The Year It All Ended Read online

  Ray was easy to spot, his craggy face looming above the crowd. His eyes skidded over the Flynns at first but Nette tore off her hat and waved. Her blonde hair shone like a beacon. Ray’s face broke into a smile of relief and he shouldered his way towards them.

  For a moment, Nette and Ray stood awkwardly staring at each other and then Ray put his arm around Nette and hugged her. Tiney saw that Ray had lost three fingers on his left hand and she looked away, ashamed that she should be thinking of what it would feel like to be caressed by a fingerless man. At least Ray had all the fingers on his right hand, and his thumb and ring finger on the left had been spared, even if they were scarred and twisted. Tiney wondered if he’d choose to wear a wedding ring.

  Cod’s heads and kerosene lamps

  Mama had set out all the ingredients for dinner on the scrubbed timber benchtop. Suet, pork forcemeat, thyme, parsley, lemon rind and juice, and a great big ugly cod’s head.

  It was Tiney’s job to stuff the fishhead. She sat on a stool and jammed a kitchen needle into the cod’s leathery skin to sew the stuffed head shut. Cod’s head, offal and pigs trotters were among Mama’s favourite dishes. Tiney knew it was because they were inexpensive and could stretch to feed the whole family cheaply. Mama made sure they tasted delicious but Tiney longed for roast chicken. Before the war, Papa had taught German at Adelaide High School and in the evening he had tutored private students. Back then, the Flynn family enjoyed roast chicken every Sunday. But when the teaching of German was banned, Papa lost his job. Louis’ soldier’s pay had helped cover some of the family expenses during the war years but now that had stopped with his death and there was even less to spare.

  Thea and Ma sat at the kitchen table, household accounts spread out before them, tallying up columns of figures. Thea took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. ‘Mr Ashton said he’d employ me to take the outdoor painting classes but he doesn’t pay very well. I wish the Wilderness School would invite me back to teach painting. A few extra shillings would make such a difference with the wedding expenses.’

  Nette’s wedding was going to be a simple affair, but everyone in the family was anxious about what to give Nette and Ray for a wedding gift. There were so many extra expenses, not least the food for the guests at the reception. Tiney jabbed the cod’s head and prayed that Mama wouldn’t put fishheads on the menu.

  If it wasn’t for Mama’s trust fund the Flynn family would never make ends meet. Wolfgang Schomberg, Tiney’s grandfather, had been a wealthy man. Mama would never say exactly how much the trust sent each month but Tiney remembered how much better life had been when Opa was still alive. Opa would have understood her plan to go to Europe. He would have helped. She remembered going out to her grandfather’s property in the Barossa, and riding beside him in a trap along a dusty country road while he went to visit his patients. On the ride back to his house, he would sing in German and make Tiney sing along. He always spoke German to her, though he was born in Australia and could speak perfect English. And then, back at her grandparents’ sprawling Barossa home, the whole family would gather around the table to eat roast pork and steamed potatoes and dumplings and applesauce. But that was before the war, when Opa and Louis and Will had been alive.

  Tiney put the stuffed cod’s head into the Kooka oven and set potatoes to boil on the stovetop. She scrubbed the fishy smell from her hands with cut lemons and then sat down beside Thea.

  ‘I’m sorry to ask, but I need a new dress,’ said Tiney. ‘Not just for the wedding. There’s the Cheer-Up Victory Ball in July, and once the flu epidemic is over and quarantine restrictions are lifted, there’ll be so many dances and I have nothing to wear.’

  ‘But you have a new one,’ said Mama. ‘I cut down Minna’s blue cotton dress for you last month.’

  Tiney put her head in her hands and sighed. She didn’t want to point out that Minna’s old dress was so worn-out it couldn’t possibly be thought of as ‘new’. All through their childhood, Nette’s dresses were cut down for Thea, Thea’s for Minna, Minna’s for Tiney. Her clothes weren’t simply second-hand, they were fourth-hand. Some days Tiney rubbed the fabric of her skirt between her fingers and wondered why the material hadn’t grown translucent with wear.

  ‘We will see,’ said Mama, as if acknowledging Tiney’s despair.

  ‘Ask Minna for ideas,’ whispered Thea.

  Tiney found Minna in their bedroom, standing in front of the cheval mirror. Minna was trying on her new dress.

  ‘Do you like it?’ she asked. ‘Is it dainty enough for a “sister of the bride”?’

  Mr Timson, a cloth merchant whose daughter was one of Minna’s students, had given her a length of deep blue crepe de Chine after his daughter passed her preliminary clarinet exam. Minna had set to work with needle and thread, cutting and stitching. She had folded the fabric over and over in deep pleats and pressed it carefully, then sewn it into a three-tiered tunic that fitted her like a sheath. Beneath the dress she wore a close-fitting white satin shift with full-length mitten sleeves and, for contrast against the dark blue fabric, a long strand of artificial pearls.

  The pleats rippled as Minna pirouetted on her toes.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said Tiney, feeling admiration mixed with envy.

  Minna stopped spinning and rested her hands on Tiney’s shoulders. ‘There’s enough fabric left over for me to make you a blouse.’

  ‘A blouse would be nice, but I need a dress. A dress for the wedding.’

  Minna looked at Tiney appraisingly. ‘The good thing about making clothes for you is that I don’t need a lot of cloth. I could talk to Mr Timson and see if he would give me a few yards of something interesting. But I want to ask you a favour in return. My shoes. They’re so drab and ordinary. Do you remember those brooches, the matching diamante ones that Paul gave us for Christmas? Could I swap one of my other brooches for yours? So I’ll have a pair of them, you see.’

  ‘Nette says they’re too gaudy to wear. You don’t have to swap them for anything.’

  ‘But I want to do a swap. And Paul has very good taste, really he does. He just doesn’t know about girls, that’s all.’

  Tiney opened the small wooden box in which she kept her meagre collection of jewellery. The diamante brooch looked loud and ugly sitting beside the tiny cameos and beaded floral brooches. Tiney handed it over and Minna deftly removed the pin. Then she took the two brooches and fixed them to her black day shoes.

  ‘That’s so clever, Minna!’ Tiney realised that with the large silver and black diamante brooches winking, drawing attention to the slenderness of Minna’s ankles, the drab black leather shoes were scarcely noticeable.

  ‘Come here and I’ll give you one of my brooches in exchange,’ said Minna.

  ‘No, that’s all right,’ said Tiney. ‘I never would have worn the diamantes.’

  Minna laughed and opened her jewellery box.

  ‘I know you think things like dreams and spirits aren’t to be trusted, but I dreamt about you last night so I know you must have this brooch. Come here and let me pin it on you. When you see it, you’ll know why you have to wear it.’

  Tiney stepped close to allow Minna to pin the new brooch on her brown cardigan. When she looked down, she smiled. The brooch was in the shape of a boat, with a sharp, slender sail in bright red guilloche enamel arcing like a crescent moon above a small Florentine brass boat.

  ‘I love it,’ said Tiney, touching the red sail with her fingertips.

  ‘I knew you would. I dreamt you were in this tiny boat, or at least one with red sails, sailing across a very green ocean.’ She hugged Tiney. ‘But you won’t go away and leave us, will you? Not like Nette.’

  ‘I wish Nette wasn’t getting married,’ said Tiney.

  ‘Do you dislike Ray so much?’ asked Minna, half smiling. In truth, no one really liked Ray, much as they all wanted to admire him.

  ‘It’s not about Ray. It’s about us. All being together. He’s going to take her away and we won’t be able t
o do things the way we used to.’

  ‘There’s still you and me and Thea,’ said Minna. ‘And Victory Balls galore!’ She danced a few steps of the Charleston, and the diamante brooches sparkled as she moved. Then she put her arms out and sang, ‘You’d better be nice to them now!’

  Tiney giggled and sang along. Minna was right. There were still plenty of reasons to be cheerful, and even if Nette was going away at least they could dance at her wedding.

  Tiney felt the hot north wind at her back as she stood on the steps of the church, looking about for somewhere to put her bowl of wilting rose petals. She shouldn’t have bothered to bring it. She’d forgotten that Ray, like many soldiers, couldn’t bear to have things thrown in his direction. It made him flinch.

  Papa was grim-faced as he walked with Nette down the aisle and Mama, sitting in the front pew, wept all through the ceremony. Minna and Thea looked pale. Tiney tried to be happy, for Nette’s sake, but she felt it too. Louis’ absence. It was as if his shadow fell square and dark across the wedding party. When Ray and Nette made their vows, Tiney squeezed Thea and Minna’s hands as if to reassure herself and them of the solidarity of sisters.

  Nette had been saying the wedding would give the family something joyful to celebrate together and it was true Minna had gladly made the wedding gown, and Tiney and Thea had sewn tiny artificial seed pearls onto the hem. Ma brought out the lace veil that she’d worn at her own wedding and placed it in Nette’s hands. Pa gave Ray a beautifully bound copy of his and Louis’ favourite novel, David Copperfield, as a way of welcoming him into the family, though they all knew that Ray wasn’t really a reader like Louis and Papa. But the wedding reception wasn’t a glorious affair. Now that the influenza epidemic had spread across Adelaide, many of the guests were too frightened to attend. Schools were closed, half the city had shut down, fever tents had been pitched in the parks and the Alstons had postponed their Victory Ball.

  At the height of summer, the garden at Larksrest couldn’t help but look dull, though at least the wisteria was still in bloom on the front verandah. Tiney and Thea decorated the lychgate with white ribbons, bows and a silver horseshoe. But when they returned from the church, Tiney looked up and saw that the horseshoe had slipped askew and was hanging the wrong way, with the tips pointing downward, as if all the young couple’s future happiness would pour away onto the path.

  In the front parlour, Tiney, Minna and Thea waited on the wedding party. Ray’s only relatives were an uncle and aunt that he didn’t seem to know particularly well. Tante Bea and Onkel Ludwig had come down from the Barossa and sat quietly in the front parlour of Larksrest with Paul between them, as if they were being careful to make sure he said nothing to upset Nette on her wedding day. Mama sat with Tante Bea too. Apart from Ida only two of Nette’s friends from the Cheer-Ups had braved the quarantines and come along.

  When Tiney came back to the parlour with a second tray of cucumber sandwiches, she realised that Papa had left the room. Where was he? Didn’t he understand that this could be the last time all his daughters were together under their father’s roof?

  When she opened the door to his study, she found Papa slumped at the desk, a letter open before him.

  ‘What is it, Pa? You should be with our guests,’ said Tiney.

  ‘I am missing your brother today,’ said Papa. Tiney saw the official War Office letterhead and felt a flicker of alarm. But it couldn’t be bad news. There was no worse news than losing Louis.

  ‘They still don’t know where he’s buried.’ Papa tapped the letter and read out a passage: ‘The only information yet available is the brief advice “died of wounds on 18.9.18”.’

  All day, every day, Papa sat at his desk, working on his scrapbook of Louis’ life or writing letters to find out what had happened to him in his last weeks alive. Papa wrote to the International Red Cross. He wrote to the AIF. He wrote to the Minister for Defence. Always the same six questions: what was the address of Louis’ commanding officer, how did he receive his fatal wounds, where was he wounded and how had he died, who were the doctor and nurse in attendance, and where was he buried? He always added, ‘Any further particulars?’ as if there was one particular detail that might help to make sense of what had happened to his only son.

  ‘They’ll send us something more eventually, Papa,’ said Tiney. ‘Come back to the party, please. It’s Nette’s day today. She’ll be leaving for Cobdolga soon and you must be there when we give her and Ray their wedding gift.’

  Papa nodded but he didn’t move. Back in the parlour, Tiney discovered that Ray’s uncle and aunt had left already, though it was considered bad luck for guests to leave before the bride and groom. Mama beckoned everyone to gather around the table on which the wedding presents had been laid out. There was a set of bone-handled cutlery from Tante Bea and Onkel Ludwig, a rather ordinary-looking teapot from Ray’s uncle and aunt, an Irish linen tablecloth from the Alstons; but the biggest gift stood at the back of the table, draped in a red velvet shawl. At a nod from Mama, Minna pulled back the shawl to reveal the gift that Mama had picked out for Nette and Ray. Nette gasped with pleasure. Standing in the centre of the table was a tall, elegant table lamp with an ebonised stand. Knowing that when Nette was living on Ray’s soldier-settler land at Cobdolga she would have no gas and no electricity, Mama had searched for the perfect light for her daughter’s new home.

  Tiney had always thought of kerosene lamps as dull, functional things but this lamp was exquisite, with a shiny black base supporting a brass column, topped by a finely etched crystal shade. Nette cupped her hands around the crystal. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.

  She glanced at Ray, who was standing near the doorway, looking uncomfortable in his too-tight wedding suit. Ray nodded, as if in agreement, but it was obvious that he was tired of being polite and anxious to leave, to have Nette all to himself. They would spend their wedding night at Tailem Bend, breaking the fourteen-hour trip to Renmark. Then they would begin their married life in a boarding house while Ray built a home for them on the land the government had granted him in the Riverina district near the Murray River. For a moment, Tiney hated him. He didn’t feel like a member of their family. He was a thief, come to steal Nette away from everyone who loved her.

  Ray lumbered across the room, looking first at the lamp and then at Nette. Tiney wanted him to say something romantic, something about Nette being the light of his life, anything that would show that he understood how lucky he was to have her. Ray touched the crystal shade with the gnarled finger of his damaged hand and said, ‘That’ll be a bugger to get to Cobdolga without breaking it.’

  Voices of the dead

  On a hot afternoon in late March, Tiney and Minna stepped off the Goodwood tram. A gritty north wind made them shield their eyes.

  ‘I’m glad you’re with me,’ said Minna, consulting the piece of paper with the address on it. ‘Tilda said I had to bring someone with me so that there was no risk of there being five people at the table.’

  ‘What’s wrong with having five?’ asked Tiney.

  ‘Tilda says that Christ was murdered with five wounds. There are five sides to a pentagon and five points on a pentacle, and so five can bring sinister forces into the room.’

  ‘So I’m only here to help out Tilda?’

  ‘We’re lucky Tilda said we could come along at all. Mrs Constance-Higgens normally holds her meetings in public halls and charges admission, but these sessions are private and they’re free. Tilda asked us especially. She said this séance is only for direct communication with people who have lost family.’

  ‘I don’t know that I want to talk to Louis. At least, not like this.’

  ‘Not like this? Do you mean you have other ways of talking to him?’

  Tiney looked at the tip of her shoes and wished she hadn’t come. ‘I don’t think Mama would approve of talking to him like this,’ she said obstinately.

  Minna ignored her. ‘Tilda’s house is over there,’ she said, pointing to a
red-brick house behind a high hedge.

  Inside the gate, pointy conifers lined the path to the door and added a funereal pall to the entrance.

  Tilda opened the door. Tall and thin, with eyes too big for her face, she unnerved Tiney. ‘You’re late,’ she said, looking anxious. ‘Everyone else is here.’

  She led them into a gloomy sitting room off a long central hallway. ‘Everyone else’ turned out to be six other visitors. Tilda introduced Tiney and Minna to the group. There was an elderly couple, a soldier in uniform with a girl who seemed to be his sister, a stout old gentleman, and a young woman who looked so pale she might have already seen a ghost. Tiney felt sorry for her, coming alone to the séance.

  ‘Mother is preparing herself,’ said Tilda.

  Tiney took a seat beside the old gentleman, who introduced himself as Captain Oliphant.

  ‘Nothing to worry about, little ladies,’ he said, as if sensing their nervousness. ‘The spirit entities will speak for themselves through using the brain and vocal organs of our medium. But remember that even though the dead are speaking through her, they can’t hurt you.’

  Mrs Constance-Higgens entered the room so quietly that it seemed she might have been waiting in the shadows of the hall watching the guests arrive. Tiney had imagined she would have an imposing presence but she was reed-like, with hollowed-out cheeks and hands like bird’s claws. Without speaking, she sat at the head of the table, her eyes averted. Tilda sat on a stool to one side, shorthand notebook and pen at the ready.

  ‘Mother has been preparing herself to speak with the spirit entities,’ said Tilda. ‘She must sink deeply into a trance to allow the spirits to enter her. She submits to the control of the spirits for your sakes. Because she believes it is your right to speak to your loved ones.’