‘I understand. Too much pain when the leads came to nothing.’
‘Exactly, but then when Sarah became seriously ill two years ago, she begged me to have another try, so I engaged a private detective. Six months after she died, I got a call telling me he’d found a woman in Broome who claimed she’d been present at your birth. I admit to not having been enthused with hope – I’d been up too many blind alleys before. But nevertheless, this woman knew your mother’s name: Elizabeth, after Sarah’s beloved English queen.’
‘Elizabeth . . .’ I tried the name out loud for the first time.
‘This woman had been a nurse at the hospital in Broome and I was able to see the date that Lizzie had arrived there in the hospital records, apparently in the throes of childbirth. The dates fitted exactly.’
‘Right. Did this woman mention my father?’
‘She said that Lizzie had been alone. Remember I told you earlier that Kitty had left the Broome house to Lizzie? Your mother had visited it with us and probably thought it was the perfect love nest for her and her waster of a boyfriend. I can only assume that he dumped her somewhere between Papunya and Broome. In her condition, and given the rift at home, your mother probably felt she had no alternative but to continue to Broome alone.’
‘So what happened after she gave birth to me?’
Francis stood up, walked over to a bureau and pulled out a file. ‘Here is your mother’s death certificate. It’s dated seven days after you were born. Lizzie had a severe postpartum infection. The nurse told me she just wasn’t physically strong enough to fight it. Forgive me, Celaeno, there was no easy way to tell you this.’
‘It’s okay,’ I murmured as I stared at the certificate. It was past two in the morning by now, and the words were a mass of jumping squiggles. ‘What about me?’
‘Well, that’s where the story gets a little better. The nurse told me that after your mother died, they kept you for as long as they could, hoping they could find a family who would adopt you. It was obvious when I spoke to her that the nurse had a fondness for you. She said you were a very pretty baby.’
‘Pretty?’ I blurted out. ‘Me?’
‘Apparently so,’ Francis said with a smile. ‘However, after a couple of months they had no choice but to make preparations to hand you over to a local orphanage. Sad to say, even twenty-seven years ago, there was no one who wanted to adopt a mixed-race baby. Just as the paperwork was being processed, she said that a gentleman in expensive clothes turned up at the hospital. From what she recalls, he’d come to Broome to look for a relative, but had found the house in question empty. A neighbour had informed him that the former owner had died, but there had been a young girl living there for a few weeks. The neighbour also told him the girl had been pregnant and he should try the hospital. When the nurse met the man and told him Lizzie had died and left you behind, he offered to adopt you on the spot.’
‘Pa Salt,’ I gasped. ‘What was he doing in Broome? Was he looking for Kitty?’
‘The woman couldn’t remember his name,’ said Francis, ‘but given the circumstances, she suggested he took you back to Europe with him and completed any adoption formalities there. The man left her the name of a lawyer in Switzerland.’ Francis rifled through the file. ‘A Mr Georg Hoffman.’
‘Good old Georg,’ I said, disappointed that Pa had managed to hide his true identity yet again.
‘It was Mr Hoffman I wrote to when I was trying to trace you. I told him you’d been left a legacy – the money and property that Kitty had put in a trust for your mum, which was rightfully yours as Lizzie’s daughter. Once the Broome house was sold, combined with the proceeds from the stocks and shares, it amounted to a healthy sum, as you know. Mr Hoffman wrote back to confirm that his client had indeed adopted you, and that you were well. He promised any funds would be passed on to you directly. I directed the Adelaide solicitor to transfer the money and I also gave him a photograph of me with Namatjira, to be sent alongside the payment.’
‘Why not a photo of Sarah and Lizzie?’
‘Celaeno, I didn’t want to disturb your life if you didn’t want to be found. By the same token, I knew that if you did want to find me here in Australia, it wouldn’t be long until someone recognised Namatjira and his name on the car in the photograph, and pointed you in the direction of Hermannsburg.’ Francis gave a small smile of pleasure. ‘My plan worked!’
‘It did, but I wasn’t going to come at first, you know.’
‘I’d already decided that if you hadn’t turned up within the year, I would contact Georg Hoffman and come and find you. You saved me and my old bones the trouble. Celaeno.’ He took my hands and held them. ‘It’s been so much for you to take in, and a lot of it has been upsetting. Are you all right?’
‘Yeah.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I’m glad I know everything now. It means I can return to London.’
‘Right.’
I could see he thought I meant that I’d changed my mind. ‘Don’t worry,’ I added quickly, ‘as I said earlier, it’s only loose ends that need to be tied up before I move here permanently.’
The grip on my hands tightened. ‘You’re definitely coming to live in Australia?’
‘Yeah, I mean, I reckon that you and me should stick together. We’re the last of the Mercer line, aren’t we? The survivors.’
‘Yes, we are. Although I never want you to feel that you owe me – or your past – anything, Celaeno. If you have a life back in London, don’t do the wrong thing out of guilt. The past is gone. It’s the future that matters.’
‘I know, but I belong here,’ I said, feeling more certain than I’d ever felt about anything in my life. ‘The past is who I am.’
*
I woke up the next morning feeling like I had a really bad hangover – caused by information overload, not alcohol. I lay in the room with the pretty flowered curtains under the patchwork quilt that no doubt my grandmother, Sarah, had sewn over many a hot and sweaty night here in the Alice.
I closed my eyes then, thinking of my momentous decision of yesterday, and the weird dream I’d just had, and my hands tingled. It felt like all the angst and pain that had made me needed to be set free so it didn’t poison me from within.
And I knew how to do it.
I got out of bed and pulled on one of my grandmother’s blouses and a pair of her shorts that were flared at the bottom and made my legs look like two lamp stands that were too thick for the lampshades at the top of them.
Francis was eating breakfast in the kitchen at a table that was set for two.
‘Do you by any chance have a spare canvas? Like, the biggest you’ve got?’ I asked him.