CHAPTER ONE
Frederic stroked the strands of his sister’s thick black hair away from her pale face as she lay on the couch curled up like a child with her head on his lap.
“Are you asleep?” he whispered, hoping she would open her eyes and return to him. Her sigh, an echo from long ago, deepened the sorrow welling in his breast as his eyes searched her face for the girl who had once been the mirror of his own innocence, his constant companion for the first twelve years of his life. Together, they’d grown, like two wild bush creatures, in the ancient untouched forests of the Tasman Peninsula and it had been her, only her, who had shared his every thought, his every waking moment.
Their Austrian mother, Sylvia, had met their German father, Alex, when she had come to spend some time at Eagle-hawk Neck. It was a pilgrimage she had planned to make with her friend Susanna who had grown up there and had told her about it. “You’ll love it!” She had enthused, “It’s so wild and untamed … and magical… the winter light there is amazing, you have to go there and paint.” But just before she’d arrived in Australia Susanna had died after a car crash and Sylvia had travelled to Susanna’s childhood paradise alone. She’d met Alex while walking along the little sandy cove Susanna had told her about, an exquisitely beautiful and mystical place which, Susanna had said, held the mysteries of life and death. Alexandria was thinking about Susanna and wondering if she should try to get across to Dead Man’s Island when she met Alex walking in the other direction. There was an immediate connection between them, and they soon discovered that they both came from similar regions in Europe. He’d talked passionately about why he’d left Germany and moved to Tasmania to escape the pollution and over crowding in Europe and, there and then, Sylvia had realised that she did not want to go back, that she wanted to stay there too. She asked her mother to send all her paints and canvases to her and within weeks she had moved in with Alex, into the timber house he’d just finished building in the thick bush just above Eagle-hawk Neck. They lived a simple reclusive life, happy just to be in each other’s company and to share the peace and beauty of this untouched and natural part of the world. Their twins had been raised by their habitat as much as their parents, particularly after Alex had died in a fire that had raged through the timber-dry forest one summer, destroying their home and all their possessions. Refusing to leave Eagle-hawk Neck, Sylvia had moved her family into the little single-room hut with a mezzanine loft that Alex had lived in while building the house. They’d stayed there, the children sharing the loft and Sylvia managing to sleep, cook and paint in the tiny space below, until a year ago, when her work finally forced her to move her family in to town.
Desperately driving the fear of losing forever his other, and, he knew the better, half of himself, back down into the dark depths of the carefully guarded basement of his mind, Frederic continued the story of their twin childhood, knowing it alone had the power to bring her back to him.
“She would hide in the Sheoaks, laughing at him when he couldn’t find her...” he went on, his fingers gently tracing the hairline across her square, determined forehead and slowly down around the same sweetly carved, seashell ear he had whispered his secrets into when they used to lie, side by side on the warm sand, the summer sun tessellating the salt into jig-saw patterns on their brown skin. “He could never understand how she could so cruelly provoke his terror of losing her and then mock him for his fear…. And just when he was really mad, she would appear from nowhere and smile as if she’d been there all the time… “
As she slept, battered and exhausted from life’s latest storm, his touch conveyed a deeper story. A desperate secret story; the story of his unending, unfulfilled longing for her.
“When they do that, when other men touch me like that, they don’t tell me stories like you do.”
Shocked, he withdrew his hand from beneath her skirt where his fingers had found the smoothness of her thigh irresistible. She stared at him with dark empty eyes.
“You fell asleep and I … I… sometimes wish I wasn’t your brother."
“Well you are. And I never wish we weren’t twins. It’s the only thing that makes life worth living.” She didn’t move but pressed her head a little deeper into his lap, against the warm fullness in his jeans.
Frederic was angry. She always exposed him when he was most vulnerable. Unable to move away, he resorted to words to distance them.
“Then why do you let them do this to you?” He asked too harshly. “They don’t love you.”
“I like it... mostly.” She got up and stood with her back to the fire. Frederic had lit it when he’d arrived to find her alone, shivering in the kitchen of the old sandstone house Sylvia had bought when they moved up to town. “Anyway, this is my fault.” Her look froze him inside, making his breath roughen in his throat as the fire suddenly leaped to consume a log which split and fell into the grate.
“Why is it your fault?” he shot back. He knew very well whose fault this was.
“I thought he might be the one. Don’t you see, none of them can be the one. Deep down I know that and so it’s always my fault.”
He didn’t know what she was talking about but as he looked into her black eyes he could no longer recognise his twin. Her detachment from him sparked a wave of ice cold panic. It rose quickly, bursting into the light of his consciousness from the cold, haunted depths of his being where it shared its shadowy world with the other formless creatures who’d grown strong from devouring the remnants of his shattered dreams of consummating his love for her, dreams he’d cherished since before he could remember. Ever since she’d told him, seven years ago, that she would never go with him to their cave again he’d fallen victim to their unwanted visitations. Like thieves in the night, they’d not only claimed his heart and mind, but also his soul, alienating him from his innocence, his own natural state; disconnecting him from nature, both inside and out, and separating him from himself, his twin, and the possibility of peace and atonement that union with her promised. Every day he felt more powerless to resist, falling so deeply into a black hole of loneliness and melancholy that only whisky could keep at bay.
He felt exhausted, defeated and drained.
“Then what is it that you like, if none of them can satisfy you?” he asked in a desperate tone, a tone she chose to ignore.
“It’s not about satisfaction. That’s not what I’m talking about. But I s’pose I can’t expect you to understand. You’ve never been with a woman so naturally you would think that sex is about satisfaction.”
It was a direct hit, a near fatal blow. The subterranean creatures were in frenzy, tearing the tissue from his bones. He tried, helplessly, to fight back.
“I don’t know why you’re such a bitch. What I choose to do or not do is none of your business. Why has this suddenly become a discussion about my sex life? We were talking about yours, and God knows there’s enough to talk about!” He got up and went into the kitchen. Ice cubes cracked as warm whisky ran over them. He sculled it and poured another. A moment later he stood in front of her, his face nearly touching hers.
“What’s happened to you lately? You were always wild, wilder than me, but you’ve got
so .... so strange. I’m sorry I said that, but honestly, I don’t understand why you do it, why do you give yourself to them when you always end up getting hurt?”
She stared straight through him. “Did you pour one for me?” she demanded.
“Pregnant women shouldn’t drink.”
The fly wire door banged shut announcing Sylvia’s arrival in the kitchen. She came into the lounge still carrying hand-fulls of shopping.
“Frederic, you left the bike in the middle of the drive! I had to park in the street.” She dropped all the supermarket bags where she stood looking from one to the other of her scowling children. “Have you two been arguing?”
“No!” Frederic was quick to reply. “I’m going anyway, so you can get the car in. Not that the old rust-bucket deserves being put away.” He marched outside, picking up his helmet and jacket on the way.
“Well?” Sylvia’s blue eyes stayed fixed on Anna’s as the motorbike engine roared into life. “What did he have to say about it? I bet he didn’t tell you it’s fine to be a nineteen-year-old single mother!”
“Look, Sylvia, I’m not going to kill it just because you think I’m too young,” Anna retorted angrily.
“But you’re not even sure who the father is. If you continue with this pregnancy the child will have no one but you. Every kid needs a father.”
Sylvia was not handling this well and knew it. It was always like this with Anna. They could never just converse, it always had to be confrontation. And now she was making things worse. She really didn’t agree with abortion, and yet she found herself arguing the point. Remembering that Alex had died when she was just a baby and that Anna herself had never really had a father, Sylvia wished for only the second time since coming here, some twenty years ago, that she’d stayed in Austria.
“You know what, your judgements really make me sick!” Anna replied, narrowing her eyes to attack. “You think you know everything but you don’t know anything!”
She hated the way her mother was always so sensible and practical and right.
“I’m going to see Alexandria,” Sylvia finally said, “You can come if you like, but you’d better make sure you’re over your mood if you do.”
Anna adored Alexandria. She was the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen, with the exception of Sylvia. When they were twelve, she and Frederic had stayed with her while Sylvia went to visit her mother and brother in Europe. She was so gentle and sweet natured that Anna had tried hard to be like her. But it was no use, she just didn’t seem to be able to be still for long enough. There was always something, some uninvited impulse, which would drive her out of herself, away from the wholeness of the centre of her being. She could really only relax back into herself in the bath, into the realm of her misty red snowflake.
“No, thanks. I think I’ll have a bath.”
“Hello, it’s me. Call me when you get home.” Anna left her message and went to the bathroom, taking the phone with her. She locked the door, pulled down the blind and lit three candles. Sitting cross-legged in the warm water she stared blankly into space. Her breathing slowed and stopped but she could feel, as always, the air in her nostrils, cool and warm, warm and cool.
It seemed to take longer than usual before the ball of light appeared, sparkling and filling her internal vision with rainbows. It was just like when, in the morning, the sunlight shone through the crystal that hung in the window of her bedroom, illuminating the walls with multi coloured lights. Inside the ball a red star began to shine. It glowed, like a red crystal snowflake, hanging in space before floating down, down on to its white bed. She breathed in deeply and lay back in the water, closing her eyes as the radiant ball grew bigger. Slowly, it drew her, and everything else, into it. The sound of the phone echoing in the moist red air startled her.
“It’s me. Tony. I got your message.”
“Hi Tony, I want to talk to you about something. Can we meet tomorrow? At the place?”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll be there by three. Is that okay?”
“See you at three. Bye.”
She ran some more hot water into the bath and relaxed again, into the warmth of her red snowflake, but Tony’s blue eyes broke her reverie. She pulled the plug and wrapped a towel around her shoulders before getting out.
It’s always their eyes that makes me want to do it with them, she thought. It’s always blue eyes… I can’t tell Frederic, how could he understand when I don’t myself.. It’s good Sylvia’s going to India with Alexandria. She deserves a life and I’ll have a baby soon so that’ll make me into a nicer person. Motherhood does that. I’m sure that’s true. And then maybe I’ll start to be like everyone else and forget about the one who melts me into space with his blue eyes.... I wonder if Tony will like me fat and full of baby.
When she walked around the corner at ten past three Tony was waiting for her under the oak tree behind the old church. It was where they used to meet, when they first started seeing each other.
Anna wore jeans that were getting too tight and her favourite old suede shirt. It had belonged to her father.
“You look great! Have you been on holiday?”
She didn’t like the hungry way he looked at her. Suddenly aware of what she carried within her, her distaste for his attitude doubled.
“I wouldn’t call it a holiday. How are you, Tony?”
“I’m fine, but I’ve missed you.” He put his arm around her and pulled her roughly toward him. Before she had time to think, she’d hit him with her fist in a blow to the side of his head, knocking him off balance.
“What the fuck!?” He swore at her, stumbling backward. She stared at him as if he wasn’t there, turned and walked to the church wall, kissed the bluestone beneath the stained glass window and left.
CHAPTER TWO
Anna sped up the gravel drive leading to Frederic’s wooden shack, missing the verandah by inches. She called out to him from the back door. Beethoven’s ninth was playing at full capacity from the lounge as Frederic sat at his computer, staring at the screen. When she put her hand on his shoulder and he nearly fell off the chair.
“Oh Jesus! It’s you, just a minute, I’ll get the stereo.”
The sudden silence made her feel sick. She sat on the floor beneath a wall of books.
“Sylvia lent me the car. I wanted to see you. I rang but there was no answer, so I just came.” She tried not to sound too melodramatic. Now that she was here, with him, it felt less urgent.
She didn’t come here very often. Frederic usually called in to see them when he came up to uni. Besides, she still felt angry about him moving out and envied his privacy and his luck in having this place to himself, rent free. Everything always worked out for him just the way he wanted. And the truth was, that in comparison to her twin, she felt a complete failure. He was clever, good at everything, and a wonderful musician. She, on the other hand, hadn’t qualified for university, hardly read and seemed to find trouble wherever she went. She had no talent for anything except attracting the worst kind of men.
She sat on the floor hugging her knees. Her wild black hair hid her face. Frederic knew without seeing them that her eyes were full of tears.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” He sat on the floor beside her and waited for her to talk to him.
“I don’t think I’m anywhere near ready to be a parent but I can’t do what she thinks I should do. I can’t kill a mosquito let alone my own baby. I’m so stupid I can’t even support myself, so how can I keep it? I’m such a loser. It’ll have only me for a parent... and what kind of a life can someone like me give a child? God, it’s a child! Another human being. I don’t even know who I am and here I am with a baby growing inside me.”
Her vulnerability was intoxicating. He felt that she needed him again. But the moment was destroyed as soon as he was aware of it. He had done this to her. He had abandoned her to ally himself with them, the other boys at school. In his heart he knew what they were, hunters and predators, yet he wanted them to like him, he wanted to be accepted by them. When she left he sat in the corner under the bookshelves and drank until he passed out.
The alarm went off three times before Anna could get up, just making it to the bathroom before she threw up. She showered, dressed and went to work. After two cups of coffee and a drag on Jenny’s cigarette she fainted behind the counter of the video store.
Sylvia was at her wit’s end. Why hadn’t Frederic been be able to talk some sense into her? She called Alexandria, the only one who could talk to Anna without inflaming the situation, but even she couldn’t get her to see a doctor. When Alexandria arrived at the house, Anna was in the bathroom with the door locked.
