Finch, page 11
“So he’s nice, then, is he, Aud?” Chloe put on her most knowing face. “Really nice?”
“Yes.” Then Audrey decided to be honest. “His clothes are really, really uncool, though.”
“He’s perfect for you, then, isn’t he?” Chloe said, looking even more knowing. “Nice and nerdy and uncool. Ooh, Aud, are you in love with him?”
“Chlo, grow a brain. He’s a friend, okay? Just a friend. He’s … he’s sort of what I imagine a brother would be like. A big brother.”
“That’s what you say. It’s not what I say.”
“As if you’d know, you’re just a baby.”
They went on arguing in a friendly, half-hearted sort of way until Mum called them in for dinner.
*
The week dragged on. There was no news of Finch. No message from the police, no report in the local newspaper, nothing. Audrey still hadn’t quite given up hope that one day he might turn up at their back door, smiling his shy lopsided smile. Perhaps he’d say he was sorry he’d run off on that Sunday morning without saying goodbye. Perhaps he’d explain why he hadn’t asked her for help when the floods came. Perhaps he’d apologise for the anxiety he’d caused – not just to her, of course, but to everyone: her parents, the SES people, the police.
She still dreamed that this might happen.
But it didn’t.
Every day followed the same boring pattern. School, and home. School, and sports practice, and home. School and home. And at last the weekend again.
“Audrey, I want you to go round to Mavis’s place,” said Mum. Chloe had been picked up by Emma and her mum and was playing tennis in town; everyone else in the family was having their usual Saturday morning relaxing time.
Audrey, with Freddy curled up beside her, was lying on the sofa reading. She sighed loudly. “Oh, Mum, why? Can’t it wait?”
Mum gave her a stern look. “I have a book on preserving fruit that Mavis very kindly lent me, and I should return it. And since I can’t use all our plums, I want you to take her a bucketful. They’re overripe, and they should be cooked up as soon as possible.”
“Why don’t you make some jam? You could sell it at the CAW, and be a real country person.”
“It’s the CWA, Audrey. And I don’t want to argue about this. You don’t have to stay long. Just drop the things off and come straight home.”
Audrey rolled off the sofa and landed on the floor, taking Freddy with her. Freddy walked away with his ears back, looking deeply offended.
“Now you’ve upset Fred,” Audrey said. “This visit to Mavis had better be worth it.”
*
“This is an unexpected pleasure,” said Mavis. “Come in, Audrey. Thanks for the plums. That’s real kind of your mum. Now, if you’ll hang on a bit, I’ve got some magazines she might like to read.”
Audrey followed her down the hallway, stopping for a moment to look at the painting of the emu-wrens. The detail was fantastic, and the artist had even captured something of the spirit of the little birds. Her mind went back to that morning with Finch, and the thrill she’d felt when she saw the tiny emu-wrens flitting about among the ferns.
“Take a seat,” said Mavis over her shoulder. “I’ll find the mags, and then I’ll get you some morning tea.”
“Thanks.” Audrey went into the kitchen and sat down. The room was very quiet apart from the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece.
After a little while Mavis came back. She plonked a pile of cookery magazines on the table (Wow! Mum’ll be thrilled), and then put the round flowered tin next to it. Taking the lid off with a flourish, she revealed a fat chocolate cake smothered in icing. “I made a couple for the CWA trading table, and this one sank in the middle. Looks a bit like a bomb crater, doesn’t it?” She cut a big slice for Audrey and a smaller one for herself, and then poured two glasses of lemon cordial.
“So how’re things at your place?”
“Pretty good.”
“Mum and Dad okay?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“And what’ve you been up to?” Her blue eyes gazed kindly at Audrey.
“Nothing much.” Audrey swallowed a mouthful of chocolate cake. It was even better than the Anzacs. “Oh, there is something.” I might as well tell her now – what does it matter? “You’ll never guess, a while ago I saw some southern emu-wrens. Two males and a female.”
Mavis sat forward, beaming. “Well, isn’t that a bit of news! Where did you find them?”
Audrey smiled too. It was good to be able to share this with Mavis at last. “You probably know the place. It’s that bit of swamp near the waterhole on Frank Blix’s land. I was there with, um, a friend. He said there’s always emu-wrens there.”
“Hang on,” said Mavis. “That’s not Frank Blix’s land. It belongs to my brother, or it did. Frank Blix, funny old chap that he was, he died way back in the nineteen-forties. My brother bought the property from Frank’s son … let me think … nearly thirty years ago.”
“Oh.” Audrey was confused. “My friend might’ve only called it Frank Blix’s land because that’s what it was known as, but – no, he meant it, because he said Frank Blix was really old. I remember he said that.”
“Not to worry,” said Mavis. “Whatever you want to call it, that land is mine now. My brother, dear soul, he left it to me in his will. He always loved the bush – I guess you’d call him a greenie nowadays. He wanted the land to be kept like a nature reserve, a bit of natural bushland among all these vineyards that are taking over the country. He always reckoned there were emu-wrens there, but I never saw any. They’re such shy little fellas. You’ll have to show me where you found them.” She patted Audrey’s arm. “You know you can explore there whenever you like. I’d be real happy to have someone enjoy it, particularly a bird-lover like yourself.”
“Thanks, that’d be great.” Audrey looked down at the table.
Mavis nodded. “You would’ve got on well with my brother. He loved his birds. Knew a lot about ’em, too.”
Something isn’t right here, Audrey thought. Why would Finch have said Frank Blix was alive when he wasn’t? “Old Frank Blix is ninety not out” – that was what he’d said, wasn’t it?
“Your brother–” she started. She stopped, and then tried again. “Did your brother live on that bit of land, you know, where the emu-wrens are?”
“Yeah, that’s where he went after he retired. He built a cabin on the far boundary, where there’s a nice view of the sea, and he spent most of his time there drawing birds. You know that painting of emu-wrens in the hall? That’s his. Birds were always his hobby. He loved aeroplanes too. He went back to school when he was eighteen to get his matric, Year Twelve I suppose you’d call it now, and when he was nineteen he joined the air force and trained as a pilot. He said flying was the biggest thrill you could imagine. Us kids, his brother and sisters, we were that proud of him. He flew Caribou transport planes in the Vietnam War and after he came back home he was a carpenter. He always liked working with wood. Hang on.”
She got up and went into the front room, returning with something which she put down in front of Audrey. It was a bird carved from wood. A fat little bird with a short tail. “Know what that is?”
Audrey felt her skin prickle, from her toes right up to her scalp. She nodded. “It’s a finch, isn’t it.” A statement, not a question.
“My brother made it. He gave it to me for my seventh birthday. It’s walnut, the wood. Look at the way he’s carved the feathers – beautiful, isn’t it?”
“You mean your brother who died?”
Mavis’s face softened. “Yeah. My big brother, Ross. We buried him two weeks ago last Friday. And that reminds me, I must thank your mum for her card. Very nice of her.”
Audrey picked up the little bird. It felt smooth and solid in her hand. It’s the bird Finch showed me. I’m positive it is. But how did she get it? “Sorry, Mrs – I mean Mavis – what was your brother’s name again?”
“Ross. Ross Finch. I was Mavis Finch before I married.”
“Your brother is Ross Finch?” Audrey began to tremble now. Her throat contracted until she could scarcely breathe. Don’t be stupid, she told herself. It’s just a coincidence. Finch is probably the old guy’s grandson, and he has the same name. Lots of people are named after their grandparents.
“That’s right. He kept to himself after his wife died, but people around here had a lot of respect for him and what he stood for. Conservation and that – caring for the land and its creatures. He was a very sick man this last year. I miss him, but I wasn’t sorry to see him go, if you know what I mean. His time had come.” She looked at Audrey closely. “Are you all right? You going to throw up?”
“No, I’m fine.” Audrey struggled to focus. “He told me there was Pete and Lizzy and May,” she said. “The youngest girl was called May. He didn’t have a sister called Mavis.”
Mavis stared at her. “How on God’s green earth do you know about my family? You never got to meet Ross, did you?”
“There was no Mavis.”
“The family always called me May.” Mavis gave her a puzzled look. “Does that help? Though, mind you, I don’t have the faintest idea what’s going on here.”
Suddenly Audrey thought of Finch’s uncle, Bill Brewer. But now, who was Bill Brewer?
She gulped her cordial. Its cold sweetness was reassuring. “Mavis, are you really Bill Brewer’s aunty?”
This was safer ground.
“Bill’s granddad was my uncle,” Mavis said, “my mum’s brother. We never saw much of him once we moved away from the district, but Ross stayed up here and worked for him for a while. It would’ve been around 1947 – it was after the war, although people were still getting over it. But,” she added thoughtfully, “there was something strange about that time Ross was with Uncle Bill.”
Audrey drank some more cordial. “Was there?”
Mavis settled back in her chair. “We never heard much about it. Ross never complained about a thing – he was as tough as you like, and proud. But there was a time back there when he vanished for a few weeks. We didn’t know about it till years later. My dad reckoned Ross might’ve run away – Uncle Bill was tight with his money and he could be a bit of a … well, let’s say we found out he had a dark side. Anyhow, it turns out that Ross disappeared, and after a while Uncle Bill got on to the police. He said someone’d been thieving from his property, and he reckoned it was Ross. Only small stuff, you know, food and that. Ross was never a crook.
“Our mum was worried sick, with the police coming round, and nobody knowing where Ross was. But then one day he turned up at our house. He’d got himself a job working for the post office, delivering telegrams. I don’t suppose you know what they are, do you? We could see he’d been through a bad time – he was skin and bone – but he never talked about it, ever. I remember his little dog had died, and he was that cut up about it. He loved that dog.” She frowned. “What was his name, now? The little dog’s name?”
“Snowy,” said Audrey.
“Snowy. That’s the one.” Mavis looked at her, and her eyes were Finch’s eyes, blue and alive in her creased old face.
Audrey breathed out, and then in again. Her heart thudded. “That’s who the little fox terrier was, the one we thought might be a stray. He was living with your brother in the cave on Frank Blix’s property. I know it doesn’t make sense, but that little dog was Snowy. He was your brother’s dog.”
“Ross’s dog? No, no, that’s not possible. It couldn’t be.”
“I promise you, Ross was there. He was living in the cave, and so was Snowy. I can’t explain it. That’s how I know him. That’s how I know about all of you.” Audrey took another deep breath. “He said his name was Ross, but everyone called him Finch.”
The clock ticked.
“I saw him carving that wooden bird for you,” Audrey said softly. “He wanted to give it to you for your birthday. Your seventh birthday.”
“Imagine that.” Mavis’s eyes were filled with wonder. “Well, time’s a funny thing, and I don’t pretend to understand it. But would you believe me if I told you that right now I’m only seven years old?”
“Yes,” said Audrey. “Yes, I would.”
CHAPTER 22
“It makes my head hurt,” said Chloe. She and Audrey were sitting cross-legged on the clover lawn under the clothes line. It was a warm, sunny day. In their cage nearby the finches were cheeping contentedly.
“I know.”
“Who’d believe it?”
“I’m not even sure I believe it.” Audrey was silent, thinking, although she’d already been over it all, in her mind, a thousand times.
“Audrey–” Chloe turned to face her, “–when Finch died a couple of weeks ago, he was eighty-five.”
Audrey nodded.
“So when you saw him he was a ghost.”
“No, he wasn’t. He was never a ghost, because he was still alive. He was there. Don’t you see?” How slippery the facts were, how hard to make sense of! “But then he died, I mean, he really died, you know, in real time, and after that he wasn’t there any more. When the cave flooded, he’d already gone.”
Chloe sighed. “I still don’t understand.”
“I can’t explain it any better. I wish I could. And there’s another thing. When I saw Finch that last time, when he showed me the emu-wrens, he told me to come round to the cave again. He promised me he’d be there. He said, ‘I’ll be there, I promise.’ I keep wondering why he said that. I mean, he must have known.”
“Known what?”
“That he had no more time left.”
There was a long silence, and then Chloe said, “So he was alive, and he wasn’t a ghost. Was he, like, real? I mean, could you touch him?”
Audrey considered this. “I don’t know. I mean, I never got really close to him. We just talked lots. But he seemed so real. Maybe I just wanted him to be real.”
“What about his dog?”
“Snowy never wanted me to pat him or anything. He always moved away. I just thought he probably wouldn’t go to anybody but Finch. It sort of makes sense now.” She paused, thinking. “Chlo, I just realised something. Nobody ever saw Finch or Snowy except me.”
“And Freddy, don’t forget. Freddy saw the dog first.”
“You’re right – Fred saw him too. I wonder why? D’you think it’s because animals know stuff that people don’t? Like they have extrasensory perception?”
“Extra what?”
“Animals are supposed to see things we can’t see. They sense them somehow.”
“That’s so weird,” Chloe said. Then she giggled. “Does that mean you’re an animal, Aud?”
“Of course I’m an animal. So are you. We’re all animals.” He told me I was brainy. He said, “I’m glad I know you.”
They sat there, listening to the finches. Then Chloe said, “So it was Finch’s dog, the skeleton you found. Are you going to leave him in the cave?”
“I think so. That’s where he belongs. I’ll go down there and bury him properly.”
“What d’you think happened to him?”
“Maybe he was bitten by a snake. Maybe he ate poison meant for foxes.” Audrey shuddered. “Finch must’ve buried him there. I bet that was the reason he left the cave. He told me he didn’t think he’d be able to stay there if anything happened to Snowy. It could’ve been one of the reasons he came back to the cave, too. Because Snowy was still there.”
Chloe got to her feet. “Poor little dog. Poor Finch.” Her face brightened. “Hey, you said that land belongs to Mavis now? That means we can go there whenever we want! You can show me where the emu-finches are!”
“You mean the emu-wrens. Why would you want to see them? You’re not interested in birds.”
“I might be. Ms Petersen wants us to do a conservation project, and I’m doing mine on things that are endangered. Emu-wrens are endangered, aren’t they?” She looked down at Audrey. “You want to help me?”
*
They stood beside the waterhole, Audrey, Chloe and Mavis, shivering in the cold air of early dawn. The countryside was waking up. The strident call of a wattlebird could be heard from a distant tree and, much further away, the faint crowing of a rooster.
Audrey had brought her camera, last year’s Christmas present, to photograph the emu-wrens. She’d already practised photographing the wattlebirds and taken a few shots of the waterhole and the stretch of swampland. Then she’d snapped a dozy rabbit that had come to within a few metres of them.
“Look, a bunny!” Chloe screamed as the rabbit hopped away in alarm, its white tail bobbing. “Oh, it’s so cute!”
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen a rabbit plague,” Mavis said drily. “Rabbits destroy the countryside like nothing else – eat everything in sight. An environmental nightmare, that’s your bunny.”
“They’re still cute, though,” said Chloe.
Audrey decided to change the subject. “Look,” she said, turning the camera around and showing the photograph to Mavis.
Mavis stared at the tiny camera screen in amazement. “That’s not bad, is it? I don’t understand how these things work, mind you. Seems like some kind of magic. But then I still don’t understand television – all those pictures zooming through the air.”
Chloe jumped up and down, flapping her arms to keep warm. “Where are the emu-wrens, Audrey? You said they’d be here.”
“They were here. They are here. Be patient. And stop jumping around, you’ll scare them away.”
Chloe stopped jumping and started chewing a fingernail. Then she pulled her finger out of her mouth and pointed. “There!”
Mavis and Audrey swung around. “Where?”
“Sorry. It was another bunny.”
Audrey groaned. “Chlo, birds don’t have ears.”
They were all silent again.
They waited, and waited.
Nothing.
“Well,” Mavis said at last, “I’ve nearly frozen my bottom off, so I reckon we should call it a day. I suppose the little fellas just weren’t ready to come out and say hello. How about I show you my brother’s house instead? It’s not far from here. I’d like you to see it, if you’re interested.”
