Mad Men, Bad Girls

by Maggie Groff

  ‘You’re no longer my mother.’ Tildy’s words were delivered with slow, malevolent anger. She was breathing heavily and her fists were tightly clenched, as if she were about to throw a punch. I prepared myself to protect Marcia in case Tildy lashed out.

  ‘Where are your glasses, Tildy darling? You know you can’t see a thing without them,’ Marcia said brightly.

  ‘Go away,’ Tildy shouted, slamming her hands on the table. ‘I don’t love you and you don’t love me. Not real love. And I’m not your family. My life with you was horrid. Bacchus Rising is my family now. They love me and I love them.’

  Tildy kicked out under the table and scored a direct hit on Marcia’s shin. Marcia toppled sideways and, just in time, steadied herself from falling by grabbing the table. Cinnamon Toast laughed and I struggled to suppress my anger.

  With incredible grace, Marcia settled herself back onto the chair and calmly placed a hand on Tildy’s arm.

  ‘It was good to see you, Tildy,’ she said. ‘I’ll go if that’s what you want, darling.’

  Tildy snatched her arm away, grabbed the bottle on the table, poured water over her forearm and rubbed it frantically, as if she were trying to wash off an unpleasant stain.

  ‘Don’t touch me again, you evil cow,’ Tildy threatened.

  By now we had attracted the attention of other diners, and I saw that a waiter had positioned himself at the café entrance and was observing our table. My chest tightened and my mouth was dry. No mother should ever have to hear those words from her daughter.

  Showing supreme strength, Marcia calmly stood up, turned and walked away. There was a dreadful silence in the café as everyone watched her leave.

  Too late, I realised I should have left the car keys with Marcia so that she could wait for me in the Lexus. She’d need privacy and a place to fall apart.

  Unbelievably, Tildy and Cinnamon were looking menacingly at each other, their job done, a win for the cult. If there was evil afoot, I was witnessing it now.

  ‘I think we’ll go,’ Cinnamon told Tildy. ‘I want to go home and rest with Serene Cloud.’

  Outwardly I put on a friendly face while inwardly I fumed. A relative novice at the touchy-feely stuff, I placed my hand on Tildy’s arm. ‘I’m so sorry that happened to you, my dear,’ I said warmly. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to cast off our past.’

  In response, Tildy gave a slight smile, and then suddenly something seemed to jar within her. I sensed a shift in her gaze and she cocked her head to one side and examined my face, scanned my hair and clothes. Frowning, she put her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand and stared intently at me.

  Uh-oh! Time to go before it clicked for her. I looked at my watch and affected surprise. ‘My goodness, is that the time? I have a dental appointment.’

  Standing up, I thanked them both, made a few trite comments about how thrilled I was to have come across the group again, and that I was really looking forward to the retreat and would bring the money with me.

  My kind comment to Tildy appeared to have met with Cinnamon’s approval. She struggled to her feet and, despite the large mass of baby between us, hugged me and kissed my cheek. A lot of back-stroking came with the hug, and when she ran her fingers down both my arms and held my hands, I hoped that she didn’t feel my shudder.

  Cinnamon put her hand on the side of my face. ‘Titania Pearl will call you Friday evening with the instructions for the pickup point on Saturday morning. Trust me, Fantasia, this weekend will change your life.’

  Tildy, who had remained seated, was still regarding me with curiosity. Oh help. I needed to leave as quickly as possible. ‘Bye,’ I sang. ‘See you Saturday.’ And I blew her a kiss and hurried away.

  As I walked I processed what I’d learned. Overall, the meeting had gone well in the sense that I now knew more than I did before. I knew Tildy was still with Bacchus Rising, that Heavenly Brother Excalibur and Serene Cloud, Mystic Master of Mars, were one and the same, and that three American women had come to Australia with him. Unfortunately, I also knew the disgusting old tosser was still impregnating young women.

  Briefly, I considered the idea of following Cinnamon Toast and Tildy to see if they met up with anyone else but, dressed as I was, there was no way to remain discreet. I stood out like a walking trifle.

  Once out of sight of the mall, I walked swiftly along the Esplanade towards the street where I’d parked the Lexus, looking behind me a couple of times to make sure I wasn’t being followed. After turning into Vista Street, I counted to fifty and then peered back round into the Esplanade. The coast was clear and I sprinted to the car.

  Marcia was nowhere to be seen, but there was a folded piece of paper under the windscreen wiper and I pulled it out. The note read: Pick me up in picnic area at Old Burleigh Road. M. Obviously Marcia had also considered I might be followed, and the last thing we needed was for us to be seen together.

  As an extra precaution, I drove up to the beach intersection and headed north along the Esplanade for a while, and then turned west, pulling over at a hotel and purchasing a bottle of brandy. Then I drove south looking for Marcia.

  I found her sitting on the side of Old Burleigh Road, head down and hands clasped tightly over her head. She was rocking rhythmically and as I got closer I could hear her wailing. She’d also been sick in the gutter.

  Sitting down beside her, I gently put my arms around her shoulders and held her tight. Marcia clung to me, shaking with great racking sobs that seemed to come from Middle Earth. We sat like that for some time; when I sensed an easing of her grief, I removed the lid from the brandy and forced the bottle into her hands. She tried to drink, but couldn’t make a connection between her mouth and the bottle.

  ‘Marcia!’ I said firmly, and she calmed enough to allow me to hold the brandy to her lips.

  ‘Drink, it’ll help,’ I ordered.

  Two young boys wearing low-slung denim shorts and Mumford and Sons T-shirts swaggered past. They stared at Marcia and me, our arms around each other, holding on to a bottle of brandy.

  ‘Get a room,’ one of them called out.

  Chapter 39

  It took a long time to drive back to Marcia’s apartment. Traffic was heavy on the Gold Coast Highway and I hit every red light between Surfers Paradise and Burleigh Heads. I cursed myself for not heading inland and taking the Pacific Motorway.

  Marcia’s grief came in waves. She would cry softly for a time, then let out an anguished wail. Thankfully, the deep, earth-­shattering sobs of earlier had subsided, and after a while there were moments of quiet. The brandy, I reasoned, was working.

  I parked the Lexus in an empty space in the underground garage of Marcia’s apartment block and we took the lift to her floor.

  ‘I’ll be fine, Scout,’ Marcia assured me. ‘Thanks.’

  Commonsense told me that she was anything but fine.

  ‘If you don’t mind I’ll stay,’ I said. ‘I need company and you do, too.’

  Marcia affected a smile through tear-filled, swollen eyes and I followed her into the apartment. Somewhat ruefully, I realised that Rafe would have to eat alone tonight. Maybe my fairy godmother was telling me that my intentions with him were less than honourable, but then I already knew that.

  ‘What about your insulin?’ Marcia asked.

  ‘My diabetic kit’s in the car. I never go anywhere without it. And I’ve spare clothes. I’m right to stay.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Marcia murmured. ‘I think I need to lie down.’

  Helping her onto the bed, I removed her shoes and covered her with a light cotton throw. It was too breezy to open the windows so I turned the airconditioner on low and went to make her a cup of tea.

  When I returned to her bedroom a few minutes later Marcia was already asleep, a photo frame clutched to her chest. I closed the door and took the tea into the lounge and sat and drank it myself. After a while I took out my notebook and made a record of my conversation with Cinnamon Toast and Tildy.

 
My notes finished, I went onto the balcony and was admiring the Pacific Ocean, wondering if I’d rather have a view like this or my busy streetscape in Byron Bay, when I remembered I’d switched my phone off before the meeting.

  There were two text messages. One from Miles’s daughter, Susie: Call me please. The other was from Harper: Urgent!! Where are you?

  Harper could wait. I was used to her ‘urgent’ messages. Urgent meant that she’d tried me once and I hadn’t responded, she’d lost a recipe or Fergus wanted an eyebrow piercing. If it were anything truly urgent I knew Harper would have said what it was about in her message.

  I phoned Susie Cameron.

  ‘Thanks for calling back, Scout. My teacher’s up for it,’ she said. ‘I told him it was certain that it was the same student making similar accusations against another male teacher. He’s keen to talk to him, and his wife wants to talk to your guy’s wife. They know what they’re going through.’

  ‘I hadn’t expected him to be so compliant,’ I said. ‘Lots of ­people would just want something like this to go away. Move on.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. He’s a nice man. How did you go with finding your guy? Don’t bother asking the school. There’s no way they’d give out a teacher’s private contact details.’

  ‘My sister would know it, but I don’t really want her involved. I may have to work my way through the phone book. He probably lives on the Gold Coast, but unfortunately his is a common name. I’ll let you know when I’ve made contact. I’m glad you called. It will encourage my man if he knows it’s happened before and the other teacher is willing to discuss it.’

  ‘I’ll wait to hear from you then,’ Susie said. ‘Give Dad my love.’

  I called Miles, relayed Susie’s love and told him that I was staying the night with a friend and asked if he would feed Chairman Meow.

  ‘What are you girls up to?’ Miles asked.

  ‘A very good thing, I hope. I’ll fill you in when I get home tomorrow. Thanks for looking after the Chairman.’

  Next, I called Bruce and asked him if it was okay to hang on to the Lexus until Friday, as the police still hadn’t advised me when I could collect my car. Bruce said to have fun with the Lexus and to see him at the end of the week. I thought it best not to tell him that his car was getting good usage as a rescue vehicle for frightened cats, drunken students and emotionally abused mothers.

  I rummaged through Marcia’s CD collection, which was mostly jazz, and selected a compilation of female vocalists as background music for when I called Rafe. It took a while to figure out how to work the disc player, but after much ad hoc button pressing I finally heard the voice of Diana Krall singing ‘All or Nothing at All’.

  Sitting back on the sofa, I spent some time relishing the image of Rafe walking along the beach beside me. I’d already played the love scene from James Jones’s From Here to Eternity, and when I couldn’t think of any other juicy beach scenes, I ramped old Jim’s version up a bit with Rafe emerging from the sea naked. On the CD, Silje Nergaard was singing ‘Me Oh My’. It seemed appropriate.

  I called Rafe.

  ‘Got cold feet?’ he said.

  At the sound of his voice I was consumed by a powerful physical yearning. My feet, I have to say, were anything but cold.

  ‘No, I don’t know. Maybe. I can’t leave what I’m doing. Sorry about dinner,’ I said, aware that I sounded like an irresolute schoolgirl. Men like Rafe don’t relish being mucked around, and I was doing a truckload of mucking, though it wasn’t entirely my fault.

  ‘Scout,’ Rafe said, ‘we have to make a decision.’ His voice was rich and deep, weighted by the seriousness of the situation our not-so-innocent flirting had created. I knew what he was thinking. Toby was his friend and I was Toby’s girl. This had probably all got out of hand. We needed to stop it now.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about this all day,’ he said.

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rafe said, ‘and I can’t decide, the first time, whether to pleasure Milady with my boots on or off.’

  An involuntary smile swept across my face. A warm sensuous thrill ran through my lower body and the backs of my knees tingled.

  ‘What kind of boots?’ I said.

  Chapter 40

  Responsibility is a helluva thing and it took huge restraint on my part not to jump in the Lexus and roar down the highway to Byron Bay.

  The sultry music wasn’t helping the situation so I switched it off and went to the kitchen. Both Marcia and I needed comfort food, and cooking would keep me busy and take my mind off my hormones. I opened the fridge hoping to find provisions, as I didn’t particularly fancy nipping to the shops looking like an understudy from the cast of Hair.

  I lucked out and found minced beef and frozen peas in the freezer, carrots and potatoes in the crisper and Worcestershire sauce and beef stock in the pantry. All the doings for a shepherd’s pie using beef instead of lamb. While the mince thawed in the microwave, I went down to the garage and retrieved my diabetic kit, a change of clothes and a swimsuit.

  By 7 pm Queensland time I’d had a swim in the ocean, showered away the complete hippie ecosystem, dressed in knee-length denim shorts and a grey Polo T-shirt, made the shepherd’s pie and attended to my diabetic needs. I’d also looked online for media coverage of the GKI mission, but there was nothing yet. If Marcia didn’t wake soon I’d go ahead and eat without her as my body clock, attuned to New South Wales time, was telling me it was 8 pm. My body was also telling me something else and I was trying to be a grown-up and ignore it, but was failing miserably.

  Carefully, I opened Marcia’s bedroom door and saw that she was still sleeping.

  I had another search through Marcia’s CD collection and put on Ella Fitzgerald and ate pie and peas, watched the Pacific Ocean and thought erotic thoughts about Rafe dressed as a musketeer. The boots were good, but I wasn’t sure about the hat with the large feather, so I tried Roman legionnaire. For a moment I was too distracted to eat, then I pulled myself together. These erotic thoughts were not good for my blood pressure.

  After dinner I hit the Arnolds in the phone book. Fifteen minutes later I was speaking to Robert’s wife, Julia Arnold. I introduced myself as Harper Blaine-Richardson’s sister, Scout Davis.

  ‘Who are you again?’ Julia asked. Her tone was wary, unsure.

  I repeated my name.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Julia said. ‘Sorry, I’m being careful with calls. I do know who you are. Harper told me you helped with the vandalism issue at Tattings. People thought it was Robert, you know?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ I said.

  ‘Did you know that Harper and I caught the student yesterday?’

  ‘I do,’ I repeated, ‘and I’m pleased your husband was cleared. It must have been a terrible strain.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Julia said. ‘Why are you calling?’

  ‘Is Robert there? I’d like to ask him something.’

  ‘He’s taken the kids to my mother’s,’ Julia said. ‘You can ask me. Robert and I don’t have any secrets.’

  ‘This is delicate,’ I warned. ‘You can tell me to take a hike or you can let me help you with . . . with the other issue.’

  There was a pause during which I gathered she was considering her response.

  ‘Go on,’ she said finally.

  ‘Harper knows nothing of this,’ I explained, ‘and neither does anyone else at Tattings. I’ve confirmed that Brianna Berkelow made a previous sexual harassment claim against a male teacher at a Sydney school, which was subsequently proved to be vexatious and untrue. It’s my understanding that her father, a lawyer, exerted a threat of defamation against the school and therefore this information was not released to Tattings.’

  ‘You know, I looked in her file and there’s nothing. Was she expelled?’

  ‘I believe so,’ I said.

  ‘Can you tell me who the teacher is?’ she asked, her voice urgent. She was seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Normal life restored.

 
; ‘I’ve made negotiations through a third party. I don’t know the teacher, but the third party does. I’ve been advised that the Sydney teacher is keen to talk to your husband. If Robert wishes I can forward his number to the third party who will relay the number to the other teacher. We don’t have to use Robert’s name. It’s complicated but it has to be this way. The facilitators need to remain anonymous.’

  I heard sniffing and realised that Julia was crying. However much she trusted her husband there had to have been an element of doubt, and I’d just blown that element to smithereens. It was a good feeling.

  ‘There’s something else,’ I went on. ‘The wife wants to talk to you. She indicated that she knew you’d be suffering.’

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ Julia said, and I detected both relief and laughter in her voice. ‘This is incredible, how did you find all this out?’

  ‘I’m a nosey journalist, but don’t worry, I wouldn’t write about any of this,’ I reassured her. ‘I’m helping because you’re colleagues of my sister and also I have a sort of moral duty—I can help, therefore I should.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure. Do you want to talk to Robert, or are you happy for me to go ahead and relay his contact details to the third party?’

  ‘Relay away,’ Julia told me, ‘and it’s okay to give his name.’

  After I’d closed my mobile phone I walked around the lounge room trying to keep my feet within the lines of each tile. Bored with that game, I stepped out onto the balcony and breathed salty air deep into my lungs. I felt restless, fidgety. I went back inside and called Susie Cameron and gave her Robert Arnold’s name and phone number.

  Chapter 41

  Marcia slept until 8.30 pm. When she emerged from the bedroom her eyes were puffy but no longer red, so I assumed she’d stopped crying. Although I’d never experienced the emotional turmoil Marcia was going through, and let’s hope I never would, I did know the best thing I could do was just to be here with her.

  ‘I’m pleased you stayed,’ she said. ‘It would have been awful waking to a dark, empty apartment.’