Saving Grace Read online

  ‘I’m not exactly sure.’

  ‘Oh no, she didn’t keep you awake again?’

  ‘No, but I have a sneaking suspicion she may have slept on the floor next to my side of the bed – I found her there when I woke up.’

  ‘What did John say?’

  ‘Didn’t notice, as far as I know.’

  ‘Naughty little monster.’

  ‘Clever little monster,’ Emily corrected. ‘She didn’t make a sound; I almost stepped on her when I got up.’

  ‘Maybe you can teach her to sleep there and go back to her bed early in the morning before John gets up.’

  ‘Surely she’s too young to be that clever. Anyway, John would have a fit if he found out – it’s not worth the risk. I’ll just have to shut the kitchen door and hope she doesn’t scratch it to shreds.’

  ‘You’ll work something out. So, what about lunch next Tuesday at the bakery in town – say, one o’clock? I’ll be in doing my groceries.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan. I’ll see you then.’

  ‘Okay, good luck with Grace.’

  ‘Something tells me I’m going to need it,’ Emily said with a laugh.

  ‘Come on,’ Emily called to Grace from the back door. ‘We’re going for a little walk.’ Emily walked out the short driveway and onto the road, Grace trotting quickly behind her. When she got level with the old cottage, fifty or so metres back from the road, she stopped to let the panting puppy catch up.

  It would have been so lovely in its day, she thought, looking over at the stone building flanked by majestic gums. There really was no good reason why it couldn’t be beautiful again with a bit of hard work. And she wasn’t the only one who thought it: Barbara had also seen the potential and seemed genuinely sad to hear of its future demise.

  Emily sighed deeply. There was nothing she could do about it; it was earmarked for demolition, and in a matter of time all trace of it would cease to exist.

  Standing there on the threshold of the bare paddock, Emily felt a wave of comfort wash over her, similar to what she’d experienced in the kitchen a couple of days earlier. She was relieved; she’d been afraid she’d imagined it. Or worse, that it had somehow served its purpose and left her.

  ‘Hi Gran,’ she said, smiling, looking up at the thick white clouds crawling across the brilliant blue rural sky.

  ‘Had enough walk, Gracie?’ she said absently, looking back down. But there was no sign of the pup in the immediate vicinity.

  Glancing towards the cottage she noticed something white flickering above the short grass. She steadied her gaze and spotted the border collie’s small black body bobbing up and down.

  ‘Gracie, we’re heading back now.’

  But the waving white tail tip continued to move away from her. Emily followed it and arrived at the cottage to find Gracie stretched out panting on the cracked, uneven front verandah.

  ‘See, silly thing? It’s too far for a little puppy to walk,’ she said, plonking herself down beside the dog. She lay back onto the tessellated tiles, closed her eyes and listened to the sounds around her. Timber joists creaked and groaned, and iron squealed and squawked in the brisk breeze that whispered through the large surrounding trees. A couple of cockatoos shrieked at each other nearby.

  Another waft of fresh cool breeze tickled Emily’s bare hands, face and neck; the verandah catching the gully breezes coming up from the ocean some twenty miles away would have been a godsend on hot summer days.

  She could picture the original owners in their wicker armchairs, a yard apart, right where she lay, taking in the cool, relaxing after a hard day’s pioneering in the harsh South Australian sun.

  Perhaps the parents discussed their day while children were sent out to collect eggs, gather firewood, or throw a ball about, or just leave the weary parents to themselves. Perhaps there were no children – they hadn’t been so blessed – and they had only their hopes for the success of their land on which to focus. Emily’s heart felt heavy, but she took a deep breath and banished the feeling.

  She imagined them to be people not to make a fuss or dwell on this misfortune life dealt them; they had each other.

  She could picture the man and his wife. He was wiry, muscled, but not overly bulky. She was shorter than him, with a lean frame that hid the fact she could give any man a run for his money stooking hay. They were as strong of mind and resolve as of body. Tomorrow they would again work together, doing their darnedest to tame their patch of this wide brown land.

  Maybe they lived in a tent or a small hut cobbled together from whatever they could scrounge. Maybe this was their dream house – the reality many years in the making.

  She sat up with the overwhelming desire to keep their dream alive. Grace, sensing the changed mood, leapt up to kiss her mistress’s face, only to collide with her chest and fall into her lap. Emily gave the puppy a cuddle and a kiss on the forehead before putting her down again and standing up.

  ‘Come on, Grace. This is a special place. Let me show you around.’ Emily wandered through and around the building, pointing out this and that feature to the pup and explaining her plans for each room, down to the detailed colour schemes and curtains. She half expected the puppy to bolt off on her own adventure, but instead she trotted along next to Emily, stopping when she did and standing still, her head tilted and ears kinked in the intelligent, concerned expression that is almost a trademark of the border collie.

  When they finished their tour, Emily picked the puppy up and made her way quickly back to the main house, the phrase ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’ coming to her as she stepped back onto the road.

  Emily had retrieved her scrapbooks from their bottom-of-the-cupboard exile and was furiously committing her new ideas to paper, making notes and rough sketches, when John arrived home for lunch.

  ‘God, not that bloody cottage again,’ he cursed, taking his seat at the table. ‘I suppose you’ve been too busy with that to get me some lunch.’

  Without a word, Emily went to the fridge to retrieve the plate of ham and salad sandwiches she’d prepared that morning and, as she did, offered Granny Mayfair thanks for passing on the gene for being impeccably organised. She tried to focus on eating her share of the sandwiches, but the encouragement to ‘try, try again’ kept running through her head.

  The phone rang, relieving Emily from the pretence of being interested in how many sheep had made their way into the wrong paddock. As John got up to answer it, she returned to the scrapbook.

  It’s all well and good to have ideas, she thought, but what she really needed was some action. But how? She didn’t have much money to speak of – probably five thousand at best. But it was a start.

  And what should she do first? Re-roof the intact portions of the building or rebuild the fallen stonework? She didn’t have a clue.

  Barbara might know, she suddenly thought; she’d ask her at lunch next Tuesday. It was a pity it was almost a whole week away.

  Until then she had a small mountain of washing to do, the house to clean and vacuum, and the boxes of Gran’s things to sort through. Bless her, she thought, tears beginning to well; she was missing their chats terribly.

  She left the kitchen under the guise of taking the tea towels out to the washhouse. Her mood was instantly buoyed when Grace greeted her like she’d never expected to see her again, running in circles, jumping about and trying to lick her all over. Emily scooped the puppy up and hugged her tightly to her chest, smiling. There really was nothing like the unconditional love of a pet.

  Chapter Eight

  Later, standing in the doorway of the spare room, John announced that he was going out and probably would not be back for tea. Only when she heard the ute leave did Emily fully relax and engross herself in the contents of the first box of Granny Mayfair’s things she had retrieved a few days before.

  Emily took three tapestry cushions from the top. She frowned as she ran a finger over the intricate floral design that Gran had worked many years
before, wondering where they should be kept. The logical place would be on the chairs in the lounge, or on their bed, but John hated cushions anywhere, especially floral ones.

  Early in their marriage, Emily had brought some home from a shopping trip to Port Lincoln, only to have John throw them back across the room, telling her she was stupid to waste money on such crap. The fact that these were sentimental would make little difference.

  Emily sighed and put them aside to be reconsidered later. Next in the box was a stack of large black-and-white and sepia photos of Granny and Grandpa and an assortment of relatives and ancestors Emily had never met.

  The contrived backgrounds and grim smiles were reminiscent of old studio portraits, as were the discoloured cardboard mats surrounding them.

  She would see to it they were finally framed, Emily decided. Surely John could not object to them taking up space on the wall. And if he did, she would just have to stand her ground. But he would object to her spending the money on frames, she realised with a deep sigh, and put the pictures aside in a neat pile next to the cushions.

  Next, she brought out Granny Mayfair’s treasured writing companion, an eight-by-twelve-inch box, four inches deep. It had a padded lid covered in pale vinyl with an all-over pastel floral design. Engraved on the tarnished gold clasp were Granny Rose Mayfair’s pre-marriage initials – R.D. – in elaborate flowing script.

  Emily remembered Granny Mayfair sitting at the dining table with it beside her when she wrote letters to her friends. What to di with it, she wondered as she lifted the lid and breathed in the unmistakable, sweet, slightly sickly scent of stale vinyl.

  Underneath the lid were stiff compartments, empty except for a tiny manila envelope with the word ‘KEY’ stamped on it in blue ink. It was so typical of Granny to never lock anything, Emily thought, smiling, after checking the envelope, wrapping the key up again and placing it back in the pocket.

  She checked the other pockets thoroughly – for what, she wasn’t sure. All were empty. The box itself was brimming with folded yellowing papers. Among them were a number of old share certificates and bank statements. Thumbing through them, Emily indulged in the brief fantasy that she’d uncovered a forgotten fortune, before reminding herself that even if she had it would belong to her uncle Richard – he’d got the farm and everything else of value. She thumbed on, only finding a few piles of brightly coloured chocolate wrappers smoothed out and bound with string.

  Emily sighed deeply, closed the lid, snapped the metal clasp shut, and put the box aside. Next she turned her attention to the bundle of Granny Mayfair’s recipes – tied tightly with Gran’s trademark grey string. With the bundle on the floor in front of her, Emily bent forward and carefully prised apart the knotted bow. Released, the collection of magazine and newspaper cuttings, scraps of paper, recycled envelopes, and well-thumbed Country Women’s Association cookbooks slid away from each other and across the floor.

  Picking up an envelope on which was written a grocery list in Gran’s abrupt angular hand, Emily smiled as the saying ‘Waste not, want not’ – another of Gran’s favourites – came to mind.

  Below the list was a series of mathematical calculations – another of Gran’s talents. Even with the onset of dementia, Granny Mayfair could calculate the most complex problems as long as she had a pen or pencil and something to write on.

  Emily put the envelope aside and picked up another – this one with her grandpa’s mix of small and large rough script making up what looked like a record of sheep and cattle numbers.

  She smiled, imagining Grandpa cursing the whereabouts of his precious note and Granny shrugging and saying she ‘didn’t have the foggiest idea’ what he was on about. This happened all the time, thanks to Grandpa’s habit of littering the dining table with chequebooks, bank statements and assorted paperwork, and Granny’s of regularly ‘tidying up’ by scooping everything into a pile and depositing it in the pantry, or anywhere else that had available space out of sight. This had gone on forever, well before there’d been even a hint of dementia.

  Until the onset of her condition, Gran remembered exactly where everything was, and when asked, would go off, fossick about for a few moments in a cupboard or drawer, and return with the requested item.

  Emily wondered if Grandpa’s heart attack had anything to do with his exasperation at items being lost, with denials from Rose of having touched his paperwork, and with the same questions being asked over and over.

  Putting the envelope aside, she continued to sort through the mass of papers spread out before her, separating the recipes from the shopping lists and jottings.

  About halfway through her task, a piece of folded notepaper caught her attention. Its quality made it stand out like a neon sign from the scraps of butchers’ paper, thin-lined notepaper, and used envelopes with corners missing where Gran had cut out the stamps for forwarding to charities.

  The thick, textured paper of the note had once been white but was now more a dirty pale grey, greasy with smudged fingerprints across the neat cursive script and large sloping signature at the bottom. There was a jagged, torn edge in the top right-hand corner where the full name and address of the writer would have been.

  The delicate state of the crease suggested it could have been a recipe for one of the family favourites – shepherd’s pie, pavlova or Gran’s famous chocolate raspberry shortcake – but what Emily read bore no reference to cooking.

  October 18th, 1947

  Dear Miss Rose,

  It really was the greatest pleasure to again make your acquaintance in London this last year.

  Your uncle tells me you are betrothed to a grazier and soon to be married and then make your new life in the interior of the wide brown land that is Australia. He tells me the place is a small village called Woop Woop, but the twinkle in his eye, not unlike your own, and the fact I could not find the name on any map, suggests he may have been doing what you taught me Australians are very apt to do: that is, ‘pulling my leg’. You are indeed an intriguing people with a peculiar language. But I digress.

  Please accept my gift for your nuptials of seven (a sacred number in my land and faith, and I believe your own) of Golconda’s finest – left rough for you to have cut and set as you desire. They are, I think, almost the exact shade of your unusual and enchanting eyes.

  You and your husband would be extended the most gracious welcome should you ever find yourselves in my, what would you say, ‘neck of the woods’? (See, I have managed to retain some of what you taught me in our short time together!)

  I wish you all the very best of health and happiness for the future.

  With the kindest regards,

  Prince Ali

  Emily reread the letter and continued staring at the paper twitching in her slightly shaking hand. Granny Mayfair knew a prince!

  It made sense; one of Emily’s great-uncles had been a diplomat and travelled widely, mixing with high society across the world during the nineteen-forties, fifties and sixties. It was a far cry from Emily’s upbringing.

  I could have had a prince for a grandfather, she thought. Except the note gave no indication of romantic involvement. But what if …?

  Family lore had it that Rose had essentially been excommunicated from her family after her marriage. Emily wondered if her grandpa had known the true extent of what Rose had given up. Other than a few bits and pieces from an aunt – who was considered a little wayward, anyway – Granny never benefited from the family fortune that supposedly existed upon her parents’ deaths. Good on Granny for sticking to her guns and marrying for love and not wealth or power.

  What had the prince sent her for a wedding present, anyway? All the letter said was ‘Golconda’s finest’. Finest what? What could be left rough? Emily leapt up and bolted into John’s office and turned on the computer. She tapped her fingers while she waited for it to boot up.

  Finally she had the Google search box in front of her. She put in ‘What was Golconda famous for in the 1940s?’ and wa
ited. Seconds later she was staring at a list of links, including a number of pages about the famously cursed Hope Diamond – apparently the inspiration for the jewel in the movie Titanic.

  Fuck! Had Gran had been given seven of Golconda’s finest diamonds? What else could the letter be referring to?

  And if so, what happened to them? Had she sold them along the way? Granny and Grandpa seemed to have done all right financially. Despite a number of crushing droughts and devastating floods, they’d always driven a good car – a Jaguar, second-hand but a Jaguar nonetheless – taken a major overseas trip every few years, and built a large home with all the mod-cons for retirement.

  Emily found herself wondering if all this had been provided by her grandfather – or by Gran’s friend, the prince. But if the diamonds had been sold and the proceeds used to make up shortfalls on the farm, wouldn’t she have heard? Wouldn’t someone in the family have mentioned it?

  Perhaps Gran had had them cut and set in jewellery like the letter suggested. She frowned as she tried to remember the few pieces of quality jewellery Granny had worn or kept in a box on her dressing table.

  Green, being her favourite colour, had featured prominently amongst her costume jewellery, but always in a bright emerald shade. There was nothing that could be described as the same colour as Gran’s eyes, which were an odd smoky blue grey; exactly the same as Emily’s.

  Surely such a gift from such a person would have been mentioned somewhere along the line. And if it had been, she’d definitely have remembered. Her overactive, romantic imagination would have woven a fabulous tale of intrigue around it.

  Perhaps Grandpa had insisted Rose return the gift. Or maybe they had accepted it and sold the stones straight away, long before Emily’s birth, or even her mother’s.

  Google then revealed that there was a Prince Ali in Golconda at that time. Emily clicked on the link and, as she waited for the page to load, found herself fantasising about rushing off on a romantic adventure to find him and introduce herself.