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.
14
Sandy and Rosie Sandilands
THE NEXT MORNING, SANDY SAT at his computer, swearing softly. He was sure he’d read the article in the last couple of years. He googled ‘stillbirths’. He refined his search: ‘stillbirths Melbourne’. There was a lot of medical information but no historical references. He tried again. ‘Stillbirths, Melbourne, 1940–44.’ This search turned up a little historical information, but not what he was seeking. He searched ‘Melbourne Hospital for Women’. Plenty here, but no link to stillbirths. He tried ‘Melbourne General Cemetery’. No information at all, beyond a map that marked out the multitude of reference points for gravesites. Bugger! He knew he’d read somewhere of a memorial service at the Melbourne General Cemetery for parents whose stillborn babies had been buried in unmarked graves.
He got up to find the chocolate biscuits he always kept as a bulwark against frustration, and stood looking out his window. He finished the first biscuit and reached for a second. The early spring sky, blue and cloudless, mocked the parched paddocks. He watched a flock of galahs crowding on the telephone wire, their sheet-metal screeches shredding the air. Of course. Old technology! He’d ring the cemetery. That was his best bet. He hurried to the phone.
‘Yes,’ a woman’s voice responded. ‘There are several neonatal sites scattered throughout the cemetery. They’re looked after by the SANDS group.’
‘SANDS?’
‘Stillborn and Neonatal Death Support. I have their phone number.’ She read it out to him and he wrote it on a post-it note. ‘Now, do you have any information at all about this baby?’
‘As far as I know, the baby was taken and buried without a name. Probably some time in 1941 or maybe ’42. My mother tried to find out once, and the hospital told her that the babies were buried in common graves—no plaques or headstones or anything.’
‘That’s right. You might try the hospital again,’ the woman said doubtfully, ‘although I believe their record-keeping wasn’t too brilliant at the time. There was a war on, remember.’
Sandy thanked her and hung up. He decided that his best course of action was to visit the cemetery. That might give him some information he could work on. He told Moss his plan and asked if she’d like to come. Bored and restless, she agreed.
‘I could help you, and visit Linsey at the same time,’ she said.
When he invited Finn, he was startled at the response. The other man’s face rapidly registered shock and shame. Then confusion.
Finn’s last visit had been to seek out Amber-Lee’s grave, but the sight of the raw mound on the fringes of the cemetery had been more than he could bear. Not far away, elaborate tombstones and well-tended burial plots turned their backs on the graves of the poor and nameless. He had stood beside the mound and promised he’d be back, that he’d rescue her from this awful obscurity. But although he never forgot her, he hadn’t kept his promise. And with this new opportunity, failed to do so again.
‘I just can’t,’ he mumbled in distress. ‘Maybe another time.’
Leaving the small car park that adjoined the main gates, Sandy and Moss went into the gothic-style