Scarlet Stiletto - the First Cut

by Lindy Cameron

  I was wearing a cotton floral dress I had bought at Katies years ago on a rare trip to Sydney. I felt underdressed and frumpy as I approached the prison—or correction centre— whatever they called it.

  I could feel John’s eyes on my back, like twin rays of hate. “What’s happened to us?” I wanted to turn and call. “Once we were young and in love. You left your wife and kids for me. We dreamt of travel, and we made love in the afternoon on the sofa. How could it have all gone so quickly? When did we age?”

  But I knew the answer. It had all gone when Leslie was born. Slowly, irrevocably, like a miniature vampire living among us and feeding daily, surreptitiously on our youth, love, lust and hope.

  There were forms to sign, and I was searched. Other friends and relatives were going through the same degrading procedure. A young, skinny blonde girl sat chain-smoking outside. Chinese symbols were tattooed on her fragile arms. A pram sat next to her, which she shook violently, screaming into it in a futile attempt to stop the incessant crying from inside. She could have passed for fourteen. A young man was mopping the floor. I avoided his eyes, fearing that he was one of the inmates. The foyer smelt of lemon disinfectant, and there were Australian bush scenes on the walls.

  I was shocked when he first appeared from behind a door at the rear of the room and approached the glass where the visitors sat. He looked so different. Older, fatter. I felt tears come to my eyes at his transformation.

  He sat down and avoided my eyes. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  I began to cry, feeling that the pain would splinter me into a thousand pieces. Guards looked on with boredom; they must have seen it all a million times before. The skinny girl was about three chairs down from me, holding the baby up to the glass. The screaming continued and the child was now red in the face.

  “Where’s the old man?” Leslie muttered. The words came out filled with contempt.

  “He couldn’t face it. He hasn’t been well, Les. All the worry about you. And his work laid him off.”

  My son, the stranger, looked at me directly. Did I glimpse a momentary pain in his expression? “He’s in the car outside,” he sneered.

  “Are you eating well?” I asked. He leaned forward, ignoring the inane question.

  “Go home, Evie,” he said. “I don’t want you here.”

  “Why, Leslie?” I cried from a terrible place within me. “What made you do it? Were you drunk? Did those friends of yours make you do it? Was it something I did? It’s not you, Leslie! God, you gave to World Vision! You hated fights and scenes. Something happened to you! Please talk to me! Make me understand!”

  He laughed. “You would never understand, Evie,” he said. “You would never understand. I did it because she was there, and we could. It just got out of control.”

  “What did I do wrong?” I asked again. I desperately needed an answer. He looked at me with disdain. “Everything, Evie,” he said. “Everything. I wish I had never been born.”

  In my mind I walk across the road and Joy is waiting for me. She is smiling as she opens the front door, pushing her hair back from her forehead. Her young woman’s eyes are genuinely delighted to see me. The sounds of Bach waft from the house, and I hold my arms out to her and embrace her. I smell her hair, which smells of lemon shampoo, and I feel her warm skin and her bones. She is alive and she is filled with the sunshine that has disappeared from my life.

  In darker dreams, I approach my sleeping child’s cradle. I tenderly place a white pillow over his peaceful little face, and hold it tightly. I take away the evil that even now is smouldering inside him. IF, IF, IF, IF.

  The truth is so much harder to think about. Leslie had been begrudgingly doing odd jobs at Joy’s for a month or so. Mostly it was the heavier tasks that were too much for her. Sometimes it was a little job inside, adjusting a mirror, cleaning a chimney. He had come to know the house, her possessions, where she kept her money. He had waited, shown a patience and slyness I would not have guessed him capable of. The police found emails he sent to Jude and Timothy, detailed plans of what they called Operation Gaa Gaa. They had entered the house silently while Jim and I slept obliviously over the road. Then for the next few hours they gave rise to every perversion they carried within them.

  They had woken her. I can only imagine her terror when she opened those bright eyes to see the three boys looking down upon her. They had shown her no mercy as they bound her to the bed, taunting her the entire time. They tortured her. Jim and I had almost frozen with horror in the court when we heard what they had done to her body. They had taken their turns raping her, cheering each other on and calling obscenities as they rode her. They kept her alive for hours, smearing her face with their semen, destroying her valued items in front of her, breaking her fingers one by one and using her as a human ashtray for their cigarettes. When they had finished with their Dionysian madness, Timothy cut her throat. Then they dismembered her body, placing her parts in assorted corners around the room like a grotesque broken doll.

  I found her head first that day I walked into her fly-covered room. It sat by itself, obscenely disconnected, in its own world of blood and gore. At first I thought the shock of that discovery would kill me.

  But worse was yet to come.

  It is not easy being the mother of a demon. At times I imagine even Jim is looking at me with suspicion in his eyes, believing that at some crucial point I must have failed him to create this evil. But, somehow Jim has been excused by the townspeople; it’s my blood they bay for.

  I think of other mothers across history: Hitler’s mother, Judas’s mother, Saddam Hussein’s mother. I feel for them, mourn for their innocence lost. We have to bear the shame, the blame. We have to be the object of the outrage and venom spat from people who were once friends. I remember reading an article by the mother of one of the juvenile killers of James Bulger, that little boy in England. She said that everywhere she went she felt as if she had killer engraved into her forehead.

  We are mothers who are mourning death, destruction and chaos, like a grotesque Pieta statue. We have been judged guilty by societies who fear the contagion of demons. We are the rotten trees that have sprouted rotten fruit. I feel like whispering to mothers as I pass them in the street: Take care, take care, take care. Do not think you are indestructible, that it can never happen to you. Take care, for unknown shadows deep within your silent soul might one day shift without warning and echo in another.

  The house across the street continues to haunt me. I long to move and start a new life under a new name, but Jim won’t hear of it. “We’ll take that bloody house with us,” he says with red-rimmed eyes. I sense accusation in his glance. He had always opposed me befriending Joy, had always been critical of Leslie working at Joy’s. I was convinced that I represented failure in his life. Kathy, his first wife, had raised his two other children. One became a doctor, the other a teacher. Kathy hadn’t harboured a killer in her womb, a monster destined to become the talk of Australia. The fruit doesn’t fall too far from the tree. There had been some madness in my family. My mother’s mother and her brother had both killed themselves. Was there some dark artery running through our family tree that Leslie has emerged from? Was my son the innocent victim of destructive silent demons lurking in our genetic closet?

  One day a new family would move in over the road, and I dreaded the day. Their children would play in Joy’s garden and their pets would chase her ghost from the house. I wanted to allow myself to somehow believe she was still inside, looking at her beautiful photographs, gardening, clipping out recipes for me, smiling peacefully in her refined, genteel world.

  Last visit. Last memory of him. Sitting there, fidgeting awkwardly across from me. There are sleep buds in the corners of his eyes, his hands are podgy and there are cuts over them. I hate to think of what his hands have done. I am crying openly now into a tissue, a million memories flooding through me. The stranger sitting opposite me is my history. I have cherished all his birthdays, his early drawings,
read him books, scolded him over his smutty magazines, taken him to the doctor, bandaged his knees, and yelled at him for a thousand little misdeeds. I know the smell of his sweat, the look of his dirty underwear. I nervously related the facts of life to him. I comforted him when he woke up screaming from nightmares. “Stop it, Evie,” he says. “Just go. You’re just upsetting yourself.”

  “Why?” I plead again. “What did I do wrong? Or was it something else? Did something else trigger you?”

  “It just happened,” he says again. His eyes are wary, not wanting to have to relive that night. “There doesn’t always have to be a reason, does there? You’re as bad as the fucking shrinks.” His eyes flicker with a trace of buried emotion. Is it remorse? Mirth? Anguish? I will never know.

  He leaves me quickly, without looking back.

  I return to Jim, my feet swollen and aching in shoes I never normally wear. I can feel a blister beginning to form on my heel and I welcome any pain that will distract me, punish me. I must deserve some punishment to have reared this monster from my flesh and blood.

  “Ready then?” Jim says. I can sense his curiosity, his anger. He will not ask. I will not tell. I watch the city streets, the strangers at traffic lights, all a blur. I can smell rain in the air. A headache is building within my temples. We are halfway home when the storm breaks and we are treated to a sudden lightning display over Berries Hill. We journey like familiar strangers, in silence.

  Josephine Pennicott

  First Prize Trophy, 2001

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  ~ * ~

  Shifty Business

  Shifty had planned the murder for weeks and may well have pulled it off, except he didn’t allow for Emma’s bladder.

  It was a foul October evening in Melbourne. The gods were dumping the entire water reserves of the universe through a hole in the ozone directly onto St Kilda. But, I didn’t give a hoot. The beef casserole was in the oven, the gas fire was doing its thing, the new Val McDermid novel was living up to expectations, and Emma was snoozing on the sofa beside me.

  Then, as I sipped my glass of red, a god-awful clap of thunder shook the rafters. I jumped and spilled the drink down the front of my favourite blouse. Emma leapt into the air, bolted off the sofa, hit the coffee table and sent the almost-full bottle of claret flying across my brand new beige carpet. It spread like a gigantic blood splatter; like a gory scene from Val’s book.

  “Shit, Emma! It was only thunder. Look what you’ve done!”

  Emma wasn’t listening. Her entire body was quivering like a lump of black jelly as she tried to get through the sheet I had hung over the balcony door. Down it came, enveloping her like a shroud. In her efforts to escape she knocked over a potted palm. I ran to free her before she wreaked more havoc.

  Leaving her to bark at the storm, I grabbed the salt pot, poured the contents onto the stain and eyed the result dejectedly, almost in tears. When I bought the unit, the existing carpet was an atrocious green. I had it ripped up and replaced the day before I moved in, barely two weeks ago!

  “I’ll have to buy a rug to cover that, you know, dog! A huge rug. What’s more, Paul can cough up for it. Yeah, and for another bottle of Grange.” That wine was a house-warming present. “It was liquid gold, Emma. I can’t afford stuff like that. Paul will find out that boarding kennels would have been a hell of a lot cheaper than dumping you on me while he basks in the sun up north.”

  Emma wasn’t at all fazed. Her response was to run to the front door, wag her tail madly and bark vociferously

  I groaned. “Now? You want to go out now? You realise it’s pissing down out there and it’s two blocks to the nearest grass?” I’ll swear the dog grinned as she danced around with her back legs crossed!

  Ten minutes later, clad neck to knee in raincoat, I was being dragged along the street by the frantic Labrador.

  Although the rain had eased to drizzle, the wind was fierce and freezing. In fact, it was too strong for me to raise my umbrella, otherwise I’d have taken off like Mary Poppins. Given the wind direction, I’d end up atop either the Shrine or the Arts Centre Tower.

  For the umpteenth time I cursed Paul for training his dog not to squat on anything but grass. Must have taken massive willpower on both their parts! Fine, I guess, if you lived in suburbs with nature strips. There was none in my immediate area, and my block of units stands on a concrete jungle; not one plant to combat the greenhouse effect. I had briefly considered sneaking into one of the private gardens along the street, but they were all fenced and gated. So we were heading for a small car park I knew boasted several islands of grass under trees.

  Once the dog had completed her business, we set off back along the narrow, badly lit street. Not a soul to be seen. Amazing, since it was only a block from the hubbub of Fitzroy Street. The glitter of shop and restaurant fronts was definitely not echoed in their back yards. Fences partially hid grim spaces for rubbish bins, and failed to block their whiffy odours.

  Halfway along the street a car backfired. Emma stopped dead in her tracks and growled. Unable to brake, I sprawled on top of her. Winded, I struggled to my feet as a figure emerged from the shadows. The night sky suddenly blazed with a sheet of lightning; the glare revealed the man’s face for barely an instant. And, in that instant, our eyes locked. Then, as if in slow motion, the man raised his right hand.

  “Shit! Gun!” I yelled, rooted to the spot. Not so, Emma! She yanked the lead from my grip and my feet shot from under me again, as forty-odd kilos of canine flew through the air, showering me with muddy water. Emma hit the gunman full in the chest. He fell back onto a tin fence. The gun spun across the road and clattered into the gutter.

  “Fucking dog!” he shrieked.

  “Clever girl!” I yelled. It was the wrong thing to do! Emma left her quarry and rushed to lick my face. The gunman headed for his weapon. As he bent to retrieve it, a car turned into the street. Saved, I thought. But no, the sporty Mazda turned into the hotel car park on the corner. Still, it had distracted the gunman. I grabbed the dog’s collar and together we slammed through a half-open gate. I heaved the gate shut and bolted it, thankful that the corrugated fence was solid and a good two metres’ high.

  “Fucking bitch!” the man screamed.

  “Limited vocabulary!” I retorted as I pounded on the door of the building. A useless gesture since the sign on the door said, ‘Jago Men’s Wear’. Mr Jago was probably home by his fire with Raymond Chandler or Shane Maloney.

  The man thumped the fence, cursing like crazy. I doubted he was able to scale it, but since he was re-armed and incredibly angry, he just might decide to empty the chamber through the tin. So I again threw myself flat to the ground, for the third time in as many minutes. I mentally added a Kevlar body suit to Paul’s shopping list.

  “I know what you look like, bitch!”

  “Ditto!” I yelled back. The odd thing was his face was vaguely familiar. “Better hope you’re not in the police mug books,” I added for emphasis.

  “Ha! I’m not. But your days are numbered. You won’t be safe anywhere, bitch.”

  “And I’ve just dialled triple-0 on my mobile, you bastard!” I grinned as I pretended to have a conversation with a triple-0 operator.

  “Fuck you!” He bashed the fence again and took off.

  “That was a great way to apologise for ruining my carpet, Emma. You saved us both from being dead. Good girl!”

  Her tail rotated and she licked my face again.

  I got to my feet. “So, how long do you think we need to stay here? Do you think the sod has scooted?” Cautiously, I slid the bolt, yanked the gate open a few inches and peered along the street. “I think it’s safe. Come on, dog. Let’s see what that little shit was up to next door.”

  Keeping to the shadows, my back flat against the fence, I edged along the footpath. The thing was, I realised that what I’d thought was a car backfiring wasn’t that at all. It was a gunshot. I was certain, too, that the fellow had not been doing a simple bit o
f B&E. After all, when he came out of the yard, he wasn’t carrying any booty, just the bloody gun.

  When we reached the yard I lost what little bravado I’d mustered. It was as black as the inside of a cow’s stomach.

  “Emma,” I said pointing. “You go first.”

  Emma wasn’t at all hesitant and she disappeared into the darkness. Immediately, she began snuffling and making strange throaty doggy sounds. But I couldn’t see her. Black dog in a black hole.

  “Have you found something exciting, girl?” Gees, here I was talking to a dog!

  With heart pounding I carefully picked my way in. Then I did it again! I went flat on my face and the air was forced from my lungs. I raised myself to my elbows. I was lying on something bulky and soft. Definitely not a rubbish bin, but maybe a gar-bag. Gingerly I felt around. Not plastic. Material of some kind. I felt further and my fingers touched something wet. Understandable, I figured, given the weather conditions. But this was sort of oozy and sticky wet.