Chapter Fifteen

She had to go to the Nerradja co-op for more shot.

“You can’t still be having trouble with rabbits up there at Jerinja?” muttered Frankie Lawlor. He peered at her firearms licence and purchase permit and punched the numbers into the system. “Thought that new strain of calici had really knocked them on the head up your way?” He gave her a cunning look.

Everyone knew Polly didn’t go shooting for rabbits.

“Bad hare day,” chuckled Lachie Mitchell. Polly tried not to roll her eyes. Old Lachlan Mitchell was ninety-seven if he was a day and had been propping up the counter of the co-op all Polly’s life. He’d been proud of that joke since she was in kindergarten.

“Just doing my bit for the environment,” Polly murmured. She put the 22s in her travel safe and let Frankie check it was secure. She signed the necessary forms and got out there.

Back at Jerinja, she took the weapon down to the small rise above the dam and regarded the frame she’d tuned to perfection. After a long moment, she meticulously and methodically blew the fuck out of every F sharp in the piano in the tree.

She listened to it hum in the breeze.

That was better.

It was the photo of Toks standing proudly in the middle of the Dom Harmonja that did it.

Polly reloaded the rifle magazine and tried not to let it get to her.

The more she thought about it – and the fresh wave of nightmares that had overtaken her lately had given her plenty of time for that – the more it became plausible that Toks didn’t know.

Hadn’t ever known.

And Magpie and Draga could throw their hands up and rail at impossibilities as much as they liked. They could cry ‘international bloody incident’ til the cows came home, and Polly would even tolerate Tilda edging in on the action and muttering about YouTube, but if they really knew Toks like she did, then they’d know stubborn.

Focussed ambition and drive.

Toks’ total immersion in her art and her utter dedication to her profession went beyond world events and trivial things like revolutions and regime change. Toks coaxed the sublime from the very air. She dealt in art that transcended the human condition. She could make a thousand people weep with yearning for a beauty glimpsed deep within themselves, wash them over with music that inspired their hearts with hope, and send them home with souls swept clean.

She’d never had time for politics.

Neither had Polly, until it captured her and held her hostage.

Funny how one small decision could change a life.

She bent her head to the Browning T-bolt .22 Long Rifle and took out the E naturals in the lower register. Then the Bs. The thick, copper-wrapped steels of the lowest notes boomed like cannons when they snapped. A flock of cockatoos circled the tree, screeched their outrage at her, and continued along the escarpment.

Toks might be pigheaded – and Polly had accepted that long ago – but she wasn’t cruel.

Polly had gritted her teeth and stared and stared and stared at that picture of Toks in the middle of the concert hall in Severin. She did her best to crop out the background and just look at that confident smile, that arrogant tilt of Toks’ chin that melted Polly’s core every damn time she saw it. Toks’ hand thrust in her pocket. The cocky swagger in her shoulders.

There was a challenge in Toks’ eyes and it was the same one that had always been there for Polly. The one that invited – no, demanded – Polly meet it. The gaze that had always showered her so generously with pleasure when she did. Her breath shuddered in and out of her when she saw it. It was back! Was there really a chance all that could be hers again? Did Toks want…?

God, Polly wished she could wind back the clock.

She shot the A flats out of the upper register. Then the C sharps. The violence of the dischord that followed matched her confusion.

There might have been half a planet between them, but they’d chatted like two decades were nothing last week, and it had been wonderful. Polly wanted so much more of that.

So if Toks didn’t know, Polly didn’t want to be the one to break it to her.

It had been hard enough explaining it to Draga all those years ago.

Draga’s cigarette burnt all the way down to its end when Polly showed her Toks’ selfie on the podium in Severin.

There was a long, quiet moment. Polly watched pride and concern wrestle their way across the older woman’s face. She let strong fingers squeeze hers and she rubbed her thumb over skin so papery it made her think about foolishness and time.

“She’s an idiot,” Draga said eventually. “Selfish, stupid girl.” Her heart didn’t seem to be in it, though. She sniffed and patted Polly’s hand.

“It’s okay. You’re allowed to be proud of her. You played on that stage, didn”t you?” Polly asked. She flicked through the other photos Toks had sent from the podium – lights casting a magical glow over red velvet seats, golden statues of the muses smiling down on the elegant space so beautifully restored after the war. “She’s principal conductor there now. Almost single-handedly steered the Severin Philharmonic until it’s one of the most prestigious orchestras in the world again. That’s no small achievement.”

“Bloody Tokarycz arrogance. If she had any shame—”

“She doesn’t.”

Draga snorted, and now it was tinged with affection. “Never has.”

Polly shared the pic of Toks in 18th century costume.

They both laughed.

“She didn’t mean it, Polly,” Draga said after another moment. It was a small voice that didn’t suit her at all. “I think you’re right. I think she really doesn’t know what happened. She wouldn’t send a picture like that if she did. I know she loved you.”

Polly nodded – tiny, sharp little butterfly things that barely held in her hope. It was ridiculous, but after sixteen years of hating Toks for deliberate neglect, Polly was now desperately hoping the woman was innocent and didn’t have a clue.

She hoped Toks still loved her.

Was that even possible?

Draga looked at the image of the concert hall again. “I’m so sorry, my darling girl, for all the hurt my family has caused you.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Mrs T. You guys left Korovinja. It was never your fault.”

Draga pointed to the picture frames on her dresser. Her room in the Nerradja Gardens Aged Care and Assisted Living Village was cramped, and Polly wished again she’d move into Jerinja. A bunch of polaroids from the eighties faded into reds and yellows. The Tokarycz kids playing with their cousin in the snow in front of the palace. A youthful, stylish Draga with her fresh-faced friends posing in Severin’s main square. Aleksiy Tokarycz. Draga’s husband. In the uniform of the regime. Polly passed it to her.

“I’m glad he never knew,” she whispered. “He was ashamed.”

“Come to dinner with us?” Polly asked. “We can play some Schumann together.”

“You’re the daughter I should have had, Pearlie.”

Polly pushed her chair for her. “Toks might even agree with that,” she said.

“Idiot girl,” Draga sniffed.

They were back where they’d started.

She woke from another dream about kissing Toks.

She’d been dreaming of kissing Toks ever since she’d first recovered enough of herself to sleep an hour without screaming.

That had been a long time ago. The nightmares had never receded or lessened in their gut-cramping terror but she’d learnt not to shout herself awake. As her mother had pointed out with the remaining limits of her care, nonsense like that only tore at her throat. Later, it scared off potential girlfriends. Later still, it disturbed Tilda’s sleep.

A well-rested three-year-old was far more important to everyone’s well being than the tortured mess of Polly’s dreams.

So she’d simply gotten used to the thick, slow chug of her blood through her body and the pounding pressure in her chest. She woke with hands and feet like blocks of ice, and pins-and-needles in her cheeks and lips.

And a ringing in her ears.

The smell of blood – the taste of it – in her nose and mouth.

She would shake that same old shit away and check the time. An hour was good. Two was rare. Three was possible, but the fug of drugs the next day rarely made it worth it. At dawn, the beach was only fifteen minutes away when the roads were clear. Throwing herself at the surf helped. After a nap during the day, the view down the escarpment and along Thirteen Mile Beach soothed her soul in the same way.

When she woke just before Daz’s regular barbecue on a blazing Sunday afternoon, Magpie pushed a strawberry daiquiri into her hand the moment she stumbled into the kitchen.

“You’re gonna need this, darls. She’s here.”

“What?” Polly mumbled, but her body knew who Magpie was talking about before her brain did. She stood a little taller.

Magpie grinned. “Yeah, her.” She nodded toward the music room. “Wanted to storm downstairs and shake you awake. Held her back myself.” Her smirk was wicked. “Quite enjoyed it, actually.”

Polly’s brain was still processing. “You are thoroughly evil, Maggs. And I don’t believe a word you just said. Do I look okay?” She combed her fingers through her hair.

Magpie flung an arm over her shoulder and pulled her head down to kiss her forehead. “Silly. You know she doesn’t care what you look like.”

“That’s a tiny bit reassuring.”

“Get in, babes.” Magpie shoved her toward the music room.

Toks was standing with her back to her, surveying the chaos of tangled electronic gear and disembowelled pianos with her hands on her hips.

“I was worried,” she murmured.

Of course, she’d heard her creep in. Polly had almost forgotten that. Toks heard everything.

“And then I remembered this,” Toks went on. She waved one elegant hand at the room. Conducted their joint uncertainty. When she finally turned, she gave Polly one of those devastating smiles – the one with all her brashness in her lower lip, the brazen mockery that was so bloody arrogant, so damned kissable and so devotedly affectionate it slaughtered Polly every time. “A couple of days’ radio silence is nothing compared to this.”

God, she missed that ego.

Polly shrugged. “I’m a complex woman.”

“I was just beginning to think you were my Pearlie again.”

“Are you suggesting the girl I used to be was simple?”

“Shit.”

They stared at each other, both breathing shallowly. Polly hadn’t meant to bite so hard. She hated herself for sixteen years of habit.

Toks ducked her head. “I never thought that, Polly. Please? I’m trying.”

“I know you are. I’m sorry.” There was a silence. Polly had the feeling of everything hanging in the balance. She took a breath. “Perhaps that’s the joy of complexity. Can I be completely messed up and be your Pearlie again?”

The words hung between them for a very long moment, and for a second Polly wondered if she’d got it wrong. Maybe Toks was just here to see her mum, or clean out her room at 613, or—

But Toks staggered suddenly and every atom of impertinence fell from her entire being in a moment. Her face blanked, then bloomed with the most heartbreaking hope. Her mouth fell open. She closed it. Swallowed. She opened it again and still no sound came out.

Polly hadn’t seen that for a long time.

“I was worried,” Polly said, as smarmy as she could. “But then I remembered this.” She waved a hand at Toks all abashed and stupefied. “Sixteen years’ radio silence is nothing compared to this.”

“Fuck,” Toks breathed.

Polly realised she wouldn’t say no if it came to that. “We should probably try talking to each other without getting on each other’s nerves first.”

Toks blinked, then her face split with an absolutely massive smile. She threw her head back and barked a laugh at the ceiling. “Pearlie Paterson, you are—”

But Magpie burst into the room in a flash of neon-green muumuu.

“Lunch! It’s on the table. Come on, lovebirds.” She eyed them cheekily and threw her weight onto one hip. “Ooo! Did I interrupt something?” she sang.

Polly blew a loud sigh. She smiled an apology at Toks.

Toks just grinned and slipped her arm around Polly’s waist like she’d never let it go. “How do you live with this, Polly?” she murmured with a shit-stirring grin. “Does she ever go home?”

Magpie stuck her boobs out and wiggled her head on her neck. “This is my home, thank you very much, Maestro. And you like me – you know you do – so hush it up. No! Don’t encourage her, Polly! Oh god, I’m beginning to understand Draga better. The pair of you are terrible together. Lunch! Get out here now!”

Polly and Toks sauntered past her and into the hot autumn day, and Polly felt lighter than she had in ages.

The storm built slowly over their long, lazy lunch.

By the time Daz brought out the pavlova they were all sprawled in their chairs, hands on tummies with satisfied groans. Polly listened to Toks and Richard arguing about Sch?nberg and both of them being kind when Tilda tried to join in. She raised her glass and smiled at Justin’s concerned glances when Toks pulled Polly’s legs into her lap and trailed her fingertips along her skin. She poked out the very tip of her tongue when Magpie noticed. The woman waggled her eyebrows so hard she went cross-eyed.

The heat was relentless, and when the last bottle of white had been emptied, Toks stood and eyed the pool.

“It’s so hot,” she announced. “Isn’t it supposed to be autumn?”

“Harden up.” Magpie was too many glasses in for a better insult. Toks stuck her finger up at her and Magpie chortled.

“I’m going for a swim.” Toks tugged Polly to her feet. “Come with me.” It wasn’t quite a question.

Memories of long, hot summer days home from music college spent swimming in the waterhole in the glade swirled in Polly’s mind. The pool was sheltered and secluded – they both knew swimming was a ruse. Their bodies flickered like a black and white movie – hot and bright in the sun, then deep and alluring slipping between the shadows of the trees. Always a flirt and a flaunt, Toks dived in first just to hear Polly’s squeals as she splashed her. Polly would get her own back, posing in the sun on the big sandstone boulder. She could reduce Toks’ swagger to desperate pleading.

Was she brave enough to get back in the water now?

Polly throbbed at the thought and sat on the edge of the pool and dangled her legs while Toks changed into a pair of deliciously short boardies and a deep green bikini top.

She kept herself in shape, Polly noticed. Curves more mature than they had been when they were twenty but they still drew Polly’s gaze, they still made her heart trip over itself in her chest. Flat tummy, great arse, amazing upper arms. Toks walked like she knew it too – actually flexed her arms and posed on the opposite side of the pool when she saw Polly watching her.

“Idiot,” Polly grinned.

It was just like old times.

Toks sliced into the water in a perfect dive, swimming the length under water and surfacing at Polly’s knees with a flick of her hair.

Fuck.

Polly wanted to slide right into her, wet and slippery, to remember her skin with her inner thighs and soothe away the years with the soft press of her breasts against hers—

But she’d forgotten the ruin of her own skin.

Toks was staring.

Her lips fell open and Polly fixated on the glisten of them, the beads of water that clung around her mouth, the wet, dark pull of her lashes on her cheeks.

“Jesus, Pearlie,” Toks swore. “What the hell?”

Polly’s dress was bunched up past her knees, and it was clear the scars reached higher. Toks’ hands hovered over her thighs, her long fingers twitching as she wrestled the urge to touch, tormented by the sixteen years that suggested she shouldn’t. Polly watched her fingers too. Shivered at the drips that fell on her legs. She wanted Toks’ hands on her skin. She wanted the touch to wind back the clock and burn the years away.

Toks looked appalled.

She stood at Polly’s knees, the water lapping against her abs and the horror that made them clench.

Polly sighed. If she needed any more proof that Toks didn’t know what had happened to her all those years ago it was right there in her tortured expression. The same kind of pitying revulsion that had outfitted Polly’s wardrobe with long floaty dresses and long sleeves in the first place.

She hated the look on people’s faces when they really saw her.

She’d hoped never to see the same expression on Toks.

“But—” Toks was checking her all over, her eyes darting from her thighs to her arms, to the scar on Polly’s face and back down to her legs. “But Polly, these are regular,” she breathed. “They’re even.” Her face crumpled again and the confusion in her voice was almost childish. “How do you get scars like this from a car accident?”

And Polly knew it wasn’t fair, she knew Toks didn’t know, but when Toks finally dropped her hands and traced the line of a scar on her thigh with those incredible fingers, a touch Polly had needed for so damn long, something tore inside her.

“A car accident?” she echoed flatly.

Toks looked up. Her bewilderment nearly cut Polly apart.

“Mum said it was an accident. I assumed she meant—”

“You assumed?”

“What other kinds of accidents are there? I mean, an accident that leaves you scarred like thi—”

Polly pulled her legs out of the water and a surge splashed over the tiles. She hunched her thighs close to her chest and yanked her skirt down over her legs. She was curled up like a child, as stubborn and stupid as the woman in front of her – sitting on her bum in a puddle and hugging herself tight, knowing the scars on her arms were visible as well but too damn perverse to pull her sleeves down with Toks right here. The water stuck the fabric of her skirt to her skin and they both looked at the curve of her body through the cloth.

“It wasn’t an accident,” Polly spat. “Stop saying accident. It was never a bloody accident.”

Toks blinked. Shook her head like Polly was the foolish one. “Yes, it was. That was why you didn’t come to Berlin. You had an accident and—”

She was still so stubborn, so bloody-minded.

“For fuck’s sake, Toks! Is that what you’ve believed all this time? And you never thought to see if I was okay?”

Toks’ eyes flashed for one very dangerous moment. “You left me standing there. In the snow. All day.”

Polly couldn’t stop a snort. “The snow?” Was that as bad as it got for her? “All day? Poor baby.”

That wasn’t fair either, but the whole thing was fucked up now. Polly stood up and Toks’ long fingers tightened into fists. A sneer twisted her lips.

“I got kicked out of the Berlin Phil that day, Pearlie Paterson. You didn’t call, you didn’t text. I waited for you and I lost my chance. I had to stand there and listen as the fucking orchestra board gave me a lecture about punctuality and gave my job to a boy who still had to count under his breath. We had dreams, Polly. We had plans. I lost everything. I lost—” She sneered again as she struggled to control herself. “You promised me— You said you loved me— I lost you.”

Polly nodded. All of that was definitely fair. Toks’ pain was as real as her own.

“Seems we’re both still angry at each other then.”

Toks sank down into the water. Her face was tight. Her pride was still her defining feature, Polly thought, sadly.

She peeled her wet skirt off her legs.

“I’m going to get changed,” she murmured.

She could feel Toks’ eyes in her back as she walked away.