Hibernia E-Book

Amanda Apthorpe

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

When gallery co-manager Audrey Spencer finds herself stranded on Hibernia - a forgotten island just off the mainland coast - she blames an old white house, and her own whimsy.

After returning to her busy urban life, she can't shake the memory of the island, the house, and the strangers who had helped her: Rosa and Beppe, Dion, their grandson, and the quiet and mysterious Quin O'Rourke. When Audrey returns to Hibernia to thank them for their kindness, she finds herself immersed in the life of its people.

Joined by her parents Isabel and Max, and her best friend Poppy - outrageous, gifted artist, and now single and pregnant - Audrey envisages a different way of living that just might involve the old house. But there are forces at work against her: threats to the island's ecosystem and its simplicity, her husband's greed, and the uncertainty surrounding her attraction to Quin O'Rourke. Is he Hibernia's enemy?

Audrey must draw on her strengths if she is to help to save the island and reinvent herself, and she has an unlikely ally - the saffron crocus.

Leseprobe

HIBERNIA

AMANDA APTHORPE

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Acknowledgments

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About the Author

Copyright (C) 2021 Amanda Apthorpe

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Edited by Lorna Read

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

For Ez

Sometimes a sanctuary has to be hard won if it’s to live up to its promise.

INTRODUCTION

Audrey put her foot to the accelerator. ‘What on earth was I thinking?’ she said aloud, the tone of her voice sounding insipid to her ears as it dissipated into the fabric of the empty passenger seats. She stole a glance at the old house retreating in the rearview mirror, just as a breeze rustled through the onion weeds protruding through the wire fence, their flowers bidding her a cheery farewell.

She’d been driving past it on her way back to the ferry and something about it had made her stop. It wasn’t enchantment—the right light, a sunny day full of potential and optimism. Instead, it was cold, and grey, the sort of Sunday afternoon that sometimes resulted in a hefty dose of melancholy. But she’d gotten out of the car, had stepped onto the house’s sinking verandah, inspected boards and had gone as far as the back garden with its overgrown beds, and even entertained the idea that she and the house had a destiny. That was, until the veil of optimism cleared, and she saw it for what it was, for surely what everyone else would see—that it was crumbling; a house that had passed its time. If it were to survive, it would need to find someone else, someone wealthier. Just as Campbell had done. Since her separation, Audrey was learning that what her idea of life should be, and what it really was, were poles apart.

Rain slapped at the windscreen in pulsing sheets, with such force that she was tempted to construe it as a punishment. It’s just rain, she told herself, pulling over to the curb and turning off the engine and the wipers before they broke under the strain; the noise of it on the roof so loud it muffled her thoughts. When she felt the car tilt slightly in the back-left-hand corner, it didn’t require too much imagination to know what had happened.

Restarting the engine, she applied a light pressure to the accelerator. The front wheels strained to move forward but the back wheels resisted and were making a sinister, grinding sound. She released her foot and slapped the steering wheel as though it had been part of a conspiracy.

‘Damn it!’

Riffling through her handbag on the passenger seat, she took out her mobile phone, checked its reception and tossed it back with frustration.

As suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped, and Audrey saw through her side window that she was parallel with the double-storied villa she’d observed earlier from the yard of the old house. To its left, set back from the road, was a small vineyard, the gnarled and leafless arms of the vines looking tortured as they spread across the supporting wires.

The force of the rain on the unsealed road had carved out muddy rivulets that flowed beneath her feet as she stepped out of the car. Zipping up her jacket and slinging her bag over her shoulder, she crossed the road to the villa’s driveway. It was long and covered in scoria that had freshened in the rain to highlight its red tint, providing a striking contrast to the soft green of the olive trees that she saw were the predominant planting.

The driveway widened at its end, then forked, with one prong directing right towards the broad marble portico of the house, and the other left to a three-car garage with a black and muddied Land Cruiser parked in front.

She double-checked her phone in hope—still no signal. As if to hurl a further insult, a thick cloud unleashed a new torrent that had her running up the steps into the shelter of the portico.

A dribble of water meandered down her forehead. Feeling her hair plastering around her ears and neck, Audrey clasped the large knocker clenched in the jaws of a brass lion head. She knocked once and was poised to knock again when the door was opened, and she was faced with four people standing inside the wide entrance as though they’d been anticipating her arrival.

‘Buongiorno.’ A small and robust middle-aged woman stepped forward. Audrey could hear the small tut of her tongue. ‘Bella ragazza... come... come in.’

Audrey obeyed, sensing that this was how it would be for anyone in her presence. Still mute with surprise, she stepped over the threshold and quickly took in the others—an equally stocky middle-aged man and a young man with bright, dark eyes who had the colouring of the other two who were immediately in front of her. The man to her left, still holding the door open, was taller than the others and bordering on being underweight. She hadn’t yet turned to face him fully but sensed an aura of darkness, a brooding about him, though in comparison to the others who were beaming at her, she wondered if she appeared the same.

The woman who had now gripped her arm was attempting to move her further into the house that was radiating terracotta warmth, even on this dull day.

The ferry! The thought brought Audrey to a standstill, resisting the woman’s effort to propel her forward.

‘The ferry,’ she said, turning back to the others. ‘I’m bogged and I’m going to miss it.’

‘You’ve already missed it,’ the man by the door said as he closed it. ‘The next one’s not for two hours and there’s a good chance Bill will decide not to cross in this sort of weather.’

Audrey turned to face him. This “prophet of doom” had an expression of concern that Audrey guessed he might wear regularly, suggested by the shadowed creases at the sides of his mouth and the deep line between his eyebrows. The implication of what he was saying began to sink in and she could feel a familiar rise of anxiety. Had she lost time? How could she have missed the ferry? ‘But I need to get back,’ she said, looking at each of them in turn, hoping that one of them would manifest a solution.

‘I...’ Audrey hesitated. What good would it do to explain to them that she had an important meeting at work in the morning… that she should have been working on a presentation for it at home right now?

Earlier that morning, she’d been sitting at her desk in Melbourne pondering the correct choice of words for another PowerPoint presentation when she became distracted by her surroundings. It was as though she were suddenly seeing them for the first time; a bland room in a bland apartment she’d had to rent while waiting for the settlement on the property—her warehouse apartment that Campbell had never paid a cent towards but had successfully claimed half the proceeds of its sale. She could have stayed there until it was sold, but there were too many memories that haunted her, especially at night as she lay awake in their bed.

It had been impulse and anger that had propelled her out of the apartment. Impulse had taken her driving for hours east to the coast and had her boarding an old ferry to cross a narrow section of the Pacific to an island she’d never heard of—Hibernia. And impulse had her stopping at an old, abandoned house.

The For Sale sign, hanging diagonally between two rudimentary pine posts, flapped in the wind. With her head aligned with it in parallel, Audrey had read its lean description. Two bathrooms were a surprise—the house was old, in the Federation style of the early 1900s, and while three bedrooms might be common, certainly a second bathroom was not. It must have been added later, she reasoned, though from the front perspective it didn’t look as though anything else had been touched since the house was built. The once white paint was peeling off the lower weatherboards. From where she was standing, she could see that although the exposed boards beneath had deep fissures from weathering, they looked solid and were still in place. The verandah was another matter, sagging almost to the ground at the right-hand corner like a crooked smile that had reminded her of her grandmother, Florence, after the stroke, and she wondered if the house in front of her held as many memories as her grandmother had held behind the drooping facade.

Placing her hand on the gate and confident that no-one could see her, she pushed it open. She smiled to herself—the fences either side had long gone, just a few remnants of rusted wire disappearing amongst the onion weed. But the gate had a dignity that called her to respect its purpose. Again, she thought of Florence.

The house sat off-centre, to the right of the block. On the left, there was a broad expanse of ground covered in couch grass that had been recently mown. Here and there, tall stalks ran in a line, suggesting that whoever had mown it was either short-sighted, or rushed. In the middle stood a large and healthy date palm, so commonly seen in the yard of farmhouses of this era that, despite its size, it hadn’t been the first thing to attract Audrey’s eye. She’d been pleased that it was there and imagined it casting shade on the patio she would have built… imagined herself sitting there in a wicker chair sipping a gin and tonic, watching the entry and exit of parrots into the fronds and listening to them squabble over its fruit. The thought had formed a small knot in her viscera, a reminder that as a divorcee, she would be sitting there alone.

And now, here she was in damp clothes and sodden hair in the home of these strangers, on an island cut off from civilisation because its old ferry couldn’t handle a storm. It wasn’t even that far across to the mainland, and Audrey thought with resentment of the house down the road that had waylaid her, knowing full well that it was all her fault. Because it usually was.

The woman had returned her arm around her waist. ‘What is your name?’

Audrey felt herself flush with embarrassment that she’d all but storm-trooped this home and was mentally railing against this archaic island and the whimsy of “Bill”, the ferry operator.

‘Audrey, Audrey Spencer,’ she said, humbled.

‘Audrey,’ the woman said, ‘I am Rosa, and this is my husband Beppe, and our grandson Dion. And this is Quentin, our friend.’

‘Just Quin,’ the man said with a nod in Audrey’s direction, as he reopened the door. ‘Beppe,’ he continued, ‘I’ll have a look at Audrey’s car. I’ve got a tow in the back of mine.’

‘I’ll help!’ Dion’s movement towards the door prompted a rush of instruction from his grandmother in rapid-fire Italian.

‘Sì, Nonna,’ he said, a broad smile stretching his face as he lifted a raincoat from a brass coat rack. Although Audrey would have thought him to be in his mid to late twenties, his response and his movements were those of a much younger boy.

Rosa issued a further instruction, this time directed to her husband, who halted in his tracks as he moved to accompany the other two.

Audrey didn’t need to understand the language to know that the older man, who moved with stiff hips and bowed legs, would be of little help. She saw his shoulders slump and felt a rush of sympathy, but when his wife turned from him, he slipped out the door. Good for you, she thought. There was something about him that was vulnerable, as though he’d lost his way and was trying to reclaim it. She could relate to that. It seemed to Audrey that she’d spent the last twelve months clawing her way back to something that resembled herself.

‘You stay here tonight,’ Rosa said, patting Audrey’s arm and steering her again towards the living room.

Audrey stopped again; this time alarmed.

‘Thank you, Rosa, but no. I’ll just go back into town.’ What she could remember of the “town” was a scattering of shops; a general store that doubled as a post office, a small visitors’ centre, a sign that advertised yoga—that had surprised her—and, of course, a hotel offering cheap counter lunches, dinner, pool table and Live Music. Perhaps they had accommodation, too, she wondered.

‘There’s nowhere to stay, mio caro,’ Rosa said, voicing Audrey’s worst fear.

Anxiety sent her thoughts spinning. If “Bill” decided not to take the ferry across, she would be stranded in this house with people she didn’t know, though, she had to acknowledge, they didn’t feel like strangers. There was such warmth and generosity in their open-heartedness—something she hadn’t experienced in a long time. There had been no inquisition at the door, no reserve or assessment of her, just a genuine response of kindness to someone in need. Whatever their plan for the afternoon had been, it was adjusting for her.

Rosa guided her through the living area with its view through concertinaed glass doors to the expansive vegetable garden. To its right was a small orchard. Though the trees were bare of leaves, the thick swelling of buds and first bursts of blossom were evidence of their vitality. Audrey thought of the twenty trees she’d counted in the overgrown and abandoned garden down the road and was surprised by a feeling of protectiveness towards them.

There had been a lull in the wind as Audrey had made her way down the side of the old house and, in the relative calm, she’d heard a soft, regular thud coming from its rear. The noise had drawn her on and when she reached the end of the house and turned its corner, she’d come to an abrupt stop. The backyard, dense with bare-limbed fruit trees and garden beds blanketed in weeds and herbs going to seed, sprawled the width of the building. Audrey moved into a central position behind the house to get a better view. A brick path mottled with mould like age spots extended ahead of her and, at its furthermost limit, a thick band of dark grey ocean met the sky in its paler version. She realised that the sound she could hear was that of the waves beating against the coastline.

Audrey followed the path, mentally counting the fruit trees in varying degrees of vitality. Some, she saw, needed heavy pruning, but the tips of many of the branches were already swelling with the new buds of early spring. Twenty, she’d counted, and soon they would blossom. Wondering what this garden would look like when they did, she’d turned around to take in the rear of the house and the vantage point of its one-time occupants. A window that ran its length revealed, through skewed and broken bamboo blinds, a deep room—a typical sunroom extension. The sight of it had pleased her and as the sun cracked through a small break in the clouds and cast its light and warmth on the weatherboards of the original rear of the house, her smile had broadened.

She snapped back to the present. ‘Rosa, who owns the old white house down the road?’

They’d stopped at the base of staircase. Rosa’s face seemed to cloud over.

‘This belong to Harold, our neighbour.’

‘Is he still alive?’

‘Sì,’ Rosa breathed the word out with a long sigh. ‘In a home for old people. Harold’s daughter put him there!’ Rosa threw her hands up. She looked bewildered. ‘Now she sell. What if he want to come home?’

They made their way up the stairs.

Audrey knew the scenario well enough and knew, too, that many such as Rosa saw this as an abandonment of family. In some cases, Audrey would agree, but she also knew from first-hand experience that there were times when there was little choice. Her parents had been adamant that Florence, her father’s mother, would live with them when she was no longer able to take care of herself, but after the stroke she went downhill so quickly and needed constant medical care beyond her parents’ capacity and community home help.

‘The house is old,’ Audrey said. ‘And needs a lot of work.’

‘Sì.’ Rosa nodded and paused, holding onto the banister. Audrey waited. ‘Beppe help fix, but... he getting old too!’ She laughed spontaneously as she said it and Audrey could tell that she would do this often.

‘You like it, Audrey?’ she said more seriously, but with a glint in her eye.

‘The old house?’

‘Sì.’

Audrey had been intrigued by it. She’d never renovated a house, having lived in one new apartment after another, and more recently in a converted warehouse with Cam, but there was something about this one that had sparked a desire to create. As co-director of a chain of popular art galleries, there was plenty of mental stimulation and the opportunity to meet and mix with the highly creative. Once, it would have been enough but, these last twelve months, she’d begun to feel dissatisfied, as though enhancing others’ creative visions was leaving her as dry as a bone. This had been made more acute since Cam, whom she had not only nurtured in exhibiting his art but had also provided with a steady income stream when he couldn’t work because he felt ‘burnt out’ by public expectation, had left her for another woman—not younger, but certainly wealthier.

Audrey considered Rosa’s question. Yes, she’d imagined the old house’s renovation, but the sharp eye of rationality had made her see it for what it really was. That’s how she would see things now, she told herself—without whimsy, without romantic notions.

She shook her head. ‘No, Rosa. I’m a city girl.’

At the top of the stairs, several rooms opened off a wide landing.

‘This way, Audrey,’ Rosa said, leading her to a bedroom on the far right and ushering her into its modern ensuite. She brought out a lilac robe and a bath towel from a cupboard behind the door. ‘You give me clothes to dry and have warm shower.’

Audrey took them from her and undressed behind the closed door. The robe was soft against her skin as she handed the damp jeans and jumper to Rosa, who was waiting on the other side.

‘Bene. When you ready, come down to kitchen for a cuppa.’ Rosa closed the door behind her.

‘Cuppa’. Audrey smiled and knew that Rosa had said it to make her feel at home. She hadn’t considered having a shower, but as she eyed the wide recess, the thought was very appealing.

Warmed by the flow of blood from the shower’s heat and comforted by the softness of the robe against her skin, Audrey stood at the bedroom window and marvelled at the same view of the Pacific Ocean she had seen from the end of the garden down the road. The wind had calmed and shafts of sunlight breaking through the clouds spot-lit sections of the water. Had a dolphin leapt and arched through the rays, she wouldn’t have been surprised.

She looked towards the old house. Though the back garden was obscured by tall gums and tea-trees that ran its length, she recalled the charm of its overgrown beds and the pleasure of finding the leaves of the crocus plant that offered themselves like a secret.

As she’d picked her way between the garden beds that revealed herbal treasures of the hardiest varieties—lavender, rosemary, a thyme bush with a dense mat of tiny new leaves at the base of its old stalks that looked like a grounded sea urchin—Audrey had pulled aside delicate and fleshy stalks of spurge to reveal crocus leaves already flaccid and browning. Amongst them were the remnants of wilting purple flowers. Though she was no expert on crocuses, she recognised this variety from her mother’s prized kitchen garden.

‘Be careful, Mi niῆa querida,’ her mother, Isabel, would whisper as she handed her daughter the tweezers. ‘Take it gently.’ There was reverence in her voice as, together, they harvested the plants’ stigmas.

Audrey closed her eyes as the memory prompted another—the odour of slow-cooked lamb simmering in onions, turmeric, cardamom and cumin seeds as her mother would take the lid from the tagine to add just a few of the precious stigmas. There had been a time when she had been embarrassed by these very odours coming from their kitchen and had wished that Isabel would adapt to the simple, if not bland, Australian diet that her friends’ mothers cooked. Audrey’s forty years had seen considerable changes in the culture of her country of birth.

The house itself seemed to be more expansive in this view from the villa, and she counted five chimneys in the tiled roof that, she noted, looked to be in good condition.

Turning away, she took in the room behind her. She’d expected to see photographs and evidence of family life, but it was surprisingly bare—a queen-sized bed with a thick and richly textured spread in gold and black, a mahogany dressing table with curved barley-sugar legs, but without adornments, and a long mirror with pedestal legs in the far corner. She wondered if there were other grandchildren besides Dion.

At the sound of a heavy thud of the front door closing, Audrey gathered her handbag and stole another glance at the ocean beyond the window before she left the room.

From the landing, she could hear voices in a languid murmur of familiarity, punctuated now and then by a bass tone. Quin, she thought, the man at the door. Audrey hoped that he’d been able to extract the car from the ditch, though what she would do then was another matter.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, the volume of the voices became louder and there they were—all four of them, standing beside the dining room table. Dion and Quin were facing her as she came into the room and her hand automatically tugged together the gown’s lapels at her chest.

Dion’s eyes widened when he saw her, but Quin, she saw, had cast his down.

‘You’re beautiful!’ Dion said, breaking free of the others and approaching her. His wide smile revealed irregular teeth that enhanced rather than detracted from his looks. His eyes were almost too wide, too bright, and Audrey realised then that he was not like other twenty-year-olds.

Rosa placed a steaming cup of tea on a coaster on the table and let out a low growl. Dion paused in his tracks but gave Audrey a wink before he returned to the others.

‘Good news, Audrey,’ Rosa said, smiling at her, then scowling at her grandson as he moved back to stand beside Quin.

Audrey saw the older man’s hand move to pat Dion’s shoulder.

‘The ferry,’ Rosa continued, ‘she’s going. Milk? Sugar?’

Audrey shook her head and thanked Rosa as she picked up the cup and sipped the welcome brew. It never failed to comfort her, but she suddenly longed to be sharing tea and hummingbird cake with her parents at their kitchen table in Ballina.

Beppe cleared his throat as though unused to speaking. ‘The weather is good now.’ It was a gentle voice, and Audrey already felt endeared to this man. Though he bore no physical resemblance to her own father, his unassuming way reminded her of him. She resolved to call her parents as soon as she returned home.

‘That’s not good news!’ Dion’s voice contrasted sharply with his grandfather’s. ‘I was hoping you’d stay.’ He’d said it without guile and Audrey felt certain that this would always be the way with him. ‘Don’t we?’ he continued, looking at Quin for support who smiled at him.

‘Audrey has to get back to work, remember?’ Quin said, passing her a fleeting glance.

Work. How dull that sounded to her. Audrey could feel a heaviness around her heart as she pictured herself presenting at tomorrow’s meeting—if she ever got there.

‘I’m afraid so, Dion. But thank you. I’m disappointed, too,’ she added.

‘Then stay.’

‘Enough, enough, Dion.’ Rosa clapped her hands as though conducting primary school children. ‘I get your clothes, Audrey. How long until ferry, Quin?’

‘Fifty minutes. It will only take you five to get there,’ Quin said, addressing Audrey.

Rosa hurried off to the rear of the house. Quin stepped forward. ‘The car’s fine.’

He was standing only a few feet away and Audrey was able to take him in. Closer, in the light of the living room, he looked younger than he had in the shadowed entrance. Mid-late forties perhaps. She’d thought that he might be a farmer from the island, but his complexion was not weathered like other farmers she’d known. There were lines, some deep, between his eyebrows and around the sides of his mouth. His eyes, though, were soft, coloured the green end of hazel. His hair was fair but beginning to grey around his temples and in the fine stubble around his chin and cheeks. He was dressed in jeans and a pale blue denim shirt and Audrey noticed that one side of the collar had not folded down completely, as though he’d dressed quickly. She wondered about his relationship with this family. He and Dion were obviously close, but the style of the man in front of her seemed somehow at odds with the others. He had an educated tone and she pictured him living on a large property that had an expansive home with a wide verandah. But, she decided, he could equally be at home in the corporate world of the city, a maverick who, in a quiet way, called the shots.

Audrey shook her head to clear her thoughts, reminding herself of her resolve not to give in to whimsy. He probably owns the local pub, she thought.

‘Q, I told you that you need accommodation at The Island.”

Dion’s voice cut through her thoughts, and she realised that this was the name of the hotel she’d seen in the “town”.

‘Q owns our only pub,’ Dion continued, as though plucking Audrey’s thoughts from her as fast as they came.

‘I’ve only recently bought it,’ Quin said, in what sounded like an apology.

‘And I’m going to be working there, aren’t I?’ Dion said, with apparent pride. ‘When it’s ready.’

Audrey felt as though her mental dialogue was starting to dictate her reality.

‘Yes, I saw the hotel. Hard to miss it,’ she said. She remembered that it was an imposing single-storied building of red brick, with a laced, wrought-iron verandah, typical of those built in the early 1900s.

‘It’s in need of a lot of work,’ Quin said, and Audrey had to agree.

‘And he’s going to open a restaurant,’ Dion’s voice was becoming louder with excitement, ‘and I will be... What’ll I do again?’

‘You’ll have an important role,’ Quin said, turning to the boy with a smile.

Dion coloured with pleasure.

‘Have you owned a hotel before, Quin?’ Audrey hoped her curiosity wasn’t too apparent. In her mind, he just didn’t fit the bill as the owner of a country pub, though she knew that some hotels were becoming gentrified. In her travels with Campbell, a self-asserted wine buff, they’d visited a few that successfully catered to both the tourist and local trades and Audrey had sometimes envied the tree-change lifestyle of the once-urban owners.

‘No, this is the first.’ There was a steely look on his face, not directed at her, but as though he was lost in a thought.

What’s his story? she wondered and was forming another question when Rosa reappeared with jeans and jumper in hand.

‘All good for you now, Audrey.’ Still holding the clothes, Rosa beckoned her back in the direction she’d come from.

Audrey turned back to Quin and Dion and saw that Beppe had disappeared once again.

She thanked the others for their kindness, though the words didn’t seem to convey the depth of her appreciation.

‘I’ll follow you to the ferry,’ Quin said, ‘in case there’s a problem.’

‘There’s no need.’ Her reply sounded too quick in her ears, and she reconsidered. ‘But if it’s not too much trouble, I’d be grateful,’ she added.

‘I’ll come, too,’ Dion said, with his trademark enthusiasm.

‘I’ve got to go home from there, mate.’ Quin’s tone was patient.

Rosa’s voice cut across them all, first in Italian to her grandson and then apologetically to Audrey. ‘Come, Audrey, or you miss the ferry.’

In a smaller and older bathroom than the one upstairs, Audrey took off the robe, reminding herself to look for one exactly like it when she got home. Her clothes were still warm from the dryer when she put them on, and their familiarity was comforting.

Still in socked feet, she returned to the living area. The others had moved from where she’d left them and Beppe came towards her, holding her shoes that she had left, wet, at the door. When she took them from him, they too felt warm, and she realised that he’d dried them. He coloured as she thanked him.

It was like a different day outside the villa than when she’d arrived only an hour or so beforehand. The thick band of clouds had deconstructed and the sunlight that now bathed the portico held the promise of the warmer months to come.

Her car was waiting for her in the driveway. It looked cleaner than she remembered and there was no caked mud on the back wheels. Just inside the doorway of the opened garage door, she saw a pressure cleaner. She knew it was Beppe who had cleaned the car and turned back to see him, Rosa and Dion standing in the entrance to see her off.

‘Thank you, Beppe.’

Beppe smiled and nodded his head.

‘Come back soon, Audra,’ Dion said, moving towards her with arms outstretched.

Another instruction in Italian was issued from his grandmother that included the correction of her name, but Rosa smiled when Audrey accepted his embrace. Despite his occasional bravado, the hug was tentative. When he released, he stepped back and tucked his chin to his chest. Audrey could see that his face was flushed with colour.

This time, Rosa’s voice was soft and crooning as Dion stepped back to stand between his grandparents and Audrey was surprised by a thick ball of emotion forming in her throat. She swallowed.

As she said her goodbyes, thanking them again, she resolved to return before long with a gift for their generous hospitality. The thought of coming back sat well with her.

Audrey checked her rear-view more often than she needed to on the muddy road to the ferry. Quin had offered to lead, but she’d insisted that she was fine and knew her way, as much to regain a sense of her own composure as anything else. He would follow then, he’d said, just in case there was a problem at the other end. Now she felt somehow exposed and wished she hadn’t been so hasty. When she checked the mirror again, he flashed his lights and she saw that she’d almost missed the turn-off to the jetty.

As they turned into the car park she saw, to her relief, that the ferry was docked. She drove towards it and waited at the start of the metal ramp until she received the green light to board. Checking her mirror again, she saw that Quin had parked his car and was walking towards her. There was a quiet confidence in his gait, and he held himself very formally, almost rigidly. Audrey wondered if he’d ever served time in the military. He came to her window as she opened it and leaned in.

‘All’s well. I spoke to Bill earlier and he’d have waited for you, anyway. He’d remembered that you were only planning on coming for the day.’

Audrey now recalled the brief conversation with the ferry driver that she now knew as Bill and felt guilty that she’d remembered so little about him. Had she been so inattentive? Had she even been dismissive?

‘Thanks again, Quin, for all you’ve done. I don’t know what I…’

‘Think nothing of it,’ he said as her voice trailed off. ‘Perhaps we’ll see you another time, if you would ever want to come back to the island.’

Audrey wasn’t sure if she could hear the trace of an invitation. ‘I could stay at the hotel... if you had any room.’ She’d meant it as a joke and laughed to cover her embarrassment.

‘You’d always be welcome. But we’re a way off that yet.’ He was smiling, but there it was again, that far-off look.

Whimsy! she warned herself. He was probably just a daydreamer, or vague.

‘The light’s green,’ she said, and he drew his head back and stood upright.

‘Safe journey, Audrey.’ Quin patted the leather padding of the window and stepped away.

She moved the car forward, her heart racing at the thump and clang onto the metal ramp that was the only thing between her and this shallow strip of the Pacific Ocean. Once fully aboard, she looked once more into her rear-vision to see Quin standing beside his car with one hand on his hip and the other waving her goodbye.

CHAPTERONE

Audrey stirred the hot chocolate with absorbed attention as though searching for life’s meaning in its mocha froth.

The presentation had gone over very well, Bruce had said with what seemed to be genuine appreciation, indicating that the investors were happy with the galleries’ profit margins. Once, she would have been buoyed by the praise, but not now. Once the production of exhibitions would have satisfied her creativity—she was good at it, there was no doubt—but increasingly, she came to realise that, in the end, she was merely an administrator of other people’s creativity. She was great at enabling their dreams, but not her own. The bigger problem was, she didn’t even know what her dreams were.

There had been a moment, a pause when the investors were discussing aspects of the new proposal to expand the city venue, when her attention had been caught by something outside the window—two horizontal bands of grey, one on top of the other, that mimicked that of the sea and the sky she’d seen on the island from the garden of the old white house.

Seagulls flew overhead and her ears tuned again to the pounding of the sea. How does this garden survive its salty blasts? she’d wondered, as she continued the path’s subtle ascent. At the top of the land’s rise, she stood in wonder at the sight before her. The ocean was vast, and she could hear it hurling itself violently against the cliffs fifty metres below.

In front of her was a low fence and a gate. Behind it was an expanse of grass only marginally protected by the salt bushes and low tea trees at the cliff’s edge. She opened the gate and walked to its centre. The wind buffeted so strongly that her cheeks stung as though from a slap. The sight before her was wild—whitecapped waves angled in irregular patterns, evidence of the wind’s fickle mood. It could have been foreboding—the ingredients to fuel melancholia that seemed to visit her more often now, thickening and deepening since the separation—but she felt calm as though she’d stumbled upon a moment when unseen forces coalesced; a moment to savour…

Flashes of memory like this had visited her often over the three weeks since she’d been to the island, taking her by surprise. She’d remembered the verandah sagging at its righthand corner, the stem of wisteria thick as a man’s forearm wrapped around one of its posts. When she’d looked through one of the front windows veiled in thin terylene, cupping her hands around her temples to keep out light, she’d just been able to make out the bare floorboards, solid but hungry for oil, and at the rear of the room, the black marble mantle. Through the other—a bay window whose curtain didn’t quite reach the sill—she could make out a faded brown Westminster carpet. Lying on it was a cardboard coaster with an upside-down photo of a building and The Island written across the top, the words almost obscured by the round stain where a glass had been regularly placed. She’d forgotten about that coaster until she’d come home. Quin’s hotel. She remembered how excited Dion was to work there when it was renovated, the gentle tone of Quin’s voice when he spoke to the boy, and the sight of him in the rearview waving goodbye.

‘Thanks, Nina.’

Audrey’s fingers hesitated on the keypad of her phone until the cup had been removed, then typed in her search and waited for the real estate listings to load. There were several in the region and she scrolled quickly through the new subdivisions on the mainland to the only one on the island—the old white house. Audrey stared at the banner across the top of the photo—Under Offer—unsure if she felt disappointment or relief. The price at the bottom of the photo was affordable, and too high given the amount of work it needed, but her argument lacked conviction.

‘That’s that then,’ she muttered, putting the phone on the table. Her shoulders relaxed and she began to feel lighter, as though the house and the memory of that day had become a slight weight. But she knew it wasn’t over yet; there was a promise she’d made to herself, to return to the island with a gift for Rosa, Beppe, Dion, and Quin.

Audrey was putting the phone into her handbag when it rang in her hand. The sight of the name on the phone startled her and she considered ignoring it, though she was slightly intrigued.

‘Cam.’

‘Audrey.’

His tone was soft, and she was momentarily caught in a time warp, a residue of memory when her heart would accelerate at the sound of his voice, as it did now, but, she reminded herself, for different reasons.

It was the first time they’d spoken in months. The divorce would go ahead in a few weeks’ time, but there’d been no need to speak. She didn’t want to speak.

She waited for him to continue, and when he did, his voice was hesitant, nervous.

‘I want to thank you...’

For what? she wondered. She’d had no choice in agreeing to splitting the assets, even though the warehouse, and the apartments—one after the other when he’d gotten bored and wanted to move on—had only been possible because she’d owned the first one outright and had made enough profit to fund subsequent moves. As much as she was upset with him about it, she was annoyed with herself for her weakness.

‘Cam, what’s this about?’

There was a pause at the other end. He would be pacing as he made this call, she thought, and he’s stopped to consider his next move. It was always this way with him. Her suspicions rose.

‘I want to see you... take you out... for lunch, as a gesture of my appreciation.’

I want. If there was a phrase that summed him up, it was that one.

She was on the verge of ending the call when his voice cut into her thoughts.

‘There’s something I need to talk about.’

How quickly her resolve began its disintegration. She felt it and tried to restore its integrity, but she and he had a history and, despite all that had happened, it still meant something to her.

‘Talk about it with Caroline.’ Audrey was aware of feeling something akin to sympathy for her—Caroline—the new woman who would, sooner or later, reach her use-by-date. Perhaps it was sooner than she thought.

‘Aud—’

‘What, Cam? I’m not your confidante anymore.’ God knows she’d filled that role often enough.

‘Please, Aud.’

So many times, she’d heard that appeal. Please Aud—I need more time, I need more love, I need more...

‘You can tell me on the phone, Cam.’

She heard his sigh and something else—a catch in his voice. She gave in.

‘Okay, I can meet you later today.’

‘Thanks.’ His tone was laboured, tired. ‘Café Romano?’

No, she thought, not there. It had been their favourite place for an afternoon drink. He’d meet her there on her return from the gallery, after he’d been painting all day. They’d both be tired but pleased to see each other, to talk about their day, to relax over a drink. The little things.

But you’re over him, she told herself in a challenge to her own courage. ‘Sure. See you there at four.’

When they’d ended the call and she was putting her phone away, Audrey wondered if she was making a very big mistake.

It would have been quicker to catch the train, she thought as the tram ground to a halt once again. Meeting Cam at this hour when the traffic was at its worst was unwise, but Audrey doubted there was much wisdom involved in agreeing to meet him anyway. The tram was crowded and there was an uncomfortable lack of personal space between standing passengers. She was fortunate to have found a spot in a recess away from the door, but a man in a smart blue suit had moved into the space in front of her with his back to her and was reading a news article on his phone.

His collar’s up. I wonder if I should tell him. Audrey could feel her fingers itching to turn it down. What if she did? How would he react? It would be misconstrued; it was an intimate thing, to turn down someone’s collar. Perhaps the upturn was deliberate, she thought, but he wasn’t of the generation and the style of the suit jacket suggested he was conservative. As though reading her mind, or sensing her staring at his neck, the man turned slightly towards her. Audrey averted her eyes, but the collar still bothered her. He’d want to know, but what she really meant was that Cam would have wanted to know. She imagined Cam leaving his new house—Caroline’s house—the Victorian terrace in one of Melbourne’s leafy, opulent suburbs, so unlike Cam to want to live there, and she, Caroline, would catch him at the door and might say, ‘There, that’s better,’ as she turned down his collar. Would she lean into his neck to savour his aftershave? Strange, she thought, that in the absence of a scent you can still smell it, still feel the same surge of emotion. She wondered if the man in front of her was wearing the same one and felt for a moment that her mind and muscles would betray her logic to make her lean in. When she looked back at him, he’d turned away and the collar had somehow turned itself down.

Life folds and unfolds without you, Audrey, she thought, further confirmation that any control she might exert on her life was an illusion. It was a lesson she really needed to learn.

She was five minutes late and searched the crowded tables for him. Of course he’s not here, and couldn’t remember a time when he would be there before her on those afternoons, even though he’d been home all day at the apartment, just a five minute walk away.

From her vantage point at the door, she saw a couple leave their table at the rear and manoeuvred her way to claim their chairs, nodding at a few familiar faces, though the level of noise restricted all but up-close conversation.