by Karen Bell
‘But he’s a grumpy old thing who never opens up early for anyone,’ Mila reported.
‘Well who can resist a decorated and distinguished police officer like J-a-c-k or a man in uniform?’
Not me, she wanted to volunteer, but instead answered ‘Well someone’s got tickets on themselves, haven’t they Jack?’
The dog had been listening intently to the conversation and when she said his name in full, he barked once loudly as if to acknowledge he’d known it was about him all along.
‘You know he’s just pretending that he can’t spell,’ Mila said, bending down to give him a pat.
‘Careful! He’s registered as a lethal weapon.’
Mila withdrew her hand smartly.
‘I’m just teasing. You’re really a pussy-cat aren’t you Jack.’ At the sound of his master using his name with such affection, Jack barked loudly and his whole rear end wiggled with delight.
‘Shhh.’ Ryan put his index finger to his lips and the dog was immediately silent.
Mila set the kitchen table, sensing it was where Sergeant Ryan would rather eat, while he found the plates and served up.
‘He’s incredibly obedient,’ commented Mila, ‘did you train him?’
‘Yes, but I could have had him doing twice as much in half the time if they’d let me use a Kelpie. You’ve never met smarter dogs than the ones we use on the land. No offence mate,’ he added in Jack’s direction.
‘He can stay with me for the day if you like,’ offered Mila. I’m not planning to go out for long and J-a-c-k could guard the house.’
‘Some blokes have all the luck,’ he mused.
Mila was getting used to blushing in front of this man. She thought she could get used to a lot of things about him - even that somewhat corny sense of humour.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When she saw him off to work, Mila wasn’t sure who was the more dejected, her or Jack. ‘Come on boy,’ she said, trying to sound bright, ‘Let’s go and hang some washing on the line shall we?’ Jack gave out a small whine and sat looking after the closed door. It’s going to be a long day for us both, she thought. At least she could look forward to Sergeant Blake coming back to collect his dog at the end of the day.
By ten, when the banks opened, Mila had hung the washing, read and replied to every last condolence card, checked-in with her parents-in-law, and returned calls. She’d sent Holly an SMS letting her know that she was home safe and sound and one to Adie and Carlos to thank them again for the trip.
Of course, Mila was not about to mention the break-in to any of them. They’d all fly into a panic and she hated to worry them almost as much as she hated to be fussed over. Jack was still sitting at the front door. Mila found him a dry biscuit in the pantry and walked over, crouching to offer it to him. ‘Our secret?’ she appealed. The dog looked at her forlornly as if to say I’m not allowed to take treats from strangers.
‘Of course you’re not,’ she said. ‘But I’m not a stranger anymore. Your master likes me. At least I think he does.’ Mila left the biscuit on the floor and when she returned, was pleased to see it gone.
The call to the bank was less successful. The manager was on leave for the next few days and Mila would be forced to wait until his return. What could have been so urgent?
The doorbell rang, reminding her that the forensics officer was due. She looked through the peephole before opening the door, half hoping to see Sergeant Blake but then she quickly admonished herself, realizing that Jack would have sensed his master three blocks away.
The officer spent the next hour looking for prints on all three levels of the house. Mila had unwittingly contaminated any chance of usable evidence at the front and back doors before calling the police. She was beside herself the whole time the officer was in the basement and could barely contain her relief when he returned to the living room looking unperturbed.
‘It doesn’t look like we’re going to get much here,’ he apologized. ‘There’s only one set of prints –presumably your husband’s - down there and nothing in the way of DNA worth gathering. All we can do is run a check on the prints and see if anything comes back, but it’s unlikely. I reckon whoever rifled through those files was wearing gloves. You’re more likely to get lucky from something the neighbours may have seen, or if the missing items turn up at a local pawnshop. I believe Sergeant Blake has that under control. You might expect to see police door-knocking around here later today.’
Jack barked with excitement when he heard his master’s name.
‘Is that the Serge’s dog?’ the officer asked with surprise. ‘I thought he looked familiar.’ Then directing his conversation to the dog, added ‘Sorry Jack, it won’t be your old man canvassing the neighbours, he’s got far more important jobs to do.’ The officer looked as if he might burst with curiosity at finding his boss’s dog here, but he asked no further questions and instead gave Mila an approving once-over.
She felt more at ease in the early afternoon when the locks were changed and an alarm installed. She’d had to explain to the owner of the security company about Robert’s death and the break in, before he’d agreed to give her a few extra weeks to pay. That done, Mila ducked out to get some groceries, leaving Jack in charge. There he was, sitting in exactly the same spot when she returned an hour later.
‘You’re wearing a hole in my floorboards,’ she told him.
The answering machine was flashing. It was Adie. ‘Guess what we’re doing tomorrow night and every Tuesday night for the next twelve weeks? Yes, pole dancing! Aren’t you excited? Carlos is, since I gave him a private show on our bedpost last night. You won’t believe there’s a studio not fifteen minutes from here taught by the winner of Miss Pole Dance Australia 2010. Pick you up at six-thirty tomorrow – and I’ll bring an extra pair of size seven heels.
Wow, that was quick, thought Mila. The only heels she owned were the stilettos that Robert had made her wear all too often for role-playing. The dints in the floorboards were enough of a reminder without having to revive them for pole-dancing classes.
Adie had a shoe fetish. She owned at least a hundred pairs of heels. Even her slippers and sneakers had heels and most were platform at the front too for additional height. Being a fiery Colombian, red, of course, was her favourite colour and she had several shelves in her wardrobe dedicated solely to red heels. It was only on the cruise they’d discovered that they shared the same shoe size. Mila was definitely going to be the winner of that happy coincidence.
Just as she was clearing the messages, the phone rang and Mila picked up in less than a ring, catching her caller off guard. He sounded awkward, less confident than he had in the morning when he’d left.
‘Hi Mila, it’s me Sergeant Blake I mean … Ryan…. I err…’
‘Hi Sergeant,’ Mila interrupted. ‘Is everything okay? J-a-c-k’s missing you but I’m about to see if he’ll come for a w-a-l-k – his bladder must be bursting although he won’t eat or drink without you. The forensics officer and the locksmith have both been and gone and I feel much safer now thanks to you all.’ Mila realized she was babbling, excited as she was to hear his voice and at the same time trying to fill in for his tentative beginning. She stopped short, feeling more than a little embarrassed and doing nothing to cover the awkward moment.
‘Mila, I was just wondering if you might like to get a bite with me tonight when I come to pick up Jack. I know it’s a bit unorthodox but there’s nothing in the Police Rule Book…’ he paused and when she didn’t answer immediately he continued... ‘I don’t finish again until eight so it might be a bit late for you …’
‘No, I’d like that,’ she answered. Mila’s heart was dancing but her head was saying What the hell are you doing?
‘You would? I mean that’s good. Do you like Balkan food? There’s a great little restaurant in Darlinghurst that’s open on Monday nights, just casual.’
‘I’ve never eaten Balkan food,’ Mila admitted, not mentioning that in almost nineteen years of
marriage Robert had never taken her to dinner. ‘But it’s just across the Black Sea from the Ukraine where I was born so I’ll probably feel right at home.’ Will you please stop babbling Mila. What are you, twelve?
‘Perfect. Okay, I’ll shower at work and pick you and Jack up at eight-thirty.’
‘Oh, so you’ve booked a table for three,’ she quipped.
‘Of course, did I forget to mention that Balkan food is Jack’s favourite too?’
Mila hung up the phone, feeling the butterflies that were a combination of elation and instant nerves. Spontaneously she bent down to give Jack a huge hug. He wriggled uncomfortably from her grasp before resuming his sphinx position.
Mila experienced a tingle of something unfamiliar that she sensed had been locked away for a very long time. And while part of her was terrified, another part marvelled at the strength of human optimism that refused to be quashed.
Her parents had often spoken in of the importance of ‘resilience’ or more literally ‘elasticity’, long before it became a popular catchword. There was a term for it in Russian. Upragost. When spelled using English lettering, it started with the word up, which was exactly what one had to do time and time again when knocked down. As a child, Mila had liked the way the word rolled off her tongue and she had called on her own Upragost many times throughout her life.
Over the past two decades, Mila had come to recognize that it was almost impossible to maintain resilience without self-esteem. Robert whose name ironically started with the letters Rob had tried to take that from her, day in, day out, for the duration of their marriage. His every action was designed to eat away at her self-esteem. Every line in the contracts he drew up and made her sign, illustrated her inadequacy, as if justification for his need to instruct and punish:
‘I am nothing without the teaching and discipline of my Master.
‘I am always in submission to Master and my first responsibility is to Him, looking to please Him at all times, in every situation, and every circumstance, for in pleasing Him, so do I please the Lord.
‘I will confess daily to Master, any wrong-doings I may have committed and He will decide if such violations require penalty. If I fail to recognise my own shortcomings and Master has to point them out to me, my discipline will be tenfold.
‘I will gratefully accept His decision and thank Him for the lesson; for His way, will illuminate my path.
‘Pain is my friend. Through pain, I am cleansed of wrong-doing, through punishment I make myself worthy.’
‘Sex with Master is a privilege, not a choice. My body is his to do with as he pleases. I will be ready whenever, wherever and in whatever way Master wishes to use my body. I will not question his actions.
‘I will ask for permission to orgasm and respect Master’s decision. My sexual gratification is a reward to be administered or withheld at Master’s discretion. If he should find my behaviour unworthy, I will be equally grateful for the lessons taught.’
The second contract had been even longer than the first and Mila had been shocked when he’d brought it for her signature just a few months after the first one. She thought she’d been doing so well and she couldn’t understand the need to formalise again, what she already knew she was expected to do. But Robert was nothing if not prescriptive and Mila believed at the time it was just another reminder of his place over hers and a further way to cement his power as absolute.
There had been three more amended copies produced over the course of their time together, each more brutal and exacting than the last. The contracts covered everything from housekeeping to finances, sex to punishment.
If Robert had been a man of character, if he had shown the smallest appreciation, or even recognised how hard she had tried to please him, Mila might have respected him, but he was not. He was a man who looked for reasons to punish, viewed innocent mistakes as wilful behaviour and believed that in lowering others, he elevated himself.
The final contract was one of the first things that Mila disposed of in a private ceremony after he passed. Even as she’d watched it burn, she’d shaken like a leaf, half expecting him to leap out of the small flames at any moment and wrap burning hands around her neck.
For now, resilience meant, facing the room behind the basement one last time in order to strip it bare and prepare the house for sale.
Yesterday, she had wondered how she would ever steel herself to re-enter, but with just a little boost to her self-esteem now, Mila felt she could find the courage. Tomorrow would be the day, but for today, she could make preparations. She phoned a rubbish company and ordered a small skip bin to be delivered to the back gate the following morning, and to be collected the same day. She then ducked out to the corner store and bought a dozen black garbage bags that would allow her to dispose of the balance of equipment that she could not afford for anyone to see. Mila had managed to reduce much of the furniture to rubble in her rage with the golf club and the mirrors were now in shards. She hoped that this would help to disguise the previous nature of their use, should she be overseen by neighbours who were quite likely to be on heightened alert since the break in.
Mila would need a screwdriver at the least, but more likely some kind of crow bar to get some of the larger structures off the walls. How many Sundays had he disappeared down there to install them? She would see him carrying four by two timbers, chains and hardware through the house and she would try to concentrate on whatever she was doing with Holly upstairs. The whining sounds of the various power tools would set her already stretched nerves on edge.
Mila went into the garage to find and prepare what she thought she would need, along with a broom, shovel, and heavy gloves. With a plan in place, and everything ready, she already felt more committed.
It was a gorgeous afternoon, the kind where the breeze off the ocean takes the edge off the January heat, and it was still some hours until Sergeant Ryan was due to finish work, so Mila decided to take Jack for a walk and say hello to her in-laws. Their house was located behind the church, just ten minutes walk from home. It was the habit of the minister to use the changeable signboard letters to spell out a relevant biblical passage that might catch the eye of potential congregants as they drove past. Sometimes he’d compose his own more controversial messages to make the sceptics look twice.
Mila was always curious to read the wisdom of the week and on approach, she looked up to the board and read it aloud. ‘Down on my knees I learned how to stand.’ Of course the sign referred to the power of prayer but Mila couldn’t help but be struck by the double entendre as it applied to her previous existence and the connection to all she’d been feeling about resilience.
The doors to the church were always open and Mila was drawn inside. She didn’t imagine that the minister would be there, but in any case preferred to have some time in the church alone. After being coaxed inside, Jack sat dutifully on the floor beside her. How many hours had Mila spent in this very pew, wondering what had she done to deserve her lot and why God didn’t show her the mercy that was His to give? Countless hours, seated beside Robert knowing how he would later twist the Minister’s words and those of the bible to suit his own sinful behaviour.
In those days – years, Mila had prayed until she could no longer find the words in her heart to do so. She had asked for a way to understand… maybe God was testing her faith, showing her the weakness of man so that she might give herself more completely to Him. But the years of abuse had continued with no clemency, and Mila had found it harder and harder to strike up a conversation with God. She had been forced to sit in church each Sunday and listen to sermons that made her more bitter and less of a Christian.
It was only when Robert had been struck down by the cancer that Mila thought to wonder if God had finally heard her pleas, but she was, by then, more inclined to believe in Karma than Christianity, being no wiser as to how her suffering could have fitted into any divine grand plan.
So now, as if having been called in by the message, Mila close
d her eyes and waited, hoping she might have some epiphany. When none was immediately forthcoming, she tried to speak again to the God she’d once held close. She told Him she had never had any other real Master and apologized for her lack of faith. She asked if He would help her to find meaning in her marriage and in the loss of her parents. She reiterated her gratitude for having been given Holly. She didn’t dare ask for any favours although there were a couple that crept in to the back of her mind. Mostly, she tried to block the other cynical voices whispering in the background.
Robert’s parents were overjoyed by Mila’s surprise drop in. Naturally, they asked about the unfamiliar dog at her heels and without going into any detail, Mila explained that she was just minding Jack for the day. If they were curious beyond that, Mila knew they would be too polite to pry.
Mila could see some of Robert in his father’s looks and mannerisms. There was the same precision in the way he approached daily activities: cleanliness was next to godliness; tardiness was a crime and devotion to duty was considered the highest form of worship. But between the minister and his wife was a mutual admiration that was plain to see. Here was a man who had earned his wife’s devotion. Mila had never heard him utter an unkind word about anyone.
They were, as her mother would say, ‘good peoples’. He and Mary had set up several soup kitchens around Sydney and a hostel where they continued to spend each and every Friday night serving food and counselling the needy. Mila had often watched the minister interacting with the homeless. He would listen with the same attention as if sitting with an Archbishop or the wealthiest congregant. Even though he was now greying, Mila felt that Robert’s father had become more handsome over the years and Mary still looked at him with complete adoration that bordered on reverence. Mila couldn’t imagine that their marriage had ever concealed the same secrets as hers.