Bart’s birthday and she was so thrilled, she cried.
Three years later, for Mrs Bart’s forty-eighth, Bart gave his wife a rose garden. Full of flora, as it were. I never promised you a rose garden, but I got you one anyway , said the card, which also contained a map and directions that led into the foothills of the mountain. Mrs Bart followed the map on horseback. She arrived at a clearing, which was filled with arose garden that Big Jim had planted especially at the direction of Bart. She dismounted and knelt and—the thrill of it!—all those fragrant coloured flowers. The very special thrill of the map and the ride and the clearing and the roses. Mrs Bart cried and cried and cried.
But on the day after Bart went missing, Mrs Bart did not cry. She paced. And in the days that Mrs Bart spent pacing, her sister, Jan, stayed with Pearl. Jan loved her niece, and happened to be in Goodwood at the time Bart went on his fishing trip of no return. Jan and Pearl rode all day, the horses’ hooves mimicking Mrs Bart’s own feet, as they paced around the paddock, along the river trail, and into the foothills of the mountain.
Pearl struggled to express her sorrow about the absence of her father—and that of her mother, who was gone for five days in the shop, unable to show her grief to Pearl, and hoping always that Bart would be the next one to cause the bell above the shop door to ring.
Jan knew that Pearl, in her own words, ‘didn’t do feelings’. So Jan kept Pearl busy doing what she always did: riding, grooming, pitching straw, bucketing manure, feeding, watering and hanging up her saddle at the end of the day. Of an evening, Jan would hear Pearl out in the stables talking to Oyster, whispering at times—saying in her strange monotone, ‘It’s alright. It’s alright, gentle Oyster’—and Oyster responding every so often with snorts and whinnies.
•
After the divers dived, and nothing was recovered, a simple drowning was still the most popular theory. Mum was convinced of it. He’d tripped and fallen, maybe hit his head on the way over. Or he’d had another heart attack. That was not unlikely. Bart’s heart was known to be weaker than most—he’d already had an episode a couple of years earlier, on the riding trail with Pearl. So maybe he’d had another, this time on his boat, and gone over and under. There was a wind; maybe they didn’t dive in the right spot. Maybe, said Big Jim, the boat had drifted for a long time before he and Merv had found it. Bart could’ve been anywhere down there, for who knew what varied paths him and his boat might’ve floated along.
That was the thing for Mack, though: Bart’s lack of floating. He was known to wear a life vest. He was a councillor, an elected man, a pillar of the community. He had completed a First Aid and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation course through St John’s Ambulance. He drove safely, and offered well wishes, and gave great gifts, and every now and again he’d take a mate fishing with him. Roy Murray sometimes, or Irene Oakman, who also ‘never married’, wore much purple, and was known to prefer the company of women. Irene Oakman said that on the three occasions she fished with Bart, he wore his life vest and had provided one for her also.
So, Mack wondered, why didn’t Bart float?
Pop said sensibly, well, Bart might’ve been floating. There were many marshy banks where no roads neared for many kilometres. The police boats travelled the perimeter as best they could, but in some areas the marshes prohibited access for a good ten metres out from shore. They were matted like brambles and hooked plastic bags and other passing jetsam. The police hadn’t sighted Bart in any of the bends, in any of the marshes, above or under the water. But it was a big lake.
When the Clarke police had finished their search and directed their investigations towards other avenues, many people in town continued looking. Mack did, as did Big Jim and Merv, bald Bob
Three years later, for Mrs Bart’s forty-eighth, Bart gave his wife a rose garden. Full of flora, as it were. I never promised you a rose garden, but I got you one anyway , said the card, which also contained a map and directions that led into the foothills of the mountain. Mrs Bart followed the map on horseback. She arrived at a clearing, which was filled with arose garden that Big Jim had planted especially at the direction of Bart. She dismounted and knelt and—the thrill of it!—all those fragrant coloured flowers. The very special thrill of the map and the ride and the clearing and the roses. Mrs Bart cried and cried and cried.
But on the day after Bart went missing, Mrs Bart did not cry. She paced. And in the days that Mrs Bart spent pacing, her sister, Jan, stayed with Pearl. Jan loved her niece, and happened to be in Goodwood at the time Bart went on his fishing trip of no return. Jan and Pearl rode all day, the horses’ hooves mimicking Mrs Bart’s own feet, as they paced around the paddock, along the river trail, and into the foothills of the mountain.
Pearl struggled to express her sorrow about the absence of her father—and that of her mother, who was gone for five days in the shop, unable to show her grief to Pearl, and hoping always that Bart would be the next one to cause the bell above the shop door to ring.
Jan knew that Pearl, in her own words, ‘didn’t do feelings’. So Jan kept Pearl busy doing what she always did: riding, grooming, pitching straw, bucketing manure, feeding, watering and hanging up her saddle at the end of the day. Of an evening, Jan would hear Pearl out in the stables talking to Oyster, whispering at times—saying in her strange monotone, ‘It’s alright. It’s alright, gentle Oyster’—and Oyster responding every so often with snorts and whinnies.
•
After the divers dived, and nothing was recovered, a simple drowning was still the most popular theory. Mum was convinced of it. He’d tripped and fallen, maybe hit his head on the way over. Or he’d had another heart attack. That was not unlikely. Bart’s heart was known to be weaker than most—he’d already had an episode a couple of years earlier, on the riding trail with Pearl. So maybe he’d had another, this time on his boat, and gone over and under. There was a wind; maybe they didn’t dive in the right spot. Maybe, said Big Jim, the boat had drifted for a long time before he and Merv had found it. Bart could’ve been anywhere down there, for who knew what varied paths him and his boat might’ve floated along.
That was the thing for Mack, though: Bart’s lack of floating. He was known to wear a life vest. He was a councillor, an elected man, a pillar of the community. He had completed a First Aid and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation course through St John’s Ambulance. He drove safely, and offered well wishes, and gave great gifts, and every now and again he’d take a mate fishing with him. Roy Murray sometimes, or Irene Oakman, who also ‘never married’, wore much purple, and was known to prefer the company of women. Irene Oakman said that on the three occasions she fished with Bart, he wore his life vest and had provided one for her also.
So, Mack wondered, why didn’t Bart float?
Pop said sensibly, well, Bart might’ve been floating. There were many marshy banks where no roads neared for many kilometres. The police boats travelled the perimeter as best they could, but in some areas the marshes prohibited access for a good ten metres out from shore. They were matted like brambles and hooked plastic bags and other passing jetsam. The police hadn’t sighted Bart in any of the bends, in any of the marshes, above or under the water. But it was a big lake.
When the Clarke police had finished their search and directed their investigations towards other avenues, many people in town continued looking. Mack did, as did Big Jim and Merv, bald Bob
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