The Survivors(54)

‘He should try telling his laptop that,’ Olivia said, and Kieran heard the sound of a drawer opening and shutting. ‘He seems to spend a lot of time frowning at it.’

‘Wow, she’s already engaged again,’ Mia said. ‘Took his daughter and moved to America with her new fiancé.’

‘That sounds quick.’

‘Yeah,’ Mia said. ‘Reading between the lines of mutual respect here, I’d say he thinks so too.’

Kieran went over to Bronte’s desk. He reached among the art supplies for the torch and stopped. Lying near it was a small pair of wire-cutters and a tiny skeletal sculpture of a crayfish, spun from intricately twisted copper strands. Kieran picked it up and held it gently in his palm, looking at the wire he guessed had come from his parents’ shed and that Bronte had brought to life, almost unbelievably, as this creature. He wondered how many hours she’d spent on it, and suddenly felt very sad.

‘Ash can’t stand George, though.’ Olivia’s voice floated out from her own room. ‘It’s a bit awkward at work sometimes, when they’re both there.’

‘Because of the garden?’ he heard Mia ask.

‘Yeah,’ Olivia said. ‘Which I can understand. Ash tried really hard to buy the place from his gran, but she needed a certain price to cover the retirement home, and in the end they couldn’t make it work. Then George comes along, and he can afford it, fair enough. But when Ash heard he was ripping up the garden, he went to talk to George – professionally, you know – and asked him to consider keeping part of it. George didn’t want to, so Ash offered to do the landscaping himself, at least have a hand in it, but George wanted to bring in some gardener from Hobart. Award-winning.’ Olivia sighed. ‘I feel bad for Ash, but there’s nothing he can do, it’s George’s house. And George tries not to rub it in, and he’s always been nice to me at work. I’m not sure this is quite what he expected when he moved here, though.’

‘But he would have known what he was getting himself into,’ Mia said. ‘Small-town life. It’s not like he hasn’t been here before. I was telling Kieran before how Gabby and I took his writing workshop that summer.’

‘Oh.’ Olivia sounded distracted. ‘Yeah, George mentioned something about that at work once but Mum was there with me so I kind of shut him down. I got the sense he didn’t really remember Gabby anyway. Not well, at least.’

‘Probably not. The groups were pretty big. They were free community things, you know? One-day workshops. So you had tourists and everyone mixed in there.’ Mia gave a small laugh. ‘And we were two fourteen-year-old girls writing stories about running a pony stable. I mean, I never saw G.R. Barlin roll his eyes at my work, but he may as well have.’

A cupboard door slammed and Audrey started in her sleep and began to stir as Kieran heard footsteps in the hall.

‘Chris?’ Olivia’s voice came from near the back door. ‘I’m done in my room. I’ve left my bag out if you want to check it. I just need to find Bronte’s work keys, if that’s okay?’

Another slam, this time the screen door. Renn coming inside. ‘There were some keys in her desk, if you know which ones you’re looking for.’

‘Thanks. Oh –’ Olivia appeared at the door of Bronte’s room and looked surprised to find Kieran in there. ‘What are you doing?’

He jiggled a now wide-awake Audrey in the sling and nodded at the torch. ‘Renn said it was okay.’

‘Right.’ Olivia moved over to the desk. There were three drawers and she pulled open the nearest one. Kieran could hear Mia and Renn talking in the hall but couldn’t make out what they were saying over Audrey’s soft grumbling.

Kieran moved the wire crayfish back to where he’d found it. Bronte had started another similar sculpture, he could see, but hadn’t got far enough for him to tell what it would have been. It lay twisted and unfinished beside the large sketchbook. Still bouncing Audrey, Kieran turned the book towards him, curious now.

‘You should take a look. I think she’d want people to see her work. She was really good.’ Olivia dropped her head as she rummaged through the drawers. ‘She worked hard. I don’t know why I had to be such a bitch about it.’

Kieran looked over. ‘I’m sure she didn’t think that.’

Olivia managed a tight smile. ‘I would have, if I were her.’ She pulled out a set of keys, examined them, then tossed them back in and shut the drawer. She moved to the next one and Kieran hesitated, then dragged over the desk chair and sat down. Audrey was writhing in the sling so he took her out and sat her on his knee while he opened the cover of the sketchbook.

Bronte hadn’t been kidding when she’d said she dabbled in different types of artwork. The book looked like the place where she had worked through her ideas, and the pages were swollen with paint, glue and pencil marks. Kieran lingered over dozens of outlines of the wire crayfish, as well as designs for a sea dragon. Over the page were watercolour paintings of the view of the coast from Bronte’s window. She had taken reference photos at different times of day, and slipped the printed pictures between the pages.

Bronte had definitely been into drawing, and to his eye, she’d been good at it. He flipped through sketches of Evelyn Bay’s town centre, and scenes he recognised from along the cliff path to the lookout. She had also drawn people. He turned a page and Julian stared out from the paper, his face all angles. On the next page there was an outdoorsy young guy Kieran didn’t recognise. A reference photo tucked into the spine showed he had dark hair and stubble and was muscular, wearing just a pair of board shorts. Bronte had focused only on his face in her drawing.