Bereft by Chris Womersley Page B

those boys rarely without a hammer or screwdriver in his grip. He had built bird houses that hung from the boughs of trees and fashioned figurines from wood, each with jagged eyes and mouths scratched out with his knife. When she was a few years old, the two brothers had vied for Sarah’s affection as they might for that of a pet, but William soon retreated to the predictability of machinery and wire. He would watch Quinn and Sarah from beneath a lick of blond hair, leaning against a fence post while their father expounded on something he’d heard from a bloke down at The Mail.
    â€œWere you married, Quinn? Did you have children?”
    He shook his head. Indeed, after losing Sarah, he had found it impossible to countenance the notion of loving anyone with such abandon again, for fear they would be taken from him. Once, there was a girl, Emily, the daughter of a farmer he’d worked for before the war. She was dark-haired, pretty, and had even run a finger down his cheek one long-ago dusk. Sometimes he tried to imagine what she was doing now but was satisfied, almost, with this dream of her.
    His mother sighed. “It is a strange bargain one makes with the gods—that in return for the purest love imaginable one must endure the constant fear that something dreadful will happen to your child, and that it will be your fault for bringing them into the world. The number of times I thought of you. Mothers never believe their children are dead. I have seen it in others, the ones with sons killed in the war. God, it’s awful. Months after they have received those telegrams they still stand at their kitchen windows and watch the gate for a sign of them. I wake in the night. One’s child,” she went on in a trembling voice, “is always one’s child, no matter what age they might be. You worry when your child makes a noise, when he doesn’t. It’s a terrible kind of love. Terrible.”
    An awkward silence followed. Her tearful gaze fell to Quinn’s hand. “Have you brought me something?”
    He handed her the flowers, by now soggy from his grasp.
    His mother mouthed a mute expression of pleasure. She fingered the rosary of camphor balls at her neck. “I’m sorry about the smell. It’s for my illness. This … influenza, or whatever it is. It is supposed to cleanse the air.” And with a gesture that reminded Quinn of afternoons fifteen years earlier when she would secretly spoil him and Sarah with freshly baked biscuits while their father and William worked outside, she flicked one hand contemptuously. “I don’t think it’s doing a thing, but your father insisted. Half the country is dying from it. The half not already dead from the war, that is. He made it himself, you know. He’s very proud of his handiwork.”
    Quinn imagined his father tying the camphor necklace by candlelight with his stubby, soot-stained fingers, applying himself with the same concentration he brought to any task he thought would benefit his family. His throat swelled with emotion.
    She held the lavender flowers to her face and closed her eyes to breathe in their scent. “Lavandula. An ancient flower, you know. It’s mentioned in The Song of Solomon by another name, I can’t recall what. Do you remember the name, Quinn? I’m sure I told you. Begins with S, perhaps. I’ll think of it later, no doubt.”
    Mary dozed, then jerked awake. As though fearful he was preparing to depart, she said, “Tell me where you have been. For all these years.”
    â€œI have been many places, Mother. Where would I start?”
    â€œFrom the beginning. I want to know everything.”
    He paused. “That’s a long time ago.”
    â€œI know. Of all people, I know. Ten years of days. You have no idea.” She spluttered for a minute, then regained her composure. “You know, I used to creep into your room when you were all sleeping—when