The Painted Sky Read online

  About the Book

  Nina never knew what happened to her father, the celebrated artist Jim Larkin. One minute he was her devoted dad, the next he’d disappeared without trace. Seventeen years later, she’s still haunted by the mystery. Until a call from outback Wandalla changes everything.

  At first, Nina’s inheritance of a waterless property and a farmhouse stuffed with junk seems more like a burden than a gift. But this was her father’s childhood home – and possibly her last chance to discover the truth.

  So what is the local solicitor, Harrison Grey, not telling her as he hands over the keys? Why does the area’s wealthiest resident, Hilary Flint, seem to hate her so much? What is the significance of the gold locket with cryptic engravings that Nina always wears?

  And why, on top of everything, is she inexplicably drawn to her soon-to-be-married neighbour, Heath Blackett?

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Acknowledgements

  Q&A with Alice Campion

  Reading Group Questions

  A Taste of Wandalla

  The Great Plains

  The Maxwell Sisters

  Mountain Ash

  About the Author

  Copyright Notice

  Loved the book?

  PROLOGUE

  The girl bends forward, legs apart, and rests her sweaty forehead on the cool metal rail of the balcony. In the pre-dawn light the unwrinkled surface of the sea is like steel.

  She strokes the mound of her belly and takes a deep lungful of air. The pains are coming every few minutes now, bursting like fireworks inside her. The next is nearly due.

  She turns and cups her hands against the glass of the kitchen window and peers in. It’s dark. The staff and other residents are still in bed. She needs someone to steady her mind, to tell her she’s doing the right thing. Because she keeps getting this panicky feeling that ebbs and flows with the contractions.

  She bites her lip and squeezes the rail as the pain swells up. She rides it out again and the wave slides away. What follows is the overwhelming feeling that she must run, hide. To protect the baby. It comes from a deep, primitive place she’s never tapped into before.

  I could do it, she thinks. I could tiptoe in and get my case and get out of here. I’d be miles away before they missed me. But go where? Who to? She tastes salt. From the ocean or from her tears?

  The sun is warming the edge of the horizon now. The fire in her body returns. You can’t afford to be weak, she tells herself. You will live through this and then you will leave it behind.

  CHAPTER 1

  Yearning can be like white noise in a life. It can be part of the background hum of thought and feeling in a way that’s barely detectable. Sometimes on the verge of waking we hear it whispering, telling us that something is missing, but then we let the music of the day drown it out.

  So Nina felt it brush across her consciousness, as she lay half-in and half-out of sleep. Then it was lost in the perky chatter of the Saturday morning radio crew and Theo singing along in the bathroom. He hardly ever stayed over, but last night he’d had too much to drink to risk driving his new Jeep.

  Nina placed her feet squarely on the floorboards, grounding herself for the day, then stretched.

  At this hour the tiny flat was dim and stuffy. She padded across the parquet flooring to the old glass doors and opened them. The creamy early morning light flooded in as she gazed across Sydney Harbour to Fort Denison. In the nineteenth century, the island fortress had been built as a grim warning – the primary defence of the young colony. Now the pale grey Martello tower and barracks block were dwarfed by the soaring arches of the bridge and outshone by the Opera House.

  Nina stepped out onto the Art Deco balcony and leaned against a barley-sugar column. She took a deep breath of spring air, feeling lucky as always that this view was hers. She smiled, remembering her mother Julia’s description of the fort as a grey water beetle lying on the surface and the passing yachts as swooping cabbage moths. Sometimes, coming home in the evening, she still expected to hear her mum’s warm throaty voice calling out in welcome. It had been eight long months since she had moved back into the flat where she had grown up, and it was still full of memories and ghosts.

  ‘Okay, I’m off.’ Theo breezed into the room in his expensively casual sports gear, hair tweaked to messy perfection and smelling faintly of her favourite mousse.

  She stepped inside. ‘Have a coffee first?’

  ‘Nah, got to hit the road. Teeing off in half an hour. Speaking of which –’ He leaned forward and slapped her thigh – ‘Look at the wobble on that. That comes from sitting in front of a computer all day.’

  Nina was about to retort when Bach, part-Maltese terrier, part-god-knows-what, replied instead, launching himself straight at his owner’s attacker. Nina laughed as the little dog gnawed at the hem of Theo’s overpriced golf pants that he kept in his man bag in the car boot for nights like this.

  ‘Call off the velociraptor, would you?’ Theo lifted his leg high off the floor and shook it. Bach, hanging by his teeth, refused to give up.

  ‘Okay, okay. Her thighs are perfect. Is that what you want to hear?’ He was half-laughing, half-annoyed now. ‘Here, look, I’ll make up with her.’

  Dragging Bach, still attached to his pants, he reached over to Nina and awkwardly embraced her. At a gesture from Nina, Bach let go and returned to his lookout post on the sofa.

  ‘Mmmm, you smell so good. Wish I could stay. Talking about your thighs isn’t the same as diving between them,’ Theo said.

  Nina pushed him off. ‘You’ll be in enough trouble with Mama if you’re late for golf with the uncles,’ she laughed.

  Despite being 26, the same age as Nina, Theo still lived in his parents’ suburban home, with three garages and a profusion of outsized garden ornaments embedded in concrete. Nina had never been invited inside.

  ‘Hey, Greek mothers are scarier than you and the mutt combined,’ said Theo, pulling her back.

  Nina smiled up at his handsome suntanned face. She’d often tried to sketch him but could never quite capture those full lips and dreamy eyes, the Mediterranean sensuality that had drawn her to him. She reached up, kissed him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  ‘Have a good day.’ His mouth brushed hers and he headed for the door. ‘I’ll text.’

  Yes, she thought as she changed the radio station, he had been a helpful antidote for her grief after her mother’s sudden death. He was sexy, with an entrée into the best nightspots in town, the perfect distraction, and most importantly, he wasn’t needy. She’d had enough to cope with.

  Nina showered and slipped on a pair of pedal pushers and a 1950s roller-derby top. She loved to visit vintage markets on Saturdays and comb through the stalls for treasures. But not today.

  In the full-length mirror, Nina studied her rounder-than-usual backside. Theo was right, she must get more exercise. She’d never worried about her weight before, but in recent months she had let things slide, she supposed. It was time to start getting bac
k on track. She brushed her curtain of dark, curly hair then deftly styled the fringe back into a rockabilly roll. Now she smoothed the sides and gathered her hair into a high ponytail. A bright blue bandana tied in a knot on top, a dash of scarlet lipstick – and she was done.

  Nina didn’t usually work on the weekend but graphics for a new client had to be finished by Monday afternoon. She pressed the ‘double espresso’ button on the machine Theo had given her. The clear light streaming in from the balcony made the place look messier than usual. Shoes thrown in the corner, a thin layer of dust on the wooden mantelpiece and … how long had it been since she’d cleaned those windows? Sipping the strong brew, she made her way to what had been her mother’s bedroom and was now an office.

  Her easel, draped with her smock, leaned against a wall. On the floor was a box of paint tubes, glass jars and brushes. She hadn’t gone near them since she had moved back in. Just the thought of the effort involved in painting exhausted her.

  Nina sank into her chair and clicked over to the staging site. A half-completed page showcasing next season’s shoes filled the large screen. She groaned. She had avoided this job again and again. If she had tackled it when she was supposed to, she wouldn’t be trapped inside on this beautiful spring day, but every time she tried to start, it just seemed more difficult.

  I’ll get to it, she thought. After I’ve had my coffee. Flicking to a news site, she clicked on the entertainment tab to see if there was anything to go to later in the day, as a reward for making some headway on the website.

  Death of Sydney Stir founder Damien Nguyen

  The headline sent a wave of adrenaline running through her. Below the words was a photo she had not seen before. The eight members of the Sydney Stir collective, all wearing white, were posed on ladders, chairs and the floor of a sheet-draped studio. Heart pounding, she scanned the faces. Lying on the floor, bare-chested, wearing just a pair of moleskin pants and a gold locket on a leather thong, was a strikingly handsome young man with dark wavy hair brushing his shoulders, and a dimpled grin.

  There was no mistaking the heart-shaped face. It was her father, Jim. His smile had a wry self-conscious twist to it as though he were laughing at the joke of being famous.

  The Australian art scene has lost yet another member of the celebrated but ill-fated Sydney Stir collective.

  Police confirmed that a body found floating in Sydney Harbour last night was that of Damien Nguyen, 45, one of the eight original members of the early-1990s movement. His body was discovered off Watsons Bay. His death is not being treated as suspicious.

  Nguyen is the third original Stir member in as many years to have died. Jenny Locke’s overdose last year and Dmitri Vassilov’s death from AIDS-related illnesses both came as the movement’s work was being favourably reassessed by critics.

  Fighting against the prevailing nihilism of the time, the group championed a new and uniquely Australian vision that brought spirituality and sensuality together in vivid and kinetic ways. The sinuous lines and the juxtaposition of the human form in the Australian landscape were signature features …

  Nina skipped down the page and found a sub-heading: Where are they now? The words began to swim and she swallowed hard and tried to slow her breathing.

  Martin Whit, probably the most successful of the group, is scheduled to show his latest collection this northern winter at the West Side Gallery in New York. His paintings of twisted gum trees melded with human limbs commanded high prices at last year’s …

  Nina scanned through the latest on David Wirijunya, Vanessa Strong and Elena Rossi, looking for one name only. There it was.

  Jim Larkin was heralded as one of the movement’s brightest lights during its early years. His moody, almost bi-polar series featuring Sydney Harbour was well received, displaying an incredible burst of creativity for such a young artist. But later efforts did not garner the same response from critics and he gradually faded from sight. He was reported missing in 1997, aged 29.

  That was it. Her father’s whole career compressed into a single paragraph. ‘Where are you, Dad?’ Nina whispered to herself. ‘I’m all alone now. I need you.’ She scrolled back to the photograph and clasped the gold locket that now hung around her own neck. She had inherited so much from him, the curly brown hair, the dimples and the deep-green eyes. But in some ways he had left her nothing. She remembered searching through family albums when she was about ten, after his disappearance, hungrily looking for likenesses. Her favourite photo was of the three of them lying in the grass on his family’s property. She lay on his back, her chin propped on the top of his head, their cheeky grins identical.

  She had seen how hard her mother had tried to fill the gap after he had disappeared 17 years ago, but the questions and the empty space inside her remained. The police investigation had come to nothing. If he’d died she could have mourned him properly, as she had Julia. But he had just fallen off the edge of the earth, and now there was no witness to her childhood left – no-one to share family in-jokes and Christmasses.

  She stood and strolled restlessly back into the living room. Her favourite painting of her dad’s had pride of place above the mantelpiece. It showed the ruins of an old mansion, the broken walls painted with rough, bruise-coloured brushstrokes making it look almost menacing. In the foreground stood an ornate stone fountain and a tree. In the distance a faint male figure walked away, towards the open plains beyond. Though the man’s face could not be seen, Nina had long ago decided this figure was her father. She had always wanted to step into that picture and follow.

  She remembered asking her father when he was painting it who the man was and he had looked at her with an unusual seriousness.

  ‘He’s whoever you want him to be, Nina. But you’re never going to catch up with him.’

  Now, she stood blinking at the canvas as the surge of yearning rose again, filling her chest and throat. She yearned for her family. Nina pressed the heels of her hands against her wet eyes. She should be over this by now.

  ‘Where are you, Dad?’ she whispered. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Have you finished the wireframes, Nina?’

  ‘Huh?’ Nina said, absorbed by her computer screen. She’d figured out how to make a pair of glass stilettos stride along a wall of skyscrapers and she didn’t want to stop now.

  ‘Have you linked the designs to the wireframes for the site? You said they’d be ready this morning. I’m not your personal assistant, you know. I’ve got my own stuff to do.’

  ‘Oh god, Zac. I’m so sorry.’ Her fellow designer’s reddening complexion was not just a trick of the light. ‘There they are.’ She pointed at a file on the screen but her elbow upended a full cup of cold coffee, splattering the desk and Zac’s jeans.

  ‘Shit!’ Zac brushed himself down with his hands. ‘Just what I need. Coffee all over me and a meeting with Helen in ten minutes! And it’s Monday. And you know how she is on Mondays.’

  Helen appeared in her office door, eyebrows raised. She ignored Zac and spoke to Nina. ‘Look, my mood might improve if this Footsie Index campaign hits the mark. What’s this?’ She pulled her orange glasses down off a piled mass of curls to peer at Nina’s screen.

  Nina sighed. Helen had been very supportive when her mum had died. But lately it seemed as though she couldn’t do anything right.

  ‘I was just playing around with ideas for the opener. If we had these stilettos stamping all over the –’

  ‘No. Far too much – they don’t have the budget. I’m sorry, Nina. Can you just follow the brief for once? And you –’ Helen turned to Zac – ‘de-coffee yourself before the meeting. Oh my god, what the hell is that racket?’

  Nina’s mobile was yapping as if Bach were in her handbag. ‘Sorry, it’s mine,’ she said, rummaging for it. ‘I’ll take it in the lunch-room and sort the wireframes ASAP.’

  ‘Chop, chop,’ said Helen, clapping her hands.

  ‘Hello?’ Nina closed the lunch-room door behind her with relief.

/>   ‘Nina Larkin? Good morning, it’s Harrison Grey. Sorry it’s been so long. Good news; probate has come through and I think I have a buyer for you.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘For your uncle’s property. You know, The Springs?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sorry, of course.’ Nina sat down on the lunch table. More issues.

  A few months ago a formal letter from Harrison Grey, the solicitor in Wandalla, had arrived, advising that her Uncle Russell had died and that she was the sole beneficiary of his estate. She’d been eight when she’d last seen Russell, her father’s brother, and remembered him as a hairy man who was always up for a card game when no-one else would play.

  The Springs. She remembered the big sky, heat, grey dust and weathered timber fence posts. It was so far away, more than ten hours’ drive north-west of Sydney. Nina had asked Harrison Grey to put the house on the market once probate had come through. Since then, with Julia’s unexpected death, she’d heard nothing and hadn’t thought to chase it up.

  ‘The offer’s very fair,’ Harrison was saying. ‘I can have it off your hands in a few weeks.’

  ‘Hold on. Let me think for a second,’ Nina said.

  ‘You don’t want to let an opportunity like this go by,’ said Harrison, with more urgency. ‘The offers don’t exactly pour in for a place like this. There’s no water on the property, the house is a wreck, and the fences not much better. You’ll want to close the deal.’