Good Little Liars

by Sarah Clutton

  Marlee fitted too. She carried a kind of casual disregard for privilege that was only evident in the truly privileged. Emma closed her eyes and retreated into her pounding headache. Their daughter still had to come first, even if her marriage was over.

  The next morning, Emma took a deep breath and emailed the headmaster about moving into one of the vacant staff cottages ahead of the scheduled renovations next year. They were dilapidated but cheap, and if she got the house, it would be just a two-minute walk to work for her and to school for Rosie. It was the answer. She needed that house. Nobody would have told Jon Brownley about her ‘reply all’ email yet, would they? Anyway, nothing in it pointed to her suspicions of his involvement with Tessa. Hopefully he’d take pity on her and let her rent the house. She and Rosie could manage on their own if he did.

  The door of the administration office creaked, distracting Emma from her wild thoughts about the last few weeks. She looked up to see a woman standing there, smiling at her and holding a large, thin, bubble-wrapped parcel. She let it slip down and balance on the top of her shoe. Emma wondered how it was possible that some human beings just popped out perfect. The woman was small with flawless olive skin, short, spiky blackish-brown hair and eyes that were hypnotically dark, almost black and shaded by extremely long lashes. They reminded Emma of Bambi. ‘Hello,’ said Emma. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘Hi, I just need to drop off this painting for the live auction at the art show.’ The woman came into the room, leaning the parcel up against the far wall. ‘Are you Lena?’

  ‘No, I’m Emma. Lena’s popped out. But you can leave it here for her.’ Something about this woman was familiar.

  ‘Okay, no worries. Can you just tell her that Clementine dropped in the painting?’ She looked intently at Emma as if she was trying to work something out. ‘And just pass on that the minimum bid should probably be about twenty thousand.’

  ‘Dollars?’ Emma gulped.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Wait, Clementine Andrews?’ Schoolgirl images of Clementine flashed through her head – a wild sprite in a school uniform, messy blond hair escaping her pony tail. Then a small blond bombshell who was sometimes in the news, as much for her crazy political antics as for her art. Clementine no longer looked like a woman-child without her blond hair, but she was even more striking now. In her black jeans and chunky boots, she looked like a bikie princess.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Clementine. ‘You look really familiar too.’

  ‘I’m Emma Parsons… I mean I was Emma Tasker, back at school.’

  Clementine tilted her head to one side.

  ‘Shit! Emma – wow! Of course,’ said Clementine, grinning.

  Emma blushed. She came around the desk to take the painting. Her face reddened at Clementine’s steady gaze. To her surprise Clementine leaned the painting against the door and came across the room to give her a tight hug. She smelled like lemony-sweet shampoo.

  ‘I… I didn’t realise you were donating a painting for the auction,’ said Emma, breathless. She wondered whether it was the close brush with fame or Clementine’s startling prettiness that was making her stammer. Or maybe it was that being in a room with a celebrity she’d known as a child made her feel a bit ashamed that her achievements in life had amounted to an arts degree and a job helping in a school.

  ‘No, neither did I,’ said Clementine, smiling.

  ‘Oh, right, well…’ Emma let her hand rest on the painting, not sure whether to take it.

  Despite her stature, Clementine was larger than life. Before she left Sydney for Europe a few years earlier, Clementine’s face was regularly in the media – and not just for her art. She’d once chained herself to a gigantic tree in the Tasmanian wilderness that was designated for logging, then waved at the cameras as the police cut off the chains and she was arrested and dragged away. Her artwork was just as confrontational – the most recent series of works Emma had seen were detailed paintings of important historical figures showing them morphing into alien creatures surrounded by grotesque images of moral degradation. Clementine had been interviewed on NBC about her work and the violent sexual imagery that had caused a public outcry in America, where she was exhibiting. ‘Power corrupts. Don’t you think as members of this screwed-up society we should think about that?’ she’d said. Emma wasn’t sure if it was the disturbing paintings or that Clementine herself – petite and exquisite – didn’t conform to an image of an anarchist artist, that had seemed to unnerve the interviewer the most. Clementine still had her long blond hair at that point and had been wearing a simple white dress.

  Clementine looked around the office, then picked up the painting and brought it around to the wall at the back of the office where she placed it down carefully.

  ‘My mother talked me into donating it,’ said Clementine. ‘I couldn’t be bothered to argue with her. She’s a dragon.’ She wore a look of amused exasperation.

  ‘Oh really?’ said Emma.

  ‘You obviously haven’t met the esteemed Harriet Andrews QC,’ said Clementine, rolling her eyes.

  Emma had a sudden image of the face of Harriet Andrews. She knew her as the mother of Scarlett – one of the senior girls last year. But of course, now that Clementine said it, she remembered – Harriet was also the mother of one of Denham House’s most famous alumni, Clementine Andrews. She would have been at the parent gatherings when Emma was a schoolgirl. How could she have forgotten that? Probably because Harriet demanded attention on her own terms, without reference to her children. On the two occasions Emma had had cause to speak to her when she’d come into the office, she was sure she’d sounded like a stuttering idiot. Harriet’s intimidating presence seemed to banish all intelligent thought.

  ‘Besides,’ went on Clementine, ‘I made them agree that the proceeds could go into the Indigenous scholarship fund. If I’m propping up the coffers of this joint, I’d prefer it goes to someone who needs it.’

  Emma smiled. ‘That’s great. Thanks for bringing it in. I’d love to have a look at it some time.’

  ‘Sure, well you can unwrap it now if you want. Or later. You’re probably busy now.’ Clementine suddenly looked unsure.

  ‘Well I have to get a document out soon, so if it’s okay, I might take a look later today?’ Emma regretted it immediately. She felt a sudden need to look at the painting and see the world as Clementine saw it. It might explain why she felt so strange, so off-kilter.

  ‘Sure, sure. I’ll let you get back to it.’

  Emma watched her walk towards the door and had a sudden longing to stop her. But she knew she couldn’t act on the impulse. She was just an office assistant. Clementine was an international celebrity, with an amazing life and important artwork to do. She may not have the willowy, long-legged confidence of the polo set who wore their looks and superior lineage with effortless indifference, but her fame still put her several rungs up the social ladder above Emma.

  Clementine stopped suddenly in the doorway and looked back at her.

  ‘Emma, do you want to catch up tonight?’

  Emma stared at her, her mind suddenly blank in the face of such an unlikely proposal.

  Clementine put her hands in her pockets. ‘You know, for old time’s sake. We could get a drink at The Emerald, or wherever people get a drink in this town nowadays.’ Clementine raised her eyebrows in question, as if she were talking to someone who might know all the best bars in town.

  Emma finally found her voice. ‘Um, okay, sure,’ she said, wondering what on earth she would be able say to Clementine that would be remotely interesting to her and then, more pressingly, how she could organise someone to look after Rosie at such short notice. At thirteen, she may have been legally able to remain at home alone, but Rosie was terrified of the dark. Staying by herself in their creaky old little cottage in what felt like a clearing in the middle of a forest, although still on the edge of the school’s grounds, was definitely not something she’d do.

  ‘What time?’ asked Emma, mentally scr
olling through her wardrobe for something pub-worthy and vaguely un-mumsy.

  ‘Whatever suits,’ said Clementine, shrugging again at such a trifling detail. ‘Nine?’

  Emma supressed her urge to giggle. Who went out at 9 p.m. on a school night? ‘Want me to pick you up?’ said Clementine. ‘I’ve still got my old car. She’s been locked up in a friend’s aircraft hangar. It’s fun to drive the old girl around again.’

  ‘Oh. Sure, okay. I’m at number 7 Rondle Road, just on the edge of the school here. You need to slow down at the big willow tree on the bend or you’ll miss the driveway. Look out for the old drystone seat, it’s not far past that.’ Emma knew she was blabbering, but suddenly, she didn’t want to miss this opportunity for some fun. She got out her phone. ‘Maybe you should take my number, just in case you can’t find it or need to cancel or something.’

  Clementine laughed. ‘Why would I need to cancel? But okay, tell me yours and I’ll ring it.’

  Emma called out the numbers and watched Clementine thumb them into her phone. She stifled a giggle as a surge of anticipation bubbled – an evening at the pub with a really interesting (and quite famous!) person. It was the sort of exciting thing that would happen to Marlee. Clementine looked up as Emma’s phone buzzed, then she stopped the call and shoved it into her back pocket.

  ‘See you tonight, little lady!’ said Clementine, then she let the door slam behind her.

  Emma sat with a dumb grin on her face, then picked up the top letter on her filing pile and opened the cabinet with a flourish. She would wear jeans and something black. Black was just right for a pub. She was sure she had something – there was that top Marlee had bought her a few years ago with three-quarter sleeves. She would have to unpack the last few boxes to see if she could find it.

  Now, to sort out Rosie for tonight. She was glad Lena was up at Erinby Hall setting up for parent-teacher interviews, so she could make this phone call to Phillip in peace. Most of their conversations since she moved out had been over email, so she felt a flutter of anxiety in her stomach. As she dialled, she doodled the words ‘Clementine’ and ‘famous’ on her page in flowery script.

  ‘Hello?’ Phillip answered on the second ring, his voice terse.

  ‘Hi,’ said Emma. ‘I’ve got a meeting tonight and I need you to have Rosie. I know you said you’re busy until next weekend, but tonight is urgent.’

  The silence went on a beat too long.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Phillip.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I have things to do, Emma. I’m not free tonight.’

  She scrawled ‘THINGS?’ on the page in capital letters. ‘Right. And these things are more important than seeing your daughter who you haven’t seen for five days?’ she asked. She began making hard, heavy circles around the words with her pen and stopped when it broke through the page and left a mark on her desk. Next to it she began drawing a picture of a hangman on a rope.

  ‘Yes,’ said Phillip.

  Anger flared in her chest. Why was he being so unreasonable?

  ‘And what exactly might these things be?’ asked Emma, barely trying to conceal the irritation in her voice.

  Lillian, from the Alumni Office, walked through the door in one of her usual tailored linen dresses, her neat bob all swishy and shiny. She handed Emma the invitations for the art show mail-out she’d been waiting for. Emma mouthed her thanks and hugged the phone to her ear. She walked over to the cupboard to look for a box of envelopes so she could begin slotting them in.

  ‘Emma, I just can’t tonight, alright?’

  ‘No, it’s not alright, Phillip.’

  Lillian raised her eyebrows at Emma in silent camaraderie as she opened the door and walked out again.

  ‘Well, it’ll have to be – I’ve already hired a ute to pick up the rest of Pia’s stuff tonight. I can’t cancel it. Pia’s re-let her room so she has to be out by tomorrow. I can have Rosie any other night, just not tonight. You gave me no notice. Be reasonable!’

  Patronising pig. Why couldn’t he have just lied? Why couldn’t he say, ‘I have a meeting with the Head of Department and it’s important to my salary for next year’, or something like that? Something which Emma would have understood because it had a bearing on her and Rosie’s financial future. It was beyond belief that he’d just admitted that a few dollars for ute hire to pick up his lover’s stuff was more important than spending some quality time with his daughter. Had she really been with him for twenty-three years and not seen what he was like? She picked up the pen again and began making satisfying little stabs where the hangman’s eyes should have been.

  ‘Unreasonable?’ She lowered her voice and pressed the phone hard against her ear. ‘I’m having to juggle being a single parent because you moved your floozy into our home and forced us out, Phillip. Do not talk to me about being unreasonable and stop being such a self-absorbed… arsehole!’ She took a quick breath, annoyed that he’d made her swear, but cheered by the thought that it would have shocked him. She looked down the outside path. Luckily it was empty. There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  ‘“I’m too busy” doesn’t cut it anymore, Phillip. And “I’m too busy because I have to help my teenage girlfriend move into the family home” is much further down the list of being okay.’ Emma’s heart was pounding. The pain in her chest was like a pulsating hot poker. They should reinstate the law against adultery. It was too gruesome to be legal. The torture was relentless. And poor Rosie too. The whole thing was child abuse.

  ‘Pia’s nearly twenty-seven, Emma. She’s nowhere near a teenager. Don’t be so vile. It doesn’t suit you.’

  Emma picked up the bundle of invitations and cut savagely at the string that was holding them together as she held the phone to her ear with her shoulder.

  ‘This is what’s going to happen, Phillip. I’ll drop Rosie to you at six. You’ll have a home-cooked meal waiting for her and you’ll also help her with her history assignment and help her study for the French test she has tomorrow. Then you’ll drop her back to me by seven-thirty tomorrow, so she’s got time to get changed for school.’ Emma watched some students approaching the office down the path. She held her breath, then let it out as they veered off the path to the back of the dining room.

  ‘For God’s sake, Emma.’

  ‘And make sure Pia isn’t there tonight, Phillip. If she is, I will ring the Department of Immigration and tell them that she’s breaching the conditions of her student visa by working for cash and not declaring it. Believe me, I’ll have no problem personally making sure she’s kicked out of the country.’

  Emma jabbed at the phone to end the call. Then she looked at it in stunned silence. Usually Phillip won any argument they had. No, that wasn’t true. Usually they just didn’t argue. She felt thrilled and sickened at the same time. She’d never really report Pia. Her heart was beating madly. She jumped as a gust of wind slammed shut the casement window. In the office, the only remaining noise was the sound of her jagged breathing.

  From: Belinda Stuart

  To: Sally Stuart-Pemberton

  Re: Of course I have thought about it!!!

  * * *

  Hi Sal,

  I’ve thought a lot about what you said, but I really don’t think Issy is ready for the pill. She’s too gullible. I know I started at that age, but now I regret it. When I think about those afternoons when I’d meet Tommy Terrano in the forest clearing near the Witch’s house, it feels really tawdry. And even then it all felt very one-sided. That email from Emma Tasker has made me think a lot about the afternoon that Tessa died. It was the last day we were together and I remember he was really angry at her. I don’t know why I would think this really, but imagine if he was involved somehow?

  I used to beat myself up about why he ignored me after that day, and I just can’t bear the idea of the same thing happening to Issy if she starts sleeping with some dreadful sleaze (the way Tommy turned out to be!!!) She’s just too young. I know maybe I’m being ridi
culous, and maybe every other seventeen-year-old is having sex. But I just want Issy to wait a bit longer. Is that so bad?

  Anyway, onto better topics… Mum says she’s got something sorted for our birthday so you won’t have to host this year. Forty-two – bloody hell, we are officially old!

  One of the girls says I’ve just had a call out to deliver a calf, so better go and get my gumboots on. Some new farmer to the area who drives a Range Rover and is nervous about the cow panting too much! Suppose I should be grateful … gotta pay the school fees somehow.

  Love Bel.

  Eleven

  Marlee

  Marlee stood in the middle of the crowd and shrugged off her woollen jacket. Ben had invited everyone to the opening of an art exhibition showcasing the stories of some migrants who now called Tasmania home. Apparently, he was involved in some group that promoted social cohesion through the arts. The man was becoming more surprising every day.

  Even so, Marlee hadn’t been intending to come – not that she wasn’t interested in art, or social cohesion, or Ben for that matter, it was just that she had a heap of work to do and she was having trouble keeping up with it. The move to Tasmania, the new job, checking in on her dad a couple of times a week, it was making her so bloody tired. But Lidia had come around to all of them, wide-eyed and serious.

  ‘Please come, Marlee. Ben works so hard for these causes and it would be a boost for him if there were lots of people there. I know he’d love it if we all showed up for a quick drink.’

  Lidia seemed to take it on herself to ensure that Ben’s life ran as smoothly as possible. Lucky Ben. Marlee wished she had her own personal Lidia to smooth out her life.