Page 22 of The Sirens

21

LUCY

SATURDAY, 16 FEbrUARY 2019

Rain rattles the windowpanes.

Cliff House feels vulnerable, on borrowed time. Lucy thinks of the soil beneath the house’s foundations, imagines it growing thick and viscous, taking the house with it over the edge of the cliff. The rocks below littered with splinters of wood, bright strips of torn canvas.

It’s Saturday, her self-imposed deadline, six days before the exhibition. She’d told herself that if Jess wasn’t back by now, she would start making calls, to her parents, to the police.

The clock on the bedside table reads 7 a.m. It’s early, still. Jess could be on her way, could be planning to return this very evening.

What should she do? Make the call now, or wait a few more hours? She feels paralysed with indecision.

To distract herself, she sits up in bed and reaches for her laptop. It doesn’t make sense, this feeling that the past has somehow taken her sister, that the dreams hold her hostage even now. And yet, she can’t shake it.

The girls are like sharks. They sense it when you’re weak.

Sisters who died centuries ago, but who somehow live on, in Jess’s mind and in hers.

She doesn’t know where her sister is, but she knows how to look for Eliza and Mary.

Opening her laptop, she types historical births deaths and marriage records Australia into the web browser. The most promising result is from the National Library of Australia, which informs her that most of the states and territories have records dating back to the end of the eighteenth century.

She takes her laptop downstairs and puts on the kettle.

As it boils, she decides to start with the NSW records first. If Eliza or Mary had survived the wreck, presumably they’d have stayed reasonably close to Comber Bay. Victoria had not yet been colonised and getting to Tasmania – then Van Diemen’s Land – would’ve meant another sea voyage.

Lucy stirs milk into her coffee, sitting down at the kitchen table, moving a stack of Jess’s papers. But when she looks for records relating to Mary Kissane, from the period 1800 to 1850, she’s greeted with only one line of text.

Your search has returned no results.

Grimacing, she searches for Eliza Kissane instead, but there’s nothing. Even though she knows it’s a long shot, she checks the Victorian and Tasmanian websites, too.

Your search has returned no results.

Lucy sighs, stretching her arms out in front of her, wincing as she cracks her knuckles. The skin between her fingers feels tender, inflamed, as if her hands have been submerged in water. If they survived, then they must have changed their names. It stands to reason, doesn’t it? They could have reinvented themselves, masqueraded as free settlers rather than convicts. Slipped through the records like ghosts.

She broadens the search terms, trying Comber Bay and shipwreck and survivors . But the only results relate to the child discovered at Devil’s Lookout in the early 80s. Baby Hope.

According to some theories, the sole survivor of another, smaller shipwreck

She pauses, her fingers frozen on the keyboard.

She thinks of the water’s surface, the way it changes from deepest blue to dullest grey, hiding its secrets of wood and bone. The shipwreck of the Naiad. The remains of Malcolm Biddy, of David Watts and Daniel Smith. Perhaps even Baby Hope’s family.

Outside, the tide pummels the shore. She imagines it reaching white fingers over the cliff, searching for her. As if it knows that Lucy is here, looking for answers.

She could start at the other end. Comb through her parents’ genealogy chart, search for a female ancestor who arrived at the right time – one who doesn’t appear on transportation registers or ship manifests. But then, Jess’s words echo in her mind.

No grandparents, no aunts or uncles …

It’s true that Lucy has scant knowledge of her parents’ backgrounds. She’s never seen a photograph of another relative, let alone a family tree.

The only time a grandparent was ever mentioned was a long-ago birthday. She’d begged to go on a camping trip, and so her parents had borrowed a tent from one of Mum’s work colleagues and set it up out on Paddock Two. Dad had built a little fire and Mum had toasted marshmallows. As the three of them looked up at the stars glowing in the sky, her father had pulled out his acoustic guitar. Lucy had braced herself for a creaking rendition of Paul Kelly or Cold Chisel, but instead he sang something slow and haunting as he strummed the strings, a song of sailing to a foreign shore and leaving those you love behind. By the time he’d finished, there was a thickness in his voice, like he was close to tears.

‘Oh, my love,’ her mother had said, but under her breath, as if she didn’t want Lucy to hear.

‘What was that song?’ Lucy had asked. She wanted to tell him it was beautiful, but felt tongue-tied, worried she might embarrass him.

‘An old song,’ Dad had said. ‘A sea shanty. My father taught it to me.’

‘What happened to him?’

But no one had answered her question. There had been only the whirr of the cicadas, and the strangely ragged sound of her father breathing, before her mother had suggested that perhaps it was time they all slept.

All her life, Lucy has prided herself on her passion for the truth. And yet she had never sensed what her sister had known all along: that her parents were hiding something.

Or had she felt it, deep down? Perhaps it actually led to her childhood thirst for puzzles and mysteries in the first place?

Lucy wonders now if she’s spent her entire life distracting herself from the reality that there were too many gaps in the story of her family. A hollowness where the truth ought to be.

Over the last few days, she’s tried so hard to ignore the suspicions Jess wrote about in her journal; her sister’s fears that she was adopted. It is incomprehensible, that they might not be related. After all, people have always commented on the resemblance between them. She clenches and unclenches her fists, the fragile skin stinging. She needs Jess here, to reassure her, to offer up some explanation to assuage her fears. Her sister – Lucy cannot let herself entertain the possibility that Jess is anything other than her sister – is the only one who can help.

She thinks of the painting downstairs on the easel. The delicacy with which Jess has rendered the two figures, their hands clasped tight as they face the floundering ship. Lucy is certain that Jess knows what connects their family to Eliza and Mary Kissane. And why they haunt her so.

There has to be someone who knows where she is.

Someone her sister confides in.

Max.

Could Jess still be in touch with Max? Her one-time best friend, to whom she lost her virginity?

She scrolls through the phone’s contacts and there, just above ‘Melody Neighbour’ is ‘Max Murphy’.

But when she makes the call, there’s no answer.

Later, when her own phone rings, she swears at the caller ID on the screen.

Shit. It’s her mother. Lucy feels a pulse of fear – perhaps the university has contacted her parents – mingled with a burst of homesickness.

She stands, frozen, unsure whether to answer or let it go to voicemail. Eventually, it rings out, only for her mother to phone again. God, if her mother knows about the suspension, she won’t stop calling until Lucy picks up.

Perhaps it’s time to come clean, to tell her parents where she is. And to tell them that Jess is missing.

Fear ticking in her throat, she answers. ‘Hello?’

‘Lucy?’

She can picture her mother so clearly. It’s still early, so she’ll be getting ready to head to her weekend shift at the outreach centre. Her grey curls tied back, a Breton stripe T-shirt tucked into her favourite pair of jeans. Before she leaves, she’ll put some seed into the bird-feeder in the garden, then she’ll wave at the small blurred shape of Lucy’s father out in the fields. Lucy can hear the drone of his tractor over the phone, the sound of it bringing tears to her eyes. ‘Hi, Mum.’

‘How’s it going, love? Uni OK this week?’

Lucy’s heart rate slows. Her mother doesn’t know about the suspension, about what Lucy did.

‘Oh, you know,’ she says. ‘The same.’

‘Are you sure? I had a voicemail yesterday from a woman at the student welfare office asking me to give her a call – is everything OK?’

Blood beats in her ears. ‘Sweetheart?’

‘Yes – yes. Everything’s fine,’ she says, the words coming in an unrehearsed, garbled rush. ‘There was just a bit of a mix-up yesterday – I overslept and missed a lecture, and my phone wasn’t working. My friend Em was a bit worried, she told someone at SWO. But it’s all sorted now.’

She picks at the skin of her ankle as she talks, watching it come away in lacy webs.

‘OK, so I don’t need to ring this woman back?’ ‘Nope.’

She closes her eyes, allowing herself one precious moment of relief.

‘Great, thanks love. So, how is everything going? Are you eating enough?’

‘Yep, I’m OK. Actually, Mum …’ She pauses. ‘Have you

heard from Jess lately?’

‘Not for a while – maybe a month or so? Why do you ask?’ ‘I, ah …’ She scrambles for a lie, hating herself. ‘I messaged her the other day, but she hasn’t replied.’

‘I’m sure she will in good time, Goose. You know how she gets caught up in her work. You mustn’t take it personally.’

A bird wheels past the window, close enough that Lucy can see tawny feathers shining with rain. A curlew with its scythe-like bill, its distinctive high-pitched call. Who-wee, who-wee.

‘Lucy – what was that noise? I thought I heard—’

‘Just a bird,’ she says. ‘I’m in the common room. Someone opened a window.’

‘Really? Strange, it sounded like …’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. It just reminded me of something. Anyway, darl – I’d better get on, they’re expecting me at the centre. Love you.’

‘Love you too.’

The rain has eased now, the clouds pearl-bright with sun. Gum leaves crunch underfoot, releasing their sharp fragrance, as Lucy walks down Malua Street.

On Bay Road, she looks out to the sea, at the breakers whipped by the wind. A lone surfer curling through the blue. She wonders if he feels safe out there, with that dark unknowable world beneath him. The tír fo thuinn. She looks away.

The pavement gleams, the shops’ awnings dripping with rain. She checks, first, that the general store is empty before she goes inside. Melody is behind the counter, pasting price labels onto tins of soup. The radio is playing the cricket; she whoops as Australia scores. The bell chimes as Lucy crosses the threshold.

She’s nervous, remembering the time they met at Cliff House, the way Melody had looked at Lucy like she was a secret Jess had kept. But now Melody smiles, her face warm and open with curiosity.

‘Hello, love,’ Melody says. ‘I’ve been meaning to see how you’re getting on. Dora looking after you?’

‘All good,’ Lucy smiles. ‘But I wondered if I could talk to you?’

Melody is silent for a moment, her eyes searching Lucy’s face. She nods to herself briefly, as if deciding something.

‘Of course,’ she says, switching off the radio. ‘Let’s go up to the house, have a cup of tea.’

‘Oh, no – I don’t want to interrupt your work. I can come back later, after you’ve closed up?’

‘She’ll be right,’ says Melody, plucking her woven handbag from a hook on the wall behind her. ‘Ryan’s been in for his eggs and Beth’s got her milk – I’m only expecting Bob Shepard later, and to be honest, he could go without his Violet Crumble. Diabetic,’ she grimaces, at Lucy’s confused face.

Melody’s front porch is alive with the tinkling of windchimes – just like the one that Jess has on her veranda, only dozens of them. They look homemade: twirling green fragments suspended from rough-hewn planks of wood.

‘Sea glass,’ Melody says as she catches Lucy looking. ‘Amazing what washes up around here. Although maybe not, given the history. Some of it might even be from the Naiad , I reckon. That’s where the bay gets its name: from beachcombers, like me.’

Lucy’s heart catches at the mention of the ship, at the thought of the Naiad at the bottom of the seabed, slowly giving up its secrets.

‘Here we are,’ says Melody, jolting her back to the present. ‘My humble abode.’

She leads Lucy down a narrow corridor, past a coat rack slung with rain jackets and hats, a jumble of gumboots and sneakers, into a light-filled living room. A leather sofa is covered with crocheted rugs, shelves overflow with paperbacks. A Georgia O’Keeffe calendar hangs on one wall. There’s an enormous framed print above the mantelpiece, all delicate ochre and soft blues, a gum tree sloping elegantly towards a mountainous horizon.

‘I love that painting,’ Lucy says, as Melody ushers her to the sofa.

‘Gorgeous, isn’t it? Albert Namatjira . Jess likes it, too. How do you take your tea?’

When Melody disappears into the kitchen off the living room, Lucy looks at the photographs on the mantelpiece. In pride of place is a faded photograph of a grinning couple who must be Melody’s parents: the woman has the same dark eyes, bright behind round glasses; the man shares Melody’s delicate jaw. Lucy recognises the blue slice of the sea behind them.

‘My parents,’ Melody says, reappearing in the doorway with a tray laden with a teapot and biscuits. ‘I took that picture on Devil’s Beach when I was ten. They’re both long gone, now.’

‘Oh,’ Lucy says, springing back from the mantelpiece. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Thanks.’ Melody sets the tray on the coffee table. ‘They used to love coming here, before all the disappearances became too much. Not sure they’d be thrilled about me moving here.’

‘You’re not from Comber Bay originally, then?’

‘Nope. I grew up in Sydney. Mum was a Wiradjuri woman, from Orange. She met Dad at teachers’ college in Camperdown. They came here on their honeymoon and fell in love with the place – Mum used to say the sky was bigger here than anywhere else on earth. She had a real way with words.’ Lucy smiles as Melody passes her a mug of tea, but there’s an ache in her chest. There’s a softness in Melody’s eyes as she talks about her parents – it’s clear how much she loved them – that makes Lucy long for her own.

‘Some years we spent the summer holidays in Orange with Mum’s mob, but mostly we came here. Long, golden days on the beach – collecting driftwood and playing cricket with Dad, reading with Mum. I loved it.’

‘It must have been hard,’ Lucy says gently, ‘to stop coming.’ ‘Yes,’ Melody nods, staring into her mug. ‘It was such a special place for us, before.’

Before what? Lucy wants to ask, but she can’t bring herself to intrude on the other woman’s memories, her grief. Silence pools between them before Melody looks up, features rearranged into a smile.

‘Anyway,’ says Melody. ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’

Lucy takes a breath.

‘I’m probably overthinking it,’ she says. ‘But I wanted to double-check that Jess definitely didn’t mention when she’d be back? I guess I’m just a little worried, not to have heard from her. And, you know, she didn’t take her car, or her phone …’

Melody nods slowly.

‘It must hurt, to think that she’d forgotten you were coming to stay.’

‘No,’ Lucy says, her mouth dry. ‘It’s not that. I just – I wonder if she’s OK.’

Melody reaches over to squeeze her hand.

‘She’ll be back, love. She’s worked so hard on these paintings – she wouldn’t do anything to risk the exhibition. I think she was just stressed.’ Melody takes a breath. ‘I know it sounds odd, but I think people can underestimate the effect a place like this will have on them, beautiful as it is.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, the history. The shipwreck, the disappearances, Baby Hope – all of that. And Jess has been immersed in it. She was obsessed with the Naiad . You know, some people reckon there’s a supernatural explanation for the missing men. That it’s the women from the shipwreck. That’s the story Jess wanted to paint – that she wanted to capture , she said. But maybe it all became a bit too much.’

Lucy remembers seeing The Odyssey among the books heaped on Jess’s dining-room table, and thinks of Charybdis and Scylla, female nymphs who became monsters of the sea. The sirens, luring sailors to their deaths.

‘Is that what people believe, in the town? That Comber Bay is haunted?’

‘Enough of them to matter. It’s like a stain; you can’t rub it out. I remember what it was like here, when I was younger. It was a busy little place, those early summers. I suppose not many people knew about the older disappearances. Although I remember my parents talking about Bill Goldhill, who went missing in ’77. He used to own the fish and chip shop with his wife. Not a nice man.’

‘In what way was he not a nice man?’ Lucy asks, but she thinks she’s guessed the answer already.

Melody sighs. ‘Everyone knew how he treated his wife. She was always black and blue. Poor woman. No one did anything – it was different in those days. Anyway, most people thought it was just an accident, when he vanished. That he’d had one too many before going for a swim. It barely made the local news. But then Alex Thorgood went missing in the eighties, and David Watts and Malcolm Biddy in the nineties—’

‘And Daniel Smith,’ Lucy interrupts. It strikes her as strange for Melody not to mention him, given that Ryan is one of her regular customers – possibly even a friend, from the number of times she’s mentioned him.

‘Yes, and Danny – of course,’ Melody says. She pauses, and Lucy catches the way her eyebrows crease together, the hard set of her mouth. She flushes, feeling thoughtless: perhaps Melody had been close to Daniel.

‘Anyway, by the late 90s the place had become a ghost town,’ Melody continues. ‘I mean, surfing is a pretty male pastime, isn’t it? And men were afraid to come here. Hell, they were afraid to live here: that’s why I own the store.’

‘Who owned it before?’

‘Mack Burton, but he sold it to me a couple years back. He was the last person to see David Watts alive. Sold him some bait. Don’t think he ever really got over it.’

‘Yes, I read that. And didn’t Watts say he was going to meet someone?’

Melody nods.

‘Yep. Eerie, when you think of the stories. When I was a teenager, we used to say that if you stood on the shore after dark, you’d hear the drowned women, singing. Like they were calling to you.’

Lucy’s hands twitch in her lap. The skin between her fingers itches; she suppresses the urge to pick at it, to peel it away. Again, she feels worlds colliding: Melody is talking about longdead women, but they’re women that Lucy knows. She knows the timbre of their voices, the smell of their hair, the way their breathing comes ragged and small in the pitch dark of the hold. Their lives have become as real to her as her own.

Her heart lurches. She swallows, grits her teeth. She needs to detach herself, to step back.

‘Hang on,’ she says suddenly. ‘What do those stories have to do with David Watts meeting someone before he went missing?’

That hard look returns to Melody’s face when she speaks. ‘Well, that’s the thing,’ she says. ‘Apparently Watts said he was going to meet a woman. I have an old newspaper clipping about it somewhere, actually.’ Melody, eases herself from the sofa. ‘Mack gave an interview not long after Watts disappeared. Back in a tick. Eat one of those biscuits, won’t you?’ She gestures to the Tim Tams arranged on the china plate on the tray.

But Lucy can’t bring herself to eat. She clenches her fists, trying to ground herself in this world, this life. She focuses on the scratch of the blanket against her skin, watches dust-motes dance in a shaft of light through the window. She counts the different shades of blue in the painting that hangs above the mantelpiece.

She’s relieved when Melody comes back into the room at last, bearing a battered shoebox.

‘It’s a bit dusty, sorry,’ says Melody as she clears space for it on the coffee table. For a moment, Lucy is comforted by the familiar scent of old newspaper. She lets Melody’s chatter, the sound of rustling paper, wash over her.

‘It’s here somewhere – oh, look at this, an article about Judith Wilson. She and her husband adopted Baby Hope. Did Jess mention them? They used to live at Cliff House. It fell into ruin after they left, until Jess bought it, really. Awful, the way they were treated. All those rumours. Here, take a look.’ Melody hands her the crumpled front page of a tabloid from April 1982. The headline is enormous, taking up most of the page: Baby Hope Mystery: Did South Coast Woman Abandon Own Baby? Accompanying the blaring text is a small black and white photograph of a woman, dark hair in a neat chignon, one hand lifted protectively to her face. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that her face is half covered, that the photograph is old and creased and black and white.

Lucy would know that face anywhere.

She knows it almost as well as she knows her own.