‘Oh God, where are you . . . ?!’ he screamed to the wind, the sound of his voice drowned out by the engines and the screeching of the seagulls.
Another human being trounced by love, Kitty thought as she watched the man stagger away. He looked like an army boy, with his prematurely grey hair and haunted eyes. She’d seen many of them in England in her year-long stay. Those who had survived six years of fighting may have been termed ‘lucky’ to have come back – she had sat next to an army captain at dinner who had laughed it off by telling stories of the fun they’d all had – yet Kitty knew it was all a facade. These men would never fully recover, and neither would the loved ones they’d left behind.
Kitty shivered in the brisk breeze that was whipping up as they eased out of Tilbury Port and along the Thames Estuary. Inside, she made her way along a thickly carpeted corridor to her cabin. Opening the door, she found a steward setting up afternoon tea on the table in the drawing room.
‘Good afternoon, ma’am. My name is James McDowell and I’ll be attending to your needs on the voyage. I thought you could do with something to eat, but I wasn’t sure what you like.’
‘Thank you, James,’ Kitty replied, soothed by the young man’s soft voice. ‘Have you travelled to Australia before?’
‘Me? No, it’s a real adventure, isn’t it? I used to be a valet to a wealthy gentleman over in Hampshire, but then he died, and since the war ended folk have no need of a valet, so I thought I’d try my luck in Australia. Have you travelled there before?’
‘It’s my home. I’ve lived there for over forty years.’
‘Then I might be picking your brains on what to do when I get there. It’s the land of opportunity, so they tell me.’
And the land of broken dreams, thought Kitty. ‘Yes.’ She forced a smile. ‘It is.’
‘Well now, I’ll leave you to it, ma’am. I’ve unpacked your trunk, but you’ll have to tell me what you wish to wear this evening. You have an invitation to dine at the captain’s table, so I’ll be back at six to draw your bath. Just press the bell if you need me sooner.’
‘Thank you, James,’ she said as he shut the cabin door behind him. His strong features and blue eyes had reminded her so of Charlie.
During those dark days at the outbreak of war in Europe ten years ago, her son had been busy in Broome, working with the Australian navy to fit out the requisitioned luggers that would transport the soldiers to fields of battle in Africa and Europe. Soon after, the Japanese crews had been interned and with no luggers to sail, Charlie had written to tell her it felt as if the town was slowly and quietly dying.
At least Charlie’s safe in Broome, she had thought at the time. She herself had already moved to live at Alicia Hall in Adelaide, so that her son – and Elise, his wife – would not feel as though a shadow was following them on their every business and domestic move.
Then, in the March of 1942, Kitty had opened her newspaper to headlines of an unexpected attack on the northwest coast of Australia. Casualties were recorded in Broome. When she finally managed to get through by telephone, she was not even surprised to hear that Charlie had been one of them.
‘Are you determined to take everything I love from me?!’ she had railed at the gods above her, walking the gardens at Alicia Hall in her nightdress as the servants looked on at their hysterical mistress. There had been no Camira beside her to comfort her, for she had left Kitty too.
Elise had survived the air raid and it had taken only six months for Kitty to receive a letter from her daughter-in-law announcing that she was marrying a mining magnate and moving to the town of Perth. There had been no children in the marriage and Kitty had felt curiously empty at the news. She knew she had thrust Elise under her son’s nose twenty years ago, wishing to take his mind from Alkina. She doubted Charlie had ever loved his wife, simply gone through the motions.
*
Kitty sipped her tea as the ship sailed her and her dark thoughts further from England. She had had almost twenty years to ponder the mystery of how Camira and her daughter had disappeared from Broome within a few months of each other. And plenty of time to berate herself for never confronting the situation. She’d ignored Charlie’s obvious devastation when Alkina had disappeared the night before his twenty-first birthday and instinct told her the two events were connected. To this day, she missed Camira, who had stood by her side and kept secrets that were beyond keeping.
Kitty took a bite of a sandwich that tasted as bland and as empty as her life had been since everyone she loved had left her. Yet – she cautioned herself against falling into self-pity – there had been one bright light that had arrived out of the blue four long years after Charlie’s death.
In the immediate aftermath, she had once more by default become the caretaker of the Mercer empire. Beside herself with grief, she had been unable to rouse herself to visit the opal mines, drive up to the vineyards or glance at the figures from the cattle station. Nor had she read the company bank statements that piled up unopened on her desk. She had – as they termed it in Victorian novels – gone into a decline and become a virtual recluse, the guilt of all she had done and not done beating down on her day and night.
During those years of darkness, she’d longed for death but had been too cowardly to approach it.
Then, one evening in 1946, her maid had knocked on her bedroom door.
‘Mrs Mercer, there’s a young man downstairs who says it’s urgent he speaks to you.’
‘Please, you know I do not receive visitors. Send him away.’
‘I have tried to, ma’am, but he refuses to go. He says he will sit outside the gate until you receive him. Do I call the police?’
‘What is his name?’
‘He’s a Mister Ralph Mackenzie. He claims he’s your brother.’
Kitty had cast her mind back across the years to think who this man might be. A man with the same name as her father . . .
And then it had come to her.
*
Kitty rose from the elegant silk-covered sofa and walked to one of the large picture windows, the ship now gliding gently out on the open sea. Ralph Mackenzie had arrived in her life at just the right moment, a reminder of at least one good deed she’d accomplished.
She remembered descending the sweeping staircase, stopping halfway down to view a tall man, clutching his hat anxiously. He’d raised his head as he’d heard her footsteps, and in the shadowy gloom of dusk, Kitty had wondered if she was seeing a replica of her father in his younger days. This young man bore the same charismatic blue eyes, strong jaw and thick auburn hair.
‘Mr Mackenzie. Please come through.’
In the drawing room, he’d sat nervously on the edge of the sofa as the maid had poured their tea.