Page 54 of Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
‘Did you finish your job?’ she asks.
‘Mm-hm,’ he says, and places something rectangular wrapped in calico on the coffee table in front of her.
‘What’s that?’ she says, sitting forwards.
He gestures towards it. ‘Have a look.’
She hardly thinks her father is giving her anything booby-trapped but she does wonder why he won’t open it himself.
‘It was in the shed,’ he says, regarding it with what looks like suspicion mixed with reverence.
The shed is tucked into the corner of the back garden and Cynthia has only been in it a couple of times. It was a temple to her father’s – and, later, Kit’s – attempts to make things for the house and its environs.
‘Are you sure I should look at it?’ Cynthia says.
He nods slowly. ‘I think she’d want you to.’
‘She? Mum?’
More nodding, and now Cynthia’s heart is beating faster, although she has no idea why. What could possibly be in there that would make her nervous?
She unwraps the calico to reveal a leather-covered notebook. Rather, as she can see when she opens it, a sketchbook. The first page bears her mother’s name:Diane Scheffer.
Cynthia swallows, perhaps with anticipation, perhaps because her past, her mother’s past – all of their family’s past – is stuck in her throat, awaiting whatever is in this book.
Turning a page, she sees a drawing of a plant. The shape of the leaves tells her it’s a native – she knows enough about plants now to know that. And there’s a tiny label:White Beard.
Another page over, another drawing:Broad-leaved Geebung. ThenPrimrose Ball Wattle.
The drawings are detailed and alive, and there are at least a dozen in the book. Yet there are no dates to help anchor her, and no sense of what it could all mean.
‘Mum drew these?’ Cynthia asks softly.
‘She did,’ her father affirms.
‘But I never saw her draw, or do anything remotely arty.’
Was it just that Cynthia was a less-than-diligent daughter and didn’t notice?
‘She did them at night,’ he says. ‘After you children were asleep.’
That makes Cynthia feel marginally better.
‘How did she know what to do?’
‘She told me she took drawing classes when she was at school. And the plants she’d draw from memory, I think.’ He raises his eyebrows. ‘She spent enough time with them.’
‘But they’re so realistic. How could she remember all of that?’
‘Maybe she took the book with her on weekends … You know.’
When she was a Sunshine Gardener, he means. While she was gardening she could check her work, or perhaps she drew while she was there. Or perhaps it was neither – she might have taken herself off to the national park or elsewhere to sit and draw, without any of her family members knowing.
‘She had this whole big life,’ Cynthia murmurs. ‘And we knew nothing about it.’
‘I knew a bit,’ her father says gruffly. ‘But not enough.’
Cynthia feels like placing the book on an altar and lighting candles around it, because it feels sacred somehow.
