George watched Lafe for a minute, wondering if there was anything she should do.
Edna Field went inside, presumably to call the Gather Region Advocate.
Eventually George went home and took a long shower, and Lafe may well have lain in the grass all night.
•
On the right side of the tracks, Opal Jones was reading aloud to Ken from the Women’s Weekly Oriental Dinner Party Cookbook. They were thinking of having Denise and Brian over some time, because although Brian was boring, Opal liked the way Denise listened. Ken Jones told Mack he would’ve rather heard the phone book read aloud than one of Opal’s cookbooks, but Opal got annoyed when he resisted, so he’d learnt not to resist. Mack had shaken his head and said, ‘Maaate.’
Opal Jones heard the noises before Ken. She says Ken was so interested in her recipe recitation that he might not have noticed if she hadn’t cocked her ears to the disturbance and stopped reading. She turned down the volume on the TV news.
The sound of glass breaking. The sound of a thrown plate smashing against a wall. A woman screaming. A man, in thunderous tones, booming something Opal Jones couldn’t decipher. The sound of the front door slamming and Terry White running out of the White house and off towards town. Opal Jones was practically hanging out the window by then and she saw him go. Then more smashing—glass, crockery, it was hard to tell—and muffled whopping sounds. Whop, whop, whop. It went on and on, followed by some thuds. Dull, brutal thuds. Someone falling. Then silence, except the sound of Opal asking Ken if they should call Mack.
After a few more minutes, Terry White ran back along their street and back into the White house, and the door slammed behind him.
Opal called Mack.
When Mack arrived, it’d been about fifteen minutes since the last smashed glass. He knocked on the Whites’ door and Terry answered, in tears. Carl White, Opal attested, had reversed his car out from under the jacaranda and departed just minutes prior, with the look of a man possessed. That’s how Opal described him: possessed. Carl White was haunted; he was bedevilled; and no one could argue that any of this was an improvement on blank and unfeeling.
The last thing Opal saw was Mack leading Judy White down to his police car, with Terry following a few metres behind. Judy had refused an ambulance, but she had trouble walking the short distance, and appeared to wince as Mack put his arm around her middle in an attempt to help her along. Her face did not resemble the woman Opal knew: it was entirely different colours.
Mack drove Terry and Judy the familiar forty-minute drive to Judy’s own workplace. Her eyes had been beaten back into their sockets, so she didn’t see much of the journey, but she knew the way with her eyes closed. Terry helped her out of the car. Another nurse, one of Judy’s friends who was on duty, admitted Judy White. After twenty-five years of working there—apart from her brief stints in the labour ward with Rosie and Terry—it was Judy’s first time as a patient at Clarke Base Hospital.
20
The Goodwood Progress Association met the following evening in the Community Hall and was grossly down in numbers. Bart McDonald, the co-president, was missing. Judy White, who had been absent the last meeting also, was in the hospital. Helen, who only ever came to the meetings to panic, was too distressed by recent events and had taken ill with a cold compress and a Valium. And Fitzy, upon hearing about Judy, had driven her car into the parking sign pole outside the Vinnies, much to Val Sparks’s horror, and was at home wearing a neck brace and waiting for rain.
Smithy, the remaining co-president, who was both present and accounted for, ran the proceedings.
Spirits were low.
Without Fitzy, the movements towards lobbying council for an official Goodwood Monthly Rainfall Map, a native garden, and a reinforced guardrail for the bridge, were hereby postponed. Without Bart, any preparations towards the Fishing’s The Funnest parade seemed gauche. And without Helen, whose newsagency’s wall would bear Smithy’s proposed mural, since it was the end building and faced the picnic tables at Sweetmans Park, there could be no progression with designs or a painting schedule.
The only thing left to discuss, thankfully without Judy, was unofficial business: Carl and Judy White, and whatever it was that had transpired between Lafe and Davo in the Carlstroms’ front yard the day before.
Mum reported back when she got home.
Apparently, Davo Carlstrom sustained a bleeding nose, no actual break, and red rosy bruising to his cheeks and clavicle. Lafe—who was a prick of a thing, according to Smithy—drank five schooners at the Wicko some time later. He was speckled with grass and had a split lip and some roughing to the forehead. He was bigger, older and stronger, and had clearly got the better of Davo in the scuffle.
Smithy had inquired politely as to the cause of the dispute.
Lafe said, ‘Ah, you know how it is. Davo’s not over his fucken girlfriend.’
‘You mean Rosie?’ said Smithy, gently correcting what he considered to be Lafe’s lack of respect for the missing.
‘Whatever,’ said Lafe, and left.
Smithy, who was often prone to say something profound, told the meeting, ‘Many a time a man’s mouth broke his nose’, and everyone agreed.
Meanwhile, Judy White had three broken ribs, two beaten-closed eyes, and severe lacerations to the backs of her thighs. A belt had been utilised. The buckle had caused the most damage.
While Judy was being treated for her injuries, Terry White was staying with the Joneses, waiting to be picked up by his Aunt Alison who would take him to stay with her in Ballina while Judy recovered. Alison told Mack that the further Terry could get from Carl the better. Cousin Tegan had taken a week off from the restaurant under the Big Prawn to hang out with Terry. She was to take him to the Richmond River, because everyone in the White family knew of Terry’s fondness for rivers.
Mack had arrested Carl White first thing that morning, as Carl was sitting in his shed drinking a beer. He hadn’t slept. Mack told Tracy, who attended the meeting, that Carl had said, ‘You don’t understand her. She did most of that to herself. She’s lost it.’ Mack was disgusted. He was, that afternoon, preparing an Apprehended Domestic Violence Order on Judy’s behalf.
The Goodwood Progress Association was in deep shock. How could this be, in Goodwood? How could this be, in such a safe town? And what did it all mean about Rosie White?
‘You know what I always thought was a bit funny?’ said Carmel Carmichael. ‘Jude used to come in for a wine with the girls—but only if Carl dropped her off and picked her up again. Like she’s a big old baby!’
Faye Haynes snorted in disapproval.
Smithy chimed up with his opinion: Bart never liked Carl. He knew there was something off about him. But Bart was a gentleman. He didn’t say a bad word about other people. He just made it clear that something was off and we were to make up our own minds about that. Now Bart’s gone, so we can’t ask him, God rest him in that beautiful lake. But Rosie White and Judy White. Now, what’s this terrible business? What kind of man puts a belt to his wife? Puts her in the emergency department? That is not a man: that is a monster. He has the demons inside. ‘I have a mind to think Carl White has done something awful last winter,’ Smithy concluded. ‘And now he’s done this to Judy to keep her quiet. May the cat eat him and may the devil eat the cat.’
Mum resisted the urge to take minutes.
Tracy nodded as Smithy spoke, then took her turn to offer an opinion, which was hotly anticipated given her spousal proximity to Mack.
The meeting leaned in.
‘That Lafe Carlstrom is a piece of work,’ she said. ‘I seen the way he looked at me at the Wicko one time. I did not like that look in his eye.’
That was all from Tracy. She never was a woman of many words.
The meeting leaned back. Smithy put a hand on Tracy’s shoulder in commiseration. Carmel Carmichael, crestfallen, had another Scotch Finger. The Community Hall creaked with memories. Mum found herself anxious and had the urge to rearrange something. T
he meeting wound up early and everyone shuffled out into the warming air, with grief lining their light spring jackets.
•
The next day, Mrs Bart got up early. She rode Apples and Pearl rode Oyster, and they caught the first of the white morning light as it capped the top of the mountain like snow. Pearl had been distressed for weeks now and Mrs Bart wasn’t faring much better. The two of them had made a pact to ride every morning together, in a concerted effort to make facing the day less of a concerted effort. So far, ever so slowly, it had been working. Pearl spoke more about Bart, now that she had a riding partner. Mrs Bart listened. Then Mrs Bart spoke about Bart, and Pearl listened, the sound of hooves interrupting them pleasantly. More often than not, though, they spoke of the horses, which was a much easier subject to broach before breakfast.
After they’d eaten, Pearl performed her morning dressage ceremonies with her My Little Ponies, then joined Jan to muck out the stables and check the pasture for fireweed. Mrs Bart backed the Mazda out of the carport and headed out of town towards Clarke. She drove the long road along the river, bumping over the dead kangaroos before the bridge, then she soared high above the brown water, trying not to look at it or to dwell on what might lie beneath. She sped along the two kilometres of fast flat road in a blur. And then she made sure to accelerate even faster as she approached the browned grass near the boat wharves. This was the first time since Bart vanished that she had been able to set wheel anywhere near the lake.
As she sped past the fishing spot, she couldn’t help but turn her head. There among the bobbing boats was Bart’s half-cabin cruiser, ghostly and floating. She swallowed hard and two tears let themselves out, stinging as they left her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Later, Mrs Bart told my Nan that, involuntarily, she’d said, ‘Oh no, no, no,’ aloud to herself in an effort to push on.
When Mrs Bart arrived at Clarke Base Hospital, she was shown to the shared ward that contained Judy White. The nurse who escorted her shook her head and said, ‘It’s unspeakable,’ as they pushed through big white double doors. Mrs Bart agreed, and therefore did not speak.
Judy White was sitting up in bed staring out the window. She was as surprised to see Mrs Bart as Mrs Bart was to be there.
When Nan asked Mrs Bart, ‘Why did you go?’, Mrs Bart just said, ‘I felt compelled,’ and Nan left it at that.
Judy White was a wrecked ship. There were no flowers. There were no vases. There were no sympathy cards. Just Judy, who quivered at the sight of Mrs Bart, a look of shame and humiliation filling her swollen face.
In an instant, Mrs Bart regretted her visit. She stood there not knowing what to say. Judy White had attended her floral art workshop; they knew each other to say hello, like everyone in Goodwood knew everyone. But that was really it. They had no bond whatsoever. They were not friends. Mrs Bart was not expected. Only then, in their shared losses, did Mrs Bart feel some kind of connection; only that day, upon waking, had she felt herself compelled.
Judy White said, ‘Mrs Bart, you didn’t have to come.’
Mrs Bart said, ‘Call me Flora.’
Judy quivered, and stuttered, and began to make excuses. ‘I’m such an idiot,’ she said.
Mrs Bart replied, plain and firm: ‘No. You’re not.’
Then, pulling up a cheap plastic chair, Mrs Bart sat, and Judy lay, and Mrs Bart took Judy’s hand, and the two women sat in an uncomfortable silence, until time passed and they no longer felt uncomfortable. They willed themselves into a state of ease. Just the two of them. Without having to plan it. There was nothing to say. All of it was unspeakable. They merely set themselves there together—these two very different women—in unexpected solidarity.
Eventually, when the quiet current between their palms had exhausted itself, and their restorative silence was complete, Mrs Bart took her hand from Judy’s, giving it a gentle squeeze as she did, and left.
Who knows what Judy White thought of the whole episode.
But Mrs Bart—Flora—felt compelled, and then regretful, and then empowered, and then somehow absolved.
21
During the afternoon while Mrs Bart and Judy White held hands in silence, Nan did her shopping at the Goodwood Grocer, stopped for a middy of shandy at the Wicko, looked in on Val Sparks at the Vinnies, and baked a silverbeet lasagne. Our phone was ringing with a dinner invitation as I got home from school.
Nan’s cooking was generally thought to be the finest in Goodwood. When the CWA ran bake sales, Nan’s cakes sold out by lunch. When she was still interested in competition, in the form of the Clarke Show, Nan held first prize in Biscuits and Muffins from 1984–1990. When Denise needed advice on updating the cookbook section at the Goodwood Library, she consulted with Nan, and hoped Nan would bake for the occasion.
When Rosie White went missing, Nan left a shepherd’s pie on the Whites’ doorstep and rang the bell before rushing off to her idling car.
‘People need to grieve without bother,’ she told me. ‘But hot food always helps.’
When Bart went missing, Nan baked a banana bread (Pearl’s favourite) and left it with Jan while Pearl was in the stables. Then she drove to Bart’s Meats, where Mrs Bart was pacing, and left a spinach and cheese pie (Mrs Bart’s favourite) on the front step. She gave a wave to Mrs Bart through the glass. Nan had wrapped the pie in a tea towel and left a note on top. It said, in cursive, Flora, I cannot imagine. I wish you every strength. From Joyce Mackenzie. That evening, when Nance closed the Grocer and walked home along Cedar Street, she was pleased to see that Mrs Bart had stopped her pacing, for a moment at least, and was eating a piece of pie.
When Mum and I arrived for dinner, Pop and Mack were drinking Reschs on the front verandah. It was always Reschs for my Pop. He drank the Pilsener at home, because you couldn’t get the Draught in a bottle. But it was Reschs Draught or the highway when Pop went to the Wicko—he refused to drink any other beer.
Nan set the lasagne in the centre of the table, alongside a lovely spring salad. Pop clinked Mack’s glass as he sat down. His beer sat inside a holder that said Goodwood’s Good For Wood, with a picture of the sawmill and a cartoon man winking at a blushing lady. Mum sliced bread. Cutlery sounded. I could feel Backflip’s fur against my ankles. Everything was the same; but nothing felt normal.
Dinner conversation at Nan and Pop’s used to be lighthearted and free. It was homey and sophisticated and sometimes gamy; peppered with little puns from Pop, and humorous forays into politics and town business. Mum and Nan would have a glass of red wine and practise their amateur psychology. Nan knew best about everything, without having to make a song and dance about it, and everyone agreed—even Pop, who voted differently and had far less tolerance for oddity. We all looked to Nan like she was an oracle.
That night was different. Not about Nan, because she was still the authority on everything and sat at the head of the table to show it. But the tone had taken a turn. The talk was frenetic and sprawling. Voices were raised higher than usual. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone wanted to know about Judy and Carl; and Lafe and Davo; and Rosie and Bart.
Carl White was a deadshit, beyond all measure. An absolute disgrace of a man. No one thought ‘monster’ was too strong a word; the guy was on par with the devil. Lafe was not much better, although no one knew exactly why they felt that so strongly—it just seemed to be a common understanding. Davo was questionable, but the general consensus was: innocent till proven guilty. Judy was a martyr, a quivering mess of loss. And Rosie was a mystery. Rosie was just gone.
‘Plus, I think Smithy’s terribly depressed,’ said Nan, cutting into the half-eaten lasagne when it was time for seconds.
Talk of Smithy led to a discussion about Goodwood in general, and the atmosphere that had overtaken Cedar Street and beyond. Everyone at the table was concerned, but no one more than Nan. Her trip to the shops that day was troubling. Everyone seemed to suffer. She could cut the air with a knife. The newsagent, the Bakery, the Grocer, Woody’s, Bart’s Meats. There
was not a shop Nan had visited that didn’t smell of grief. The corner block of our street, with the Wicko and Vinnies, was especially affected. Nan worried most about Val Sparks and Smithy.
On account of her piety, Val Sparks was particularly sensitive to the spiritual and emotional climate. Since the Vinnies was next door to the Wicko, she had come to believe that Smithy’s melancholy was seeping through their joining wall. It was weighing on her more than the disappearances: this thing, this feeling—Smithy’s heavy heart song—that hung in the air. It dusted her shelves with sorrow, and Val predicted that soon it would reside on every shelf and in every cracked brick in town.
Nan suggested that Val change her window display to make it look more sunny. She did. She rearranged her collection of Celeste Munch’s pottery and made her pyramid of CWA jams into a square. She draped Coral’s newest knit—a bright red scarf—across the foreground. Then she replaced the craft circle baby bibs with some general thrift items: two porcelain cats, one porcelain Dalmatian and a handsome wooden clock. Quickly, she changed her mind about the clock. She worried that it would only point to time. And time—when people are missing and sad—is not a friend.
Nan said the new window looked very fresh. Then Mrs Gwen Hughes stopped in with her crystals and suggested Val burn a smudge stick of sage, in an act of cleansing. Val said, ‘What a good idea,’ to Gwen, and Gwen left satisfied.
Then Val said, ‘I would never,’ to Nan, and accused sage of being pagan.
Nan had looked out through the window, over Val’s new display. The parking sign pole that Fitzy had crashed into with her car had been left slanting. It severed Nan’s view of the street. She agreed with Val that it needed urgent straightening.
‘God bless that woman, but she’s a walking accident,’ said Val. ‘I look at that pole and think the whole town’s askew.’
Mack piped up that he’d done what he could to talk to Smithy, but Smithy was acting strange. Mack had been into the Wicko the previous evening to ask about Lafe Carlstrom. Lafe had left sprinkles of grass under the bar stools from his scuffle in the yard.
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