She had not slept the night before. That was why she felt so strange. That was why her mind kept nudging her with the impossible. The dreams were waiting for her if she slept. She must sleep if they were to go to Drinkwater the next day.

Flora sat on the bed. Clancy was not in it. She did not know where he was. She did not care. She lifted her legs, dress and shoes and all under the sheet. Then pulled the sheet over her head.

She did not sleep. She could not sleep. If she slept, the wrong dreams might come, wriggling like maggots into her brain, so she might even believe her daughter was gone. She would never sleep again. If she had not slept, then Clementine . . .

But, no, her daughter would return.

‘Flora? Flora, drink this.’ Clancy’s hands, his face white and tear streaked. A man should not cry. Why should he cry when Clementine would return soon? But she drank. Bitter. Laudanum.

And then she slept.

It was almost morning when she heard the call. Clearly, over Clancy’s heavy breathing, for he had joined her in the bed as she slept. Perhaps he had drunk laudanum too.

‘Come, Mama, come! Quick, follow me. Come out on the leaves of the waterlily.’

Flora smiled. She had known it, in every fragment of a mother’s love. Her child lived. Her darling daughter waited for her. Clementine wanted the picnic she had been promised, her last picnic before they left forever.

Her child called for her.

She slipped from the bed, still in yesterday’s clothes, the shoes Clancy had not noticed she wore and so had not taken from her feet. The moon still hovered, growing fainter as the sun prepared to emerge. Flora glanced up at it with laudanum eyes. It was beautiful, just like her daughter was beautiful. Her daughter, who called her to see the waterlily bloom, that single flower in this drought-tinged place. Flora ran, smiling through the soft dawn air, up over the boulders, to the pool.

She could not see her daughter, but she heard her voice, there in the lily-leafed pool, with its border of ferns.

‘Come, Mama, come, quick, follow me. Step out on the leaves of the waterlily.’

The single flower was still there. Flora stepped quickly, eagerly, so she was at least a yard from the bank when she began to sink. Her flowered skirts held air, keeping her above the water. But they were only cotton. Slowly, finally, she began to sink. The lily stems tangled about her limbs, but she did not struggle, for in the new clarity the laudanum had given her, she knew there was no need to struggle. She only had to reach out her hands to join the voice that called her.

‘Mama, come quick, quick follow me. Step out on the leaves of the waterlily.’

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Apricot and Walnut Paste