Free The Year It All Ended by Kirsty Murray Page A

the shawl to reveal the gift that Mama had picked out for Nette and Ray. Nette gasped with pleasure. Standing in the centre of the table was a tall, elegant table lamp with an ebonised stand. Knowing that when Nette was living on Ray’s soldier-settler land at Cobdolga she would have no gas and no electricity, Mama had searched for the perfect light for her daughter’s new home.
    Tiney had always thought of kerosene lamps as dull, functional things but this lamp was exquisite, with a shiny black base supporting a brass column, topped by a finely etched crystal shade. Nette cupped her hands around the crystal. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.
    She glanced at Ray, who was standing near the doorway, looking uncomfortable in his too-tight wedding suit. Ray nodded, as if in agreement, but it was obvious that he was tired of being polite and anxious to leave, to have Nette all to himself. They would spend their wedding night at Tailem Bend, breaking the fourteen-hour trip to Renmark. Then they would begin their married life in a boarding house while Ray built a home for them on the land the government had granted him in the Riverina district near the Murray River. For a moment, Tiney hated him. He didn’t feel like a member of their family. He was a thief, come to steal Nette away from everyone who loved her.
    Ray lumbered across the room, looking first at the lamp and then at Nette. Tiney wanted him to say something romantic, something about Nette being the light of his life, anything that would show that he understood how lucky he was to have her. Ray touched the crystal shade with the gnarled finger of his damaged hand and said, ‘That’ll be a bugger to get to Cobdolga without breaking it.’

Voices of the dead
    On a hot afternoon in late March, Tiney and Minna stepped off the Goodwood tram. A gritty north wind made them shield their eyes.
    ‘I’m glad you’re with me,’ said Minna, consulting the piece of paper with the address on it. ‘Tilda said I had to bring someone with me so that there was no risk of there being five people at the table.’
    ‘What’s wrong with having five?’ asked Tiney.
    ‘Tilda says that Christ was murdered with five wounds. There are five sides to a pentagon and five points on a pentacle, and so five can bring sinister forces into the room.’
    ‘So I’m only here to help out Tilda?’
    ‘We’re lucky Tilda said we could come along at all. Mrs Constance-Higgens normally holds her meetings in public halls and charges admission, but these sessions are private and they’re free. Tilda asked us especially. She said this séance is only for direct communication with people who have lost family.’
    ‘I don’t know that I want to talk to Louis. At least, not like this.’
    ‘Not like this? Do you mean you have other ways of talking to him?’
    Tiney looked at the tip of her shoes and wished she hadn’t come. ‘I don’t think Mama would approve of talking to him like this,’ she said obstinately.
    Minna ignored her. ‘Tilda’s house is over there,’ she said, pointing to a red-brick house behind a high hedge.
    Inside the gate, pointy conifers lined the path to the door and added a funereal pall to the entrance.
    Tilda opened the door. Tall and thin, with eyes too big for her face, she unnerved Tiney. ‘You’re late,’ she said, looking anxious. ‘Everyone else is here.’
    She led them into a gloomy sitting room off a long central hallway. ‘Everyone else’ turned out to be six other visitors. Tilda introduced Tiney and Minna to the group. There was an elderly couple, a soldier in uniform with a girl who seemed to be his sister, a stout old gentleman, and a young woman who looked so pale she might have already seen a ghost. Tiney felt sorry for her, coming alone to the séance.
    ‘Mother is preparing herself,’ said Tilda.
    Tiney took a seat beside the old gentleman, who introduced himself as Captain Oliphant.
    ‘Nothing to worry about, little ladies,’ he said, as