Chapter Sixteen

England, 1997

M ara dreams of moonlight on swelling water where pearlescent beings stretch their arms, beseeching her to join them. Amid the siren calls are whispers, telling her to be strong, to do what she must do. In her dream, Mara recognises it’s the river, Sabrina, goddess, murmuring these words of encouragement. Her heart lifts. She will be strong, will do what she must do.

Sunlight clings to the edges of the curtains when Mara wakes, snippets of the dream skittering in her head like insects at dusk. The nymphs – what did she really see yesterday on the river? – the susurrations of the river, like the soughing of wind in trees, telling her to be strong.

Strong for what? Mara swallows, doesn’t go there.

The travel clock says eight o’clock, late for her to sleep. She pushes off the doona – the duvet, she reminds herself – and swings her feet to the thick-piled rug. Showered and dressed, Mara prepares toast and a pot of tea and sits at the kitchen table. She taps her foot on the stone floor while she eats, on edge, restless for reasons unknown. Sun streams through the window to light dust motes which float, languid, with nowhere particular to go and not caring. Mara wants to float too, be as relaxed as the dust motes. Her brain insists, however, on picking over her dream, reliving yesterday at the cleft with the ebbing tide swirling at her feet and the mass … She bites into her toast.

When she’s eaten, Mara calls Josie at her flat, using the cottage’s landline.

Josie chatters about how she’s preparing for her move to London, how jealous her friends are, and how the guys at her work are devastated for themselves and thrilled for her in equal measure.

‘They want me to work for them afterwards.’ She laughs. ‘I’ve told ’em it’ll cost them a lot more.’

‘As it should,’ Mara says. ‘Can’t wait for you to be here, show you around.’ Her mind skips to the river and the nymphs. She tugs it back, like a dog on a long lead. She yearns to talk about what she saw and heard. On the other hand, she doesn’t want Josie to worry she’s cracking up or going ‘weird’.

‘What’ve you been up to, Mum? Any further on with your Aaron Appleby?’

Mara confesses progress is slow, tells Josie about finding Kathryn’s birth in the parish register, and how strange it felt. And also Hester’s death, under the name Appleby, confirming Hester was Aaron’s wife. She needs to go to Gloucester to the Records Office to find out more.

Josie giggles down the line. ‘You’re a busy bee, Mum. You’ll have your mystery sorted in no time and have to come home to your family.’

Which prompts Mara to ask, ‘Seen much of your dad?’ The question sounds abrupt to her own ears.

‘He’s never around, and when he is he’s busy as hell.’ Josie snorts ten thousand miles away. ‘Meant to say, Mum, I’ve told Dad I’m coming home for the next few months, save my rent money for London.’

‘Ah.’ Mara thinks about this. ‘Was he happy about the idea?’

‘Not at first.’ Josie giggles again. ‘He came round when I asked why on earth not? I mean,’ she splutters in indignation, ‘the place sits empty ninety percent of the time. Besides, it’s warmer there than here. The flat’s chilly already, imagine what it’ll be like come July, with that two bar radiator for heating.’

Not at first. Came around when asked why not . Why not, because I entertain my lover here from time to time? Why not because I worry my lover will call here and you’ll answer the phone and wonder who is this strange woman with the sexy voice? Mara clenches her jaw, loosens it, says, ‘A clever idea, Josie. For the reasons you say. I’ll tell your dad I encouraged you.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’

They chat for a moment longer, and hang up. Mara gazes out the kitchen window. The sun has sauntered off as if it couldn’t be bothered shining on lazy dust motes any more, leaving the way open for clouds to intrude. She goes to the door, steps outside. A chilly breeze carries the scent of pending rain. Not a day for exploring. Coming inside, Mara glances into the living room. If it’s cool enough later, she will light the tempting fire. In which case, she needs to replenish her reading material.

First, to try the Records Office. This time, Mara gets through, explains she wants to search Barnley parish and Census records for a family history project, and also because she’s trying to find a particular person who either died or – the thought comes back to her – possibly disappeared in 1897. Mrs Kear, the Archivist, tells Mara she can come along any time and ask for the material, though she has to be prepared to wait, and suggests she also takes herself to Cinderford Library, in the Forest.

‘They have the old local newspapers on microfilm,’ she says. ‘If he disappeared, there might be an article about him. Or an obituary if he died and was important enough.’

The view from the front window is obscured by a misty curtain of drizzly rain. ‘Thank you,’ Mara says, ‘I’ll do that.’

While in telephoning mode, Mara thinks about calling Peter. He hasn’t been in touch since their conversation a few days ago when she gave him the cottage’s number. She hesitates, her hand on the phone. Josie’s innocent comments about her father’s objections to his daughter coming home ping pong in her head. Why would he be averse to Josie being at home for three months? Doesn’t he want her company on those rare occasions he’s there himself? A warm, lit home after a stressful day or a delayed flight should be appealing, surely?

Mara steps briskly from the phone. She won’t call. Not today. Today she’s in danger of reading things into the conversation which might not be there. Procrastination , a sly voice in her head insinuates. So be it.

Collecting her map of the Forest from the oak dresser, Mara unfolds it on the kitchen table to find this Cinderford place. With the map open, she first searches for, and fails to find, Jack’s sacred well. A good thing he agreed to take her, save her driving aimlessly along these too narrow potholed lanes which pass as roads. Which was the reason she asked him and nothing to do with the way he makes her feel he wants her company, is genuinely interested in her and why she’s here. Mara tells herself.

She avoids a comparison with Peter by returning to the prosaic library search. Once found and a route planned, she takes up the local telephone directory to check the library’s opening hours.

***

Four hours later, Mara pulls the Fiesta up beside Lavender Cottage. During the time she spent at the library, and afterwards eating a sandwich lunch at the grandly ancient Speech House hotel, the rain has trundled off and the sun fills the sky in its place.

The librarian had been cheerily helpful, finding the newspaper microfilms for 1896 and 1897 and showing Mara how to thread the spool and operate the clunky machine. Nevertheless, the alluring old advertisements for curing ailments, pulling in waists and glossing cast iron cooking ranges failed to make up for the fact there was no word of a missing Aaron Appleby. Nor any other item of interest. After two hours during which her eyes grew strained and her neck stiff, Mara thanked the librarian, who asked if she found what she’d been looking for.

‘No.’ Mara shrugged. ‘A long shot. I’d hoped Barnley was such a quiet place anything which happened there might make it to the local papers.’

‘Barnley? In the 1890s?’ The librarian shifted the microfilm spool from one hand to the other. ‘Barnley, 90s,’ she muttered. ‘Why does that ring a bell?’

Mara waited, eyes widened with hope.

‘No.’ The librarian sighed. ‘Probably nothing to do with your search in any case.’ She grinned. ‘I’m a local history buff,’ she said, ‘with a head full of random tales, some of them facts.’

‘If whatever you’re thinking of comes to you,’ Mara said, ‘I’ll give you the number where I’m staying for the next couple of months. If you don’t mind calling me, I’d be grateful.’ She pulled a page from her notepad, delved into her handbag for a pen and scribbled out the telephone number for Lavender Cottage. ‘Particularly if it mentions a Hester Appleby, or’ – Mara had the sudden thought – ‘perhaps Williams, or an Aaron Appleby.’

Recognition had flickered for an instant in the librarian’s eyes. She sighed. ‘No doubt it’ll flash into my brain at two o’clock in the morning one night.’ Grinning at Mara, she said, ‘Always keep a piece of paper and pen on the bedside table. And if you do discover what happened, please tell me.’ She had held out her hand to Mara. ‘Barbara Griffiths.’

The unexpected afternoon sunshine tempts Mara to open a bottle of white wine chilling in the fridge and pour herself a glass to drink under the oak tree. She leaves on her jacket and wanders into the garden, wine in hand. At the table, she sips and remembers afternoons like this in Adelaide when the hot summer is done and autumn freshens the air. Peter opposite her, with a beer or wine. Chips – crisps they call them here – in a bowl between them.

After Mara left Simmond & Sons, where they both worked, for a new firm, business-related topics had to be forgotten in case of rival interests. It hadn’t mattered. They’d had the house to discuss, the renovations Mara supervised, the garden too. When Josie came, Mara gave up her job. She and Peter could have talked about the old firm then, but they were out of the habit. Besides, the subject of Josie filled the evenings with more than sufficient conversation. Peter had been a hands-on dad, as much as his increasingly hectic career allowed.

They were good days. Until about a year ago. Or had things slowly slipped and Mara had been oblivious, like the wretched frog in the saucepan of cold water set to come to the boil? She huffs out a breath. This morning’s restlessness returns and Mara pushes back her chair, taking her glass to wander the winding path between the flower and vegetable beds to the stream where the willow’s branches slip with the flow of the current. She peers up the slope towards the spread of the oak. Mara imagines the hidden table, along with the view from there of the stone wall of the cottage with its deep set window.

Willow. Oak. Stone wall and window. Mara startles as if stung. Not by a bee or wasp. This is a light bulb moment sting. If she’s right.

She hurries up the path to the table, takes in the view from there, to make sure, leaves the glass and walks quickly into the cottage and on to the living room. Aaron’s journals lie on the sea chest coffee table. Mara lifts one, flips through.

Here it is. The sketches of the garden. She takes the book outside, first comparing the painting of the stone wall with the window, and, excitement growing, retraces her steps to the brook and the willow. The scene is barely altered in one hundred years. The far bank has eroded, widening the course, and the willow has thickened. Yet – and Mara’s heart leaps – there is the same branch Aaron drew, there are the knots behind the curtain of pendulous leafy twigs.

Is she living in Aaron and Hester’s cottage? Where her grandmother grew up, where she returned when her husband went to war? Is Mara sleeping within the same walls, the same room, Kathryn slept in as a child? Mara’s spine tingles. She laughs out loud, tells herself it would be a miracle, except – there’s the evidence of the sketches. One of either the oak, the wall or the willow could be explained as coincidence. All three? She wants to believe it.

Tomorrow, when she sees Jack, she’ll ask him what he knows of the history of the cottage. He might have the deeds.

Back at the table, Mara slowly drinks her wine. The joy of serendipitous discovery flutters in her stomach. She wishes it wasn’t the early hours of the morning in Adelaide and she could call Josie and let her thrill bubble out of her.

She thinks instead of Kathryn. What fates have brought Mara to this place where her mother never returned and on her deathbed expressed a longing for the Forest and the river? Who wished she had brought Mara here, where the river goddess has been patient for too long, waiting. Waiting for what? For another kindred spirit?

She sits for a long time, moving once to fetch the bottle of wine and a pashmina from her bedroom as dusk chills the air. The birds call their roosting good nights, the darkness under the tree deepens. Mara perches on the hard chair, savouring the wine and soaking in the realisation this is where her mother played among the flowers, where her grandmother Ellen cuddled her first chick, and where a little blonde girl rose from her chair stretching for a plate of biscuits.

Beyond the garden, a streetlight comes on in the lane. Hunger roils in Mara’s stomach. Reluctantly, she stands, cold, and legs stiff from sitting too long. Collecting the bottle and the journal, she moves towards the house, thinking what she might have for dinner, or should she try the pub at the end of the lane?

Movement at the corner of her eye causes Mara to glance towards the stream. She catches her breath. A young woman wearing a long, dark brown dress under a forest green pinafore kneels by the side of a dug-over border. She’s planting out tiny plant plugs. Her dark hair is scraped from her face and pinned in a bun. Tendrils escape, and from time to time she pushes them away with the back of her earth-covered hand.

Mara stares. The woman must feel the keen gaze, for she lifts the arm holding the trowel and waves a greeting. Mara lifts her own arm, grown heavy as stone. And the woman is gone.

Mara’s lungs fill, it’s hard to breathe. She peers at the spot. Is there something in the water here which brings out the fantasy in her brain? The kneeling woman appeared real, alive, no ghost. Hester? Ellen?

Mara turns from the spot, knees trembling and thoughts of food driven from her spinning mind. Whomever the woman was, Mara will remember this ghost, recognise her anywhere. An easy enough task. For – she shakes her head, wondering – the kneeling figure in the garden could be her own twin.