The Problem with Perfect

by Megan Mayfair

  “Fine.”

  “No, Marigold, how are you?” she repeated, slowly and carefully, like a patient kindergarten teacher would ask a four-year-old whether they wanted to do a finger painting.

  “I’m fine, Rose. I’ve lost my husband, not my IQ.”

  Rose clicked her tongue. “Always so brave, you are. You know, it’s fine to let it out. When I was in Bowral this week, Amelia and I meditated. Perhaps you should do that. It was so calming. I could feel my stresses slipping away.” She gave a shake of her long, dark hair as though her stresses were vanishing into thin air.

  If only it were that easy.

  “I am calm,” Marigold protested. “I’m already doing your Pilates. You told Dad, right?”

  “Of course. But are you loving it? It’s so good for your core,” she cooed.

  “Yes, you said. Now, how did you get on in Bowral?”

  “Good. I adore their house, and Erin is sweet but funny-looking,” Rose mused as she set her handbag on Marigold’s kitchen bench. “She cried non-stop when I was there. Puts me off having kids if they’re just going to cry all the time like that. Frederick looks terrible. It’s like he’s aged ten years. I swear I saw grey hair in his temples. He’s beginning to look like Dad!”

  “She’s the universe’s way of evening out how horrible he was as a child. It’s a tiny bit of screaming, sleepless karma for him.”

  “Poor Amelia. No wonder she meditates,” Rose sighed, before looking up at Marigold with a broad grin. “We’re going to IKEA!”

  “What? IKEA? Why?” Marigold demanded. She rolled her head back. “I hate IKEA.” She gave Rose a pitiful look. Her husband had died, she’d been banned from work, and now her sister wanted to take her to IKEA. Didn’t anyone have any compassion for her situation?

  Rose’s pretty face crumpled. “You didn’t just say that!” she said with a whisper. “How can anyone hate IKEA?”

  “Easily. The layout is confusing, and you need to put everything together yourself. And don’t get me started on that cafeteria. Who decides to stop halfway through shopping for a desk to help themselves to a big plate of Swedish meatballs?” Marigold shuddered. “It’s a ridiculous place.”

  Rose made a tsk sound. “You’re nothing but a snob, Marigold. Come on, please help me.”

  “What do you need help with? What on earth could you possibly need from IKEA? Mum and Dad’s house is furnished impeccably.” And it was. Rose was insane if she thought their mother would stand for her living room being graced with furniture assembled with an Allen key. Odette had once had a fit when she discovered that as a teenager Rose had stuck what seemed like eighty thousand small glow-in-the-dark star stickers to her bedroom ceiling. She’d wept at the ‘tackiness’ of it all.

  Rose traced her finger around the marble pattern of Marigold’s kitchen bench and avoided Marigold’s eyes. “I’m moving out of Mulberry and into a place with Becky,” she mumbled.

  “Who’s Becky?”

  “Becky. Becky, you know, Becky.” Rose looked at Marigold.

  “Saying her name repeatedly won’t help me remember her. Add some context.”

  Rose sighed and shook her mane of hair. “A friend I went to Uni with. She found this awesome place in South Yarra.”

  Rose had a large group of friends, most of whom were highly unsuitable for potential housemates. She collected friends, contacts, boyfriends, long-lost family members, people she went to kindergarten with, manicurists, Uber drivers, bartenders (amongst others) who subsequently became part of her gang. The rate she collected people, the entire population of Australia’s eastern seaboard was likely to be in Rose’s clique at some point.

  “You don’t need a housemate. You earn good money.” Marigold couldn’t think of anything worse than a housemate. She liked her space. Aside from Mulberry Estate, boarding school and Julian, she’d always chosen to live by herself. Though it had been cold and quiet here lately. But surely that was her adjusting to life without Julian.

  “But I want one,” Rose whined like a little girl asking for a chocolate bar in a supermarket aisle. “I get lonely on my own, and Mum’s driving me mad. Besides, you should see Becky’s place. It’s huge and gorgeous, but I need stuff.”

  “Just order some stuff online or through that shop Mum likes.”

  Rose scrunched up her nose. “Everyone I know gets their furniture at IKEA. People know we have money. We don’t always need to show it.”

  “You’re carrying a rather expensive handbag for someone who doesn’t like to display wealth.”

  “Yes, but look at my outfit. I only wear cheap clothes with an expensive handbag.” She rolled her eyes as if she was making a point that was so unbelievably obvious. Their age gap wasn’t that big, but at times talking to Rose made Marigold feel as if she’d been transported to some strange future world that made little sense.

  Marigold re-focused on the issue of Rose moving away from her parents’ house and to Melbourne. As usual, it sounded suspiciously as if Rose had completely forgotten the logistics of the exercise.

  “But how are you going to work for Frederick if you’re not at Mum and Dad’s?”

  Frederick’s winery, Fox & Grey, was only a fifteen-minute drive from Mulberry Estate. After completing her degree recently, Rose had started working for Frederick in his business. She was doing something fluffy like PR or events or something that made people feel lovely but which Marigold was certain didn’t have a clear positive impact on the bottom line of Fox & Grey. The fact that the business survived astonished her.

  “He runs his business from Bowral, in case you haven’t noticed. He’s fine for me to work from D-Line a few days a week,” Rose said. “I can shuttle between the two. It makes more sense; I’m often in Melbourne anyway.”

  “You are going to work from our offices? Has Dad approved this?” Their offices were for D-Line employees, not for being gatecrashed by Rose. It was a distraction no-one needed.

  “Dad’s fine with it.” Rose nodded her head, slowly and solemnly. “You won’t even know I’m there.”

  Marigold doubted that. “Really?”

  “Really, truly.” She put her hand on her heart. “I’m going to take a hot desk and then work from Fox & Grey other times and stay overnight with Mum and Dad.”

  “Why don’t you….” Marigold began to offer an alternative suggestion of house-sitting at Frederick’s house. It was unused much of the time as he was living in Bowral with Amelia, his stepchildren, a baby and a zoo of animals, but then she stopped herself. Maybe there was an upside to this hare-brained plan. Perhaps it would be useful to have Rose close to the action of D-Line. She could be her spy.

  Marigold cleared her throat and gave a warm smile. “Well, it’ll be nice to have you in Melbourne more often.”

  Rose’s eyes lit up and she clapped her hands together. “Won’t it? We can have coffee ALL the time and we can go to Pilates, like, every day! Will’s the best trainer, isn’t he? I miss him when I’m at Mulberry. And did you know, he’s such a great dancer whenever we all go out. You should come with us to a club!”

  A club? No. She was in her thirties. She didn’t do clubs. Sweaty, noisy, sticky-floored. Yuck. “Err, thanks, but not really my scene.”

  “Whatevs. Ok. I need stuff. Let’s go. You can help me!”

  Marigold didn’t want to go to IKEA, but at least it was better than the nightclub suggestion. And perhaps it would shed some light on Julian’s fascination with the place. And if Rose was going to be her eyes and ears at D-Line, she’d stay on her good side.

  She plastered on a smile. “Ok, to IKEA we go.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Marigold

  Marigold and Rose walked into IKEA. The first thing they saw was a toddler who was throwing a temper tantrum on the floor. A harassed-looking mother was trying to cajole the child with a hot dog.

  This was the last place Marigold wanted to be. She wanted to be at work, not in a shop in the middle of the day. Perhaps she should thr
ow a tantrum and Rose would take her home.

  No such luck. Rose was walking towards her, wheeling a trolley.

  “A trolley?” Marigold looked at her sister quizzically. “How much do you need?”

  “Oh, I need stuff alright,” Rose said seriously. She produced a large IKEA-branded bag and placed it in the trolley.

  “You have your own IKEA re-usable bags? How often do you come here?”

  “They’re great bags,” Rose protested. “And you need them for all the bits and pieces.”

  Marigold walked alongside as Rose wheeled her trolley. Bits and pieces? Marigold didn’t need bits and pieces.

  And she didn’t need this.

  She should have been at home, going through the rest of Julian’s things. If Finn had found those boarding passes with troubling ease, what else might be there that she hadn’t found already? She needed to go through everything again. Twice, three times if necessary. She didn’t want to be caught wrong-footed again or miss a crucial piece of the puzzle.

  “I like this,” Rose said. She pointed to a side table. “That would be good next to a bed, I think. It has a drawer and everything!”

  “I guess so.” It certainly looked serviceable. “I’m not sure about the colour.” It was bright yellow. Like a lemon. Marigold didn’t ‘do’ fruit-coloured furniture.

  “It comes in other colours.” Rose picked up a little tag. “See, heaps!”

  “I’ll get a salesperson,” Marigold said, and raised a hand, looking for a staff member. She saw a girl in a yellow striped top hurrying along and tried to get her attention. To no avail.

  Rose pulled Marigold’s hand down. “Haven’t you ever been in here before? It’s all self-service.”

  “I thought it was just self-service in putting it together. So, how do you get the item?”

  “You take one of these pencils and write it down.” Rose moved towards a clear Perspex stand and picked up a small slip of paper and a tiny pencil, such as someone would use to fill in a golf score sheet.

  Marigold crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “This is ridiculous. Why can’t we go to a normal shop? Or shop online?”

  “But I like it here.” Rose pouted. “Come on! Look at this.”

  As Rose enthused about a hat rack or something else that she probably didn’t need, Marigold saw, out of the corner of her eye, a television bench that looked familiar. Very familiar, in fact. It looked nearly identical to the one that had been in Julian’s apartment. She walked over and ran her hand over it. It was the same as the one that was in Julian’s apartment.

  Had he been here? Looking at television benches? She looked at the tag. It had some Swedish-sounding name and apparently was available for purchase in birch, white and chocolate.

  Chocolate. Julian had chocolate. Why chocolate? Had he chosen it? Had he stood in this exact spot and pondered the difference between white, birch and chocolate?

  Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a couple with a tape measure, taking the dimensions of a table and discussing the results. It was a joint decision. Had the chocolate-coloured table been a joint decision for Julian and someone else?

  “Marigold?” Rose’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

  She swallowed and turned to face her sister. “Yes?”

  “Come and have a look at this. What do you think?”

  Rose was pointing to what was actually a rather nice bookshelf with glass doors.

  “Wouldn’t that be amazing for shoes!” Rose enthused.

  “It would.” Marigold paused. The study off their bedroom. She’d often wondered about making that a bigger closet. She could fill the room with these cabinets and store all her shoes. They’d be on display and the glass would protect them from the dust.

  She glanced around. Similar cabinets even had lamps that hung above them. “And the lamps.” She pointed upwards. That room could be a little dingy. The lamps would be marvellous above the cabinets.

  Rose gave a knowing nod. “I know, right? See I told you, this place rocks!”

  That seemed a little extreme, but Marigold grabbed a small pencil and paper from a nearby stand and carefully wrote the item numbers down.

  “We’ll convert you yet!” Rose slipped her arm through Marigold’s. “Do you want to get some meatballs?”

  “No, I don’t.” Marigold realised that Rose had a little, mischievous smirk on her face and Marigold smiled back. “No meatballs.”

  “Ok, kitchen stuff. I need a whisk.”

  Marigold had never seen Rose cook anything, so she highly doubted that she even needed a wooden spoon, let alone a whisk. But with her pencil and paper in hand, she walked alongside Rose as she pointed out various things and slowly filled her reusable shopping bag.

  It had always been easy to dismiss Rose, with her being so much younger and their timelines so different. When Marigold had been at school, Rose was only a baby. When Marigold was at University, Rose had only been at primary school, and so on. But walking through IKEA arm-in-arm, the two sisters suddenly seemed much closer in age.

  ***

  “Maybe you should have got a trolley,” Rose remarked, as Marigold clutched her melon-baller, pizza-cutter, and a lovely stone-coloured platter that would be perfect for entertaining.

  “Don’t be smart,” Marigold said as she placed the items on the conveyer belt. “It’s a couple of things for the kitchen.”

  The cashier rang her purchases through and Marigold tapped her credit card over the machine and hovered her hand above the keypad.

  “You can put in your PIN now,” the cashier said.

  “Errr.” She stared at the numbers but they were jumping around and moving in front of her eyes. She blinked to try to straighten them out.

  “You can put in your PIN now,” the cashier repeated, this time more loudly, as though she was talking to someone hard of hearing.

  “I know that.” But Marigold’s mind was blank. What was her PIN code?

  “You need to put in your PIN.” The cashier’s voice was becoming impatient now, and there was even an eye roll to accompany it.

  “I’m sorry.” She stared at him. “I’ve forgotten my PIN.”

  “I forget mine all the time.” Rose gave her a smile. “Don’t stress. Open your banking app on your phone. You should be able to change it immediately. That’s what I do. Or put it on my card. It’s fine.”

  “But I never forget mine.” Marigold wasn’t absent-minded. She wasn’t like Rose, who seemed to regularly lose phones or have to cancel credit cards because she’d left them on shop counters.

  Marigold wasn’t forgetful. She was organised. She was in charge.

  At least, she thought she was. Was she? Her late husband had a secret apartment. Her career was in free-fall. And now, she was standing in the middle of IKEA, of all places, unable to remember a four-digit passcode. Her world had crashed around her the day Julian died, and now she was left with random pieces that bore no resemblance to her former life.

  Chapter Twenty

  Finn

  The days he was spending investigating Julian were flying by, but yet Finn didn’t really feel he’d made a dent in the mystery.

  He’d had a couple of vague conversations with Aaron, but he’d been cagey. Finn wasn’t sure if he was hiding something or whether he was just uncertain why Finn was poking around Julian’s life. He’d keep at him. Aside from Marigold, Aaron would be best placed to know some of Julian’s movements. He paused as he recalled Aaron’s appearance. Tallish, light hair. It had bothered him that the neighbours hadn’t seen anyone coming or going from Julian’s apartment, other than Julian, but Aaron sort of resembled Julian at a quick glance. Had he been there?

  Yes, he’d keep Aaron on his radar. Something didn’t add up there.

  The mysterious pills had been sent off for testing to find out if they were anything of interest. He was confused, however, about the boarding passes to Sydney. Marigold couldn’t see any reason why Julian would be in Sydney on such a regular
basis, and quite frankly neither could Finn. All Julian’s cases had been local.

  Finn had been able to undertake a couple of checks, and found that Julian had made regular trips to Sydney. All up and back within the day. He’d taken Julian’s phone from Marigold, and in looking at browser search history he’d found that Julian had searched for things in Sydney – but tourist-type information. Maps and train timetables. Surely he’d not just been popping up to see the Opera House and then popping back. Perhaps he’d been meeting someone.

  Finn had then spent a couple of days studying the financials, but there were gaps. It was unclear how Julian was paying for the apartment. There was a transactional account where the rent would come out automatically, but it didn’t have anything in it. He’d simply move the exact amount across. So where was the money coming from? Finn had pored over their joint accounts, looking for evidence perhaps of a large cash withdrawal, but nothing.

  Did Julian have another secret account? It could be possible he’d been siphoning off part of his earnings into another account. He didn’t earn a set salary. Some months he earned more, others he earned less. Between him and Marigold, they made a fortune. She’d hardly notice if one month the amount was a bit lower.

  He sat back in the office chair in his apartment and stretched his neck. As he did, his phone rang. His shoulders fell when he saw the number. It was his former boss.

  “Matt,” he said when he picked up the phone, trying to disguise the reluctance in his voice. Keep it light, he told himself. “How are you?”

  Matt scoffed. “Career is screwed. So what are you going to do?”

  Finn shuffled the paperwork in front of him, then stopped. “About the inquest?”

  “You going to hang us all out to dry, or are you going to confirm what we’re all saying?”

  Finn sat back in his chair. “Simon—”

  “Was your mate! You were the best man at his wedding. You’re godfather to his kids and you’re seriously thinking about getting up on that stand and dragging his name through the mud?” Matt’s voice was rising with each word.