Medea's Curse

by Anne Buist

  Vince banged down a glass and froth spilled down the sides.

  ‘What if it is Lauren? Or if she does find out?’ Natalie asked quietly.

  ‘She’s tough. We’ll cope.’

  The similarity between herself and his wife was suddenly obvious. Natalie had thought she shared nothing with the blonde beyond being a doctor. But they were both tough women. Liam was one of the few men she knew who revelled in taking it up to her; maybe Lauren had lost her appetite for the fight.

  ‘So can I go up and ask our admirer who he is and tell him to bugger off?’

  Liam shook his head. ‘Not yet.’ Liam’s phone rang. He spoke briefly and smiled.

  ‘It’s not Lauren. You were right on your other guess. Your stalker is Paul Latimer.’

  Natalie felt a sense of anti-climax. This she could deal with. Easily. They meant Georgia and his children. He wanted to control the court case, but he had no reason to cause Natalie any real harm. It validated everything Georgia had said about him.

  ‘I’m going to talk to him then go home,’ said Natalie.

  ‘Love your plan. But I don’t want him knowing that he’s a suspect in the paedophile ring.’

  ‘Why would he think that?’

  ‘He might be worried Georgia has told you something.’

  ‘I’m just going let him know I know what he’s been doing, put a stop to it. Afterwards you can help me celebrate.’

  Paul Latimer saw her coming. He hesitated, then looked to the door. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Benny positioned there, ready. Vince tensed and bent slightly, arm going below the bar where he kept a cricket bat.

  ‘This conversation is going to be short and not so sweet, Mr Latimer,’ said Natalie, looking Paul right in the eye.

  Paul took a step backwards but she continued before he could attempt to deny anything.

  ‘You been checking me out?’

  ‘You rang me. I just thought—’ Paul looked embarrassed, like most bullies she had confronted. He must have checked her out when he knew she was Georgia’s psychiatrist at Yarra Bend, hence the first hand-written note. After that he’d sent USB sticks and either he or some douchebag he hired tried to scare her off when Natalie had taken Georgia on privately. Fleetingly she wondered why he was back.

  ‘This is how it’s going to be. If you want to speak to me you’re going to ring my rooms and make an appointment. You are going to stop the terror campaign and refrain, either you or anyone else, from following me, filming me, sending me notes on USBs, breaking into my house or anything else you can think up.’

  ‘Look I—’ Paul took a step backwards, but Natalie hadn’t finished.

  ‘No negotiations on this,’ said Natalie. ‘And don’t think for a moment’—she paused and looked at him coldly—‘that just because I’m a doctor I will play by the rules if you cross me.’

  Without waiting for an answer, Natalie walked back to her stool, grabbed her leather jacket and walked out, leaving Liam to scramble after her.

  Perhaps her death wish was receding. Maybe she wanted to build on the reprieve from confronting Lauren. She directed Liam to the connected building’s street entrance rather than the front door. He was standing in a darkened stairwell when she opened the electronic door at the end of her Bridge of Sighs and let him in. Liam was impressed.

  As she led Liam to her bedroom she wondered if it was he who had the death wish—the death of his marriage at least. In Sydney there had been no attempt to hide her. He didn’t know her that well. She had always been trouble, and he surely knew that instinctively. Yet he was prepared to give her a room key, have his secretary know about her, have the receptionist and bar staff in Sydney remember her. It wasn’t like she had tickets on herself. But a conservative-looking lawyer with a younger woman wearing an ear full of silver and distinctive attire? It was the kind of thing people remembered.

  Right now it was hard to think about it in any rational way. She hadn’t had much to drink, but she was tired, emotionally as well as physically. It was the downside of living on the edge.

  It occurred to her that confronting Paul might have the opposite effect to what she’d intended; pity she hadn’t considered that before she’d taken him on. This worm liked to play with women. Paul still liked to play with Georgia’s head. He wouldn’t enjoy being challenged any more than Travis had. Even if he wasn’t Liam’s Mr Big, the logo on the card was a strong tie to the network and he would still be worried Georgia might tell her something about it. It might lead to a raising of the stakes; and it might not be just him, because at the very least he’d had to enlist help to get her case notes. Her instincts were still on full alert.

  They had sex without ceremony, one quick release enough for them both. He was probably as emotionally on edge as she was. Paul knew who Liam was. He could send the film to Lauren out of spite, or even try to blackmail Liam.

  Afterwards, Natalie sat up in bed and wrapped her arms around her legs, pulling them into her chest. ‘Promise me,’ she said, ‘that if by some chance Latimer sends the film anywhere that Lauren sees it, or she finds out about us some other way, you will do everything humanly possible to repair your marriage.’

  There was a long silence where the panic welling in her seemed to underline every interpretation Declan had ever made. However illogical it was, part of her wanted Liam to have the perfect marriage.

  ‘Why?’ asked Liam.

  ‘Because she deserves it. Because fifteen years ago it was like this with her. Right?’

  She looked into his eyes but the wall had gone up. She had lost him. At least his children wouldn’t get hurt. Jesus, she did have a conscience.

  Liam sat up and kissed her gently. ‘I don’t have to go. Lauren is in Geneva.’

  ‘The kids?’ Her voice caught and she hated herself for the weakness. She didn’t feel safe yet.

  ‘James is at school camp and Megan’s at a friend’s.’

  Natalie hugged her knees tighter. She wished he hadn’t used their names. She had to let him go, that was given. Did it have to be tonight? Seemed no one else needed him. ‘You haven’t promised me.’

  ‘My marriage, my kids, my problem.’ He caught her recoil at his tone and softened. ‘You don’t know everything.’

  ‘Possibly. I mean, I’m sure I don’t know everything, but that doesn’t mean I’m not right.’

  ‘Still my problem.’

  ‘Okay Liam, I’m not your psychiatrist and I know I’ve always been clear that this was just for fun. I just don’t want all this…you and me, all the stuff we’re doing together…to wreck your marriage.’

  Liam dropped his guard; he suddenly looked younger. ‘I got caught. She knows how much it means to me to have our kids grow up with two parents under the same roof. My Achilles heel.’ He paused and Natalie waited. ‘We agreed, no more playing around. Either of us.’

  ‘So if she does find out?’

  ‘I’m fucked.’

  Chapter 28

  Jessie had visited Hannah in prison on the weekend. ‘She thinks I need to work out what really happened.’ Jessie sounded ambivalent.

  ‘There’s no “really
” with memories. They’re never exact.’ Natalie leaned forward. ‘Sometimes delving back into memories makes things worse, at least at first. Sitting with that can be tough. But it gets easier.’

  ‘I want this to stop. My nightmares are weird, but they feel so real. And scary.’

  She pulled out her memory box from her canvas bag; it had been painted black with red streaks. From it she retrieved a collection of drawings and paintings and spread them out on the table. One look told Natalie she had talent. The largest used heavy oil paint in swirls that reminded Natalie of a dark moment from Van Gogh. It showed a small child at the bottom of a pit with a snake; coiled, fangs bared. The other pictures, maybe ten in all, were small; some no bigger than a business card. Tiny intricate images and heavy charcoal sketches depicted ferocious animals and again a small child, presumably Jessie. No rabid bunny rabbits at least.

  ‘When did you do these?’ Natalie asked, picking them up one after another.

  ‘That one,’ Jessie said, pointing to the biggest, ‘years ago. After a nightmare. They’re what I see. The rest I did in the last few weeks.’

  ‘Is it possible,’ Natalie asked, ‘that when you were young you were still pretty unclear about what was happening? A mix of terror and…’ She stopped, thinking of the video clip she had seen on Liam’s computer, of what she knew about child abuse, how the child might, at first, be a willing but naive participant, ‘and wanting to be grown up. When the situation overwhelmed you, your mind tried to make sense of it in other ways. Scary things like spiders and snakes would have been frightening, but understandable. Something your mind could grasp.’ Natalie didn’t think Jessie needed the Freudian interpretation of the snake.

  Jessie shrugged. ‘I guess. They seem very real though.’

  ‘Are there people in the dream too?’

  ‘I—’ She stopped and frowned. ‘I don’t know. Sometimes it’s just fear.’

  ‘Which shows how complicated and compartmentalised your memory is.’

  ‘Seeing my father…’ Jessie faltered. ‘My nightmares are way worse.’

  ‘You said last week that you remember being filmed. What were you doing when you recalled that?’

  Jessie shrugged. ‘Nothing really. Just…’ She stopped dead. ‘None of it matters anyhow, not really. Kyle…’ She looked away.

  ‘Does Kyle ever intimidate you?’

  ‘No, of course not. He’s my friend, he looks after me. It was when I found the computer.’

  Natalie paused. Was Jessie ready? It was always going to be difficult, but Jessie had opened the door. Natalie pulled the computer out of the drawer and put it on the table in front of Jessie. ‘Did you find anything on this before you gave it to me?’

  Jessie shrank into the chair, hugging herself, fingernails digging into her arms. ‘I didn’t look.’

  Natalie let the silence grow. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked. Jessie’s expression slowly changed from fear to confusion.

  ‘It was my computer. I remember my father confiscating it. There was a huge shit fight with my stepmother, but it was maybe the only time my father didn’t wimp out. I somehow, I felt he was doing it for me. Now that’s weird.’ Jessie managed a forced laugh.

  How was her computer linked to Jessie’s state of mind, either then or now? Surely if her father had filmed her he would have transferred it to his own PC? If he had, for some reason, put something on Jessie’s computer, why hadn’t he just deleted whatever he was concerned about and given it back?

  ‘A few months after that they broke up, and I went to Kyle’s. I came back to Dad’s a few times but he was drinking all the time. I was pretty pissed off at him over everything.’

  ‘Didn’t you ever ask for the computer?’

  ‘Dad said he’d thrown it out.’

  So why had he kept it? ‘Would you like me to look at what’s on it?’

  Jessie shook her head. ‘No, no you mustn’t do that.’ She looked around her as if someone might be there listening. ‘I mustn’t ever—’ Her voice sounded regressed, childlike. ‘Not ever. He said…’ Her eyes widened and breath quickened. ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ she said suddenly, firmly. ‘It’s making things worse.’

  ‘I warned you that bringing up memories would do that to start with. You couldn’t deal with what happened as a child, but you’re an adult now. Facing your fears is going to help you move on.’

  ‘No!’ She stood up and gathered her drawings. ‘You can’t help me. No one can.’ She bolted, taking her computer with her.

  Georgia was having a bad day.

  ‘There weren’t any fingerprints. Jacqueline gave the letter to the police.’ Georgia didn’t look at Natalie, a fatuous smile on the edge of her lips. ‘Do you think Paul really has stopped loving me?’

  On the face of the evidence, the answer seemed obvious, but in Georgia’s fragmented early life no one had been there to give unconditional love. Paul had provided what her fragile narcissism needed to maintain equilibrium and consequently Georgia’s sense of self was tied in with her estranged husband. What internal dialogue kept her from falling apart now? She seemed to be on the verge. Her eyes were glazed and her speech vague, yet there was an edginess as well. The need to be seen as good, the smile she’d learned to produce for Virginia, came at a cost. What did Georgia do with her anger? If there was a ‘personality’ that killed her children then it was surely the angry one. Neither the overbright fifties housewife nor the giggling two-year-old were going to suffocate their children.

  ‘I keep thinking about Facebook,’ Georgia said. ‘I remember Paul picking photos to put up. We laughed over some of them.’

  Georgia looked out of the window. ‘He wanted to put up one of Olivia in the bath,’ she said abruptly, her voice loud, as if she was giving a speech. She stood up, and Natalie noticed her hands were trembling. She dropped her voice to a whisper—theatrically?—and added, ‘He liked to see her naked.’

  Natalie wasn’t sure Georgia could handle a direct question about abuse. When Natalie had tried it in the past she had always denied it. Was it worth trying again now when she was more vulnerable? Natalie didn’t feel the rapport between them was enough to hold her; the trust had still to develop. She went gently.

  ‘What are you thinking, Georgia?’

  Instead of answering the question, Georgia put her arms around herself and started to sing a nursery rhyme. ‘Rock-a-Bye Baby’. When she got to the last line, Down will come baby, cradle and all, she sat down in the chair and looked down.

  ‘He wanted my girls,’ she said. ‘They were so little. I saw how he looked at them. I could see…I knew what he wanted to do to them. I didn’t know how to protect them.’ Looking at Natalie, she added, incongruously, ‘I knew he loved me too.’

  ‘What did he want to do, Georgia?’ Natalie kept her voice soft and even, eyes fixed on her patient.

  ‘He liked seeing them there, those pictures, and it made me so angry, knowing what he was really thinking. The anger…I don’t know why, but I wrote…I was angry at him, not my children. Angry at myself for not knowing what to do.’

  ‘How did they die, Georgia?’ Natalie asked.

  ‘God did it to punish me. Punish me
because I didn’t know how to save them.’ Not vague, but not thoughtful either. More stilted, as if she was reciting something.

  ‘God, Georgia? Or part of your own anger that you directed to them instead of Paul or yourself?’

  Natalie flipped open her file and started reading to Georgia from the Facebook printouts the police had found. ‘She thinks she’s smarter than me but she isn’t. I’m the one with the power, not her.’ The anger was there, she could feel it; could she get Georgia to show it? Digging for the truth would come at a cost to their therapeutic relationship but it would give her a clearer idea of what to target in treatment.

  Georgia looked down, hands shaking.

  ‘Jonah is so demanding, it’s never-ending. Unless I end it, of course.’

  ‘I put him in the cot. I walked away.’

  ‘It is so much more peaceful without him. The angry part of you soothed by silencing him,’ said Natalie. ‘Was that what happened?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then what do you do with all that anger Georgia?’

  Georgia stood up. Natalie should have been worried; she had pushed far too hard, too fast. The angry personality, if it was a separate one, would act without restraint. But as Georgia rose there was nothing aggressive in the stance. She was in control. Natalie watched as Georgia pulled up her skirt. She wasn’t wearing underwear. It took Natalie a moment to work out what she was looking at. Her registrar had physically examined Georgia and reported no self-harm marks; but she wouldn’t have examined the mutilated genitalia that Natalie was now viewing.

  Her pubic area was shaved or waxed. Carved across her mons pubis were letters, mostly scars. One was recent and had crusts of blood—the one that spelt the T of cunt. Along the edges of her outer labia were hints of what could be seen were she to open herself up. Gnarled scars formed from repeated trauma.

  The bloodied scalpel in the toilet.