Read Online That Devil's Madness by Dominique Wilson - Free Book Online Page B

feeling of being one with nature. But she’d also been afraid it would remind her too much of the times she’d gone to Mount Lofty with Willow in a baby sling, so that she hadn’t done it since Willow’s death. But now she felt she could handle the memories.
    She pulled the glue-backed paper out of her typewriter, trimmed it and licked the back before affixing this caption to a photograph. Willow’s death. Funny how she’d taken up her mother’s way of talking about that horrible day. But Willow hadn’t been the only one to die that day…
    Nicolette remembered little of what happened after the doctor and ambulance had arrived. She’d been numb. Unable to think, to react, to grieve. It was as if every emotion had been turned off. She vaguely remembered neighbours coming over, bringing food, feeding the dog. The bedroom cleaned up, the bed linen changed – who had done all that? Had that been for just a day? For weeks? She remembered someone helping her dress for the funeral – that she remembered. Remembered sitting in church, staring at the coffins, angry that they’d been placed side by side when it was Michael’s fault that Willow had died, but not saying anything, not wanting to hear what the priest was saying because what did he know about the ones he was burying? Then later, back at the house, sandwiches and scones and cups of tea to accompany the condolences, the offers of help.
    Finally, only her and Benji and the solitude she craved. But with solitude came feelings. Anger. Hovering between life and death. Wanting one, then the other. Hating Michael. Grieving for him because she’d loved him so. But most of all grieving for Willow until the pain became so great that she welcomed the numbness back as if a long-lost lover.
    In the end, she’d realised she couldn’t stay there anymore. She’d packed and the landlord understood, and she gave Benji away to a neighbour, knowing he was a country dog, and that he’d be miserable in the city. Besides, the neighbour had young children…
    She’d gone to visit her mother in Adelaide, hoping to reconnect even though they’d never really been close, but she needed to feel as if she belonged – that she was part of a family, a clan. Part of a group that would accept her and love her for who and what she was. The way her Grandpa Louis had loved and accepted her. She wanted to feel that there was someone in the world who would grieve if she were to die. She’d had cousins once, uncles and aunts in Algeria. Why were they not in contact? She’d never wondered about that before. She’d been a child when they’d come to Australia, and in the newness and strangeness of settling in a new country, she didn’t remember asking her mother much about those left behind. Besides, she’d had her Grandpa Louis – it was all she’d needed at time. But her mother would know where they were now, had probably kept in contact. She could write to them, re-establish ties. Surely it wasn’t too late…
    Her mother had insisted she’d lost all contacts with the family left behind. And when Nicolette pulled out the photo albums, she saw they contained only photos taken in Australia.
    â€˜Where are all the other photos?’ she’d asked. ‘Those of before we came here?’
    â€˜I threw them away when your grandfather died.’
    â€˜But why? If you didn’t want them, you could have given them to me…’
    â€˜They were the past, and the past brought us nothing but trouble. Why do you want to dig all that up? Forget the past, Nicolette. I have.’
    Nicolette was stunned by her mother’s attitude, but realised how much of the past she’d forgotten. Why was that? When she thought about it, everything she remembered was what Grandpa Louis had told her. Why did she not have any of her own memories?
    As the days wore on, Nicolette realised she