She picked up his letter again, groaning in distress as she skimmed over the lines.
I can see the girl I remember in your eyes. But that was a long time ago. We are different people now. We have different lives.
Before she fully understood what she was doing, Alice flattened her foot on the accelerator, her tyres spitting up stones. On a whim, instead of turning home, she went in the opposite direction, down Main Street. Pulled sharp left onto the dirt track almost obscured by bushes. Pushed through the dense overgrowth down the avenue of gums until she reached Oggi’s old house. She hadn’t been back for eight years.
When she drove into the clearing Alice gasped. She swung out of her truck, into the brewing storm. Ognian roses had consumed the house. They crept up the sides, covering the walls and the roof. Everywhere Alice looked, the wild bushes were in full bloom, a house smothered by a fire of roses. The fragrance was overpowering.
Alice shouted his name, to no one. The wind stung her face. She paced back and forth. For eight years he’d known where she was and what she was doing with her life. Eight years it had taken him to write to her. But still he didn’t give her answers. Why didn’t he come to meet her that night by the river? What happened to him? Why did he wait so long to contact her? What didn’t he have the courage to tell her? How could he bear living the life they’d planned together with a different woman? Why did he use so much of his letter to tell Alice about his daughter’s favourite fairytale? He’d known where she was, all of this time, while she’d known nothing of him, not even if he was okay; over the years she had searched for his name on the internet but found nothing. For Alice, it was as if Oggi was something she had dreamed.
The wind tore roses from their stems, scattering them at Alice’s feet. She scooped up a handful of petals and ripped them to pieces. She lunged at the rose-covered house, tearing at the vines, cutting herself on thorns. She tore and grabbed and cried, swept into a rampage of rage and grief and humiliation.
A sudden downpour of cold rain broke her trance. Alice stood stunned as she came back into her senses. Ran to her truck, drenched. The rain splattered heavily on her windscreen. She sat catching her breath. Watched the house through the wipers.
A spear of lightning struck the bush nearby, followed by a huge crack as a gum bough crashed to the ground. Alice shrieked and spun her truck around. She drove off, rose petals clinging to her wet skin.
When Alice got back to Thornfield, everyone was in a frenzy, securing the house, dorm and workshop, tying things down and ferrying anything untethered inside. The rain had eased but the gale was cutting. She pushed through the wind, up the front steps to the verandah.
‘What’s going on?’ Alice asked June, shielding her puffy eyes.
‘The storm,’ June yelled. ‘We raced it the whole way back from the city. Weather report says cyclonic floods.’
‘Floods?’ Alice looked in dread at the flower fields.
‘That’s what they’re saying. We need to move, Alice. Now.’
The rain didn’t let up. They worked hard to secure the farm, but there was only so much they could do to protect the garden beds from the whim of the wind and rain sobbing down. The power cut out not long after sunset. The dorm windows were filled with the light of lanterns and candles, as was the dining room in the house. Candy, Twig, June and Alice sat at the table eating leftover cassava curry Candy reheated on the gas camping stove.
‘You all right, sweetpea?’ Candy asked, offering Alice a bowl of chopped coriander. ‘You’re very quiet.’
Alice declined with a wave of her fork. ‘Just the storm.’ Oggi’s words circled in her thoughts. Something about the fairytale his daughter loved niggled her. She threw her cutlery on the table in frustration, its clatter louder than she intended. ‘Sorry,’ she said, pressing her fingers to her temples. The wind sucked under the doors and rattled the glass in the windows. The storm was strengthening. Was Thornfield in danger? ‘God, I feel like I can’t breathe.’ Alice pushed her chair back. She stood and paced the floor.
‘Alice?’ June’s face was lined with worry. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing,’ Alice said sharply, waving June’s concern away. She squeezed her eyes shut before tears could well. Tried to push the image of fire roses smothering Oggi’s house away.
‘It’s not just the storm, and it’s not nothing, Alice. What’s the matter?’ Twig asked.
Alice recalled the falling bough crashing to earth at Oggi’s house. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’ she blurted. ‘What don’t I know?’
‘What?’ June’s face paled.
‘I don’t know. I just, I don’t …’ Alice shook her head. ‘I’m sorry.’ She exhaled and closed her eyes briefly. ‘I got a letter out of the blue from Oggi today and I’m upset.’ She glanced up. Candy’s eyes darted between Twig and June. Twig’s stayed calmly on Alice. June’s face was unreadable.
‘What did he say?’ Twig put her fork down.
‘Not a lot.’ Alice shook her head. ‘Just that he wanted to close “old wounds” with me. He’s married and a father. He wants me to “have a good life”.’ Alice’s voice cracked. ‘But he didn’t say why he left me here, or what happened to make him go. And I just don’t understand … I don’t know how I got here, how my life has come to this.’ She took a deep, ragged breath. ‘I don’t know who I’m meant to be or where I’m meant to belong …’ she trailed off. ‘And now there’s fucking cyclonic floods coming, and I’m scared. I don’t know who I am without this place. What’s going to happen if we lose the flowers? Why don’t we talk more? About anything? I’m so sick of everything we don’t say to each other. I want to know stuff. I want to have an actual conversation rather than get a bouquet of flowers every time I get too close to the bone. I want to know, June,’ she begged, turning to face her grandmother. ‘I want to hear it from you. All of it. About my parents. And where I come from. I just have this enormous sense of, of …’ she trailed off in frustration, making empty circles in the air with her hands. ‘Of waiting, for something that’s just never going to come. You said that if I found my voice, June, you’d find your answers …’ Her shoulders sagged in despair.
Shadows hung from June’s cheekbones. ‘Alice,’ she said, standing to take a step towards her. Alice searched her eyes, hopefully. The rain howled outside.
‘I’m not going anywhere. You’ve got me,’ June said in a small voice.
Alice’s disappointment was stinging. ‘That’s your answer for everything, isn’t it,’ she said bitterly. ‘Sweep it all away, because I’ve got you.’ Watching the sharp edges of her words cut into her grandmother, Alice winced. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, regaining her composure. ‘I’m sorry, June.’
‘No,’ June mumbled. ‘No, you’re quite right to be angry.’ She folded her napkin and left the room. After a moment Twig slid back her chair and followed.
Alice put her head in her hands. June only ever tried to look after her. Why couldn’t she just let her and leave it be? But another question rose. Why couldn’t June just tell her what she wanted to know? For that matter, why couldn’t Oggi? If he was going to go to the effort of writing her a letter after eight years, with a well-established life and family of his own, why would he hold anything back from her?