Poinciana Road

by Margaret Way

  Blaine was sickened by what he believed were antics, not a demonstration of remorse. He wasn’t the only one. Mourners were standing about, shaking their heads with disbelief.

  The parish priest got on with the prayers for the dead with unholy haste. For once Jason didn’t console his twin. Once when she took his arm he shook her off, then moved away a few steps. Her father continued to pretend his son and his daughter didn’t exist. Their mother, overdressed for a country funeral, the pretty skin of her face showing red and white blotches, appeared blind and deaf to the commotion. Like Blaine, Mallory couldn’t shake her belief Jessica was putting on an act. Jessica was glad her sister-in-law was dead and out of the way.

  * * *

  It was time for them all to take the sombre walk back to their parked vehicles. But such is the unexpectedness of life that it didn’t happen. Declan Burch, puce in the face, thick necked, barrel-chested, turned into a roaring volcano, belching lava. Declan, who rejoiced in the nickname of “Bull” Burch, started to unleash an eardrum-shattering scream of obscenities at Jason, who after an initial shocked stop-start, chose to ignore him, white with anger. Jason started to visibly lengthen his stride but Declan was on the war path. Moving very fast for a man of his size, he grabbed Jason from behind, raining expletives more suited to a high-security jail for the worst prisoners than a quiet country cemetery. He spun Jason around, in a shuddering fury.

  “You bastard! You mean bastard,” he shouted, looking terrifyingly intimidating. “I know all about you and your sick sister.”

  “Sweet Jesus!” Blaine groaned. “Where is it all going to end? I’ll have to break it up.”

  “No, let Declan have his way.” Mallory, who hitherto had considered herself a peacemaker, now found herself condoning violence. She was feeling a measure of violence herself.

  Blaine started to remonstrate before he too was struck by the same thought. He couldn’t have stopped what was about to happen anyway. Declan Burch was determined to be heard and heeded, a brother aching with loss. Both men were over six feet, Jason very lean and fit, but the much bulkier Declan was a man on a mission. He swung a punch that delivered some of his pent-up grief and rage with a good dollop of self-guilt thrown in. Jason reeled back, straightened up, and then danced forward with a counterpunch.

  Declan didn’t appear to feel it. He didn’t whimper. His mother and brother, previously grief stricken, were now locked into manic mode, egging Declan on like ringside supporters. Declan swung another mighty punch. This time it felled Jason like a tree brought down by a champion axeman.

  Jessica, whose tantrums were legendary, threw herself dramatically over her brother’s prone body. It was then that Blaine judged it time to move. The parish priest, with a horrified expression, was standing well back, wringing his hands and possibly pleading for divine intervention. He couldn’t have seen anything like it before or since he had entered the priesthood.

  “They ought to put Jessica away. She’s off the wall.” Blaine closed in on Declan, getting a powerful restraining grip on his arm. “Don’t hit him again, Declan,” he warned, a metallic glint in his voice. “He’s not worth it.”

  “I want to hit him. I want to pulverize him,” Declan confirmed quite unnecessarily, working the muscles of his powerful shoulders. “I want to run over him with a bulldozer.” His surprisingly beautiful eyes were filled with tears. “I want to kill him. If you can’t shut that stupid bitch up, Mr. Forrester, I’ll have a go.”

  “Get up, Jessica.” It was Harry Cartwright who finally took charge. He pulled his distraught daughter to her feet. “Get up, girl, and stop that racket.” It was clear he meant business.

  Jessica, still sobbing wildly, was hoisted to her feet, where she stood bobbing back and forth in her black patent leather pumps. Her mascara had dissolved into brackish tears that formed panda eyes and ran in dark streaks down her cheeks.

  Her father turned away in parental sorrow and disgust. “My wife and I are so saddened by this, Declan. Please accept out most sincere condolences.”

  Declan swung his head dazedly from side to side as though Jason’s punch had only just caught up with him. “My poor little sister deserved better. How did this dreadful thing happen? I’ll tell you, those two bloody sicko murderers.” Declan was readying for a return bout.

  Blaine wasted no time getting Harry Cartwright’s attention. “Get the two of them away from here, Harry. I’ll take Declan to his car.”

  “Right you are.”

  For a moment Declan looked like he wanted to head-butt Jessica’s father. “They’re not going to get away with it,” he threw back over a massive shoulder, with ringing hear-hears from his younger brother, who was hard-pressed to restrain his own broken heart, and also that of his highly vocal mother.

  “They won’t. They have to live with it.” Mallory caught up, ranging herself beside Blaine.

  Declan turned his large, handsome head towards her. “You meant a lot to Kathy, Miss James. You were kind to her. You always were, going way back. My poor little sister! This was always waiting for her like some bloody Greek tragedy, it is.”

  In the distance, Jessica Cartwright was still wailing as though she didn’t have a clue how to turn the sound system off. It might have been comical only it was all too, too terrible.

  * * *

  “I don’t want Jessica Cartwright to set foot on Moonglade ever again.” It was much later that dreadful day. “I don’t want Jason, either. Their cruelty to Kathy was appalling. I should have done more. I should have acted sooner. I should have acted on my instincts.”

  “Mallory, you did act.” Mallory, being Mallory, was beating herself up. “It’s impossible to help everyone. You did everything you could. Focus on that. You were very kind to Kathy.”

  “So why do I feel up to my neck in guilt? I should have tried harder. I’ve known all along nothing good was going to come of the whole situation.”

  “Difficult when you’re trying to cope with Robert’s death and your father’s appalling behaviour.”

  “I’ve stopped wasting time on my father,” she said bleakly, but without bitterness. “He won’t change. We can be sure Jason will leave Ivy with his parents. They love her. She’ll be safe in their hands. Maybe he’ll come back for her later on. Who knows?”

  “Kathy chose to end her own life, Mallory. The rumours about what she did to Ivy are all around town. Kathy couldn’t forgive herself. She took the final step.”

  “For all that and the circumstantial evidence against her, I can’t accept she harmed Ivy, Blaine. I just can’t. Ivy was her everything. Kathy was driven to suicide. Harried to her death, yet she made a promise to me. She told me she wouldn’t let me down.”

  “Her promise would have receded into the background in the light of Jessica’s threats,” Blaine said. “You have to face it, Mallory. Jason too could have threatened to take Ivy from her. He would never own up to it. Not now. They ganged up on her. Kathy was unstable. She didn’t stand a chance. Suicides get to a point where they can’t feel anything but their own pain. That happened to Kathy.”

  * * *

  Life continued, sweeping everyone along with it. Some chose to jump off the merry-go-round, most didn’t. Days ran into each other, always accompanied by swirling undercurrents that locked Mallory into doubts, not out.

  Mallory couldn’t hold with the collective wisdom. She knew in her soul Kathy had not deliberately harmed her daughter though she hadn’t a hope of proving it. Instead she lived with the extraordinary belief that Kathy was not fully dead. She was still with them weeping at her fate, though her crying was no more than whisperings in Mallory’s ears; whisperings that rose above the hullabaloo of the wind. Whisperings she heard in the dark.

  Friends and neighbours called at the house, the Cartwrights several times with a beautifully dressed if naturally subdued Ivy. Ivy had gained weight in a very short time. Her skin tone had acquired its natural bloom. Ivy was to remain in the custody of her grandparents, who cle
arly loved her. Indeed, she appeared to have given them a new lease on life. Ivy to all appearances was thriving. Only what was going on underneath? Memories were hidden away in the whorls and recesses of the brain. Sadly Ivy’s greatly improved health was taken as clear evidence Kathy Cartwright had been harming her child.

  * * *

  One afternoon when Mallory was alone, she had a visit from Selma Loxton-Palmer. It came as no surprise. Selma wanted to know what was going on with her and Blaine. Selma, she correctly intuited, had not given up hope of winning Blaine back. Mallory was in the Moonglade library at the time, looking up tropical poisons, in particular those very difficult to detect. She had been having nightmares involving strange fungi growing up through the mounds and mounds of decaying leaves and debris on the rainforest floor. In the aftermath of such dreams she had even thought of talking to one of the aboriginal women living in the area. Nothing much they didn’t know about their own country. They had lived in harmony with it for at least 40,000 years.

  She was working her way methodically through all the berries; amazing quandongs, electric blue in colour, dropped to the ground with red leaves nearby. There were red quandongs as well, both edible. Now the native walnuts. Possibilities there. They bore no relation to real walnuts. There was for instance a poison walnut, commonly seen on the ground in undisturbed rainforests. It was a highly poisonous plant. In fact, there were dozens and dozens of poisonous plants in the rainforest, and they were only the ones as yet identified. The seeds of the striped cucumber were highly toxic. Jessica Cartwright was widely considered something of an authority on tropical plants.

  Food for thought there.

  Dot charged into the library at such a cracking pace a Category 5 cyclone might have been forecast to hit the town by nightfall. “Selma Loxton-Palmer is at the front door. She brought flowers. I’ll put them in a vase.”

  Mallory’s focus was destroyed. She looked up from a photograph of bright orange fruit split to reveal small mounds of sticky seeds. One taste could kill. On the opposite page was a picture of some weird-looking toadstools poking their heads through millions of fallen needles that had accumulated on the rainforest floor. The scene resembled the site of her nightmares. Towering over the area was a giant strangler fig with thick soaring prop roots like the buttresses on Notre Dame in Paris.

  “Thanks, Dot.” Mallory placed a bookmark between the pages. “You can bet your life she’s here on a mission.”

  “I reckon!” Dot paid a lot of attention to Mallory’s well-being. “She’ll have heard on the grapevine you and Mr. Forrester are close.”

  “We’ve always been close, Dot.”

  “It’s an open secret you’re much closer.”

  “Dot, you’re a holy terror.” Mallory sighed.

  “Of course I am. I’ll make coffee.”

  “Nothing a good cup of coffee can’t fix. We’ll be in the Garden Room. Give us ten minutes.”

  “Will do. Probably she wants to know when you’re going back to Brisbane.”

  “And would I be interested in selling the estate to Daddy?”

  Dot chortled. “They know you’re sitting on a gold mine, I reckon. At least she didn’t arrive with her pet Chihuahua, a fluffy little thing. I saw it in town once. It was looking out of her bag with its teeth bared.”

  * * *

  Selma looked wonderfully vibrant in a dress of strongly contrasting primary colours. It was said around town Selma was never seen in the same outfit twice. Putting forward the air of friendship, she gave Mallory a brilliant smile that didn’t have a lot going for it in the way of staying power. “Truly awful the things that have been happening,” she said, staring about her as one might in a museum.

  Such an embarrassment of riches, Selma was actually thinking, sinking gracefully into a wicker armchair. “So this is the Garden Room?” It was easy to see why. Such a plethora of ferns and palms! Giant ferns were even hanging from the high ceilings. One almost expected to see monkeys swinging to and fro. There had to be a fortune inside the house. She’d never seen anything like it. Way too much clutter of course: paintings, objects, furnishings, tall Oriental vases and screens. The late Robert James had collected far too many things, in her opinion. If she had ever needed to, she could easily have become a top interior designer. She had style. One either had it or one didn’t.

  “Poor little Kathy Burch slipping out of life like that.” Selma’s eyes came back to rest on Mallory. “Though slipping is scarcely the right word. She didn’t go over by accident. She jumped, for God’s sake! Imagine it, jumping off a cliff. Your cliff. One hates to speak ill of the dead, but it wasn’t terribly considerate of her. I suppose she was past it by then. Poor girl had more than her share of misfortune. At least the child is being well looked after, so Blaine tells me.”

  Mallory didn’t react. She had the certainty Blaine hadn’t told Selma anything. “If you don’t mind, Selma, I’d rather not talk about it. I didn’t know Kathy long, but I became very fond of her. I was stunned by her death. Has your friend gone back to Hong Kong?” Deliberately Mallory changed the subject.

  Selma’s eyes slewed back to her. “Matter of fact he has. He wanted to meet up with Blaine but events got in the way. I have to say Moonglade—the house, indeed the entire estate—is very beautiful in an old colonial style. A bit Somerset Maugham–ish maybe? If I shut my eyes we could almost be in Malaysia.”

  “You’ve read a lot of Somerset Maugham?” Mallory was instantly taken back to the time when Uncle Robert, the writer, had told her Maugham had once said, “There are three rules for writing a novel, but unfortunately no one knows what they are.”

  Selma waved a vague hand in response. “I’m sure I did but I’m no good remembering titles.”

  “The Painted Veil, The Razor’s Edge, The Sun Also Rises,” Mallory prompted, throwing in Hemingway for good measure.

  “All three,” said Selma, who vaguely remembered seeing a movie called The Painted Veil with their own Naomi Watts in it. “The Painted Veil is one of my all-time personal favourites,” she said, with nary a twinge at the fib. “I don’t suppose under the circumstances you would want to settle here? I suppose nobody could, given what has happened. Besides, you have your career.”

  “I haven’t made any decision as yet, Selma.” Mallory broke off as Dot wheeled in the afternoon tea trolley. It was set with a Coalport coffee set and a three-tiered matching plate, holding delicate little sandwiches and mini-cupcakes, enough for six greedy people.

  “You must want to become settled.” Selma was astounded by the lavish offerings. It was really, really bad for the figure to eat cake. “Black, thank you. No sugar.”

  Dot poured. Selma leaned forward, taking her exquisite coffee cup in hand. She planned to upend it later, to examine the company mark. Aynsley, Coalport, Rosenthal? She had never seen the pattern before, emerald and gold with a small bouquet of mixed flowers on the central white background. Quite lovely!

  Mallory accepted her cup of coffee from Dot. A little cream. One sugar. Dot knew it by heart. “I am settled,” Mallory remarked after Dot had retreated. Probably to settle behind the door.

  Selma’s beautifully arched brows rose. “Really? I must have got things wrong. Blaine told me . . .” She paused theatrically, one hand hovering over the three-tiered plate. Selma had fully intended declining the cake, but now she appeared to have second thoughts. “These look delicious. Your Mrs. Rawlings must be a good cook. No wonder she’s so overweight.” She was being kind. Personally Selma thought Dot Rawlings was built like a mini-fridge. “Perhaps I’ll just have a taste, like the French. Couldn’t be too many calories?” She laughed lightly.

  “You were saying, Blaine told you?” Mallory crisply prompted, irritated by Selma’s remark about Dot.

  “Well he does tell me everything,” Selma confided, giving Mallory a steady burning look. “That’s the beauty of being such close friends.”

  “Is this before or after your dramatic split?” Mallory asked.r />
  That unexpected salvo caused Selma to blink so rapidly, one of her long eyelashes landed in her eye. “We still talk, Mallory. In fact we talk all the time. Heavens, we’ve known one another since forever. Longer than you. We were engaged.” She made it sound as if their split weren’t permanent. “I know Blaine would love to buy the estate.” She fired another little dart at Mallory; it fell wide of its mark. “I expect you already know that. But he has so much on his plate, even for him. Daddy is very interested. Moonglade wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, of course. There’s Kathy Burch’s unfortunate header off the cliff. The house is rather spooky, isn’t it? I believe some child fell off the cliff many long years ago. You could be sure Daddy would offer top price.”

  And Daddy would knock it down.

  “What kind of price are we talking, Selma?” Mallory feigned interest in the answer. “You’re obviously here as an agent of sorts for your father.”

  Selma, a morsel of cake in her mouth, couldn’t speak for the moment.

  Mallory decided to cut speculation short. “I’ll never sell Moonglade, Selma. It’s in my blood. Uncle Robert left it to me as a sacred trust, if you like.”

  Selma was seriously taken aback. “It’s common knowledge you’re making a name for yourself in your field in Brisbane. There can be no big future for you in a small coastal town. What is it you do again?”

  “Quantum physics,” Mallory said. “Quantum theory explains how matter acts both as a particle and a wave. Understanding the structure of atoms, even molecules. You would have studied that at school, physics, chemistry, maybe biology?”

  “But I thought you were a psychologist, a child psychologist?” Selma shifted her taut bottom around in her chair.

  “That too. I’m a born academic.”

  “Like your father. Surely that’s not how you want to spend the rest of your life?” Selma’s laugh suggested incredulity and pity rolled into one.

  “I’d find it difficult being a lady of leisure,” Mallory retorted. It was well known Selma Loxton-Palmer had never worked a day in her life. She didn’t have to. At twenty-one years of age she had inherited a small fortune from her paternal grandmother, and her father had handed her over a portfolio of blue chip stock. Selma still lived at home with her parents, but in a house so large her wing was entirely self-contained.