – tree roots cracking through crumbling walls as though they were chalk, birds nested in chimney stacks. It smelled like dust and crushed ants.

  ‘Who used to live here?’ Seraphine had asked, her face pressed against the car window.

  ‘People like you and me. This was a busy town in the olden days.’

  ‘Where did the
y all go?’

  How to explain to her daughter that these were the forgotten remnants of lives that had once been lived and taken for granted in the same innocent way hers was. And now all that remained of their stories, the important rhythm of their days, was dirt and dust and words in books. It will happen to us all, thought Emmie. We too will pass into the land of lost stories.

  ‘Mum? Are you okay?’ Seraphine asked, her little face scrunched with concern. Emmie had brightened and given her daughter a boiled lolly and now they were here, in front of this magnificent hotel, the only thing to remain alive, to have been preserved. Emmie couldn’t wait to go inside.

  ‘Can I go play with the others, Mumma?’ Seraphine’s little face was hot and flushed as she hopped out of the car.

  Emmie nodded, handing her a hat. ‘It looks like this garden has so many nooks and crannies for you to explore.’

  ‘Look, there’s a trampoline.’

  Emmie stood and stretched, watching Sera fly off to greet the other girls. She didn’t know where this child came from. So socially at ease.

  She greeted Nathalie with a kiss and the other woman gripped her arms. ‘Can you believe this place? Where even are we?’ Nathalie asked.

  ‘I know, I had no idea it was so far. I kept thinking a town would appear just around the bend and then there was another bend and another.’

  ‘Did you see the abandoned township just up the road?’ Nathalie asked.

  ‘Oh, I know. It’s like it’s been frozen in time. The pharmacy still has old medicine bottles and syringes in the window. I did a bit of research and this valley has such a rich history.’