The Undertaker Orchid

My mother has just told me that I’m possessed. She tells me this while sitting up in bed, her hair wrapped in a silk scarf, a beaded shawl draped around her thin shoulders. All that’s missing from her fortune-teller look is a crystal ball, and I expect she’s got one of those stashed away in here somewhere, crammed in with all the books and vintage clothes and bottles of pills.

‘I could tell as soon as you walked through the door,’ Eleanor says, and her eyes are wild and dark. ‘She’s still with you.’

I pull the curtain back from the window, look out over the darkening landscape. The grounds of Audley House dissolve into shadow. There’s one square patch of light in the distance, a glow from inside a building. The stables. Someone else is here.

I’d sensed a change when I’d pulled off the road half an hour ago and found my entrance to the driveway blocked. A new silver gate shined in my car’s headlights. It looked so out of place next to the scraggly pine trees and the wooden fence which bends like a snake with a broken spine. Once through the gate, I’d stopped again, this time for a fox on the drive in front of the car. For a moment it watched me, its head lowered, its shoulders tense, its eyes two bright marbles in the car’s headlights. Then it’d darted into the trees.

This has always been a place of lurking things. Things that slip through the shadows and whisper behind your back.

‘I’ve felt something shift recently,’ Eleanor says. ‘A vibration. I think you were meant to come back here.’

My fingers grip the curtain. I don’t want to look at her. Everything in this room feels tight and cramped, including Eleanor. She’s changed, and it’s more than just age. Her face is drawn and tired, her cheeks sunken. She’s so thin that the bones of her wrists stretch her skin. Her four-poster bed seemed exotic to me when I was young but now it’s just strange and shabby, with its gathered hangings and heavy, tasselled fringe. There’s barely room in here for the bed, let alone the piles of clothes that tumble from the two wooden wardrobes, or the leadlight lamps, or the stacks of books. Sitting among all this, Eleanor looks like a demented medieval queen.

She’s talking to me, and I try to listen, but it’s the same crap she’s been saying for twenty years. And I can’t concentrate because there’s this image that’s scratched on my brain and stealing my focus. All I can see is Brooke. Brooke kneeling, naked, in front of my boyfriend.

‘Have you brought your drawing things with you?’ Eleanor asks. ‘I think there’s still some of your old pencils and paper around here somewhere.’

This makes me turn from the window and look at her. ‘I don’t do that any more,’ I say.

She blinks at me. ‘What do you mean? It’s your job.’

My job. My job with Alastair. ‘No, it isn’t. I do computer stuff mainly.’

She screws up her face. ‘What are you talking about? You do designs for that website.’

I grit my teeth. We may not have been in touch a lot over the years, she may not know much about my life, but I’ve told her this. ‘I don’t draw.’

‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this.’ Eleanor collapses against the pillows. ‘Your one talent, and you just dismiss it like that.’ She flicks her fingers. ‘As if it’s that simple, anyway. As if you can just ignore Georgiana, what she’s done for you.’

‘Georgiana’s done nothing for me.’

Eleanor closes her eyes, shakes her head. ‘Stop it, Lila.’

‘I’m just telling you the truth. I know you don’t like the truth.’

Her hand flutters at her chest. ‘Don’t start. Don’t. I can’t handle any of your drama.’

I take a deep breath. The room is too warm, the air too thick with incense and the musk of stale flesh and old clothes. An armchair near me is draped with an Afghan coat, which I push out of the way so I can sit down.

Eleanor’s eyes pierce me. ‘Well, why are you here then?’

Brooke, on her knees. It’s not even a real image. It’s just something my brain has conjured up to torment me. I don’t know what they did together. All I know is that they did it.

I try to take another deep breath, but my lungs are tight. ‘Alastair and I broke up.’

‘Oh.’ She scrutinises me. ‘What did you do?’

‘Bloody hell.’ I shake my head. ‘Of course you’d think it’s my fault.’

‘I’m just asking what happened, you don’t need to be so rude. God forbid I show an interest in my daughter.’

I don’t have the strength to fight her, but I’m not going to take the blame. ‘He left me for someone else.’

I can tell from the little twist of her lips that she doesn’t believe me. Or maybe she does believe me, but she thinks it’s retribution for what I’ve done to her.

‘Well, I’m not sure why you’ve come here,’ she says.

I’m not sure either. It’d seemed logical a few hours ago. After the confrontation with Alastair, there was no way I’d sleep another night under the same roof as him. If there was any justice, he’d be the one to leave the flat since he’s the one leaving me. I wonder if Brooke’s there now. The image that’s dominating my mind takes on a new dimension. Details fill out the scene — bed with navy sheets, beige carpet, wooden slatted blinds. Our bedroom.

I close my eyes, willing the image to go. ‘I just need somewhere to stay for a few days, while I figure out what to do.’

What am I going to do? I have work to finish. Will Alastair even want it now? He told me that none of this would affect my job but of course it will. Can I work on it here? Is there even an internet connection in this stupid house?

‘I suppose I can manage if it’s only for a few days,’ Eleanor says, then sighs as if the world is ending. ‘It’s very inconvenient, you must realise that.’

I pull out the one card I have to play, the one thing she can’t deny. ‘You know that Robert said I was always welcome here.’

She grumbles to herself, shifts in the bed. ‘That man was always too lenient with you.’

What my mother calls ‘lenient,’ I call ‘kind.’ She and Robert were a only together for three years. By the time I was in high school, he was gone. He could’ve kicked us both out of Audley, but he didn’t. Eleanor’s been here ever since, paying no rent, eternally ungrateful.

Eleanor says, ‘You can’t have your old room. Ingrid is using it for storage.’

This is an unpleasant surprise. ‘Ingrid’s here? Since when?’

‘What difference does it make? It’s not as if you’ve ever shown an interest in the house, or in Ingrid.’ She sits up a little straighter. ‘She’s been very good to me, actually. Very helpful. She has big plans for Audley.’

When I’d walked into the kitchen, I’d noticed the changes as soon as I’d shut the back door behind me. New cabinets, new sink, a giant silver fridge. The smell of fresh paint in the air. So this must be the work of Ingrid, Robert’s daughter with his first wife. I only met her once or twice during the brief period our parents were together.

‘I don’t care where I sleep,’ I say. ‘I’ll sleep in the stables if I have to.’

I’m not really serious, but Eleanor says, ‘No, the stables are occupied.’

Guess that explains the light I saw. How many people are here? It’s too much for me to take in. I just want to lie down and forget everything. I need a drink. I should’ve stopped on the way for supplies. If it’s anything like the old days, the only food in the fridge will be turnips and chickpeas.

I stand up, reach for my overnight bag that I’d dropped on the floor. ‘I’m going to bed.’

Eleanor watches me as I pick my way through the boxes and clothes and random junk. My hand is on the door when she says, ‘Lila, please don’t make things hard for me. I can’t handle disruption. Just…don’t be noisy.’

‘So much for all the parties I had planned.’

She just closes her eyes, like I’m already too much to bear. The feeling’s mutual.

I step out into the gloom of the upstairs landing. There are two bedrooms on my right, one of which is my old room. The door is open, and I can’t resist a quick look. Eleanor was right — it’s packed with boxes and furniture. On the opposite side of the landing are two more doors, one that leads to the tower, and one to another, smaller room, known back then as the yellow bedroom.

I try the bedroom on the right first, but the door is locked. The yellow bedroom door opens with a scrape and a whine. I flick on the overhead light, which is just a single bare bulb hanging limply from the ceiling.

There’s not much to look at. A single bed, a lone chair and a bookshelf with three books in it. The floorboards are bare and dusty, the windows barely covered by flimsy lace curtains. This was never a room I spent any time in. At least the bed has sheets and a blanket, but on closer inspection it’s clear they haven’t been recently laid. I give them a half-hearted shake to remove any hidden spiders. The thought of creepy crawlies doesn’t bother me too much. Spiders are the least of my worries in this house.

There’s an oil heater against the wall. Its dial is stiff, and I hurt my hand turning it on, but some warmth starts to flow from it. I hunt around and find an ancient wall socket to plug my phone into. There’s a couple of texts and emails from work colleagues. Nothing from Alastair.

I don’t bother to undress, other than kick off my boots. I shiver beneath the crappy bedcovers, Brooke and Alastair floating through my mind, tormenting me. Why the hell am I here? I should’ve just gone to a hotel for the night. But why should I waste money on a hotel when Alastair’s the one who —

Something rustles in the corner of the room. My jaw tenses. Just a mouse. I can deal with a mouse. I can deal with twenty mice. But mice scratch, don’t they? They gnaw and scrape. They don’t rustle.

My body is rigid. I wait to hear the sound again, but all I can hear is the hum of blood in my ears. And then — another rustle. Closer to the bed this time.

Had I really thought she wouldn’t find me?

I wait, my arms tucked tight against my chest, my face buried in the pillow. With every beat of my heart I think I’m going to feel something — a hand laid softly on my back, a fingertip brushing a curl from my eyes. I wait and I wait but nothing comes.

*

I wake to a hand on my arm. In the fog of sleep I forget any night creatures creeping around my bed. Instead, I think it’s Alastair, and I raise my head from the pillow to talk to him. Then I see who it is, and jerk my arm away. A woman leans over me, a young woman with long blonde hair and large blue eyes.

‘What the fuck?’ I say, even as my brain catches up with me and I realise who this is. ‘Ingrid.’ My mouth feels dusty.

She smiles. ‘You remember me.’ Her voice is light, breathy, like a coquettish girl in an old Hollywood movie.

I push myself up with one arm. Ingrid sits on the bed, so close that I can feel her body against my leg. I awkwardly get myself into a sitting position, putting as much distance between us as I can.

I’m not a morning person. I glare at her. ‘Why the hell are you in my room?’ 

Ingrid is still smiling at me. ‘Do you always swear so much first thing in the morning?’

‘When I wake up to a stranger groping me, yes.’

She laughs, her head thrown back as if she’s delighted. But she moves so gracefully, so prettily, that it seems entirely unnatural.

‘I’m not a stranger, silly,’ she says. ‘You obviously remember me. I remember you.’

I remember her as a doll-like child, in little white dresses with ribbons in her hair. Looking at her now, there’s something of the child still in her. Her cheeks are full and round, her mouth a pouting bow. Her pale hair ripples over her shoulders and down her back, so long that it grazes the bedcovers.

‘You know what?’ she says, leaning forward. ‘It’s a cliché, but you look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

My stomach twists. Ingrid herself could be a ghost — a spectre from a Victorian novel, haunting the halls of her old home. Her pale skin, her hair, her white dress. The dress is old-fashioned in style, with long sleeves and a high neck, yet the fabric is partly sheer, with a flowing skirt, and embroidered all over with tiny white flowers. Victorian yet bohemian, an odd jumble of Stevie Nicks and Miss Havisham.

I rub my face. ‘Did Eleanor tell you I was here?’

‘No, I haven’t been in to see her yet. I just noticed your car outside and so I had to check whose it was. I’m sorry to wake you, but I was just so excited when I realised it was you in here. We always pick up some things at the bakery on Saturday mornings. Come down when you’re ready. We’ll be in the conservatory.’

She floats to the door and quietly slips out. For a few moments I stare at the bed where she’d been sitting. Who the hell does she think she is, coming in like that, waking me up? Who does that? I’m tempted to burrow back down into the dusty, spidery sheets, to ignore Ingrid’s invitation just to make a point. But I’m hungry.

The conservatory is across the hall, next to the kitchen, and when I walk into the room it’s so familiar that I stop still in the doorway, unsettled. It’s almost identical to how I remember. It’s a curved room, with glass windows that look out over the back garden. Bench seats run along the walls, lined with faded cushions. The floor is covered in rugs, laid over the top of each other at odd angles, so that every inch of space is taken. On one wall is a bookshelf stacked with art and design and garden books.

But the most striking things are the plants. They hang from the roof in wire and woven baskets, their leaves and vines trailing through the air towards the floor. One vine touches the top of the bookshelf, and has curled itself into a delicate spiral like a spool of rope. I know these can’t be the same plants that grew here twenty years ago, but they are so similar, and arranged in such a familiar way, that for a moment I think I’ve gone back in time.

I’d loved this room. In summer the heat sliced through the glass and turned the room into a sweaty sauna. But in winter it was perfect, especially if I ran an extension cord in from the kitchen and plugged in the little electric fan heater. I’d sit on the bench seats with a blanket on my legs and cushions at my back, and read. And draw. My heart clenches at the memory.

Ingrid is here, bent over a small table, on which sits a teapot. She notices me, and pours tea into a delicate blue cup, then hands it to me along with a matching saucer and a smile.

‘It all looks just the same,’ I say.

This seems to please her. Her smile broadens. ‘I’m going to find Gabriel and those pastries,’ she says, and disappears from the room.

Gabriel. Her boyfriend? I sip my tea, wishing it was coffee. A sound catches my attention, and I turn to look out the windows to the back garden. In the daylight I can see that it’s far less overgrown than I remember, and is definitely undergoing a renovation. The fountain is still there, with its cavorting cherub on top, although there’s no water running from the pot held in his chubby hands. Everywhere on the ground are piles of soil and bags of mulch, and some of the paving stones surrounding the fountain have been dug up. There’s a few tools lying around, and some shrubs in pots, waiting to be planted.

The source of the sound I’d heard is a man in the centre of the garden, close to the fountain. He holds a spade in both hands, and as I watch, he lifts it and brings it down to the earth like a spear, breaking up clumps of dirt with a thud. Even at a distance I can see the mud on his arms and legs, the grit caked onto his work boots. My nose wrinkles involuntarily.

I have an unsettling moment of recognition, a sense that I know him, which is ridiculous. I’ve never seen him before, and he doesn’t even look like the man I’m thinking of, the man who once stood in this garden. But there’s something about his movement as he lifts the spade and brings it down again, as he jams his boot against the metal to force it into the hard earth —

‘Enjoying the view?’

I turn so fast that I lose my balance, and the cup I’m holding rattles against the saucer, threatening to spill. A hand shoots out and grabs my arm to steady me, as the voice says, with a laugh, ‘Sorry, sorry.’ My heart drops and then returns to its rightful place in one quick, sickening beat. The man with his hand on my arm is tall, taller than me, with sleek dark hair and eyes to match.

‘Gabriel, don’t scare her.’ Ingrid has re-entered the room. ‘I’ve already done that once today.’

Gabriel lets go of my arm. ‘Sorry,’ he says again, although he looks more amused than apologetic.

My heart still buzzes, along with the skin on my arm. I move away from him, and set the saucer down on the table. My hand shakes.

I turn around to look at them. ‘Well, now you’ve both scared the shit out of me.’ My voice is light, despite the heat in my face.

Gabriel grins at me, but Ingrid’s eyes widen.

‘I really am sorry, Lila,’ she says. ‘I promise we didn’t mean to frighten you.’

I wave my hand, sit down on the bench seat. ‘Just give me some of those pastries and I’ll forgive you.’

Gabriel sits down too, close but not too close. He folds one long leg over the other and leans back against the cushions. He’s dressed as though he’s off to a business meeting: grey trousers, blue shirt, both well cut. He hooks his hands around his knee and I glimpse a large watch on his wrist, one of those types with a million dials.

‘So you’re the famous Lila,’ he says.

My stomach drops. ‘You must know something I don’t.’

‘Gabriel, leave her alone,’ Ingrid says, but her words have no depth, no substance. She sounds like a parent half-heartedly scolding a child, then letting that child continue to run riot. She scoops a croissant onto a plate and hands it to me.

‘Why do I feel like I’m at a disadvantage here?’ I say. I can hear the grumpiness in my voice. I’m struggling to get my head around being in this house with these two people, one a total stranger. I look directly at Gabriel. ‘I don’t even know who you are.’

He dips his head. ‘Fair enough.’ He looks towards Ingrid. ‘We’re business partners. We run Darkbloom together.’

I just stare at him. I don’t know what he’s talking about. ‘Darkbloom?’

‘Our boutique.’ He looks at me expectantly. I shrug. ‘We sell flowers.’

‘Oh, a florist.’

‘Not a florist,’ he says. I may as well have called it an abattoir. ‘It’s not like a stand in a shopping centre with balloons and teddy bears. It’s artisanal.’

‘Ah,’ I say, fighting the urge to roll my eyes.

‘Lila and I haven’t seen each other in, like, twenty years,’ Ingrid says, sitting down next to Gabriel. ‘You can’t expect her to know anything about my life.’

‘But you know about her,’ Gabriel replies.

What’s with this guy? I think I’m glaring at him. But then I take a bite of the pastry and it’s so soft and buttery that I’m momentarily distracted.

‘This is from the bakery in Brampton?’ I ask Ingrid. Impossible. The bakery I remember was a hot bread shop on the corner of the main street, a brick building with a curtain of plastic strips hanging in the doorway. It sold soggy pies and hard white loaves of bread, not delicious pastries.

‘They’ve won awards for their bread,’ Ingrid tells me. ‘They’re very successful.’

‘I haven’t been into town yet,’ I say. ‘I’m guessing it’s changed.’

‘It’s lovely,’ Ingrid says. ‘It gets busy on weekends. Lots of gorgeous little boutiques and things. Great food. Lots of art.’ She cocks her head at me. ‘You’d like it, Lila. You’re artistic.’

I’ve taken a sip of tea, and her words make my hand rattle the teacup yet again. ‘I’m not an artist,’ I say, wiping a drop of liquid from my lip.

Ingrid’s mouth falls open. ‘Don’t be silly. Of course you are.’

I frown. She sounds like my mother. ‘I don’t know why you’d think that.’

Ingrid gives Gabriel a quick look. Something silent passes between them, a flicker of understanding. ‘We’ve seen your drawings. Your fairy drawings.’

She can’t be serious. ‘The flower fairies?’ My voice is strained. Is this what Gabriel meant when he said Ingrid knows me?

Ingrid nods. ‘I found them when I was clearing some boxes out in the stables. They’re in my room.’ She jumps to her feet. ‘I’ll get them.’

She’s out the door in a swish of white. I’m alone with Gabriel. I don’t want to look at him, but I know I’ll seem rude if I don’t. I can feel his gaze on me, so I turn my head and meet his eyes.

He’s leaning back against the bench seat, one arm draped over a cushion. ‘Are you one of those people who doesn’t like receiving compliments?’ he asks.

Is he trying to rile me up? It’s hard to tell if he’s playing a game, or if he’s just a prick. I guess it could be both.

‘Actually,’ I say, ‘I’m one of those people who doesn’t like her private belongings shared with the world.’

He’s not bothered by my snark. He just looks amused. Curious. ‘This is Robert’s house,’ he says. ‘It’ll be Ingrid’s one day. And now that’s she’s developing it, there’s a lot of work to do. A lot of clearing out of old junk.’

I know he’s baiting me now. ‘Like Eleanor?’

He grins. It sends a pulse of energy straight up my spine. Without even meaning to, I smile back.

Ingrid reappears, clutching a small bundle of papers that have the ragged, hole-punched edges of a sketchbook. She hands them to me, and I feel the familiar roughness of the paper.

There are six drawings. I drew them in this room, almost exactly where I’m sitting now. The sensation returns to me in a rush, the hard pencil between my fingers, the scrape of my hand across the paper as I sketched the bodies of the fairies — their limbs and their faces, their hair and their arms, their fingers wrapped around the flowers that shared their names. Sturt’s desert pea: a short fairy with red hair and a black dress, using the flower for a chair. Correa: a blonde fairy peering inside the bell-shaped flower as though searching for something.

‘Were there others?’ Ingrid asks, hovering by my elbow.

‘Maybe a couple more.’ I swallow, trying to bring some moisture back to my dry mouth. ‘I don’t really remember.’

‘They are so good, Lila,’ Ingrid says.

I look up at her face. She sounds so sincere that I think she must be faking. ‘They’re not that good.’

‘Don’t be silly. You should do more of them. People would pay money for these.’

I laugh in disbelief. ‘They’re hardly original. I was just copying the old flower fairies from England. I think Eleanor had a book of them. I’m sure lots of other people have done the exact same thing.’

‘Don’t say that,’ Ingrid says. ‘Trust me, Lila, these are beautiful. You really should make more.’

I don’t bother telling her what these pictures cost me. The frenzy of it, the creative spark that ignited and then burned and burned through the night until I was exhausted. I remember the callouses on my fingers and the energy that rode through me like a crazed beast, like a screaming banshee, because nothing else mattered except the act of creation.

‘I’ll have to think about it.’ I thrust the bundle of paper at Ingrid. I need to get her to focus on something else. ‘So anyway, what’s the deal with the house? You’re renovating it?’

Ingrid insists on giving me a tour of the house, as though I don’t know all the rooms, so she can explain her ideas. Gabriel tags along, strolling with his hands in his pockets, or tapping on his phone. Here and there he throws out a comment and I can tell that although this is Ingrid’s project, he’s very much involved. I smile and nod and ask questions about things I’m not interested in, because every moment of quiet drags up either my fairy drawings, or Brooke and Alastair.

Ingrid’s plan — or rather, her vision — is complex and overwhelming. It involves the complete renovation of Audley, a project that will cost a horrific amount of money. Not that Ingrid is gauche enough to go into details about finance. I assume Robert is bankrolling it all, or perhaps Minnie, Robert’s mother, a woman I know nothing about other than the fact that she’s also rich, and that she loathes Eleanor.

Ingrid wants Audley to be an ‘artistic wellness destination,’ with accommodation, studio space, a spa, and I think something involving sound baths and crystals. It’s hard to listen to. It reminds me too much of Eleanor. Yet some of it makes sense. Brampton seems to have developed into something more than a hot bread shop and milk bar, and the mineral springs aren’t too far from here. I can see Melbourne hipsters using Audley as a backdrop for their weddings.

Being reminded of my mother makes me wonder what they plan to do with her. ‘What about Eleanor?’ I ask, somewhat tentatively. Do I care what happens to her? It’s hard to know.

Ingrid lays a hand on my arm, her face concerned. ‘Dad will always take care of Eleanor, I promise you that. If she has to move out, it’ll be to somewhere nice.’

‘I dunno,’ I say. ‘You could just leave her there as an art installation. “Woman stuck in time.” Very immersive.’

Gabriel laughs, but Ingrid looks vaguely shocked.

‘I’m just joking,’ I say to her, but as she turns away I catch Gabriel’s eye. I mouth, ‘I’m not joking,’ and he gives me a knowing grin. I inwardly kick myself for encouraging him. I’m starting to think I need my head checked.

We wind up outside, on the drive in front of the house. The air is cold, the sky overcast with streaky grey clouds. Audley looms above us, old and tired. I’ve never known it any other way. It was already in need of love and care when Robert bought it in the 80s, and nothing has changed. The white paint is dirty and peeling. The front door, burgundy red with a brass lion knocker, has boards where the glass panels should be. On the left of the building is the loggia, its grey stone cracked, the tiles of the verandah broken and missing. There are no plants here save for a few scraggly bushes. Pine trees line the curving drive, all uneven and spiky. Further away, at the end of the drive, more pine trees mark the border with the road.

I’ve seen a illustration of Audley when it was first built, over one hundred and fifty years ago. It was the epitome of Australian colonial brashness — a huge Italianate mansion one hundred kilometres from the centre of Melbourne, plonked into a landscape that didn’t want it. It was beautiful and elegant and strange. I look around us now, at the misshapen pines that replaced the native gums, at the endless yellow paddocks that stretch in every direction, and wonder what it looked like three hundred years ago. Three thousand years ago.

I look up at the tower. It serves no purpose other than to make the house look taller. Alastair would call it phallic. I never talked much about Audley with him, because I knew he’d want to see it, want to photograph it. He’d want to post it on The Forge.

I shove Alastair and the website to the far corner of my mind.

At the back of the house, the formal garden is taking shape. From the window of the conservatory it’d looked chaotic, but up close I can see order being imposed. The fountain is in the centre, with beds radiating outwards in concentric circles. Behind these are the remnants of a hedge, in the centre of which is a bower, covered in a climbing rose, its branches bare. The sight of the bower sends a swift thump of pain to my guts. I look away.

Gabriel hovers at the edge of the garden. His shoes look expensive, and I suspect he doesn’t want them to get dirty.

‘Heath’s slacking off again,’ he says. He throws a look at Ingrid. ‘You need to talk to him.’

Ingrid just nods. ‘It’s fine,’ she says, clearly unbothered.

I assume Heath is the gardener I’d seen earlier, and it’s true that he seems to have downed tools and vanished. But if he’s responsible for what the garden looks like now, then he’s done a lot of work. For one, it’s starting to look like an actual garden, rather than the tangled mess it was when I lived here.

Gabriel adjusts the sleeves of his shirt and gazes towards the stables. He looks like he’s posing for a fashion shoot.

‘Have you talked to him about planting the [rose species]?’ Gabriel asks Ingrid.

Ingrid twists a few strands of hair around her fingers. She looks so lost in thought that for a moment I wonder if she even heard Gabriel speak. But then she says, ‘I already told you, I don’t want this garden to be your nursery.’

Gabriel doesn’t reply. He holds his phone between his fingers, swings it back and forth. He catches me looking and then the smile is back.

‘I like having unusual flowers in the shop,’ he says. ‘It’s part of what makes it special.’

‘You’ll have to come and see it,’ Ingrid says to me. ‘When you’re back in Melbourne.’

Back in Melbourne. My future suddenly appears in front of me, wide and long and utterly blank. What the hell am I going to do?

I force a smile. ‘Not sure when that’ll be, but yeah, I’ll visit.’

‘So you’ll be here next weekend?’ Gabriel asks me.

I’m about to say that I don’t know, that I have no idea what I’m doing, that I’d rather be anywhere else than at Audley — but one look at the smile on his face, the way his dark eyes dig into me, and I say, ‘Guess so.’

‘You can be our spy,’ he says. ‘Tell us if Heath isn’t pulling his weight.’

Ingrid gives Gabriel a look, which means something to them but nothing to me. Whatever it is, it makes Gabriel rub his hands together and give me another smile.

‘Lovely to meet you, Lila, but I’ve got things to do in town. I’ll see you soon.’

Ingrid links her arm through mine. She’s a good head shorter than me, her arm small and light as a child’s.

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ Ingrid says, as we walk back into the house. ‘It’ll be good for Eleanor.’

I snort, and Ingrid looks up at me in surprise. ‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘but she’s not happy to see me.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true. She talks about you all the time.’

I let go of Ingrid’s arm, turn to look at her properly. ‘Don’t believe anything she says.’

Ingrid’s eyes pop in a comical way. ‘You think she’d say bad things about you?’

‘I know she would.’

Ingrid tilts her head and I expect her to call me a silly duffer. ‘Oh, Lila, it’s not like that. She talks about what a talented artist you are.’

That can’t be true. ‘You spend a lot of time with Eleanor?’ I ask.

‘Well, I keep an eye on her. Make sure she has what she needs.’ She pauses. ‘She doesn’t really leave her room.’

Something tightens inside me. Maybe it’s on my face, because Ingrid adds, ‘I bring her food, books, things she wants. She’s taken care of, I don’t want you to worry.’

‘I’m not worried.’

‘Good. Because the last thing we want is for you to be stressed out while you’re here. This is a chance for you to rest and heal, Lila.’

I force a smile. I hide the truth. There’ll be no rest here. No healing. It’s been one night and I can already feel the ghosts of Audley sneaking their way into my skin.