The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

Wheel of fire

Meaning: The colour of my fate

Stenocarpus sinuatus | Queensland and New South Wales

Profuse bright red and orange flowers create a spectacular display from summer to autumn. Shaped like the spokes of a wheel before they open, these symmetrical blossoms get their name from their resemblance to a spinning fire.

It was late afternoon when Alice got home with a bunch of fresh fire flowers.

She greeted Pip and went into her room to get the other things she needed: a bundle of books and papers. She roped the ininti necklace Ruby had given her around her throat, inhaling the smoky scent of its seeds. Tucked a pen, box of matches and ball of string into her pocket. Carried everything through the house and out onto the verandah. Pip stayed close to her heels as she went down the steps, into the garden. They sat together in the spot where she’d spent the last week building a bonfire. Pip licked her arm as she set down her things.

Alice basked in the stillness. The early autumn sun warmed her skin; the sea shimmered molten, aquamarine. She looked at the corner where her desert peas had flourished through their first season. They’re notoriously fickle to grow, she’d written to Moss in a recent email, but yours haven’t given me any trouble. In his reply, Moss had mentioned he was coming to the coast for a conference towards the end of the year. Are you too far away for a visit? When she’d typed her answer, Alice couldn’t stop herself from smiling.

A northeasterly blew in, ringing the wind chimes. She checked her watch. Sally would soon be on her way home, and Charlie and Cassie were coming to stay for the weekend, before Alice’s flight out on Monday. They were having one last celebration before she left to take up a three-month writing residency she’d won in Copenhagen, the city to which Alice had traced Agnes’s ancestry. When the acceptance email had arrived, Charlie was the first person Alice told. You’ll get to see the real Little Mermaid, he’d said proudly. Tell her g’day from me too.

Since Alice had met her brother, she could no longer imagine life without Charlie in it. The night of their first dinner at Sally’s, they’d sat across the table and studied each other’s faces, bursting into awkward laughter and, occasionally, tears. From then on, they’d hung out twice a week, and met with the counsellor once a fortnight as they tried to make sense of a new life together. Alice took Charlie to the backpacker hostel to show him the place where she’d grown up with their parents. They walked on her old beach and lay on the sand, watching the clouds change as Alice told him their mother’s stories. When she described how much their mother loved her garden, Charlie suggested he take Alice to visit some of the local plant nurseries and flower markets he worked with. Seeing the wonder in his face when he was among plants and flowers, an idea came to Alice; as soon as Charlie dropped her home, she set things in motion.

A couple of weeks later, Twig and Candy were waiting on the verandah when Alice and Charlie drove up the Thornfield driveway, his truck loaded with supplies to help finish the long process of rebuilding after the floods. Twig was strong and angular but gentle as ever. Candy still wore her hair long and bluer than a flower. Alice reunited with Myf, Robin and a few of the other Flowers who’d stayed on, and met the new women Candy and Twig had taken in. Charlie was quiet, watching and listening, as he absorbed the landscape and stories he and Alice came from.

They spent nights around the dinner table together, eating Candy’s feasts and sharing memories. The women taught Charlie about Thornfield and its language of flowers; Alice had taken the dictionary with her, waiting until she was with Twig and Candy to show him. They fussed over him like maternal hens, especially Twig. There was a joy in her face Alice couldn’t recall ever seeing before.

Charlie stayed in June’s bedroom, and Alice climbed the spiral staircase to her old bell room. She slept with the windows thrown open and the moonlight pouring in.

A few days before they were due to drive back to the coast, Charlie asked Alice if she’d show him the river.

‘It’s all through Thornfield’s story. Will you take me there before we go?’

Alice caught Twig and Candy glancing at each other. ‘I saw that.’ She wagged her finger at them. ‘What is it?’

Twig nodded at Candy, who left the room and came back with an urn.

‘It didn’t feel right to do it without you …’ Candy trailed off.

The day they held the ceremony was bright and vivid. Sun filtered through the eucalyptus canopy, green and gold. Twig and Candy each said a few words, and when the time came, Alice scattered June’s ashes. Watching the ash flow down river, Alice wiped her face of tears and exhaled deeply, as if letting go of a breath she’d long been holding. She hugged Twig and Candy tightly. Years of memories swayed around them. When everyone else headed back to the house, Alice tugged on Charlie’s sleeve, signalling for him to hang back with her.

‘I want to show you something,’ she said.

Alice led him to the giant gum.

‘This is where our parents found each other, for better or worse.’ Her voice shook. ‘This place is why we have each other. It’s as much your story as it is mine.’

Charlie studied the engraved tree trunk. Held his hand to the scar beside their father’s name. Though his chin wobbled, he grinned at Alice; when he reached into his back pocket for his knife, eyebrow raised in question, she nodded, grinning. They walked home from the river arm in arm, smelling of tree bark and sap, his and their mother’s names freshly carved into the gum.

On the morning they left Thornfield, Alice brought some papers with her to the breakfast table. She slid them across to Charlie. He looked at her, puzzled. Twig and Candy, who Alice had spoken to about her intentions, watched on, smiling. For the rest of her life, one of Alice’s most treasured memories would be Charlie’s face the moment he unfolded the statutory declaration she’d signed, giving her third of Thornfield to him.

Alice put the fire flowers aside, and took the first book from the top of the pile. Her eyes ran over her grandmother’s handwriting in the Thornfield Dictionary. She thumbed through the stories she’d read dozens of times already, of Ruth Stone, Wattle Hart and June herself. Of Clem and Agnes. Of Candy and Twig. Alice twirled the stem of a fire flower between her fingers, considering their meaning. The colour of my fate. Steeling herself, she put the dictionary a safe distance away on a garden chair.

Next, she went through the folder of papers; printed copies of every email Dylan had sent her since she’d left the desert, daily, weekly, and still, monthly. Her eyes snagged on lines she knew by heart, from one of the first.

You’ve left, yet you’re still here, appearing and disappearing from me. The last coffee cup you used. Your dresses amongst my clothes. Your toothbrush by mine. It rained yesterday. I haven’t been able to go outside today; I don’t want to see your footprints gone from the red dirt.

Alice scrunched the page in her fist, breathing through the pain behind her ribs. Held her face to the sea breeze, letting it cool her skin. She glanced sidelong at the Thornfield Dictionary. Pay attention now, Alice, she heard June’s voice, speaking her written words. These are the ways we’ve survived. She smoothed the page out, placed it back in the folder, and put it aside.

Finally, she turned to her notebooks, full of the story she’d been writing in flowers since Agnes Bluff, during her months in the desert, and over the last year at Sally’s; the story that had become her application for the writing residency. You’ve written a book, Charlie had stated in awe when Alice showed him and Sally the first printout of her manuscript. When she read the title, Sally had shaken her head. You’ve spun seeds into gold, she’d said softly, grinning through tears.

Alice took a notebook from the pile and ran her hands over its cover. When she lifted it, a wisp of red sand trickled from the pages onto her lap, glinting in the light, otherworldly. Alice balanced the notebook between her palms and let it fall open. Ran her fingertips over the red granules caught in the stitching of its exposed centre. Life and other people’s stories had always told her she was blue. Her father’s eyes. The sea. Alice Blue. The colour of orchids. Of her boots. Of fairytale queens. Of loss. But Alice’s centre was red. It always was. The colour of fire. Of earth. Of heart, and courage.

She pored over the books. Paused to name every sketched and pressed flower aloud, and speak its meaning; an incantation to end the burden of carrying an untold story inside her.

When she was ready, Alice uncapped her pen and scrawled the title of her manuscript across the cover of every notebook, amid her flower illustrations. She piled them in her lap and bound them with string. Gathered them together with the folder of emails and put the bundle on the bonfire. As she reached for the fire flowers and then, the matches in her pocket, Alice faltered. Took a moment to collect herself. Breathe. She slid a match from its box, steadied her hand, and struck it against the flint. A quick intake of oxygen, the smell of sulphur, and a quiet hiss and crackle; the bonfire came to life.

The blaze rose against the backdrop of the ocean. Alice watched the flowers catch alight and burn; the corners of Dylan’s emails blacken and char; all her notebooks turn incandescent. She watched the words she’d written on the covers until they were no longer legible.

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

After a while she went to the garden chair and sat, cradling the Thornfield Dictionary in her arms. Pip lolled against her legs. Alice took a deep breath full of salt, smoke and flowers, gazing at the flames. Their changing colours. Their transformations. Her beautiful mother, forever in her garden. Alice pressed a hand over her desert pea locket and ininti seed necklace. Trust your story. All you can do is tell it true.

The memory came clear and unfettered: in the weatherboard house at the end of the lane, she sat at her desk by the window, dreaming of ways to set her father on fire.

Her heart beat slow.

I’m–here.

I’m–here.

I’m–here.