The Lost Girls Read online

  I knew it, I’d already worked it out, but it’s still a shock to see it there in black and white.

  “The wood’s not great,” says Richard. “I asked for box, but they brought stringybark. It’s going to smoke a bit.”

  “That’s no good.” This happens pretty much every winter, I recall.

  “I get better firewood when we go down to Mount Wallace to see Anne,” he says. “I hired a trailer last winter, should have done it again this year.”

  I can tell he’s watching me to see how I react to Anne’s name. The image of her fills my mind, and I’m afraid there will be tears if I say anything.

  “You are that Linda, I suppose? Anne’s sister.”

  I nod.

  “Sorry I’m being nosy,” he says, relentless. “I suppose you realise that none of them know what became of you?”

  • • •

  I must have told Richard about Linda the first time we went to Mount Wallace together, back when Dad was still alive. Among the family photos on the crystal cabinet in the unused front room there was a prominent photograph, the last one taken before she disappeared.

  Linda is posing for the camera in a full-skirted light-coloured dress that shows off her trim figure, her blonde hair pinned back at the sides and cascading over her shoulders in careful waves, a big smile revealing a gap between her two front teeth. Her mouth is dark with lipstick, but her eyes are clear and innocent. Nice girls didn’t wear eye makeup in those days, Mum told me.

  There is another photograph of my mother, Anne, at about the same age or a bit younger, wearing a drab long-waisted dress with her hair, also blonde, in a short bob. She’s hugging a very small Linda, aged about two, who is scowling at something off to one side. Apart from their colouring the sisters are not very much alike, and I’ve always been told I look more like Linda. I’ve certainly got that accursed gap between my teeth.

  The other siblings, my three uncles Jack, Mark and Frank, were all closer in age to Mum. No-one knows how or why Linda came along in 1933, eight years after Frank, and by all accounts she was always difficult. Mum recalled a baby who screamed day and night. The three brothers were moved from their big bedroom to an enclosed veranda on the far side of the house so they could get some sleep. As soon as she turned fourteen Mum was pressured into leaving school to help around the house, and she had to share the big room with the fretful baby.

  “I used to put her in my bed with me,” she told me. “No-one ever told me you shouldn’t do that – no-one ever told me anything, now I come to think of it. I did wake up once to find she’d slipped right down under the covers, somewhere near my feet she was. She was sleeping so well I was tempted to leave her there.”

  “What about Grandma Dulcie?” I asked. “Why couldn’t she look after the baby?”

  “Good question. Your grandma took to spending most of the day in bed with all the blinds down. I imagine Linda came as an unpleasant shock, and she just didn’t have the energy to do it all again; or maybe it was some sort of nervous breakdown, no-one ever talked about it.”

  When Linda was just three her father, my grandfather Herbert McCutcheon, died. He was only forty-seven. He had managed to avoid following his two brothers into early graves at Gallipoli and Villers-Bretonneux in the First World War, but he had left the best part of himself in the trenches.

  Mum, the oldest child, managed to get a job in the local drapery store and her middle brother Mark was given permission to leave school just shy of his fourteenth birthday and start work at the sawmill. The eldest brother Jack had already run away from home. He was working as a roustabout somewhere in Queensland and learning to shear. The only one left at school was Frank, who was thought to be the brightest of the bunch, and Mum devoted herself to keeping him there.

  Linda, given free run of the house while my grandmother wept in her bedroom, was smart and naughty. On more than one occasion the older siblings came home from work or school to find she had gone missing. They would spread out, shining torches into the growing darkness, calling and calling. Mum was the one who usually found her, under the house or up a tree.

  Then the day came when no-one could find her. It was a hot, still Sunday morning in early January, 1950. She was sixteen, and the general assumption was that she had followed Jack’s example and run away.

  • • •

  Richard used to speculate about where Linda might be and what she might have got up to. But when my mother was in the hospital, rapidly fading away, she started talking about her missing sister, and her yearning was palpable.

  We threw ourselves into a determined effort to find Linda, advertising far and wide, and we even managed to get some radio time on the ABC, but it came to nothing. Richard was convinced that Linda must have seen the ads and hardened her heart, and he lost his sneaking regard for her.

  “She’s dead,” Mum told me in one of her more lucid moments. “Something happened to her back then, I don’t know what. She wouldn’t have done this to me, you know?”

  “I’m sure you’re right, Mum,” I said, gently holding her poor wrinkled hand. Her skin was as thin as tissue, so fragile I hardly dared touch her, afraid that part of her would come away.

  “If she was alive she would have contacted me, sooner or later,” Mum went on. “She wouldn’t have left me fretting.”

  We didn’t talk about it again, and I didn’t remind her that Linda had packed a small bag and taken it with her, or that no body had ever been found.

  • • •

  Now, as far as the younger I – she – is concerned, Linda is sitting in her living room as large as life. The question is, will the younger Stella believe it or will she send this imposter packing?

  I’m not too worried, because of course I know how Stella’s mind works. She will be sceptical, but curious, and she will give me the benefit of the doubt while she searches around for some proof.

  “It’s a long story,” I tell Richard. “I wanted to get in touch with Anne, but I just kept putting it off. How is she?”

  “Oh, she’s in pretty good shape. We can’t get her out of Mount Wallace, she’s involved in everything down there.”

  “She’s not still in our old house, is she?” It’s a genuine question, because I’m not sure when it was that Anne finally moved into a flat closer to the centre of town. It was a long time after Dad died, but I don’t remember the year.

  “No, not for a long time,” says Richard. “She and George, Stella’s dad, did move in for a while to look after your mum. Stella was there until she left school. But when Dulcie went they had to sell up and share out the money. You do realise Dulcie’s not around anymore?”

  “Well, she’d be over a hundred if she was,” I murmur. “That would be something.”

  Jasper materialises in the room, jumps up on the couch beside me and sits with his tail neatly coiled around him, washing his face. I assume he’s just been fed.

  “Beautiful cat,” I say, stroking his head. “Burmese?”

  “Yeah. Bit of a one-woman puss, that one. He’s been known to turn on people.”

  With that, Jasper steps delicately into my lap and curls up, purring. Richard laughs.

  “I’ve never seen him do that with anyone except Stella,” he says.

  “Oh, I think they recognise a cat-lover,” I say, scratching Jasper’s ears.

  Richard puts one last piece of wood on the fire and looks up, a slightly worried look.

  “I suppose a share of that house would have been yours,” he says.

  “Dinner’s ready.” The clear voice comes floating in from the kitchen. My voice.

  4

  The kitchen table has been set, with a place for me on the end. The tablecloth, white with little red apples on it, is one I still have.

  Stella and Claire are busy at the stove, wearing the aprons we bought at one of those school fetes. Under Claire’s apron I see the brown skirt and pullover of her primary school uniform; this must be her last year there.

  The ap
rons are fashioned identically, one red and one blue with broad straps that cross over at the back. Claire’s sash is tied in a neat bow, Stella’s hangs loose. I never realised how similar our bearing was, the slim straight backs. The hair colour is similar too, the blonde streaks in Claire’s a little lighter. Claire’s hair is also caught back at the nape of her neck, tied with a yellow ribbon.

  As Richard and I enter the room Claire turns, her attention focused on the heavy casserole dish that she carries carefully to the table. My whole body constricts at the sight of her grave little face, and pain makes me catch my breath. No-one notices. Stella is watching Claire, a hand hovering protectively in case there’s trouble with the dish, and Richard has gone to the door to call up the stairs.

  “Julian! Didn’t you hear your mother?”

  “Claire,” says Stella as we all sit down. “This is my Aunt Linda, your great-aunt.”

  “Aunt Linda?” says Claire, wide-eyed. “Aunt Linda, the one who . . .”

  “The one who vanished,” I tell her, smiling. “I’ve turned up.”

  Claire stares at the gap between my two front teeth, then her face splits into a grin, displaying the braces that the orthodontist promised would close her own gap. They didn’t.

  When I was a child I was fascinated by the story of Linda, lost at the magical age of sixteen, possibly sleeping somewhere in an enchanted castle, and I would pester my mother for stories about her. Claire, in turn, demanded to hear all the stories from me.

  “Where have you been?” she asks, and jumps a little as Stella gives her foot a little warning nudge under the table.

  “Here and there,” I say. “It’s okay . . .” Stella is frowning at Claire.

  “It’s not that interesting,” I go on. “The last few years I’ve been in Perth.”

  “Are you . . . um . . . on your own?” asks Richard.

  “Pretty much. I was married for a while, but it didn’t work out.”

  “Children?” asks Stella. They are all burning with curiosity now.

  “No, sadly.” I haven’t had much time to think about this, but I know I’d better keep Linda’s life as simple as possible.

  The food is served and attacked: a beef casserole that we had quite a lot in those days. I used to make a double batch when I had a quiet Sunday, and this lot has come out of the freezer and been heated in the oven, because I never liked or trusted the microwave. I still don’t.

  The food is not quite hot enough, but no-one says anything. Steamed vegetables are passed around to go with the meat. Julian has sidled into his chair next to Stella, and is wolfing his food the way he always did.

  “Any sweets, Mum?” He raises his head for the first time, his mouth still full.

  “Just fruit,” says Stella. “There’s no hurry.”

  “Gotta go out,” Julian mumbles, carrying his plate to the sink.

  “Out? Where are you going?”

  “Just out. I’m meeting Natalie.”

  “Hmmm.” I sense and share Stella’s displeasure at the name. She shoots a look at Richard, who gives a little shake of the head as if trying to bring the room into focus.

  “Not a good look, mate, on a weeknight,” he says obligingly. “What about your homework?”

  “It’s all done.” Oh no it’s not, I think to myself. They’re going to get a shock when they see his report this term.

  As Julian leaves the room Stella sighs and gives me a wry look.

  “I should be more tolerant,” she says, “but he’s got this girlfriend who’s a real pain in the neck.”

  “How long have they been together?” I ask.

  “Since Easter. Four or five months now.”

  Is that all? The pointless relationship with Natalie is going to continue for years. Poor Julian, wasting his time with this needy, whining girl. It would have been much better . . . would be much better . . . if he were to break it off now, before he builds up a substantial commitment to her. I wonder if I could say something to Stella or, better still, to him.

  A little shock of anxiety hits me. Everyone knows that time travellers have certain obligations. If you go into the past you can observe as much as you like, but it’s important not to change anything. Even a tiny, apparently insignificant change can set history shooting off in a different direction, resulting in all sorts of contradictions and paradoxes.

  I look across at Claire, her clear grey eyes fixed on her plate as she chews thoughtfully, my dewy innocent child. Am I going to obey the rules and make sure I don’t do anything to change the future? Hell, no.

  5

  Claire, I have calculated, will be turning twelve very soon. Four days after her sixteenth birthday I will be clutching her lifeless body in a stinking alley, howling at the sky as police and paramedics try to prise my hands off her.

  People like to say that everything happens for a reason. To my mind that’s pure nonsense, and it smacks of quasi-religious intelligent-designer-believing piety. But if it were true, if there could be some reason for my being inexplicably hurled backwards through time to this moment in our family’s history, this possibly pivotal moment, then there’s only one thing it could be: to save Claire.

  • • •

  With Julian gone the atmosphere at the table eases, and we drift into tricky waters.

  “So,” says Stella. “Perth? Are you in Sydney for a holiday?”

  “Well, sort of.” I glance at Claire and then back at Stella. “Things got a bit difficult over there. I don’t think I’ll be going back for a while.”

  “Right. And where are you staying?”

  “Um – nowhere yet. After this I thought I might go back to Central and try one of those cheap places around there, just until I get myself sorted out.”

  “So you came in by train, did you?”

  “That’s right. Just from Melbourne, you know. Overnight.”

  “I suppose you left your luggage at Central?”

  “Uh – yes.” I’ve got about three hundred dollars in my purse, and surely I can manage on that for a couple of days. A couple of days may be all I need, anyway. Any minute now I might blink and find myself back in 2017, possibly sitting on the bus or standing in front of our building feeling slightly disorientated.

  “There’s lots to do in Sydney,” says Richard brightly. “How long is it since you were here?”

  “Well, never, really,” I say. “I’ve been . . . Well, if I’d come to Sydney before I probably would have looked you up then.”

  “Anyway, it’s nice that you came now,” says Stella, reaching for my hand.

  I smile at her without speaking, because tears have come to my eyes and I know she can see them. There’s an uncomfortable pause.

  “Would you like some coffee, Linda?” asks Stella, pulling herself together.

  “Oh, uh – that would be lovely, but have you got decaffeinated?”

  “Yes, that’s what I drink,” she says. “I find anything with caffeine keeps me awake at night.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  Richard gets up and puts the kettle on.

  “Go and make yourself comfortable in the lounge, and we’ll bring the coffee through in a minute,” says Stella, and I obediently make myself scarce.

  The other cat, Henrietta, is stretched out on the rug in front of the fire. She’s not much more than a kitten, a dishevelled tortoiseshell.

  “Hey, Henny,” I murmur. She ignores me.

  Claire comes gliding into the living room with a plate of biscuits. She puts it down on the coffee table and sidles up to me.

  “Why did you run away?” she whispers.

  Is this the moment, I wonder, my chance to utter the magic words, something that will echo in her memory and protect her in the dark days ahead? Something that will convince her that life is to be seized and grappled with, not squandered, never thrown away in a seeping alley?

  “I was stupid,” I whisper back. “I thought my family didn’t love me enough, that they didn’t care, but I was wrong. I
should have thought of my family, Claire.”

  She frowns a little and slips out of the room as Stella comes in with a laden tray.

  “Listen,” says Stella as she pours and distributes the coffee. “We don’t want you to go to some hotel. There’s a spare room out the back, if you’d like to stay with us for a few days. It’s a bit rough, but you might like it.”

  “I don’t want to be any trouble,” I demur.

  “It’s no trouble. Richard’s just taking a radiator out there. It’s a bit on the chilly side, but it will warm up.”

  I’m happy to stay in the outside room. We fixed it up as a little project one summer – maybe it was this last summer. The room must have once been an external kitchen or a sizable laundry, separated from the house by a small back verandah which we had partly enclosed.

  We cleared out the junk, patched up the holes in the floor and painted the whole room white: floorboards, ceiling and rough-hewn lining boards. There was a boarded-up space where a window had once been, and Richard found a lovely old leadlight that just fitted. We put our old double bed out there with a quilt and lots of cushions, and I set up a small desk where I was going to do something creative, I wasn’t sure what. I had a vision of my ideal life, where I would shut myself away from the family on a regular basis, and they would tiptoe around, fingers to their hushed lips. In reality I rarely went out there.

  Richard comes in and picks up his mug.

  “We can hop in the car, if you like, and get your stuff from Central,” he says.

  “Oh no, really,” I protest. “It’s very kind of you, but I can manage without my things for one night.”

  “Well, if you’re sure.”

  “I might actually turn in soon,” I tell them, gulping down my coffee. “It’s been a long day.”

  We have to go through the motions of Stella taking me out to the back room and explaining where everything is. She insists on bringing me a nightdress of hers and a towel, then at last I’m alone. I really am exhausted, and don’t trust myself any more to come up with plausible answers to all their questions.