Part 9 (1/2)

'I'll be fine, Granny. I'd like to explore, anyway. Maybe look in the gift shop. Do you feel sick, with CLL, I mean? Does it hurt or anything?'

'Oh, I have my good days and my bad days, Sunny. It comes and goes. Sometimes for months and months I'm as right as rain, and then suddenly I can't get out of bed for days, which is why I have to seize the moment when I've got energy for adventures. I'm slowing down now, though. I can feel it, but it's a peaceful time, too, and right. I plan to slip away quietly, when my time comes. I can already sense how gentle it will be.'

I went out an exit door to the back deck. We were already a long way from sh.o.r.e. I could just see the hazy outline of the city across the water. It reminded me of New York, even though I've never been there. I edged down to the back of the boat, holding the handrail all the way. The sea was calm, but I felt as if the wind might blow me off. It hurt my ears. There was a man in a bluey jacket sitting at a table having a Big M and trying to read a paper that was flapping in the wind.

'Getting a bit nippy,' he said, folding his newspaper under his arm. 'Might head back inside.'

I held onto the cold white railing at the very back of the boat and leant over to where I could hear the engines roaring and see the water churning like a was.h.i.+ng machine. It reminded me of the part in t.i.tanic where Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet first kiss, but then I got off that topic entirely because it made me think about Claud and Buster and how sickening it would be if they actually were kissing. So instead I thought about the Stash-O-Matic and in particular throwing it overboard. I could hear the crunching of metal as it got all munched up by the propellers. And then I had scary imaginings about leaning over too far and falling into the deep dark water and waving like crazy but n.o.body noticing that I'd gone, and having to watch the Spirit of Tasmania head off without me.

When I got back to our cabin there was a note from Granny Carmelene saying she would meet me at the lounge bar on Deck Seven for a c.o.c.ktail before dinner.

When I found the bar, she was sitting at a table in a blue curvy chair that wrapped around her like a clamsh.e.l.l.

'There you are, Sunny. Isn't this lovely?' she said as a waiter delivered two drinks to our table. 'The perfect remedy after a cat nap! How was your exploring?'

'Great,' I said. 'I bought a postcard, even though I'll be home before I get to send it.'

'I ordered a couple of martinis, although yours, I'm afraid, is a mock-martini.'

I didn't tell Granny Carmelene how I'd had a champagne once a at Claud's for her mum's fortieth a or how it made me wobble. I was feeling suddenly uneasy. What if Mum and Dad had spoken to each other and I'd been busted doing my disappearing act? What if they'd called Claud and cross-examined her?

I sat down on the other blue clamsh.e.l.l chair.

Granny Carmelene held up her gla.s.s. 'Cheers, Sunday,' she said as we clinked our martini gla.s.ses together. 'Here's to building bridges and a lifetime of adventures.'

'Cheers, Granny,' I said, and then I just blurted out, 'Whatever happened to Grandpa Henry?'

'Good lord, girl, you certainly know how to spoil a moment!' she said, clunking her gla.s.s back down on the table.

'Sorry, Granny, it's just that-'

'I know, Sunday, I know. You're just trying to piece things together. It must be very confusing.'

'I just don't think all these wonderings are good for my imagination. It makes me think too much about all the possibilities. I'm scared my imagination is going to run out of ideas because I've wasted them all on trying to work out everybody else's secrets.'

'You're absolutely right, dear.' Granny Carmelene took another sip of her drink, and a deep breath. 'Here goes then. Your grandfather, although a charming character in many ways, was somewhat of a ladies' man, if you know what I mean. Quite unfaithful. Although, it turns out, I never knew the half of it.'

I wasn't really sure what a ladies' man was. I thought maybe it meant dressing up a like the men in the Sydney Mardi Gras.

'Does that mean Grandpa Henry wore lipsti-'

'It means, in short, my girl, that one day Henry took off to live abroad with my very own sister a and I never saw either of them ever again. They'd been carrying on with one another for years, as it turned out, behind my back.'

I felt a flash of cold down one side of my body, even though there was nowhere that the cold could have been getting in.

'Was Mum very old?'

'Old enough! Yes, Sunday, she knew all along and said absolutely nothing. It was quite clear where your mother's loyalty was. Not with me, that's for sure. Not with her own mother. And it's the same today, I can a.s.sure you.'

'But maybe she-'

'My dear Sunday,' Granny said, holding up her gla.s.s to toast again. 'May you discover many things, but may you never know betrayal.' Granny Carmelene's lips grew tight and thin, and for the first time I could see a resemblance to Mum.

'So it's not only that Mum isn't forgiving you, but also that you've never forgiven her?'

'Something like that,' said Granny Carmelene, looking away. 'Time doesn't always heal,' she added under her breath.

'Why did you send Mum a present, then? At Christmas.'

'Because years and years of not forgiving is exhausting, and I was hoping to get to you, Sunday. I did it for you.'

It was pretty hard to get over that conversation, I can tell you. Granny Carmelene was all gla.s.sy eyed and inward while we ate dinner, and I felt awful for forcing her to remember things that made her unhappy. I think it's what They call being a killjoy. Still, it was a dead relief to find out the reasons for the divorce. I could see how one divorce could cause another, and how not knowing the real truth could make you get all your opinions and feelings in a muddle. I felt bad for being so angry with Mum. I mean, it wasn't exactly her fault that Grandpa Henry was a ladies' man. And it must have been awful to get the blame. With all those bad feelings inside it's no wonder she's addicted to cigarettes. I wanted to go back to Mum's a to go home a right away, which wasn't such an easy thing to want, on account of being half way across Ba.s.s Strait on a secret adventure. But it was good to feel like home was really home again a even if it did have a lot of new rules and a whiteboard.

I woke to the sound of Granny Carmelene zipping her bag. It felt very early. I knelt on my bed and peered out the porthole.

'We're less than an hour away, Sunny, just enough time for some breakfast.' Granny Carmelene was already dressed. 'Should I meet you down in the cafeteria?' she asked.

I wasn't that hungry to be honest. I still had a tummy full of dinner, not to mention the hummingbird cake we'd had for supper in our cabin, before bed. But I agreed to meet her in the cafeteria because I was feeling super-grateful. Not only had Granny Carmelene finally revealed the answer to the biggest mystery of my life, but she had also introduced me to an entirely forgotten food group. Peas! Can you believe neither Mum nor Dad had ever given them to me before? Honestly, I think I should call the Kid's Help Line. Peas are delicious and perfectly round and really fun to eat . . . but I know I'm on a tangent, so I'll get back to the story. And as if there is anyone reading this who has never tried a pea.

'Bring the map down with you, Sunny,' said Granny Carmelene as she left the cabin, 'so we're clear on exactly where we need to go. I'm thinking we skip the A1 and take the B13. The back roads always make a nicer journey.'

Granny Carmelene took a pair of large round sungla.s.ses and a pair of short leather driving gloves from the glove box. I liked the way she drove the car a sort of too slow, but in a good way that made turning corners last longer. I was more comfortable with her now, and I didn't have to feel bad about not knowing what to talk about, or worry about saying dumb things to stop myself from blurting out things that I shouldn't mention. Finding out the answer to a mystery was just as relieving as getting rid of a secret. It's as though no matter which side of a secret you are on, that secret's got a hook through you, pulling you about, like a fish caught on a line.

I checked the map and directed us out of Devonport and onto the B13. The sun was gentle through the gla.s.s. I closed my eyes and felt it warm my face for a few moments, wanting to go back to sleep. But I was the navigator, so I pulled my attention back to the map so as not to miss the turn-off for Mole Creek. I thought about school and how I was meant to be there and how far away I was from being anywhere at all.

Granny Carmelene eased the car into a park at King Solomon's Caves. We were the only ones there, I guess because it was a Monday and most people do cave visits on weekends.

'With any luck we'll have a private tour,' said Granny Carmelene as she locked the car. 'What a G.o.dsend!'

We bought two tickets for the next tour from Perry, the tour guide. Apparently no one is allowed to go into the caves alone. You might be tempted to graffiti them, I suppose. I'd never met anyone called Perry before, which made me think it could be a Tasmanian name in particular. It happens like that you know.

We were a little early, which is common for on-time people, kind of like getting to see the sun rise while everyone else was still asleep.

Perry told us some facts about the caves before we went inside: how they were discovered (the farmer in the twenties, chasing the wallaby); how they were nine metres below the surface (gulp!); and how we'd be going through a series of natural chambers full of stalact.i.tes and stalagmites which were formed over millions and millions of years from water droplets seeping through rock crystals and minerals back when Australia was part of Gondwana. Then he took us down a narrow sloping path towards the opening, and Granny Carmelene clutched my hand.

The first thing I noticed was the temperature dropping. Maybe we'll all be living in caves when global warming goes nuts? Maybe Osama Bin Laden is onto something with all that cave-hiding although, come to think of it, he's probably all holed up in a Gucci cave with gold-leaf stalact.i.tes. I wondered if I should change my school design project to a cave. Granny Carmelene must have read my mind.

'Is this not the greatest work of art, Sunny?' she said as we made our way between two enormous stalact.i.te columns. They were wet and glistening, as if alive. I touched one and it was cold, which made it seem dead and alive all at the same time. I looked up to the ceiling, which was one of the highest I've ever seen and not at all what I was expecting from a cave.

'Of all our earthly endeavours, Sunny, all the great works of architects and engineers, and artists a to think that this has been here all along. Just think, some of our most respected minds have merely been reproducing nature without even knowing it.'

'Gosh,' I said, thinking that maybe I had inherited the tangent thing from Granny Carmelene. Just like I've obviously inherited a gene for divorce.

'When G.o.d wants you to do something, Sunday, you think it's your own idea.'

It felt like being inside the stomach of an enormous slumbering beast, but one that smelled like rock. The walls were pinkish, which Perry said was because of the iron in the rock. In some places the colour turned more yellow, which was apparently due to calcium. There were stalact.i.tes and stalagmites everywhere, which sometimes looked as though they were dripping from the ceiling, and in other places as though they were melting out of the walls. Some had even joined together to form pillars of curtained rock that you could squeeze through, like a doorway.

We went deeper and deeper into the earth and each chamber was slightly different, and slightly colder than the last. Perry showed us the original entrance in the ceiling where the wallaby had fallen in, and I wondered if the wallaby had ever got out again and hoped it hadn't broken anything in the fall.

Granny Carmelene squeezed my hand. 'Isn't it marvellous, Sunny?'