‘You know, Jonty,’ she said, while they were chewing away on the pizza, ‘that father of yours is not just your ordinary, run of the mill bully-boy like my Mal.’ She shuddered suddenly, her face tight with anger. ‘Mal had some redeeming features, when he was sober. He had a sense of humour, and he could be really sweet when he felt like it and . . .’ she frowned, ‘he absolutely loved his daughter. But your father, Jonty! He is a total monster!’
‘I know that,’ Jonty’s face immediately clouded over, the way it always did when his father was mentioned.
‘He is down right evil,’ Lillian added for good measure.
‘Yeah, well . . .’ Jonty tried to smile. ‘What’s new?’
‘He shouldn’t be alive!’
Tom wished Lillian would stop going on about Jonty’s old man. What was the point of rubbing it in? Mostly their talk steered right away from families, and that made more sense. Tom had met Jed and Marie, had even been out to the farm a few times. It hadn’t taken him long to work out that his friend’s old man was a total head case.
‘I just hate to think of the way that man is ruining her life!’ Lillian went to the fridge for the vodka bottle. As Tom watched her half fill a small glass then pop in a few ice cubes, it crossed his mind that she might be drunk. But there were no ragged edges or slurred words, and her voice was clear. ‘My poor little sister,’ she whispered to herself as she sat down.
‘My poor little mother,’ Jonty mumbled quietly in agreement.
‘I used to protect her,’ Lillian continued.
‘She always tells me that!’ Jonty smiled sadly. ‘You were her best friend.’
‘And what kind of a friend am I now?’ Lillian muttered, frowning hard. ‘I have been free of Mal for nearly four years and what have I done to help my little sister?’
‘What can you do?’ Tom didn’t much like this twist in the conversation or the despairing note in Lillian’s voice. Going back to laughing about anchovies would have been more in his line. Either that or something about the latest bit of music they’d been listening to. It was always better to leave families out.
‘I feel like I’ve got to do something for her!’ Lillian cried loudly. ‘To get her away from him.’
‘She’ll never leave Dad,’ Jonty said matter-of-factly.
‘But why not?’ Lillian stared hard at Jonty, her eyes glittering with anger. ‘Why wouldn’t she leave him?’
‘She just . . . won’t,’ Jonty shrugged.
Lillian got up and turned off the dripping tap, then slumped down again and threw her head back to stare at the ceiling, arms folded across her chest, mouth grim.
‘He’s . . . abusive,’ she whispered furiously. ‘He bullies and . . . humiliates her. She is dressed in rags while he has the best. It’s . . .’
‘I know.’
‘So why does she stay?’
‘She says she . . . loves him.’ Jonty threw his head back and closed his eyes. ‘I don’t know.’
There was so much sadness in Jonty’s face that Tom didn’t know where to look. This was his best mate and yet they’d never talked about any of this. Did abuse mean that Jed beat her up? Tom suddenly wanted to know but didn’t like to ask.
‘Your mother is wasting her life!’ Lillian said sharply. Jonty shrugged and looked away. Sadness hung around his mouth and eyes, and his shoulders slumped, heavy as a pile of bricks on his back. It occurred to Tom that Jed was the only person who could make Jonty like this, pinched and sort of flattened out. Totally reduced.
‘There is only one thing we can do, darling.’ Lillian was rinsing the plates at the sink. ‘Only one thing we can do. We have to get rid of him.’
‘What?’ Jonty stared at her in astonishment.
‘Well . . .’ she said, ‘there is an obvious way of getting rid of someone around here.’
‘Which is?’ Tom said eventually.
‘No,’ she laughed, ‘you tell me!’ Her lovely bright eyes bored into Tom’s mischievously and he felt himself suddenly helpless against her. ‘Think!’ she said. ‘You have a body that you don’t want found. What would you do with it?’
A body? She couldn’t be serious.
‘I dunno,’ Tom laughed nervously.
‘The caves, sweetheart,’ she whispered, ‘the caves. Think about it. So damned obvious that it’s a wonder they aren’t used more for this kind of thing!’
‘Assuming Jonty wants him dead, then how do we do it?’
‘Oh that is the easy part!’ Lillian said breathlessly. ‘He’s always fancied me. When the four of us used to mix socially he was always trying to hit on me.’ She shuddered. ‘He’ll come and meet with me if I ask him. If nothing else, he’ll come for the money.’
‘Money?’
Lillian stood next to Jonty and put a hand on his shoulder.
‘You must know that your grandmother has cut your parents out of her will because she loathes your father so much,’ she said softly.
Jonty looked up at her but made no comment.
Lillian sighed and leaned over to pick up her glass. ‘Your father is very interested in my mother’s money. I could ask to meet him to talk about it. I could fix his drink and . . . it could all go from there.’
Jonty was staring blankly back at his aunt as though in complete shock. Tom broke the spell by getting up to pour himself a drink of water. Standing by the sink, he gulped it down and then went over to the window and stared out at the house next door. The old couple had forgotten to pull down their blind. He watched them moving around slowly in the yellow light, from the stove to the table and back again, getting their dinner maybe. Enid and Larry. He used to cut their lawns for them when he was about ten.
How come Lillian didn’t understand that even though Jonty hated his father he also probably loved him? Most people do. You hate your parents and yet you love them. It’s pretty standard stuff. When Jonty was mimicking Jed, or bitching about his bully tactics and crazy views, Tom could always see something else in his eyes.
‘I gotta go now,’ Tom said, without turning around.
‘Me, too,’ Jonty said, his voice soft with misery. ‘My olds will wonder where the hell I am.’
Lillian saw them to the door, and put a hand on each of their shoulders, making them turn to look at her.
‘I get silly sometimes,’ she said apologetically.
‘That’s okay,’ Jonty tried to smile, ‘So do I.’
It was here in his bedroom, on the day before the VCE history exam, that Tom first heard that Lillian Wishart was dead. His father had come home midmorning – just walked into Tom’s room without knocking, his face grim, mouth tight with distress. Tom was sitting at the desk, his head in his hands, staring at an etching of Napoleon leading his troops into battle. He knew immediately something serious was up because his father hardly ever came home during the day. Nor did he usually enter a room without knocking.
Luke didn’t bother with preliminaries. ‘Lillian Wishart was murdered last night,’ he said, stony-faced.
Tom stared back at him. His father stood there motionless, waiting for Tom to say something, but Tom was so stunned that he literally couldn’t swallow or move his mouth. They stared at each other for what seemed ages.
‘I was here,’ Tom managed to say at last, as though he’d been accused of something. Luke nodded, slumped down on Tom’s narrow bed, threw his head back and closed his eyes, both hands gripped in front of him. He looked as though he were about to jump from a tall building or had just witnessed an execution.
‘Okay,’ he said in a hoarse voice, ‘you were here and so . . . where was Jonty van der Weihl?’
Tom’s face and neck had gone unaccountably stiff. How the hell would he know where Jonty had been last night? Probably off his face, the way he’d been a couple of days previously, when Tom had rung to ask him about a maths problem. Where was Jonty? Until that point, Tom had no idea his parents knew anything about the friendship he and Jonty had going with Lillian Wishart. Murdered? The word po
unded in Tom’s head like a series of rolling bomb blasts. Lillian Wishart has been murdered. It couldn’t be true! Could it? How?
His father got up and left the room and that’s when he finally understood the truth of it. She’s dead. It came down like an icy avalanche, heavy and hard and cold, smashing everything in its way. It stayed with him for months, that feeling, like being held down under freezing water that flowed fast and furious above him. But at other times it was as still and quiet as a snake coiled up in the sun, seemingly asleep but alert and ready to strike. Lillian Wishart is dead and . . . I killed her.
Of course he didn’t kill her! But . . . after his father had left his room he’d looked at that picture of Napoleon and been stunned to see that it was exactly the same image as before his father had told him the news. Ditto with the things on his desk and the view from his window. Somehow it didn’t make sense because nothing was the same any more. Lilllian Wishart was dead. Murdered. Life would never be the same again.
Tom lies in his old bedroom wondering if he should get up and move to his sister Nellie’s room to get away from these sharp, cold memories. But it is too cold to get out from under the covers. He thinks of Amanda and the way they used to cuddle up together and whisper and laugh, before Tom ruined everything.
‘Tell me the real reason,’ she’d yelled at Tom, ‘you arrogant, self-centred shit!’
What was the real reason? Why did he break it off with her?
He hadn’t been ready to be in one of those full-on, cosy mini-marriages that everyone his age thought was so damned normal. No church and no ring, no kids and no house, no actual living together and splitting the bills, but you’re as good as married. You’re all tied up and every moment apart has to be accounted for. Jeez! All those frigging phone calls he had to make to keep things sweet. Call him a weirdo but he could do without sex if it meant that he didn’t have to buy into all that.
Maybe . . .
He wishes he had Amanda with him now, though. He wishes that they were both under the covers, hanging onto each other. Or at the very least that he could go ring her, let her chuckling laugh calm the night fears that have hit without warning.
O what a rogue and peasant slave am I.
Lillian loved Hamlet. She learnt the big speeches off by heart and would sometimes quote bits and pieces with a twinkle in her eye that belied how deeply it moved her. Underneath the easy joyful surface there was such still sadness in her.
He tosses and turns trying to get comfortable but thoughts of Lillian Wishart lying cold in her grave fill the spaces between his thoughts . . .
alice
So it will be the black skirt then – short with a kick-frill at the knee – and a pink floral blouse. The old bat won’t approve but then, with luck, she won’t see, will she? Sheer stockings? They look better. But no, it’s too cold. Who cares if the thick ones do make her legs look fat? She is fat. She probably should wear heels, but it’s a long walk, so the scuffed black-leather flats will do. What about a jumper? No. Alice doesn’t feel the cold much and she loathes getting sweaty. Fat people with sweat marks under their arms are particularly disgusting. She will wear the light loose trench coat and bring a brolly in case it rains.
All set now, Alice will sneak out of the house before her grandmother wakes, make her way down to Main Street and grab a coffee and a couple of those big warm almond croissants at Lizzie’s before she fronts for her first day at work at Mullaney Law Practice. Standing up straight now, she checks herself in the mirror. Oh shit! She looks like one of those hefty train conductors working the country line. Ladies and gentlemen! Have your tickets ready, please. Alice laughs as she mouths the words to herself in the mirror, pulls her long hair back into a ponytail and secures it with a pink velvet scrunchie to go with her blouse. She salutes herself and stands to attention. Ladies and gentlemen, the buffet car is now open! Please do not leave your personal items unattended. Maybe a job like that wouldn’t be so bad. On the other hand what about a train driver? Or a pilot, or a floor sweeper or a people smuggler? Any of them would do.
‘Alice!’
Oh, God no! She’s awake! ‘Yes?’
‘Yes what? How many times have I told you?’
‘Yes Gran!’ She only just manages the fake-contrite note in her voice. ‘Sorry!’
‘That’s better . . . Now, are you ready yet?’
Mind your own business. ‘Not quite, Gran.’
‘Well, don’t forget I want to see you . . . and have you packed your lunch yet?’
Oh sure. It was my first priority. ‘Yes, I have . . .’
‘No point wasting money.’
‘You’re right!’ And when you’re dead I’ll waste every bloody cent you leave me, you old skinflint. I’ll go out every night and eat in the poshest restaurants I can find. I’ll stuff myself with caviar, and custard cream cake, and I’ll drink French champagne until it’s coming out my ears, and I’ll bathe in asses’ milk!
Just being able to think these secret thoughts makes Alice feel better. Free somehow. Once out of the house she will think more of them in greater detail. She will let her imagination run wild with all the things she’ll do with Grandma’s money because . . . it will all be hers one day! Every sweet, shining little dollar. This beautiful house (fabulous garden, prime position on Snobs Hill overlooking town), plus the farm out west: five thousand acres of productive Western District pasture, complete with many thousands of fine-wool merino sheep! Not forgetting the two city investment properties and the shares in Western Mining and Rio Tinto. All of it owned by Mrs Phyllis Hickey, her grandmother. Ninety-two years old and, as might be expected, not exactly in the greatest of health!
Alice pictures herself in pale-blue silk pyjamas, lolling around on plump embroidered cushions doing crossword puzzles and sketches. She will invite people around for slumber parties and card soirees. Just think! Long warm nights of French champagne in elegant crystal glasses, kissing people I don’t really know, and don’t even have to get to know because I’m not planning to marry any of them.
In fact, Alice hasn’t packed lunch. She doesn’t much like sandwiches, would much rather go a large slice of pie or a delicious hot focaccia with lashings of ham, mushrooms and melted cheese. But on her way through the kitchen she picks a couple of pieces of fruit from the bowl and stuffs them into a brown paper bag and then into her leather shoulder bag, just in case she gets asked for proof that she’s done what she was told. She doesn’t much go for fruit either, although she might eat the banana.
‘It’s eight now. You don’t want to be late,’ her grandmother’s imperious voice rings down the stairs.
‘Okay.’ Alice walks up the stairs and into her grandmother’s room to find the old lady sitting up in bed in her pink quilted bedjacket reading that morning’s broadsheet newspaper and sipping a cup of tea. How come she’s awake? Her grandmother usually sleeps until the hired help comes at nine to bring in her paper and cup of tea. Alice stands in the doorway and waits as her grandmother slowly puts the paper down, takes off one pair of glasses, puts on another and then squints through them critically at Alice. ‘Wherever did you get that skirt?’ She shakes her head in disapproving wonder.
Here we go. ‘Melbourne.’
‘Frills are seldom a wise choice.’
‘Black is slimming, Gran,’ Alice protests mildly. ‘The salesgirl told me.’
‘Bah! What would those little flibbertigibbets know?’ Her grandmother pushes the paper aside. ‘It’s too short, and you’re too big for such a garment!’
Alice hates the fact that her face flushes as she feels those old crow-eyes raking over her body. But she is an expert at shifting her inner focus away from the present whenever she needs to. It is as though her brain has a number of rooms. When one room becomes uncomfortable she can get up and shift herself to another. Does it all the time. So, even as she’s standing there, letting a cantankerous ninety-two year old boss and humiliate her, an important part of Alice isn’t even there. She gi
ves herself a secret smile as she acknowledges this fact and pats her own back, paying special attention to the itchy spot under her right shoulder. Oh yes, and when she comes into the money she’ll have massages and beauty treatments, too.
‘I don’t see what’s funny, dear!’
Alice shakes her head. Did I actually smile? She puts on her mournful face. ‘Sorry, Gran.’
‘I am just trying to help, dear.’ Her grandmother’s cajoling tone grates on Alice’s nerves even more than her bossy one. ‘A little advice from someone who knows might save all sorts of embarrassments, disasters and dicky situations when one is growing up.’
Alice nods dutifully. One? Why doesn’t one just mind one’s own business? Her grandmother worked a year at Vogue in Paris as an office receptionist in 1953, which has naturally given her the right to tell everyone in the world what they should and shouldn’t wear in any given situation.
‘Your poor mother had no idea about clothing,’ the old lady sniffs, as she folds and refolds the newspaper. ‘Simply no idea.’
Alice stares back coldly. You old bitch! Sometimes I hate you so very much.
Little does Phyllis know that Alice’s mother’s clothes are all still boxed up in the locked back shed at Pitt Street. One day, in the not too distant future, Alice will magically lose all this excess weight and then . . . she’ll wear them herself, because she loves her mother’s clothes. If her grandmother disapproves, well, so much the better! Alice’s mind shifts to the little kitchen in the old house where she lived with her mother. Life was good there. Well . . . good enough, anyway. On the whole it made sense, at least, which is more than anyone could say about life since. The Pitt Street house will become hers on her eighteenth birthday, less than a month away. In her mind she potters around the kitchen a bit – from the fridge back to the stove, to the shelf above, where her mother always had a vase of flowers, stopping to stare out the kitchen window.
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