‘Thank you, dear,’ Carla said, holding a teacup in one hand and one of the proffered sandwiches in the other. ‘I must say you don’t look anything like your mother.’
Zoe always assumed she got her dark hair and olive skin from her father’s side. Lillian used to say if she wasn’t the one who carried her for nine months she could’ve sworn Zoe wasn’t hers. She used to say, in a rare mention of her father, ‘You’re all him.’ This always felt like an accusation. Zoe had often wondered, if she had inherited Lillian’s pale skin, blonde hair or even a smattering of freckles, would she have found it easier to love her daughter?
‘Did you know Lillian well?’ Zoe asked
‘Yes, very well. We used to go walking every Saturday morning without fail — rain, hail or shine.’ The last word came out in a gasp, and Zoe helped her with her plate and cup so she could reach for the mangled tissue hidden up her cardigan. She grabbed at Zoe’s wrist ‘She was a good, good woman.’
It was as if she was trying to convince Zoe. She’d need a bit more than that.
The service had completely ignored the fact that Lillian had taken her life. Lesley Price, who performed the eulogy, had spoken to Zoe after the funeral once Zoe had finished shaking countless hands and nodding at kind words. She told Zoe she would not mar Lillian’s life and death by speaking of ‘the incident’, as she called it. ‘I knew Lillian well and refuse to believe she did such a thing.’ Zoe nodded dumbly in acceptance, uncertain of how she felt about it. It wasn’t as if Lesley’s denial of what happened erased what Lillian had done. Lesley had stuck to the facts of Lillian’s life: her community service, her care for the students. That was it. And if there was any talk about Lillian’s suicide it was done out of Zoe’s earshot.
Zoe found herself in the centre of the lounge with no one to talk to. She turned to go back into the kitchen when she saw him. He looked out of place among the cardigan-wearing, grey-haired women. Although he did look like Jeff, maybe a bit younger, expensive suit, slicked-back hair, and with a slight paunch he was rubbing as he walked towards her, as if trying to make it disappear.
‘Zoe, I presume,’ he said, hand extended. ‘A pleasure to meet you.’
Zoe shook his soft hand and stared at him blankly. He seemed way too cheerful to be at a wake.
He filled in the silence and said, ‘Richard Bailey.’
‘Right.’ Zoe had no idea who he was. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘You got my business card I left you?’
Richard Bailey Property Developer. Zoe remembered the business card she’d found that first night. ‘Oh, yes, I did. Did I see you at the funeral?’
‘No, I’m sorry I couldn’t make it. But I did want to extend my sympathies to you for losing your mother.’
‘Thank you. How did you know her?’
He adjusted his tie and looked around. ‘I, well, I didn’t know her as such. We spoke once or twice.’
The man looked tense, as though he wanted to do a runner. ‘Are you OK?’ Zoe asked.
‘Look, this probably isn’t the right time but could I quickly talk to you about the sale of your mother’s house?’
‘The sale of Lillian’s house?’ Zoe said, confused.
‘Yes, Lillian and I had been in talks. She was thinking, very seriously,’ he added, whispering now, as if he didn’t want anyone to hear, ‘of selling. We had pretty much come to a deal and I’d given her papers to sign. They should be somewhere in the house.’
Zoe was silent.
‘Maybe you could look for them for me?’
Zoe shook her head. ‘First you don’t bother to even come to Lillian’s funeral and then you have the nerve to come to her wake and try to make a business deal?’
Jeff appeared at the lounge door and was across the room and at Zoe’s side in two seconds. ‘Get out.’ His voice was steely, and his arm protective as it rested on Zoe’s shoulder. ‘Get out right now.’
Bailey held his hands up in front of him and retreated, all eyes upon him.
*
Zoe leaned against the sink in Pam’s kitchen. There were platters covering the bench, a sink full of dishes and a smell of sausage rolls coming from the oven. ‘What was all that about?’
‘Richard bloody Bailey is a property developer. Made his mark in real estate up in Auckland, piggy-backing off a lot of my developments. Followed me to Crawton years ago and has been a pain in my arse ever since.’ Jeff had removed his jacket and had his shirt sleeves rolled up to show off his tanned arms.
‘He said he’d talked to Lillian about buying her house. Do you know anything about it?’
‘There is no way Lillian would have sold her house to that man,’ the usually mild-mannered Pam said, her lips pressed into a thin line.
‘But why does he want it? It’s a nineteen-seventies weatherboard house down a quiet cul-de-sac. Not exactly high-flying real estate.’
‘It’s not Lillian’s house he’s interested in,’ Jeff said. ‘That would be bulldozed as soon as everything was settled. Behind these properties — Lillian’s, Pam’s and Mavis Stanley’s — there’s that gully and then a small rise up the other side. You know what’s on the other side, don’t you?’
Zoe thought of Lillian’s huge quarter-acre section. Beyond that was a good-for-nothing wire fence that separated her property from a boggy gully. She and Alex used to jump from rotting tree stump to abandoned tyres, avoiding the deceptive long grass that would vanish under your feet where you’d find yourself knee deep in swampy mud. But if you got to the other side and climbed the small hill, the view was amazing.
‘Lake Waitapu,’ Zoe said. ‘Million-dollar views.’
Jeff nodded. ‘Richard bought that land off the council when he first arrived, aiming to purchase one of these three houses backing onto the gully so he could access the site. But he didn’t bargain on the women’s desire to stay. And once they knew what was happening they banded together, promising each other none would sell up. If one of them did, he could make an access road and get at least twenty townhouses on that land, which would look down over these properties as well as the lake in the other direction. It would change the whole feel of the street. And it’s the way he goes about it. I mean, look at him, propositioning you at your mother’s funeral. The guy has no scruples.’
‘Wow,’ Zoe said. ‘Well, I’m on board. Even if I do end up selling, it won’t be to him.’ Zoe had seen Lillian’s solicitor yesterday and found out Lillian had left everything to her. Not that everything was a fortune, but it was enough: the house and a small life insurance policy. It left Zoe feeling even more uncertain and guilty about their non-existent relationship.
‘I’d better get going,’ said Jeff. ‘I’ve got a dinner meeting at six.’ He kissed Pam on the cheek and said goodbye.
Pam stood at the sink, her black dress covered with a cream-coloured apron sporting a giant pavlova. ‘You OK, hon?’
Zoe shrugged. ‘I guess. Pam, did Lillian seem all right to you in the last few weeks?’
Pam wiped her hands on her apron before answering. ‘Not really. Not for some time. But lately she’d been getting worse. I came over and gave her a letter one morning that had mistakenly been delivered to my house and she didn’t know who I was. I could tell by the look on her face. It was almost as if she knew but couldn’t quite place me. I told her who I was, and I got a very brusque reply that of course she knew who I was. Jeff and I would have her round for a drink quite often. Some days she was the same old Lillian. The one I’d known for the last thirty-plus years. But she did have her bad days. I remember one night we were talking about Alex and she kept referring to Alex as Jeff’s son, saying how proud he must be to have a son like Alex. We didn’t bother to correct her. On her good days — and there were a lot of them — we chatted, and she worried about her deteriorating health and what the school would do if they found out. She knew her time was up t
here. She was an elderly lady and up until a year ago she was still doing a fine job.’
‘Surely the school realised something was up?’
‘Yes, they did. I understand from Alex she’d interrupt classes and take kids out for a chat. She was the school counsellor and was allowed to do that, but she was supposed to schedule appointments, let parents and kids know, but she wasn’t doing that. Sometimes she got the kids to her office and just sat there, in a dream, then told them to go back to class. They were pressuring her to resign, retire, she told me that, but she wasn’t going to go that easily. She wouldn’t leave those children if she didn’t have to.’
‘So why did she commit suicide? I know she was ill, but from what you and Alex say she loved her job and those kids. Why would she leave all of that?’
‘I really don’t know, love.’
‘I’m just wondering, if her state of mind wasn’t that great towards the end maybe she did sign those papers of Richard Bailey’s. Maybe he’d managed to talk her into it.’
‘Oh God, I hope not.’ Pam raised the tea towel to her cheek. ‘This little street means so much to me and everything would change if Richard Bailey got his way. He’s not like Jeff. He doesn’t care about the people his developments are going to affect, it’s all about the money.’
‘It’s OK, Pam, I don’t plan to let him get away with it. Don’t worry.’ She placed a reassuring hand on Pam’s shoulder. ‘I just need to escape for a few minutes.’ Dreading going back to the lounge she walked down the hall to Alex’s old room, which Pam had turned into a sewing-cum-craft room. She sat in an armchair looking out the window, Pam’s pin cushion in hand. She withdrew a pin with a yellow head and then drove it deep into the cushion, repeating the action, trying to turn her brain off.
A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. Alex came in and sat on the chair in front of the sewing machine. ‘Everyone’s starting to head off.’
‘Do you think it was Alzheimer’s?’ she asked Alex.
Alex exhaled slowly. ‘Yeah, I think so. She talked about it every now and then.’
‘Do you think that’s why she did it? Why she killed herself?’
‘Maybe. You knew her Zo, even if you hadn’t seen her in ages. She lived for her work, she had an amazing brain, and if she knew that was giving up on her she probably felt her life was over.’ His long fingers wound around a piece of blue thread that snaked from the sewing machine. ‘You know, for a while now she’s been talking about you.’
Zoe was silent, remembering the notebook she’d found that afternoon.
‘Speaking about you, fondly.’
Zoe grunted. ‘Lillian never spoke or thought fondly of me.’
‘With her getting sick I think she was really beginning to change. She wasn’t so buttoned-up as she used to be. I think her memories of you, and me too, were seen through rose-tinted spectacles.’
‘Or whisky goggles,’ Zoe joked, and instantly regretted it.
‘Zo!’ Alex admonished.
‘Do you expect me to do a complete one-eighty on my feelings for her because you say she developed feelings for me thirty-three years too late?’
‘No, of course not. It’s just that … I don’t know. She had regrets.’
Zoe realised the house had gone quiet. Everyone had left.
Alex changed the subject, no doubt realising he was on shaky ground. ‘Are you doing OK? After the funeral and all?’
‘I’m just glad it’s over.’ Zoe got up and paced the room, suddenly feeling renewed energy. The room felt too small. ‘You’re really lucky, you know.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Your little unit you have here. Pam and Jeff. I know you’re an adult but it’s good to have it. The support.’
Alex nodded. ‘They have been good to me. Mum’s great, of course, but Jeff.’ He shook his head as if unable to believe it. ‘He’s been amazing. He’s supported me even though he hasn’t agreed with my career choice. You’re a part of this family too. You know that, right?’
Zoe shrugged.
‘I know we haven’t seen each other in ages, Zo, but you’re as much a part of our unit — mine and Mum’s — as Jeff is. Remember that.’
Zoe nodded. He expected nothing from her. He was the only one who understood why there were no tears, no heartbroken grief. He knew how people’s words throughout the service and in Pam’s house just now had stung. How Lillian had been ‘such an amazing, giving person’. He knew that Zoe had never seen the woman everyone else had seen.
Chapter 14
Faith Marsden stood in the staff bathroom of the Old Wellington. She washed her hands and dried them on a paper towel before balling it up and depositing it in the plastic bin. The mirror sported a crack down the centre, slightly distorting her face, making one eye look higher than the other. She pressed her lips together so the scarlet lipstick she had just applied distributed evenly. She offered up a clenched-teeth smile and rubbed the excess off. She smiled, happy. When you discover, as she had years ago, that you don’t like what you see in the mirror, you either stop looking or adjust the way you see yourself. She no longer saw eyes staring back at her scared and full of pain, or dark pouches of skin beneath them caused by lack of sleep. She didn’t see the way too much alcohol and nicotine had aged her pale skin.
It was half an hour till closing and a forty-something lawyer from Dunedin was waiting at the bar to take her back to his hotel room. She loved nights like this, a sexy guy, a hotel room — usually pretty decent if their work was paying for it — room service the next day, they normally had to bugger off from wherever they came from and let her stay on till check-out. This one tonight had already had a few, but not too many. That was important, and his left hand sported a thick gold band so she knew he was in it only for the night. In and out, so to speak.
‘Faith! You in here? We need another bottle of Jameson’s.’
‘Coming,’ she yelled back.
She hated going down into the basement of the Old Wellington. Six months ago one of the idiot bouncers had thought it would be funny to lock her in. She’d had a panic attack. She knew the fuckwit was right outside the locked door, could hear him laughing, and it took her straight back to the Magic Man. Sixteen years later the memory was still fresh. When he finally let her out she kneed him in the balls and brought the six-foot arsehole to his knees. ‘Just try that again, you wanker,’ she said. An audience had appeared, and she marched up the stairs to clapping and high-fives and went into the bathroom to throw up.
She adjusted her uniform in front of the mirror, white shirt and a knee-length black skirt. The Old Wellington was an upmarket bar and restaurant for older clientele, not for binge-drinking youths who needed cheap alcohol and loud music for their nights on the town. She’d been working there for almost ten years. And because she worked hard, she had her pick of the shifts. She preferred the weekday lunchtimes when wealthy businessmen were out having liquid lunches and would tip well, and the Friday and Saturday late-night shifts which didn’t have her home in bed till 3 a.m. — hers or someone else’s. Everyone who walked in the door was wealthy and older, they had to be to afford the twenty-five-dollar cocktails.
Faith made her way down to the basement, the concrete walls giving the expansive space a cool, wet feel. The hollow sound of the piano from upstairs playing Elton John echoed down through the old floorboards followed by the bass note of footsteps manoeuvring from one side of the restaurant to the other. She walked over to the shelf holding the spirits and grabbed a bottle of Jameson’s. Just as she was about to turn she felt a hand smack her arse so hard it stung. She dropped the bottle. ‘Fuck!’
Andy, one of the bartenders, turned her to face him and pushed her up against the wall and shoved his tongue down her throat. She let out a yelp of surprise then wrapped one leg around his, both her arms around his neck.
‘Come back to mine,
’ he said.
Faith answered with a groan as he kissed her neck, one hand grabbing at her breast.
‘I can’t. Not tonight.’
His left hand reached up into her blonde hair. She tensed, pulled back as she felt his fingers touch the scar on the back of her head. She pushed him hard enough that he stumbled back and tripped over a keg.
‘What the fuck was that?’
‘Piss off,’ she said, adjusting her top.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to—’
‘Whatever, haven’t you got something to do upstairs?’
He frowned in confusion. ‘Faith, I’m sorry.’
‘For what?’ She turned her back on him and waited till she heard his retreating footsteps. She sat heavily on an empty keg, her hand running through her hair till she found the 10-centimetre scar that ran down the back of her head.
The day it happened she’d been locked up in that room for five days. There was someone else in the house with her up until the night before. A girl named Claire. They talked through the walls, Claire scared and on the verge of giving up, Faith angry and determined to escape. Claire said there had been another girl before them as well. They took Claire that night. Faith could still hear her screaming, looking through the keyhole to see her being dragged down the hall of the old house. And then she was gone.
She would tell herself someone was looking for her. Sonya. Zoe and Alex. The police would find her and she would be their key witness. A victim but someone who could save the day.
Next morning the Magic Man appeared with breakfast and she had decided she would get answers. She would be calm.
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