Song for Emilia Read online

  While she wondered how to answer this delicate question, Sandra looked across the garden. Her mother’s beans had raced up the wire trellis, and along the fence she’d grown tall flowering plants with forgettable names. So many seed packets littered the kitchen bench – delphiniums, maybe.

  She hosed a mosquito off her leg. ‘I don’t know. I wish I could see him more often. We go to a café now and then, or to the pictures, that’s about all.’

  It sounded very threadbare to Sandra. Well, that was about all, wasn’t it, she told herself. Nick was like a shadow, only visible when the sun shone, and it didn’t shine often enough for her.

  Angela called them through the kitchen window: ‘Dinner’s on the table, girls.’

  As they stood up, their clothes pulled on their sunburnt skin. ‘Gosh,’ Sandra said. ‘We’re going to peel and look terrible.’

  ‘No, we won’t,’ Emilia grinned, flicking newly silken curls off her face. ‘We’ll look like two water-babies who had a wonderful day at the beach.’

  Dinner was quiet, and both Sandra and Emilia felt sleepy soon after they finished.

  ‘Off you go,’ Angela said. ‘I’ll let you off the washing-up tonight.’

  Despite Sandra’s worries, Emilia’s visit had ended peacefully, all their chatter bridging whatever gaps had opened between them. They hugged goodnight, but instead of immediately going to bed, they lay beside each other on the top sheet, talking about everything they’d already talked about a hundred times, until Angela whispered at the door that it was nearly midnight.

  They kissed goodnight, and Emilia touched the small china angel on the dressing table – her present to Sandra two Christmases ago. ‘My little angel will look after you while you’re asleep.’

  ‘She’s the first thing I see when I wake up,’ Sandra replied sleepily. ‘I love my little angel.’

  ‘Sssh,’ came Angela’s voice again, from down the hallway.

  Tomorrow the train would whisk Emilia off to Curradeen – the long journey home to stay with her family before the study year began.

  Eyes closed, vaguely dreaming, Sandra heard the regular rhythm of the train as it picked up speed on the tracks to the western line, Emilia’s handkerchief waving out the window ...

  Goodbye, goodbye.

  Blue sky and a bright March sun gave the day a holiday feel, although it was only a weekend.

  Prue’s face wore a grumpy expression as she plumped down on Sandra’s bed. ‘How come you never want to do anything with me, anymore,’ she complained. ‘You had plenty of time when Emilia was here.’

  Sandra didn’t look up from her desk. ‘I’m working, go away.’

  Prue ignored her rebuke. ‘Not even draughts or Scrabble—’

  ‘Are you deaf?’ Really, Prue could be tiresome ...

  ‘We never ride our bikes anywhere, even when—’

  ‘Ha, you’ve crashed your bike three times already and gone to hospital. No wonder Dad locked up your bike. All you do now is hang about with your girlfriends and go to the Stadium.’

  ‘At least I’m having fun. Better than you stuck at home all weekend scribbling songs. Monopoly, one game?’

  ‘I don’t want to play Monopoly. Or any game.’ Head bent over her score again, Sandra tried to recollect where she’d got up to. It was already a difficult composition.

  When Sandra continued to ignore her, Prue said, ‘I’m getting the bus out to The Gap. Want to come with me?’

  Sandra didn’t immediately answer. It wasn’t too far in the bus to Watson’s Bay, and it would save her from her desk for the day. The invitation had a certain appeal.

  ‘All right, let me finish this.’

  Prue stretched out on the bed, hands behind her head, jiggling her foot. ‘It’s funny,’ she said, ‘but even though I’ve got plenty to do and I’ve got heaps of friends, I sort of miss how we used to ride our bikes out to the creek.’

  Sandra was surprised by this admission of sentiment from Prue, usually so self-contained. ‘I miss it too,’ she confessed. ‘Emilia’s still my best friend, but I don’t see anyone much now I’ve left school.’

  ‘I liked how sometimes we caught yabbies. Remember?’

  ‘Yes, and then we’d let them go.’

  ‘You used to feed those horses and pretend they were yours.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Sandra mumbled, concentrating on her melodic line.

  Prue picked through the books on the bedside table. She held one up. ‘What’s this about?’

  A quick glance, and Sandra said, ‘Mendelssohn’s life story, you wouldn’t like it. Now, will you be quiet?’

  Prue hummed to herself, reading a page. ‘It says here his sister Fanny – that’s a funny name – composed songs and she played piano, too.’

  ‘So did Mozart’s sister. Shut up for five minutes.’

  Prue sighed. ‘I’m supposed to work harder at school ...I wish I could’ve left after the Intermediate.’

  ‘Don’t be a wimp.’

  ‘Look who’s talking.’

  With an exaggerated sigh, Sandra folded the score with its squiggly quavers, crochets and chords, and dropped her pencil into the box. ‘There’s nothing wimpy about studying at the Con – we don’t just sit around and play tunes all day.’

  As if Sandra hadn’t spoken, Prue said: ‘In class yesterday, I had to read Lady Macbeth’s part, where she says ...if she’d sworn to do it, she’d tear her baby’s mouth off her nipple and dash his brains out. Nipple! I had to read nipple. I bet all the kids were glad it was me and not them.’

  Sandra laughed, imagining Prue’s unaccustomed embarrassment. At least a bus trip to The Gap was something different. Her life had been strangely quiet since Aunt Meredith and Mister L’estrange fell in love.

  The bus emptied many of its passengers near the harbour-side beaches, then continued up the hill and along the road towards The Gap.

  At first they leaned their elbows on the fence. Beyond, the cliffs dropped down down and down to the rocks below. Sandra felt a creepy sensation knowing that this was a favourite place for sad, desperate people to jump to their deaths. Or be pushed. A year ago when they’d first visited The Gap together and leaned on the fence like today, Prue admitted to enjoying this feeling – the thrill of anticipation, imagining the leap ...

  ‘I’m climbing the fence,’ Prue said. ‘My favourite pozzy’s over there.’ She pointed southwards, to a narrow sandstone ledge beyond the ragged cliff-top grass and wind-beaten bushes.

  Projecting a short distance from the cliff face, it filled Sandra with horror. ‘Don’t,’ she pleaded. ‘It looks too dangerous.’

  ‘I’ve often done it.’ Prue slipped through the fence. ‘Be a sook if you want to.’ She walked along the cliff top, to sit on the stone ledge, feet hanging over the sea.

  Cross at the old accusation, Sandra followed her, hands and feet tingling with apprehension. Aunt Meredith would be appalled. As for her parents – their mother would have a heart attack. This thought gave her a false courage, and she sidled over to sit beside Prue. Far below the waves frothed dark and fathomless against the darker rocks. Perhaps it would seem less menacing when morning sunlight sparkled on the cliff face, lighting its colours. If she stared down into it long enough, would it would begin to beckon ...was that what people called vertigo?

  For a while they sat in silence, swinging their legs as they watched the swell gush in and out among the rocks.

  ‘What’s it like to jump off, do you think?’ Prue asked. ‘You’d have to be a bit mad, wouldn’t you?’

  Sandra contemplated the question. Aunt Meredith had described how her boyfriend William had been a bit mad when he came back from the Korean War, but he hadn’t meant to get run over. Auntie told her how William had nightmares, and walked the streets around Bronte half the night – till he got hit by a tram in the early dawn light. It was an accident, wasn’t it? She hated how her own questions bounced back at her.

  Before she could answer Prue, behind them, somewhere back
on the road, they heard a voice call. It called again, urgent: ‘Hey, you! You girls!’

  Turning her head, Sandra saw a man hurrying across the road towards them, his voice more anxious with every step.

  ‘Come off that cliff, girls. Quickly and quietly now.’ He stood at the fence, hands on hips.

  He seemed so worried, Sandra said, ‘Something’s up. We’d better do as he says.’

  Prue gave a snort, but inched back from the edge, swinging her feet onto the grass. They climbed back through the fence, to stand regarding the man whose face showed immense relief.

  ‘What on earth—’ he began. ‘It’s sandstone, don’t you know? A soft stone. Where you were sitting, bold as brass enjoying the afternoon sun, the weather can eat out the stone underneath, wearing it away. Sometimes big chunks can suddenly fall into the sea.’ His face softened with relief. ‘Please, will you never, never do that again.’

  Sandra shivered as she understood what he meant. She looked back at the ledge where they’d sat, saw how the wind and weather had begun to wear a hollow beneath it. Maybe in years to come, or maybe tomorrow, that ledge would crack, tumbling broken rocks down into the sea.

  As they walked back to the bus stop, ‘How would he know?’ Prue scowled. ‘Silly old man.’

  ‘He lives over the road, so he’d know,’ Sandra replied. ‘Maybe he watches everything, to save people from jumping off The Gap. Anyway, I believe him.’

  ‘Maybe he thought we’d made a suicide pact,’ Prue said. ‘Hold hands. Jump off the cliff together.’

  Sandra glanced sideways at her sister. ‘You say such stupid things.’

  But later she worried, listening to the records Prue played in her bedroom, the portable turntable spinning songs of loss and anguish. Heartbreak Hotel ad infinitum.

  ♫

  Don and Angela returned to their comfortable armchairs after dinner. When Rawhide finished, the house relaxed in a mood of peace and quiet: a beautiful evening, warm enough for cicadas to sing. Tonight there wasn’t any argument about whose turn to wash or dry the dishes, and washing up done, Sandra and Prue went to their bedrooms to read or finish homework.

  Don breathed out a little cloud of smoke, tapping his pipe on the ashtray. ‘Since we moved to Sydney, we’ve spent all our holidays at home. I’ve been thinking maybe we should do something different.’

  ‘Now we live near the beach, it’s not as if—’

  ‘Angela, dear,’ Don said, ‘it hasn’t been easy for me. You know the new branch is a big workload, and it’ll get worse with decimal currency coming in ’66. I’d like to get out of the city at least for part of my holiday, breathe some bush air again for a week or so.’

  ‘What do you have in mind?’

  ‘We can drive down the coast, then go inland to Adaminaby and Lake Eucumbene. The whole Snowy hydro scheme will be fun to visit and an education for the girls. The lake must have filled by now. We can camp, or stay in cabins or a motel. How about it?’

  ‘I’ll leave it for you to investigate,’ Angela said. Really, she would rather stay at home. The garden needed attention – the new zucchinis might die in her absence. Disappointed at the thought, she agreed. ‘It sounds a very nice idea.’

  In her nightdress, Sandra came from the kitchen with a glass of milk. ‘What sounds a nice idea?’

  ‘Your father wants to take us on a holiday to Lake Eucumbene, before school goes back.’

  ‘Why do we want to go to some old lake out in the country? We can have our holiday at home,’ Sandra said, innocently echoing her mother’s opinion.

  ‘It’s a new lake,’ Don said. ‘Part of the grand Snowy Mountains scheme for hydro-electricity. You’ve heard how to make way for the dam, almost every building in Adaminaby, even a church, was moved by truck or picked apart and rebuilt brick by brick and stone by stone. Now the lake is famous, people can go fishing for trout—’

  ‘Dad, we don’t go fishing for trout, or anything, ever!’ Sandra heard herself whinge. ‘I’ve got things I want to do.’

  ‘Now now,’ Angela interrupted. ‘Those things will still be here when you get home.’

  ‘Great,’ Sandra muttered. ‘Drowned houses. Sounds terrific fun.’ Then an idea occurred to her, a brilliant idea. Her father would never dream of leaving the cat! ‘What about Ginger?’ She watched her father’s face. ‘We can’t just leave him alone with bowls of food.’

  Don hadn’t thought about the cat and he frowned. ‘Perhaps we can find someone to mind him,’ he suggested, sounding doubtful.

  ‘Why Lake Eucumbene?’ Angela asked. ‘If you want to go bush for a week, why not go back to Curradeen?’

  He hadn’t thought of that, either. ‘Curradeen? I suppose—’

  Suddenly excited, Sandra leaped at the chance. ‘That’s a great idea, Dad. Why not go back to Curradeen, and I can come with you. The next uni break in June?’ And, she thought, Nick will be at home too. Nick, at Wilga Park! ‘I can stay with Emilia—’ her words were falling over themselves.

  ‘You could stay with one of our golfing friends.’ Angela got up to fill the kettle, relieved that another option had unexpectedly arisen. ‘You know how you miss your golf,’ she said. ‘Prue and Ginger and I can stay here, and you two can have a nice time in the country.’

  Don brightened. ‘You’re right. I’ll take some time off now, and the rest of my leave I’ll add to the Queen’s birthday weekend. My goodness, a week of golf ... ’ He leaned back in his armchair, satisfied with the outcome.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, as if in conclusion, ‘with such a widespread drought, water in the lake might be quite low – all those dead trees poking out of the water.’

  Gleeful, Sandra took her glass of milk back to the bedroom. This was getting better and better. She opened the zipped writing case she’d got for Christmas, and took out her pen. A letter to Emilia, plus a letter to Nick: Dear Nick, my father and I are going on a holiday together, and we’ll be coming to Curradeen for a few days over the uni study break. Will you be home then?

  Up at dawn on their day of departure, Sandra shoved an extra pair of socks into her suitcase. Nights in June could be cold out west, so an extra jumper ... slacks, skivvies, jeans and desert boots, her beanie. They’d be gone for a week, so better be ready for everything.

  Angela was already up and had put breakfast on the table. The kitchen smelled of bacon and eggs.

  ‘Let’s eat and hit the road,’ Don said with a big smile as he stowed his golf bag in the boot beside their suitcases.

  Prue hadn’t cared about going to Curradeen, saying she’d rather visit her friends – the ‘gang of girls’ as her mother called them. Goody, Sandra thought. We’ve never done anything like this before. Just me and Dad. And Nick at Wilga Park.

  The rising sun was behind them as they reached the open road travelling west. Angela had packed a box with morning tea and a thermos, and they knew where to find the best Chinese café for lunch, from their countless journeys to Sydney. It would be dark before they reached their old town.

  ‘Father and daughter, eh?’ Don remarked as they left behind the city traffic. ‘An adventure.’

  Sandra nodded, happy for her father. He loved his golf and hadn’t played since they arrived in Randwick. This was going to be better than some silly old lake, she thought. I don’t care how important it is or how big it is. We’re going to Curradeen, and it’s all going to be wonderful.

  As the miles ticked over, she recalled her letter to Nick. Their last afternoon together was weeks ago. Now he was home for uni break, and he’d made a suggestion that was so delicious, she took his letter out of her handbag for the sheer pleasure of reading it for the thousandth time.

  Dear Sandra,

  Thanks for your letter. It’s a great idea for you & your father to visit. I’ll be home over the study break. There’s a lot for you to see on our place that will be new to you. I’ll get Toffee back from where she’s agisted & we’ve got a nice, quiet horse for you, so we’ll have that ride I promi
sed.

  He’d remembered his promise ... at the polocrosse match, at least three years ago – the unforgettable day they’d first met.

  Mum still has the old piano of course, some things don’t change, & you can play Winter’s Day for us, & maybe some more of the compositions you’ve told me about. Have a safe trip, it’s a long drive. Don’t I know it!

  ‘Yours, Nick,’ she whispered. Oh Nick, whenever I see you everything seems to go better.

  She slid the letter back in its envelope. For a while, they drove in silence, winding up and up the road to the Blue Mountains. The sun was high, and as they arrived in Katoomba, Don said, ‘Morning tea time, Sandy. Shall we say hello to the Three Sisters?’

  ‘Oh yes, we always stop there. I like to imagine what it was like when the first explorers crossed it, like Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth. To walk and walk and suddenly come to that enormous cliff, and a valley, blue as blue.’

  Don poured the tea into plastic cups. ‘You should write a story about it. Or a song?’

  ‘Yes! A landscape song. The blueness of the valley ... I love the line of sandstone cliffs in the distance,’ Sandra said, scattering crumbs from a biscuit. ‘And I want to write a song for Emilia too, because she’s still my best friend.’

  ‘What a nice idea. How’s the study going these days?’

  ‘Good. My tutor said now I’ve done eighth grade piano, I should think about sitting the A.Mus.A. exam – the Associate Diploma in Music.’

  ‘Really? You haven’t mentioned it. That’s a very good qualification.’

  Sandra had been silent on her progress since being accepted at the Conservatorium. Busy with studying piano and composition, she was flying through the work. Restless, she badly wanted to put into practice all she’d learned, and longed to spend the time at her piano – filling her score sheets, filling her box of compositions – unfettered.

  ‘Enrolments for the exam close soon ... I’m not sure.’ She packed the empty cups back in the box with the thermos. ‘I think I’d rather just study.’