An Accusation: A Novel

by Wendy James

  “Why?” I asked them. “What’s so scary about it?”

  Only Jess had an answer. “It’s because the woman thinks she’s doing the right thing by the girl. She actually thinks she loves her . . .”

  Even Mary had been briefly intrigued by the story. Despite the fact that she spent half her day in front of the television, any real-world events generally seemed to wash over her. Occasionally she would surprise me by mentioning some random item of news—that the renovations to the local council chambers were going to cost almost a million dollars, for instance, or that a local farmer had sold a bull for a record sum. This sort of detail generally disappeared from her memory almost immediately, but she was wide-eyed about the abduction.

  “She reminds me,” Mary said, “of a girl I knew when I lived in Paris.”

  “I didn’t even know you lived in Paris.”

  “That’s because it’s none of your business.”

  Paris was clearly a conversational red flag. I changed tack. “Who does she remind you of?”

  “Who?”

  “The girl who was kidnapped.”

  “I already told you. This slut I knew in Paris.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t look so shocked.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Yes, you are. I can tell. You’re making that face—like someone farted.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Anyway, we were all into it. We were all sluts. That was our job.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s what the backup singers were there for, really, to service the boys. And don’t tell me it was any different in TV land, Miss Sanctimony.”

  “You were telling me about the girl? Your friend.”

  “Who?”

  “The girl in Paris.”

  “Oh, her. She went by the name Colette de la . . . de la—some bullshit French name—but her real name was Betty Kane. She had tickets on herself, told everyone she was related to royalty, but that was just rubbish. She had no class. And she’d sleep with anyone, given the chance. It didn’t matter if it was her best friend’s boyfriend—everyone was fair game. Didn’t matter if they were old or young, if they were fat or had no teeth. They just had to have a cock. Although there was a rumor that that wasn’t important, either, but I think she probably spread—”

  “But why does she remind you of Ellie Canning?”

  “What?” Mary’s interest in the present had flagged; she was wandering in the labyrinth of her past.

  “You said she reminded you of the girl who was abducted. Ellie Canning. The one that’s been in the news. The schoolgirl.”

  “Oh, that girl. She likes sex. You can tell by the way she runs her tongue over her lips when she talks. Betty did that, too.”

  “Oh.”

  “And she’s a liar.”

  “So, how do you know that? The way she touches the side of her nose with her little finger?”

  Mary rolled her eyes. “Don’t be sarcastic, sweetie. It doesn’t suit you. It’s just that it’s a bloody stupid story. It’s an unbelievable story. Why would two women abduct a young girl? What were they going to do with her? It’s so fucking ridiculous, it has to be a lie.”

  I called Mary Mum until I was ten, even though I rarely saw her. My grandparents insisted on it, even though Nan was, to all intents and purposes, my mother, Pop my father. Although Mary’s visits to my grandparents’ home were ostensibly to see me, they weren’t really, and by the time I was seven or eight, I understood this. Her visits were for money, or for somewhere to stay, briefly, or sometimes, I think now, maybe as a reminder that there were people who loved her and that she had a past that was nothing like her present. None of these reminders changed the way she lived her life, though.

  And the fact that her present included me, her daughter, seemed to have very little meaning for her. I wasn’t a part of that benign past she wanted to recall. Her mother and her father, and their gentle, uncomplicated love for her—that was what she came back for. I wasn’t a real part of her endless present either—whatever sad mess that was—the present that she couldn’t seem to escape and, it seemed to me then, didn’t really want to either.

  She would arrive unannounced and stay just long enough to enjoy the prodigal’s return: the nutritious meals, the clean sheets, the early nights, the hot showers. The desperate, aching love of her parents. And then she’d go.

  There was never any warning, never any preparation. Sometimes I’d wake up in the morning and there she’d be, sprawled on my grandparents’ good lounge, Nan’s crocheted arm covers all awry, cushions tossed aside. To my sleepy eyes she seemed almost fairylike—ethereal and not quite earthbound, which was true, I guess. She certainly wasn’t any part of our routine domestic realm.

  Or I’d arrive home from school, and Mary would be perched up on the kitchen counter, grimy backpack at her feet, a cigarette in one hand, a glass of something in the other, watching Nan prepare dinner. She’d look down at me, distant but offhandedly kind, and tweak my hair, give me a wink, a lopsided not-quite smile, sing a few bars of the old song, always getting it slightly wrong. Oh, Suzannah, oh, don’t you know it’s me. And I’d smile back shyly, desperate for her attention. Always knowing that just as I began to feel the shyness dissolve, the bonds of wanting and need beginning to strengthen, she would disappear.

  When she was there, we all knew to keep our distance—any sign of our wanting more would be enough to make her restless, encourage her to leave early. My grandparents had learned the hard way that Mary would put up with their love only if it was disguised. Love could be practical—my grandmother could feed her, fill the bath for her, wash and fold her clothes; she would happily take the cash my grandfather offered, the lifts here and there, but any questions, any demonstrations of affection were rejected; if they persisted, she’d go. There was never any place for me in this equation—what can a child offer their mother that isn’t about love, about wanting to show as well as receive it?

  The last time I saw her, until the more recent call from the hospital, I was ten. Mary had turned up, even more wrecked than usual. She was thin, her skin was bad, her mood was even more erratic. There seemed to be marks—dark smudges that might have been bruises, fading scars, faint welts—all over her: on her face, her arms, her thighs. Nan’s eyes had widened when she first saw them, and she’d drawn a deep breath, a question formed and then evaporated.

  After dinner, Mary showered and changed into a pair of Pop’s old flannelette pajamas and then stretched out on the lounge, TV blaring, the oil heater cranked up, although it was only early April and we were still swimming at the beach on the weekends. I sat beside her, not too close, silent, my eyes glued to the screen, but every part of me quiveringly aware of her: the way she threw herself on the seat, completely relaxed, limbs deliberately spread-eagled, not the way I’d been taught to sit—primly upright, knees together and feet firmly on the ground. The way she cleared her throat unselfconsciously, the soft whistle of her breath, her restlessness, the way some part of her was always moving, a leg jiggling, her hands tapping out a rhythm. Despite the fact that she was using our everyday soap and shampoo, she smelled like no one else in the world—a mixture of cigarettes and something else, something sweet and slightly musky. Her presence made everything brighter, sharper, more alive.

  She tugged her fingers through her still-damp hair, which was at least clean now, but horribly tangled.

  “Do you want me to get you a brush?” I asked eventually, making it sound as offhand, as casual as I could, still not looking at her directly. Her “sure” had been equally indifferent, but I remember running to the bathroom and returning with Nan’s brush—a well-loved Mason Pearson.

  My mother had taken the brush and looked at it for a long moment and then handed it back, a strange smile on her lips. “How about you do it for me, oh, Suzannah?”

  Mary had shifted, lying with her head hanging over the arm of the lounge as I brushed. It was a difficult job; her bl
eached hair was coarse and split, and the tangles were ferocious—the sort of knots that I’d ruthlessly cut out of my Barbie’s head. But I persisted, kept going long after I’d brushed out every snarl, even though by then Mary was fast asleep. Sleeping, she looked as young and as pretty as she was in the photographs Nan kept in a tin, photos from when Mary was in high school, from before she had me. I sat on the chair opposite, the brush forgotten in my lap, and just watched the rise and fall of her chest, the flickering of her eyelids, the twitches of her lips, the small sighs and gasps that people make when they’re sleeping. I wished so hard that she could stay like that, that she would stay there, forever. But by the next morning, she’d gone, without warning. This time there were no hastily confected excuses, no pretending not to notice her mother’s distress, her father’s shining eyes.

  And this time she’d never come back. There’d been the odd postcard, from London, Perth, Bali, Chicago, New York—Having a ball! Living the life! Wish you were here x—but there was never a return address, never any phone calls, not even the promise of a visit. There were no requests, as far as I knew, for cash either. By the time I was a teenager, my grandparents barely mentioned her in front of me; it was as if they’d stopped wondering, stopped hoping, aloud at any rate—it was all too painful for everyone. They knew she was alive, which I suppose was better than not knowing.

  Whether or not Mary knew—or cared—whether they were alive was another thing. She didn’t come home for either of their funerals. When Pop died, friends of the family did their best to locate her, to send word, and I saw the desperate hope on Nan’s face at the crematorium and then at the wake. But there was no one left to hope when it was Nan’s own funeral a few years later. I’d wondered if perhaps Mary herself was dead, and had been surprised by my own indifference.

  Oh, Suzannah,

  Oh, don’t you cry for me.

  I’d been back in Bondi for a little over a year and had just begun looking for full-time work when I got the call from social services informing me that a Mary Squires was seriously ill at St. Vincent’s. I had been listed as her next of kin, and could I come in to discuss a care plan. I went to see her, more curious than anything else. If I’d known that by the following month my mother and I would be living together for the first time since my birth, it’s possible I’d have denied the connection and exited, stage left.

  ABDUCTED: THE ELLIE CANNING STORY

  A documentary by HeldHostage Productions © 2019

  ELLIE CANNING: TRANSCRIPT #2

  It was the beginning of the midyear holidays, and I’d come up to Sydney on the Friday night because I had an interview at St. Anne’s College the following day. I was planning to stay with my mum, who’d been out of rehab for a few months, for the whole three weeks. It was sort of a trial visit. I’d spoken to her a few weeks before and she’d sounded really good, better than I could remember, and she really wanted me to come and stay. I wanted to see her, of course, and my foster parents thought it was a good idea, and the social worker agreed, too. I would turn eighteen while I was there, so no one was all that worried. We decided I would just play it by ear. If Mum was good, I could stay the whole time and do all my revision there. If it didn’t work out, I could just go back to Manning whenever I wanted to. We had the trial exams coming up as soon as the holidays finished, so it was pretty important that I had somewhere quiet to study.

  (Long pause.)

  Anyway, so it didn’t exactly work out with Mum. (Laughs.) Yeah. That’s probably an understatement.

  I don’t really want to say more, but one night was enough. I wasn’t going to be able to do the work I needed to do if I stayed, so I decided I’d just head home straight after the interview at St. Anne’s.

  SUZANNAH: AUGUST 2018

  There was much eye-rolling in the staff room when it became public knowledge that Honor Fielding had taken on the girl as a client. Honor was something of a local celebrity, the classic small-town girl made good—one of Enfield Wash’s best-known exports, along with an Olympic swimmer, a couple of rugby league professionals, and the drummer in a punk outfit that once appeared on Countdown. While newcomers weren’t impressed—Honor who?—true locals had very definite opinions on why it was a good thing that Honor Fielding had bought a property back here, even if it was just a weekender, pleased that she was now expected to actively participate in the civic life of the town—attending openings and fundraisers, giving speeches, donating time and resources.

  The other side of this local fame was the sneering that accompanied it. Of course Honor Fielding would have her finger in the Ellie Canning pie—she’d so be riding that gravy train. Of course she’d be up for exploiting the poor child. What percentage would she get for every interview the girl did? It was more than half, someone had heard. What a way to make a living; it was a wonder she could sleep at night. And why did she need more money anyway? Wasn’t her husband some big-shot merchant banker, on multiple boards, who’d had the ear of every prime minister since Hawke? According to staff-room commentary, people like Honor were to blame for all the ills of contemporary culture—from reality TV to plunging literacy levels.

  Eventually someone (the lovely Anna again) pointed out that whether or not she was being paid, Honor was in fact doing the girl a favor. Apparently (or so Anna’s boyfriend, who worked as a staffer for the local National Party MP, had told her) the girl had been so bombarded with requests for interviews that she—and the police, and the hospital switchboard—didn’t know what to do. The girl’s foster parents—who hadn’t even reported her missing, assuming she’d gone back to school after the long private-school break—had spoken to her over the phone but hadn’t felt the need to visit or take her home. Ellie Canning had no one else to advise her.

  The always logical Rajan Kapoor, who taught science, pointed out that it was likely that Honor would’ve been involved even if the girl hadn’t been found locally. This was her thing, after all. She’d made her reputation agenting big names, but more quietly, if just as lucratively, she had also taken on a few “celebrity” victims—and villains—over the years. Now any interviews the girl did would be carefully managed and would be worth big bikkies. And, knowing Honor, there would probably be a book or a film in the offing.

  “Honestly,” said Tania, but not without a certain admiration, “that woman could work out a way to sell you the story of paint drying. So weird to think she’s such a big deal. She really wasn’t anything special at school.”

  “What was she like?”

  Tania thought for a moment. “Oh, I dunno. She was pretty smart, I s’pose. Okay-looking. A bit of a nonentity.”

  “She’s your neighbor, isn’t she, Suzannah? Have you met her yet?”

  “A couple of times.”

  “And? What do you think?”

  I shrugged. “Oh, you know. She seems okay.”

  SUZANNAH: APRIL 2018

  We’d met at a school do that the principal, Tom, had conned me into attending toward the end of my first term. It was a trivia night, a fundraiser for the school’s concert band. All the town worthies would be invited, and Tom was convinced that the presence of a former soap star would be an inducement. He’d even had me sign an old publicity shot featuring a bikini-clad Gypsy for one of the minor prizes. Initially the affair was to be fancy dress, and he’d asked me to come in character, which had sent me into a bit of a panic. As Gypsy, my signature style had been “less is more”—short, low-slung skirts, midriff tops, strappy leather sandals or bare feet. This had definitely been cute and sexy when I was twenty-one, but it just wasn’t going to be appealing (or even decent) at forty-six. Happily, concerned that the occasion would turn into a wild piss-up as it had for the past few years, the Parents and Citizens Association opted for semiformal dress.

  Still, finding something appropriate to wear was a task, even without the Sunset Boulevard parallels. It had been a while since I’d had any real social life, and there was nothing vaguely glamorous in my wardrobe; even my �
��smart casual” selection was seriously underwhelming. In the end I settled on what could be described only as the best of an indifferent lot: a black velvet dress that I’d worn to a colleague’s wedding years ago and a pair of thirties-style pumps I’d picked up for the drama costume box. I applied my usual minimal makeup and put my hair back in a schoolteacherly bun. When I offered myself up for inspection, Mary asked if I was going to a funeral. Sally—the respite nurse who came three days a week and on the occasional evening when I had to go out—gave a little snigger. “A funeral’d be more fun, if you ask me.”

  I wound a crimson paisley scarf around my neck, added some red lippy, let my hair down, and sighed at my reflection. It was better, but I still felt more Dolores Umbridge than Gloria Swanson. Hopefully after the first few glasses of bubbly, I would cease to care too much anyway.

  I’d been seated at the main table next to Karen Ross-Smith, the mayor’s wife. She had just launched into an urgent discussion of her football-mad fifteen-year-old son’s likelihood of getting the marks for law in the (highly unlikely) event he chose drama in his final years when two latecomers made their entrance. The woman, tall and thin and blonde, was stylish in a way that made every other female in the room look dowdy. Her partner was the former owner of my house, Chip Gascoyne. Despite being relatively close neighbors, we’d somehow not crossed paths. But I’d googled him, curious about the house and its history, so I recognized him immediately. He’d appeared in a few local newspaper articles—detailing social events, farming news—as well as a magazine feature about the new house, which had won some big design award. In the flesh he was good-looking in an old-fashioned farmery sort of way, slightly older than I’d expected. He was an unlikely companion for the woman who accompanied him.

  Karen stopped her chattering abruptly and watched, mesmerized, as the woman made her way to our table.

  “Don’t look so scandalized, Kaz,” the woman said loudly. “We didn’t come together. We just bumped into one another in the car park.”