by Anne Buist
This got his attention. He didn’t see the smile but it was there, deep beneath my concern.
‘Would you like to expand on that, Professor Moreton?’ His eyes are hazel, nondescript. Flecks of green. Steely in their focus now, though.
‘Alison didn’t like me talking to Natalie. She was… insecure. But I had been very anxious about Alison’s pregnancy. After Reeva I mean, and Alison wouldn’t allow me to talk about Reeva so Natalie…understood. Being a doctor I mean.’
The fat cop sat forward in his seat, wide awake now. ‘Sounds like things were pretty tough at home. Must have been tempting to pass time with this Natalie. Another doctor, right? Hot is she?’
I watched DSS McBride’s mouth tighten. This was almost enjoyable.
‘I haven’t really noticed. But my wife was in the same year as her at med school. She apparently had a reputation.’
I would have liked to see McBride’s response but he was back looking at his note pad.
‘I mean, yes, she’s attractive. But I was worried about my wife, detective, not thinking about having an affair.’
‘Were you? Poking her?’ The fat cop was no sophisticate.
I winced. ‘No detective, I was not. Nor was I having sex with her in any shape or form.’ I was looking at McBride when I added, ‘You only have to ask her if you don’t believe me.’
29
Georgia had lost weight. She was intense and anxious, pacing the consulting room. But apart from that, Natalie was impressed by how well she was holding it together.
‘Are you self-harming?’
‘Sometimes.’ Georgia stopped for a moment. ‘The mindfulness techniques work for a while but then I keep thinking how unfair everything is.’
‘Unfair in what way?’
‘Every way.’ Georgia slumped in the chair. She looked depressed and despairing. ‘Who would choose to change places with me? With any part of my life.’
She had a point. But all of Natalie’s patients could say the same. Abusive childhoods, domestic violence, mental illness. ‘It is about your future now, the choices you make,’ Natalie said. It was as true of her own life as Georgia’s.
‘I’m not going to have a choice am I?’ Georgia looked at Natalie pointedly.
‘Nor do I,’ said Natalie evenly. ‘When I’m sworn in I have to tell the truth.’
‘Psychiatrists’ truth seems to be rather subjective.’
‘It’s not an exact science.’
‘Then how are you so sure you know what happened?’
‘I’m not.’ Natalie looked at Georgia, wishing she did know.
‘Well, what do you think happened?’
Natalie pondered the answer to this. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought about it. ‘I think your reality is blurred, full of mixed emotions. That your children crying and needing you, rather than adoring you, stirred up a hornet’s nest of unresolved longing and need.’ And of terror at being seen as not good enough, and the shame of failing.
Georgia looked away. But Natalie could see tears in her eyes. She waited.
‘Paul loves me,’ she whispered.
‘Despite everything, she’s still hopeful. Delusional almost.’
Declan nodded gravely. ‘She may need it to keep going. Literally, perhaps.’
‘She continues idealising Paul because otherwise their whole life together was a sham?’
‘Remember she has a disorganised attachment so her defences are primitive and chaotic: idealisation, which you have noted with Paul—and devaluing. There isn’t a middle ground for her.’
‘Then is she likely to devalue him at some stage?’
‘She has held onto him as a narcissistic extension of herself for a long time. If he isn’t perfect then she can’t be either.’
‘I wouldn’t call her a perfectionist.’
‘Not in the way it is commonly used, no.’ Declan finally gave in to a fight he had been waging since she arrived. He opened the bottle of wine and offered her a glass. She declined but was unable to read his response. ‘The anxious perfectionist is about controlling her environment to help herself stay in control. Georgia? Georgia is about the perfect relationship.’
They didn’t talk about Frank but Declan urged her to get him to a therapist before she left. She thought it curious; Declan usually waited for her to bring a topic up. What was so different about Frank?
Perfect relationships, thought Natalie on the long drive back down the coast.
Narcissists wanted to be adored. Georgia’s problem was that babies weren’t big on providing that sort of positive feedback, or at least they didn’t show it in ways that stoked the ego, which had been Georgia’s problem. And Frank… Dr Perfect Alison had muttered under her breath the last time they met. What if she hadn’t meant Natalie, but Frank? Maybe he was anxious that the baby wouldn’t be perfect—perhaps his narcissism couldn’t accommodate anything less. Was this what he and Alison fought over? Reeva too, given that they had also ended in separate bedrooms.
The scrap of paper she had found in Reeva’s work file listed disorders with possible genetic transmission. If it was to do with her own pregnancy rather than her research, she was worried about some genetic disorder in Frank’s family… Perhaps his father could have had some condition Frank was afraid would be transmitted to his child. Damian had given her the obstetrician’s records for both women. The tests he’d conducted—Downs, neural tube disorders—were common, especially in older mothers. She tried to think of a recessive disorder Frank’s father might have had; something Frank could be a carrier for. Some of the Mediterranean blood disorders, like thalassemia? It seemed farfetched, but she texted Damian asking him to check.
The Bentley—an ancient green relic—crawled cautiously to the bottom of Natalie’s drive and the driver unwisely attempted to make it all the way up the steep slope to the door. It took three attempts, and reversing out was going to be entertaining. The man in the driver’s seat was wearing a cap, so her guest was presumably the woman in the back, hidden under a broad maroon coloured hat.
The chauffeur, who looked a lot like Drago, stepped out and opened the rear door. A slim bare ankle in flat grey leather pumps slid out, followed by a stick-thin figure, clad in a long black and burgundy dress, part flapper outfit, part kaftan. In her running gear Natalie was going to be at a disadvantage, and if the guest had been Mala she would have assumed that was the point. But it was Vesna, altogether a greater unknown than her daughter.
‘Jesus,’ she muttered to herself, ‘Does Frank’s mother think I’m going to be wife number three?’
‘You’re a complete unknown,’ Bob duly contributed.
Vesna, standing on the doorstep, looked startled but didn’t comment.
‘Vesna. What an unexpected pleasure.’ Natalie took the older woman’s hand and it felt as though there was no blood flow. Vesna turned and beckoned the chauffeur without saying a word. Instead of following, he went to the boot of the car and filled his arms with flowers.
‘From my garden and hothouse.’
Natalie stared. Flowers. Maybe Vesna really did think she was Frank’s girlfriend.
‘You shouldn’t have.’ This was what you said in normal polite society wasn’t it? Rather than You’ve got to be fucking joking?
Vesna was already ushering her man upstairs and there was little Natalie could do but follow.
Drago deposited the flowers on the table and withdrew. Vesna looked around rather as if she’d been put down suddenly on a different planet. Perhaps she didn’t leave Mount Malosevic often. Question was: why had she now?
‘Tea?’ Natalie put the kettle on, somewhat at a loss.
Bob paced his perch in bemusement and finally announced ‘Call the cops!’ to Vesna’s alarm, before flying to the back of a chair.
‘He thinks he’s Bob Dylan,’ said Natalie.
‘Really? How…’ Vesna was unable to find a suitable adjective.
‘The flowers are lovely,’ Natalie told her again, ‘but yo
u really didn’t have to.’
‘I like to.’ Vesna’s hand rubbed along the silk dress on her thigh. ‘Mount Malosevic is far too big for just us.’ For a moment Natalie wondered if she was actually going to invite her to stay, then she added: ‘The flowers need to be enjoyed by more than just my family.’
‘You must have lots of visitors seeing the garden.’
‘Yes, but strangers. I had thought by my age I would have grandchildren to share it with.’
This family certainly didn’t mess around. Natalie decided she’d respond to this as a psychiatrist rather than a future daughter-in-law.
‘The last few years must have been very difficult.’
‘Difficult?’ Her eyes widened. Her lips formed an o.
‘The death of your father, then Reeva and Alison.’ More than ever, Natalie would have liked to see a toxicology report on this woman. Alcohol? Benzos? Antipsychotics? She tried to check out Vesna’s pupils, wondering about opiates, but the irises were so dark it was hard to see where they finished and the pupils began.
‘You must be wondering why I am here.’
Natalie let this go.
‘Do you like my son, Dr King?’ The sudden steeliness in the voice jolted. The woman was sedated, yes, psychotic at times maybe. But not in the dependent regressed manner that had been apparent on the night of Alison’s death. Less medication today, perhaps. Or no Mala keeping her in check.
‘I don’t know him well, Vesna. I feel sorry for him.’ If he didn’t kill his wives.
‘People have always been envious of us, you know,’ Vesna said. ‘You wouldn’t believe the mail, the phone calls. People you know can be quite…cruel.’ She looked at the tea Natalie had poured her but showed no inclination to try it.
‘I’ve been exposed to people’s cruelties all my life, so I’m used to it, but it’s a mother’s role to protect her children. He was such a solitary boy, kept so much to himself. He wouldn’t talk to me really. Didn’t want to worry me.’
What, Natalie wondered, did Vesna think she needed to protect them from now? Natalie, presumably. But what did she think Natalie was going to do?
‘Envy drives people to want to tear down those who are successful and better off, you know. I’ve seen it firsthand.’
‘I’m not a threat to Frank, Vesna.’ Not strictly true. ‘Just a confidante.’
Vesna looked her up and down. ‘We stick together, the Malosevics. We always have and it has got us through.’
‘Did Alison and Reeva ever truly become Malosevics?’ Natalie didn’t expect an answer; the woman was paranoid, though maybe with good reason. Google had revealed that her mother had been in a Balkan concentration camp, and then died when Vesna was young. Reason enough not to trust the world.
‘Never.’
Natalie was surprised by the firm immediacy of the response, accompanied by a quick look down and to her left that made her wonder what the older woman was hiding. And what ‘never’ covered.
‘Reeva,’ Vesna said, ‘was concerned only with her career.’ She sneered. ‘All those papers and science. There is no beauty in science.’
So it was only Frank, not Vesna, who was after more doctors in the family.
‘I knew she wasn’t caring for him enough because the sleep problems he had as a child came back. Worrying again.’ ‘And Alison?’
‘Alison.’ Vesna shook her head, lips pursed as she stood up to leave, tea still untouched. Natalie waited but Vesna had said all she intended to say on the topic of Frank’s second wife.
She paused by the flowers as she left. ‘Lilies,’ she said, ‘for purity.’
Purity? Vesna couldn’t be talking about her. The desired characteristic of Frank’s next wife?
‘White carnations,’ Vesna continued, ‘for good luck.’
She paused at this bunch, fingers running down the edge of the holly leaf that was providing an artistic green contrast. A prickle drew blood but she didn’t react, just smiled and turned to Natalie. ‘And holly for protection.’
‘Protection?’ Natalie was looking at the droplet of blood, then drew herself away from it to look into Vesna’s vacant eyes. ‘From what? Or should I ask…whom?’
Vesna put her finger to her lips and sucked it. ‘It isn’t wise to trust anyone, in my experience, other than family. You, I think, would be especially unwise to trust Eliza.’
30
The perfect partner. Do we ever know what we really want? Perhaps. Less so what we need—until we find it.
Evolutionary theory directs us to someone who looks like our own family, for familiarity; it says the prototype is etched in our young minds, formed from those we loved and trusted, of our perfect other. Even if the childhood itself wasn’t perfect, the imprint is still there and we chose our partners to fit this pattern. Again and again, good or bad. Unless we choose to alter it.
My partners have not really had a great deal in common, apart from physical attractiveness, which in my twenties I over-valued at the expense of other attributes. Now I know the greater importance of intelligence. The template for these qualities is there within my own family.
Reeva scored high on intelligence, lower on beauty. Alison was a sad compromise on both. Eliza would have been another disappointing compromise, had I ever thought of her as a future partner. And she has become very tiresome.
Natalie isn’t classically beautiful but she is more striking than Reeva, and petite, so she would represent an improvement. I find increasingly that I am drawn to her. I am prepared to see what the future brings.
31
She wasn’t hard to find. There were three artist’s studios in Lorne and one of them was owned by Eliza Carson. The door was locked but through the windows Natalie could make out large bright paintings of local birds. She made a note of opening times and planned to come back.
She was too early to meet Frank so she wandered into one of the other galleries.
‘Can I help you?’ The man’s smile revealed a gap between his front teeth. Short, stocky and, she thought, Turkish. Olive skin and a hint of a stubble.
‘Possibly. You don’t have any of Eliza Carson’s work do you?’
The smile faltered and he shook his head, pointing back to where she had come from.
‘Anything by Antonije Malosevic?’
Again he shook his head, waving his arms theatrically. ‘Of this, I dream. You like his work?’
‘I haven’t seen any,’ Natalie confessed.
The smile was back as he pulled out a large coffee table book titled Malosevic’s Magic. ‘He is very well known, and not just here. All over the world.’
Natalie was the first to admit she knew nothing about art. She turned the pages, at first flicking to get a sense of his style—broadly, was he Rembrandt, Van Gogh or Pollock? Almost instantly, however, she had to turn slower, to try and make sense of what she was seeing. None of her three reference artists was helping. These pictures were almost all black and white, with sometimes startling use of a single colour in an unlikely place. When she looked closer she realised that they were mostly portraits of one to three people, all young women, sometimes posed in what she imagined to be the gardens at Frank’s house.
‘Those ones are from the series Memories,’ said her Turkish man. ‘The most famous. After Family of course.’
‘Family?’
He nodded vigorously and flipped to the end of the book. There was one photograph: it looked like the painting she had seen in the living area at Mount Malosevic.
‘That,’ he said, ‘is the only one ever seen from that series.’ He leaned in towards her and though she wasn’t sure why, lowered his voice. ‘Other than by the actual family of course.’
‘So what’s meant to be so special about Family?’
The man waved his arms again, beaming. ‘Malosevic himself said they were his best pieces, which says something. That one…’ he pointed to another page. A girl who Natalie thought was probably a young Vesna was standing by a lake. ‘That fetched
a record price for an Australian painting when it was auctioned in London just after his death.’ He mentioned a sum, in hushed tones suggesting he wasn’t quite sure it was true.
Natalie took a closer look at it; there was no doubt he had captured a sense of a poignant fragility that might disappear at any second. But it conveyed something else too, as had the work she had seen at the house. Something that left her uneasy.
The Greek restaurant in Lorne where she was meeting Frank was a short walk. Not a date, she had told herself and Damian, who hadn’t answered several phone calls and had then been short with her when he did pick up. Could Damian have known about Liam? Only if Liam had told him. She felt a coldness in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps that had been part of the revenge plan. Poor Damian; he had a history of relationships where the women screwed other men.
‘You always lived here?’ Natalie asked over dip and fried cheese, though she knew the answer.
‘Ever since my father died. Mala was only a baby and my mother…didn’t cope well.’
‘Depression?’ Or psychosis? Maybe this was the beginning of the pills and being spaced out.
‘Grief, depression,’ said Frank. ‘She’s had a hard life.’ Natalie waited expectantly.
‘Her mother died when she was a child. She adored my grandfather, but he expected too much of her.’
Natalie pondered that too much. ‘She cared for him?’
‘Yes, and posed for him. Growing up we would be stopped in the street by people who recognised her from Antonije’s work.’
Natalie wondered how much of a childhood Vesna had had, with her mother dying young. ‘She came to see me. Your mother.’
Frank put the piece of bread he had just run through the tzatziki down on his plate.
‘Brought me flowers,’ Natalie continued. If Frank thought this was odd he wasn’t showing it. Nor did he look worried. What had he told Vesna about her? Maybe she had made her own assumptions? There hadn’t been much time between his wives; perhaps Vesna was assuming he’d continue in the same vein. Natalie felt a moment of discomfort. Frank had been ‘seeing’ her before Alison died.