The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

Green birdflower

Meaning: My heart flees

Crotalaria cunninghamii | Mid to western states

Widespread on sandy soils in mulga communities and on sand dunes, this shrub bears soft hairs on thick and pithy branches. The flower resembles a bird attached by its beak to the central stalk of the flower head; yellow-green, streaked with fine purple lines. Blooms in winter and spring. Pollinated by large bees, and birds.

Three long days of driving later, the dusty and barren landscape became verdant and lush. At the end of her fourth day travelling, Alice turned off the highway and followed a thin road along the coast until she reached the small town she’d left when she was a child. She stood at the main intersection watching farmers’ trucks rumble by. New shops dotted Main Street: a tattoo parlour, a mobile phone store, a vintage clothing shop and a surfboard outlet.

Behind her the sugar cane stalks were as vividly green as she remembered. The cane seemed shorter, but the air was still sweet and humid. She envisaged herself at seven years old, running through the stalks to emerge into this new and exciting world beyond the boundaries of her home. She wrapped her arms around herself. As if to reassure her, Pip licked Alice’s leg.

‘Are you okay? Are you lost?’ a friendly voice asked. Alice turned to see a young woman carrying a toddler on her hip.

‘I’m fine. Thanks,’ Alice replied.

The woman smiled, while the toddler cooed at Pip. At the traffic lights she set the toddler down to push the pedestrian button.

‘Sorry,’ Alice called her, compelled by nerves to ask for an answer she already knew. ‘Is that still the library across the road?’

‘Yep, sure is.’ The woman and toddler waved as the light turned green.

Over the years, Sally Morgan had pictured so many ways it might happen, when the day came that she’d see Alice Hart again. She never expected it would happen so simply, on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon.

School was finished, the library was full and Sally was crouched by the children’s shelves, putting books away. Seemingly for no reason, goosebumps prickled her spine.

She stood slowly. Remembered shabby little sandals poking out from under a tatty nightgown; tousled head bent poring over the library books; the dimple in her cheek; her fiery green eyes; her dark hair falling over the edge of the hospital bed; the click and whirr of the ventilator rising and falling as it helped her lungs to breathe; her cheekbones so sharp in her young, gaunt face; the tiny violet veins in her pale eyelids.

Sally moved cautiously between the shelves. There was nothing unusual that she could see. Nothing out of place. She was just tired, she reasoned with herself. When she was tired she was always more vulnerable to the past. Nevertheless, she couldn’t stop herself searching the library.

People browsing bookshelves. Parents with their children. High schoolers huddled together, giggling over their books.

There was nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that wasn’t like any other day. Her pulse began to slow.

Chiding herself for her foolish hopes, Sally walked through the shelves towards her desk, gathering stray books. Her cheeks were hot with disappointment.

Late afternoon light poured through the stained-glass windows. As Sally headed for her desk, a flare of aquamarine light from the Little Mermaid’s tail fell straight into her eyes. She stepped sideways, shielding her face from the glare. And, when she looked up again, she saw the little girl she’d loved in the face of a bedraggled woman standing in front of her. The books Sally was carrying fell to the floor.

For twenty years Sally had yearned for the moment when Alice Hart might fall like a star back into her life.

Here she was.

Alice drove through town, following Sally’s hatchback, reeling from the scene that unfolded in the library. When Sally had spotted her, her eyes had lost focus, almost as if she was looking straight through her, but then she swiftly enveloped Alice in a fierce hug, rocking to and fro, repeating her name. Alice stood unmoving, overwhelmed by the memory of Sally’s rose-scented perfume, unsure of how to react.

‘Let me have a look at you,’ Sally cried, sniffling, wiping her cheeks. ‘What a beautiful woman you are.’

Alice’s face flushed with unexpected pleasure.

‘How about we have that cup of tea, hey? All these years later?’ Sally asked, her eyes shining.

Alice nodded shyly.

‘Everyone, library’s closing early today, I’m afraid,’ Sally announced. She swept the library clean of people, and ushered Alice out into the car park. ‘Follow me, Alice, honey.’

Alice pulled up beside Sally’s car at the front of a cottage on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It had wraparound timber decking, covered by a fragrant frangipani vine. From the roof hung wind chimes made of shells, sea glass and drift wood. Flamingo grevillea bloomed in the garden. Chickens pecked at the grass beneath a silver wattle tree.

‘Wow,’ Alice murmured.

‘Come in,’ Sally called, waving. ‘Let’s get that little dog of yours something to drink.’

Inside, Alice sat at the kitchen table with Pip at her feet. Sally made tea and conjured a fruit cake from the cupboard, which she cut and slathered in butter. Outside the ocean roared. Sally drew a chair and sat, sliding a laden plate and a steaming cup of tea in Alice’s direction.

‘Eat something,’ she urged.

Alice was taken aback by the sense of comfort she felt with Sally. They’d met twenty years earlier just for an afternoon, and yet here she was, welcomed into Sally’s home as if she were long-lost family.

She took a bite of the fruit slice. Sally did the same, and sipped her tea, watching Alice carefully. They sat together in companionable silence. The ocean sounded so close, as if it were rolling through the house. Memories pulled at Alice like a riptide. Prickles encroached on her vision. She gripped the table to steady herself as she grew increasingly dizzy.

‘Alice?’ Sally asked, alarmed.

She tried to speak but could only groan. Sally put her arms around Alice and rubbed her back.

‘Oh, sweet girl. Steady, now. Deep breaths.’

Alice watched the ocean, breathing deeply, following a silver line of waves crashing blue-green on shore. The desert is an old dream of the sea. His voice ran through her. Ngayuku pinta-pinta. She danced barefoot around their winter fire, his eyes on her body, watching her twirl through the flames, drinking her in. Ngayuku pinta-pinta. My butterfly.

‘Deep breaths, Alice. Focus on my voice. Just stay with my voice.’ As Sally held her, memories stirred. Stay with my voice. The ocean of fire. Sleeping Beauty. Feathers aflame. Flap, flap, swoop. Up, up, away.

Alice clung to Sally, clutching fistfuls of her shirt, suddenly fearful that if she didn’t tether herself, she would fall apart, off the cliff, over the edge of the world.

Dusk. Sally made leek and potato soup while Alice lay on the couch, watching as the sun finished painting the clouds and passed its brush to the stars.

They ate without talking, the silence between them filled with the clink of cutlery against china, the music of the wind chimes, the rolling sea, the warbling of the chickens, and Pip’s occasional yawns.

‘You’ll be needing a place to up stumps,’ Sally said, wiping her hands on her serviette.

Alice tore a piece of bread in half and mopped up the last of her soup. She nodded as she chewed.

‘I’ve got more space here than I need,’ Sally offered. ‘The spare room is all yours. It gets full morning light, and has a view of the garden and the sea.’ She fidgeted with her soup spoon. ‘Bed’s made up.’

‘I couldn’t –’

Sally reached forward and put her hand over Alice’s. Warmth spread up Alice’s arm.

‘Thank you, Sally.’

Sally raised her glass with a nod. ‘Cheers to you,’ she said, her eyes full.

Alice copied the gesture.

‘And you,’ she replied.

When dinner was cleared away Sally showed Alice to her room. She gave her fluffy towels and extra-plump pillows.

‘Do you two have everything you need?’ Sally rubbed Pip’s ears. Alice nodded.

‘I’ll see you in the morning then,’ she said, hugging Alice.

‘See you in the morning.’

Alice turned off the light and left the curtains open. Moonlight poured through the windows. The view of the sea was wide and full. She lay on the bed and pulled Pip into the curve of her body, holding her tightly through the ebb and flow of tears.

The next morning Alice found her way around the kitchen, made a cup of coffee, and took it into the garden before Sally was up. She was grateful for the solitude. The sky was cloudless and powder blue. The sea sparkled, serene. Pip chased her tail. Bees hovered by a blooming lilly-pilly. Alice smiled. She yawned and rubbed her eyes. Her sleep had been fractured; the ocean and her memories were too loud. She wandered around Sally’s garden, sipping coffee, stopping to admire the grevillea and talk to the chickens. As the warmth of the sun unknotted the tension in her spine, Alice noticed a lush alley of potted tropical plants alongside the house: monstera, bird of paradise, agave, staghorns and ferns.

Alice was filled with a sense of wonder; it was a garden within a garden, so meticulous and well-tended in contrast to the wild beauty surrounding it. The sumptuous blends of greens. The varying, glossy foliage. But as she walked on, Alice’s wonderment began to fade. She gripped the handle of her coffee cup. Cracked and discoloured plastic toys stuck out of the dirt in some of the pots: a waving mermaid, a seashell, a smiling dolphin, a starfish. Alice’s steps faltered.

In the centre of the garden was a life-sized wooden statue. A young girl, offering up a flower. A statue Alice had seen before.

‘Alice.’

She spun around, her heart racing. Sally stood at the end of the alley, her face lined from sleep and heavy with sadness.

‘What the fuck is that doing here?’ Alice asked, her voice too high, her hand shaking hard as she pointed to the wooden statue. ‘Why do you have one of my father’s carvings?’

Sally took a step back. ‘Come inside.’

Alice didn’t respond.

‘Come in, Alice. I’ll make more coffee. We’ll sit and talk.’

Inside, Sally set a fresh coffee pot on the table by the couch. When she gestured for Alice to sit, Alice obliged.

‘God.’ Sally laughed awkwardly. ‘I’ve been praying for the chance to have this conversation with you for years, and now I’m tongue-tied.’ She fidgeted with her hands. ‘The truth is I don’t know where to start. How about you ask me questions, Alice, anything you want to know, and we’ll go from there.’

Alice leaned forward, struggling to control her voice. ‘Start with why you have one of my father’s statues of me in your garden,’ she said. ‘Or start with why my mother left guardianship of me and my brother to you in her will.’ The question she’d been carrying ever since she’d opened Twig’s thick envelope came out in a rush.

Sally’s face paled. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘Okay.’

Alice jiggled one knee as the words of her mother’s will flared in her mind. Should June Hart not be fit to raise my children, I, Agnes Hart, hereby leave guardianship to Sally Morgan.

‘Did you know her? My mum?’ Alice demanded.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, Alice. I didn’t. Not really. No more than occasionally passing each other in town.’

Alice shook her head. ‘That doesn’t make sense. Why would she leave us to you?’

‘I didn’t know her, but your mother knew me, Alice,’ Sally said. ‘She knew me.’

‘I don’t know what that means,’ Alice said. Her heart felt constricted, as if her ribcage was too small to contain it.

‘When I was young,’ Sally said slowly, ‘I fell in love. With someone who wasn’t mine to fall in love with.’ She shook her head. ‘I was eighteen. Never had a boyfriend. I’d seen your father here and there. He was a new cane farmer in town. Quiet, hardworking, brooding. Kept to himself. There was something about him, I guess.’ She paused. ‘I watched him from afar for a long time. No one knew much about him. He didn’t wear a wedding ring. It was just one night. One. I was at the pub with girlfriends, tipsy on shandy, and got some Dutch courage. Walked straight up to him at the bar and asked him if I could buy him a drink … Two months later I found out I was pregnant.’

Alice stared at her. ‘When was this?’

‘The year after you were born, when –’

‘No?’ Alice interjected. ‘That can’t be right.’

Sally nodded solemnly. ‘I’m afraid it is.’

‘No,’ Alice said again. Nowhere in her mother’s stories was there a sister. Her mother couldn’t have known about Sally.

Sally waited, her face open, her eyes heavy.

Alice’s head spun. ‘You have a child with my father?’

‘Had,’ Sally murmured. ‘I had a child.’ She looked down at her hands. ‘Gillian died when she was five. Leukaemia.’

Alice couldn’t bring herself to speak.

‘I told Clem about Gilly when she was born, just so he knew about her, but I made it clear I didn’t want anything from him. Still, the love of a child changes you. I couldn’t stop myself from hoping he’d acknowledge her. The night she died, as morbid as it may sound, I sent him a clipping of her hair, tied in one of her favourite ribbons. Although Clem wouldn’t have anything to do with her while she was alive, I wanted him to have something of her. The truth is, I was a mess. Angry. I wanted to hurt him, to punish him, to remind him of how he’d ignored her life, in her death.’

The smell of kerosene filled Alice’s nose as she remembered opening the drawer of her father’s workbench to find the photograph of Thornfield, and a curl of hair, tied in a pale ribbon. Gillian’s hair. Her sister’s hair.

‘The carving of Gilly was at my front door when I got home from her funeral,’ Sally said.

In Alice’s memory, the lamplight flickered over his carvings of June, and a young girl. Who Alice had wrongly presumed was herself.

‘Your mother came to the funeral.’

Alice looked sharply at Sally.

‘I saw her,’ Sally said, ‘at the back of the congregation. I couldn’t find her after the service. She left a pot plant at the grave with a card to Gilly, signed in your name.’

Alice whimpered, covering her face with her hands, imagining what it must have taken for her mother to get herself into town, to the funeral and back home, without her father finding out. What it must have taken to discover such a betrayal yet still find compassion for Sally. The pain she must have carried, knowing Alice would never meet her half-sister. The trust her mother must have had in Sally’s decency; the point of desperation she must have reached to leave guardianship of her children to Sally. The point of fear her mother must have reached to have had the need for a will.

‘What plant?’

‘Sorry?’

‘What plant did Mum leave, at the grave?’

Sally went to the open window and reached through to pick a peach-coloured flower from a blooming bush. She offered it to Alice.

‘Beach hibiscus,’ Alice cried softly, remembering the flower crown her mother made when she was a child. Remembering its meaning in the Thornfield Dictionary. Love binds us in eternity.

‘A year later you walked into the library,’ Sally went on. ‘I recognised you straight away. I knew you were Clem and Agnes’s daughter. My Gilly’s big sister. After the fire, I made it my business to look after you.’

‘Look after me?’

‘I was there. In hospital.’ Sally’s voice was nearly inaudible. ‘I sat with you while you were in a coma. I read you stories.’

Stay with my voice, Alice, I’m right here.

‘I sent you a box of books …’ Sally trailed off.

Her childhood books, which she was told were a gift from June.

‘I stayed with you until I found out June was coming. After you’d left with her, your nurse rang and told me your brother survived, but June didn’t take him. Then a solicitor contacted me about Agnes’s will … I made my John find out where you were, though. I needed to know you were safe. Once I knew you were at Thornfield, I forced myself to accept June’s wishes and make peace with things.’

Alice looked at her blankly. ‘What wishes?’ she asked.

Sally studied her face. ‘Oh, Alice,’ she said after a moment.

‘What wishes, Sally?’

‘June made it clear she didn’t want you to have any contact with me, or your brother.’

‘Made it clear, how?’

Sally blanched. ‘I sent letters, Alice. For years. Letters and photographs about your brother, as he grew up. I always wanted contact with you, but never got a reply. With June being your legal guardian, I couldn’t impose upon her. I had no power. All I could do was make sure I didn’t cause any additional pain. Especially not for you, or your brother.’

Alice cried out in frustration. Desperate for fresh air she got up and went to the window. Pressed her forehead against the cool glass.

After a while Sally cleared her throat. ‘Your brother grew up knowing he was adopted. I wouldn’t have raised him any other way,’ she said quietly. ‘He’s always known about you.’

Alice turned.

‘He’ll be twenty soon. Such a gentle soul. Just moved in with his girlfriend and works as a landscaper. Never as happy as when he’s in a garden.’

Alice sank back to the couch. ‘What’s his name?’ she whispered.

‘I named him Charlie,’ Sally said, smiling for the first time that morning.