Good News, Bad News

by Maggie Groff

  In comparison, my relationship with Toby had evolved from early days of infatuation and endless sex into a comfortable partnership held together by shared history, physical attraction and a deep and abiding friendship. Toby was all the good things—handsome, brave, exciting and funny, and if he did sometimes become restless and irritable away from the action, I understood his frustration and had learned to live with his ensuing moods, knowing he would soon be heading back to work overseas and his life on the edge.

  In all honesty, the lengthy separations imposed by Toby’s career had suited my own need for independence and maybe, just maybe, they were the reason our relationship had lasted as long as it had. Could it be that the magic had been kept alive only by the excitement and gloss of novelty that had been the hallmark of our infrequent times together? Did I now want a more stable, constant partner? I wasn’t sure, but I was very aware that this was the first time I hadn’t looked forward to Toby’s return.

  Deep down, too, I couldn’t help wondering if my affair with Rafe had occurred due to an underlying need for me to prove to myself that, at my age, I still had what it took. I worried, too, in the dark recesses of my subconscious, that my sister would find out and tell our parents. It’s disconcerting how, for some of us, the need for parental approval remains throughout life.

  ‘Where’s Rafe?’ Miles asked, interrupting my thoughts.

  ‘In Sydney, on a community policing course.’

  ‘When’s he due back?’

  ‘Three weeks.’

  ‘And when’s Toby due home?’

  ‘Saturday!’

  We resumed our silence, each lost in our own thoughts. After a while Miles extracted a small container from his pocket, stubbed out his cigarette in it and said, ‘I hear you’ve been talking to one of the Anemone Sisters.’

  I uttered a cynical laugh at the efficiency of small-town gossip and asked, ‘Do you know them?’

  ‘I know of them.’

  I turned my head to look at Miles. ‘Hermione, the eldest, may have an interesting case for me to investigate. She’s coming round tomorrow morning to discuss it.’

  He grimaced. ‘I’ll send up a cauldron.’

  ‘Oh, haha. Don’t tell me you believe the hocus-pocus rumours?’

  ‘Of course not, but there’s no smoke without fire,’ he said seriously. ‘A few years ago a kid on a skateboard bowled Hermione Longfellow over on the footpath, and a lot of people heard her scream out that he’d be damned to hell and would get his comeuppance. Two days later the boy was knocked off his bike by a hit and run driver. He lived to tell the tale, but had a fractured skull and pelvis and was in hospital for weeks. They never found the driver.’

  ‘Really?’ I said, shocked by the implications, surprised Daisy hadn’t mentioned this and relieved that I hadn’t run Miss Longfellow over with my supermarket trolley.

  ‘Really,’ Miles confirmed, nodding slowly. ‘Occasionally I see Hermione or Nemony in town, but no one has seen the middle sister, Amelia, for years.’

  ‘Maybe she has agoraphobia?’ I suggested.

  ‘Or maybe she’s long dead and sitting in a rocking chair in the attic like the granny in Psycho.’

  I screwed up my nose. ‘Is that what people think?’

  He nodded and looked at his watch. ‘Come on, darls. Let’s go home and have a drink on the back steps.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m not allowed to go home until I’ve worked out what to do about Toby and Rafe.’

  He looked puzzled. ‘Says who?’

  ‘Says me.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘It’s a girl thing, Miles. You wouldn’t understand.’

  Protesting madly at leaving me alone on the hill, he eventually succumbed to my insistence that he go and wrestled himself back into his car and drove off. I watched his tail-lights snake down the hill until they were distant red dots in the fading light. Then I looked around, for once spooked by my aloneness in a place with which I was wholly familiar.

  For a while I tried to refocus my thoughts on the cast of my complicated love life, but it was no good. The impetus had passed and I couldn’t stop wondering what ‘something else’ Hermione had given to Daisy.

  Apart from that, Harper would be arriving shortly.

  It was dark and bats were flapping eerily through the night sky when I gave up all hope of keeping my pact, climbed into the car and headed down the hill into town.

  Chapter 5

  As I drove along Jonson Street, I had to brake sharply as a group of girls in party frocks crossed in front of me. One, carrying a bottle of champagne, stopped in the middle of the road and removed her high heels. She grinned apologetically at me, raised the shoes in one hand and the bottle in the other, and then ran to catch up with her friends.

  I turned into the narrow laneway behind Jonson Street and pulled up at the back of the two-storey brick building that houses Miles’s restaurant below and my apartment above. A hundred years or so of preservation and renewal had melded our section of the street into a charming architectural hodgepodge.

  It was a few seconds before I noticed that the lights in my apartment were on. I looked around and saw my sister’s Subaru parked in the laneway, blocking access to another property. She’d arrived early and let herself in. Not known for punctuality, but famous for attention to rules, this early mark and careless parking were ominous signs.

  Fandango’s kitchen door was open and light and exotic smells spilled into the laneway. Balancing Daisy’s box of vegetables on my knee, I locked the car and then walked over to the steps that lead up to my back verandah.

  Miles appeared at his kitchen door, wiping his hands on a tea towel. ‘Ah, good, Scout, you’re home. Harper’s been here a while.’ He glanced at the large box and I shook my head.

  ‘It’s not heavy,’ I lied, and immediately it weighed a ton.

  I was almost at the top step when Harper opened the gate.

  ‘Good timing,’ I said, sweeping past her and dropping the box on the large wooden table on the verandah. Turning to face her, I smiled and shook the feeling back into my hands.

  Chairman Meow came bounding onto the verandah, jumped into my arms and welcomed me home by wiping his face over my chin and purring loudly. Greetings over, he struggled to get down.

  Harper and I hugged and then I held her at arm’s length. She was wearing dark-green moleskin pants and a sage-green cotton jumper, but the snappy clothes didn’t hide the fact that she looked awful. The dark circles under her tired eyes testified to a succession of sleepless nights, and her shoulder-length black hair hung lifeless on either side of her face like limp curtains.

  ‘You look great,’ I said enthusiastically.

  ‘I look like shit,’ she barked.

  Ignoring her unpleasant tone, I asked, ‘Do you want to come with me while I park my car?’ I’d collect a ticket if I left it in the laneway.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Do you want to follow me and park your car properly?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘No!’

  Chairman Meow watched through the lattice fence as we descended the back steps and climbed into my car. As we set off, Harper indicated with her hand the row of four single garages on the other side of the laneway. The end garage nearest my apartment belongs to me.

  ‘Are you still renting your garage to Dave Fanshaw, even though your car was stolen?’ She was referring to my arrangement with Dave whereby he rents my garage as office parking for his Mercedes convertible.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘How much does he pay you?’

  ‘Enough,’ I said.

  ‘Which means you let him have it cheap.’

  ‘He’s a good friend,’ I said defensively. ‘And he provides me with free legal assistance. That’s saved me a lot of money over the years.’

  ‘I bet the rent doesn’t cover your insurance and registration?’

  ‘Yes
it does. And oil and filter changes.’ I surmised there would be a lot of aimless chatter until we got around to discussing her teaching career, which I suspected was the reason for tonight’s unpleasant mood. The solution, I’d told her many times, was to resign and do something else, but my advice fell on deaf ears.

  On the face of it Harper’s life appears charmed. She’s been married for twenty-five years to Andrew Blaine-Richardson, an orthopaedic surgeon of some note, and they live with three of their four sons in a modest castle at Robina, a well-heeled suburb on Queensland’s Gold Coast, about an hour’s drive north of Byron Bay.

  Their eldest boy, Max, is twenty-two and a pharmacist in Sydney. The sons still at home are Sam, a twenty-one-year-old engineering student; Jack, a nineteen-year-old apprentice plumber by day and stand-up comic by night; and last but not least, dear little Fergus, who is seven and would prefer to live at Sea World. Added to the male contingent is the family dog, an out-of-control labradoodle called Angus.

  Two years older than me, Harper was named after the author, Harper Lee. My mother’s favourite book is To Kill a Mockingbird and there is little doubt that if I’d been born a boy I would have been saddled with the name Atticus. It’s fortunate that I arrived with indoor plumbing and was handed the name of the book’s six-year-old narrator.

  A minute later I turned into the railway station car park and deftly reversed between two campervans. Two young men were leaning against the back of one of the campervans, drinking Coronas. ‘Evening, ladies. Nice parking,’ one of them said.

  I acknowledged his comment with a brief nod and said, ‘Top Gear production team.’ Then I took Harper’s arm and steered her out of the car park.

  ‘Why did you say something so stupid?’ she said crossly.

  Boy, was she pissy. I’d only said it to make her laugh. I tried again, this time going for a snigger. ‘Would you mess with my car if you thought I was on Top Gear? Or that I knew Sting?’

  ‘It’s Stig, you idiot,’ she snarled.

  And with that another of my splendid jokes bit the dust. I definitely needed to talk to my nephew Jack about my routine.

  We walked back to my apartment in an uncomfortable silence, and I felt overwhelmed with a burning need to make everything in her life right again. Either that or punch her on the nose. I couldn’t decide which.

  Instead of going along the back lane, we continued on Jonson Street and I unlocked my front door, which is discreetly located beside Fandango’s window, and Harper followed me upstairs.

  Chairman Meow pranced around on the top step and we went through the welcoming procedure again. He either has short-term memory loss or genuinely lives and breathes for my arrival home. The repeat performances don’t bother me. He is lovely to come home to, doesn’t mind an occasional dinner out of a can, and doesn’t have shirts that need ironing. What’s not to like?

  Leaving Harper in the kitchen to wash and punish the salad leaves, I went to the bathroom and checked my blood sugar level before having my evening insulin injection. A type one diabetic, I was born with an inability to produce my own insulin, and I have to inject a measured amount into my body twice or sometimes three times a day. Not to be too melodramatic, but I’d die without insulin.

  To stay healthy I try to keep my blood sugar level stable and within the so-called normal range. If the level goes too high I risk coma, and if it goes too low I risk coma. Not to worry, though, as I’m an old hand at the diabetic lark. I check my blood sugar level several times a day, and it’s mostly stable because I eat sensibly and exercise regularly. And I can drink alcohol in moderation as long as I keep tabs on my blood sugar.

  Returning to the kitchen, I opened a bottle of red wine, poured two glasses and we took our drinks out to the back verandah. Harper sat quietly and drank while I barbecued sliced eggplant and mushrooms from Daisy’s box. Chairman Meow walked regally across the verandah and hopped onto his wicker chair, turned around three times and then settled down and went to sleep.

  Harper is vegetarian and we were having vegetable frittata with pesto mayonnaise accompanied by Daisy’s vegetables, rocket and spinach salad, Turkish bread and coriander hummus. I always go to a great deal of trouble to prepare vegetarian food for my sister, and from a carnivore’s point of view it’s very annoying that she never cooks me a juicy steak when I’m at her house. No way was I going to admit that Miles had made the vegetable frittata and the pesto mayonnaise. Oh, all right, and the hummus.

  We ate at the kitchen table. Well, I ate, Harper didn’t. She pushed the vegetables aimlessly around her plate with a fork. The wine, though, was going down a treat.

  Attempting to lift her spirits, I recounted my meeting with Hermione Longfellow. When I arrived at the part about O’Leary having his filthy way with Nemony in the lavender shed, I sat back ready to share a laugh.

  Instead, Harper glowered at me. ‘I don’t think,’ she said sharply, ‘that there is anything funny about an affair!’ Then she drained her glass and poured another drink. The wine bottle came down hard on the table. Bang!

  Oh, cripes! She couldn’t have known about Rafe, could she? In the interests of self-preservation I shut up and finished my dinner.

  In silence, we cleared the table and fell into an age-old routine, established in our childhood, of Harper washing dishes while I dried. I found these sentimental domestic replays of long-ago days oddly comforting. Mostly, though, it was a pain in the arse and we were washing up because I don’t have a dishwasher.

  We were in my cluttered living room when Harper dropped the bomb. She was lying on the lumpy leather sofa with her feet up on a Persian saddlebag, and I was lying on my back on the floor on a Pakistani Bokhara rug, my head resting on the Reader’s Digest Book of Australian Birds. Chairman Meow was lying on me. It was his book.

  Harper was drinking port and I was trying to sip Prince of Wales tea out of a cup without sitting up.

  ‘Scout,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’ I braced myself.

  ‘I asked Andrew why he’s been going out a lot lately and he told me he likes to go out, and it’s not normal for wives to be so tired and crabby that they haven’t got the energy or desire to socialise with their husbands.’

  Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t that. My initial surprise that Andrew would have made such an uncharacteristic statement was quickly followed by the realisation that Harper had been tired and crabby for a while and Andrew had probably had enough of it. I also felt a measure of relief that Harper hadn’t mentioned Rafe.

  I looked at Harper, who had begun, very quietly, to cry. She has always prided herself on being a competent and caring wife and mother as well as a successful teacher, and I knew that Andrew’s remark would have hurt her deeply. This, I told myself, was no time to concur with my brother-in-law’s assessment of my sister’s emotional state.

  ‘Harps,’ I said gently. ‘You have a busy full-time career, a big house, four sons and a crazy dog. And you care for all that brilliantly. When was the last time Andrew did the washing or took Fergus to soccer or worked out what to have for dinner?’

  She sniffed loudly. ‘He says he is more important than all that.’ She was slurring her words a little.

  ‘Screw Andrew,’ I scoffed in loyal support.

  ‘That’s the problem,’ she wailed. ‘Someone else is.’

  Chapter 6

  I lay very still on the floor, my mind absorbing Harper’s shocking revelation. Knowing Andrew, I doubted he was having an affair, and my immediate thought was that Harper, courtesy of too much port, had mined the bottom of the barrel for a suitable accusation to outdo his hurtful comment.

  Harper sat up, blew her nose and then looked at me with swollen red eyes. ‘Just so you know, Scout, I’m certain that Andrew is seeing someone.’

  I pushed Chairman Meow off my tummy, sat up and swivelled around to face her. ‘Oh, Harps, how do you know?’

  She wiped her eyes with a tissue and then screwed it up tightly in her hand. ‘Jack saw them,�
�� she began in a weak voice. ‘He was on his way to a gig in Southport and swung by Marina Mirage to pick up a mate. As he drove past the Versace Hotel, he saw his father coming out of the hotel with his arm around a young woman. Well, Jack called her a chick.’

  I exhaled loudly. The reality was that there could be a perfectly innocent reason to explain what Jack had seen, but evidently Harper hadn’t entertained that idea. It was best, I judged, to raise this issue when she was calmer. And sober.

  Harper drained her port glass and then took a few slow, calming breaths in and out through her mouth. When she spoke, her voice was a little stronger but full of despair. ‘Jack told me what he had seen and then he told Sam. Neither of the boys has said anything to their father, and I have asked them not to.’

  I got up, settled beside her on the sofa and took hold of her hand, soggy tissue included.

  ‘So Andrew didn’t see Jack?’ I coaxed, keeping my voice calm.

  Harper shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Did you confront Andrew?’

  She shook her head again. Angrily she wiped a wayward tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. ‘We had an almighty row when he told me that wives shouldn’t be so tired and crabby that they don’t want to socialise with their husbands, like he was some friggin’ marriage advice counsellor. I knew he’d said it to justify why he was being unfaithful.’

  ‘But you still didn’t confront him?’ I pressed.

  ‘No, and I won’t until I’ve worked out what to do. And I want to keep the boys out of it.’ She shrugged aimlessly. ‘Andrew would only deny it anyway.’

  ‘There could be another explanation,’ I ventured.

  Harper fixed me with a threatening glare.

  Yep, I should have waited until she was sober.

  I couldn’t think of anything suitable to say so I put my arm around her and pulled her towards me. She rested her head on my shoulder and we stayed like that for some time. After a while I realised she had fallen asleep and I carefully removed my arm, lifted her legs onto the sofa and covered her with a blanket. Then I went out and moved her car over to the railway station, praying to the guardian angel of parking that it would still be there in the morning.