The Moon Gate by Amanda Geard

Author:Amanda Geard [Geard, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Historical, General, 20th Century, World War II, Romance, War & Military
ISBN: 9781472283788
Google: OrmSEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2023-04-30T23:00:00+00:00

She came to here from distant shores,

A place I once did know,

She brought with her a silver fox,

A pendant all a-glow.

The pendant. Ben blinked, trying to push his memories from the mine aside.

This office, he knew, had belonged to Marcus Foxton, who had left Towerhurst after Grace and Rose’s departure at the end of the war. It seemed that, one day, he’d put down his pencil – right here – discarding this ballad where it lay. Had it been on the day he left? Who was it about? Rose? Grace? Both? Ben frowned, recalling his interrupted conversation with Ned.

Willow sat on the chaise longue, flicking through a box of notes. ‘Seems Grace Grey fancied herself a writer too.’ She held out a page. It was another half ballad, and by Grace Grey was scrawled across the bottom several times, as if she’d practised taking ownership of the words, which were beautifully written, with a flourish on each G and a long loop that trailed the Y. Ben smiled. The practising of a signature was something he himself had done repeatedly, long before he’d had his first offer of publication.

‘And it looks like she was published.’ Willow passed him a sheaf of clippings from The Bulletin dated from 1941 to 1945. ‘The Lads Who Trained in Brighton’, ‘Knitting for Victory’, ‘When Copper Won the War’ . . . they were all war poems – not of battle, but of life on the Australian home front.

‘And that’s not all.’ From the wall, Willow removed a beautiful painting of a valley, with a patchwork of farmland that rolled to the sea. In its top right-hand corner, it had a dedication – For Grace. Something about the style of the artwork looked vaguely familiar to Ben. In its bottom right-hand corner, the name of the artist written in teeny-tiny text.

‘Puds?’ he said.

Willow glanced up. ‘The boy in the Christmas photos? Both of which, by the way, I can’t find. They must have fallen out of my bag at Sergeant Griffin’s house.’

Even without the photo, Ben recalled the boy’s face clearly; that forlorn look he gave Grace. The painting’s detail was exquisite: fields of grass rippled with texture, coins of light danced on the bay and the low sun had thrown a golden shawl over the landscape’s cool shoulders to keep out the night. It was a moment in time that meant something. Feeling flowed through every careful stroke.

And that feeling was love. Ben appraised the painting, instinctively knowing, deep in his overactive mind, that it was somehow important, but before he could say anything to Willow, she was gone, down the steps and away, saying it was their last night in the house, and the pasta wouldn’t cook itself. He went to the bedroom and slipped the painting into the bottom of his bag. Just another piece of the puzzle that he was sure would one day fit.

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