Book of Lost Threads

13
Moss and friends

IN THE FIVE WEEKS SINCE the memorial service Moss had done very little. She nursed her grief and churned over her last conversation with Linsey until her nerves were frayed and she snapped irritably at the mildest of Amy’s comments. She could have been kinder to Linsey while still making her point, she mourned. She could have simply accepted the circumstances of her conception and kept a sense of proportion. She could have let Linsey stew for a while and then offered her forgiveness. But forgiveness for what? For being her mother? For loving her? Her head ached, and she either ate feverishly or picked at her food.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ Amy said. ‘You have to get out of the house. You can’t brood like this forever.’ This elicited a sharp retort and more tears.
‘Why don’t you see about re-enrolling in your course?’ Amy said at last. ‘It’s certainly what Linsey would’ve wanted.’
So Moss made a desultory effort to re-enrol for the following year and was mildly flattered by Dr Cuicci’s response to her enquiries.
‘Talent like yours should not go to waste.’ Dr Cuicci frowned. ‘But to succeed at the highest level you need more than talent. You also need discipline and an iron will. Do you have those qualities, Miranda?’
Moss didn’t know. ‘I’d like to think I did,’ she said with painful honesty, ‘but I need to sort out a couple of things before I can really commit.’ She had no idea what these things were; she just felt unable to make a decision.
Emilia Cuicci sighed. These young people with their dramas and busyness. I despair of them. ‘I will give you until the New Year to decide,’ she told her student. ‘Come to me by the first week in February. There are many other talents who wait for an opportunity like yours.’
Opportunity. The word now had a new layer of meaning. The little town beckoned and she was impelled to return. Her closest friends at the moment, she thought with surprise, were an old lady, a nutty visionary with sweaty hands, and her father, Finn, a man burdened with guilt. Perhaps she did have unfinished business there after all. She couldn’t explain this feeling to herself, let alone Amy, and simply told her mother that she had a few loose ends to tie up.
Amy was ashamed to realise that she was happy to see her go. When Moss was in the house, undercurrents, ripples and whirlpools disturbed the calm waters of her life. Moss was a lot like Linsey.
‘A good idea,’ she said when Moss announced her impending return to Opportunity. ‘You should call and warn them you’re coming this time.’
So Moss rang Mrs Pargetter, who was delighted to hear the news. ‘Moss is coming back, Errol, how about that?’
Errol’s delight shone in his eyes, quivered in his tail. The old lady opened the door to the room with the stoic little teddy bears, confirming the absence that had returned to occupy its every dark corner. The pain of her long-ago loss had been held at bay in that room, imprisoned behind the white-painted door. When Moss had arrived, the old lady was inexplicably moved to allow living light to enter and felt, for the first time in years, a desolate little spirit begin to move timidly towards her. It had withdrawn with Moss’s departure, leaving Mrs Pargetter to grieve afresh. She closed the door softly and sat for a while with Errol’s head on her lap.
When Moss arrived on the evening bus, Finn was at the stop to greet her. It was his Silent time, she noted gratefully. She swung her backpack down to his waiting arms, and when she alighted, stood on tiptoe to give him a kiss on the cheek. He actually beamed, the down-drawn lines of his face relaxing, his expression suddenly youthful.
‘Good trip?’ he asked. ‘At least the train was on time for this visit.’ He fumbled with the straps of her backpack, trying to lengthen them to accommodate his broader shoulders. ‘We missed you—I missed you,’ he said diffidently, peering at the buckles as though they were marvels of innovation. ‘Mrs Pargetter and Sandy are back at her place for a sort of, you know, welcome home.’
Errol met them at the gate and, in a surprising display of agility, capered joyfully around Moss, tongue lolling, tail wagging frenetically.
‘Good boy. Good dog.’ Moss knelt and rubbed his head and ears with both hands. ‘Did you miss me too, Errol?’ Leaving her in no doubt as to the answer, the dog led her to the front door where Mrs Pargetter greeted her with a kiss.
‘I’ve got a nice lamb roast,’ she said. ‘Sandy brought the leg around specially.’
Sandy was hovering in the background like a self-conscious full moon. ‘Nice to see you, Moss. Hope you like lamb.’
Moss hadn’t forgotten the big man’s kindness after Linsey’s death. He’d been quiet and unobtrusive as he made her comfortable in the car, his face betraying real concern. He had sent her flowers and a handwritten card. Losing a mother is a terrible thing, he wrote in his large, square handwriting. No platitudes. No preaching. Just the truth. Losing a mother is a terrible thing.
Since then, Moss had begun to look at Sandy with new eyes. Forgetting her former distaste, she planted a kiss on his astonished cheek. ‘I love lamb,’ she responded. ‘By the way, Sandy, I’ve never thanked you properly for driving me to Melbourne. I don’t know what I would have done otherwise.’
‘No worries, love,’ Sandy replied gruffly.
The meal took on a festive tone, and the obsessive Sandy brought Moss up to date with his plans for the Great Galah. The blueprints were now with a design engineer, he told her. They’d have to make some adjustments to the slide for safety reasons, but, all in all, things were going along very nicely indeed. Mrs Pargetter seemed to take all this in her stride, but Finn squirmed in discomfort while Moss made polite murmurs, which were sufficiently encouraging for Sandy to raise one of his concerns.
‘I do have a bit of a problem,’ he said. ‘And I’d be interested to know what you think, Moss.’
Finn gazed studiously at the curtains, ignoring his daughter’s silent plea for help.
‘The fact is,’ confided Sandy, ‘galahs are grey.’ He waved his hand to ward off premature comment. ‘I know they’re pink as well. A very nice pink, when you think about it. But there’s no getting away from it: there’s just too much grey. Can you see where I’m going with this, Moss?’
‘Um . . . grey. A problem with grey?’
‘You’ve hit the nail on the head. What sort of tourist attraction is grey?’
‘A grey one?’
‘A grey one! Exactly. A boring, unattractive grey one. Now, can I make it yellow, or blue, or even all pink? Would it still be a galah?’ He sat back, folding his arms. ‘That’s my question, Moss. My dilemma.’
Moss tried to sound judicious. ‘I can’t see a galah being any other colour, Sandy. You could maybe get away with a bit more pink than you’d find in nature . . . but not blue or yellow. If it’s a galah, it has to be mostly grey.’
‘That’s what Aunt Lily and your father say too.’ He looked momentarily hopeful. ‘What about silver?’ The other three shook their heads. ‘Well, I’ll keep working on it. You never know. Solutions can pop up out of the blue.’
‘He’s a strange bloke,’ said Finn as Mrs Pargetter saw her nephew to the door. ‘He’s made a fortune on the stock market while other farmers are struggling to pay the mortgage. He looks after his aunt. He’s done some fine things for Opportunity, but where on earth did he get this hare-brained scheme?’
Mrs Pargetter re-entered the room in time to hear Finn’s question. She held the curtains aside, watching Sandy’s back as it retreated down the path. ‘I may be wrong, but I believe there is more to it than meets the eye,’ she said. ‘The idea of a memorial to that brute of a father would be more than I could bear—except that it has to be a monumental failure. I’m happy to say that it’ll make Major Bully-boy Sandilands a laughing stock.’
‘But what about our Sandy? Won’t he be a laughing stock too?’ Moss was horrified. This nice old lady had a vindictive streak she hadn’t guessed at.
‘Poor George. He’s not vicious like his father, but he is weak. He never stood up for his mother, even when he was old enough. I’m no psychologist, but I’d say that my nephew is killing two birds with one stone, if you’ll pardon the pun. His Great Galah will not only punish his father—it will also punish him.’ She went on as Moss and Finn looked at each other: ‘I don’t think he’s really aware of this. Or maybe he is. Either way, it’s for him to work his way through without interference.’ And she sucked in her teeth in a very decisive manner.
After Finn left, Moss helped Mrs Pargetter clear the table and wash the dishes.
‘I think I’ll just start a new cosy—knit a few rows,’ the old lady said when they were finished. ‘You’ll want to unpack, I suppose.’ She picked up her needles and began to cast on the stitches . . . Fourteen, sixteen, eighteen . . . She looked up. Moss had vanished into her room. Her room. Mrs Pargetter felt a tension in her scalp.
As Moss set her case down on the bed, she felt a little exhalation, a sigh so small that it registered only on the periphery of her senses. At the same time, she became aware of an expectation, the waiting feeling she had experienced the first time she entered the room. It was all too subtle to grasp, and she simply stood for a moment before returning to her elderly friend, who was still counting her stitches.
‘I seem to keep losing count,’ she said crossly. ‘Moss, can you check for me, please?’
Moss counted and found that there were almost twice as many stitches as were needed. She quietly unpicked the excess and rechecked the number before handing the knitting back. Mrs Pargetter making a mistake with her knitting? It was unheard of. Now that Moss came to think of it, the old lady had been distracted all night. Perhaps she was just tired.
‘You look worn out, Mrs Pargetter. I certainly am.’ Moss began the nighttime ritual of ensuring the fire was safe and setting the table for breakfast. To her relief, her companion took the hint. Folding away her knitting in an embroidered pillow slip, she headed for the bathroom, wishing Moss goodnight.
Moss, never a good sleeper, always read for an hour or two before settling for the night. She had just placed the bookmark when a movement at the door startled her. It was Mrs Pargetter, in a flannelette nightgown, a long grey plait hanging over one shoulder. She looked at Moss with hungry eyes.
‘What is it, Mrs Pargetter?’ She spoke softly, fearing to disturb the listening air.
The old lady bowed her head. ‘They locked me away,’ she said. ‘They locked me away and I couldn’t save my baby.
I brought it home. To this very room. But it just went away.’ Her eyes searched Moss’s face. ‘It comes back when you’re here, though. I can feel it.’ She took a faltering step into the room. ‘I need my baby, Moss.’
The two women sat together on the bed, and Moss took the old lady’s hands and held them between her own. They were trembling, and cold to her touch.
‘We’ll just sit here for a bit, Mrs Pargetter. Until you’re ready. Then I’ll make us a cup of tea.’
The room was cold, and the yellow bulb, swinging high from the ceiling, cast more shadow than light. Moss glanced around uneasily, sensing a faint susurration, a delicate splintering of the gelid air. The teddies froze, their eyes straining to pierce the shadows.
The young woman looked at her companion and shivered. Did she feel it too? But Mrs Pargetter gave no sign.
After several minutes, the old lady patted Moss’s hands and stood up. ‘Take no notice of me, dear. I’m just a silly old woman.’ As Moss began to protest, she shook her head. ‘Don’t worry about the tea. I’m really very tired.’
The young woman put her arm around the frail shoulders and they walked together back to her room. Moss had to take small, slow steps to keep pace as Mrs Pargetter’s bare feet shuffled and whispered on the kitchen tiles.
She helped her into bed and pulled up the covers. ‘Goodnight, Mrs Pargetter.’
‘Goodnight, dear.’


In the light of day, Moss decided that the presence she had sensed in the room was the product of her overactive imagination. But she was worried about her elderly friend. She recounted the story to Finn as they took Errol for a walk. ‘Do you know what happened to her, Finn? I’m terrified I’ll say the wrong thing.’
Finn shook his head. ‘I’ve heard bits and pieces but Sandy 185 would be your best bet.’
Moss sought Sandy out that afternoon, finding him in the pub with two other men. They were all staring morosely into their beers, so Moss approached, confident that she wasn’t interrupting anything important. ‘Can you join me for a drink, Sandy? I need to ask you something.’
The other men leered at each other, and looked at Sandy with something like respect as Moss led him to a corner table.
‘I was only a kid at the time,’ he began in response to her question, ‘but I used to hear Mum and Dad talking about it. Apparently she lost her husband in New Guinea and then their baby was stillborn. Anyway, she went a bit barmy, by all accounts, and she was in a mental hospital for years. Had shock treatment and everything. I was away at school then, but Mum used to take me to visit her in the holidays. Mum and Dad helped to get her out when Grandpa died.’ He tossed down the last of his beer and wiped the froth from his upper lip. ‘She was always nice to me. Made welcome-home cakes and took a bit of an interest. Dad used to say she should have stayed in the mental home, but I think she was just eccentric, not mad.’ He paused. ‘Dad could be a bit hard, sometimes,’ he admitted. ‘I can almost understand why Aunt Lily didn’t like him.’
Moss sipped her drink. ‘What you tell me makes it even worse. It’s like she says: she’d locked things away, and now, for whatever reason, a door is opening. I wonder just how fragile her mental health is?’
Sandy’s face was grave. ‘I hadn’t realised things were so bad.’
‘Is there anything you can do, Sandy? You know her better than anyone.’
‘Leave me to have a think,’ he replied. ‘Meanwhile we’ll all keep an eye on her. And thanks for telling me, Moss.’
Once again, Moss felt humbled. This man had more depth than she had originally given him credit for.