by Jean Bedford
She laughs. ‘Didn’t I thank you? Sorry. They smelled divine for days.’
‘Last time we spoke you were too angry to thank me for anything.’ He leans forward.‘Did you turn up at my place that night, when you said you would? The night before I sent the flowers?’
She looks at him, knowing what answer he wants. ‘I drove past,’ she says. ‘Your light was out so I thought I’d let you sleep.’ She glances at the clock on the wall. ‘Where’s that coffee? I’ve got a meeting at eleven.’
His shoulders slump. Last time they spoke she’d said she wanted them to cool it, not to see each other for a couple of months. He’d tried to apologise for spying on her, for misjudging her, and she’d coldly changed the subject. He doesn’t know whether to believe her about that night. He suspects she simply forgot about it.
‘Carly, why didn’t you explain to me about your work at the clinic in the first place? I wouldn’t have been so stupid about you missing dates. I was just so jealous — I thought you were seeing someone else.’
‘I didn’t think it was any of your business,’ she says lightly. ‘I still don’t. And I am seeing someone else. I’m living with him, in fact.
One of the counter staff puts a pot of coffee and cups on their table and he thanks her automatically, trying to absorb what Carly had just said. He stares at her. She looks different, softer, even more beautiful.She’s happy, he thinks miserably.
‘I suppose I should say I’m pleased for you,’ he says, sugaring his cup, pouring milk unseeing so that it slops over into the saucer. ‘But all I can think is that I’ve lost you. For good.’
‘You never had me,’ she says, brisk. ‘It was never what you thought, Alastair. You made up a fantasy and tried to force it to come true. That doesn’t work, you should know that.’ She looks at the clock again and drinks her coffee. ‘Look, no hard feelings.’ She puts a hand casually on his sleeve. ‘I didn’t promise you anything, you know. It was all in your head.’
‘And it was good while it lasted, I suppose,’ he says. ‘And other cliches. Speaking of which, I assume we can still be friends?’
‘I don’t think so, Alastair.’ She gets up and puts a two-dollar coin on the table. ‘Sex was all we really had in common if you honestly think about it.’ She walks swiftly across the room, nodding slightly to several of the doctors at the door. Alastair’s beeper goes off and he groans and follows her out. He wonders if he’ll be able to keep himself from watching her house even more often, trying to catch sight of the man she lives with now, as well as to get some vicarious sense of sharing her life. He wonders how he’ll get through the rest of this day, the rest of his existence, now that his last hopes of her are in tatters.
*
Carly lets herself in and stands for a moment listening to the silent house. The door to the second bedroom is shut and there is no-one in the living room. Tom has taken over the extra room; there is a desk in there and a bed. They don’t sleep together every night.
She takes her parcels into the kitchen and unpacks vegetables and meat and fruit. She hums as she puts things away, arranging mandarins and apples and bananas in the black bowl, putting parsley in an old ginger jar and placing it on the wide window sill. The kitchen looks like an advertisement in a decorator’s magazine, all polished wood and glowing copper. There is a vase of old-fashioned creamy double jonquils on the scrubbed table. Tom must have brought them home.
She removes her shoes and walks quietly past his room into her own, avoiding the creaking boards in the middle of the passage. She uses her en-suite bathroom to shower and then she puts on black lace underwear and a suspender belt with stockings. She adds jeans and a T-shirt; she’s not ready to surprise him yet.
When he wanders out half an hour later she is cooking; the kitchen is full of the strong aroma of some rich stew. She wipes her hands on the dishcloth and hugs him. He kisses her neck.
‘You smell good,’ he says, breathing in. ‘What’s the perfume?’
‘Garlic, mostly,’ she says, waving her fingers under his nose. ‘Want to open a bottle? How was your day?’
He puts wine and glasses on the table and searches for the corkscrew. She hands it to him.
‘OK,’ he says. ‘At least I didn’t have to teach.’ It’s the summer break and he has no classes. He is trying to write an article for an academic journal. He pours them both some claret and takes a long swallow. She notices that he is drinking a lot these days, but doesn’t say anything. She sips at her glass, then drops some wine into the stew and stirs it.
‘Get much written?’
‘No. It won’t come. I went for a long walk, familiarising myself with the neighbourhood again.’
Carly still lives in the house they had rented together. She owns it now. There is a tiny patch of unpainted wall behind the sink which Tom had once missed with the brush. Her eyes flick to it as if it is a charm of some sort. She has never repainted the kitchen.
‘I rang Rosa,’ he says, fiddling with the bottle opener. ‘She wouldn’t talk to me. I’m supposed to have the kids tomorrow — I’ll just have to assume they’ll be ready for me.’
‘Will you bring them here?’ Her grip tightens slightly on her glass.
‘No, I don’t think so. It’s too soon. I have to try to explain it to them first.’
‘I wouldn’t worry too much,’ Carly says. ‘Statistically most of their friends will have separated parents. What with that and the telly, they probably have a better grasp of it all than you do.’ But she doesn’t want them here, not yet. She is jealous of them, of them being Rosa’s children as well as Tom’s; not hers.
‘I brought the papers home,’ she says. ‘They’re in the living room.’ She doesn’t like him hovering in the kitchen while she cooks, it distracts her.
He takes his glass and the bottle with him and she relaxes slightly. It is a strain, sharing her space again. She has got used to living alone, to having this haven to retreat to. But it’s a price she’s prepared to pay to have Tom back, to be vindicated for all her years of waiting. She hugs herself.For keeps,this time, she promises silently.One way or another.this is for keeps.
*
After dinner, while he stacks the dishwasher, she goes into her room and gets the long white satin nightdress from the plastic shopping bag. She takes it into the spare room and drops it on the bed. When she comes out again he is opening another bottle of wine.
‘There’s a surprise for you in your room,’ she says. ‘I’m going to bed. Join me if you like ...’
He pours himself a glass and his hand is unsteady. ‘Carly ... I’m not sure ...’
‘See what happens,’ she says calmly. ‘Nothing’s compulsory round here.’ She brushes light fingers over the front of his pants, caressing his limp penis as she kisses him. She places his hand against her thigh so that he can feel the bump of her suspender under the denim. He has been here two weeks and she has deliberately not suggested that they make love. When they spend the night in the same bed, they stroke each other, give each other massages with aromatic oils. The sexual element is there, and he has brought her to orgasm several times, but she has stopped short of reciprocating. She knows that if he finds himself potent with her he will never go back to Rosa, but she has not wanted to rush it. A failure now would be disastrous, she thinks.
*
When he comes to her he has put on the gown and his face is made up. She draws the sheet back so that he can see what she is wearing. His erection pouches out the satin of the nightdress.
‘You don’t mind?’ he says. His voice is thick, but uncertain. ‘Carly, you really don’t mind?’
‘Be quiet. Tommy darling.’ She reaches for him. She is smiling.
Noel is frowning at her computer screen, her fingers poised inches from the keyboard, like a pianist about to play the last important chords. She has half an hour to make her deadline and she can’t find a final paragraph. Rafferty has been padding around the room like a restless child on a rainy day, as he alway
s does on Wednesdays at this time, stopping to peer over shoulders, scanning notes on desks, answering other people’s phones. Journalists hunch protectively across their consoles when they sense his approach. There is an air of irritated tension blanketing the whole office. Noel knows if she glances over to the subs’ desk they will be sitting with their arms folded, waiting for copy, looks of exaggerated patience on their faces.
Pearlie, the Education writer at the next desk, gives a huge theatrical sigh and a thumbs-up signal to the subs. They pretend to scramble to their computers and Pearlie laughs. She stretches and looks smugly over at Noel.
‘All right for you,’ Noel says. ‘Want to finish this for me?’
‘No worries. What’s it about?’
‘Political corruption. Bribes in high places. Offshore bank accounts. The usual.’
‘Um.’ Pearlie thinks for a moment. ‘What about “Tomorrow is another day’’? I’ve always liked that ending.’
‘Just like today, and the day before, and the day before that. Hang on —same old,same old. I can do something with that, I think.’ She taps furiously for a few minutes then signs off. She, too, gives a loud sigh and signals to the subs’ desk. She leans back in her chair and joins Pearlie in relaxed and self-satisfied contemplation of the heads still bent over their keyboards. ‘There’s a word for what we’re feeling,’ she says. ‘It’s German, I think. It means a sort of contemptuous pleasure in others’ misfortunes, mixed with the pretence of genuine compassion, as well as arrogant gratitude that you are not as others are.’
‘One word for all that? Must be German,’ Pearlie says. ‘You coming to lunch?’
‘Suppose so.’ Her phone rings and she picks it up.
‘Schadenfreude,’ she says suddenly, to Pearlie.
‘What? Is that you, Noel?’ It’s Sharon.
‘Speaking.’ She explains the word to Sharon. There is a short silence.
‘You busy for lunch?’ Sharon is obviously in a hurry.
‘Not really.’ They arrange to meet at an Indian restaurant in the city in half an hour. ‘Sharon,’ Noel says quickly, before she can ring off. ‘Is this social, or is something going on?’
‘Tell you when I see you.’ The connection is cut. Noel looks at the phone before putting it back on its rest. ‘Girl of few words, my mate Sharon,’ she says, reaching for her bag.
‘Is she German?’ Pearlie gives a daft giggle and waves her away.
*
‘They only found the body last night,’ Sharon says. ‘It’s been there for a few weeks.’
Noel finishes her curry and sits back, cradling her glass of beer. ‘Was she reported missing?’
‘In a sense.’ Sharon fans her mouth with her fingers. ‘Jesus, that was hot.’
‘What do you mean, in a sense?’
‘She’d run away before. I get the feeling no-one put much effort into finding her. Including her parents. Foster parents, I should say — her mother ran off years ago.’
‘What about Missing Persons? Didn’t they take it seriously?’
Sharon pulls a face. ‘You want to make a guess at how many runaway kids there are in Sydney? It wasn’t reported for over a week; the trail was way cold by then. Her photo was circulated to the stations — cops on the beat would have kept an eye out round Darlinghurst and the Cross. There’s not much else you can do in these cases. No family to go to or to be potential abductors. Not many friends, and they were all interviewed. She just didn’t come home from school one night and no-one’d seen her since.’
‘Why did the parents wait so long to report it, though? Can’t they get into trouble for that?’
‘Who from?’ Sharon gives a derisive laugh. ‘I suppose they thought they might as well get another week’s money before the allowance was suspended.’
‘Do they do that?’ Noel shakes her head.
Sharon shrugs. ‘Anyway, if the obvious scenario is right, one of the foster parents offed her. Or both. So they’d have a vested interest in waiting, wouldn’t they? To cover their tracks.’
‘But you don’t think that’s what happened? You think it’s another one in my pattern, don’t you?’
Sharon shrugs again, uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know. I still don’t know if what you say makes any sense or not, but it jumped out at me for some reason. You’ve conned me into thinking like you.’
‘Well, what’ve we got?’ Noel starts ticking her fingers. ‘First, no eye-witnesses. Second, alibis?’
Sharon shakes her head. ‘They say they were out looking for her for a few hours, then they decided she’d run away again and she’d come home eventually.’
‘Third, is there history of abuse?’ She looks at Sharon and she nods.
‘Looks like it. The usual stuff — bruises, withdrawn socially, kept inside the house when she wasn’t at school. Two visits from welfare officers, after calls from the standard concerned neighbours; results inconclusive. No follow-up, just a few notes in a file shoved in a drawer.’ Sharon swills her beer around the bottom of her glass, then drinks it. There’s a sour expression on her face.
‘Had she been hospitalised at all?’
‘A couple of times.Accidents in the home. As I said, same old stuff.’
‘So, have they arrested anyone?’
‘No. They’ve only just started the questioning. They’ll be searching the house today, probably.’
‘What about cause of death? Does that fit?’
‘Blow by the well-known blunt instrument. Rape either before or after death or both. That’s only the preliminary findings.’ She empties the dregs from the can into her glass.
‘Want another one?’ Noel starts to look for the waiter.
‘No, I’ve got to testify this afternoon. We’re trying to get a restraining order on a guy who keeps having a go at his ex-wife with his garden shears.’ Sharon looks tired, her usual animation absent. ‘I’m sick of it all,’ she says suddenly. ‘I think I almost want your mad theory to be right. A serial killer would at least be a bit different.’
They put money on top of the bill and stand to go. At the door Sharon says, ‘Oh, by the way, Tony’s one of the investigating officers.’ She waves and walks rapidly off down the street, leaving Noel staring.
*
‘Sharon shouldn’t be poking her nose in,’ Tony says again. ‘It’s not her patch.’
‘Oh, shut the office politics. It’s all in the afternoon papers, anyway. Just tell me what you think.’
‘I think we’re continuing with our enquiries,’ he says, moving further down in the bed. He takes her hand and pulls it under the sheet. ‘Tell you what, hold that and just sort of move your fingers up and down a bit for a while and I might be forced to answer all your questions ...
‘Oh hell, if I must,’ she says in a resigned voice as she slides down beside him. They embrace with what is by now a familiar passion and she wonders vaguely if he realises how often they see each other, how close they have become.
As if he knows what she’s thinking, he says, ‘We fit good, don’t we?’ She moves her mouth to kiss him and they don’t speak for some time after that, absorbed in other urgent ways of communicating.
*
‘All right,’ she says afterwards, sitting up and angling the bedside light so that it shines full in his eyes. ‘I’ve done my bit, now tell me everything you know.’
She feels her sweat drying cool in the warm room and notices drops of perspiration caught in the coarse hairs of his chest as he groans and sits up with her. She bends over to lick at them. He strokes the back of her head gently, grunting with pleasure.
‘Nothing,’ he says and she can hear his grin. His fingers clench in her hair when she bites his nipple, hard. She leans up and looks at him.
‘You mean I’ve just despoiled and degraded myself to no avail? Arsehole. Really? Nothing?’
‘Nope. Sharon knows as much as I do, by the sound of things.’
‘But haven’t you questioned the parents? Sharon said you mig
ht get a warrant on the house today, too.’
‘The parents’ story hasn’t changed and there was nothing in the house.’
Noel sits away from him and frowns. ‘There must be something. Somewhere.’
‘Why? So it fits your theory? You think there should be some nice, tidy planted forensics somewhere, do you? But there aren’t. Not so far, anyway.’
She doesn’t reply immediately, chewing on her lip. Then she says, ‘Well, bugger. Have you got any leads at all?’
‘Not until we’ve got the full autopsy. There might be something there we can go on. At the moment it’s just the usual grind — house-to-house, interviewing everyone who lives near them, everyone near where the body was found. We might get lucky. We might not, too.’ He turns out the light. ‘Could a bloke get some sleep now?’ He heaves himself back under the sheet.
‘Was she killed where she was found?’ Noel is still sitting up, talking into the darkness.
‘Probably not,’ he says. ‘The SOC team’s still combing through the crap picked up on the site. But it didn’t look like it to me.’ His voice is getting drowsy and he reaches for her. ‘Come on, go to sleep. There isn’t another drop left in me — information or anything else.’
She sighs, then snuggles down beside him, her head on his chest, his heavy arm holding her close. But she doesn’t go to sleep for some time. Physical evidence pointing to one of the parents is essential to her pattern. She wishes she could search their house herself, but she assumes, grudgingly, that the police would have been thorough. Just as she finally sinks into sleep she thinks of a possibility to ask Tony about in the morning.
They’ve discovered Justine’s body,and there’s something odd about the newspaper reports.It’s been days and they haven’t found anything or arrested anyone.I felt all along that Justine was a mistake.I thought it was finished with for a while;I thought I was safe.Farrell was convicted and they never had a doubt about Jessie Stratton,the one after Belinda.The mother’s boyfriend went down for that one,as I’d planned.No-one questioned it.It made the papers for a few days and was forgotten.