****

My sister is walking away.  Her long legged stride, the confident sway of her hips – a familiar sight tangled amongst buried half-truths.  Broken truths.  Lines that have no beginning, traced and retraced, that might end some day in a defined event.

But not today.

I am standing at the top of the path where I last saw Frances twenty years ago.  The rock pool is still here; the clear water; the seaweed, immersed, swaying as a ripple crosses the surface of the water.  A pool of memories.

Eyes shield from the sun, I take a step forward.  Then another.  My sister was not what you thought she was.  Another step.  My sister… Step.  Was not.  Step.  What you thought she was.  And I begin to walk down the path that Frances walked that day, step by step.  He steps are my steps.  My sandaled feet are making the imprints she must have made.  Today, I am Frances.

The sun is hot on my skin.  It is burning me.  I have arrived at the Jetty.  The spray of the surf stings my over-heated skin.  But it is pleasant.  My eyes flicker over the scene.  The bleached white boards I stand on reflect sunlight at me and I squint.  The sky is cloudless and the white of seagulls contrast starkly against the unbroken blue.  Further down the jetty, fishermen wait with endless patience.  And beyond that, the shimmering ocean surges.

My sister…

I lower my eyes to look at the pylons.  The tide is in and the water is slapping rhythmically against the wood.  Waves crash, spraying up white foam and with it, the smell of salt.  I stand here for a long time, watching the waves: churning, relentless lapping, blue and green.  My eyes, Dorothy’s eyes, blue and green…

…like the lakes of Northern Italy, he says to her.  And Dorothy laughs, gazing up at his handsome face as he dances her wildly through the silent streets.  His breath is hot against her skin.

He loved me.  This much. 

This much.

The newspapers are scattered untidily across the kitchen table.  The clippings are piled neatly to one side.  A small pile.  She is weary and draws a hand over her eyes tiredly.  The clippings are almost done for today.  She only has one letter left to write.  It is an interesting article about a missing boy, and a mother who could not remember where she had left him in the shopping centre.  The investigation had not been very successful.

You didn’t see any strange behaviour from her in the morning?  The officer glances down at the notes he has made.  Nothing at all?

Dorothy shakes her head.  No.

Are you sure?

Agitated, Dorothy begins to play with the strap on her handbag.  No, I mean, yes.

And how long did you leave them alone at the beach?  His eyes bore into hers.

I was at work.  Silence.

Mrs. Silverton, you must tell me everything, he insists.  But she has no more, and can say no more.  There is only silence.  There is only their lives.

We need all the facts, he presses, we must have all the facts to see the whole…

…picture after picture he snaps.  Lightning quick.  Professional.  John Mills has taken up many hobbies after the death of his beloved wife.  Photography became his passion.

He is standing on some sand dunes today, gazing out at the suburban sprawl on the opposite of the beach.  Hearing a shriek behind him, he turns.  It is Frances.  She is playing on the beach with the boys, laughing.

Unusual, he thinks to himself.  The teenagers are usually at the Jetty at this time of day.  There is no one else about.  He hides behind the dunes, and watches, snapping a picture occasionally.

Two days later, sitting in his kitchen with a lukewarm cup of tea in his hands, one thought circles darkly in his mind.  Frances had disappeared.

Do they know?  Do they know about…

Frances…  The policeman says slowly.  Tell me more about her.

My beautiful little girl, Dorothy smiles dreamily, she’s just like me, when I was younger.  And she draws up her dress till the hem barely covered her thighs.

Beautiful legs.  Like a dancer.

The policeman forces a smile.  This crazy woman has no business raising a child.

That will be all Mrs. Silverton, he tells her, averting his eyes. 

A day later the policeman asks around near the Jetty about Frances.

Well if you don’t mind me sayin’…

No, not at all.  Go on.

Well, the general opinion is that she was a bit of a slut.  A bit of a whore, if you know what I mean.  The man pursed his lips.  Poor girl can’t help it though, being raised the way she is by her mother.  He shakes his head remorsefully, then shrugged.

So you’re not surprised by her disappearance?  The policeman asks, intrigued.

Not really.  These things happen to girls like her.  Probably ran off with some boy.  He shrugs again, and leans close to the policeman conspiratorially.  If you look like you want it, then sooner or later you’re gonna get it.

The policeman smiles, and stands up, brushing sand from his trousers as he does so.  Thank you very much Mr. Hunt.  With your useful information I’m sure we’ll find Frances fairly…

…soon the sun would be high in the sky.  I am standing at the top of the path.  Impatiently, I turn around to see my sister running to catch up with me, her towel fluttering behind her.

Wait, she calls again.

I roll my eyes and wait a moment longer.  Then I set off down the path, not wanting to wait any longer.  The sun is warm on my coconut oiled shoulders and the wind whips through my hair.  I am eager to leave.  More so than on any other day, the sparkling ocean draws me towards it.  From here, it is a vast expanse of grey.  An unbroken mirror.

Unknown to Elise, I turn to look at her.  She cannot see me from here, but I can see her.  Sometimes, I think she never really sees me, and never will.

I yell a final farewell but she does not hear.  The wind has stolen my words.

There is nothing more – only the guttural squawks of seagulls circling.  Turning my back to the path, my feet carry me forward into the damp, cold sand of the beach.  And I am walking away.  I am leaving.  Step by step, I am drifting towards the ocean, with the tide, under a cloudless, fierce, blue sky.

****

Commentary  (this was one of the requirements for the assessment task)

This response was created in a manner which seeks to evoke several elements of Georgia Blain’s “Closed For Winter” using fragments of a larger story.  The idea of “the mosaic” is central to this piece and it is the nature of a mosaic or broken mirror that I try to imitate through my writing.

There is no plot, as such, to my response.  Rather, it is similar to a stream of consciousness, linking several key characters (Elise, Dorothy, John Mills, the Policeman and Frances, respectively) in a circle.  By beginning with Elise in the present and ending with Frances’ disappearance in the past, the fragments seek to evoke the entire text while imitating the motion of tracing a pattern.  Within the fragments, there are allusions to some of Georgia Blain’s key images to bring out the full flavour of “Closed for Winter”.  Most of these are subtly embedded between the lines.  For example, the thought that “circles darkly in [John Mill’s] mind” should remind the read of Blain’s image of sharks circling the jetty.

The response differs from the original text in that it is written completely in present tense regardless of whether that particular scene is set in the past or the present.  This serves to give the piece an ambiguous feel about it, as if the dividing line between past and present is perpetually blurred.  To fragment the story, I have written some characters from a first person perspective and some from the third person.  However, the transition between perspectives should not be jolting.  The story is, in fact, symmetrical – Frances and Elise are written in first person, as if they are the same person, and the middle three characters are distanced by a third person narration.

Although I have scenes which are external to the original text, the response is not meant to change the plot, nor does it seek to solve the mystery.  The extension of scenes from the book are simply a creative extrapolation of Georgia Blain’s work and builds on her silences to create a piece of writing that will hopefully get an A+…

(I ran out of time there on the last sentence, and I couldn't think of anything to say so I wrote that bit about the A+ 'cos it was the first thing that came to mind.  *sheepish grin*  I did end up getting an A+ by the way.  Heh.)