The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant Read online

  The pelting rain had begun to fall again, blown sideways at them by the wind, and Esther silently agreed with him; she couldn’t see the point of this wearisome journey, but John hefted their suitcases, looking at her with anticipation. “Think you can manage it, darling?”

  Some small part of her didn’t want to disappoint him and she nodded faintly, still no clearer as to exactly where they were.

  The walk wasn’t long, but the wind buffeted them this way and that and Esther was obliged to hold on to her hat, a small-brimmed, dull felt affair that did little to keep off the rain. She faltered as she almost tripped on an object on the path and stopped to see what it was.

  The doll lay on its back. Naked. China limbs splayed at unnatural angles. Eyes open, staring vacantly at the sky. A tangled mat of dirty yellow hair strewn with leaves and feathers. Esther stepped over it, feeling as she did, a tingling in her breasts and a spreading warmth at odds with the blustery, chilled air. It was a moment before she realized what it was, bewildered that her body still had the ability to nurture, in spite of everything.

  John strode ahead, his steps unfaltering. He didn’t appear to have noticed the abandoned toy, or if he had, had paid it no heed. Angling her chin down, Esther drew her coat in closer, its astrakhan collar soft against her cheeks, her grip tight on the handbag at her elbow.

  As if sensing she’d stopped, John turned to look back at her. “Not far now.” His expression coaxed her forward.

  She gave him a curt nod and continued on, leaving the doll where it lay. The path ahead wound steeply upward and was pockmarked with shallow pools the color of dishwater. Esther had to watch her step to avoid them. Her shoes were new, barely worn in, not that she cared particularly about getting them wet. The avoidance of the puddles was an automatic action, a force of long habit, like so many were for her now.

  A few steps farther on she glanced up, seeing the grasses on either side of them rippling and swaying, pummeled by the unrelenting gusts blowing off the ocean. Westward, cliffs like fresh scars marked where the land ended, rising abruptly as if forced upward from the earth’s bowels. Huge boulders lay scattered at their base, a giant’s playthings. It was a wholly foreign landscape for someone used to red brick, stone, pavement, and wrought iron.

  “Nearly there, darling.” John’s tone was meant to encourage her, but it sounded a false note. Ersatz, her mother would have called it. And she would have been right.

  Chapter Two

  Aitutaki, South Pacific, February 2018

  Rachel eased herself from the arms of her lover, sliding from beneath the thin sheet, being careful not to wake him. It was not yet dawn, but a waxing moon cast a glow through the uncurtained window. She located her shift, tossed on the tiled floor the night before, and shimmied it over her shoulders, down onto her torso, smoothing it over her thighs. She twisted her long hair into a knot and worked a kink out of her back, twisting and rolling the stiffness from her shoulders. Picking up her sandals, she tiptoed toward the door.

  As she laid her hand on the latch, she allowed herself a single backward glance. He was beautiful: Adonis-like, with skin the color of scorched caramel, dark lustrous hair that she loved to curl around her fingers, and full, curving, skillful lips. Young, as always.

  Closing the door gently so as not to wake him, she stood outside the straw-roofed bungalow and gazed across to the lagoon. The moon glistened on the water, and a faint light was visible on the horizon. On a clear night here, the sky was a sea of stars, with the Milky Way a wide belt arcing across the heavens. She would miss these skies more than the man she had just left behind. She checked her watch. Only three hours until her flight.

  “Rachel!” The Adonis stood in the doorway. He had woken and found her missing. Damn. She’d lingered too long, taking in the beauty before dawn one last time.

  She turned, meeting his gaze. “You knew I was leaving.”

  “Yes, but like this? No chance to say good-bye?”

  “I thought it would be easier.”

  “On you perhaps.” He looked sulky, his lower lip jutting out.

  She tried, but couldn’t feel sorry for him. He was young and gorgeous and would soon find someone else. Eager female research assistants would be falling over themselves to take her place. “You’ll be fine,” she said.

  The sultry climate of the islands, where a permanent sheen of perspiration covered the skin, together with their remoteness, meant that relationships sprang up as quickly as the plants that flourished here. Generally their roots were as shallow, too.

  “Come here?” It was more a question than a statement.

  Rachel steeled herself against the pleading tone even as her footsteps led her back to him. Taller and broader than her, he easily enveloped her in his arms. “I’ll miss you,” he murmured into her hair.

  “You too.” Her voice was brusque, hiding anything softer.

  “Somehow I doubt that,” he laughed. “You have the blood of a lizard.” He released her and placed his palm below her collarbone. “There is a stone where a heart should be.”

  They weren’t entirely unfair comments and she didn’t have time to argue with him.

  “Stay in touch, eh?”

  She gave a noncommittal shrug.

  He kissed her forehead and hugged her once more before releasing her. “Au revoir, Rachel. Travel well.”

  She almost raced along the path to her bungalow in her haste to get away.

  * * *

  An hour later, she burst through the doors of the tiny airport and dumped her backpack at the check-in counter. “Kia orana, LeiLei,” she greeted the woman waiting to take her ticket.

  “Kia orana, Rachel.” She gave her a smile that split her face. The island—atoll to be precise—was small enough that Rachel had gotten to know most of its permanent inhabitants in the time she’d spent there. LeiLei, who did double duty checking in passengers on Air Pacific and mixing fresh coconut piña coladas at Crusher Bar—both with equal enthusiasm—was a favorite.

  LeiLei examined her ticket. “Flying home?”

  “Something like that.” The real answer was a complicated one. Growing up in a military family, Rachel had been to six different schools by the time she was twelve, moving from place to place, leaving friends behind and being forced to make new ones almost every year. She still remembered the name of her best friend when she was five. Erin. Could still recall the curly hair that never stayed in its pigtails and the swarm of freckles across her face. The two of them had been inseparable from their first day in Mrs. Norman’s kindergarten class, sitting next to each other, spending every recess and lunchtime together. Rachel had cried as though her heart would break when her parents told her they were moving away. The next time it happened, she made a deliberate decision not to give her heart to people or places again. It was undoubtedly part of the reason she was still a rolling stone.

  Home had, for a few years in her teens, been Pittwater, at the northern tip of Sydney. Accessible only by boat. She’d loved those years living with the rhythm of the tides, never more than footsteps away from saltwater, so it came as no surprise that after graduation she sought research postings on islands or waterways.

  It was on Pittwater that she learned to drive a small aluminum boat powered by an outboard motor that passed for transportation in that corner of the world. At fifteen, she was part of the tinny tribe, ferrying herself and her younger brother to and from the high school on the mainland and racing their friends across the sheltered waters, something they’d been expressly forbidden to do. She learned to pilot the tiny boat through pouring rain and bustling gales, as well as on days where barely a breath of wind rippled the water’s glassy surface and none of them hurried to lessons.

  She’d learned where to find the plumpest oysters and when to harvest them; where the shoals were shallowest and likely to ground the tinny. To appreciate the beauty of the pearly light of dawn during the solitary joy of a morning kayak, her paddle pleating the water into ripples that
stretched out in her wake. It had been hard to leave and go to university in the city.

  When her dad had retired, he and her mother had returned to Pittwater, to a house built into the side of a hill and surrounded by gum trees and overrun with lantana.

  She planned to squeeze in a week or so with them on her way through Australia, but hadn’t phoned. Wanted to surprise them. Her mouth watered at the thought of her mum’s scones, warm and spread thick with homemade jam. They’d be disappointed she wouldn’t stay longer, but she couldn’t help that.

  Rachel shed lives as easily as a snake its skin, starting afresh somewhere new every couple of years, never stopping to look back. The new posting, to a group of islands off the coast of southern England, was an interesting one—to her anyway. She would be studying the unattractively named Venus verrucosa, or warty venus clam. Another bivalve, if rather smaller than her beloved pa’ua. Clams, it seemed, had become her thing.

  She was to survey the islands, estimating the verrucosa population to determine changes and their correlation to ambient and sea temperatures. She would be entirely on her own, not part of a group as she had been previously, and it was this, as much as the actual project, that most appealed to her.

  The irony that she studied sessile sea creatures, ones that barely moved once they fixed themselves to the ocean floor, when she drifted through the world like weed on the current, was not lost on her. Unlike the clams that cemented themselves to the seabed with sticky byssal threads, she never became attached, to anything, anywhere, or anyone.

  “Safe travels,” said LeiLei, coming around the counter to engulf her in a plump, sweetly scented hug and handing back her passport. “Come and see us again soon.”

  She smiled at her friend, turned, and didn’t look back.

  Chapter Three

  London, Spring 2018

  Rachel arrived in London at the same time as a vicious cold snap. Its effect on her was made worse by the fact that she’d come straight from a sultry southern hemisphere autumn. Before flying north, she had spent a couple of weeks in Pittwater catching up with her parents and siblings. Her parents both looked older than the last time she’d seen them more than three years earlier, although they still appeared to be spry.

  Her father, long retired from the navy now, spent most of his days vigorously attacking the weeds that threatened to engulf their home, attempting to marshal them into the same kind of order that he had once imposed on the sailors under his command. Her mother busied herself with an endless round of yoga, twilight sailing, and baking for what seemed like the entire community. They both lived as if in perpetual motion and Rachel sometimes wished she had half their energy.

  She spent most of her time there on the verandah overlooking the water, reading or watching the bright lorikeets flash by. She and her dad kayaked in the early morning stillness, holding their breath as the rising sun chased away wisps of fog that hung over the water.

  Her younger brother was on the other side of the country, but one Sunday, her older brother and sister drove up from their homes in the city, bringing with them Rachel’s nieces and nephews, several of whom were now well into their teens but still loved to hear her stories of turtles and stingrays, whale sharks and giant clams, particularly the pa’ua. She showed them photographs of Tridacna gigas and Tridacna derasa. “They were introduced from Australia actually,” she explained, flicking through the pictures on her phone. “And no two are the same. A bit like fingerprints.” They delighted in the vibrant purple and turquoise, jade and scarlet, tiger-striped and cheetah-spotted markings of their mantles. “They can live for more than a century and weigh up to two hundred and fifty kilos,” she added as they jostled to get a better view.

  “No way!” Jasper, her nephew exclaimed. He was still young enough to be impressed by such things.

  Later, as they sat outdoors, toasting the last rays of the sun with glasses of cold white wine and slapping away the mozzies, Rachel let herself imagine what her life might be like if she too lived in Sydney. She wasn’t sure if it was a frightening or appealing prospect. She loved her family, but even they could get too much for her sometimes.

  “It’d be nice if you could make it for Christmas one year Noes,” her brother said. Noes—short for “nosey parker”—had been his childhood nickname for her: she had liked to spy on him, torn between wanting to join in games with him and his friends and standing on the sidelines, an observer. “The kids will be gone before we know it and I know it would make Mum happy.”

  “What would make me happy?” her mother asked, stepping out onto the verandah.

  “Coming back here more often,” said Rachel. “Especially for Christmas.”

  “I can’t deny that,” said her mum, placing a reassuring hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “But you have to live your life as you choose. If nothing else, I’m proud we gave you all the gift of independence.”

  “Some of us took it more literally than others.” Her brother was only half-kidding.

  “One year. I promise,” said Rachel, meaning it. She didn’t think either of them believed her.

  * * *

  Now, on a freezing gray day and completely underdressed (she was wearing her lucky T-shirt with don’t sweat the detials printed on the front), Rachel caught the tube to South Kensington, arriving exactly on time for her appointment with Dr. Charles Wentworth. He was the supervisor of the project she was about to undertake and worked in the Life Sciences department at the Natural History Museum.

  They’d spoken via a pixelated Skype call, the connection sporadically dropping out, while she was in Aitutaki, and he’d followed up by email with confirmation of the job and this appointment.

  She found the research offices and presented herself to the receptionist. The room was warm and she felt herself begin to defrost, curling and uncurling her fingers as the feeling returned to them.

  “Ah, hello there, you must be Miss Parker.” She looked up to see the man in front of her holding out a hand in greeting. “Dr. Wentworth. But call me Charles.”

  “Rachel,” she said, getting to her feet and taking his hand. He had a firm grip and cool, dry skin and she decided she liked the look of him. Heavy tortoiseshell glasses balanced precariously on the end of his nose, his shoulders had the slightly hunched look of someone who spent too many hours looking through a microscope and his tie appeared to have some of his breakfast clinging to it. Egg yolk, if she wasn’t mistaken. His smile was warm and genuine and she found herself returning it easily.

  He led her into his office and proceeded to outline the previous study and what it had entailed, handing over several thick manila folders of information. “They pertain to the original work and also outline what we expect you will address in your research, but basically you’ll be looking at this one particular clam and determining any indicators of ecosystem change.”

  “Yes,” said Rachel. “Venus verrucosa.”

  “Indeed. I gather from our previous conversation that you are something of a fan of such bivalves, though I confess, this hardly compares to the spectacular species you have been studying on Aitutaki.”

  As he said this, a dreamy look came over him. It often did, Rachel had noticed, when people mentioned the tropical islands of the South Pacific, Tahiti, Bora Bora, the Cooks . . . Gauguin had a lot to answer for.

  She inclined her head. “Nevertheless, this is equally as important.”

  “Oh absolutely. It’ll form part of a nationwide study on the effects of climate change on our marine life, and the rate at which the increasing acidification of our waters affects their growth patterns.” His eyes shone behind his glasses. “The Scilly Isles are a favorite of mine. If I didn’t have to put my children through school, I’d be down there like a shot.”

  “I’ve heard they’re stunning,” she said politely, noticing that his attention had been diverted elsewhere as he riffled through the paperwork on his desk.

  “Ah, yes, here it is.” He held a sheet aloft and peered at it. “There
’s just a slight hiccup with the funding, but not to worry, I’m certain it will all sort itself out. Paperwork, details . . . that’s all.”

  Rachel felt a faint stirring of alarm. She’d quit her previous job for this.

  “Haven’t quite got it signed off, but it’ll all be tickety-boo in a week or so,” he added.

  Tickety-boo. She hoped that meant what she thought it did.

  “No need for you to be concerned, dear girl . . .”

  Rachel ground her teeth. She was a thirty-five-year-old woman, not someone’s “dear girl.” She held herself in check. Charles Wentworth was her supervisor and she was depending on him for this job.

  “Should I delay my journey?” she asked, hoping his answer would be a negative one. She had no desire to cool her heels in London any longer than necessary. Big cities were anathema to her: they were dirty, crowded, and exhausting. They sapped her spirit and she found herself becoming irritable and anxious the more time she spent in them. London, with its kamikaze cyclists threatening to wipe her out every time she tried to cross the road, and the press of people on buses and the tube in rush hour, made her especially claustrophobic.

  “Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said breezily. “It’s a mere formality. I must say,” he added, sifting through some more papers, “your references are excellent.”

  Rachel had gotten on well with her previous supervisor, and although he had been sad to see her leave, he’d promised to sing her praises. She smiled and sent a mental note of thanks to him.

  “Now, why don’t we talk about what you will be expected to produce. Since you will be unsupervised down there, I—and the higher-ups—will need a weekly report emailed to us outlining your activities and progress.”

  Rachel nodded. “Of course. That won’t be a problem at all.”