What Came Before

by Anna George

  ‘You should stop there,’ says Reg. ‘Now I’m retired, privilege probably won’t annex this conversation from prying coppers’ eyes. But I can give you a number —’

  ‘I don’t care about privilege. I want you to tell me where I stand.’

  Bemusement fans from Reg’s eyes. ‘You do, eh? Very well, go on then.’

  ‘In a nutshell, she pushed me past the point of no return. And I lost it.’

  ‘Lost what?’ Reg’s tone is soft yet deft.

  ‘What do you think?’ Dave bounces his gaze at Reg. ‘Control of myself.’

  ‘Ah,’ says Reg, his lips turned down. ‘I gather you weren’t in Sydney at the time?’

  Dave feels a fresh wave of unease. ‘No. Why’s that?’

  ‘Victoria gave away the partial defence of provocation back in November 2005,’ says Reg. ‘Tasmania did it first, in 2003. Gone in WA now too. It is, by the way, under review in NSW.’

  Dave curses.

  ‘You missed the Ramage case, I take it. That put the nails in the coffin of the partial defence in Victoria.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  Of course. Dave can remember the case now; the husband had looked familiar, like one of his clients. White, middle-class, moneyed. Only vaguely can he recall the wife, who had the nerve to leave him and find a new lover. But the manslaughter conviction he can recall; that and the furore.

  The law reform, though – bugger it, he’d missed that.

  ‘We live to higher standards today.’ Reg focuses in tight on David. ‘You cannot kill your wife because you have lost control of her.’

  Beneath Reg’s stare, Dave is conscious, all at once, of how he feels at his core: sour and ashamed. Head down, he walks to the fireplace.

  ‘And we,’ says Reg, ‘cannot continue to blame women for their deaths.’

  Dave wants to yell: Why the fuck not? He tries to focus on the mantelpiece and two rough-hewn picture frames. Familiar, old. Made by his dad, or maybe him. In a backyard shed, in companionable silence. Dave squints back at Reg. Beyond that shed, the silence was unremitting. Why didn’t you call the old bastard on his behaviour? Or doesn’t intimacy have strings attached?

  As if sensing Dave’s belligerence, Reg continues: ‘But provocation is not entirely gone. It’ll be taken into account in sentencing.’ Reg tugs at his wayward lock. ‘And, as old F  W Maitland observed in 1909, “The forms of action we have buried, but they still rule us from their graves.” The same may be true of your buried partial defence, regrettably.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ says Dave.

  ‘That the flaws of the old substantive criminal law may yet be transferred into the law of sentencing. It is too early to say.’ Reg shrugs again. ‘But victim blaming is proving hard, extremely hard, to exorcise.’

  Dave wonders how convincing he could be. His word against a dead woman’s. Her silence is a boon and yet even in death . . . it’s not absolute. ‘And if the judge doesn’t buy it?’

  ‘Murder, and a sentence to fit the crime,’ says Reg. ‘Provided no other defence applies.’

  ‘Fuck,’ says Dave. ‘Fuck, fuck.’ He covers his face with his hands, a child trying to hide. ‘What would I be looking at?’

  ‘Difficult to say without all the facts. Around twenty years with non-parole of sixteen. Could be more, depending on who you get.’

  When Dave curses again, Reg retrieves a miniature pink cushion from his chair and rubs it across his fingernails.

  ‘I know this is upsetting. But let’s take it slowly, shall we? What happened this evening, precisely?’

  Dave glowers as Reg’s right hand moves rhythmically across the fingernails of his left. Reg’s nails are not too long, not too short. Dave has never noticed how womanly the old man is. Agitated, he walks tight circles around the billiard table. Tries to focus. Quickly, he’s irritated by the over-furnished sitting room. The austere leather armchairs, fusty crystal decanters, and carpet of salt and pepper dog hair. His gaze snags on a photograph on the mantelpiece of Reg’s third wife; she’s at a party, with a tray of cocktails. June Cahill, a spritely, wide woman, was a magistrate, he remembers now, until she retired last year to look after Reg. Even the old man has someone.

  ‘Now, she was my smartest decision.’ Reg seems to be waiting for a response. Any response. ‘David, she’d left you, I take it? When?’

  Dave scowls at June. ‘Does it matter? The fact was she’d promised she never would. She was my wife.’

  Reg clicks his tongue. ‘Two people can be so fused it’s useless. Like a pair of melted candles.’

  ‘You think?’ Dave pivots the photo out of Reg’s line of sight.

  Reg moistens his lips. ‘I gather you were hoping for a reconciliation and she was being difficult? What precisely did she do or say?’

  Dave fishes in his pocket. ‘Look, it’s all on the tape.’

  He skids the dictaphone across the oak coffee table. To Dave’s surprise, Reg catches it. He considers it as if it were a gem in the rough, before putting it on a sideboard.

  ‘I can’t rot in jail until I’m sixty-odd.’

  Dave turns his back to the old man’s fresh concern.

  ‘How it happened,’ says Reg, ‘what happened, who you are, who she was – it is all still vitally important. Judges are people too. That old defence is buried but it could do a dreadful haunting.’

  Dave can hear that Reg is genuinely engaged. As if the Queen’s Counsel still has something to offer. He wants to shove the old man back on his haunches. Reg resumes buffing his nails. ‘In my experience, it is far preferable to face consequences than hide from them. Naturally, your garden-variety crook tends not to share that view.’

  Dave focuses on the sliding pink cushion. He has an urge to grab it and dunk it in his tea. He resumes circling the room.

  ‘Do sit down.’

  Poor Reg. Isn’t it obvious his case is fucking hopeless? But then, he has nowhere else to go.

  ‘I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.’

  Stymied, standing, Dave can see no way around it. He sighs.

  ‘Okay, we broke up about two months ago. I hadn’t seen her . . . until today.’ He shakes his head. ‘She looked like a dream, in this clingy navy dress. She’d been cooking spaghetti marinara. I was a bit shocked, I guess. She looked . . . fantastic.’ He spits the word, and stops. ‘We had a chat but pretty quickly it turned. She didn’t want anything to do with me. She was icy. And sure.’

  Reg’s gaze travels from Dave’s hands to his torn forearms and wet shirt. It lingers on his shirt and shoes – both damp and rinsed thanks to Reg’s garden tap. Dave’s face grows hot.

  ‘Look, she told me to fuck off, then she threw her telephone at me, called me a coward —’

  ‘Is that so?’ Reg’s brow is pinched but uncommitted.

  ‘Yeah. So I shoved her, okay? To shut her up. She hit the floorboards, hard . . . I strangled her on the kitchen floor, okay?’

  ‘Natasha was hospitalised once, wasn’t she? A broken nose?’

  ‘I don’t remember!’

  ‘Are you sure she is dead?’

  Dave glares. The QC is like a veteran boxer, jabbing away, his technique impeccable. That blind spot threatens again. This time, his anger keeps it away.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

  ‘And where is her body now?’

  ‘At her place, in the laundry.’

  ‘The laundry? What happened after you strangled her?’

  Dave’s eyes narrow. What has he done? He should never have forsaken his uncritical dictaphone for a QC. He has, he suspects, made a big mistake. ‘I need a shower.’

  Perhaps to mask his surprise, Reg studies the dictaphone as if he’s just detected its teeny flaws.

  Dave says, ‘Listen to it for God’s sake!’

  ‘Yes, yes, very well,’ says Reg. ‘But I’ll get you a number. Another silk: Sheila McCarthy. You should speak with her before you turn yourself in.’

  ‘No.’

  Reg�
�s gaze is reassessing, but Dave’s had enough. He’s at the door when Reg sings out, ‘Don’t take too long, David. I won’t be calling anyone, mind. But how you conduct yourself now is a factor to consider in your sentencing. Remember, every minute counts.’

  In the unfamiliar house, Dave slams his way down the hall.

  8

  Elle hovers forlornly above her wall-hung dryer. Outside, the night is cooler and deserted. Nothing is moving, not even a possum. Despite the dozen small houses nudging against hers, no one besides Mira and Doris knows her intimate routine. No one else knows to rap and shout. No one else will be looking. But perhaps that’s not so bad. She’s not ready, she realises, to be found – to be publicly dead.

  As if from a vast distance, she considers her body, flush against the washing machine. It’s covered, torso to thigh, by a green towel. She sees the back of her head, the skirt of her navy, woollen dress and elliptical soles of her feet.

  There is something about my body, she thinks. Something I’m not seeing.

  The faint feeling of unease returns her to a Saturday, late in summer, at breakfast. They were sitting at her kitchen bench when, grinning, he skidded something to her. A small, blue box. Handling the velvet, she felt her stomach leap and plummet. The texture of the thing gave it away: soft, silken, almost antique. She barely glimpsed the pert sapphire flanked by three inset diamonds in an art deco setting before she set the box beside his bowl of cereal, casually, as if it were a glass of water. He was studying her, as if trying to see beneath her surface reactions. She let her eyes flick to his.

  ‘We could have a long engagement.’

  Her smile trembled. She loved him so she feared she might say yes. How she felt was frightening. It was so enormous. Daily, she was rising and falling on it like a raft on a tidal wave.

  ‘I love you,’ she said, ‘but let’s not have this conversation yet.’

  David’s eyes were trained on hers. ‘I like being married, belonging to someone. And I want to belong, be married, to you. What we have is rare.’

  Warmed by the embers of his waiting brown eyes, she thought, Yes. Then she remembered Tennov’s wisdom on limerence: the way she felt was likely to last about two years. The way he felt too.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But I’ve never been fussed about marriage per se.’

  Dave’s telephone vibrated, announcing an incoming message, and he ignored it. He spun the ring’s box, so that it became a blue blur. ‘I’ll inspire you then.’

  ‘Okay.’ She grinned. ‘Let me know you, really know you, and we’ll do it.’

  He frowned for the first time. She felt the swell shift.

  ‘Okay.’ With businesslike polish, he put the ring in his pocket. Instantly, absurdly, she felt disappointed he was giving up. She watched as he checked his message and the animation left his face. ‘I have to go in,’ he said.

  ‘So much for our walk.’

  She gave him a neat smile as she cleared their cereal bowls but he did not move. Then he coughed. A formal, unnatural noise. That and the pained look on his face made her pause over the dishwasher.

  ‘Before I go, there’s one other thing . . .’

  Elle felt instantly seasick. ‘Oh?’

  ‘I have a stepdaughter, Amelia. She’s twelve.’

  She hesitated, recalibrated. ‘An ex-stepdaughter?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The wave was taking Elle up again. An ex-stepdaughter? That wasn’t so bad. She tried to remember how long he’d been married – seven years? So he’d raised the girl. She felt herself frowning, tried to stop. She shut the dishwasher.

  His hand stroked the stone bench. ‘She was the best part of that marriage. I see her sometimes. Not enough. I miss her like crazy.’

  ‘Okay, wow.’ Elle steadied herself, leaning against the sink. The existence of a child didn’t, in itself, bother her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about her earlier?’

  David shrugged. ‘I didn’t know how you’d react.’

  Elle didn’t know either, as she wiped the bench around him. It had been an eventful morning and she was still in her pyjamas. The man she loved had asked her to marry him. And now he had an ex-stepdaughter. What did that mean? Anything? Rinsing the dishcloth, she glanced at David. Awaiting a response, he looked so tired, and in need. Despite an unsettled, excited feeling in her stomach, she had the urge to massage him. Stepping near, she slipped her wet hands under his T-shirt. She felt the tension ease in his shoulders. On balance, she felt closer to him than she had for days. Not only did he want to marry her, he had also shared his touching attachment to Amelia. No doubt that loss explained some of his lingering sadness. By telling her, he had done as she asked. Even though that closeness brought new questions, fresh doubts, she chose to ignore them.

  That evening, naked in her bed, she savoured his proposal. Hopefully, before too long, he would ask again. Though she did not aspire to marriage particularly, she aspired to motherhood. And, for her, the two went hand in hand. At thirty-four, in the not too distant future, she saw children, brown-eyed, precocious children. She swept her lips across his shoulder.

  ‘We don’t have to . . . every night, do we?’ he whispered. ‘It’s been a long week.’

  A horn from the street gave her time to get her voice in check. ‘No, of course not.’

  But, curved around him, feeling the heat from his skin and the wondrous softness of him, it was more than she could bear. David twisted to kiss the tip of her nose then turned, stretched his arms across the mattress and was gone. Sighing, she took in his unruly hair, his shapely legs and manly arms reaching away from her – again. Since her elbow had healed, she’d become the initiator of their sexual intimacy. She was filling the space between them left by the absence of his desire. The desire that he seemed to have shed. She adopted it, adopted both their quotients. Previous lovers had been insatiable: throwing her over their shoulders, licking her every pore. Knowing only short-lived relationships, she was unfamiliar with the complications of libido. Or, perhaps, previously any imbalance was skewed in her favour. But that evening her desire was peaking and so was his apathy. She felt a twinge of concern. Fresh vulnerability.

  Leaning over, she kissed his forehead – a lingering, wet kiss, as if to reassure herself, but he didn’t stir. She ran her fingers over his undulating shoulders. She told herself that no, he wasn’t an adolescent, aroused only by pursuit. More likely, he was more evolved – a man, not a boy. One day she may be thankful. But as she caressed, she intuited that somewhere within him was an intermittent fault, which was shutting down his circuitry. His moods, too. Lately he could be playful and attentive one day and silent and withdrawn the next. She was inclined to blame his intrusive clients. Studying him as he slept, she had the vaguest fear that, whatever its source, this intermittent fault could become systemic. Watching his warm chest rise and fall, she told herself she had better find it and repair it.

  She slept fitfully until 4 a.m., when she stirred to see his vast silhouette above her, his lips kissing hers. She roused herself and resisted the urge to speak, lest she distract him. His eyes were half closed as he moved, his tongue preoccupied. She traced the lines of his shoulders with her fingertips, felt the cool texture of his skin. His hands were on her breasts and, as he buried himself into her, she surprised herself by feeling nothing. Though this was what she wanted, part of her was unconvinced. Perhaps because it was too late or uninvited. She wondered if he would notice.

  He was expressionless as he moved over her, progressing from lips to belly. She longed for him to say something. Anything. They had scarcely spoken all evening, each retreating to work at their laptops. At bedtime, undressing, he’d looked so weary, his eyes tinged red, his breath bitter; she had decided not to insist on conversation. As she let his tongue work its way into her, she became aware of his absence. There wasn’t any whispering, not even a groan. He wasn’t listening to her or for her; rather, he was burrowing himself away.

  For the first time, towels wou
ldn’t be needed. The realisation was self-fulfilling. Muscles clenched as the tide of her body turned. But he didn’t desist, didn’t notice. She watched him – his arms disappearing into his shoulders into his head. Into her. She felt that she was having sex with a shell, a silken, all-embracing shell. She longed to knock on his breastbone and listen for the echo, or to roll him onto his back and shake him to see if there was a rattle. Why aren’t you here with me? Where have you gone?

  Though her unease grew, she didn’t think to speak. Or stop him.

  Once he’d fallen back to sleep, she slipped out of bed. And wrote.

  The jaunty music ends, leaving her house in total silence. Outside, the shadows haven’t moved. Reviewing their intimacy, she’s struck by how telling it is. The pursuit and retreat played out in those scenes embarrasses her. Our insecurities were so similar, she thinks. If only she’d understood that then and acknowledged the shortfalls. Or the common knee-jerk need for distance . . . If only she had held on to herself.

  But there’s nothing to be gained now, she thinks, bemoaning her own lack of differentiation. Or is there?

  9

  The 67-kilometre drive to Geelong is flat and dull. Mira is trying not to speed, though perhaps it wouldn’t matter. Normally on Friday evenings the Princes Highway is swamped with commuters and weekenders travelling to Geelong, the Bellarine Peninsula or Surf Coast. Tonight, it’s as if an act of God has swept all traffic away except for her old Saab. Miraculously, both her boys are asleep, their heads folded forward like a pair of sunflowers. Glancing at them, Mira sees Elle in Jesse’s overly long eyelashes. Wherever you are, she thinks, resist.

  As the kilometres mount, she revisits what she knows. This man she thought was gone is back. And, though Elle hasn’t mentioned any desire for reconciliation, they’ve been here before. What, three times? Mira winces. Despite her lay understanding of psychology, battered women and the vagaries of being in love, she’s stumped. Her own experience of breaking up is so different. Once Jude Nolan’s fledgling acting career became blatantly irredeemable, she knew things had to change. When he wouldn’t return to computer programming, skill up or sober up, he was out. She had two small children and her own career; she couldn’t afford an unemployed dreamer, no matter how lovable he could be when he was straight. To Elle’s credit, she’d given him a serve as well. Not that it’d worked.