by Joy Dettman
‘When I’m rich,’ she had a bad habit of saying. It was a leftover from childhood, a hangover from Henry’s ‘there is more than this, little lost Lorraine’. She’d never be rich, would never have his more. Until the day she died she’d shop at the discount warehouse and the Salvos, and so thinking she hit the streets again and walked in the wind until she found a McDonald’s. She needed their ladies’ room more than their food.
She was in the washroom when she saw her eyes. They weren’t Henry’s. They might have been his colour but most of the time, his had been calm and trusting. Her eyes looked afraid, on guard.
She’d be home tomorrow. She had the bus ticket printouts in her wallet. All she had to do was get through one more night.
The letter from Professor Hicks had told Mavis to allow four hours for her tests and the appointment. If he’d been as impressed with her as had Terry Clay, she might return in a good mood.
By following Eddy’s map, Lori found her way back to the hotel and rode the lift alone. She felt like a rat entering a python’s cage when she pushed the door wide, but the room was empty.
The maids had been in there. The beds were made up tight, clean towels delivered but neither the fridge nor the snack basket had been restocked. She turned on the television, for its noise. It played unwatched while she watched people moving like trails of ants below. Stood at the window while that grey day turn to a greyer night and the movement below became lights and shadow people, until the tall buildings turned from grey to black, randomly scattered with lighted windows. She stood until the six o’clock news started playing. She watched the news. There was no mention of an unidentified woman being run over by a tram – or arrested for murder – and Mavis would have been identified. Her name was on her Medicare card, her pension and healthcare cards, her appointment letters, her birth certificate.
A football player’s hamstring injury was going to keep him out of the game for a few weeks. It was a brutal game. Every week players were injured. Vinnie was indestructible.
She watched as the weather girl promised Melbourne a colder day tomorrow than today, and still no Mavis.
Her scans could have shown something not quite right. She could have been admitted, but Professor Hicks had Lori’s mobile number and Eddy’s. Someone from his office would have phoned them.
At seven, she plugged her mobile into its charger and unwrapped the bacon and cheese sandwich she’d made for Mavis’s breakfast. The pineapple juice was unopened but the banana and croissant were missing.
Toast is tough when it’s cold but the bacon and cheese tasted fine. The pineapple juice wasn’t cold but she drank it. Heard a woman’s laughter in the corridor. It wasn’t Mavis’s laugh.
She’d be back. Her case was still beside her bed. She’d probably caught a tram to the hospital and was now spending Lori’s birthday fifty on steak and wine.
A customs show came on after the news. She watched it from her bed, not in it, but on it, fully clothed, her bag and parka beside her, ready for a quick getaway. She’d barely catnapped last night, and dreams took her away, dreams of shadow people pursuing her through a crumbling city. One of those shadows was Eva and she was ripping her diamond studs out of Lori’s lobes. Knew why she’d dreamt that when she woke. She’d been lying on her left ear and that lobe hadn’t healed. She rolled to her right side, which meant that she wasn’t facing the door, but she slept again and dreamt of Henry’s potting shed. His plants were dead and shrivelled but he was watering them with a hose as big as a fireman’s and water was filling his shed.
‘Turn it off,’ dream Lori yelled, but he kept singing and watering.
She woke before she drowned. The light was on, the television still playing and Mavis wasn’t in bed. With no pills last night, god only knew what she’d be like this morning. It was morning, though early morning.
Her feet on the floor she took her hairbrush from her bag and sat head down, brushing. It went wild when she brushed it and she’d packed no spare elastic band. Hadn’t expected to lose the one she’d worn down here. She plaited it then searched her bag for something, for anything to tie that plait. The camera strap didn’t stretch but might work as a ribbon – if she could get it off the camera, which she couldn’t, not without a pair of scissors.
Her beanie was in her parka pocket. She pulled it on over the plait and then sat studying Eddy’s central city map.
He’d marked a cross and an H for hotel and a cross and a BS for bus stop. They were at opposite ends of the same map and the H street led almost directly to the BS. She could walk there. She’d have four hours to kill between checkout time and when the bus left.
She’d planned to use those four hours to buy a dress. Had imagined Mavis being with her.
Had imagined so much.
Her mobile was fully charged when she unplugged it. She rolled the cord around the plug before dropping it into her bag, thought about texting Martin but he’d be asleep, so she sat reading old texts while waiting until her mobile told her that the banquet would be set up. Got out of that cell then. Rode down to breakfast with two kids who didn’t look old enough to be expecting a baby, but the girl’s stomach looked ready to pop. And the boy eyed Lori, which made her think of Cody Lewis who’d been hanging around with a year-eleven girl while Wendy Johnson’s belly had swelled.
He hadn’t been invited to Leonie and Paul’s party, nor had Wendy. They used to be invited to all the parties. At primary school, every year Wendy used to bring a bunch of invitations to school and make a big deal about handing them out to her current friends. Lori, never a friend, had sweated on receiving one of those invitations.
Could remember clearly the year Wendy turned eight. She’d approached Lori in the playground and asked if she wanted to come to her party. Seven-year-old kids are gullible fools when they want something badly enough. She’d nodded, had probably smiled. ‘We’re having ice-cream and jelly and a punch in the belly,’ Wendy had said, and she’d delivered the punch.
I paid her back, Lori thought. I paid her back double. She’d learnt early how to pay back double. Her mind was still in the schoolyard when her mobile beeped.
How is she today?
It was Eddy. Lori didn’t reply. He wouldn’t want to receive any reply she might feel like sending right now. Instead, she loaded a plate with bacon, cheese, egg, tomato, four slices of toast and butter. Ate half of what was on her plate then made a second bacon and cheese sandwich, not for Mavis’s breakfast but for her own lunch. Before leaving the dining room, she slid a bottle of pineapple juice, an apple and a banana into her bag.
Two men rode the lift up with her. ‘Down for the footy?’ one asked. She’d worn her beanie to breakfast.
‘It will be our turn one day,’ she replied.
Got the door to 822 open with one swipe. Still no Mavis, and because she couldn’t kick its owner, she kicked her case.
And it flew.
When she’d dragged it into this cell, it had been too heavy to fly. As she lifted its weightlessness to the double bed, something flopped inside it. Hoped it was her hair dryer. It was a library book, and only a library book.
She’d been conned. Mavis had gone and left that case as a decoy – and it hadn’t been a spur-of-the-moment decision either. She’d planned this, had been planning it when she’d packed that case, when she’d asked for plastic bags. ‘I don’t want my make-up to leak on anything,’ she’d said. She’d folded her sweater and black jeans and slid them into plastic bags. She’d slid the hair dryer and brush into a plastic bag. She’d probably been planning this day since picking up her birth certificate.
‘You gullible halfwit,’ Lori castigated herself. ‘You dumb, sick, fool.’
She pitched the case, forced that hardback library book into her bag, tossed her toothbrush and paste in with it, plus the complimentary bottles of shampoo and conditioner, plus the shower-cap and a handful of tissues, and got the hell out of that cell.
In the lift she considered leaving Mavis
’s bus ticket with that fake smiling dude, which she did, but after ripping it into four. Passed him its pieces with the key card, then got out to the street, a not so busy street that morning, or too early yet for the Saturday crowd.
She walked slowly towards the bus stop, window-shopping, filling time. She had hours of time to fill but each step took her closer to the bus stop, which was closer to home than that hotel.
Eddy had been so certain that it was pills that had wrought the miracle – as had Lori. No pill yet developed would ever adjust Mavis’s crazy brain. She was smart, was a smart liar, and a con. She’d decided to adjust herself, to play nice while counting down her days to freedom and to regaining control of her pension. The one bright spot Lori could see as she approached the first set of traffic lights was that Mavis would find nothing in her account, that she’d starve, that she’d sleep on the street until next pension day.
But she wouldn’t!
Her feet stopped dead. Mavis had been smart enough to foresee that eventuality. She’d ‘borrowed’ Eddy’s gold chain to hide her scar – Eva’s gold chain that was worth thousands, according to Eddy. Jewellers were always advertising for gold jewellery and down here there were jewellery shops on every corner. And the opal earrings would have been worth plenty – and she’d probably taken Eva and Alice’s rings and the twins’ name bracelets and her mother’s loathed pearls.
‘Shit! Shit!’ Lori mouthed as she crossed over with the green light, where she got her back to a grey stone wall, ready now to reply to Eddy’s text.
How is she today? You should have asked where she is today? My best guess is on a plane to Brisbane or Cairns and your gold chain is paying her fare.
His reply shot back fast. What’s gone on down there?
I told Mick that she turned feral. Ask him if he can still access her account, she texted, then walked again.
She was halfway to the next traffic lights when her mobile beeped. It was Martin.
Eddy’s phoning the hospital. She could have been admitted.
They would have phoned one of us. Tell him he needs committing for lending her his chain. And you’d better watch out for cops too because I’ll guarantee that she’s reported you for stealing her bankcard.
You’re jumping to conclusions, Splint.
Can Mick access her account?
She was about to cross Queen Street when her phone rang. She stepped back to answer its call.
‘He can’t log in,’ Martin said. ‘She’s got money too. Eddy gave her forty dollars and Neil’s sock-savings are missing.’
He’d been saving his dollar pocket money since last Christmas. He wanted a bike.
‘She’s got your birthday fifty too,’ Lori admitted.
‘Where are you now?’
‘Near Queen Street, and talking on this thing runs its battery flat. I’m hanging up.’
It beeped twice as she crossed over that street. She read Eddy’s text while walking.
I can’t get any information out of the hospital other than she hasn’t been admitted. I’ve left messages for Hicks and Clay.
Stop wasting your time.
Put her mobile back in her pocket and walked on. It beeped three times but she ignored it, wanting to get to where she was going, worried sick about finding that place, about finding the right bus.
Worrying unnecessarily. She found electronic signs that told her what time and from which bay she’d catch the V/Line bus to Willama, and that she had hours to fill before she could board it. She worried about where she’d fill those hours until she found a waiting room and a seat, and a seat beside her for the hardcover book she’d had to remove to get at the camera. She was going to delete every shot she’d taken of Mavis. She was going to wipe her out of her life – until she flipped to the restaurant shot and knew she couldn’t delete it. And she loathed herself because she couldn’t.
That restaurant, the wine, the steak had been the beginning of Mavis’s con. She’d known Lori’s attitude to money. She’d asked how much money Lori had, had known how she’d respond to that bill. She’d needed an excuse to blow, an excuse that would allow her to blame Lori for ruining their perfect day.
Had to stop thinking about her. She was driving herself crazy with thinking about her. She read her messages, all from Eddy, replied with two words. I’m here. Then, her mobile in her pocket, she picked up the library book and read its blurb.
She’d borrowed it for Mavis, because of its title, Designer Genes, because Mavis had spoken about her father buying her brand-name jeans. The author name sounded like a romance novelist’s. She wasn’t into romance novels, but when you’ve got hours to fill, a book is a book. So she opened it and flipped to the first chapter.
Her mobile beeped twice before she placed the book face-down on the seat beside her, surprised that she’d lost two hours in those pages.
It wasn’t a romance.
designer genes
Other than the red shoulder bag and the book, Lori had no luggage. She was the second passenger to board and before the bus moved away, she was reading. The novel was set in an Australian town much like Willama. She knew that town, knew its people, knew its forest and the old granny the story was about. When the light went out of the day, she turned on her personal downlight and continued reading. Didn’t close that book until the bus moaned to a halt in Willama.
She saw Martin’s ute before she saw him. He was standing close to where the bus pulled in. Lori, first out the door, almost threw herself at him. Didn’t, but his expression said he might have liked her to. He ruffled her hair that required no ruffling, so she ruffled his. Then side by side, they walked to Old Red.
‘I shouldn’t have pushed you to go,’ he said.
‘No one pushed me. I went because I wanted to buy a dress.’
‘I should have known she’d turn. She did something similar to me and Donny once, booked us seats on a bus to someplace, bought us drinks and chips at a McDonald’s and told us to wait there for her. She didn’t come back.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Young. It was before Greg. I don’t remember much – other than a lady cop asking my name and where I lived and feeding us cream buns and milk.’
‘What happened?’
‘Henry came to get us.’ He shrugged. ‘She came back, maybe months later. I didn’t want her back.’ He got the ute moving before he spoke again. ‘She took off a few times when we were kids. She took off with Greg a month or two after we moved into Dawson Street.’
‘Why did he keep taking her back?’
‘God knows.’
‘We’re not, Martin. Not next week, not next month, not ever.’
‘It’s her house, Splint.’
It was Lori’s house and with every light burning and every kid waiting for her on the front veranda, it looked beautiful – and it smelt of Eddy’s spaghetti bolognaise.
They’d waited dinner for her, and they waited on while questions came from every direction. So good to sit in that kitchen, at that table. So good to listen to Neil’s complaint about his missing twenty-two dollars and seventy-five cents, listen to Martin’s latest news on Miss Piggy and her solicitor, then to eat Eddy’s bolognaise. So good. She could feel her internal spring unwinding. For two days it had been wound up to breaking point. It uncoiled sufficiently for her to notice Matty’s head.
‘Who did that?’ she asked. His mop-top of curls had gone missing.
‘He did a Mavis but his looked worse,’ Neil said.
‘I clipped off what he left,’ Alan said.
‘I look like Vinnie now,’ Matty said, proud of what he’d done.
‘Why would you do a thing like that, Matty?’ Lori asked.
‘I don’t like tangles,’ he said.
It was an honest reply. Lori could remember replying dishonestly the day she’d left half of her tangles under the peppercorn tree.
Moon rising in the east and a big one, and Spud Murphy’s dogs weren’t howling. Mick told her why. A vet ha
d been there to put them down.
‘Spud is moving into one of the new nursing home apartments next week,’ Alan said.
The subject swung around to money, about how much that apartment would cost Spud, about how much money was now in the emergency fund.
‘Don’t worry about money,’ Martin said. ‘What I spend on this place will be that much less for Karen and her solicitor.’
Nothing to worry about that night, and Lori’s bed looked so good she slid into it at nine-thirty.
The little ones were still awake. They wanted to hear about Melbourne so she told them about her prison cell in the sky, about the lifts and the hotel breakfasts – which reminded her that she’d left the bacon and cheese sandwich in her bag. Too comfortable to leave her bed, she rolled to her side and slid into dreamless sleep.
*
The gap of light, where the drapes didn’t quite meet in the middle, woke her, and the cold. Today was Sunday, a sleep-in day. Her mobile told her that she’d slept for ten hours. She turned then to that bundle of little boys in the queen bed, cuddled close for warmth. When she slid from her bed, she spread her quilt over that bundle before creeping into the lounge room to dress and to look out at a world turned white.
The sky was clear, the sun was up and Nelly’s roof was sprinkled with diamond dust. Her house, painted white, her shrubbery a frosty white, this morning her little house looked beautiful.
The red bag still where she’d dropped it in the kitchen, Lori crept through the house to get the camera and to put yesterday’s toasted sandwich into the oven. She opened the flue, moved the kettle over the central hotplate, and crept outside, determined to capture Nelly’s house while it looked beautiful.
Got bacon grease and crumbs on the last page of Designer Genes. The author had ended her novel well, but there had to be more. It was about two druggies, Charlene and her boyfriend, Nick. They’d taken an eighty-year-old woman hostage, and from page thirty to the final pages, the reader was convinced they’d murder her. They’d wanted her PIN and she wouldn’t give it to them. She’d spent years saving enough money to fly to England so she could find the son she’d signed away fifty years ago.