Lost Girl

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Lost Girl Page 7

by J. C. Grey

‘What’s Christmas without presents?’ I smile, knowing I must not do anything that will force Marc to take sides. In that battle, there would ultimately be no winners.

  ‘A Scotsman never looks a gift horse in the mouth,’ Gordon responds, raising a laugh. ‘Where’s mine?’

  It’s near the top of the pile so I hand it to him. It’s a fishing magazine with a two-year subscription. He looks delighted. Yvette looks appalled. I already know she will not approve. There are four approved McAllister sports: sailing, golf, tennis and horse-riding. Even talk of rugby is greeted with a sniff, though Marc played for the state under-nineteens.

  Sylvie’s family arrive during the unwrapping and her daughter Adele immediately demands her gift—a large inflatable pink flip-flop for the pool. Her father Brand, a rather pale and insipid man—I have to remember not to address him as Bland—immediately sets to work blowing the thing up. His face quickly turns red, but he perseveres and when he hands the thing to his daughter, I can see the adoration on his face. For that, and because I suspect it takes fortitude to make it as a McAllister-by-marriage, I soften towards him.

  By that time, the party is underway and, despite Yvette’s invitation to move to the deck, we stand in the foyer, drinking our champagne and laughing over the gifts. The framed photo for Yvette is in a separate bag for fragile items. She unwraps it, the look on her face making it clear she is expecting the worst.

  ‘A photo … how thought … oh no, not this terrible one! Darling, we have so many gorgeous photos of our children, why would you pick this one?’ She looks genuinely bewildered.

  Léo takes it from her unresisting hand and shows it to Marc. They both burst into laughter.

  ‘Mum was always worried people might think the Hills hoist was ours,’ Léo says. ‘She tried to destroy every copy of it.’

  ‘That’s not true, Léo. I just feel that there are so many charming photos of the three of you taken by professionals.’ Gordon flushes, and I realise it must have been his finger on the camera button that day.

  One of those childhood photos Yvette does approve of is prominently displayed on the drawing room mantel. In it, Marc and Sylvie stand stiffly behind Léo, as he gamely attempts to school his mischievous, little-boy grin into a polite smile.

  For a second, I feel fury rising and I almost say something but the faint crease in Marc’s brow deflates my irritation. And as reason returns, it occurs to me that Yvette is a woman afraid of her own children, and at the limits of her ability to control them. Sad. I reach for Marc’s hand and squeeze it, receiving a quizzical smile.

  ‘What’s that?’ Adele points her little finger at the bag. There is one more gift.

  ‘It’s for Marc.’

  He looks at me in surprise. We exchanged gifts last night. I managed to secure tickets to Australia’s rugby test against New Zealand in Wellington later in the year for Marc, Will and James. He bought me a small original painting by John Olsen of a kingfisher diving. I have never paid much attention to art but there is something about this painting that I love, and I have propped it on the table just inside the door to our apartment. I know now one of Olsen’s bigger works is in the art gallery and have made plans to meet Claire there in the New Year.

  ‘Actually, it’s for us.’

  ‘It’s socks,’ suggests Sylvie.

  ‘No, definitely a penguin,’ Léo says. Clearly this is a family ritual.

  ‘Wrong, all of you. It’s a fridge,’ Gordon deadpans as Marc unwraps the box.

  Adele looks doubtful. ‘I think it’s too small to be a fridge, Poppy.’

  ‘Grandad,’ Yvette corrects the toddler but her eyes are on me. ‘Or Grandpère. We don’t say Poppy in this family, darling.’

  By now Marc holds the plain shoebox in his hands, curiosity etched on his face as the exterior gives no hint of what it contains. Then he lifts the lid to find a pair of overalls, a paintbrush and a handful of colour chips.

  Understanding dawns and he nods, holding up the paint chips—parchment, sea-green and brilliant white. An eyebrow edges upwards. ‘The beach shack?’

  ‘You would do better to knock it down and start from scratch,’ Yvette begins. ‘I can recommend an architect and interior designer. Anyway, Marc is too busy and important for … manual labour.’

  Marc is lifting up the overalls, clearly too small for him. ‘I don’t think I’m the intended painter.’

  ‘That would be me,’ I confirm.

  ‘Thanks, gorgeous girl,’ he says, drawing me into a hug. ‘It’s a great present.’

  Yes, it is—and clever, because it means I will begin the New Year with a new sense of purpose.

  But as I give myself a metaphorical pat on the back for my morning’s work, I catch Yvette’s eye over Marc’s shoulder. Her fine-boned face is a smiling mask but her dark eyes are narrowed in warning, and I wonder if my cleverness has in fact been a monumental act of stupidity. Her attempt to undermine me has failed and she has learned not to underestimate me, which means she will be better prepared next time.

  Eight

  Present day

  Throughout the evening, the phone rings so faintly that in the end I do not know if I am actually hearing a real sound or the imprint of it on my memory.

  Even with the light of the long tapered candles from the drawing room lit on the gas stove-top, I know it would be a hopeless quest to try and find it. I decide to wait until dawn to mount a search. After eating my soup, I take the candles to the living room and place them on the mantelpiece where they belong. As soon as I have changed into my pyjamas, I blow them out.

  It is a very long night and not only because of the echo of the ring tone. Even curled into a small ball, I am cold. I do not think I will be able to sleep at all but I must do because, when I wake, it is light, the torrent has stopped and the sky through the shutters is a rain-washed blue.

  Pushing back the covers, I go to the light switch. The power is back on. I listen but I can no longer hear my mobile. Now, in the light of day, I curse myself for not paying more attention to where the ringtone had come from. Upstairs definitely, which is odd. I do not remember having been upstairs around the time it went missing.

  Nevertheless, I climb the stairs in socked feet. At the top I hesitate, tucking my loose hair behind my ear as I debate where to try first.

  As I had been at the door to the master bedroom at the moment the lights went out, I return there. The room is as it was then, except less gloomy. Ignoring the locked room, I head for the little balcony where I look for my phone though I know it cannot be there, and note the blustery wind. The bed linen will air well on the old washing line behind the shed.

  Back on the landing, I open the large armoire, not expecting to find my mobile. I am right. There is, however, a quantity of dated but good quality bed linen. It feels and smells of the dampness that seeps into every nook and cranny of the house, but I take a pile of it, with the intention of airing it.

  Quick checks of the other rooms and bathroom reveal no signs of my phone, which does not surprise me since I haven’t been in them since my first exploration of the house, the day after my arrival. I hurry downstairs with my hoard, dump two blankets in the washing machine and select the wool cycle, hoping they will not end up the size of pillowcases.

  After my breakfast muesli, I take my coffee and pad through the ground-floor rooms again, in case I have missed the phone on earlier searches, but it remains absent and I cannot think of anywhere I have been but not yet looked. It is exasperating. I know those calls last night must have been Marc, out of patience and prepared to wait no longer for me to contact him. Even though it is not my fault, I feel to blame and decide I must get in touch with him, which means finding a payphone.

  I am strangely reluctant to leave the house, finding any number of reasons to delay the expedition. Twice, I change clothes, discarding first the bronze tunic over leggings and then jeans and a shirt. Eventually, I opt for a miniskirt and tights with long boots. Over a long-sleeve tee, I wear a k
nitted poncho the colour of heather for warmth. As I brush my hair in the powder-room mirror, I see that its chestnut-red lights are brighter. My face has natural colour, too, and the shadows beneath my eyes have disappeared.

  As the washing machine has finished its cycle by the time I am ready, I decide it does not make sense to waste the billowy wind. I put on another wash, and take the blankets out to the line. They smell fresh and have not shrunk noticeably, and when I peg them out, they flap so enthusiastically that I stand and watch for a while.

  In this small patch of garden, I am starting to make a mark with the blankets waving on the line, and the rescued hydrangeas now basking in the weak sunshine. Though time is ticking on, I find the new hose and, skirting the worst of the mud, attach it to the tap. Though it moans and shudders, it delivers a jet of water. I drench the hydrangeas, scatter some fertiliser and water them once more.

  By this time, the sun is about as high as it will get at this time of year. I know that makes it around noon and that therefore the sun must be pretty much at north. Come the summer, the hydrangeas will be in full sun for a good part of the day.

  I am pretty sure Harry High-pants had said they needed part shade, which means these plants will need to be moved before spring. Was he doling out general advice? He did not strike me as having green fingers. Certainly the paltry collection of dusty indoor plants with their curled labels did not suggest a man with a passion for plants, and yet his advice had been spoken with the confidence of someone who knew what he was talking about.

  As I would rather not bump into anyone I know in Lammermoor, I drive for forty-five minutes in the other direction, making my way to a popular tourist town on the coast. Though quiet at this time of year, its population is large enough that I attract little attention.

  Until now, I have not noticed the scarcity of public phones. They are an endangered species. I finally find a pair in a small shopping mall but one has been vandalised, and the other has a couple of people waiting. In any case, it is too public for the conversation that is likely to result between Marc and me. I could buy a cheap mobile, but it seems pointless as mine will turn up any day. In the end, I find an internet café and send an email to his business address, anticipating that he will be in the office at this time of day.

  Marc, I am sorry not to have called. I misplaced my phone a couple of days ago and have been looking for it ever since. I know that you will have tried to reach me and worried when I did not respond. I am well, better than I would have imagined a few weeks ago. Believe it or not, I have been gardening! Yes, it’s true. Try not to work too hard and take some time out with the boys.

  It is winter, I think or close to. I have lost track of the days and weeks. The rugby season is in full swing. I picture Marc, Will and James—beers in hand, rowdy and singing off-key—at a game. Occasionally, I have been with them, enjoying the atmosphere and sense of camaraderie, but mostly when they go it is for a boys’ night out from which he staggers in some time around midnight, three sheets to the wind, either full of bonhomie or muttering about one-eyed refs. I smile at the thought.

  When you go this week, take the bears we bought for them. They will like the bears. Thank you. Em x

  He will know what I mean as he goes to see them at least once a week. I hope he will find the bears and that Sylvie has not removed all traces of the nursery as she suggested. I am not even sure they are bears with their goggle eyes, pot bellies and odd colouring—one purple, the other a mustard-yellow. They may be dogs or aliens or alien-dogs. But they made us laugh when we spotted them in a small shop in a country town that advertised one-of-a-kind toys. They were right about that.

  For the next hour, I wait, figuring that Marc is probably in a meeting and will respond as soon as he returns to his office or checks his phone. But no new messages appear in my inbox and most of the older ones seem to be from mailing lists for businesses and products that I have no interest in.

  One, though, catches my eye—from a design website I signed up to only because Claire wrote a guest blog last year. Usually, I just skim-read the monthly blog or trash it without reading at all, but right now I have nothing better to do and no wish to dwell on Marc’s silence, so I read it and find it surprisingly interesting. The subject is the growing movement against mass-market consumerism, and the rise of cottage industries. Small Poppies is the name of the website and it features individuals and mini businesses in the areas of produce, textiles and design, for the most part, with the focus on hand-grown or made, quality and unique products.

  I can see why Claire likes the site. She worked as a junior designer for a department-store label until two years ago, but feeling like a small cog in a gargantuan machine, she went solo. Her one-off designs have a vintage feel, often using fabric recycled from older pieces, and she now has a small but growing band of loyal customers, but it’s been hard work.

  She still has the market stall in Paddington, and a couple of edgy boutiques stock a few items. But her main sales are via the website she set up about a year ago, with Brendan as photographer and me as model. Her line of old-fashioned swimsuits cut from vintage paisleys and checks received particular attention, including a small piece in Harper’s Bazaar. Even Sylvie, who does not trust anything she can’t find in David Jones, was at one point debating about ordering one—until Yvette convinced her they looked as if they’d been cut from old curtains.

  What is most interesting about the latest blog is the assertion that the movement has nothing to do with designer labels and thousand-dollar price tickets. It is about applying a less-is-more principle to homes and lives as an antidote to the throwaway retail culture that has taken hold.

  My two hours are almost up and I dash off a quick, appreciative response to the website, without giving my name. Then I pull on my poncho and return to the car, still thinking about the blog. Something in it continues to resonate with me, something I can’t quite put my finger on. My brain and fingers are almost itching with creativity. Quite what I am supposed to apply them to, I am not sure, but for the first time in a very long time, I wish I could talk to someone about it.

  January last year …

  ‘I got them to make up a darker version of the sea-green and it’s perfect.’ I am prattling away to Mark as I scrub at my face, which seems to bear traces of all the paint colours I used today. Worse, several clumps of hair are stuck together with the gloss white I’ve used on the doors. I will need to wash my hair before we head out to dinner.

  ‘And the wicker pendant lampshades I found at that auction, you know the ones, they’re perfect for over the breakfast bar.’

  He is a little distracted but that is usual when he first gets home, before he has shed his wheeler-dealer skin. I am still alert to his moods, though they are rarely extreme, but as we have survived six weeks of marriage, I am no longer anxious that he has immediate divorce plans.

  In fact, it is he who is particularly anxious to celebrate our six-week anniversary. I am more of the opinion that this is far too soon to claim any sort of success in the marriage stakes. You need to survive a bankruptcy or life-threatening car accident first, surely—some sort of test. My mind flicks to Yvette’s intermittently malignant presence, but decide that she is just finding it hard to adjust to her firstborn being taken from her by a woman wicked enough to recently pose wearing only a strawberry.

  It’s not as bad as it sounds. The ad was for a group of organic farmers who are trying to play hardball with the big supermarket chains. You don’t see my face, which is a small blessing in Marc’s mother’s opinion; but everyone knows it’s me, which is not. After it went viral, the ‘Eat me!’ campaign even attracted the attention of the mass media, but its success is my failure in her eyes.

  ‘You have a position now,’ she lectured me last week. ‘You are a McAllister and we don’t do this sort of thing.’

  ‘Actually I’m not,’ I tell her. ‘I’m a Reed and I do all sorts of things McAllisters wouldn’t approve of.’ This is the most d
irect challenge I have made, but she is a guest on our balcony, sipping our champagne, and I will not be lectured to here.

  ‘Marc?’ She looks to him for support, and the moment kind of freezes as everyone waits to see which way he will jump. I have resolved not to feel betrayed if he takes her side.

  With a serious look on his face, he nods. ‘They’re doing bananas next and I can’t tell you how worried I am about that!’

  Gordon snorts, Sylvie coughs and turns bright red, while Léo spits his drink over everyone. Yvette is mystified at first—and quickly mortified.

  I jump in and tell her that there are no bananas, only the possibility of something with artichokes later in the year if they have the money.

  I thought it had blown over, but maybe he is worried about it. Or perhaps he is worried about the darker sea-green. Paint colour is so difficult to get right. More likely, though, he is mulling over something that happened at work.

  Although the financial markets seem a big yawn, I do try to read the business pages and watch the business news so that we can occasionally have meaningful conversations about his work.

  ‘Is the stock market down?’ I ask, knowing that this is the thing most likely to weigh on money managers; that and government meddling.

  ‘Hmm? No, slightly up today. Still the holidays so not much action.’

  Vowing I will probe more at dinner if I can do so without dropping a clanger, I drop my towel and get into the shower. I shampoo and scrub at my hair until there is so much lather piled up on my head that I resemble an albino Marge Simpson.

  About to rinse off, I turn to find my exit blocked by a very large, very naked male.

  ‘Oh, um.’ Desire suddenly swamps me like a tidal wave. The mundane aspects of living together—garbage nights, hangover mornings and a difficult mother-in-law—have not yet tempered our ardour. When I am prepared for his advances, I affect a cool flirtatiousness designed to conceal his effect on me. When I am not, I am quickly out of my depth.

 

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