Medea's Curse

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Medea's Curse Page 10

by Anne Buist


  Although it was only 4 p.m., a late winter mist was settling on Welbury as Natalie turned off the freeway into the wide streets of the town and parked her bike outside the police station. Inside Natalie watched Tiphanie being separated from Travis, over protests from him. There was not a word from her. On the day Natalie had watched Travis being interviewed, she caught a look from Tiphanie and wondered about shame and guilt, and whether she was at risk from Travis. Today, though, she still looked younger than her twenty years. She swaggered in with a bravado close to truculence, like a schoolgirl caught smoking behind the sheds.

  Neither Travis nor Tiphanie had been told which psychiatrist would be conducting the interview, but given that Travis had seen Natalie on the last visit, he could have made an educated guess it would be her. The messages in the red envelopes were fresh in her mind. Had Travis had sent them? Breaking the rules has consequences. Was that about the way she’d confronted him over Amber more than a year earlier? And if so, were the following two notes warnings about speaking to Tiphanie? I wouldn’t get too close if I were you and Getting close can be dangerous for your mental health.

  Would seeing Tiphanie be, as the message suggested, dangerous? Travis certainly fitted her profile; she remembered Amber telling her that his mother was domineering.

  ‘I’ve told the cops everything,’ Tiphanie said to no one in particular. Natalie was sitting on the same side of the table as her in small sparsely-furnished room. Damian, on the other side, was reading his notes. He’d barely spoken to Natalie since her arrival.

  Natalie pulled her chair closer.

  ‘Not that they were listening,’ Tiphanie added.

  ‘I’ll probably be asking a few questions they haven’t.’

  ‘Can’t tell you anything different.’ Tiphanie stared at her, lips pursed. A look of something Natalie couldn’t quite pinpoint. She had spent half her school years in the principal’s office, sitting in Tiphanie’s position: she felt she should be able to get inside her head. On the other hand this meeting was about something a lot more serious than a bottle of vodka in her locker.

  ‘Well, let’s wait and see what the questions are, shall we?’ Natalie managed to hold eye contact briefly. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘How do you think?’

  ‘Shit, I should imagine.’

  Tiphanie looked up again. For a moment there was a connection. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What thoughts go around your head? Mostly.’

  ‘Thoughts? Just wondering where she is, you know. Hoping…’ Tiphanie took a breath. ‘Hoping she’s okay.’

  ‘It must be hard not knowing.’

  Tiphanie looked downwards.

  Natalie took her through the routine questions about depression and anxiety and Tiphanie told her that she had been fine until Chloe disappeared. ‘Now that’s all I think about,’ she said.

  ‘What do you imagine?’

  ‘Horrible things,’ Tiphanie mumbled. ‘She’ll be missing me. She’ll be scared.’

  This was a definite improvement on her partner. Tiphanie was able to think of her daughter as someone separate from herself. Someone vulnerable, and still alive. It couldn’t be Travis’s coaching. He wasn’t up to this level.

  ‘Sometimes children feel scared even when they’re with their parents,’ said Natalie carefully. ‘Do you think she ever felt like that, maybe when you were asleep or when you and Travis were arguing?’

  Tiphanie shook her head. ‘Chloe’s a happy kid. She’s good, easy.’

  Perhaps Natalie was hoping for too much. Georgia had also said her children were ‘good’ as if that was evidence of what a great mother she was. There was something else about Tiphanie that reminded her of Georgia, but she couldn’t place what. Narcissism? Borderline traits?

  ‘What do you think happened?’ Natalie asked. There was another moment of eye contact but again Tiphanie didn’t hold it long.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘You know your daughter,’ said Natalie. ‘Is she capable of getting a chair and opening the back door?’

  The paediatrician that the police had consulted had thought not, but experts were not infallible. They’d got the Chamberlain case wrong. Natalie didn’t know any eleven-month-old children, but from her reading she thought it was a task more for a three-year-old or an advanced two-year-old.

  ‘Don’t know. I guess.’

  ‘Tell me about her.’ On this topic Tiphanie was happy to open up, able to forget that the child was missing. Like Natalie, she probably preferred to think of Chloe being still alive.

  ‘She loves playing with the pots and pans in the kitchen while I cook. She always goes to bed, um, like, with her two favourite toys. She likes Big Bird on TV too.’

  ‘Does Travis play with her?’

  ‘Sure. He sometimes reads her a book.’ After a pause she added, ‘And helps with her bath.’ The way she said ‘helps’ suggested to Natalie that he was next to useless. But given what happened to Bella-Kaye, maybe neither of them was comfortable with baths.

  ‘Did you ever leave her with anyone?’ Natalie asked. ‘You know, so you could go out?’

  Tiphanie shook her head. ‘Never.’

  ‘What about to shop? Go to the hairdresser? Get your nails done?’ From her memory of Amber these were the major pastimes of the unemployed mothers in the area, though usually at each others’ houses rather than a salon. Tiphanie’s short, square-cut nails and limp hair suggested beauty care wasn’t a pastime she had indulged in for a while.

  ‘She comes everywhere with me,’ said Tiphanie. Tears formed in her eyes. ‘I miss her.’

  Natalie believed her. Trouble was, Tiphanie was not describing a child that, at less than one, was likely to go any further than a metre radius from her mother. In the stranger-anxiety period of development, Chloe was neither physically nor psychologically competent to take off alone. Tiphanie and Travis’s story had so many holes it was curious the cops hadn’t busted it already. Tiphanie did seem to genuinely care; as you would for a missing child—or one that you, or your partner, had accidentally killed.

  Outside, Damian said, ‘We’d like her to cough up Travis, but we’ll get him without her co-operation if we have to.’ And without your help, the look suggested.

  ‘She’s hiding something.’

  Damian frowned. ‘She’s covering for Travis.’

  Like Liam, the cops seemed firmly of the opinion that lightning didn’t strike twice and their focus was on Travis. She should have been delighted. Why wasn’t she? There was no doubt Tiphanie loved her daughter, but there was something else. Was the sullen bravado covering fear, and if so, of what? Natalie wasn’t sure. She had said she was fine before Chloe’s disappearance. Then why did she need to sleep all morning? Chloe slept through the night, so disturbed sleep couldn’t explain it. ‘Can you check with her GP? Get her records?’ she asked Damian.

  Damian was noncommittal, but he wrote something down. Maybe fucking shrinks.

  Later, Natalie saw Tiphanie walk out to join Travis, and her expression was unmistakable. Jubilation. She thought she had got away with something.

  She’d ridd
en down alone and was staying at the corner pub where the music was loud, the crowds spilled onto the pavement and the cops did a clean-up run after midnight. She hadn’t asked Liam if he was in town, and there was no reason for him to be, particularly since the O.P.P. needed to keep their distance from the police investigation. He had a wife and the usual commitments, presumably. School functions, law practice obligations, probably a list of social shit from political party fundraising to film nights. She knew instinctively that regardless of all these things he would try to make it happen tonight. Not because he’d told her so, but because she had felt his body respond to hers and knew it had surprised him as much as it had her. She’d seen his eyes later. He was hooked. Trouble was, if she was honest with herself, so was she. And it was obvious Liam didn’t care one way or another about her involvement in the case.

  She helped the band set up as the early arrivals hugged the bar. Natalie’s experience was that, audience-wise, drunk was better than sober. The worst gig they ever did was in the early afternoon when no one had had enough on board to loosen them up.

  ‘How’s your wife?’ Natalie asked Gil.

  ‘Fat.’

  ‘It ain’t fat,’ Natalie laughed.

  ‘Not enjoying impending fatherhood I take it?’ Tom threw him a cable and they plugged in the bass amp in light that was barely bright enough to see each other.

  ‘So guys,’ said Natalie, ‘feel for the crowd?’

  ‘Eighties and nineties covers.’ Tom sounded depressed.

  ‘Could be worse.’

  Most of the punters were tastefully attired in muscle shirts over beer bellies. She was certain at least a few were bikies, the outlaw kind. She hoped they weren’t here on business. Tom didn’t appear too concerned, but as a former enforcer, he was used to keeping his thoughts well-hidden. What the hell, they’d seen worse. Natalie’s sexual energy, heightened by thoughts of the possibilities ahead, would probably help. So would the fact that she hadn’t taken her meds. She knew she should; she just hated how dull they made her feel. On stage, high, she was invincible. She just had to manage it, not let herself go too high. She’d take a dose tonight, after the gig. A half dose.

  From the first song she had the crowd in her hand. The choice of songs, mostly left to Shaun, was also working well—the chemistry between the two of them always clicked in these numbers. Off stage they never flirted, not even a suggestive joke. But on stage there was a gritty sexual tension. No one watching would ever guess that it was Tom who was the friend with benefits.

  Backstage after the first bracket she downed a water and decided not to go out front, but Gil came back with a beer she hadn’t ordered. ‘You’ve been followed.’

  Natalie raised her eyebrows.

  ‘You reckon we didn’t notice that bloke at the Halfpenny?’

  Natalie’s stomach did a flip. The best sort. She rubbed her arms and her legs quivered.

  The second bracket was straight, solid hard rock. They included some Nirvana, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Madonna and Pink, Natalie spitting out the words with more feeling than usual. The pub was overflowing now, and outside fights had started to break out. One more bracket and they’d be done.

  Liam came backstage in the break. With a bourbon.

  ‘Come to get the lowdown on the case?’ she asked.

  ‘If you’re offering, though it wasn’t exactly in the forefront of my mind.’

  ‘Well just for the record, I rang and organised the interview before I heard from your office. And Tiphanie’s hiding something.’

  Liam leaned against the door frame. ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe she was in on it. I guess all I’m saying is don’t dismiss her.’

  ‘Come off it Natalie, Travis did it; remember, that’s why you wanted to be on the team?’ He looked her up and down. ‘You are the hottest woman I have ever seen.’

  ‘Out there or as a shrink?’

  ‘Both. And you know where else.’

  ‘You in town for the night?’ Maybe just one more night with him, then call it quits.

  ‘Could be.’

  Natalie raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I want to take you for a drive first.’

  ‘You have something that’ll compete with a Ducati?’ Natalie asked in disbelief.

  Liam grinned. ‘See you after the show.’

  The finale was definitely tongue in cheek. The Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ was Natalie’s challenge to Liam, to show she wasn’t going to back off from anything he could come up with. It was hard not to smile singing the repetitive chorus, the volley of teasing ‘no’s. She could feel, rather than see, Liam returning her sentiment with amusement in the crowd, but he didn’t come backstage. Natalie looked for him in the bar and he wasn’t there. She paused only a minute before making her way out, to ribald jeers from some of the locals. She found him outside the entrance in a yellow convertible, top down, talking to one of the cops. The constable was checking out the machinery.

  Natalie walked over, laughing. She wasn’t much of a car person so she wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking at, only that it wasn’t a Porsche and it didn’t look long enough to be a Ferrari. Anyway weren’t they all red? It was short and square and testosterone-saturated.

  ‘Lotus,’ Liam said to her.

  ‘I know,’ she lied. ‘You’re having a full-on midlife crisis aren’t you?’ She wondered what it had cost.

  Liam grinned back. The corners of his eyes creased, blue and penetrating as ever. ‘Jump in.’

  Once away from the pub Natalie pulled her wig off and felt the air rush through her real hair as Liam hit the sound system, turned off the highway and let the car loose.

  It must have been half an hour before Liam stopped. The road had ended by a river, far from the last sign of civilisation.

  ‘So how does it rate against the Ducati?’ Liam asked, undoing his seat belt. He looked at her, hard.

  ‘Not on the same page.’ Natalie returned the stare. ‘But good for a car. I can cross it off the bucket list.’

  ‘Does that list have fucking in a Lotus on it?’

  Natalie laughed, looking around her. ‘There’s barely enough room to sit.’

  ‘Let’s be inventive shall we?’

  Inventive meant a new bruise from the gear stick, scratches from twigs on the freezing ground and a mercifully short dip in the river. After he had driven back to the Welbury pub, they showered together in her room to warm up and he stayed the night without it being discussed.

  Chapter 12

  ‘Dad would have been fine if he’d stayed off the piss.’

  Jessie sat down opposite her. Sunglasses off: a bonus. She was holding a scrap of paper to which she occasionally referred. Natalie had told her to write down her feelings as they had come to her through the week and it seemed she had done so.

  ‘Never did for long though. Not after Mum killed herself.’

  Jessie had been ten at the time and had been the one to find her mother’s cooling body. Natalie suspected the sexual abuse had started around then. Alcohol would have lowered whatever barriers her father might have had. But abusive or not, he w
as the only stable person in her life and when he remarried two years later Jessie might well have felt rejected.

  ‘It seems to me that your father coming back into your life has brought up a lot of stuff from the past.’

  Jessie shrugged. Not ready to go deeper yet.

  ‘Keep writing down anything that comes to you. And put it in this.’ Natalie pulled out a white cardboard gift box, slightly smaller than a shoe box.

  Jessie frowned. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A box for the bad memories,’ said Natalie. ‘No one else will ever look into it. Once you put the thoughts, feelings and memories into it you have a choice.’

  ‘Choice?’ Jessie looked sceptical.

  ‘Whether to take the lid off or put it back on,’ said Natalie. She had used this technique several times. In her bottom desk drawer there were two boxes that had been tied up at the end of therapy and handed over to her to keep, their owners symbolically leaving their pain behind. ‘Then you can use some of the mindfulness techniques.’ Natalie had outlined these at the beginning of the session.

  Jessie snorted. ‘How’s that going to help?’ But she took the box anyway.

  Georgia had the appointment immediately after Jessie’s. Looking out of her window to the car park as she wrote up her notes, Natalie saw them stop and talk to each other. On the face of it, the two had little in common. Underneath they were, she supposed, similarly angry. One expressed it through her physical appearance and the other used her middle-class good looks to hide it. Both damaged, but Jessie was easier to read, and to empathise with.

  Georgia breezed in wearing bright colours and smiling.

  ‘Good morning Natalie.’ Natalie wondered why she didn’t like Georgia using her first name. It made her feel old if her patients called her Dr King. But Georgia, she reflected, used her name the way a politician did with a radio interviewer, implying—or trying to evoke—an intimacy that didn’t exist. Natalie adopted a neutral smile and invited Georgia to talk about her week.

 

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