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  Her fingers touched his chin and, surprised, he looked up. The expression he saw on her face wasn’t pitying or disappointed. She looked at him as though he was her best friend in the whole world. She looked into his eyes as though she was seeing someone wonderful. She looked at him as though she loved him.

  ‘Then you’ll have a great day today,’ she spoke softly, filling him with belief in her words. ‘We will go down to the river and we’ll catch redfin. We’ll be like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn …Peter Sawyer and Alice Finn.’

  She laughed at the new names, and suddenly the world seemed a better place. Sunshine, a day off school, and the laughter of Alice Lamore made bruised flesh and injured pride seem unimportant.

  He fell in love with her that day.

  Every moment spent with her burned into his memory, so that any time for the rest of his life he could close his eyes and see her that day, hear her voice, and feel the emotions that made him come alive. His life started that day in 1969 when she saved him from the bullies and took him away from school to fish in the Barwon River. Nothing before mattered. Everything after happened because of that day.

  They walked to the Barwon River where the hills of Highton ran down to the slow-moving water, and she climbed a tree to fetch the hand-reel she kept hidden there. She showed him how to dig up worms and bait the hook, and they sat side-by-side on the bank of the river, fishing the morning away. They threw sticks into the water and watched them float past, heading to the sea.

  Ally talked about fishing and the river, about other days she’d hidden out there, and about what it would be like to follow the Barwon River all the way to Barwon Heads where the river met the ocean. She talked about her favourite television shows, clouds, and school. Peter only had to nod or shake his head. She didn’t expect him to talk and he found it comfortable being with her.

  At two o’clock, she pulled in the fifth redfin of the day and, after admiring its colours and carefully touching the red fins, she removed the hook and released it back into the river as she’d done with the other fish.

  ‘I like fishing,’ she told him as she watched the fish flick its tail and disappear into the brown depths, ‘but I don’t like killing fish. Do you think that’s silly?’

  Peter shook his head.

  ‘I don’t like killing things, even fish, but I do like catching them. Hey, I have ten cents. Wanna go home through the shopping centre and pick up some chips and a drink?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Come on, then. Five cents worth of chips, and, if we smile real nice, she’ll give us extra. I remember when you could get two cents worth of chips but they won’t do any less than five cents now. I like lemonade. That OK with you?’

  He nodded mutely. Anything she suggested was OK with him.

  They walked along the edge of the river with the flow of the water until they could see the Shannon Park bridge, then they climbed up onto the road and walked back along Barrabool Road to the Highton shops. They went to the fish and chip shop in the centre of the stores, and Alice ordered their chips while he stood at the back wall, his face down so that the chip lady didn’t try to engage him in conversation. After ordering, Alice motioned him forward and they examined the range of fish behind the glass. The cheapest was flake, which started at three cents apiece.

  ‘Did you realise that flake is really shark?’ she pointed at the big plate of battered flake behind the glass counter.

  He nodded.

  ‘It’s probably all shark,’ she whispered at him and winked. ‘They just give it fancy names so that you think you’re buying good fish.’

  He grinned at her.

  ‘School will be out soon,’ Ally looked at the clock on the grease stained wall. ‘Do your parents expect you home straight after school, or are you allowed to play for a while before going home?’

  It was a question that he couldn’t answer with a nod or head shake, and Peter hesitated as he steeled himself to utter a word.

  ‘P...p…’ he stopped, closed his eyes, pictured the word, and willed it to come out. ‘Play,’ he said with a nod and shrug that implied that it was fine for him to arrive home late after school because his parents were happy if he played with friends. Not that he had any friends. If he was late, it was usually because he was playing by himself or hiding from the bullies who were blocking his path home.

  ‘Then let’s go and play on the swings for a while. Will we do that?’

  He nodded.

  They ate chips in their newspaper wrapping and shared the Tarax lemonade as they meandered around the Highton oval. They walked under the pine trees and she pointed out the haunted house behind the big oak tree on the other side of Barrabool Road. Peter had heard that if you walked up the long, shadowy driveway to the house, awful things could happen to you. Alice said it was all nonsense, but best almond trees in town grew in Hall’s paddock behind the house, and you could sit in them and eat almonds until ready to burst. They crossed the playing field above the oval, and walked along the pathways covered in small blue stones that made satisfying crunching sounds under their shoes.

  ‘I always wonder why they have blue pebbles,’ Ally kicked at the pathway, scattering the little stones. ‘I could understand white or grey or brown, black even, but blue?’

  Peter shrugged and kicked at the stones as well. He didn’t wonder about things like that, but he wasn’t surprised that Ally did. She was unusual.

  ‘I wonder about a lot of things,’ Ally continued, ‘like what’s in the future, and why bad things happen, and where do we go when we die…’

  Her voice trailed off and Peter glanced at her to see a look of utter sadness on her face. He laid a hand on her arm and gave a gentle squeeze wishing he could find a way to comfort her without needing his useless voice.

  ‘Dad says I think too much,’ she took hold of his hand and laid it against her cheek, closing her eyes as she felt the warmth of his skin against her own. She stopped and looked at him, an intensity in her eyes that cut into him, ‘But how can you think too much? Aren’t most problems because people don’t think enough?’

  A shrug and an I guess so look answered that question.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ she went on. ‘I think we’re going to be friends and you’re going to be one of the smartest people anyone’s ever heard of.’

  Peter made a choking noise in disbelief and tried not to laugh, waving away her words with his other hand as though brushing away flies.

  ‘No, I’m serious,’ she squeezed his hand, showing no signs of letting it go. ‘I’ve seen you reading books all the time, and good books, not simple little-kid ones. And look at your eyes!’

  Clear grey eyes gazed at her with curiosity. He wondered what she meant about his eyes. Was there something odd about them?

  ‘They are intelligent eyes,’ she explained. ‘No, more than that; they are the best eyes I’ve ever seen on any boy. Smart, and kind, and nice to look at.’

  Peter felt his cheeks start to heat up as blood rushed into them.

  ‘Have you ever heard about Pygmalion?’ she went on, her conversation dancing and flitting from one topic to another. ‘That’s the book, well, a play, really. The movie is My Fair Lady. It’s all based on a Greek man called Pygmalion.’

  This gave Peter some confidence. He nodded emphatically. He liked reading about Greek mythology. He knew about the sculptor Pygmalion who created a statue so beautiful that he fell in love with her. His mother had taken him to see My Fair Lady which had Professor Higgins as Pygmalion, but instead of sculpting an attractive statue, he created a fine lady from a coarse street seller.

  ‘See, that proves how smart you are,’ she grinned at him. ‘I bet none of the other boys at school know who Pygmalion is. So, what if I wanted to be Pygmalion? Could I make someone’s life so much better that it was like I created them?’

  At the time, Peter didn’t understand what she meant. They were only Grade Five kids, and he hadn’t started using his brain as much as Al
ly, whose mind was ablaze with thoughts, theories, and ideas that seemed more at home in someone much older.

  It wasn’t until sometime during high school, when the stutter evolved to slow and deliberate talking, and he was getting straight A’s on his report card, that he realised she was Pygmalion. She created him. She helped him believe in himself and find purpose in life. She worked with him to find ways to think of his words before saying them, driving the stutter underground. She sculpted his life from a raw block of mediocrity into something beautiful. Only she didn’t fall in love with him. This time, it was the statue who fell in love with the creator.

  ***

  In the Jasmine Garden, Peter knew that he would not remain conscious much longer. The light-headed feeling was pulling his thoughts away into a pool of vagueness. He opened his eyes and glanced below at the woman on the white sheets. Ally’s skin was less translucent, the faintest of pink flushes replaced the blue tinge. That was his blood inside her. His life poured into her, keeping her alive. He felt pleased about that. He didn’t care if she took all his life. If she lived and he died, he knew she would value her own life more, and would not attempt this again. To kill herself would be to kill him as well. She wouldn’t do that.

  He wondered where she was in her thoughts. Was she with him? Was her imaginary lover luring her to her death? Did she wander the streets of that other place that she’d told him about, an entire world of people that offered her an alternative to reality?

  He wanted the rest of the Lamore Crew to arrive so their combined force could pull her back into this world. They needed to convince her that she belonged here, with them. They wouldn’t repeat the mistake of years ago, a mistake that drove her into hiding like an injured dog needing to recover. They would not fail her this time. He should have called them sooner, he admonished himself. It was wrong to wait until she was looking better. He should have called them the day he found her. It was selfish to want her to himself these first weeks as he helped her back from her broken life to a semblance of normality.

  They would be here soon. All of them. He had called them yesterday. They had responded as he knew they would - they were dropping everything and boarding planes to fly to her side from all over the world. Like him, they knew she had created them. Without her, they would have remained stuck in their tiny damaged lives, like sickly plants in an overgrown garden. Ally had been the gardener and the sunshine, the rain and the trellis. She coaxed them out of the shade and helped them grow tall and strong until they were the most spectacular flowers in the entire garden. She supported them until they grew so high that they no longer needed her. Or so she thought.

  Peter knew that, like him, they needed her, and always would. They needed to know she still lived in their world. They needed to know that Pygmalion was still standing by, watching her creations. This was what he wanted her to understand. They needed her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Lamore Crew Gathers

  Sandy L. Martin

  Outside London, May, 2019

  The star’s trailer bustled with activity. Everyone appeared busy, except the central figure who sat motionless and expressionless in front of the mirror, having make-up applied. A young man in nineteenth century clothes read from a script in an overly dramatic voice, as he paced three steps one way and three steps back. An older man in khaki shorts and Hawaiian shirt nodded, occasionally stabbing the air with a finger to emphasise a point about the script.

  At the far end of the trailer, a plump older woman in baggy brown clothes gently pressed the voluminous velvet skirts of a side-saddle outfit, making it ready to slip over the star’s body. A lean thirty-something woman in leopard print tights and a black tee-shirt held up two tiny-waisted nineteenth century ball gowns and examined them closely, looking for any imperfections. The make-up artist, a petite hummingbird of a man, hovered around the star’s face, ensuring his work guaranteed perfection in front of the camera.

  Sandy L. Martin sat serenely, like the calm eye of a hurricane as the activity took place around her. A laced-up contraption encased her body, giving it the ideal pinched-waist of the period, her hair tumbled in a cascade of becoming blonde curls, and she wore tiny leather riding boots modelled after the fashionable footwear of the 1860s.

  She listened to the lines of the young man, mentally adding her own lines which she had memorised weeks earlier. The punctuated remarks of the elder statesman of the group went over her head. Let the young wannabes listen to his views, she thought, she would hear the sound but ignore the meaning, and give a better performance than he could ever dream of giving. He liked to hang around, shoving his interpretation of the script down their throats and reminding them all he had won an Oscar. She tolerated him. He was a frightened, aging actor, snapping at everyone because of his own insecurities and fears about not having a ‘next movie’.

  ‘Lips,’ the hummingbird spoke, rubbing his lips together to convey his meaning.

  Sandy obediently copied his actions, and then froze again so he could continue with his art. He was her favourite make-up artist and always managed to have her perfect for whatever role she was playing. If she was meant to look haggard and exhausted, he created the exact look without regard for her vanity as a beautiful woman. If she was meant to be older than her years, he ruthlessly added years to her face. He was a true artist, and understood that she was the same – he would sculpt her looks to match the role, not her ego. Her character was all that mattered. A cabinet full of awards and accolades in her Hollywood home attested to the fact that she put her characters above herself. She brought them to life so that they lived while she merely functioned in front of the camera to give them life.

  ‘More emotion!’ the older actor demanded in his Shakespearean-trained voice, as the younger man read his lines. ‘Feel your loss! Be the pain! You don’t know if you’ll ever see her again. If you can’t convince the audience of this, you will have lost the entire movie. Feel it!’

  The young actor had a disheartened moment when he thought he’d never get this right, and then he met the cool green eyes in the mirror. Sandy regarded him with her expressionless face that remained frozen for the make-up artist. With the tiniest twitch of an eyebrow, she managed to convey a thousand thoughts. She supported him. She sent him encouragement and hope. She let him know that he was doing a fine job. She pitied the scared old man who saw his career disappearing while the young actors rose to power. She would carry him through the scene, and it would be great. Together, they would make the audience feel in their hearts that he loved the older woman. They would believe his heartbreak over her selfless act to abandon him so that he could find love with someone his own age. It would be a great scene. Ignore him. You will be great.

  He smiled at her, gratefully, and though her mouth did not move, he knew she was smiling back. It was all in her eyes. God, it was no wonder she created such powerful characters, he thought, he’d never felt such a presence. This petite woman was so commanding - she didn’t even move, yet the whole room seemed to rotate around her. He couldn’t believe she was fifty-something. Until meeting her, he thought that any woman over thirty was ancient but she was… he searched for a word that explained it. She was timeless, ageless. He was looking forward to their sex scenes in the movie, something he would not have believed when he first read the script and wondered how he could pretend passion for a woman in her fifties. Now, he was desperate to show her that he was worthy of her. He wanted her to know she could have him. Any time she wanted. Anywhere. All of him.

  The amused green eyes regarded him as though he had said all his thoughts aloud. He couldn’t help himself - he blushed.

  ‘Twenty minutes to the stable scene!’ a voice called from outside the trailer.

  An assistant carried the side-saddle outfit to Sandy and she rose gracefully to her feet, putting her hands above her head so that the weight of blue velvet lowered onto her tiny frame. The assistant in drab brown then took four minutes to button the dress, and a furthe
r minute to adjust the matching velvet hat to a perky angle on her head.

  Slowly, carefully, she drew the gloves up over her hands, so seductively as to have both male actors almost panting with desire at the simple, yet sensual, act. Patting them into place around her slender wrists, Sandy turned to the young actor and smiled. He felt as though the smile punched him in the chest, and he found it difficult to breathe.

  ‘Shall we adjourn to the stables, my dear?’ she spoke to him in her character’s voice, a husky whisper of British aristocracy. ‘I believe you have to convince the camera that you find this aged bird to be desirable.’

  Sandy cocked an eyebrow at him and smiled again, amused by his obvious attraction. All it took was a certain look, an intense, I see your soul expression in her eyes, accompanied by bedroom thoughts that shone out of the ocean depths, and heterosexual men were smitten with thoughts of having sex with her. And not just the straight ones, she mused to herself. On occasion, she had found the gay ones willing to move along that sliding scale of sexuality to bat for the other team if she gave them encouragement. Which she didn’t. She did not need hordes of jealous lovers scattered in her wake, she just liked having the reassurance of their adulation for a while. She may have been one of the most beautiful women in the world, but she never forgot the overweight girl at primary school who was always second-to-last in the choosing of the sporting teams.

  As the handsome young devil jumped out of her trailer and raised his arm to help her down, she flattered him with another of her classic looks - the I want you expression that would have him lusting after her convincingly in the coming scene. As he helped her to the ground, she wondered if he had been a nice boy to the overweight and unattractive girls when he was at school. Would he have spoken to heavily-built Sandra Martin in the playground a million years ago, or would he have joined the other students and laughed at her? His genetically flawless face gazed at her with craving, and she was sure that he would have been one to mock the big girls.