The Piano in the Tree

Chapter Eleven

“Oh em gee, I’m like so nervous! How do you do this every night, Maestro?”

Toks gave the kid a smile. Tilda was being ever-so-slightly overloud, her protestations part of her performance, but she was sixteen. Aside from the cows at 613, even Toks hadn’t had the opportunity to conduct a public performance at that age.

The rest of the Jerinja family were less kind.

“You’re full of it, darls.” Magpie poked her tongue out and Tilda stuck her middle finger up. “You’ve done this before.”

“School assemblies and speech nights,” protested Tilda. “All of Nerradja and most of Merribee are here right now.”

“And they’re all looking at tractors and the cattle yards. This is just mums and dads,” Daz told her. “You’ll be fine.” He thumped her shoulder. Tilda rocked to one side, right into Justin who affectionately thumped her other shoulder. Tilda registered all this with the casual disregard of family and turned to its centre.

“Mum?”

Polly dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Don’t let the trumpets run away from you, and keep a leash on that horror on drums. His dad is watching. He’ll show off.”

Tilda wailed, but her eyes cut to Toks’ to make sure she still had her attention. Toks hid a smirk.

“Outdoor venues perform very differently compared to what you’re used to in an auditorium,” she offered. “Lower frequencies will disperse more quickly and high frequencies can be ripped away by the breeze. Your audio team will deal with that, but bear in mind things will sound different for you. Trust in your last best rehearsal and be calm. Your musicians are looking for confident leadership.”

Tilda’s eyes bugged out. “Shit,” she muttered.

“Her musicians are primary school kids,” Magpie drawled.

Toks shrugged. “Toi toi toi.”

“Thanks, Maestro.” Tilda was practically glowing.

Polly turned her by the shoulders and pushed her toward the stage. “Go. Be wonderful. I love you.”

Tilda actually flicked her ponytail. “Love you too.”

She bounced off.

It was another hot February morning and the Nerradja Country Fair was in full swing. High on the plateau above the escarpment, any cool air from the sea didn’t make it this far inland. The day was baking.

After a series of dancing school numbers with Taylor Swift blaring through the sound system, rows of three-quarter size chairs were being set out on a stage in front of them. It was an extension built out from the heritage rotunda – a new addition to the fair Toks hadn’t seen before. In her day, the school choir and recorder groups had performed on the rotunda. There hadn’t been microphones or speakers either. Nerradja was catching up to the real world, after all.

Parents and groups from other local schools sat on the grass as they waited for the next act.

The Jerinja mob had claimed a covered picnic table to one side. Polly sat on the table with her feet on the bench smiling when Toks took the spot beside her. Polly shuffled a little closer. Toks pretended not to notice Magpie waggle her eyebrows at Richard.

Richard Castelli, as casual as Toks had seen him yet in beige jeans and a white button down, nudged Polly’s feet to one side and perched on the bench. Magpie had a roadie in a brown paper bag and was most of the way through it despite the hour. She’d forgone her customary muumuu for a pair of rainbow tie-dyed overalls. She cupped her hands and roared at the stage.

“Go Tilds! Chookas, darls!”

Justin draped his arm over Daz’s shoulders and they watched as Tilda lifted her baton and led her charges into a Justin Timberlake song.

They all winced.

“If Tilda doesn’t go to school and she’s only sixteen, why is she the bandmaster?” Toks asked, eventually.

Polly bumped their shoulders together. Toks took that as a good sign. “There’s no one else. The kids deserve some music in their education.”

“Why isn’t it you?”

Polly blew a tiny raspberry. “I’m not a teacher.”

Magpie put her fingers to her lips and let rip an ear-piercing whistle. “Got this feeling in my body!” she sang, dancing without a care on the green, green grass in the middle of the day. “Polly thinks the kids are freaked out by her scars.”

Toks looked at Polly. She was in the honest, unironic uniform of the true locals at the country fair – blue jeans with holes and worn Blundstones, a white cotton shirt and a vintage Akubra. Her sleeves were rolled down to cover her arms.

She looked… Toks’ mind tumbled into regrets and confusion again. She looked everything.

Red hair tucked behind her ears, wisps of it tickling her chin. That grace Toks had always admired in the lithe curve of her neck. The soft, plush promise of her top lip and the way it curled into a smile.

And that strange, dead straight white scar that tracked down her cheek to the line of her jaw, and the small round circular scar just next to it at the top. Toks couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of accident resulted in scars like that.

“Fuck off, Magpie,” Polly said, gently.

“She’s an idiot, though.” Magpie shimmied and poked out her tongue.

“Drop it, Maggs.”

“Magpie! Really?”

And there they were – the rest of Polly’s family chiming in to protect her, right on cue. Toks, like the stubborn, stupid idiot she was, decided to test it. She couldn’t stop herself.

“It was just an accident, though. I’m sure the kids could understand that.”

The family turned on her like a wall. Justin, Daz, Richard and Magpie – their welcome and kindness suddenly shuttered behind hard, blank stares. Toks felt her blood slow. Polly didn’t take her eyes off her daughter. Toks saw her chest rise and fall in long, deliberate breaths.

There was a long moment.

“Just an accident?” murmured Magpie, finally. “You gonna let that stand, Poll?”

But Tilda’s band finished their number and the parents on the grass in front of them burst into applause. The kids stood and their instruments in front of them, ridiculously happy grins on their faces. Tilda turned triumphantly.

Polly led the cheering, and the Jerinja family swooped to support their youngest member. Toks faced a row of cold shoulders and wondered what the hell had just happened.

When Tilda came bouncing back, she was wrapped in hugs all round.

“You did good, kid.” Magpie melted when Tilda threw her arms around her.

“Thanks Maggs.”

“Excellent work,” offered Richard.

Polly gave her a squeeze, and Justin and Daz both looked like proud parents. Toks felt lost – jealous and resentful, plus a bunch of other things that had no place in the middle of the Nerradja Country Fair. Or anywhere else.

“Maestro?”

The performance had been god-awful, but Toks knew everyone had to start somewhere.

“Not bad.” She smiled harder when Tilda looked crushed. “You should come up to Sydney later this month and sit in on one of my rehearsals. I run a Women on the Podium program you should consider aiming for.”

“Bullshit,” Tilda breathed.

Daz clipped her ear.

“I mean, god yes. Yes, please. I mean, thank you, Toks— Maestro— oh my god, oh my god, ohmygod!”

She danced off – literally spinning on the spot with her arms wide. They laughed, and Toks appeared to be forgiven.

“Thank you,” whispered Polly. The group strolled off to walk the fair.

Polly’s pinky finger brushed against Toks’.

They lost Richard at the market stall of a local winery, then Tilda when Justin found the shooting range.

“I have a good feeling this year, Poll.” Justin clapped his hands and walked backwards toward the stand, rubbing his palms together. “You ready to defend your title?”

Tilda stopped dead on the spot and Toks had to step around her.

“Oh, fuck no,” she declared. “Not again. I am not even here for this shit. I swear, you two have to let this drop.” She pulled her phone out and thumbed at it furiously.

Justin was still grinning a challenge at Polly. Magpie swanned over to the carnie running the stall and handed over money. The man looked resigned but readied two rifles.

Polly cast one sideways look at Toks – embarrassed but alive with whatever Justin was stirring in her too. It was almost as if she was asking for permission, and Toks couldn’t begin to describe the feeling that fizzed through her then. She flicked her fingers and Polly flushed at her audacity. Their eyes met, and Polly grinned then spun away. The carnie put a rifle in her hands.

“Do we have to?” groaned Daz.

“Every. Year.” Tilda didn’t look up from her phone.

“But it’s fun,” Justin protested. He and Polly both put a show into looking offended.

“Yeah, and I end up being the one carrying two fucking enormous bears around the fair all day. It’s hot,” complained Daz.

“They suit you, lover.”

“My friend Shelby is here,” announced Tilda. “I’m going to look at the llamas with her. Good luck, Justin. You’ll need it.”

“What?!”

“See youse.” Tilda was gone.

Toks realised that as much as she adored the family vibe, as much as she thought she knew the Nerradja Country Fair, thiswas new. This had never been part of the fair tradition she remembered.

Daz explained. “Justin used to be an actual, professional sniper. Captain in the army before we both got selected as Blue Berets.”

Toks looked blank.

“UN Peacekeeping Forces,” Daz said. He shrugged, then looked sly. “Ages ago. Solomon Islands, Sudan and your country, actually.”

“Korovinja?”

“He was one of the best.”

“Oi!” Justin’s outrage wasn’t even fake this time. “What do you mean was?”

“Til he met our Polly,” jeered Magpie.

“I might go easy on you this year.” Polly bumped Justin’s shoulder as he took aim at a stack of six tin cans.

“Don’t you bloody dare,” he muttered. He snapped off a shot. He just clipped the top can and it teetered but didn’t fall. “Fuck.”

Polly laughed triumphantly.

“They do this every year,” Daz sighed. “God knows why. You’d think bad memories, but no. They go shooting all the time at home too.”

Polly and Justin both looked over their shoulders. “It’s fun!” they chorused.

Polly looked at Toks, winked, and picked off each of the tin cans, in order, one by one, with perfect shots.

“Fuck,” muttered Justin.

Toks said it too, but for a completely different reason.

Polly won the choice of either a giant stuffed donkey or a hot pink sombrero with beads and tassels – and with one cheeky glance over her shoulder at Toks, she chose the hat. It looked fucking sensational on her and the kissable smirk in the corner of Polly’s mouth and the way her eyes glittered made something tumble and flutter in Toks’ stomach. She almost reached for her then and there when Polly stopped, turned back to the carnie, handed over another ten dollars, took the rifle and won Toks a hat too.

“Matches your eyes,” she said, plonking the outrageously bright thing on Toks’ head.

Toks realised she was going to take that.

She realised she wanted so much more.

She asked.

“I want to hold your hand, Pearlie Paterson. May I?”

Polly’s giggle was a symphony in C major, bright with an opening sixth, then cascading down in tripping, trilling seconds and thirds. Toks heard harmonies and heaven in it, and it hooked in her chest and split it open, and she was helpless under Polly’s smile.

“Since when have you been so polite?”

They were eighteen again and Polly was biting her lip and panting and looking down at Toks as she knelt between her legs and took what she wanted. Toks had never asked, but Polly had never wanted her to.

Toks burned hard right there in the middle of the fair.

“I didn’t know whether—” she started, but Polly took her hand and the world stopped at her touch. “I don’t know—”

Toks had always known. What the hell was this?

“Me either,” admitted Polly.

She stepped closer and slipped under Toks’ arm, slotting herself neatly against the side of her body as if all those years were a heartbeat and the roses had never frozen in the snow.

The brims of their hats collided and they giggled.

She still fit there, absolutely perfectly. Toks could feel her with every atom of her existence.

“Me either,” Polly said again. “But let’s not talk about it now.” A dazzling, lopsided grin. “We haven’t done showbags yet.” Her hand found its way into the back pocket of her jeans, and sixteen years of pain and loneliness Toks would never have admitted to melted into the hot summer air.

The Nerradja Country Fair had always been a tradition with the Paterson family.

Polly had dragged Toks along every year since they first became friends.

Robbie Paterson used to slip them a twenty each – “Don’t tell your mum” – then he’d talk cattle with the menfolk for three days solid. Kathleen Paterson never saw the side-eyes the other women in the CWA hall gave her, but she ruled it anyway, lecturing anyone who’d listen about preserving techniques and kombucha.

Polly and Toks ran amok.

When they were young, it was all about scamming free honeycomb from the beekeepers and laughing at the piglet races. And spending that entire twenty dollars on fairy floss. They would run like wild things through the stalls, drunk on sugar and freedom, and the lazy, casual vibe of the show which meant the adults never pulled them up on their antics.

Later, it was rides and staying on after dark. Toks would sling her arm over Polly’s shoulders and try to look bored and cool in front of their friends. She’d tug Polly under the grandstand and kiss her until they were drunk on each other. The fireworks at the end of the night were actually romantic, and the crash of the explosions punched through Toks body with only half the power as the glow of the coloured lights on Polly’s skin and the glisten on her lower lip.

They were seventeen when Toks finally had her own car – a clapped out Ford Cortina almost as old as she was that she’d proudly purchased with money she’d earned playing classic hits of the 60s at the local bowls club. She took Polly to the fair then, both of them knowing the day was just a bit of fun they needed to get through before Toks took the long road home, stopping at the lookout on the edge of the escarpment. Polly Paterson with her legs wide on the bonnet of Toks’ car, Toks’ fingers deep inside her, starlight in her hair, moonlight on her skin, the sweet, sweet taste of sugar still on her tongue.

The maestro inside Toks wanted to sneer. She stepped around horse shit and ate corn on a stick. A busker played country music through a cheap portable PA that stripped the high frequencies from the music. He leant far too heavily on his auto-tune and she cringed. She’d left this world behind nearly two decades ago – upgraded it to command an elite network of the finest musicians in the world, striding around Europe’s most magnificent concert halls like they were her home, oblivious to the red carpet treatment that had long since become her due.

But the woman at her side confused everything.

Polly slipped away for a moment to whisper to a beekeeper but she returned immediately with two small squares of honeycomb and a cheeky smile. The treat came in a plastic cup with a toothpick these days. They both pulled a face at that. Memories of them licking their fingers, their wrists, their chins crashed against a new sight – Polly with her eyes closed in bliss, her head tipping back, a beautiful smile curling her lips.

Toks never ate anything from a plastic cup.

She’d never played a painted piano in a field either.

It was the second of two old uprights she’d seen around the fair, painted in bold primary colours by kids with even the keys decorated in a rainbow spectrum. This one was standing on the grass between the reptile display and the sheep dogs, a hay bale as a piano stool. A kid was struggling through a Mozart sonatina while her mother held up her phone. Her brother stood nearby and looked sulky.

“Yours?” Toks asked Polly. Their fingers were still twisted together.

Polly nodded.

“There are four of the bastards,” grunted Daz. “Nearly killed myself helping get them off the truck.”

“Go on then, Maestro.” Magpie wore a goading smile.

Toks shuddered.

“You chicken then?”

That was all it took. She was proud and her ego was still bruised from Polly falling asleep during her performance last night. She smiled at the kid and took the upper register.

“Don’t stop. I’ll help,” she told the girl. She improvised some flourishes over the sonatina – the kind of cheesy, showy stuff Mozart would have indulged in too – pausing and encouraging whenever the girl faltered. A small crowd gathered.

Polly leant her shoulder against the piano and watched her with heavy eyes and her bottom lip stuck in her teeth.

Toks gave the girl a high five when they were done and challenged her to a simple repeating baseline – something Toks could really experiment with. Then she began to play in earnest. She flowed between classical masters and movie themes with ease, switching from one to the next with a conspiratorial grin at her fellow musician. The crowd grew and she threw in some Harry Styles and a few riffs for the Swifties.

“Show off,” Polly mouthed. She couldn’t stop smiling.

Toks shrugged. She was in the zone now, and the girl beside her was doing brilliantly. She rounded it off with some Disney hits, then nudged her little helper out of the way and finished up with some ludicrously flashy Liszt, giving the whole piano a thorough workout.

Her audience cheered. For a moment, Toks was taken aback. She was no stranger to a standing ovation, but cheering? The amount of phones held up in front of her made her realise her little impromptu would be on Facebook within moments. A mistake, she supposed, especially in a bright pink hat, but all of a sudden, it didn’t matter. She held out her hands to focus the applause on the young girl and felt something swell in her chest when the kid burst into a radiant grin.

“Bow,” she told the girl, under the cover of the cheering.

“Are you famous?”

A laugh bubbled out before Toks could stop it. “A bit,” she admitted. “You were great. You make sure you practise, okay?”

“Okay!”

Polly slipped under her arm again and pulled her away. “You were dreadful,” she said, her hip nudging against Toks’.

Toks was laughing again. “I was fucking brilliant.”

“Nope,” Polly said, smugly. “Dreadful.”

It was so much like old times, Toks couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

It had been decades since she’d watched a rodeo.

They sat on temporary seating that reminded her of the school playground – right down to the rancid milkshake and dirty footprints on the bench next to Polly. She thought of the private box her cousin kept for her in the Dom Harmonja – the glorious old concert hall in Severin where she kept a close eye on colleagues’ performances when she wasn’t conducting herself. Red carpet. Velvet. Eye-watering ticket prices.

Polly hummed at the mess and shifted sideways. They sat thigh to thigh. Toks had trouble taking her eyes off the place where their legs touched.

Her farm manager – Kerrie, she remembered– was riding.

Apparently Kerrie had skills. She rode her horse around some barrels in a manner that definitely impressed the crowd. Magpie leapt to her hind legs and let rip an ear-piercing whistle with her fingers to her lips. Even Polly stood and whooped like crazy when Kerrie managed some feat Toks didn’t quite understand with a cow and some rope.

Polly had never been interested in rodeo before.

They all gathered to congratulate Kerrie afterwards, though they had to fight past two local news photographers to get to her. The woman hugged Polly, and met Toks’ eyes with a stare even harder than when they’d first met.

Yet another of Polly’s protective guard. Polly came straight back to Toks’ side and Kerrie’s eyes narrowed further. Toks lifted her chin.

She knew her image was slightly diminished by the Mexican monstrosity on her head.

They lost Justin and Daz at the men’s woodchopping.

Polly’s hand was still in her back pocket as they walked the CWA hall.

The brims of their hats kept bumping together. Toks wanted to fling them away so she could get closer.

The CWA hall was full of jams and local wines just like it had been when they were kids, except it was Polly’s lilly pilly gin with the best in show ribbon on it and not her mother’s. Toks squeezed her shoulders and wished a kiss was still appropriate. They strolled the rows of Instagram-worthy iced cakes, and the more traditional plates of fruitcake and lamingtons sweating next to slowly deflating sponge cakes. There were tables of over-sized vegetables, perfect bonsais and exquisite flowers.

The stage at the end of the hall was filled with works by local artists.

One of Magpie’s pieces had a blue ribbon in its corner.

Polly went to chat with an elderly woman wearing a CWA badge, and Toks looked at Magpie’s painting. Her body felt cold where Polly’s no longer touched hers.

Magpie made sure Polly was out of earshot. “Still think you’re the only one who’s hot shit in this town?” she muttered at Toks. “I got pieces hanging in the national galleries of Australia, Canada and the UK, you know.”

Toks didn’t doubt it. The woman’s work was good. It was her attitude Toks didn’t like. “Are you always this much of a bitch?”

Magpie grunted. They both looked at her painting. “I don’t care how ballsy you think you are, darls. If you hurt our Polly again, I will crush you. Balls and all. Do you understand?”

Toks did. It was one of the things she admired about the group of people Polly had gathered around her. They never hesitated to show they’d do anything for her.

Toks didn’t have friends like that.

Who was she kidding? Toks barely had friends.

This whole week was just rubbing her nose in it.

But something wasn’t fair.

“What do you mean if I hurt Polly? And what do you mean again? She was the one who stood me up in Berlin all those years ago. You think that didn’t hurt me?”

Magpie looked like she’d stepped in shit. “Unbelievable.” She shook her head and backed away. “Nope. No way. I’m not even going to listen to that. You remember what I said, though.” It was a definite threat.

Toks did the only thing she could. She lifted her chin and sneered.

Magpie swore and swaggered away between the tables of perfect red roses.

So it was just Toks and Polly, hip to hip as they walked around the rides and hurdy-gurdies, Toks’ mind in the same burnt-sweet twisted mess as the fairy floss they were sharing, when they saw the fortune teller.

“Do you think it’s the same woman?”

“The same witch?” drawled Toks.

Polly shoved her gently. “You were awful to her that day.”

“‘Mira Sne?ana, Psychic Expert,’” she read. “I thought it used to be Madame Mira of the Celestial Veil.”

They drew closer to the fortune teller’s stall. A table of pink quartz and other crystals Toks suspected were probably fake stood unguarded at the front. Madame Mira was too trusting.

“How do you remember that?” asked Polly. “It was twenty years ago!”

“More,” said Toks. “We were seventeen.”

“Were we?”

“You were seventeen. I was the responsible adult at eighteen.”

“You fucked me on the front of your car at the lookout on the escarpment on the way home. That was your responsible?”

“So you do remember.”

“I could never forget—” Polly stopped. The light in her eyes flickered for a moment. “It was our first time,” she said, quietly. “It was—”

“And then the back seat of my car,” murmured Toks. “Together. The moonlight shining on the ocean.”

Polly hummed. She leaned a bit closer. “I hated your car.”

“No you didn’t. As I recall, you pulled me into the back seat plenty of times.”

“Cause I wanted you inside me, not the gear shift.”

Toks laughed. Her hat fell off and she didn’t bother catching it. Polly was so close Toks’ whole body was singing to her. Twenty years ago and right now were a tangled, feverish mess.

She nodded at the psychic’s stall. “Shall we ask her for a repeat performance? I’m sure it’s the same woman.” Something Polly said cut through the memories. “And I wasn’t awful!”

“You called her a charlatan to her face.”

Toks remembered that too. She remembered the whole encounter, clearer than the low quality crystals the woman was hocking on her plastic folding table. It had haunted her for years.

“That’s what I called her in English. I was much ruder in Korovinjan.” She straightened her shoulders. Felt the warmth of Polly’s admiration as she did.

Polly laughed at the sky. “Like I said. Awful.”

She loved that teasing smile. She wanted so much more of it.

“Come on. Let’s do it.”

Was she crazy? Toks didn’t believe in prophecies. She especially didn’t appreciate the way this one had tortured her life. She had no idea why she wanted to do this so much, but she was holding Polly’s hand and begging.

Begging.

Polly gave her a tiny, puzzled frown and nodded.

It was stifling inside the tent.

The swathes of purple velvet that hung around the walls only made the afternoon heat more oppressive. They were threadbare and frayed – probably the same lengths of fabric from twenty years ago, and still unhemmed at the edges. Toks couldn’t hold back a sneer. She was going to make a smart-arsed remark to Polly about it, but drew breath and choked on the incense clouding the air.

She coughed, and felt Polly’s hand gently in the middle of her back.

It touched like fire through the linen of her shirt.

Madame Mira was bored.

She sat at a round table draped in velvet and barely looked up as they walked in. She waved a pay device at them.

“Five dollars per minute, minimum fifteen minute session.”

“You must be kidding.” Toks guffawed and coughed on the incense again.

“It’s your destiny, lady.”

That’s what she’d said last time. Passion, salvation and ruin.

So, she was still a charlatan.

Polly nudged her and Toks tapped her phone on the device.

They sat down. Two plastic folding chairs close together on their side of the table, exactly as it had been twenty years ago. Their knees knocked together.

Last time, Toks’ hand had been between Polly’s thighs under the table, her thumb caressing the bare skin just below those cheeky denim shorts, her finger creeping playfully beneath the ripped edge. They’d laughed about it afterwards, and Toks had let her hand crept higher.

“Who’s your passion, babe?” Toks had crowed. She had Polly’s legs around her waist as she perched on the bonnet of her car. Midnight at the top of the escarpment. A glorious, teasing smugness rolling off them both like the sea mist off the tide.

“Oh, you are so full of yourself. Maybe she meant the piano is my passion.”

“Ha! She hasn’t heard you play. The cello is your instrument, Pearlie.”

“You bitch!” Polly shoved her, but not hard enough to break the connection between them. Her legs caged Toks in. They both knew exactly where this was leading.

“I must be your salvation, then,” Toks pointed out, deepening the mood. She squeezed Polly’s waist. Felt a million volts shoot through her when Polly’s breath hitched.

“In your dreams.” It was a whisper, still shot through with affection and ridicule, but a tiny bit lost now. Polly’s eyes were on Toks’ mouth, flicking from her lips to her jawline and back again, her tongue sneaking out to wet her own lips.

Toks kissed her, long and hard. Making out was something they’d perfected ages ago, but Toks was desperate for more. More seemed so natural. An obvious, inevitable segue, like a cadence linking two movements of a symphony. She slipped her hands under Polly’s t-shirt and found a sharp, hard nipple under her bra. Heard the music of the heavens in the cry Polly made when she pinched it.

Salvation was the right word, she thought, falling into Polly’s body and drowning in the gentle hums the girl made, losing herself in that glorious invitation. Though, perhaps the fortune teller had gotten things the wrong way around. Polly was Toks’ salvation. Polly was the one who truly believed Toks could fly – who listened to her brave, silly dreams about conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and not only encouraged her, but helped her map out a pathway. Toks could do anything when she was with Polly.

She pushed the horrible words the fortune teller had saved for her to the back of her mind. How could this be wrong? How could this sweetness possibly be a curse?

“Ruin,” she panted into the hollow under Polly’s chin when they finally pulled back for air. She knew with her soul that Pearl Paterson was her destiny, but the innuendo was too good to resist. “Then I must be your ruin.”

Polly’s giggle was so loaded with lust it was all breath. “Ruin me, Toks.” Her thighs locked around Toks’ back, her hips tilted up and her head tipped back. She was laughing, but there was so much… so much love in her voice, in every atom of her existence, that Toks knew everything was perfect. “Ruin me as hard as you can.”

This time they just held hands.

Mira Sne?ana spread a few cards on the table. She sniffed but whatever she saw mustn’t have interested her. The whole thing seemed a bust until she asked to read Polly’s palm.

“You play piano.”

It wasn’t a question.

“No,” said Polly.

“Yes, you do.” Madame Mira’s eyes narrowed. She dragged her piercing look from Polly to Toks and blanched. She swept up the cards. A crumpled packet of cigarettes appeared in her hands and she tapped them once on the table like she longed to suck one down right there.

A Korovinjan brand. Popular way before the war. Her father had smoked them. Toks rarely saw the brand anymore, even in Severin.

“I’ve seen you before. I have told you your destiny. Both of you. Nothing has changed.” Her voice was tight. “Your passion, your salvation and your ruin. I don’t give refunds.”

Polly gave a nervous laugh. “You have a good memory.”

“It’s nothing to do with memory. Your aura tells me this as clear as day. Piano, guns, and the woman beside you.”

Toks didn’t appreciate being spoken about in the third person. She switched to Korovinjan. “You’re wrong,” she said, and years of anger bubbled up behind her words. “You were wrong then and you’re wrong now. What kind of a witch are you? You were wrong about both of us.”

It had been funny twenty years ago. A sham. A joke.

Or so Toks had thought.

She’d been cocky – who wouldn’t be after a day at the Nerradja Country Fair with a girl like Polly Paterson on your arm? – and she’d had enough basic, half-remembered Korovinjan to call the psychic out on it.

The word ‘witch’ she’d remembered from the fairytales her mum had read her as a kid. The rest of the swears were words she’d heard her dad use when he was drinking on the verandah at 613 with his friends. Refugees from the old country.

And for a few moments, Madame Mira of the Celestial Veil had given back as good as she’d got – until she’d looked at Toks – really looked at her and seen something Toks hadn’t quite understood.

“So it’s true.”

The woman’s cigarette smoke curled in the air and Polly giggled, not following the language but feeling the change in mood. She’d thought it was all part of Toks’ fortune and Toks never told her otherwise.

But Madame Mira had looked frightened, and that had shaken Toks to her core.

“I’d heard you people were out here somewhere. Didn’t really believe it, of course. Never thought I’d be the one to see it. To see you.”

And even though she’d been confused – stricken by a shame and guilt she knew shouldn’t have been hers – Toks couldn’t resist the joke.

“If you were any decent witch, wouldn’t you have known?”

Madame Mira’s head reeled back like Toks had slapped her. She’d spat venom then, her words branded in Toks’ head for years until she was conducting symphonies in Korovinja, Severin almost feeling like her hometown again. Her childhood language came back to her and she deciphered what the woman had said.

“I’ll give you ‘witch’, you filthy fucking traitor,” Mira had hissed. She’d jerked her head at Polly. “Her fortune? It will be your doom. I curse you.”

‘Traitor’ had been one of the words Toks hadn’t understood. ‘Doom’ was the other. But ‘curse’ was ridiculous enough that she guffawed, cocky all over again, and pulled Polly from the charlatan’s tent and laughed with her until their sides split.

Twenty years later, Mira Sne?ana no longer looked frightened, but her hatred burned just as hot.

“I was scared of you then, filth. God knows why. But all the same, you can get the fuck out of my tent now.”

She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest.

Toks stood. Coolly. This had been a stupid idea. Some part of her had wanted the psychic to tell her she’d meet a rich doctor and have two-point-five kids and a dog. Then Toks could have berated herself for loading twenty years of anguish into a meaningless psychic reading.

“I was a kid.”

“Is your father still alive?”

They were still speaking Korovinjan. Polly was watching them silently. Toks jutted her chin.

“You’re still a rubbish psychic then.”

But she knew what the witch meant now. Regime change in Korovinja had been a bloody, messy business and her family name had been involved. She’d only been seven when it had started and she hadn’t wanted to leave their lovely home in Severin with her books and her toys, her nanny and their servants. She hadn’t understood why they’d fled to the other side of the world.

She hadn’t learned what genocide meant until much later.

But that violent, bloody period of her country’s history had ended sixteen years ago.

“My curse stands.”

Toks held down a hand for Polly. “Your curse is nonsense,” she sneered, but she knew that was a lie. How else could she explain the lonely, miserable mess her life had become? “Let’s go, Polly.”

Tilda and Magpie found them outside the psychic’s tent. Magpie had her arm around that Kerrie-woman, and Tilda bounced alongside a gaggle of teens who all looked the same.

It was still hot. Hot, dusty, noisy and… parochial. And the only thing that made it bearable was the fact that Polly Paterson’s fingers were still twisted in hers.

Polly’s eyes searched Toks’ face.

“What did she say?” she asked.

Gently. Polly was always so caring. The concern in her voice called to Toks like a songline – a path that led her back between the years, skirted around the empty space in the back of her head and threaded carefully over the delicate bridge she’d just built back to her heart. No one had cared for Toks like that in a long time.

“What were you two talking about? Toks? It didn’t sound nice.”

“It wasn’t.” There was no such thing as doom, she told herself. What was a curse, after all? “She’s still a witch.”

She was going to drown in Polly’s attention.

Tilda was high on sugar and country fair vibes. “Oh my god, did you two see the psychic? Not fair.” She pouted. “She’s here every year and I’ve always wanted to have a reading. Mum’s never let me.”

Toks would take Polly to the lookout at the top of the escarpment. She’d tear her own soul out and wring it free of the resentment and bitterness that had darkened it for sixteen years. She’d give it back to Polly – the only woman who had always owned it. She’d forgive her for everything. She’d forgive her for Berlin. She’d forgive her for whatever it was that Polly had thought was more important than the two of them. If the promise in her fingertips right now was real… Toks just wanted more of this – more of Polly, more of the life she’d always thought was going to be hers.

“You’re not missing anything,” she told Tilda. She’d even get used to teenaged attitude, if she had to. “She tells lies in English and Korovinjan.”

“Korovinjan?” Tilda huffed and put on a show of mock-outrage for the benefit of her friends. “Double not fair. I’m half Korovinjan. I should be able to see her too!”

And the songline stuttered and stopped – the final notes of a symphony echoing around an empty auditorium – and left Toks adrift. She was staring at a bunch of red roses brittle in the snow at a train station in the middle of Berlin.

She rocked back on her heels.

“Half Korovinjan?”

Polly’s fingers slipped from her hand.

“Half Korovinjan?”

She’d never asked. Not even her mum on those monthly phone calls in Vienna. Pride? Fury? She didn’t know why not. Perhaps just simple defeat. The woman she thought had loved her had been three months pregnant. It was hard to imagine a crueller sign that something wasn’t any of her business.

But now she needed to know.

“How old are you, Tilda?” Her voice was muffled by the snow. Her vision whited out at the edges. Panic was a slash of red petals falling to the ground. “How old are you, exactly?”

“Um, sixteen?”

“Your birthday!” Toks snapped.

Tilda flinched and everyone else started talking at once. Polly fumbled for her hand again, but Toks snatched it away. Magpie reached for Polly in that protective fucking way that set Toks’ teeth on edge all over again with its damn fucking hypocrisy. The teenagers giggled, and the cacophony of the carnival around them assaulted Toks’ ears and speared into her mind.

“September?” Tilda stuttered. She knew she’d wrecked something. She retreated to the safety of her gang.

Toks counted months backwards in her head and Polly watched her sadly.

“I waited for you,” she mumbled. She was a sensible, rational, intelligent woman and she’d made the same idiotic mistake twice. Fooled by a pair of endless eyes and that gorgeous fucking smile. “You were going to meet me at Berlin Hauptbahnhof and you never showed, and I waited— I WAITED—”

She was shouting. She never shouted. She was Maestro Ksenia Tokarycz and she’d climbed a mountain so few other women had conquered all on her own. She didn’t brawl like a bogan at a country fair.

She reeled the heartbreak in and steeled it into her shoulders. Pulled them straight, lifted her chin high. She used that strength to pitch that ridiculous purple sofa over the balustrade and crashing down the stairwell once more. She didn’t need Polly Paterson and her lies.

“I waited for you and you were off shagging some man? Some other Korovinjan refugee? Good to know you have a type, I guess, Pearlie. You were supposed to be meeting me.” Her voice broke. She sneered. Cold as the snow. The lump of ice in her chest turned to mush in the Australian heat. “We were going to— I thought we were— You promised me—”

She was making a spectacle of herself.

Polly reached for her hand again. “I did! I mean, I was! Toks! I mean, it wasn’t like that—”

But Toks didn’t need this. Not again. She stepped back – the chasm between them as wide as it had ever been.

“Don’t bother. I thought—” she said. She hated herself when her voice choked again. “God. No, just—”

She turned and stumbled away into the crowd.

“Toks!”

The pain in the set of her shoulders as she ran hurt Polly more than she wanted to admit. She knew she should go after her. Grab her and shake some sense into her, but Polly wasn’t sure she had that right anymore. Besides, she couldn’t get away from Tilda and Magpie who closed in tight and watched her carefully.

There was her daughter, ignoring her friends and studying her face for signs. Polly’s gut twisted. Tilda shouldn’t have to worry about mothering her own mother.

“Well, geez darls,” drawled Magpie. “I think it’s really fucked up now.”

“Shut up, Maggs.”

“I’m so sorry, Mum.” Tilda blinked. “She was very, um, commanding? But I thought she would have known. I mean, that just sounded a lot like she didn’t know – and I didn’t know what to say.”

Polly heaved an enormous sigh.

“It’s not your fault, sweetsticks.” She squeezed Tilda’s shoulders absentmindedly, her eyes still darting between the crowds, still looking for Toks’ angry back. “I suppose it is possible that she didn’t know. You’ve seen how incredibly stubborn and single-minded she can be.” She tried a dry laugh.

Neither Tilda nor Magpie looked impressed.

“Pig’s arse,” declared Magpie. “Your trauma was international fucking news for weeks. It’s clear as day that woman’s got her head up her bum, but surely not that far.”

“Maggs.”

“Well, why don’t you tell her, Mum?”

It looked so simple reflected in Tilda’s puzzled eyes. Sure, Polly thought. They’d just sit down and talk and everything would be okay. One nice, civilised conversation and years of pain and spite and guilt and blame would dissolve into history, and they’d be twenty-two again with hope in their hearts.

“She wasn’t interested then,” she managed, more full of bitterness than she wanted to be. “Why would she be interested now?”

“That’s a positive attitude if ever I’ve heard one. Ow. Ow!”

Tilda and Kerrie each thumped one of Magpie’s arms.

This was a ridiculous discussion to be having at the Nerradja Country Fair. Polly ran her hands up through her hair.

“Maybe I don’t want to tell her. Maybe I wanted her to simply know.” To have battled through whatever it took to get to her hospital bedside in that military base in Germany. To have held her hand through the aftermath and never have left her alone with the nightmares. To have pressed her forehead against Polly’s so she could no longer see the horrors that were burned into her mind. To have kissed her softly and promised with all her soul that she would be okay. To have cared less about her career and more for Polly.

“Agh!” She blew an exasperated growl at the sky. “And maybe she did know and has blocked it out. That would be fair. She loves Korovinja. It was her country that tried to kill me. Her own relatives. Her own family ordered this done to me. I don’t want her hating the things she loves.”

“So you’re trying to protect her? You’re an idiot. That woman is big and ugly enough—”

“I’m protecting Mrs T, as well,” protested Polly, knowing in her heart how desperate that sounded. “If Toks doesn’t know and suddenly found out, she’d turn away from Draga too, just like she turned away from me. Toks has only just come home and Draga needs at least one of her crummy kids in her life.”

“Total horseshit.”

Polly ignored that. Her daughter still looked distraught.

“But, Mum—”

A million memories tumbled around in Polly’s head. They slept in the back of her mind, mostly, when she did not. Some of them she drew closer. Some of them she never turned over at all. The memories of her and Toks from before the Incident had spilled to the fore in an avalanche over the last few days, and Polly was a shaking mess before it. She couldn’t do this. She would rattle apart, tearing at the seams, old scars splitting open again.

“And maybe I don’t want her to know what happened to me,” she exploded. An awful, ugly sob caught on the suck of her breath. She shrugged her daughter and Magpie away and tugged the sleeves of her shirt down to her wrists. Wrapped her arms around herself. “Toks used to say I was beautiful – and now look at me. It’s awful. I’m awful.” She clapped her hand over her mouth. She hadn’t said anything so poisonous with self-loathing out loud for years.

Tilda looked appalled.

Magpie and Kerrie both hugged her from either side and Tilda huddled into her chest. They were a sobbing tangle of misery and comfort in the middle of the Fair with only Kerrie staying stoic and giving strangers her best ‘what are you looking at?’ aggression over the tops of their heads.

Magpie sounded choked. “Oh darls, you know it wasn’t your fault.”

“You’re not awful, Mum. You’re amazing. You’re wonderful. And you’re my mum and I love you forever.”

Polly chuckled into Tilda’s hair. The only good thing she’d ever done, and born out of so much terror. She loved that kid.

“I’m okay,” she sighed. “Really, I’m good. You can all get off me. I’m fine,” she promised.

They wiped their eyes and tried to laugh at each other. Polly tipped her head at Mira Sne?ana’s tent.

“I guess she really is just a rubbish fortune teller. All this time, she’s been wrong, that’s all. Toks and I just aren’t meant to be.”

Her ruin, her passion and her salvation.

She wasn’t fine.

The Fair distracted the others and Polly headed back to Jerinja, knowing Toks would be gone by the time she got there. Her cabin was empty. No note, though Polly had been foolish to hope for one.

She filled the Browning T-bolt .22 Long Rifle with shot and blasted the fuck out of the piano in the tree until the light faded and her head was ringing with its cries.