This I Would Kill For

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This I Would Kill For Page 9

by Anne Buist


  The other possibility was that he wasn’t an abuser and Jenna had misinterpreted her child’s distress. Or deliberately lied to influence the custody decision. In which case Chelsea’s reaction to Malik would be confused, given her mother’s animosity. But even if Malik adhered to the ‘children should be your friends’ style of parenting—unlikely, judging by his behaviour with Chris—there wouldn’t be any sense of Chelsea and him against the world.

  Chelsea wasn’t looking at the door and didn’t look up when Malik came into the doorway, and, still standing there, said softly, ‘Go Chelsea, Go Chelsea, Go Chelsea.’

  It was a strange way to greet a daughter he hadn’t seen in weeks. But Chelsea, eyes still down, sported a huge smile. She risked a quick look up, then looked back down again. But the smile was still there.

  ‘Come and have a seat, Malik,’ said Natalie.

  He moved to the chair next to Chelsea’s, pausing for an instant before sitting down, arm outstretched as if to ruffle her hair. She still wasn’t looking at him and he thought better of it. Probably worrying how Natalie would interpret it.

  ‘Missed you Chelse,’ Malik said as he sat down. ‘When I watch the football your uncle Youssef is cheering for Man United.’

  There was a pause, and Chelsea looked up, smile gone, and in a sing-song voice said, ‘Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea.’

  Now Natalie got it. They were soccer fans. And naturally they supported Chelsea Football Club. Or at least Malik did, on her behalf. For the next few minutes they talked sports results. It gave her a chance to watch Chelsea, who was clearly enjoying the interaction.

  ‘I have to confess I’ve never watched a soccer match,’ said Natalie.

  ‘It’s football.’ Chelsea sighed with a melodramatic hand gesture; it made her look a little precocious. ‘It’s fun—we have a team at school but we’re not very good. I’m better at singing.’

  ‘You’re a great little singer,’ said Malik. ‘How’s school? Mrs Ambrose still giving you top marks?’

  Natalie was quite certain Craig wouldn’t have known any of her primary school teachers by name. She thought of the bean, wondered for a moment if it would have a father to kick a footy with or to know the name of its teachers. Maybe the bean would like motorbikes and bicycles—more her thing than ball sports or giant Eiffel Towers.

  ‘I got three stars for reading and writing.’

  ‘And maths?’

  Chelsea frowned. ‘Only two but that was because Ethan was making too much noise in class and I couldn’t hear.’

  Malik nodded gravely. ‘Well, get Mummy to explain it, okay?’

  ‘Grandpa helps me with maths.’

  ‘Is that where you go after school?’

  Chelsea nodded.

  ‘She used to go to my mother’s, but now there are always excuses,’ said Malik to Natalie, anger barely concealed. To Chelsea he said, ‘Teta misses you and sends her love.’

  ‘When you were seeing your dad, Chelsea, were there other things that you liked to do with him besides football?’

  ‘I like riding my bike. Daddy taught me to ride and we’d go to the park together. Sometimes Mummy came but on Sundays she likes to stay in bed and Chris would watch TV so we could go all around the park, just me and Daddy.’

  Malik was upholding the tradition of fathers having all the fun.

  ‘And he makes banana fritters.’ Probably not high on Jenna’s healthy foods list. Natalie noticed that Chelsea had finally helped herself to a slice of the fairy bread.

  ‘Feel free to have something,’ Natalie said to Malik, who still looked uncomfortable. It wouldn’t be easy. The brief access, the unfamiliar environment, knowing he was under scrutiny. He looked like he was deciding whether he should say something, and he finally let it out. ‘Chelsea, I had hoped you’d have come over to see Teta and me, last weekend, with Chris.’

  Chelsea froze, the mask back in place. Because she was scared of going, or because her mother had stopped her?

  Malik turned to Natalie. ‘Jenna wouldn’t let her come, even though the court said she had to. What should I do? Get the police to drag her out? Charge Jenna? I will, you know, it’s not right what she’s doing.’

  He had become oblivious to Chelsea, who had shrunk back in the chair. Natalie gave him a warning look but he blundered on. ‘She’s doing it because she thinks she will have to pay me maintenance, that is what my lawyer thinks. In her fancy job where she hangs around with other men and—’

  ‘Malik, enough.’ Natalie didn’t want to frighten Chelsea but her tone was firm enough to stop him mid-sentence.

  Chelsea looked like she was going to cry.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking,’ Malik mumbled, hand out and squeezing his daughter’s arm. She didn’t flinch, but she didn’t look at him either. ‘Can I give you a teddy bear hug?’

  Chelsea shook her head. In a quiet voice she said, ‘I want to go to my mum.’

  Malik’s expression fell. He looked like he’d been slapped. Natalie was grateful the girl didn’t see it.

  ‘Okay, Chelsea, that’s fine. She’ll be out in the waiting room.’

  Chelsea hesitated and Natalie took her to the door. At the door, though, she stopped, turned around and ran full tilt into Malik’s waiting arms.

  18

  ‘You have a problem.’

  Natalie had cycled to Li Yang’s office—it was the easiest way to navigate the city in peak hour when the trams were overflowing with commuters, and not far off the route home. Yang’s room was small and the floor was almost completely covered in piles of papers and books.

  ‘What problem?’

  ‘Malik.’

  ‘We already know he’s a problem.’

  ‘Maybe not the way you think he is. I can’t give you anything.’

  Li frowned. ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me. How about the stats about de facto fathers abusing their kids?’

  ‘I don’t do stats,’ said Natalie. ‘I deal with people—individual cases. Stats mean zip.’

  ‘Jenna is her biological mother.’

  ‘And no one is saying Chelsea shouldn’t be in her mother’s care. It’s about access. I haven’t seen anything concrete I can put in a report that shows he has abused her.’

  ‘All we need to show is that there is a risk it might have happened. Or might happen.’ Li drummed her fingers on the desk. Her iPhone lit up. ‘Hold on.’ She picked it up and walked out of the office, calling for someone. She returned a few minutes later. ‘He’s a misogynist. Of course there’s risk. Would you want him bringing up your child?’

  Natalie felt her irritation rise. ‘Jenna appears genuinely worried, but is there anything else going on? Like might she have to pay Malik maintenance if he had regular access or custody?’

  Li waved her hand dismissively. ‘She has a good wage, a solid worker. He’s in “importing” whatever that means. And it’s his family’s business. They’re good at hiding things.’

  Natalie narrowed her eyes. ‘So he has asked for maintenance?’

  ‘It’s immaterial. He’s a risk to her daughter. Just because the media got bad publicity for chasing those poor kids around Lebanon doesn’t mean they weren’t in the right. That mother had been granted custody in an Australian court. The father had no right to refuse to give them back.’

  ‘Is there any way Malik can leave the country with them?’

  ‘Something you’re not telling me?’

  Natalie shook her head. ‘I just imagine the Egyptian government will support him—he’s a citizen—rather than Jenna.’

  ‘Let him try running. I’ll have him in jail faster than the ink can dry on the order.’

  ‘Jenna?’ Natalie called when she got home.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m just finishing my report and there’s something I’m not clear about. I need some clarification.’

  There was silence at the other end of the phone before Jenna said a cautious ‘Yes?’

  ‘If Malik gets access or shared custod
y do you, or might you, have to pay maintenance?’

  Natalie could almost hear Jenna thinking. ‘Maybe. Which stinks if you want to know. I couldn’t manage if I had to pay him. I’d have to move in with my parents. He earns way more than what he told my lawyer—his family are covering for him.’ She made no effort to hide her bitterness. ‘I just want him out of my life, Doctor King. And out of Chelsea’s.’

  ‘Winona Ellis from Protective Services.’ Beverley put the call through.

  ‘Hope you’ve got something on the sleazebag.’

  A picture of the last hug between Chelsea and Malik went through Natalie’s mind. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because our child psychologist saw Chelsea this morning and couldn’t come up with anything other than general symptoms of trauma.’

  Which was good—if it meant that there wasn’t abuse, but not good if she just couldn’t find anything definitive. ‘Maybe Jenna has overreacted.’

  ‘I suppose you think we did, too. You have no…’

  ‘You didn’t have a choice. Where are the police at?’

  ‘Nothing at this stage. Not pursuing it.’

  ‘So Malik might get access,’ said Natalie, more to herself than Winona.

  ‘Not if we can help it. We’ve got a witness with impeccable quals to say he isn’t fit.’

  Natalie let out a sigh of relief. They must have organised their own parenting assessment. With an eight-year-old involved, that would mean a child psychiatrist. Excellent. She wasn’t in this alone.

  Later she wished the child psychiatrist had been with her at dinner. Liam texted to warn her that he was bringing Megan. She had to meet his kids some time, but she was surprised at how anxious she felt.

  Even in school uniform, Megan looked more than three years older than Chelsea. She stormed past Natalie without saying hello, found a beanbag in the hallway—the Bridge of Sighs that crossed the lane—and plugged herself into her iPad with her back to both of them.

  Liam shrugged.

  ‘Give her time,’ said Natalie.

  They gave her too much time. When dinner was ready and they called her, she was no longer sitting there.

  ‘How did she get past us?’ Liam asked in bewilderment.

  There was a hidden door at the end of the walkway. But there was no way she could have found the handle, was there?

  Apparently, yes.

  Lauren answered the phone and Natalie could hear her views on Liam’s parenting skills without the need to be put on the speaker phone. But yes, Megan had turned up. Traumatised.

  The description would also have fitted how Liam looked.

  ‘At least I can stay the night now.’ He forced a smile.

  The sex did help. But both of them had too much on their minds. Natalie woke when it was still dark, and for a minute had the sense of being very small, the room around her full of shadows and, in the corner, something lingering from her dream that she couldn’t make out.

  A scream faded in her mind. Hers? She felt fear, and then a terrible deep wave of guilt. And was aware of a single eye, seemingly dislodged from its socket, looking at her.

  She was frozen. No interpretation needed. Not PTSD re-emerging, or past abuse. Just good old fear of commitment. No wonder Jenna and Malik were pushing buttons. She had avoided being tied to men in her life—it was going to be harder to do when the bean was born. She rolled closer to Liam, breathed him in, and for once didn’t fight the comfort that his presence gave her.

  19

  Natalie had the day off—a whole day of nothing to do except see Declan and make sure Blake collected his boxes. She had gone back to sleep after her nightmare but woke feeling exhausted, and hadn’t been able to sleep again after Liam left. She had a sense that she was letting everyone down.

  Just what she didn’t need to dog her all day when she was planning to indulge in some nesting behaviour. Or at least clean up. The baby was going to have to fit somewhere and right now she’d have to wrestle a crib in between an electric guitar and two acoustics, three oversized speakers, piles of books and journals, CDs and DVDs and several items of furniture she’d taken when her grandmother went into the nursing home. Maybe one of the small tables could be turned into a change stand?

  ‘You’re a star,’ Bob announced from his perch as he watched her move items around—mostly just making a mess somewhere else.

  ‘That’s me, Bob. Star screw-up. Hope you’re going to enjoy being an uncle. Feel like babysitting?’

  The morning passed slowly, and was only made bearable by the background music, which had her thinking about some new songs for the band. But she wasn’t going to be with them much longer, was she?

  In the clean-up, she found her old baby book. Her mother must have left it there—Natalie couldn’t remember ever taking it. She made herself a smoothie and flopped onto the sofa to leaf through it.

  Natalie Eve Carmichael born 3.10 a.m. 1.09.82 6lbs 5oz looking like any baby, face screwed up. ‘Never did like to cooperate,’ her mother had told her.

  A piece of hair, light brown then, rather than the red-brown (with blue streaks) it was now, was trapped under the clear plastic album page cover. Natalie tried to picture her mother’s face if she put a coloured streak in the bean’s hair. And Damian’s expression. Liam would roll his eyes and say something like, You’ll turn her into a conservative voter with religious tendencies—only way she’ll be able to rebel. She? A boy might be easier. Less identification.

  A footprint and hand print. She stared. They were so… small.

  There were pictures of her later, too. Some with her mother, others with her nan, and then with Craig. Under the first of these was written Craig King with daughter Natalie Eve King, 24.12.86. ‘You were each other’s Christmas present,’ her mother told her as a child. ‘The adoption papers arrived the day before Christmas.’

  Adopted when she was four. Just like Chelsea. Was that what these dreams were about? A childhood trauma she couldn’t recall? Natalie thought uneasily of the Royal Commission, of all the patients she had seen scarred by abuse. Maybe she’d been damaged that way too, and it had increased her vulnerability to bipolar disorder. Or were her dreams because she identified with Jenna, fiercely independent and having to battle her own mental health demons to make it as a single mother?

  The doorbell rang and Blake was standing outside, grinning; a large truck behind him with the engine running.

  ‘Told you I’d organise it,’ he said.

  Natalie wasn’t about to argue. She was sure it was only because Liam was so busy that he hadn’t questioned her harder about the boxes, most of which Bob had decorated with white streaks.

  She threw open the large wooden downstairs doors and heard them creak on rusty hinges. They were at cargo loading height—level with the truck doors. Liam wouldn’t be able to get the Lotus in there even after the boxes were removed.

  Blake and an olive-skinned man started throwing boxes into the truck. It was slow work and the muscle man was more adept at it than Blake, who was always good at finding activities other than the one at hand. He grabbed one of the beers Natalie brought down long before the task was over and stood close to Natalie, leaning in to her.

  ‘Found a job yet?’ said Natalie.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Working with these guys,’ said Blake pointing to the truck with its black and yellow emblem. Easy Tiger Imports. Shit. That was Malik’s company. She peered at Muscles who smiled back. Yep, he looked like Malik—his brother Youssef more than likely. The last thing she needed was a personal and ongoing connection with Malik, particularly while she was assessing him for court. She cursed herself for giving Blake the card. She’d been on the edge of mania and hadn’t thought it through. Natalie looked around. No sign of Malik. She threw a beer to Muscles who had heaved the final box into the truck.

  ‘Any more where that came from?’ said a voice from the truck, and it was only then Natalie realised that there was a third man, at the wheel. Mal
ik. He was now standing half out of the truck, one foot on the running board, a hand on the top of the cabin, another on the open door. He was taking in the view of Natalie in a pair of skimpy shorts—and making no attempt to hide his interest. And a smile that suggested she owed him.

  Declan changed the record—the old-fashioned vinyl variety. It sounded like Mahler. When he sat down again he asked, ‘And how are you?’ He had the ability to focus completely on who he was speaking to and give the impression they were the only person in the world who mattered. Mostly Natalie found it comforting. Today she frowned. Why the concern? Because she was having a baby?

  ‘Declan, if you mean about the pregnancy, I have told her. My mother.’

  Declan leaned forward. ‘You sound angry at her. Your mother had to make choices then, just as you do now.’

  ‘And those choices had consequences. I need to know about the past before I can move forward. I feel like I’m… stuck. Sometimes…I think I can remember my father, you know?’

  ‘Don’t push it, Natalie. If and when the time is right, then you will remember what you’re ready to manage.’

  ‘But I want to know now!’

  ‘This isn’t just about you.’

  Natalie knew that; had a moment of sympathy for Jenna’s need to control. She hated the vulnerability.

  Then she took a breath. ‘Confession time.’ Declan watched with a serious expression as she told him how Malik had ended up at her house.

  ‘Boundaries, Natalie.’

  ‘I know, it was stupid.’ And a bit manic.

  ‘You need to tell the court about your conflict of interest.’ He didn’t need to add and error of judgment.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘And what are you going to say to the court about him?’

  ‘I’m still no closer to being able to say whether Chelsea’s safe or not with Malik.’

  ‘What would you do if you were the judge?’

  ‘Err on the side of caution, no matter what racists—or anti-racists—were saying about me in the press,’ said Natalie. ‘I, of all people, should know what it’s like to miss your biological father, but Chelsea’s going to have that anyway. Her biological father hasn’t even met her. It’s sad to deprive her of a loving father figure, but better than the possibility of giving her over to one who abuses her.’

 

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