“You deserve the break after what you’ve been through, Billie. To sort yourself out and relax. Maybe do some tuck-shop duty at school if they have room in their roster.” Her mother sat back and smiled.
“Did you do that? I think you and I will have to have a bit of a talk. I really don’t know that much about you at all. Seems you have a lot to fill in for me.”
“It might be time, yes, I agree. I’ve lived a lie for so long trying to keep the past buried and my family suffered for it.”
“Not really, my dear. The only thing you did was change your name and that’s not a crime.” Father sat down beside her.
She reached over and patted his leg. “You know that, darling, but I do think it’s time to fill in the gaps for Billie. I think she deserves an answer.” Lucy took a sip of her drink and then placed the glass on the table beside her. “It actually feels quite freeing to know I don’t have to keep it hidden anymore. When Ernest dropped me at the station, I caught the train to Sydney and went straight to the Red Cross. I told you how I joined up and went overseas.”
“Mother, I have a confession to make. This watch. Remember how you asked if there was anything else with it?” Mother nodded. “Well, there was. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when you asked but something made me hold it back, training, I don’t know. There was a pile of letters.”
“Oh, Billie.”
“It was wrong of me, I get that. But if I hadn’t had them, I don’t think I would have cracked this open.” She put down her drink, moved over to sit next to her mother. “I’m sorry.”
Mother took her hand, squeezed it. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I’m glad you kept them. I’ve been too scared to read them for years. It was too painful.”
“There’s more you aren’t telling us though, Lucy.” Hamish spoke from his position by the bar. “Eric did share something when I saw him. He said your father treated you terribly. I have to say, for you to take the drastic measures you did and not try to get the estate back when he died, it would have to have been pretty nasty. I think it’s time to let go that burden once and for all, don’t you?”
“Yes, you’re right.” She glanced at Hamish. “Once when I was younger, I must have been about twelve I suppose, I heard him fighting with Mama. They were in the library and his screams of rage filled me with terror but I had to see what was going on. It was worse than anything I could have imagined. She lay on the floor huddled in front of the fire, Papa towered over her, the fire poker in his hand ready to strike her.” She dabbed at her lips with a handkerchief. “I was almost paralysed with fear. Mama tried to tell me to leave but I couldn’t. I ran forward to save her and he struck me.”
Billie gasped. “That scar on your elbow where you said you fell over. He did it, didn’t he?”
Tears shone in Mother’s eyes. “Yes. He broke the bone quite badly in several places and they had to operate to put it back together. They didn’t do a very good job. It still aches in cold weather. After that, he only had to raise his eyebrows at me and I’d cower and do as he demanded. If it wasn’t for Wilz, I’m sure I’d have died in that house.”
“You didn’t though. You got out and survived.”
“Thanks to my sister, I did.”
“Excuse the investigator in me, but I have to ask. Didn’t anyone at the hospital wonder what really happened, how you came to have such an injury? Couldn’t your mother tell someone what he was like and get help?”
Mother shook her head. “It was different in those days. Papa was a great benefactor of the hospital. Nobody would dare to question him for fear of him withdrawing his donations. He’d already labelled Mama and Wilz as mentally unstable to cover up his own madness. I know now that she might have had epilepsy or something very similar because of the fits she suffered. Regardless, my sister was the only one who would stand up to him and for that he had her committed more than once. She suffered the worst kind of treatment imaginable. Poor girl never forgave him for letting them give her shock treatment when there was nothing wrong with her.”
“Did you never question your mother’s death, knowing what he was like?”
“Billie.” Her father implored her with a look.
“Don’t stress so, Frederick. It’s a fair enough question and one I asked myself more than once, especially as I grew older.” She thought for a moment. “I never wanted to think so but the more I thought about it, the more I believed it possible. Especially now we know what happened to Wilz.” A tear escaped her eye. “I blamed myself more often than not, too.”
“What do you mean, Mother? Why would you do that?”
“Because of the way he treated her. I should have told my sister, not kept it to myself. I knew he could be cruel, had first-hand experience with it. The fights they had, it was terrible to hear. Not long before she died, I heard him screaming. Wilz was out on the estate somewhere, I don’t really remember.” Frederick moved over to the other side of her, took her hand, encouraged her to continue.
“I assumed they’d had another
