The Forgotten Garden (12 page)

But the boy didn’t answer. ‘Land!’ he called out, running to lean against the rails that ran around the deck. ‘There’s land! Can you see it?’

The little girl came to stand by him, still clutching the handle of the small white suitcase. She glanced warily at his freckled nose, then turned to look in the direction of his pointed finger. Far in the distance she saw a strip of land, trees of palest green all the way along it.

‘That’s Australia,’ said the boy, eyes trained on the distant shore.

‘My pa’s there waiting for us.’

Australia, the little girl thought. Another word she didn’t recognise.

‘We’re going to have a new life there, with our own house and everything, even a bit of land. That’s what my pa says in his letters.

He says we’re going to work the land, build a new life for ourselves.

And we will, too, even if Ma ain’t with us no more.’ The last he said in a quieter voice. He fell silent for a moment before turning to the little girl and cocking his head towards the shore. ‘Is that where your pa is?’

The little girl thought about this. ‘My pa?’

The boy rolled his eyes. ‘Your dad,’ he said. ‘Fellow what belongs with your ma. You know, your pa.’

‘My pa,’ the little girl echoed, but the boy was no longer listening.

He’d caught sight of one of his sisters and was running off shouting about land being sighted.

The little girl nodded as he left, though she still wasn’t sure what he meant. ‘My pa,’ she said uncertainly. ‘That’s where my pa is.’

The cry of ‘Land!’ went around the deck and as people became busy around her the little girl took the white suitcase to a spot by a pile of barrels, a nook to which she was unaccountably drawn. She sat down and opened the case, hoping to find some food. There was none, so she settled instead for the book of fairytales lying on top of the other contents.

As the boat drew nearer to shore, and tiny dots in the distance became seagulls, she opened the book across her lap and gazed at the beautiful black and white sketch of a woman and a deer, side by 80

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T h e F o r g o t t e n G a r d e n

side in the clearing of a thorny forest. And somehow, though she could not read the words, the little girl realised that she knew this picture’s tale. Of a young princess who travelled a great distance across the sea to find a precious, hidden item belonging to someone she dearly loved.

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12

Over the Indian Ocean, 2005

Over the Indian Ocean, 2005

Cassandra leaned against the cold, rough plastic of the cabin and looked through the window, down to the vast blue ocean that covered the globe for as far as the eye could see. The very same ocean little Nell had traversed all those years before.

It was the first time Cassandra had been overseas. That is, she’d been to New Zealand once, and had visited Nick’s family in Tasmania before they were married, but never further afield. She and Nick had talked about taking off to the UK for a few years: Nick would write music for British TV, and there had to be plenty of work for art historians in Europe. But they hadn’t made it and she’d buried the dream long ago, beneath the pile of others.

And now here she was, aboard a plane, by herself, flying to Europe.

After she’d spoken with Ben at the antique centre, after he’d given her the picture of the house, after she’d found the suitcase, it turned out there was room for little else in her mind. The mystery seemed to attach itself to her and she couldn’t shake it off, even if she tried. Truth be told she didn’t want to, she liked the constancy of preoccupation.

She enjoyed wondering about Nell, this other Nell, the little girl whom she hadn’t known.

It was true that even after she’d found the suitcase she hadn’t intended to travel directly to the UK. It had seemed far more sensible to wait, to see how she felt in a month’s time, maybe plan a trip for later. She couldn’t just be jetting off to Cornwall on a whim. But then she’d had the dream, same as she’d been having on and off for a decade.

She was standing in the middle of a field with nothing on the horizon in any direction. The dream had no sense of malevolence, just 82

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unendingness. Ordinary vegetation, nothing that excited the imagination, pale reedy grass, long enough to brush the ends of her fingers, and a light and constant breeze that kept it rustling.

In the beginning, years ago when the dream was new, she’d known she was looking for someone, that if she were only to walk in the right direction she would find them. But no matter how many times she’d dreamed the scene, she’d never seemed to manage it. One undulating hill would be replaced by another; she’d look away at the wrong moment; she’d suddenly wake up.

Gradually, over time, the dream had changed. So subtly, so slowly, she didn’t notice it happening. It wasn’t that the setting changed: physically all remained as ever. It was the feeling of the dream. The certainty that she would find what it was she sought just slipped away, until one night she knew there was nothing, no one waiting for her.

That no matter how far she walked, how carefully she searched, how much she wanted to find the person she was looking for, she was alone . . .

Next morning, the desolation had lingered, but Cassandra was used to its dull hangover and went about her life as usual. There was no sign that the day was to be anything other than ordinary, until she went to the nearby shopping centre to buy bread for lunch and wound up paused by the travel agency. Funny, she’d never really noticed it was there. Without quite knowing how or why, she found herself pushing open the door, standing on the seagrass matting, a wall of consultants waiting for her to speak.

Cassandra remembered later feeling dull surprise at that point. It seemed she was a real person after all, a solid human being, moving in and out of the orbits of others. No matter that she so often felt herself to be living half a life, to be a half-light.

At home afterwards, she’d stood for a moment, replaying the morning’s events, trying to isolate the instant in which her decision had been made. How she’d gone to the shops for bread and come back with an airline ticket. And then she went into Nell’s room, pulled the suitcase back down from its hiding spot, and took everything from inside. The book of fairytales, the sketch with Eliza Makepeace written on its back, the lined exercise book with Nell’s handwriting scrawled across each page.

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K a t e M o r t o n

She made herself a milky coffee and sat up in Nell’s bed, doing her best to decipher the god-awful handwriting, transcribing it onto a clean pad of paper. Cassandra was reasonably good at unravelling handwritten notes from previous centuries—it went with the territory for a second-hand dealer—but old-fashioned writing was one thing, it had a pattern to it. Nell’s hand was just messy. Purposely, perversely messy. To make matters worse, the notebook had suffered water damage at some point in its history. Pages were stuck together, wrinkled blotches were laced with mould, and to rush was to risk tearing the pages and forever obscuring the entries.

It was slow going, but Cassandra didn’t need to go far to realise that Nell had been trying to solve the mystery of her identity.

August 1975. Today they brought me the white suitcase. As soon as I saw it, I knew what it was.

I pretended casualness. Doug and Phyllis don’t know the truth and I didn’t want them to see that I was shaking. I wanted them to think only that it was an old suitcase of Dad’s that he’d wanted me to have. After they’d gone, I sat looking at it for a time, willing myself to remember: who I am, where I am from. It was no use, of course, and so, at length, I opened it.

There was a note from Dad, an apology of sorts, and beneath it other things. A child’s dress—mine I suppose—a silver hairbrush, and a book of fairytales. I recognised it immediately. I turned the cover and then I saw her, the Authoress. The words came fully formed. She is the key to my past, I’m sure of it. If I find her, I will finally find myself. For that is what I intend to do. In this notebook I will chart my progress, and by its end, I will know my name and why I lost it.

Cassandra turned carefully through the mouldy pages, filled with suspense. Had Nell done what she set out to do? Found out who she was? Is that why she’d bought the house? The final entry was dated November 1975 and Nell had just arrived home to Brisbane: I’m going back as soon as I’ve tied things up here. I’ll be sorry to leave my house in Brisbane, and my shop, but what does it compare with finally finding my truth? And I’m so close. I know it. Now that the cottage 84

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is mine, I know the final answers will follow. It is my past, my self, and I have nearly found it.

Nell had been planning to leave Australia for good. Why hadn’t she? What had happened? Why hadn’t she written another entry?

Another look at the date, November 1975, and Cassandra’s skin prickled. It was two months before she, Cassandra, had been deposited at Nell’s place. Lesley’s promised week or two had stretched on indefinitely until it turned into forever.

Cassandra set the notebook aside as realisation hardened. Nell had taken up the parental reins without skipping a beat, had stepped in and given Cassandra a home and a family. A mother. And never for an instant had she let Cassandra know of the plans her arrival had interrupted.

c

Cassandra turned from the aircraft window and pulled the book of fairytales from her carry-on, laid it across her lap. She didn’t know what had made her so certain that she wanted to bring the book onboard with her. It was the bond with Nell, she supposed, for this was the book from the suitcase, the link with Nell’s past, one of the few possessions that had accompanied the little girl across the seas to Australia. And it was something about the book itself. It exercised the same compulsion over Cassandra that it had when she was ten years old and had first discovered it downstairs in Nell’s flat. The title, the illustrations, even the author’s name. Eliza Makepeace. Whispering it now, Cassandra felt the strangest shiver tiptoe along her spine.

As the ocean continued to stretch below, Cassandra turned to the first story and began to read, a story called ‘The Crone’s Eyes’ which she recognised from the hot summer’s day long ago.

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THE CRONE’S EYES

by Eliza Makepeace

by Eliza Makepeace

nce in a land that lay far across

O
the shining sea there lived a

princess who didn’t know she was

a princess, for when she was but a

small child her kingdom had been

ransacked and her royal family

slain. It so happened that the young princess had
been playing that day outside the castle walls and
knew nothing of the attack until night began its fall
towards earth and she set aside her game to find
her home in ruins. The little princess wandered
alone for a time, until finally she came to a cottage
on the edge of a dark wood. As she knocked upon
the door, the sky, angered by the destruction it had
witnessed, broke apart in rage and spat fierce rain
across the land.

Inside the cottage there lived a blind crone who
took pity on the girl and determined to give her shelter
and raise her as her own. There was much work to
be done in the crone’s cottage, but the princess was
never heard to complain, for she was a true princess
with a pure heart. The happiest folk are those that are
busy, for their minds are starved of time to seek out
woe. Thus did the princess grow up contented. She
came to love the changing seasons and learned the
satisfaction of sowing seeds and tending crops. And
although she was becoming beautiful, the princess
did not know it, for the crone had neither looking
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glass nor vanity and thus the princess had not learned the
ways of either.

One night, in the princess’s sixteenth year, she and
the crone sat in the kitchen eating their supper. ‘What
happened to your eyes, dear crone?’ asked the princess,
who had wondered for a long time.

The crone turned towards the princess, skin wrinkled
where her eyes should be. ‘My sight was taken from me.’

‘By whom?’

‘When I was but a maiden, my father loved me so
much that he removed my eyes so I need never witness
death and destruction in the world.’

‘But dearest crone, you can no longer witness beauty
either,’ said the princess, thinking of the pleasure she
gained from watching her garden blossom.

‘No,’ said the crone. ‘And I would very much like to
see you, my Beauty, grow.’

‘Could we not seek your eyes somewhere?’

The crone smiled sadly. ‘My eyes were to be returned
by messenger when I attained my sixtieth year, but on the
night ordained, my Beauty arrived with a great lashing
storm on her heels, and I was unable to meet him.’

‘Might we find him now?’

The crone shook her head. ‘The messenger could not
wait, and my eyes were taken instead to the deep well in
the land of lost things.’