Anger propelled Alice into action. She pushed Candy out of her room, slamming the door after her. Harry ran to Alice’s side, barking. Alice opened the door and shoved him out too.
She didn’t come down for the rest of the day. Candy brought her roast dinner, which she left untouched. After trying to talk to her through the bedroom door, Twig retreated to the back deck where she sat chain-smoking.
It was after dusk when the headlights of June’s truck bounced along the driveway. Alice sat on her bed, gripping the book. Downstairs the front door swung open. June’s keys landed in the glass dish on the bureau. Weary footsteps went down the hall into the kitchen. The kitchen tap whooshed on, then off. Bracelets tinkled. The bubbling hum of the kettle on the stove, followed by its whistle and the sigh of steaming water over a teabag. The chime of a teaspoon tapping against the lip of a china cup. A moment’s quiet, before June’s weary footsteps came through the hall to the staircase.
‘June.’
‘Hang on, Twig.’
‘June, I —’
‘Hang on, Twig.’
Her footsteps on the stairs. Up. Up. A knock at Alice’s door.
‘Hey, Alice.’ June opened the door. Harry bounded in with her, barking. Alice didn’t look up. She kicked her feet hard against the frame of her bed.
‘How was your day?’ June walked around Alice’s room, one hand in a pocket and the other nursing her cup of tea. She stepped over Alice’s homework on the floor and went to the bookshelves. Alice watched June’s boots. When June turned to face Alice she stopped short.
Alice held the book up with both hands, open to the inscription page, where her mother had written her name, over and over again, making love hearts of every ‘a’.
Agnes Hart. Mrs A. Hart. Mr and Mrs C & A Hart. Mrs Hart. Mrs Agnes Hart.
And underneath it, her father’s handwriting.
Dear Agnes,
I found this book in town, and thought of you. I know it’s the one thing you came to Thornfield with, and I hope you won’t mind having a second copy, from me.
Before I bought it for you, I hadn’t read this story. But I have now, and it reminds me of you. How being around you feels like I’m falling, but in the most wonderful way. Like I’m in a maze I never want to find my way out of. You’re the most magical, puzzling thing that’s ever happened to me, Agnes. You’re more beautiful than any of the flowers that grow at Thornfield. I think that’s why Mum loves you so much too. I think you might be the daughter she never had.
I just wanted to say thanks too for telling me your stories about the sea. I’ve never seen the ocean, but when you look at me I feel like maybe I understand what you’ve described. The wildness and the beauty. Maybe one day we’ll go. Maybe one day we’ll swim in the sea together.
June rubbed her forehead roughly. Harry panted hard, his tail flicking back and forth anxiously.
‘Alice,’ she started.
Alice watched as if she was outside of herself, like when she was in hospital and saw the snakes of fire coil around her body, turning her into something she didn’t recognise. She stood from her bed. Swung her arm back. And with all her might, hurled the book at June. It hit her square in the face, and clattered to the floor, its spine cracking as it landed.
June barely flinched. An angry bruise began to bloom on her cheekbone. Alice glared at her grandmother. Why wasn’t June reacting? Why wasn’t she angry? Why wasn’t she fighting back? Alice’s vision was blurry. She pulled on her own hair, wanting to scream. When was her mother at Thornfield? Why hadn’t anyone told her that her mother was here? Why hadn’t anyone told her that it was where her parents had met? What else didn’t she know? Why would anyone hide this from her? Why did her parents leave? Alice’s head ached.
June came towards her, but Alice kicked her away. Harry growled, pacing. Alice ignored him. He couldn’t protect her from this.
‘Oh, Alice, I’m sorry. I know you’re hurting. I know. I’m sorry.’
The more June tried to comfort her, the angrier Alice got. She kicked and bit and scratched at June’s hands. She fought hard against June’s strong body, against her life at Thornfield, against being so far away from the ocean. She fought against the bullies at school and how they still picked on her and Oggi. She kicked and screamed against why people had to die. She fought against needing Harry’s help, and against tasting sadness in Candy’s cooking, and hearing tears in Twig’s laughter.
All Alice wanted was to break free and run down to the river, dive into the water and swim, far, far away, all the way back to the bay. Home to her mother. To Toby’s warm breath on her cheek. To her desk. Where she belonged.
As she began to tire, Alice started to cry. How she wished she’d never come to Thornfield, where nothing was as it seemed. How she wished she’d never, ever gone into her father’s shed.
13. Copper-cups
Meaning: My surrender
Pileanthus vernicosus | Western Australia
Slender woody shrub found in coastal heathlands, sand dunes and plains. Magnificent flowers ranging from red to orange and yellow. Flowering occurs in spring, on twiggy branchlets densely covered in small hardy leaves. Young floral buds bear a glossy oily coating.
Of all the ways Alice might have learned about her parents’ history at Thornfield, the last June expected was that they would tell her themselves. But there their handwriting was: Agnes practising her future name, Clem writing what would be into being. Before Alice arrived, June thought she’d packed all evidence of both Agnes and Clem into boxes, which she took into town and kept in a rented storage shed. She hadn’t once thought to scour the bookshelves in the bell room.
After Alice thoroughly exhausted herself, June carried her downstairs to the bathroom, where Twig was waiting with a hot bath. June tried to avoid Twig’s eyes. She would never have said the words, that wasn’t Twig’s style, but June heard them nevertheless. The past has a funny way of growing new shoots.
June hurried past the kitchen where Candy was at the stove warming milk for Alice, and went wordlessly into her bedroom. She closed her door firmly behind her. The hazelwood box sat on her bed where she’d left it. She eyed it warily.
The morning Alice had her panic attack and June took off in her truck, it was true, she did go and enrol Alice in school. But she’d spent most of the time in the storage shed, taking comfort from memories and relics of her past. And when she left to head home, she took the hazelwood box with her, telling herself it was because what she needed for Alice’s birthday was inside.
She sat beside the box and considered its detailed woodwork, imagining the hours Clem must have laboured over it. Second to the desk he carved for Agnes, which was in Alice’s bell room, the hazelwood box was Clem’s proudest work. He was good with seeds and flowers, but he was exceptional at whittling felled trees into dreams. He finished the box just before he turned eighteen, a time when a boy thought he could carve his soul into hazelwood and become a man.
Around one border of the lid were images of Ruth. One with her hands full of seeds, and flowers growing at her feet. Another, a side view of her swollen belly, and lastly, much older, her back hunched, and a serene look on her lined face as she sat by the river, with flowers in her arms and the faintest shadow of a giant cod in the shallows beside her. Around the other border was Wattle, carrying baby June in her arms, a crown of flowers on her head, the house and a field of flowers sprawled behind them. In the centre of the box, Clem carved himself, with a faceless man standing behind him. To one side of Clem stood June, smiling, in full view. On the other side a girl approached, carrying sprigs of wattle.