The Fragments

by Toni Jordan

  ‘What’s that smell?’ she says.

  ‘It’s a warehouse, Rachel,’ Charles says. ‘I don’t get a maid in.’

  He stops in front of a small clearing in the centre of a forest of pallets. There are a few boxes already open. A handful of copies of The Days, the Minutes scattered around. Inga picks one up and runs her hand over it. It’s cloth-bound in rich red with Inga’s name and the title in gold. The buckram is so fine that, in this light, it could pass for velvet.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Rachel says. Simple, elegant, striking: exactly what Inga asked for.

  ‘Yes, yes. So what? You gave me a heart attack. Seriously. I thought. I don’t know what I thought. But look, Inga.’ He rips opens another of the boxes on the top of a single pallet with strong hands and takes out a book. He flicks the pages. ‘They’re fine, see? I’ve checked half-a-dozen boxes and they’re all here, thousands of them, and they’re all fine. Pick a box, if you don’t believe. A random one, any one you like. There’s no cause to worry.’

  ‘Me?’ says Inga.

  ‘And it’s safe, this warehouse. I’ve gone to every precaution. I’m the only one with a key. All the windows are barred, all the doors are double-bolted. The plates are in the office. No one even knows they’re here.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Not that I object to coming down here on a Thursday afternoon when I should be in the office with a million things to do. I don’t mind at all. The most important thing is that you’re comfortable.’ He takes a large handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his nose. ‘Sorry. Dust. Anyway. Don’t do it again, that’s all.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Summon me. You are neither my wife nor my sergeant nor, for that matter, my mother and those are the only people allowed to push me around. OK, my accountant. My bartender, on rare occasions, but that’s it.’

  Rachel feels a pricking in her fingers.

  ‘Are you drunk? I didn’t summon you,’ Inga says.

  He reaches again into his pocket and pulls out what is clearly a telegram. ‘Read it again. What is it, if not a summons? I mean it’s OK, I’m joking, really. I’m half-joking. It’s natural to have some nerves.’

  The telegram in his hand reads:

  ON MY WAY TO WAREHOUSE STOP MEET ME THERE NOW STOP DONT BE LATE STOP INGA KARLSON

  Inga reaches into the pocket of her coat and pulls out her own telegram. Charles reads it, frowning. He looks at a spot floating in space then he bolts back the way they came, along the canyons of pallets, back through the anteroom to the front door. They follow him. He goes to open it. He pushes on it with everything he has, then throws his shoulder against it for no good reason but still it doesn’t move. There’s something barricading it from the outside.

  ‘Charles?’ Inga says.

  On this deserted corner of the city, in this packed warehouse that was once a stable. Standing there at the front door, none of them knows what to do.

  29

  Brisbane, Queensland, 1986

  Caddie stays in the shower until the water runs cold. She rests both hands against the pink tiles, soaking her head, trying to wash away the image of Philip standing in his driveway waving Rachel’s letter.

  Rachel’s changed her mind, Caddie thought at first. Rachel is happy: with their project, with Philip’s intentions. Whatever Rachel knows about Inga Karlson, she is at last ready to stand in front of strangers and reveal it. Caddie felt the weight of responsibility lift.

  Then she read the letter.

  Professor Carmichael, Ms Walker,

  I fail to see how any of this is your business. If you insist on this course of action, however, I will attend.

  Regards

  Rachel Lehrer

  ‘It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement, is it?’ she said to Philip.

  Philip—she could scarcely believe it—danced a gormless jig, then held the letter high and kissed it. ‘Who cares? She’ll be there, that’s what matters. Hallelujah!’ He folded the letter and sandwiched his palms around it in prayer—possibly also a first.

  Now, in the shower, she sees the leaves of a palm sneaking over the sill of the casement, open to let the steam out. The narrow bathroom was renovated badly in the seventies and the ceiling and the walls are panelled in pale, knotty pine. When she turns her back to the shower rose and faces the length of it, she could be in a giant coffin.

  Rachel Lehrer is the key to Caddie’s new world. One old woman, close enough to a stranger. Philip won’t stop: that’s the simple truth. He has Rachel exactly where he wants her.

  There’s a thumping. She turns off the taps, dries herself and changes, wraps her hair in a towel and slides open the door.

  ‘Mate,’ says Pretty from the kitchen. ‘You were a good twenty minutes.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Caddie says. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Whoa. Hey, no worries. I like cold showers. Good for the circulation. No, seriously Cads, it’s not worth getting upset about.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she says. ‘Planning on throwing my career away but apart from that, absolutely fine.’

  She skips dinner and instead sits cross-legged on the floor beside her bed, writing notes and drawing flowcharts then rolling the pages into balls and missing the bin. She writes down everything she knows about Philip; she tries to imagine any eventuality. She thinks on it from every angle but comes to the same conclusion: Rachel must be delivered from Philip’s plans, that is not negotiable. She makes a phone call, she flicks through her wardrobe in search of something Philip would consider appropriate for their function tomorrow. When at last she sleeps, just after three, her legs cycle through the empty space in her bed and she dreams of someone holding her from behind. She’d give anything to call all this off but she knows full well that Philip will keep going until he builds his glittering future on the pile of Rachel Lehrer’s bones.

  Just a few hours from now, the Karlson exhibition will close in Brisbane. The fragments will be packed in their individual cases. They will be padded against shock, protected from light. Inga’s letters will be lifted from their display by gloved hands, as will the press clippings and Inga Karlson’s remaining belongings. All the objects will be sent to another city where they will be unpacked and displayed and Karlson fans young and old will queue to see them. Exhibitions like this belong to the world. They have no proper home at all.

  In a private room off to the side of the exhibition, the staff have almost finished setting up for a small function. They are positioning a rostrum and a long table for drinks. Caterers have dropped off small food: tiny pancakes with smoked salmon and little meatballs with an apricot glaze. There’s a table with champagne flutes and glasses for orange juice and water. Soon, twenty or so people will stand around chatting and sipping their drinks, and pounce on the snacks as they wait to discover from Philip why they’ve been invited.

  Philip and Caddie arrive at the art gallery in a taxi a little before 1 p.m. He’s in a sports coat and a new blue-checked shirt, though for some reason his collar and cuffs are both white. Caddie’s in a brown suit she bought, for no good reason, at a sale last year at Shopping Town. She’s carrying a briefcase that was actually her high-school port: battered tan leather with a pocket at the front and two buckled straps. Inside the port are two sets of overhead transparencies in manila folders: one set belongs to her, about the arson, with details of the mysterious but (as yet) unnamed typesetter who belonged to a paramilitary organisation; the other, Philip’s, has Rachel’s missing line and the revelation that she’s Inga Karlson’s heir. In the back seat of the taxi, while Philip rested with his eyes closed, Caddie picked at the skin around her thumbnail until it bled.

  They’re on their way up the brutal concrete gallery steps now, close to where Rachel sat when she was overcome by the heat that day. The river lurks at the bottom of the grassy slope and above them, the flat, pale sky looks like it’s been coloured with crayon. It’s as good a spot as any. Caddie stops, bends over with her hands wrapped around her waist
. Philip was almost at the top, but he steps down again to stand beside her.

  ‘It’s only natural to be nervous,’ Philip says. ‘This is a big deal.’

  Caddie straightens. ‘I don’t want to do this.’

  She feels a dampness in the creases behind her knees and a wild compression in her chest. The sky above her, featureless in all directions. She’s been brought up to be patriotic by instructions from everywhere. Even the television jingles command your allegiance: You can count on a Queenslander. Love you, Brisbane. That’s what I like about Queensland. She’s heard stories of pilots disoriented by cloud who can’t tell which way is up; perhaps the result is the same.

  ‘Just as well there’s nothing much for you to do.’ He straightens his collar and rolls his eyes. ‘I’m giving the speech. Your details are up on the slide as the lead researcher for the arson project but all you have to do is stand beside me and say a few sentences. That’s all.’

  ‘No.’ Caddie takes his arm. ‘I mean: I don’t want to do this. Whatever she knows or doesn’t know, Rachel’s right. It’s none of our business.’

  ‘Cold feet. It’s not unheard of. In a few hours it’ll all be over.’

  ‘I’m calling it off.’

  ‘Caddie, sweetie,’ Philip says. He notices her face: the set of her jaw. Her hands are clenched, one thumb still wrapped in a tissue. ‘You’re serious.’

  ‘Yes. I want to cancel the whole thing.’

  ‘This is literally your job. The job you wanted. We’ve been working on this for weeks.’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind.’

  She can see him thinking. He lifts his sunglasses to the top of his head and scratches the side of his face, in front of his ear. ‘No. I have a room full of people. I have to tell them something.’

  ‘I can’t do it, Philip.’

  ‘It’s not up to you anymore.’

  She takes his arm. ‘Philip, let’s swap. You said yourself that the arson research is the better prospect. The one that’ll definitely come off. A book at the very least, you said. The Rachel idea—three million to one. Remember? You take the arson. Samuel Fischer and the German-American Bund. Go in there and tell them you’ve solved the literary mystery of the century. I’ll take Rachel; like you said, it’s almost certainly a dead end. A little old lady no one knows, who probably doesn’t remember what happened last week, much less fifty years ago.’

  ‘A swap? You’re giving me your project, just like that, just because you feel bad about some old dear?’

  ‘Just like that.’

  ‘Caddie. Angel.’ He takes both her hands. ‘This ridiculous empathy is the kind of thing that holds women back in their careers.’

  ‘Do you want it or not?’

  He bows. ‘If that’s what you want, I will oblige. But this is at your request. Don’t forget that.’

  ‘I’m not introducing Rachel,’ she tells Philip. ‘I’m putting her in a taxi and sending her home.’

  ‘It’s your project now,’ Philip says as he turns back up the steps. ‘Do what you want.’

  There’s less than an hour to go. They’ve commandeered one end of the information desk, and Caddie’s borrowed stickytape and scissors. The transparencies for the Rachel presentation are in her port, tucked under the desk out of the way—she’ll destroy these when she gets home. In front of her, spread out, are the transparencies Philip will need to present the arson investigation. They need to have her details removed. She lifts the scissors. There’s time for Philip to back down, to take her side.

  ‘Wait,’ he says.

  She looks up, swallows.

  ‘Make sure you get rid of the footnote as well, the one with your contact info.’

  So she does. She cuts her name out of the slides, out of the arson investigation, out of any credit for the work she started, and she writes Philip’s details instead, then she patches the slides back together with tape.

  Philip watches her. ‘Very neat,’ he says, examining them. ‘Excellent craft skills.’

  Then he heads outside to a quiet corner around the river side to practise his speech to the frangipani, and Caddie takes a minute in the ladies’, pacing in front of the sink and holding a damp paper towel to the back of her neck. By the time she comes out, Philip is loitering in the foyer. It’s a quarter to two. Caddie still needs to find Rachel when she arrives, and apologise, and send her home again.

  ‘I’m going to wait for her here.’

  ‘Look, I’ve got thirty people arriving and I’ll need to manage it all by myself, thanks to you,’ Philip says. ‘Just give me a hand for a sec.’

  So she follows him to the small function room, which is half-full: about two dozen men and three women are milling, sipping, chatting. Some of the men are in suits, so they’re not academics. Media people, she thinks, but probably not journalists. She can see the head of the department and one of the classics professors against the far wall, laughing like schoolboys.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Philip says, to the nearest cluster. He waltzes around the room, nodding here and shaking hands there, from group to group, calling everyone by name, welcoming everyone. Down the back, near the drinks table, she can see Malcolm Kirby, the director of exhibits, in deep conversation with a tall man whose back is to her.

  She knows. Of course she knows but she hopes she’s wrong, and then he turns to hand his empty glass to a passing waiter and—yes, it’s Jamie.

  Every part of her flushes, from her toes to her earlobes. She should have asked Philip for the guest list. Of course he’d be invited. Of course. There’s no way Philip would pass up the opportunity to condescend to Jamie in this moment of triumph. She’s more surprised that Jamie said yes. She would have guessed he’d be scathing: Philip and his ilk scoffing hors d’oeuvres and small-talking in the middle of the afternoon. He looks at ease, though.

  Then he sees her, and he excuses himself from Malcolm Kirby mid-sentence and comes straight over. On his way across the room he keeps his gaze on her as he lifts another white wine from a waiter.

  She smiles, rummaging for an inconsequential remark.

  ‘Hear me out,’ he says, straight away. ‘Think about what you’re doing.’

  ‘I’ve thought,’ she says.

  ‘Please. Just give me one moment?’

  She nods, and he shepherds her to the doorway. He raises one arm to the wall behind and leans down to her, and close. Her throat tingles.

  ‘Caddie, please. You can tell me to mind my own business. But this won’t end well for you and it won’t end well for Rachel, if you find her. It will only end well for Philip.’

  If she shuts her eyes they could be standing on the footpath out the front of her house with her bike between them and their fingers intertwined. Yet despite all the time she’s spent thinking about him, now she wants nothing more than to punch him in the head.

  ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  She feels a hand on her shoulder and looks up: it’s Philip. He has a hand on Jamie’s shoulder also.

  ‘Two of my favourite people.’ Philip gives them both a little shake. ‘James, so good of you to come. What’s it going to take for you to put that shop on the market and come back to the hallowed halls, hey?’

  ‘I’m looking forward to your presentation.’ Jamie takes a gulp of his wine.

  ‘Well, not long to wait now.’ Philip checks his watch ostentatiously, then steps further through the doorway to the foyer. ‘But if you’ll excuse me? It’s almost two and my guest of honour is due.’

  The hum of the room and the chink of glassware; a waiter has knocked over some empty glasses that had congregated on a ledge near the lectern. Jamie is standing so close. All of it, a faint buzzing at the edge of Caddie’s awareness. For a moment, she’s not sure she’s heard properly.

  ‘My guest, you mean.’

  Philip smiles at her, with his lips curled inward, and shakes his head. ‘Caddie, Caddie.’

  ‘We agreed. She belongs to me now.’

  ‘Who?’ says
Jamie. ‘Who belongs?’

  Philip holds Caddie at arms-length and makes the kind of sad-face reserved for infants. ‘Don’t be naive. I’m the lead investigator for both projects. It’s my name on the files and on the grants. It’s my name on the door.’

  ‘No. We had a deal.’

  ‘And I’m very grateful for all the great, the really solid work you’ve done. And you’ve got a good job out of it, and you will be acknowledged on every paper.’

  A waiter appears beside them with a tray of small burnt fish fingers sweating on lace doilies around a bowl of liquid grass. ‘Blackened goujon with herb vinaigrette?’

  ‘Not right now, mate,’ Philip says. ‘Look, Cads, you’ll do well out of this. You’ll finish your thesis. The references I’ll write for you.’ He kisses his fingers: a cartoon chef.

  ‘But you said. You agreed it was a long shot. That she might not remember anything, even if we found her.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a long shot. A lottery ticket. But who knows?’ He winks. ‘My numbers might come up. The arson’s the main game, of course it is, but I’m happy to have a couple of bob on old Rachel.’

  ‘Rachel?’ says Jamie, looking from Philip to her and back again. ‘You found her? She’s here?’

  ‘How do you—? Never mind. Just stay out of the way,’ Philip says.

  ‘Have you spoken to her?’ says Jamie. ‘Has she agreed to all this?’

  Philip ignores him. He cracks his neck side to side and runs his tongue around the front of his teeth. He could be preparing for a date. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’