dancing, really dancing, like something from a film, with clasped hands and shuffling shoes and Mummy spinning round and round beneath Daddy’s arm. Mummy’s cheeks were pink and her curls fell looser than usual, the strap of her oyster- coloured dress had slipped a little from one shoulder and nine-year-old Laurel knew that if she lived to be a hundred she’d never see anyone more beautiful.
‘Lol.’
Laurel opened her eyes. The song had ended and the record was turning by itself on the table. Gerry was standing over their mother, who’d drifted off to sleep, stroking her hair lightly.
‘Lol,’ he said again, and there was something in his voice, an urgency that brought her attention to him.
‘What is it?’
He was looking intently at Mummy’s face, and Laurel followed his gaze. When she did, she knew. Dorothy wasn’t sleeping; she’d gone.
Laurel was sitting on the swing seat beneath the tree, rocking it slowly with her foot. The Nicolsons had spent most of the morning discussing funeral arrangements with the local minister, and Laurel was now polishing the locket her mother had always worn. They’d decided— unanimously—to bury it with Ma; she’d never been one for material possessions, but had valued the locket specially, refusing ever to take it off. ‘It holds my dearest treasures,’ she used to say, whenever it was mentioned, opening it to show the photographs of her children inside. As a girl Laurel had loved the way the tiny hinges worked, and the pleasing click of the clasp when it caught.
She opened it and closed it, looking at the smiling young faces of her sisters and brother and herself, pictures she’d seen a hundred times before; and, as she did, she noticed that one of the pieces of oval glass had a chip in its side. Laurel frowned, running her thumb over the flaw. The edge of her nail caught it, and the glass shifted—it was looser than she’d thought—falling out onto Laurel’s lap. Without its seal, the fine photographic paper lost its tautness, lifting in the centre so that Laurel could glimpse beneath it. She looked closer, slid her finger under and pulled the photograph out.
It was as she’d thought. There was another photo beneath, of other children, children from longer ago. She checked the other side too, hurrying now, as she drove out the glass and pulled the picture of Iris and Rose free. Another old photo, two more children. Laurel looked at the four of them together and gasped: the era of the clothing they were wearing, the suggestion of immense heat in the way they were all squinting at the camera, the particular stubborn impatience on the lit- tlest girl’s face—Laurel knew who these children were. They were the Longmeyers of Tamborine Mountain, Ma’s brothers and sister, before they were lost in the terrible accident that saw her packed up on that ship to England, tucked beneath Katy Ellis’s wing.
Laurel was so distracted by her find, wondering how she could go about tracking down more information about this distant family she’d only just discovered, that she didn’t notice the car on the driveway until it was almost at the fence. They’d had visitors all day, popping in to pay respects, each of them offering up yet another story about Dorothy that made her children smile, and Rose cry even harder into the large supply of tissues they’d had to buy in specially. As Laurel watched the red car’s approach though, she saw this time it was the postman.
She walked over to greet him; he’d heard the news, of course, and passed on his condolences. Laurel thanked him and smiled as he told her a tale of Dorothy Nicolson’s surprising abilities with a hammer. ‘You wouldn’t have credited it,’ he said, ‘a pretty lady like her nailing fence palings into place, but she knew just what to do.’ Laurel shook her head along with his wonder, but her thoughts were with the onetime cedar-getters of Tamborine Mountain as she took the post back with her to the swing seat.
Among the mail, there was an electricity bill, a leaflet about a local council election, and another largish envelope besides. Laurel raised her eyebrows when she saw it was addressed to her. She couldn’t think there were many people who knew she was at Greenacres, only Claire, who never sent a letter when a phone call would do. She turned the envelope over and saw that the sender was Martin Metcalfe of 25 Camp- den Grove.