by Toni Jordan
‘We won’t forget you Della,’ says Beau. ‘We’ll save you some jewels.’
‘How.’ I am almost lost for words. ‘How could this happen?’
‘It was chance. Mere serendipity that led us to this. I was online, in a chatroom about early Victorian history. No particular reason, you see, just following my curiosity. I have found throughout my career that keeping an open mind and following a line of enquiry often leads to something remarkable. I remember in ’65, when I first saw the emeralds. I knew nothing about jewellery as a young man. What young man does? Women’s business, we thought it was.’
‘Dad. What happened in the chatroom?’
‘I’m just getting to that. That’s how I met Marguerite McGuire and her brother.’
‘It’s her brother who has the tattoo,’ says Beau.
‘Of course, of course,’ my father says. ‘Who would be so bestial as to tattoo a little girl? It would be an intolerable scar on such a beautiful woman.’
‘Is she a little girl? Or a beautiful woman?’ I say.
‘She was once a little girl, but now she’s a beautiful woman. That’s what happens to little girls,’ says Beau.
‘Dad. Perhaps you’d better start at the beginning.’
‘The beginning?’ He chuckles. ‘The beginning was in Peru, where the pirate Benito Benita stole millions of dollars in gold and jewellery from a cathedral. The riches are beyond our imagination, Della. There was an entire altar made of silver, golden railings that ran the length of the aisle, bejewelled crowns that rested on the heads of statues of the saints.’
‘Right. And this pirate stole it,’ I say. ‘What’s the world coming to? Pirates have so little respect for the church these days.’
‘He’s not a modern-day pirate,’ says Beau. ‘He’s dead. It was the 1790s. And it wasn’t the church’s gold originally. They stole it first, from the indigenous tribes. And then they killed them. The tribes, I mean.’
‘We would never steal anything that hadn’t already been stolen,’ says my father. ‘That would be theft.’
‘Well. That’s fair enough then,’ I say.
His face is flushed with excitement, his eyes are shining. I realise that it has been a long time since I’ve seen him so happy. ‘Oh our sympathies are with the pirate, no doubt. Poor Benito was set upon by the British Navy and he led them a merry dance, right along the southern coast of Australia. His ship began taking water. Imagine it, Della! Two majestic sailing ships in a terrific duel across raging seas! Benito knew he couldn’t sail much further, that he was one or two days ahead of them at best. So he pulled in near Queenscliff. He buried the treasure in a cave and exploded the entrance with gunpowder. In 1798.’
‘Queenscliff. Only a couple of hours’ drive from here,’ I say. ‘Handy.’
‘This is all historical fact, Della,’ my father says. ‘I have affirmed it from several sources. I’ve even got the journals from a very well-funded expedition from the 1930s that tried to uncover the treasure without success. The government doesn’t want people to know, of course. Doesn’t want them to descend upon Queenscliff, presumably, digging holes everywhere.’
Beau is pacing and wringing his hands like he has a fever. ‘This kind of thing happens Della. It really does,’ he says. ‘I found out all about it on the internet. Back in 2007 some treasure hunters found five hundred million dollars of Spanish coins somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. From the wreck of a galleon. It was half a million silver coins. It happens all the time.’
‘All the time. And the tattoo?’
‘Benito was caught and hanged, but not before he tattooed a map of the location of the treasure on a cabin boy. That cabin boy grew up and moved to Tasmania.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Tasmania.’
‘Where he proceeded to tattoo his first-born son with the self-same tattoo. And down the line it went, until it reached our friend Mal McGuire. Now brother and sister are here raising funds for an expedition to uncover the treasure.’
I close my eyes but when I open them again we are all still here, in the shed. ‘Funds. Dad, you don’t have any funds.’
‘This is not a fly-by-night expedition. There are substantial costs, for excavators, surveyors and equipment, sonar imaging. And the living expenses of the McGuires. They have no source of income while we’re working on this. Hotel bills. A car, so they can visit the site. Everything requires capital.’
‘You don’t have any capital.’
‘We can’t just stroll up with our shovels. If the authorities caught wind, we’d be handing the entire treasure over without so much as a finder’s fee, probably back to Peru. The Peruvian Government is not the rightful owner. I doubt we could even negotiate with them. Since none of us speaks Spanish.’
‘Dad.’
‘We needed council uniforms, vehicles with government insignia, the right kind of paperwork and surveyors’ documents. You can’t just start digging on public land without a cover. We must have complete control of the treasure before the press release. It’s been a tremendous undertaking.’
‘Dad.’
‘They drove a sharp bargain, the McGuires. I wanted a fifty-fifty split but settled for forty per cent, considering it is their family legacy. I’m very sensitive to the importance of family tradition. And I confess, Marguerite is quite beguiling.’
‘I bet she is.’
‘And quite a negotiator. I daresay I would have settled for a third. But this kind of discussion is ducks and drakes anyhow. Our share will be many, many millions.’
‘But Dad. You contributed the capital? Where did you get the money?’
‘I don’t want Ruby bothered with this. What is an asset, if not a tool to build future assets? A great return always involves great risk.’
This is no longer a game. Of all the rules my father has taught us, the most important is that we all vote on every job. We decide everything together. I take his arm, and his face looks as tired as I have ever seen it, like he could just lie down on the floor of the shed right now and sleep. ‘You all thought my best days were behind me. Even you Della. But imagine the look in everyone’s eyes when I unveil this. This risk is negligible. By the time Ruby hears of it, the title will be back safe in my hands. Don’t worry my dear. I will look after everything.’
There are people who will lend money, yet they are not banks. They do not charge the official rate of interest. They don’t require the same level of identification or security because they are confident in their ability to…ensure their interests are covered if the loan defaults. Their means are always unpleasant. That’s how he raised the money. Cumberland Street.
I am sitting in my car around the corner from the Metcalf mansion. I am only slightly late. My father has become ill without anyone realising, not even me or Ruby. I should have noticed, instead of putting each little inconsistency down to age or mere absentmindedness. I am culpable. It is partly my fault that things have gone so far awry. For now I have done as much as I can: a quick phone call to the people my father owes so I know the details of the loan and when it is to be repaid, and I have extracted as many details about the McGuires as I could. I have made some calls to check their identities but I fear they will be long gone from their hotel. I thought the hardest part would be stopping my father from keeping his appointment this evening, but he was confused about the time or the day and was happy to be convinced to stay home.
Beau I sent on an errand of surveillance to the McGuires’ hotel. I’ll deal with him tomorrow, when I’ll call an emergency family meeting to find a way out of this.
I take a few moments to compose myself, remembering my role. Remembering everything about me. I have bought new glasses for tonight; they are more elegant and suit my dress. I had feared it would be difficult to concentrate after speaking with my father about his treasure but it has actually made it easier, made me more determined. I have made the right decision, I know. I am focused, the result of decades of practice, I suppose. Everything else in my mind fad
es toward the edges.
Daniel answers the door and he is, amazingly, dishevelled. He looks like he’s just woken up. His face is dark with a three-day shadow. He is wearing a tracksuit and T-shirt. His feet are in thongs and his hair is real bed-head, not stylists’. It is only when I see this that I realise I half-expected him to be wearing a tuxedo. If this was an Audrey Hepburn movie, he would be. My dress is now even more inappropriate but I do not care.
He does not mention my dress and he does not greet me or smile. ‘It’s in here,’ is all he says, and he turns his back on me at the door and walks up the hall to the room where I first met him less than two weeks ago.
I shut the front door behind me and follow, and I am reminded of our walk through the forest. Of watching him in front of me for all those thousands of paces, and of everything I thought about then. The clip of my heels is cushioned by the long runner. In the diningroom he sits down at the table where some paperwork is spread before him. He pushes an envelope across the table.
‘Quarter of a million,’ he says. ‘As agreed.’ Then he picks up his pen and continues working. I just stand there. My weight is even on my feet. My hands are folded. I have all night. Then I catch sight of movement out the window, a flash of white and bright orange in the corner of my eye. I look: this room faces the street, and at the end of the drive there is a white Telstra van parked across the driveway. A man wearing overalls and a fluorescent safety vest is placing traffic cones around the footpath, and signs that say: Pedestrian detour. Men at work. The back of the van is open.
I walk over to the window and peel back a curtain. There is no other movement in the street. ‘Are you having trouble with your broadband?’ I say.
Daniel looks up and shakes his head. ‘Why?’
I peer out the window again. The workman is quite far away, but I know he will soon take a pneumatic drill out of the back of the van and there will be a god-awful noise. ‘There’s a guy out there about to dig up the footpath across your drive. How will you get your car out?’
Daniel comes over then, and looks out the window. ‘Hell,’ he says. ‘I’ll be right back.’
I follow him to the door of the diningroom and watch him down the hall, down the drive. It will take him some time to speak with Sam. There will be arguments, paperwork to dig out, a supervisor to phone. When Daniel is out of sight, I head upstairs.
Upstairs I have a study that belongs to me. I keep everything that’s important there. I sprint. The staircase is a grand one, carved banisters, ornate gold rods along each rise holding the carpet in place. First I must find the room. The first floor landing leads to a wide corridor lined with paintings in intricate gold frames. There are closed doors off it on both sides, in both directions. Then I notice that all the doors have ornate, old-fashioned keys in the lock, except for one. The door without a key is opposite the top of the stairs and directly above the diningroom. I stop. Even if it was not missing its key, something about this room draws me. Generations of instinct, perhaps. I place my hand flat against the door. It is alive to my touch.
From my purse I take a leather manicure kit that has a token nail file and emery board and, underneath these, a hidden pocket filled with tools to pick a lock. This lock is basic: it takes just a moment for the door to open. I look from right to left. The corridor is quiet; all the other doors remain shut. The rug is slippery silk under my heels. The door swings under the smallest pressure of my hand.
I can see two long windows with shutters facing the drive and further back, the road. The shutters are open; dusk has fallen. There is a green-shaded lamp on a desk but it is only dim, not dark, and I don’t need the light. There is no sound but my breathing.
This room is a study, but one quite unlike my father’s. The walls are lined with books, but they are not dusty and randomly shoved in any spare space. There is order here, yet they are not all decorator-chosen leather like the prissy books downstairs. Many of them are ugly, with cracked boards and garish spines. These books have been lovingly selected, used often, placed back, dusted. I run my hands along some of the jackets.
Evolutionary Biology. Evolution. Forms of Becoming: The Evolutionary Biology of Development. Then on another shelf: The Origin and Evolution of Mammals, The Last Tasmanian Tiger: the history and extinction of the Thylacine. There are more, many more; dozens and maybe hundreds, by palaeontologists and biologists and wildlife scientists. In the centre of the room there is a glass case and inside this is an old book bound in green leather. The spine says, On the Origin of Species. Darwin. I know without knowing that this is a first edition. Along the long wall there are a series of certificates in frames. I only look at one. It says: This is to certify that Daniel Solomon Metcalf was admitted to the award of Master of Science, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
My breath catches. I need to sit down. If I don’t sit down I’ll fall down. I breathe deeply, steady myself. I sit staring at this room, thinking over everything he has said to me, and as I do I feel myself smiling. That sneaky, conniving man.
Then I realise the dull ringing sound I hear is not the blood in my ears but my mobile phone, the signal from Sam that Daniel is coming back. I did not notice the first few rings. I am seriously out of time.
I bolt from the study, swinging the door behind me. Down the stairs, three at a time, almost falling on my heels. Daniel is not in sight as I dart back to the diningroom, but as soon as I sit I can hear him in the hall. I have made it with seconds to spare. I still my breathing, calm my heart rate. Of all the things I was expecting. All my fears and hopes. He has been pretending to be someone else, right from the beginning. He is just like me.
‘Sorry,’ Daniel says, but he doesn’t sound sorry at all. He sits back behind his desk. ‘Some mix-up with the address. The bloke didn’t know what he was doing.’
He is all business again. He scowls and passes me a white envelope. ‘It’s all there,’ he says. ‘Check it if you like.’ He opens a folder and starts to read. I am dismissed.
‘I believe you,’ I say.
‘Fine. Believe me. Now I have a lot of work to do. If you wouldn’t mind showing yourself out.’ And still he does not raise his head.
I smile. I cannot speak yet. The room around me seems to have faded from view. The window on my right side, the books, the antiques that were here a few moments ago have all disappeared. I can’t even see the carpet anymore. The ceiling was above my head but it has also faded. There is only Daniel. I know what he looks like. I have never seen him before in my life.
Now I am a scientist, a real scientist, and I can see him as though I am looking down a microscope at a brilliant new discovery, something incredibly rare that I hadn’t believed really existed. I see the way his hair is cut short and fine around his ear, then longer as it skims away from the side of his head. I see the texture of the skin of his neck, each cell, each velvety hair, the way the skin is tanned on his arms and the way it softens and pales in the cleft of his elbows and between his fingers. The diamond notch above his top lip that meets the base of his nose. It is as if my vision was poor before and has suddenly improved, as if all those peripheral objects have been robbing me of clarity and now that they are gone, I am seeing Daniel more clearly than I have ever seen anything before. For just an instant, I feel super-human.
The wind is picking up outside; there is a squeaking and a gentle thud as the shutters bump against the house. It makes the air in the room seem deadly still by comparison. It is quiet in here, too, yet I can hear the distant pealing of a car alarm from Toorak Road. By now, Sam will be on his way home to park the van back in the rear shed and remove the decal and hide the tools. I pick up the envelope and hold it between my palms. It is white and plain and sealed. I do not need to open it. I can feel the cheque pulsing inside. I fold it once and put it in my evening purse. Now it is clear what I am free to do. I wait.
After a while, he says, ‘Is there something else?’ He says it as thou
gh he is speaking to his pen.
‘Yes,’ I say.
He keeps writing, flicking pages. ‘What, then? What do you want?’
‘Where is it?’
He looks up then. ‘I just gave it to you.’
‘Not that,’ I say. ‘Your bedroom.’
He blinks slowly. ‘My bedroom?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘The room. With your bed in it. Where you sleep.’
‘It’s upstairs.’
I twist my arm behind my back but I can’t reach the top of the zip. ‘Do you mind?’ I say, and I walk around the table and turn my back to him. I hold the bottom of my hair up with one hand.
‘Do I mind what?’
‘I can’t reach. Just undo me, will you?’
‘Ella,’ he says. ‘What is this?’
‘It’s a zip.’
‘Yes. Thanks for that. I mean what are you doing?’
‘So many questions. The cheque is in my purse, isn’t it? So whatever I’m doing,’ I say, ‘it isn’t about the money.’
I feel the zip move slowly down, just an inch or two, but his hands are on the fabric and the metal and he doesn’t touch my skin.
‘You did that very well,’ I say as I walk towards the door. ‘I could swear you’ve seen a zip before.’
Half-way up the first flight I pull the zip all the way down the back of my dress and step out of it. Now all I am wearing is my underwear: my best matching bra and briefs, gold satin and black lace, and my patent heels. When I’m almost at the top I look back over my shoulder and see my emerald dress lying there on the stairs like a molten green shadow still warm from my body. I take off the glasses and put them in my evening bag. Then I snap it closed with a click and leave that on the stairs next to my dress. I see Daniel too, looking up at me.
‘What a lovely hall,’ I say. ‘Left or right?’
‘Ella. You need to go. Now.’
‘Soon,’ I say. ‘I bet it’s left. Your bedroom.’
‘It’s right,’ he says.
‘One of these doors?’ I run my hand along one as I walk, feel the metal keys colder than the wood. I walk slowly. I memorise each pace. ‘I can open every one, but that will take longer.’