The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

Foxtails

Meaning: Blood of my blood

Ptilotus | Inland Australia

Tjulpun-tjulpunpa (Pit.) are small shrubs that form spikes of purple flowers covered in dense white hairs. Leaves are covered in closely packed star-shaped hairs that slow the rate of water loss. Traditionally, women used the soft furry flowers to line wooden bowls in which babies could be carried.

Alice pedalled uphill, as hard as she could bear. Her locket swung back and forth, hitting her chest as she puffed along. She wanted to kick herself for not driving into town; her backpack was cutting into her shoulders, filled to the zipper with ingredients for dinner that night. But the exercise was helping. She’d needed to work her nerves through her body ever since Sally had arranged the dinner date. This morning, she’d pulled the cobwebs off a bike in Sally’s garage and decided to ride. As she cycled into town, the sea had glittered turquoise. Alice took it as a good sign.

Riding home, Alice thought through the menu one more time. Barramundi tacos with salsa and homemade guacamole, and Anzac biscuits, crunchy on the outside, chewy in the middle. Sally had taken care of everything else. She seemed determined to bring Alice and Charlie together gently.

In the weeks following Alice’s arrival, Sally had made room in her house for Alice to feel at home. She helped Alice to unpack her books, and hang the Frida Kahlo print Lulu had given her. She sat with Alice while she cried. Sally had explained that June paid for Agnes and Clem to have full funeral services; Sally had gone to both. She took Alice to the site of the house Alice grew up in, which was no longer a secluded pocket between the sugar cane and the sea. It was now a beachfront bar and youth hostel, full of tanned travellers. Her mother’s garden was gone. Alice couldn’t bring herself to get out of the car. Back at Sally’s house, Alice ran down to the shore, took a deep breath, and screamed at the sea. Sally listened while Alice told stories from the flower farm and the desert. She introduced Alice to a grief counsellor she’d used when Gilly died. Alice saw her every week, twice a week after Dylan started sending emails. They were waiting in her inbox when she checked her account for the first time, a month after leaving Kililpitjara. There were a dozen or more; thousands and thousands of words. He started sorrowfully, apologetically. But the longer he went unanswered, the angrier he became. Don’t read them, Sally implored her. They’ll only do you harm. They both knew she read every word. Over and over again. Sally could always tell when a new email arrived. She gave Alice a wide berth. Baked fruit slice. Always had time for a walk by the sea, but never pressed Alice to talk if she didn’t want to. The depth of Sally’s kindness, her astute intuition; it was as if she’d been preparing for Alice to come back to her for years.

After she was done at the supermarket, Alice had stopped by the post office to send her reply to Lulu’s latest letter. It’s a rainy, lush and misty dream here, Lulu had written. We’ve acquired a pot-bellied wood stove, a goat, donkey (you’ll love knowing Aiden named her Frida), two dairy cows and six chickens. Please come and visit us soon. We can hike the Bay of Fires together. As Alice stuck the stamp on her envelope she smiled at the thought of the words she was sending back to Lulu. I’d love to visit you guys sometime.

On her way home, Alice had gone to the library. Walking through the foyer still felt like walking through time, back to when she was a girl and Sally first shone a light into her world.

‘There’s mail here for you,’ Sally said, beaming when Alice walked in.

The envelope was addressed to Alice in handwriting she didn’t recognise. The postmark was from Agnes Bluff. For a moment Alice struggled to breathe. Had Dylan found her? But no. He couldn’t. He had no idea where she was, he only had her email address. She slid her finger under the seal and tore the envelope open. Inside was a card.

I hope you’re well, Alice.

Here’s to courage. And to heart, right?

How about, here’s also to the future, and everything it holds.

Moss.

Alice shook the envelope; a packet of desert pea seeds fell into her palm.

‘That looks like some kind of magic,’ Sally said.

Alice gave her a small smile. ‘It is.’ She closed her hand around the packet of seeds, feeling their individual shapes and thinking of the colour they would grow. To the future.

‘You okay? Keeping nerves about dinner in check?’

Alice swallowed. ‘I’m okay. Nervous. Kind of sick, actually.’ She sighed. ‘But, it’s all I’ve thought about since I left Kililpitjara, meeting him. So …’

‘It’s going to be wonderful.’ Sally got up to give Alice a hug. ‘You off home now?’

‘One more stop,’ Alice had said.

She stood on her pedals, heaving to get up the last hill before home, her lungs burning. The image of her parents’ gravestones played on her. She gritted her teeth and kept riding until she reached the crest. Stopped to let the breeze cool her sweaty skin, and to look out at the sky and the sea. How vast they were. She followed the black ribbon of road with her eyes, seeing where it unspooled through cane fields and climbed the cliff before turning off to Sally’s house. Seeing the very route her little brother would soon drive.

Alice sat on the bike seat. After another lingering glance at the sea she lifted her feet, and began to coast downhill, into the tranquillity that lay ahead.

After she finished work, Sally took a last-minute detour. She parked by her favourite white scribbly gum. Bellbirds rang in the branches. She crossed the empty street and walked through the ornate cemetery gates. Down the avenue of gums, past the carved angel with her wings outstretched, and left at the walkway covered in flowering bougainvillea. Straight ahead to the shady knoll by a paperbark tree, where she always let her shoulders fall.

Sally sat with John and Gilly, her back straight, her hair swept off her face by the sea air. She ran her fingertips over the letters of John’s name. Kissed the cold marble bearing Gilly’s. She stayed for a while, listening to the birds sing and the trees rustle. The shooting water of a sprinkler. Somewhere, a mower. When the light started to dim she checked her watch.

On her way back to her car, something caused her to stop and consider the northern lawn of the cemetery. It’d been years. She felt herself turn and wander through the rows of graves, checking the names on the headstones.

At the sight of Clem and Agnes’s graves, Sally was taken aback. Someone had been there. Strewn across Clem’s grave were used stickers. As she got closer, Sally recognised the butterflies, streaked with turquoise paint. Alice must have torn them off her truck doors. Remorse swelled in Sally’s chest. She turned to face the wind, letting it blow the years away until she was eighteen again, wide-eyed, crazy-in-love with Clem Hart.

She was wearing plastic daisy earrings the night they’d met. Where I come from they mean ‘I attach myself to you’, was the first thing he said to her. When he took her hand, she held tight and kept close by his side. They fucked against the brick wall of the pub. She’d almost not wanted the grazes on her back to heal, each one proof that he hadn’t been a dream. But the next time they saw each other, Clem looked through her as if she was no more than vapour.

Not long afterwards, Sally’s father brought John Morgan, a young policeman relocated from the city, home for dinner. When she shook his warm hand, saw the kindness in his eyes, Sally knew he was her answer. After a whirlwind courtship, they were married, and there wasn’t one scandalous whisper when Sally started to show. People were overjoyed for them. Sally got so swept up in her own lie she heard herself say that she hoped the baby would have John’s eyes or calm disposition. Although Sally didn’t hide from John the story that she’d once fancied one of the farmers in town, when Gilly died and she saw John’s spirit break, she knew Clem Hart was a secret she would never tell him.

Sally opened her eyes and turned to Agnes’s grave. Her headstone was covered in bindweed, lemon myrtle and a palm of kangaroo paw, lovingly arranged. She imagined Alice sitting there, building a shrine of flowers for her mother.

A moment passed. Sally cleared her throat. ‘Agnes,’ she said. ‘She’s home. She’s come home, and she’s beautiful.’ Sally reached for a fallen gum leaf and broke it into pieces. ‘She’s safe. They’re both safe. And wonderful. Oh god, Agnes, they’re so wonderful.’

Somewhere above, hidden among the crowns of the gum trees, a magpie sang.

‘I’m looking after them.’ Sally’s voice grew stronger. ‘I promise you.’

The shrill ringing of her mobile phone interrupted her. She rummaged through her handbag, flustered, until she found it.

‘Hi, Charlie,’ she said.

Sally stood and pressed a hand to Agnes’s headstone, taking a moment before she turned and walked away, listening to the sweet sound of her son’s voice.

He walked up the front steps of the house he grew up in, taking shaky breaths.

It’s going to be amazing, Cassie said as she kissed him goodbye. This is what you’ve always wanted. This is your family, Charlie. Don’t be afraid.

He tightened his grip on the bouquet. After his mum rang and they’d agreed to dinner, he’d Googled her. Again. Alice Hart, Floriographer. Thornfield Farm, where wildflowers bloom. He’d bought her a bunch of waratahs after reading that at Thornfield they meant Return of happiness.

Standing on the deck he listened to the familiar sounds of the sea, wind chimes, chickens clucking, bees hovering drowsily, and his mum’s voice coming from the kitchen. Collectively they were the backing track of his life. Then, a new addition, a dog barking.

‘Pip!’ A voice filled with laughter, a voice he didn’t know, came towards him.

He gulped. Readjusted the flowers in his sweaty hands.

Her shadow reached down the hall ahead of her. He opened the screen door. Relaxed his shoulders. Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes.

His big sister. She was here.