Kiama Castle

  It’s perched on a cliff overlooking the sea, and this night the place was alive with the raps and rattles of a fierce seaborne wind. Her woeful song wailed through every gap and crevice, a crescendo of vowels fading to resolute moans that lingered in loops and climbed to spirited howls.   

I slid from the oversized bed with the cotton sheets and a wafer thin throw that offered little insulation, and wrenched at the great carved doors of the built-in robes, but they were empty. No blanket, no doona in sight, just two small neatly folded bath towels. I wrapped myself in the flimsy throw and crept into the hall, now filled with the sob of that wintery gale. Chamber doors rattled. I imagined thick woolly blankets and feathery quilts stashed somewhere beyond them. The hall was lit with dim lamps. No light peeked from under the doors and no faint voices murmured. There were no signs of life at all and my catholic civility kept me from knocking hard enough to rouse the occupants.

‘Tap-tap-tap’, I could barely hear my feeble attempts over the wails and whistles. ‘Tap-tap-tap’, I did not succeed in waking a single soul and could not bring myself to knock any louder. A bit like Rose Kennedy who choked to death on a chicken bone rather than cough at the dinner table. ‘Tap-tap-tap’ I went but no, nothing. I tiptoed back to my room now chilled as a tomb, my feet numb with cold and the sheets so icy and stiff I could hardly bear to touch them.

Defeated, I went to my luggage and put on every item of clothing. My black tights, my caramel jodhpurs, two cream singlets, my brown angora jumper, and my Prussian blue cashmere coat, which I tugged on with difficulty. Then I pulled down my bottle green beanie, put on two pairs of socks, wrapped my neck in my tartan scarf and bundled back to bed thus cocooned, if not a little constricted.

I awoke sweating to a tap-tap-tap at the door, ’Good morning sweetheart!’

It was the lady of the manor in her green velvet robe, a fountain of warmth cascading from her lips. She held a silver tray of toast, jam and tea and set it on a small table by the bay window before casting open the heavy drapes and filling the room with wintery light.

   ‘Oh no’, she said, ‘Darling! You’re wearing all your clothes?  Fuck,  I forgot to put the bloody quilt back after airing! Oh but my dear … why didn’t you wake me?’

Rozee Cutrone ©