The Water Diviner Read Online Free Page A

Not dead.’
    Connor read to comfort her. It seemed to be the only thing he could do to help. Within a fortnight the second telegram arrived; young Edward had gone missing on the same day as his brother. The message had been lost, sent to a Connor family in Queensland. Connor imagined the relief that family felt when they realised the telegram was not for them. He wanted dearly, desperately to be that Mr Connor of Brisbane.
    When Lizzie saw the postmaster arriving at the front of the house with a third piece of pink paper clutched solemnly in his hand, she ran out the back door, pulling at Connor’s arm and begging him to hide too.
    ‘Don’t let him deliver it. If he can’t deliver it it can’t be true.’
    All three boys had been lost on the same day. Connor is certain that it was the cruelty of the disjointed arrival of the letters that began to unhinge Lizzie. Each time the couple held one another on the bed. Lizzie wailed until she was hoarse and her eyes were too bruised to cry. He shook uncontrollably; swallowing his grief and feeling it ricochet through his chest bruising his ribcage from the inside. By the third telegram he was too shell-shocked to grieve properly. He read Arthur’s name with grim resignation, gave one involuntary guttural cry and waited for the flood of emotion. It did not come. He was cauterised from the inside out.
    For the next year Lizzie lived in sleepless limbo.
    ‘I’m
presuming
they are not dead. That’s what the letters say. Missing. Not dead,’ she would declare whenever he made the mistake of speaking about any of the boys in the past tense.
    Initially Connor read to an empty room to offer Lizzie some peace. When he tried to give it away she shrieked at him and accused him of wanting the boys dead. He realised that for her the storytelling had transcended comfort and was now a liturgy, in the same way the shoe polishing had become a ritual. Long after Connor surrendered hope that their sons were still alive, Lizzie maintained her belief. In her troubled mind, to read was a declaration of faith.
    Connor reaches out, feels the crackle of the wrapping paper and coarse twine and the unmistakable form of a book hidden within. He turns it, glances down and sees the opened end and the all too familiar mark of the Australian Imperial Forces.
No. How? Why now after so long?
    He places it back down on the table, avoiding the subject.
    ‘So, I hit water at fifteen feet. Bit brackish, but good pressure . . . a bit too much pressure, actually . . .’ Connor looks up, sees tears welling in Eliza’s eyes as she stares at the package.
    ‘They didn’t even wipe the mud off . . .’
    ‘Lizzie, it’s been four years . . .’
    Her eyes flash. ‘You think you’re so clever. But in the end, it counts for nothing. You find water, but you can’t even find your own children.’
    Eliza stands, shoving the chair to one side, toppling it with a crash that echoes through the empty house.
    ‘Why can’t you find them? You lost them!’
    In this forlorn home in the middle of nowhere with the nearest neighbours many miles away, she retreats, sobbing, to the only refuge available to her. The door to their bedroom slams.
    An all too familiar wave of helplessness washes over Joshua Connor. It’s been a long time since he’s known how to soothe Eliza’s grief. He picks up the parcel on the table and unfolds the paper wrapping. Enclosed within is a muddy, dog-eared diary. Connor gingerly folds back the leather cover and smoothes the brittle pages within. Interleaved between a haphazard collection of handwritten letters, rough sketches, cartoons and maps is a crumpled photograph. A studio shot. Three handsome young men in A.I.F. uniforms, arms proudly draped over each other’s shoulders, smiling broadly.
    Art, Henry and Ed had been the pride of the district. Tall, long-limbed, blue-eyed, and all handy with a football and a cricket bat.
    ‘We’re the only three brothers in Australia to score centuries