Mad Men, Bad Girls

by Maggie Groff

  Marketing experts would immediately recognise the Totarium to be the ‘anchor’, a tool used to set the benchmark for other prices. It works like this: six hundred dollars for a mesh food cover, even one that has been transfused with the supreme profluence of Bacchus, is ridiculous. The clever part is that it makes the silver ring look pretty good value at two hundred and fifty, even though a jeweller would sell it for forty dollars or less. This works especially well if you are gullible, lonely, needy, naïve or you have a roo loose in the top paddock. It probably also works well on the dying and desperate who are prepared to try anything. I know I would.

  Playing my own devil’s advocate, I considered the five million Catholics a year who spend a fortune visiting Lourdes in France, where spring water in the grotto is believed to possess healing properties. Was this such a huge leap away from believing that a pendant transfused with the supreme profluence of Bacchus would bring cosmic enlightenment?

  I decided it might be easier to think of cults, sects and religious groups as either givers or takers, which also proved to be problematic.

  My Hare Krishna friends, Halayli and Sunara, run a vegetarian restaurant and they believe in things that I don’t. They draw funny red doodles on their foreheads and dance down the street in their bedding while singing and banging tambourines, but they don’t ever ask for money, they’re great fun and they are the first ones to put up their hands to help with community activities. They are, without doubt, givers, yet they are still viewed with suspicion in some quarters.

  Whichever way I looked at Bacchus Rising, it was more than a little obvious that they were takers, unless one considered ‘hope’ as the trading commodity—hope and a trinket.

  Hmmm. I was tying myself in mental knots.

  For the next hour I read testimonials from awakened disciples of Bacchus Rising. As expected, there was an abundance of mystic babble, but no claims that Bacchus products could treat cancer, break drought or stop obesity. And nowhere could I find anything that appeared to contravene fair trading laws. It seemed to be a clear case of buyer beware.

  I half-expected to find a range of wine for sale, but they either hadn’t thought of it, or had realised that most people could reach cosmic enlightenment with a ten-dollar bottle of red from the local grog shop.

  The Serenity Card, though, was a nice touch. For one hundred and twenty dollars, and ten dollars more for postage and handling, a personalised and authorised Bacchus Rising membership card transfused with all those chakras and the supreme profluence of Bacchus would reach me within seven working days.

  Annoyingly, the Bacchus Rising website didn’t make any reference to the Luminous Renaissance of Illustrious Light, or Heavenly Brother Excalibur. In fact, there was nothing to indicate that Bacchus Rising was a cult or anything other than a clever marketing company. And nothing anywhere to indicate that the Luminous Renaissance of Illustrious Light and Bacchus Rising were one and the same. Perhaps Marcia Sanderson was wrong? Or maybe she was a fruit loop or, even worse, chief executive officer of Bacchus Rising?

  Hoping to find a street address, I clicked on Contact Details, but the only listing was a post-office box in Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast, the same box number listed on the payment page for sending money orders and cheques. As the Department of Fair Trading frequently advises consumers not to send money to a company without a street address, this was a black mark for Bacchus Rising. It had also not escaped my attention that Surfers Paradise was only ten minutes’ drive north of the address Marcia Sanderson had given me in Burleigh Heads.

  Finally, I called it quits, unable to face any more of the pseudo-cosmic language of Bacchus Rising. There was always a risk I might start believing it.

  Saving the website in Favourites, I emailed Toby and told him to come home soon and awaken my wondrous sphere to a higher consciousness.

  Chapter 7

  It was a hot afternoon and, after packing overnight necessities, I decided on a cool white tailored linen suit for my interview with Marcia Sanderson. The pencil skirt fell just below my knees, and the fitted top was sleeveless with a small half-belt at the back. A little churchy perhaps, but it screamed safe, which was why I’d bought it. I accessorised with Grandma’s pearls (yes, Grandma, it’s after twelve), black Bally flats and a squirt of Mitsouko.

  My hair is long and, as always, I brushed it to one side and wove it into a thick plait to fall forward of my right shoulder. The style’s easy to look after, always looks neat and a big plus is that I can trim it myself. At a rough guess I’d say I come back into fashion once every ten years. I tied a black satin ribbon at the end of the plait and viewed the full picture in the wardrobe mirror.

  I’d trust me.

  Before leaving home, I made sure that Chairman Meow had enough food and water for the night, then kissed him goodbye and walked down the road to where I parked my car. There was no need to hurry as I had an extra hour up my sleeve—Queensland, unlike New South Wales, doesn’t operate on daylight saving time at this time of year, so the actual time on the Gold Coast was an hour earlier than in Byron Bay.

  The time difference confuses me, so I wear two watches when I’m working cross-border. The blue watch is on New South Wales time and the maroon watch is on Queensland time. This entertains everyone no end, as the watch colours are also the relevant State football colours. Today, the blue watch said 3.30 pm and the maroon watch 2.30 pm, so I had oodles of time before my 4 pm Queensland meeting with Mrs Sanderson. Hey, it works for me.

  Although I have a garage, I keep my stately pale green Toyota Avalon just down the road in the car park at the old railway station, where there hasn’t been a train in years. There’s always a space, even though patrons at the Railway Friendly Hotel, known locally as ‘the Rails’, share the parking area.

  The single garage attached to my apartment isn’t attached in the physical sense. It’s one of a bank of four on the other side of the laneway behind my apartment. I rent it out to a town lawyer, Dave Fanshaw, as office parking for his precious Mercedes. Dave and his wife Daisy are friends of mine and they live on a farm in the Byron hinterland, hence the need for town parking. Dave pays me eighty dollars a week rent, which covers my annual car registration, insurance and regular oil changes. As far as fiscal responsibility goes, it’s an economist’s wet dream.

  The station car park is a bit risky during peak tourist and festival times, but the car hadn’t been stolen or damaged yet. Harper said that was because no one else in Byron Bay would be seen dead in it, but I ignored her jibes. It was a great car, fabulous to drive, comfortable and spacious.

  Well, guess what?

  My car was gone.

  I stared in disbelief, but it definitely wasn’t where I’d left it. I looked around and then shut my eyes tight and opened them again.

  Nothing.

  Fighting back angry tears, I ran along Jonson Street and into Fandango’s, the restaurant below my apartment. Dodging the few stragglers from the lunch trade, I threaded my way through the tables towards the kitchen at the back where I hoped to find Miles, the chef and owner of the restaurant.

  ‘Miles,’ I wailed, bursting through the plastic swing doors to find him sifting flour into a bowl. ‘Some bastard has stolen my car.’ I dropped my bags and collapsed against the glass-front industrial fridge. ‘I just can’t believe it.’

  Miles is in his late sixties, but looks younger. Short, bald and olive-skinned with wise brown eyes set in a soft doughy face, he’s a teddy bear of a man and I love him to bits. There’s a wonderful aura of calm about him, so obviously they broke the chef mould after they made him. He has the largest tummy I’ve ever seen; in fact, it’s highly possible that Miles is taller when he’s lying down.

  Miles wiped his floury hands on the tea towel attached to his apron and put his arms around me. It was rather like being embraced while holding a large Pilates ball. I leaned forward and rested my head on his shoulder.

  He patted my back and said, ‘There there,’ and after
an appropriate number of pats, he stepped back and asked, ‘Are you insured?’

  Nodding feebly, I blew my nose loudly and sniffed.

  ‘That’s a relief,’ Miles sighed. ‘You should go over to the police station now and report it.’

  Always wise, always there, Miles is like a proxy father to me, my real dad being eight hundred kilometres away in Sydney, with my mum. I took a deep breath and pulled myself together.

  ‘Good idea, Miles, but there’s a slight problem. I’ve got an appointment on the Gold Coast this afternoon, and then I was going to stay the night at Harper’s and go to her school tomorrow morning. This has really stuffed my plans.’

  ‘I’m not using the Astra,’ Miles said, wiping what I assumed was flour off my face with his tea towel. ‘Take it. I don’t need it until late tomorrow afternoon.’

  Instinctively, I wiped my hands over my face in case there was any more food on it and we both laughed. Miles threw the tea towel in the laundry hamper, dug the keys out of his pocket and handed them to me.

  ‘Scout,’ he said, ‘this is going to sound like you owe me, and I was going to ask you anyway, but I could do with some extra help in the kitchen tomorrow evening. My casual is having her wisdom teeth out and there’s a leaving do on here for one of the hospital nurses. I’ll have a full house.’

  This wasn’t a problem. I enjoy working in the restaurant with Miles and I help out for a few hours once or twice a month. Sometimes I’m chopping vegetables, sometimes I’m a waiter and sometimes I’m the washing-up person. In exchange for my services, Miles sends fabulous food up to my apartment about four nights a week. We call the arrangement my Frequent Fryer Points. It’s a good trade, with points heavily in my favour.

  ‘I’ll be here at six tomorrow,’ I said, picking up my bags. ‘You’re a honey, Miles.’ I kissed him on the cheek and he blushed.

  ‘Have you fed the cat?’ he asked, gently turning me around by the shoulders.

  I nodded. ‘Fed and watered.’

  ‘Run along with you then,’ he said, shooing me out of the door.

  As I was leaving I heard Miles say to his customers, ‘She’s okay, folks, she ate in another restaurant is all. She’ll know better next time.’

  Miles’s silver Astra has Fandango’s written in large swirling lime-green letters on the roof, doors and boot. It made the car look cheerful, which gave my spirits a welcome boost. I loaded my bags, then reversed into the laneway and out onto Jonson Street. Keeping a lookout for my car, I drove carefully to avoid kids carrying surfboards, old kids on bicycles, coaches, rickshaws and randomly parked Porsches and campervans. I turned left at Lawson Street, right onto Shirley Street and headed out of town. In two shakes I was on the Pacific Highway heading north.

  As soon as I’d passed a convoy of interstate trucks, I set the car’s cruise control at a hundred ks per hour and called the Byron Bay Police Station. The phone rang twice before it was picked up.

  ‘Byron Police Station, Senior Sergeant Kelly.’

  Rafe Kelly is in his early forties and on the scale of hot, Rafe is vindaloo. He was at school with Toby and often came to dinner when Toby was in town. Unfortunately, like many handsome men, he had chauvinist tendencies, which made me unsure of him. Once, at a party, he had introduced me to a friend of his as Toby’s floozy. At the time I had been furious, and I had kind of maintained the rage ever since.

  ‘Rafe, it’s Toby’s partner, Scout. My car’s been stolen from the car park by the old railway station.’ I was trying to modulate my voice to sound confident and professional and not at all floozy-like.

  ‘I’m surprised,’ Rafe said. ‘It’s hard to believe anyone would pinch an old Avalon in Byron.’

  ‘Well they have,’ I replied crossly, forgetting to be confident and professional.

  ‘When did you last see it?’ Rafe asked.

  ‘I used it yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘You’ll need to come in,’ he told me.

  ‘I can’t. I’m . . . I’m busy right now. I’ll come in tomorrow, about two.’

  I gave Rafe the necessary details, along with a list of the car’s contents—CDs, a couple of hats, old beach towels, thongs and a pair of binoculars.

  ‘Is there any coloured wool in the car?’ Rafe asked.

  My heart skipped a beat. Rafe couldn’t possibly know about the Guerilla Knitters Institute, could he? I mean, even Toby didn’t know about it. Having failed confident and professional, I now concentrated on trying to sound truthful and perplexed. ‘Why on earth would there be coloured wool in my car, Rafe? I can’t even knit.’

  Rafe chortled down the phone and I thought it best to move on as quickly as possible. Before he could make further comment, I asked him for the police report number for my insurance company. Patiently, I listened while he radioed my car’s make, colour and registration number to the Highway Patrol, and then he asked me about Toby. Relieved the subject was well and truly changed, I waxed lyrical about Toby being on assignment in Afghanistan and that he wasn’t expected back in Australia for another couple of months. It was silly, really, as Rafe already knew all that.

  ‘Scout,’ Rafe said, ‘what’s that noise? You’re not driving and using your mobile, are you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I huffed. ‘I just told you that my car has been stolen. I’m at home, that’s the dishwasher you can hear, it’s a noisy old thing.’

  ‘Whoever took the car will probably dump it when it runs out of petrol. Do you know how much was in the tank?’

  There was no way I was going to admit to a man, least of all Rafe, that I had absolutely no idea how much petrol was in the car. ‘Not much,’ I guessed. ‘Maybe enough to go thirty kilometres.’

  ‘You might be lucky then and it’ll be abandoned nearby. Or they might have driven up a bush track and torched it.’ There was a slight hint of amusement in Rafe’s voice.

  ‘Thank you for that thought, Rafe.’

  ‘Scout?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t have a dishwasher.’

  And he rang off.

  Chapter 8

  The Gold Coast never disappoints. Seemingly infinite strips of sand, surf and high-rise apartments sparkle under a brilliant blue sky. It’s Australia’s holiday playground: beaches, theme parks, golf courses, nightclubs and a million places to drink and make merry. It’s loud and brassy and puffed and preened and you can shop and dine and play until you drop. Quite honestly, it scares the heck out of me.

  I turned off the Gold Coast Highway at Burleigh Heads, a beach suburb halfway between Coolangatta and Surfers Paradise. I was enjoying Miles’s car—it was a zippy little motor, but it was a shame about the owner’s taste in music. Country and western is definitely not my thing.

  Parking across from the address Marcia had given me, I could see that it was an impressive mid-rise beachfront resort, inspired by Mediterranean architecture. Signage advertised four and a half stars, indicating accommodation was probably in the mid to high price range. A No Vacancy sign swung to and fro in the ocean breeze.

  Marcia Sanderson’s choice of accommodation didn’t really tell me anything. At this time of year there were reasonable package deals, including flights, from most Australian cities to the Gold Coast. There was also the possibility that Marcia actually lived here.

  I was anxious to meet her, not just to find out what she knew, but because I still hadn’t figured out why her voice sounded familiar. The name Marcia Sanderson didn’t ring any bells either. Maybe my memory would kick in when I saw her.

  I still had ten minutes until our appointment, so I used the time to test my blood sugar level. It was a little on the low side so I drank half a bottle of orange juice to boost it up a bit.

  At 4 pm I walked across to the resort, shielding my eyes from the glare reflecting off the white walls, entered the lobby and walked over to the reception desk. The receptionist was a fiftyish bleached blonde dressed in a tight red dress that forced her robust cleavage up towards her chin. Aroun
d her neck hung what appeared to be a silver ball on a long silver chain, though it was hard to tell what the pendant was as it was drowning in bosom. Long red fingernails fiddled with enormous hoop earrings that, to my mind, should have had budgerigars sitting on them. Her badge said Tracey.

  ‘Can I be of assistance?’ Tracey greeted me. She eyed my conservative white suit and flat shoes with suspicion and probably figured that I was selling Bibles.

  Forcing a smile, the one where I look like I have a coat hanger rammed in my mouth, I pointed towards a blue faux-suede sofa and asked, ‘Is it okay if I sit there and wait for someone? My appointment should be down in a minute.’

  Tracey nodded and then proceeded to watch me like a hawk as I sat down and took out my phone. It was possible that I might steal the exotic cactus from the coffee table—I certainly thought about it.

  Marcia, when I called her number, said she’d be right down.

  It wasn’t long before the lift doors opened and a tall, slim woman wearing a stylish grey jersey dress walked into the lobby. Like Tracey, she was also in her fifties, but any similarities ended there. The woman walking towards me oozed class, her sleek dark hair cut in a shoulder-length bob that swung from side to side as she moved gracefully across the lobby. She was smiling warmly at me.

  I recognised her instantly as someone I had met before, though I couldn’t place who or where. Despite her obvious allure, her actual facial features were unremarkable—two brown eyes, a nose and a mouth. Perhaps my dad is right and it’s how a woman moves that sets the stage for beauty.

  Curiously, her feet were bare, and the investigator in me took this to indicate we wouldn’t be going out for coffee. It was good to see the old skills kicking in.

  ‘Scout,’ Marcia greeted, extending her hand. ‘It is you. I thought it must be, there aren’t too many Scouts around. I didn’t recognise Davis, though—have you remarried?’

  Oh, help. Where had I heard her voice before?

  We shook hands and Marcia led me to the lift. As we crossed the lobby, I refrained from poking my tongue out at Tracey and concentrated on walking gracefully.