The River Child

In the summer of 1971, three-year-old Elise Boatman disappeared.

Siobhan has always blamed herself for Elise’s death. Now that she has returned to her childhood home she discovers that the secrets her family kept began a long time before Elise disappeared. Siobhan must face the past before she can face the future. And before she can ever forgive herself.

“The day Elise Boatman disappeared seemed at first to be no different from any other day.

Morning came, replete with pink orange hues after days of relentless rain. The air was thickly textured with sounds and smells that signaled the safety of routine; showers steaming, pots banging and bacon spitting under a not so clean grill.

The staff at the guest house woke, reluctantly shed their night-time fantasies and climbed into their dull, daily personalities like small part actors readying for the stage. It was a Thursday, the fifth week of the long school holidays. The day my mother blew the perfect smoke ring. Cotton coloured clouds scudded across the sky, the skin of the day stretched over us, and just before eleven thirty my mother’s scream shattered the stillness. She ran from the garden into the kitchen. She was sweating, shaking, her words tumbling out in short, breathy, spurts.

‘Elise is missing,’ she said. She doubled over, panting, as if the effort of getting those three words out had spent her energy.”

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  • The day Elise Boatman disappeared seemed at first to be no different from any other day. Cotton coloured clouds scudded across the sky, the skin of the day stretched over us, and just before eleven-thirty, my mother’s screams shattered the stillness.

  • As the day wore on, the police canvassed two possibilities: drowning and abduction.

  • There was talk of the punts being suspended. Crossing was too difficult. The moorings were now underwater. If the rain continued, our lifeline to the mainland would be severed. Rachley Island, an inland island, would be cut adrift to fend for itself.

  • Those who do not know the river could not distinguish it from any other place along this stretch. There is nothing to mark it, but I know it well. I remember back to the day Olivia prayed to St Hyacinth. She told me that the footprints of the saint remained on the water, even after he had crossed the river, and that when the water was calm, they could be seen for centuries.

  • The Hovel became the centre of our universe. It served us well that summer, hiding our secrets and future plans, offering two girls on the precipice of growing up a temporary respite from the adult world, which increasingly was becoming a place we wished to get away from. ‘There’s no one around for miles,’ we’d say. Little did we realise just how wrong we were.

The Inspiration for The River Child

When I was a child, I spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s house in Sydney. It was a magical place for children. There were rooms coming off other rooms, a dark hallway, and lots of places to hide. The house was surrounded by verandahs that my grandfather had walled off and converted into even more rooms. The driveway was long and imposing, with mulberry trees on either side. A crystal ball mounted in the middle of a bird bath, surrounded by rose bushes, was my favourite part of the garden (see the picture below). Out the back there were sheds, a cubby house, and the occasional snake. Whenever my grandmother saw a snake in the back garden, she would calmly pick up a small sheet of corrugated iron, chop its head off and walk back inside without a word. The house loomed large in my consciousness. This is where The River Child is set. When I was in primary school, a girl similar to my age went missing from the migrant hostel nearby. I remember the search parties and the fear that gripped the neighbourhood. I remember the rumours. I remember lying awake at night, wondering where she was.