Darling Girls, page 12
‘I’m Alicia. I live over there at Wild Meadows.’ She pointed over her shoulder. ‘It’s a beautiful day and . . .’
Horse guy looked up. He was younger than Jessica had thought. Maybe twenty years old, with orange hair and freckles all over his face and arms. He wore a red flannel shirt and riding boots.
At the sight of his impatient frown, Alicia’s confidence seemed to fade. ‘I was wondering if we could ride a horse,’ she finished quickly.
He shook his head, picking up a brush from the grass and putting it in his pocket. ‘They ain’t my horses – I just take care of them.’
Jessica exhaled in relief. She’d been agreeable and it hadn’t worked out. None of it was her fault.
‘Please?’ Alicia said, stepping forward. ‘Come on. We’re foster kids. Surely it couldn’t hurt to give a few foster kids a bit of joy.’ She smiled winningly.
He stopped. ‘You’re foster kids?’ He appeared to consider this for a moment, then glanced up the hill towards the house. ‘And your foster mother . . .?’
‘Won’t be back for hours.’ Alicia grinned.
Jessica wondered why them being foster kids had changed his mind. Whatever the reason, after a final glance towards the house he relented. ‘Fine. You all want a go?’
Alicia didn’t even turn around to check with Norah and Jessica.
‘Yes, please,’ she said. ‘All of us.’
The horse guy’s name was Dirk. After his coolness, he became a bit more friendly. He was a pretty good teacher, too, helping them mount the horses and paying close attention as they trotted around the paddock.
Jessica had to admit it was a lot of fun. She felt majestic sitting astride her horse, Almond, making gentle noises and saying things like, ‘Whoa . . . Good girl.’
‘You’re a natural,’ Dirk told her as she trotted past. She beamed with pride.
Norah, on the other hand, was not a natural. Despite Dirk’s encouragement she managed only about fifteen minutes astride Bangles before declaring that she preferred dogs to horses. Alicia did only slightly better, sitting on Bertha, who was barely taller than a pony, for only half an hour before calling it a day. But Jessica rode Almond for nearly an hour. She couldn’t believe the way time had flown. She was so reluctant to stop that, in the end, Dirk had to take the reins and help her off.
‘Thanks,’ she said, as she dismounted. ‘That was awesome.’
‘I don’t see you guys around much.’
‘We’re inside people,’ Jessica said. ‘Speaking of which, it’s probably better that we don’t mention this to our foster mother. She might be mad at us for bothering you.’
‘Your secret’s safe with me.’ He grinned. ‘My boss wouldn’t like it either.’
‘The perfect crime,’ Alicia said.
As they made their way up the hill, Jessica felt practically jubilant. It was a good idea, listening to Alicia, she realised. Alicia knew how to have fun, and that was one thing they all needed. Jessica was about to tell Alicia this as they crested the top of the hill and Wild Meadows came into view. Miss Fairchild was standing on the porch watching them.
‘Where have you been?’ she demanded, as they climbed the steps. She was unusually flustered – her hair a little windswept, her blouse untucked at the back. Her eyes glistened with rage.
None of them replied.
‘Well?’ Her tone was icy.
‘We went horseriding,’ Alicia said, her voice barely audible.
‘You went horseriding!’ Her eyes were wide, nostrils flaring. ‘On other people’s horses. After I told you to stay home. Can you imagine my embarrassment when I bumped into Sara Mitchell, who’d just driven past Wild Meadows and seen you girls riding her horses?’
This explained why she looked so dishevelled. She must have run all the way from town when she’d heard.
‘You didn’t have permission to ride them. Not from me, not from the owner of the horses. Sara could move her horses elsewhere and I’d lose that income. Then who would feed you? Who would keep the farm running?’ Her face was crimson with rage. Jessica couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her foster mother this angry. ‘So whose idea was it then? To go horseriding?’
She looked at them each in turn. Jessica flinched under her gaze.
‘Mine,’ Alicia said, before Jessica could even open her mouth.
Miss Fairchild raised her eyebrows. ‘I see.’
‘Actually,’ Norah said, ‘it was mine.’
‘They’re both lying,’ Jessica broke in, standing taller. ‘It was my idea.’
‘Is that right?’ Miss Fairchild pursed her lips. Her gaze slid away, as if contemplating something. ‘All right, since I’m feeling generous, I’ll only punish one of you. I’ll even let you choose. Who is it going to be?’
She crossed her arms and waited. The savagery of it was breathtaking. Jessica could hardly believe she’d once called this woman ‘Mummy’. She seemed incapable now of the kindness she’d shown Jessica as a child. She was no longer capable of even a millisecond of kindness.
‘Very well,’ she said, when none of the girls responded. ‘I’ll pick. Eenie, meenie, miney, mo.’ She was pointing at Norah. ‘You!’
Jessica was going to interject – volunteer herself for punishment – but Miss Fairchild moved too quickly. She grabbed Norah by the ear, turned on her heel and headed inside and down the hall. Norah, caught unawares, tripped twice in her desperation to keep up. Alicia and Jessica ran after them, all the way to the door under the stairs that led to the basement.
The pitch-black basement.
The moment that Norah realised what was coming would be burned into Jessica’s mind forever. Her body went limp. Her eyes became wild. Jessica began screaming. Alicia pleaded. That, of course, was the point.
Miss Fairchild wrenched open the door.
Suddenly Jessica realised how stupid she’d been. She couldn’t rebel. She couldn’t go horseriding. It wasn’t about her anymore. Alicia and Norah didn’t just represent fun, or support, or someone to take risks with. They represented two more ways for Miss Fairchild to hurt her. She should have pushed back against Alicia’s idea and kept her sisters safe inside the house.
Miss Fairchild shoved Norah into the darkness, latching the door closed behind her.
The commotion started immediately, Norah kicking the door and hammering it with her fists so hard that the wood around the latch splintered. The worst part, though, was the wail. The wail of a mother who had lost her child or an animal caught in a trap. It was bottomless and aching. After several minutes of it, Miss Fairchild couldn’t take any more and walked away. But Jessica and Alicia stayed. They sat on the floor by the door and whispered to Norah. They sang songs and read stories. They stayed for hours, until finally Miss Fairchild permitted them to let her out.
20
JESSICA
Detective Patel held a blue pen in her hand, which she twirled like a fidget toy as Jessica talked. Occasionally she scrawled notes on her yellow legal pad in nearly illegible handwriting. Jessica was curious as to the woman’s notetaking system. It seemed to her that it would make far more sense to type the notes and then save the document in a folder labelled by surname and date. The idea of all those little files neatly organised in folders brought some much-needed relief to Jessica, after an afternoon spent recalling some of her most difficult memories.
‘It sounds like Miss Fairchild really hurt you, Jessica,’ Patel said evenly.
She wasn’t a therapist, Jessica reminded herself, despite her concerned, sympathetic expression.
‘You must have wanted to hurt her back.’
See? There. Not a therapist – a police officer.
Patel sat back in her chair. She was extremely well-groomed. Her eyebrows were perfect arches, her black hair was shiny and straight. She had a prominent nose, which anchored the rest of the features on her face. Jessica hoped she hadn’t considered a nose job. It would be a mistake, taking away her point of interest. She wondered if she should tell her that.
‘No,’ Jessica said. ‘I only ever wanted to love her.’
Jessica was embarrassed to realise that she still wanted that. She thought of all the times she’d fantasised about Miss Fairchild hearing about her successful business and showing up on Jessica’s doorstep to tell her how proud she was. In the fantasy, Jessica had many different responses – sometimes turning her away, other times hugging her foster mother and inviting her into her beautiful home. They’d share a pot of tea and it would be like old times. The very oldest, before it all went wrong. She felt deeply ashamed of the fantasy; too ashamed to admit it to Alicia or Norah, or even her therapist.
Absently, she reached inside her handbag and wrapped her fingers around the bottle of pills within.
Patel tapped the pen against her chin. ‘What about your sisters?’
‘What about them?’ Jessica let go of the pills.
‘I understand Norah has issues with aggression. Did she ever hurt Miss Fairchild? Or talk about hurting her?’
‘Of course not,’ she said, instantly defensive. ‘She was just a child.’
Patel looked unconvinced. Jessica understood why. There were probably reams of files detailing Norah’s anger issues. She had a criminal record. If it turned out the body had been buried during their time at Wild Meadows, and they started looking for a murderer . . . well, Norah would have to be pretty high on their list.
‘From what I’ve read, she had a fairly colourful history of violent behaviour even back then.’ Patel referred to a document in front of her. ‘It says here that after you were removed from Wild Meadows, several areas of the home were found to have been damaged by your sister.’ She glanced at the sheet of paper. ‘The door underneath the stairs was splintered.’ She looked up at Jessica.
‘Who says Norah did it?’ Jessica asked.
Patel gestured to the document. ‘It says here that Norah admitted to it.’
Jessica cocked an eyebrow. ‘In that case, I imagine you must have been concerned to learn that a child was locked under the stairs?’
‘Yes,’ Patel said, frowning. ‘Very concerned.’
She seemed sincere, but it didn’t matter. They weren’t investigating child abuse. They were investigating the bones. A violent little girl who’d been locked under the stairs had good reason to lash out, which was why they were interested in Norah, no doubt.
‘Look,’ Jessica said, ‘you’re right. Norah has anger issues. Show me a person who grew up in foster care who doesn’t. But she has a good heart. She’s as harmless as these big stupid dogs.’
She looked at Couch, for the first time feeling something resembling affection.
Patel put down the pen. ‘Forgive me for asking, but you, Alicia and Norah aren’t biological sisters, are you?’
‘No,’ Jessica said. ‘But we’re sisters in every way that counts.’
Patel smiled. ‘I bet you’d do anything for them.’
It was a good try, but Jessica wasn’t falling for it. ‘I wouldn’t bury a body for them, if that’s what you’re asking.’ She gave an airy, appalled laugh for good measure.
But it was clear from Patel’s slow, unblinking nod that she wasn’t fooling anyone.
It was nearly five o’clock and they’d been talking for more than four hours when they were interrupted by a knock.
‘Come in,’ Patel said.
A police officer Jessica didn’t recognise stuck his head around the door. He wrinkled his nose; the room smelled rank, thanks in no small part to the so-called ‘support’ dog. ‘You got a minute?’ he said to the detective.
Patel nodded.
‘I’ll take the dog out for a wee,’ Jessica said.
‘There’s a fenced courtyard through the side door,’ Patel told her as she left the room.
Jessica followed the low-ceilinged corridor towards a glass door, through which she could see Patel with a few other police huddled around a computer screen. Halfway along she saw a brown door and pushed it open. It led to a small courtyard, bare apart from a lone tree and a ceramic dish full of cigarette butts.
Norah and Alicia were already there.
‘There you guys are!’
Jessica let Couch off the lead and the three dogs reunited with jubilant barks and leaps. Jessica and her sisters reunited with similar urgency, less enthusiasm. ‘How’s it going with the detectives? Are you hanging in there?’
Alicia looked tired. She held her phone in one hand and shielded her eyes from the afternoon sun with the other. ‘I’ve had better afternoons.’
‘I’d forgotten how much I hate her.’ Norah was squatting to let two of the dogs lick her face. The third dog was humping her leg.
‘I hadn’t,’ Alicia said. ‘That part always remains fresh for me.’
‘Why don’t we talk about it on the road,’ Jessica said. ‘It’s getting late, and we have a long drive ahead. No doggy treats for these guys before we –’
‘Actually,’ Norah said, ‘Hando said we’d pick it up again tomorrow, when we were fresh. I guess that means we’re staying the night. Maybe even two.’
Jessica felt her eyebrows rise. ‘Did Hando say he’d run my business? I don’t have a nine-to-five job – most of our jobs are scheduled on the weekends. And is he going to take care of my husband too?’
‘It’s just one night,’ Alicia said, yawning and stretching her arms above her head. ‘Sonja can manage and Phil will be cool. I’m knackered, Jess.’
‘And I don’t think the dogs will tolerate another car trip today,’ Norah added.
The affection she’d felt for Couch just a short while ago vanished, and Jessica was struck by the panicky feeling that always overcame her when a situation got out of her control.
‘But where will we stay?’ she said weakly. ‘Who will have us with these dogs?’
‘They’re service dogs,’ Norah replied seriously. ‘Legally, they can stay anywhere.’
Jessica began scrabbling in her bag for her pills. She hated those fucking dogs. Hated the police. Hated Wild Meadows.
‘I’ll have to check my messages,’ she said. ‘Make sure there’s nothing urgent.’
As she pulled out her phone, she prayed for an organisational emergency that would require her to return to Melbourne that night. She longed to be back in her own home, making dinner before getting into her own bed. She didn’t do well out of her routine. She hadn’t planned for an overnight stay and hadn’t brought the things she needed. The tears that stung her eyes might have been as much to do with that as having to talk about her childhood.
She unlocked her phone and held it to her ear as the voice messages played.
‘Jessica, it’s Tina Valand here. I just spoke to Debbie.’
This was not the sort of organisational emergency Jessica had in mind.
‘This is a bit awkward, but Debbie told me there was an issue regarding some medication that went missing from her bathroom cabinet? I feel awful bringing this up, but it has me worried because, well, I noticed that some pills had gone missing from my place too. I’m a big fan of yours, you know that, and I’ve recommended you to plenty of people – I just hope it won’t come back to bite me.’
Fuck. This wasn’t going away. She needed legal and PR advice. Heck, she might even need rehab advice! Mostly she needed advice on how to make all this exciting on a Saturday while in the middle of a police investigation in Port Agatha.
There were two more messages waiting for her, both from clients. She decided not to listen. Instead, she dropped her phone into her bag and said to her sisters, ‘I guess we’d better find somewhere to stay for the night.’
THE OFFICE OF DR WARREN, PSYCHIATRIST
The next time I see Dr Warren, he is wearing a blue tie and he only makes me wait for one minute before he looks up from his notes.
‘Right,’ he says. ‘You were talking about your mother and the parish accountant.’ He looks at his notes. ‘John.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘So . . . as I feared, my mother soon started spending time with John outside of church. At first, it was ostensibly “business” – meeting up to look over accounts or to organise the sale of half our land, which was how John suggested we claw our way back to solvency. But before long the meetings became social; they saw each other for coffee, for lunch and eventually for dinner.
‘It took time to adjust to my mother leaving the house again after months of seclusion. When she wasn’t with John, she was with the church ladies, sorting second-hand clothes for the jumble sale or knitting tiny beanies for premature babies. Sometimes she even visited people in need, the way the women had done to her, offering them support and a pathway to God. I was never invited, which was fine by me. I did still have to go to church on Sundays, unfortunately, but other than that I stayed well clear of my mother’s new, churchy lifestyle.’
‘Why?’ Dr Warren asks. ‘Were you jealous?’
Dr Warren has a slightly deviant look in his eye. As if he likes the idea. So mother issues are his perversion? Who am I to judge?
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Jealous and desperate for attention. When I didn’t get it, I had to look for attention elsewhere. So I made friends with the kids at school who scared me: the ones who drank alcohol and went to parties and pierced their own ears at lunchtime with a needle and an ice cube. I stopped handing in my homework so I could hang out with these kids in detention after school rather than going home to a house full of churchy women who tutted every time they saw me – or, worse, going home to my mother and John, who was starting to spend more and more time there.
‘“Are you and John dating or something?” I remember asking my mother, when he’d visited for the third time in a week. I’d never witnessed them being openly affectionate but I wasn’t naive.
‘“If I were,” my mother said, “how would you feel about it?”
‘“I wouldn’t like it,” I told her.
‘My mother was quiet for a long time. I assumed she was thinking about how she would break the news to John that it wasn’t going to work out between them, so I didn’t interrupt. Finally my mother reached for my hands and said: “John and I are getting married.”
