by Susan Allott
Behind her a car sounds its horn. She ignores it. She passes under palm trees and thinks she’ll head for the coast. The houses are grander now, set back from the street. Sculpted lawns, pillars, ocean-facing balconies.
The horn sounds again and a car pulls up at the edge of the road. A metallic blue Ford Laser with its bumper bar hanging low on the passenger side. “Get in!” Louisa shouts through the window. She leans across and opens the door. “Come on. I’ll take you to see Steve, if that’s what you want.”
Isla stands a moment on the footpath. She loves her mother’s car for being old and ugly, so incongruous in this suburb that she almost laughs.
“Get in,” Louisa says again, lifting magazines and carrier bags from the passenger seat. Isla catches a glimpse of her pajama shirt, its silk collar visible under her jacket.
“Are you sure?”
Louisa revs the engine. “For God’s sake, get in.”
Isla lowers herself into the car, ignoring the grit in the stitching of the seat. Something yields softly in the detritus beneath her feet and she kicks it aside. Louisa accelerates. She’s wearing a long green trench coat over her pajamas. Isla has never in her life seen her mum leave the house looking so disheveled.
“I didn’t sleep last night,” Louisa says.
“Why not?”
She checks the mirror, changes gear, glances at Isla over her glasses. “Mandy didn’t withdraw that money.”
“I know.”
She taps the steering wheel. “Why would Steve change his story like that?”
“That’s what I want to ask him.”
“Have you spoken to Inspector Perry about it?”
“I spoke to his colleague, Sergeant Dent. She’s as bad as him, in her own way.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Neither of them want to know.”
Louisa stops at the Ocean Street crossing and lets the traffic pass. “I can’t understand it,” she says. “Inspector Perry was so thorough.”
“He was Steve’s boss, Mum. They kept in contact after Steve left the force.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“I think they tried to get Dad convicted. And when that fell apart they closed the case.”
The lights change and she moves forward. “I don’t believe that for a minute.”
“I do.”
“You’ve always had a problem with authority.”
Isla draws breath to reply and thinks better of it. She counts very slowly to ten. The sky clouds over as they drive through Edgecliff, across town, and over the Harbour Bridge. The water is dark and choppy, the Opera House dour without the sun. They pass Luna Park, where Scott cried as a kid, terrified by a ride that held them to the inside wall of a large, spinning barrel.
“The Rotor,” Louisa says, as if Isla had spoken. “I had to take him home.”
“I loved it,” Isla says. She’d stayed behind with her dad after her mum and Scott left and he’d let her go back on the ride. She’d never felt so brave and reckless and proud.
“You know the marriage is over, don’t you? Whatever happens.”
“Yes.”
“He’s not going to stop drinking.”
Isla looks out at the freeway, seeing nothing, wishing she’d stayed on the other side of the world, where her family had made sense to her. She’d been able to love them from that distance.
They head west, away from the city, speaking only to check directions or to comment on the traffic. Louisa holds the slow lane all the way, the steering wheel shuddering, and Isla looks out at the telephone poles, recalling Scott’s expression as he stood on the stairs in his socks, asking if she’d been over the limit. He fuses in her mind with Dom, the way he turned away from her, appalled, sick of her apologies. The wearing thin of love. She needs a drink like never before.
“Do you like your job?” Louisa says out of nowhere.
“Mostly.” Isla turns, and her eyes fall to her mum’s feet. She’s wearing cheap plastic thongs and her toenails are painted red. “I’m good at it, I think. It forces me to be patient. Hours go by and I hardly notice.”
“Do they treat you well?”
“I can’t complain.”
“Good money?”
“Not bad. I had enough saved for the deposit on an apartment. To buy a place. But I let it go.”
“You don’t have to buy an apartment,” Louisa says. “I know that’s what everybody does in London. Doesn’t mean you have to follow.”
Isla shifts in her seat. “Are you giving me advice?”
“You don’t have to take it.”
It’s a bit late, Isla thinks, brushing crumbs out from under her jeans. “I’ll bear it in mind,” she says.
The traffic going into Sydney, on the far side of the freeway, has ground to a halt. It stretches into the distance: trucks and convertibles, buses. The freeway heading west is clear, open road as far as they can see, straight and endless, featureless. Isla twists the radio dial on the dashboard but can’t find a signal.
“It’s broken,” Louisa says.
Isla sits back in her seat. She suspects her mother wants to make conversation. She needs a drink.
“You know, I had a place at university,” Louisa says. “I was going to study history, at Leeds. I’m not sure I ever told you that.”
“No. I’m sure you didn’t.”
Across the freeway, from the midst of the congested traffic, a car sounds its horn, long and hard.
“I was going to have a career.” She laughs. “I wasn’t going to turn into my mother. Endlessly cleaning and cooking, looking after everyone else.”
Isla turns to Louisa, who is looking at the road ahead. A truck passes them in the outside lane and the car sways in the slipstream.
“Dad must have been very persuasive,” she says. “To change your mind, I mean.”
“He was.” Louisa fights a small smile. “He certainly was.”
“And then he didn’t measure up.”
Her smile fades. “That’s one way to put it.”
“No wonder you were—” She daren’t say it in case her mum pulls over and leaves her at the side of the road.
“Angry,” Louisa says. She checks the wing mirror. “Miserable. Resentful.”
Isla looks at her hands. “I might have felt the same.”
“That’s generous. Thank you.” She lets another truck pass. “I’m sorry, Isla.”
“It’s all right.” She shuts her eyes so she won’t cry.
“I don’t blame you for hating me. The things you saw.”
“I don’t remember much.”
“You were too young. You saw too much and you turned against me.”
Isla shakes her head. “Don’t.” One day she will ask her mother about what she saw. She will wait until she’s ready, a day in the future when she is not so raw with it and her body does not scream for alcohol.
“I wish I’d done it all differently,” Louisa says. “I wish I’d protected you.”
The tears come then and Isla wipes them with her sleeve. “You should’ve gone to university.”
“Don’t say that.”
“You’d have been a good student. I can see that. You’d have been happier.”
Louisa feels around in the side of the door for a pack of tissues and throws them to Isla. “I thought I’d be happy, running off to Australia with your dad. We were going to leave all the old ways behind in England. It felt adventurous, like anything was possible.”
Isla blows her nose. “How long did that last?”
“I was pregnant with Scott when I realized my life was going to be shaped by my husband. His choices, his decisions. Anything was possible, but only for him.”
Isla thinks of her dad, out cold on the couch with his shoes on, his face alert in sleep. She sees him in the white rage of his hangover, lashing out, clearing ornaments from the dresser with the sweep of his arm. She can’t picture him sober or smiling. When she sees his face, he is flus
hed with drink, his eyes fogged. Blood on the couch, on the carpet. Scott screaming.
She stares out the window at the white bark of the gums, their precise shape against the sky. There is an ache in her chest where something has shifted, something that has always held her upright.
“Turn off here,” she says, just in time.
Louisa makes the turn and the road narrows, the fibro houses appearing at the side of the road. Isla directs her to the community center where Steve works. A few cars are parked outside already. Isla spots the woman who works at the front desk climbing the steps to the entrance and passing through the glass double doors.
They sit in the car and stare up at the building. Louisa buttons her coat and tucks the collar of her pajamas out of sight. A red pickup parks across the street and a man gets out, opens the boot, and lifts out a crate full of files. He is short and broad, bald-headed, in the same blue checked shirt and jeans.
“That’s him,” Isla says. “That’s Steve.”
Louisa leans forward. “So it is,” she says. They watch Steve walk up the steps into the building. “Are you sure about this, Isla?”
“No. But I don’t know what else to do.”
“He was always such a decent man.”
“I’m not sure about that.”
“He had a horrible job to do. He always hated it.”
“I don’t think that lets him off the hook.” Isla unfastens her seat belt. “Come on.” She gets out of the car. Behind her she hears her mum slam her door shut, her thongs slapping against the asphalt. She waits, and they walk together into the reception area. The rows of plastic chairs are empty.
The receptionist swings around, considers them both, unsmiling. She runs a hand over her bleach-blond hair. “We’re not open yet,” she says.
“I wondered if we could speak to Steve Mallory,” Isla says.
The receptionist leans forward, elbows on the desk, her hands clasped in front of her. “Did you make an appointment this time?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“He’s busy. Staff meeting at nine for an hour. Sometimes overruns. Could be a long wait.”
“I think Steve will want to see us,” Isla says.
“Don’t tell me, it’s urgent.”
“It is.”
“You gotta get back to London.”
“I do.”
Behind her, Louisa clears her throat. “Do you mind if I use the bathroom?”
The receptionist takes a moment to respond, taking in Louisa’s outfit, reaching around her molars with her tongue. “We’re not open,” she says, finally.
“We’ll get back on the road once I’ve been to the loo,” Louisa says. “Only I really need to go. Sorry.”
She rolls her eyes. “Through the double doors and on the right.”
Isla smiles at the receptionist as her mum leaves them alone. The lanyard pass around her neck reads Valerie. Isla takes a leaflet from the desk and uses it to swat a fly.
“Sit down if you want,” Valerie says.
Isla sits near the doors at the back of the room and watches the ceiling fan rotate. Valerie sings to herself, low and melodic. From somewhere inside the building, Isla hears a man’s voice: a tone of surprise. She can’t make out his words.
She stands. Valerie is preoccupied, folding a letter into an envelope. Isla slips through the double doors, into a dark corridor with rooms leading off it on either side, the doors closed. Another corridor branches off to the right, leading to more meeting rooms and offices. Halfway down, a door stands open.
“Why did you do that?” Louisa says, from behind the open door. “Why did you say she’d withdrawn that cash?”
Isla looks through a glass panel to see Steve standing by a long, narrow table, his crate of files at his side. Her mum stands facing him.
“I thought it might be best,” he says. “I thought it might be comforting to her family. And to you.”
“I don’t need to be comforted.”
“Your son said you were upset by the police inquiry.”
“I’m upset you told a pack of lies about what happened to your wife.”
His face changes. He remembers a different Louisa, Isla thinks. One who didn’t fight back.
“Why did you do that? Your wife is missing. Why did you want the case closed?”
“Look, can we talk later?” He looks anxiously around the room. “This is a bad time.”
“You haven’t answered me.”
“I spoke to Ray,” he says, rubbing the back of his head. “I called Ray and he agreed it might be kinder all ’round if—”
“Who’s Ray?” Louisa says, raising her voice, stepping closer to him when he doesn’t reply. Isla knows this moment, where her mother’s switch trips. She can’t see her face, but she can see the aggression in her stance, and Steve’s defenses going up. He won’t crack now, Isla thinks. Not like this.
“I thought you’d be glad to have it put to rest,” Steve says, taking a stack of papers from a file.
“What happened to Mandy?” Louisa says.
He tries to move past her. “I’ve told the police all I know about that.”
“You told Ray, you mean? Is he a friend of yours, this Ray? Is he the cop who’s leading the case?”
“I need to get to a meeting.” He pushes past Louisa and through the open door, where he collides with Isla, sending his papers across the gray carpet.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Isla waits as he gathers his paperwork. Louisa comes to stand beside her, incensed. Isla holds a hand up to quiet her. She looks down at Steve, crouched at their feet, cornered and scared. She needs to be careful, she thinks. For once in her life, she needs to be calm.
“There’s something I forgot to ask you when I was last here,” Isla says.
“I told you what you need to know.” Steve stands, clutching his papers to his chest. “I’m not going over that again.”
“Do the people you work with know about your past? The kids you removed?”
He looks past her. From the waiting room at the end of the corridor they hear Valerie singing, a little out of tune.
“I’m doing a good job here, Isla,” he says. “Trying to make up for all of that, as best I can.”
“Do they know?”
“One or two of ’em do, yes. It’s not something I’m proud of.”
“Do they know about the baby you kept for yourself?”
“The baby—?” For a second there is agony in his face. He shakes his head. “What do you mean?”
“You took a baby and kept him. A baby boy,” Isla says, hiding her own surprise. She hadn’t quite believed it until now. Behind them, the singing stops.
“You got your wires crossed, Isla,” he says. “I don’t know anything about a baby.”
“He was one of the kids you were meant to remove. An Aboriginal baby. You took him home instead.”
“Where’d you get that idea?”
“My dad told me. He remembers the baby. Hearing him crying.”
“Your father’s a drunk, Isla.”
“That’s true.”
He pauses, bemused. “And he’s a liar.”
“He took everything from you,” Isla says.
“That’s right.” His papers bend against his chest. “That’s right.”
A set of lights switch on at the far end of the corridor. Voices in the distance. Isla feels the balance of the moment roll back and forth.
“He broke up your marriage.” Isla glances at Louisa, who is shocked and silent at her side. “He told a lot of lies and got away with it. He kept his wife and family.”
Steve nods. “I’m glad you understand that.”
“I think that’s why you wanted to blame him, for killing your wife.”
The lights switch on overhead. “I think you should get out of here,” Steve says.
“Did Mandy follow you down to Marlo?”
“Did you hear me?” He moves to push past them. “Get out o
f my way.”
Isla does not move. “Is that where you killed her?”
“I said, get out of my way!”
He barrels past them, his head down, and Isla lands with her back against the wall. At the turn of the corridor, Valerie stands waiting. Her bleached hair is yellow under the lights.
“Steve?” Valerie takes a step toward him. “What’s all this?”
“Sorry, Val.” He laughs, catching his breath. “Got waylaid. We can start now.”
Valerie looks at the two women, then back at him. “I heard what they said.”
“I can explain all that.” He strums his papers with his thumb. “It’s not the way it sounds, Val. Why don’t we—?”
Valerie looks at Steve with a sadness that cuts him off. He shrinks a little, bowing his head.
“We trusted you,” she says.
He stays where he is when she walks away.
53
Leeds, 1967
Grandma slapped the top of the TV with the palm of her hand. Stripes were moving sideways across the screen, left to right. She slapped it again, harder, and a picture appeared: the Blue Peter ship. Grandma stepped away from the set and the stripes came back, moving up toward the top of the screen in a great rush.
“God in Heaven!” Grandma gave the TV a final whack, harder than before. The stripes thickened and slowed and the picture blinked into clarity, this time with sound. “Look at that!” Grandma did a dance on the rug with her arms in the air. “I’ve got the magic touch,” she said. “Did you see that?”
Isla sat forward on the couch. It was her favorite presenter, John Noakes, the one with the nice face who made her think of Daddy. He said he was going to make a luxury dog basket out of a washing-up bowl. From the hallway her mum was calling, asking for help with her suitcase.
Grandma sat down next to Isla on the couch. “It’s a shame we don’t have a dog,” she said.
John Noakes had put the washing-up bowl on a piece of foam and was drawing around the edge of the bowl with a marker pen. Mummy was shouting again from the bottom of the stairs. She was packing to go back to Australia. They were leaving later today to go home.