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  “I paid all her bills.”

  “Not bills. Letters.” He waved them for emphasis. “Letters, Allie. Things people said to Roxie, things she said to them.”

  “If you think we should burn them.” She was momentarily uncertain. “Instead of recycling them.”

  “I think we should read them.”

  Eww. She shrank from the invasion of privacy, but not enough that she’d fight Malcolm to stop him. If Roxie really hadn’t wanted her letters read, she should have burned them herself.

  Alice opened the second wardrobe and winced. Its contents wouldn’t be as simply disposed of as the first. In place of hanging clothes, here were shelves of Roxie’s treasures.

  “Get off the bed.”

  “What? Why?” Malcolm stopped rifling through the letters long enough to scowl at her. “I can’t believe you’re not interested in the letters. There could be some from Mum.”

  “Unlikely.” Claire hadn’t concerned herself enough with other people to write them letters. “Unless Roxie kept demands for money.”

  “Mum might have written to her, maybe sent her photos of us.”

  Alice snorted. “Off the bed. I want to put the stuff from the wardrobe on it. Then you can tell me if there’s anything you want to keep.”

  “It’s all rubbish.” But he moved to the dressing table and perched incongruously on its matching gilt chair.

  Vases came out of the wardrobe, along with china ornaments of wide-eyed kittens and perky terriers. A pair of silver candlesticks were tucked in the back of a shelf.

  “I’ll have those.” Malcolm glanced up from the letters.

  Alice dumped the candlesticks on the dressing table and continued her excavations. The whole wardrobe smelled of dust and lavender and faintly of camphor. She pulled out a sewing box, a pin cushion in the shape of an unlikely hedgehog, a lace fan and a pair of leather gloves. The shelf below held handbags and purses. She sighed and unzipped each, checking the contents. Handkerchiefs, desiccated make up and throat lozenges went into a rubbish bag. Stray coins and notes piled up on the dressing table. A gauzy scarf had snagged on a zipper and had a run like old stockings. She threw it away.

  “Bus pass, ticket, ticket, shopping list.” She resisted the poignancy of the old shopping lists. A person’s life shouldn’t be laid out in its daily necessities.

  “Did you know Roxie wrote to friends from schooldays?”

  “Did she?” The ugly handbags were probably vintage; worth making the effort to take to the charity shop. Alice shook out yet another garbage bag and dropped them in. “Roxie told me who to contact when she died.”

  “You sound so cold.”

  She gave a one shouldered shrug. Being practical didn’t leave a whole lot of energy for being warm. People took and took, expected—“I did what she asked of me.”

  “Meaning I didn’t?”

  It was like ripping a plaster off the festering resentment she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge—even to herself. “I don’t expect anything of you Malcolm. I never did.”

  The letter in his hand crumpled. With sudden violence he knocked the drawer to the ground and strode out.

  “Damn.” She rubbed her throat. “Damn, damn.” A spider scuttled up its web, disturbed by a falling letter. She thought of the vacuum cleaner and sucking up all the wildlife in the room. Guilt stopped her: guilt that she would kill something so harmless because she was afraid.

  Fear made you ruthless.

  Chapter Five

  “Lunch time.” She found Malcolm sitting on the concrete bench at the end of the garden.

  He was frowning at the neighbouring units with their bright paint and glittering panes of glass. “I remember when there were trees and swings, old dinghies pulled up the beach and tied to fence posts, surfboards and rusting cars.”

  “Mr Gregson.” She stood near him, in the shade of the lemon tree. “He always said he was going to do them up.”

  “He never did. The developer who bought his place had to drag thirteen car bodies out of the yard. Roxie counted.”

  “She would.”

  He hesitated. “You never liked her.”

  Alice’s world spun a moment. She groped behind her and found the stability of the lemon tree’s splitting trunk. An ant ran over her hand and she flicked it away. She had never discussed her feelings for Roxie with Malcolm, or anyone.

  “Duty, impatience, resentment, grudging pity for her incompetence. None of that was love.”

  “Malcolm—” But she didn’t know what to say.

  “I loved her.” He stared at his feet, planted wide in their fashionable runners. “She was small and selfish and she liked her narrow little world. She made me feel safe.”

  Alice took a deep breath.

  Her brother’s head lifted. He smiled wryly. “I know. She made you feel claustrophobic.”

  “She expected too little of me.” Alice sat down on the grass. “She wanted me to be someone the world wouldn’t notice. Everything she said, everything she did, it was about forcing me down into a tiny sardine can. She didn’t have to be so scared. I was nothing like Claire.”

  “You look like Mum—or like how she should have looked.”

  They shared a moment of painful memory.

  Malcolm shook his head. “Roxie tried to give you what she could. A small world where you’d be safe. That’s all she asked of life.”

  “It was never enough for me.”

  “You’ve proven that.” He turned around and looked out at the horizon. “But I think it’s where I should have stayed.”

  She stared at the back of his head, uncertain.

  “Forget it.” He pushed off the bench. “You said something about lunch?”

  “Bread rolls, cheese, ham and pickles.” She’d gone to the shops to pick up more supplies, including another mug.

  She was glad when he detoured to Roxie’s bedroom and picked up a pile of letters. She hadn’t wanted to continue the uncomfortable conversation over lunch. She picked up a letter at random. “Are they very boring?”

  “They’re kind of fascinating if you check the dates against what was happening at that time in history. Discussing daring miniskirts while the Governor-General is dismissing Whitlam.”

  “You were always more interested than me in history.”

  “History shapes us.” He kicked the table leg, fidgeting, then grated his chair across the lino as he shuffled around. Head down, he sorted through the letters. “Roxie even kept the envelopes. I doubt the stamps are worth anything, though. Mostly local letters.”

  Alice opened the envelope she’d selected. Along with the letter itself, a couple of photos fell out: a middle-aged couple from the 1980s sitting outside a caravan. You could tell it was the ’80s by the woman’s tightly permed hair and too bright clothing. A glance at the letter confirmed it. December 1984.

  “Why would anyone care about the size of Herbie’s fish?” Alice asked as she read.

  “Herb and Veronica. Roxie corresponded a lot with Veronica.”

  “I don’t remember them.” She looked over at Malcolm.

  “Friendships fade. People die.”

  “Hmm.” She stuffed the letter back in its envelope, then wondered why she bothered. “There’s no point keeping these.”

  “What? No. Veronica’s letters aren’t scintillating.” Without looking up from his own letter, he pushed the stack across to her. “At least she always put her address on the envelopes. You can throw out all the ones with Mrs Finnegan on the back.”

  Eating her sandwich one-handed, she sorted through the pile. As far as she was concerned, the lot of them could go in the recycling. It turned out about half were from Veronica. Idly she considered the others, recognising names and addresses from Christmas card lists when she was a child. Only two envelopes lacked any sender’s details.

  Alice finished her sandwich and opened the first of them.

  Okay, so maybe she understood something of Malcolm’s fascination with Roxie’s c
orrespondence. It was like eavesdropping on her life.

  She whistled under her breath as she realised what she held. “Roxie had a brother. This is his neighbour’s letter. ‘Sorry to have to tell you…nearest relative…passed away peacefully.’ Did you know she had a brother?”

  Malcolm peered over his coffee mug. “When did he die?”

  “1991. We were living here, then. I don’t remember Roxie saying anything.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Warren Petersen.” She made a mental note to look him up. Why hadn’t Roxie mentioned her brother or his death? She smiled wryly at Malcolm. “I guess you were right. We did need to read the letters, not just throw them out.”

  It was the perfect opportunity for him to assume older brother superiority. Instead, he avoided her gaze, staring at the letter he held. Odd. All the more so as she’d have expected him to the demand the letter, to want details of their great uncle. “What’s in the letter your reading?”

  “Nothing much. One of Roxie’s friends is on a cruise ship.”

  Alice shrugged and reached for the second unmarked envelope. The letter was a single sheet of cheap notepaper.

  “Dear Mrs Hendley, I know you can’t want to hear from me, but I’ve straightened out my life. I’m sorry Claire didn’t make it. I loved her—as much as an addict can. I know the choices I’ve made have hurt people. You mightn’t want to believe it, but they’ve hurt me most of all. I lost my daughter. I know I gave up any right to be part of her life when I let the drugs take me. I know, but I’m asking. I’d like to see Alice. Not for long. You don’t even have to tell her I’m her dad.”

  Alice’s hands shook as she studied the strong, determined signature that matched the handwriting. Stephen Jacobs. Her father. He’d been alive when she was thirteen. He’d wanted to meet her.

  “I thought he was dead.” She looked up to find Malcolm watching her carefully.

  “Who?”

  “My dad.” The words sounded strange, felt clumsy on her tongue. “The letter is from my dad.”

  All the blood in her body seemed to have rushed to her feet, nailing them to the dusty floor while her head floated away.

  “Drink your coffee, Allie.”

  “No.” She shook her head slowly. “No. Roxie had a letter from my dad. I thought he was a stray.”

  Malcolm knew what she meant: the euphemism for the crude sexual encounters Claire had indulged in for money, for comfort, because she was so high she didn’t know what she was doing.

  “This Stephen Jacobs says he’s my dad.” Her blood pumped in waves up to her knees, her thighs, flooded her heart, hit her head. Her hands fisted on the table. “He knew to write to Roxie.” Her father hadn’t been faceless sex for Claire. “I thought—”

  “That he was a no-name bastard like my dad.” Malcolm grimaced. “May I see the letter?”

  She pushed it across to him and ran out the back door. It slammed shut behind her as she gulped in the sea air. Oxygen, more oxygen. She dropped onto the back step and put her head on her knees.

  She couldn’t fall apart, now.

  Chapter Six

  “Why didn’t she tell me?” Alice stared at the ants marching along a crack in the cement footpath. Her sweaty forehead rested on her arms. “Why didn’t she show me his letter?”

  Malcolm sighed. “I don’t know. Roxie—”

  “She was a meddling, selfish witch. You can’t claim she did it to protect me.”

  “You were only thirteen.”

  “And later?” She raised her head to glare at him. “Later, when I was adult. Why didn’t she tell me, then? She knew who my father was—is. I don’t even know if he’s still alive.”

  Malcolm scuffed the cement, shuffled, sighed again, then sat down on the step beside her. Their shoulders bumped. “Do you need a tissue?”

  “I’m not crying.”

  But he held out a box of tissues anyway.

  She took one and watched him set the box aside. “Half my family medical history was always blank.”

  “Yes.”

  Well, of course he understood. It was the same for him.

  “How would you feel if Roxie had kept your dad from you?” Her eyes widened. “We should check—all the letters. Maybe she did. Maybe your dad…”

  “I doubt it.” He looked out at the horizon. Out there was the ocean, the freedom to be anything, anywhere. “I doubt Claire knew who my father was. That’s why she made up the story of a sailor.”

  “He could have been a sailor.” It was rough, awkward comfort with her chest feeling like she’d swallowed stones. “There was often a grain of truth in Claire’s stories.”

  “Never mind. It’s you who’s found you have a dad. You have a name.”

  A name. An identity. She pushed away the thought that who she was would change, now. People did that to you. Pieces of them became part of you.

  “If she didn’t want to tell me about my dad, why did she keep his letter?”

  “Perhaps because she didn’t want to tell you.”

  Alice stared at him.

  “She didn’t want to tell you, but she knew you had a right to know. Not everyone has your courage.”

  “So Roxie left me to find the letter—or not.” She’d so nearly thrown out all the letters. If Malcolm hadn’t been here with his insatiable curiosity, she’d have binned the lot unread. “Selfish cow. I don’t even know why I’m surprised. She simply chopped off part of my life, and then, demanded what was left. I spent years keeping her little world safe and all the time—”

  Alice stood and walked down the yard. She stuffed the unused tissue into a pocket and opened the back gate. The midday sun was hot on her head. She walked through the dunes, stamping through the slipping suction of the fine, dry sand and feeling the reflected heat embrace her. She kicked off her shoes at the edge of the dunes, stooped and rolled up her jeans, then kept walking. The cold waves spilled towards shore and washed around her ankles.

  All the tears of everyone who’d ever lived wouldn’t fill an ocean.

  Her pulse steadied. The cold shock of the sea countered the emotional shock.

  She had a father.

  Seaweed caressed her left ankle and retreated on a wave. She stepped away from its returning embrace.

  “I expect Roxie was scared she’d lose you.”

  She turned around and found Malcolm watching her sombrely.

  “She relied on you.”

  “I know.” A stronger wave broke halfway up her calf. She took a quick step forward to keep her balance and kept walking, out of the ocean to where her discarded shoes lay. She scooped them up. The sand would be hot, but she didn’t mind the burn. She dug her toes in.

  Malcolm kept pace. “You were so used to looking after Claire. You automatically transferred that care to Roxie. You stabilised her emotionally.”

  “I did the practical stuff. The being there. You were always Roxie’s favourite.”

  “Didn’t you ever consider why?”

  “You were a boy, her only grandson.” She stopped because he was shaking his head.

  “Roxie and I had a simple relationship, one that followed the rules. She provided care and I cheeked her, rebelled and accepted her care. But you and her—it was a rats’ nest of need and resentment. She relied on you, but you never needed her. Roxie and I both knew you could have survived without us.”

  “How can that be a problem?” The cool grass of the back lawn was a relief to her feet. “She ought to have been glad that I wasn’t another lost soul like Claire.” She sat on the concrete bench to brush clinging sand from her feet and looked up at Malcolm. “Surely she didn’t want to raise another dysfunctional woman?”

  He looked away, back across the dunes. “Being related doesn’t stop you resenting another person’s strength.”

  He wasn’t talking of Roxie.

  It made Alice uncomfortable, as if his decades’ long frustration and resentment of her was a palpable thing: a nude and pulsating jellyfis
h, dying on the beach. Disgusting. “We’d better finish going through Roxie’s letters, but we can do that at night, when we’re tired. I’m going to clear her room, now.”

  He didn’t answer and she started back to the house, leaving him behind.

  No one had ever asked her if she wanted to be the strong one, the practical one.

  She emptied cupboards and drawers with the ruthlessness of anger. Roxie’s treasures weren’t hers. If Malcolm didn’t rescue them from their temporary resting place on the bare mattress, she’d box them up for the charity shop. If she worked fast enough, they could all be out of the house by four o’clock—and while she was at the shop she’d organise collection of the furniture.

  Cheap figurines huddled at the back of one shelf: mementoes of fairs. “Malcolm, do you want any of these?” She wasn’t prepared to move them to the bed. They could go straight into a couple of shoe boxes. She only asked because she’d read somewhere that this lusterware was an increasingly valued collectible. Malcolm could try to sell it.

  “Huh?” He stared into the dim recesses of the cupboard.

  “You could maybe sell them online—or if that’s too much effort, take them to a dealer.”

  “All right.” He accepted the shoe box she pushed at him.

  Rather than watch his painfully slow movements, she picked up two bags of rubbish and visited her new favourite place: the skip bin. She found herself walking in time with her heartbeat. Fast-fast-fast. She heaved the bags up and into the bin.

  Freedom was throwing out another person’s life.

  She listened to the bags settle. The heap of junk rattled into a new pattern of acceptance. Broken plates, aluminium pots, those damned coat hangers. She leaned a moment against the bin. There was brick dust and rust on its side. The sun-warmed metal smelled of both. A car drove past, slow enough for its driver to study her. She closed her eyes.

  Would it have been better if Roxie hadn’t given them a home? Because that was what had set the pattern of her life and Alice felt it now as a burden. She’d transferred caring for Claire to caring for Roxie. She’d found a role in life where being needed filled the space of being wanted.