Darling Girls, page 13
‘“Pardon?” I said, even though I’d heard her quite clearly.
‘“I know this will be difficult for you to understand, but John has been very good for me. For us. He’s got our finances back on track, and he’s helped me find the Lord. I know he’s quite strict and formal, but he’s a good man. He’s brought me back from a state of depression I wasn’t sure I’d ever recover from.”
‘“Does that mean you have to marry him? Was that part of the deal? You accept the church’s money and in exchange John gets you?”
‘“Listen –”
‘“You can’t do this! I’m part of this family too, and I don’t want to share a house with him. Don’t I get a say in it?”
‘“No!” my mother snapped. “You don’t. You’re a child. John is right – I’ve given you far too much leeway since your father died. Now you’re a disrespectful brat who cares about no one but herself.”
‘I was shocked into silence. My mother had never spoken to me like that. I felt my cheeks flush red at the indignity of it. I swore I’d do anything I could to stop their marriage. But, like all the tragedies in my life, I was powerless to do anything to stop it.’
‘Powerless?’ I have Dr Warren’s attention. He is leaning forward. Riveted. ‘How did that make you feel?’
I can’t stop my hands from clenching into fists. Dr Warren notices. I sense that it pleases him.
21
NORAH
Jessica had found accommodation at Driftwood Cottages, a series of bluestone houses just outside Port Agatha which had been converted into fairly ordinary B & Bs. Before leaving town, they’d stopped at the general store for toothbrushes, deodorant and giant pairs of old-lady underwear (chosen from the limited selection of undergarments displayed next to tampons and toilet paper).
Not even Jessica had argued when Norah suggested they walk the dogs. She was probably too wiped from the day to realise she was almost certainly signing up for shoulder surgery from the constant jerking and tugging. As they walked, they fell into companionable silence, each checking their messages before they went out of range. Among Norah’s was another text from Kevin.
I’ve been thinking, I should probably go to the cops about you assaulting me. You know, in case you do it to someone else.
A burst of air expelled from Norah’s lungs. She had stopped walking to compose a reply when she saw his next message.
Unless, of course, you wanted to send me a nude?
Wow. Kevin the weasel was wilier than she’d thought.
It wasn’t lost on Norah that Kevin was suggesting exactly what Norah herself advocated: a transactional arrangement. If she sent him a nude, he wouldn’t go to the cops. Pretty straightforward. But it felt different. Instead of feeling powerful, she felt weak. Instead of feeling like she was in control, she felt trapped. And Norah couldn’t think of a worse feeling in the world than that.
As the dogs pulled her forward, an unpleasant sensation built in Norah’s chest. She imagined Kevin sitting in his bed with his swollen nose thumbing threats at her. That was the difference, she realised. This wasn’t a transaction. This was blackmail.
Motherfucker.
She turned her phone around and opened the camera. She’d send him a photo, if that’s what he wanted. A nice close-up. She zoomed in to her hand as she flipped him the bird, making her digit nice and straight. That’s what you can do with your threats, Kevin the Weasel. Yes, he might go to the cops, but no one trapped Norah Anderson.
With an angry jab of the thumb, she sent the photo. And just like that, the feeling in her chest subsided.
They’d been walking the dogs for nearly an hour when they arrived at the gate of Wild Meadows. It wasn’t by chance, but nor had they discussed it. It was as if they had made a silent agreement. For one reason or another, they all needed to see it again.
The funny thing was, Norah had been expecting to see the house. But of course it wasn’t there. Instead, at the end of the long driveway was an empty space, a pile of soil and debris, some police tape and what looked to be a large hole.
‘I’ve never been so happy to see something gone,’ Alicia said quietly.
Norah wasn’t sure she agreed. She had never blamed the house for what happened to them. It would be like blaming your bank statement for its shitty balance. But she appeared to be in the minority, because Jessica was nodding.
They started down the driveway. Inside the area surrounded by police tape, men in high-vis vests used an excavator to comb the earth while police stood by, holding red buckets and wheelbarrows. Norah and her sisters weren’t the only ones admiring their handiwork. There were several other curious onlookers: a couple in their seventies; a woman with a toddler who was admiring the excavator; and three youngish women, huddled together talking.
As they approached the police tape, the sisters were stopped by a bored-looking policeman.
‘This is an active police scene so I’m afraid you can’t go any further.’
‘We grew up here,’ Jessica said. It was an offhand comment, a statement of fact rather than a request for entry.
At this, the policeman looked less bored. ‘You lived in the house? You were foster kids?’
They nodded.
He lifted his radio to his mouth. ‘I’ve got three more foster kids here,’ he said.
Norah blinked. Three more?
He lowered the handset to speak to them. ‘Have you spoken to the detectives? Patel, Tucker and Hando?’
‘Yes,’ Jessica said. ‘We’ve just come from the police station. But did you say –’
‘I still can’t let you on-site, unfortunately. And we’re requesting no photographs. But you can walk around the perimeter of the tape. Some of the others are doing that.’
‘Who are the others?’ Norah wanted to know.
Replacing his radio in his belt, he gestured to the trio of women. Norah, Jessica and Alicia looked at them then back at him. Their confusion must have been obvious.
‘The other foster kids,’ he said.
Jessica shook her head. ‘But there weren’t any –’
‘The babies,’ Norah said. ‘Those women must be the babies.’
22
JESSICA
BEFORE
In the months that followed the horseriding day, the girls sank into a sad, new reality. Norah had become different since she’d been locked under the stairs. Angrier. More explosive. At school, she got into fights every other day, over the smallest things. Once, she’d even elbowed Jessica in the ribs, seemingly on impulse, when Jessica approached her quietly and took her by surprise. Jessica knew Norah felt awful about it and she insisted she was fine, though Norah had a very sharp elbow.
The unfortunate consequence of Norah’s increasingly violent behaviour was that she spent more and more time under the stairs. And the more time she spent under the stairs, the more violent she became. It became routine, coming home from school to find Miss Fairchild waiting on the porch to drag Norah to her punishment. Once, after giving a boy a bloody nose at school, Norah had come home and opened the door under the stairs herself. But her dignity vanished the moment the door closed behind her and she flew into a rage, her body kicking and screaming as if of its own volition.
Jessica and Alicia pleaded with Norah to stop attacking people, and Norah promised to try. Eventually, after five altercations in five days, she had to concede, ‘I don’t know how.’
It was Alicia’s idea to hide a torch under the stairs. Norah still pretended to kick and punch for a while so Miss Fairchild didn’t get suspicious. Once, Jessica even hid a book there, so Norah could read. These small wins kept Jessica going. Unfortunately, every time she came up with a way to make their lives a little more manageable, Miss Fairchild came up with a new way to hurt them.
‘Jessica?’
Jessica froze halfway down the stairs. She’d thought she was the first one up, as usual, but not today it seemed.
Miss Fairchild was a woman of fixed habits. At this time of day, she was usually finishing her shower. After that she would dress and wipe down the mirror and benchtop before coming downstairs. Jessica knew her foster mother’s morning routine as well as she knew her own. Better.
Jessica glanced to the top of the stairs for Norah or Alicia. Where possible, they tried not to approach Miss Fairchild alone. But although Jessica tried to summon them in a hushed whisper, neither girl materialised.
‘Jessica, is that you?’ Miss Fairchild sounded impatient now.
‘Coming!’
Jessica found Miss Fairchild in the living room. She looked up from the armchair when Jessica entered and smiled. A proper smile.
‘I had a surprise visitor during the night,’ Miss Fairchild said.
When Jessica saw what the woman was holding, she gasped.
‘Come and see.’ Miss Fairchild beckoned her closer. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’
She was a newborn baby. As to whether she was beautiful, it was difficult to say with her all swaddled up like that. All you could see were her closed eyes, a little bit of her hairline and her mouth, slack with sleep.
‘Her name is Rhiannon,’ Miss Fairchild said, looking down at the baby again. ‘She was removed from her parents last night. Drug addicts, apparently.’
She spoke in an exaggerated singsong voice even when she said drug addicts. It was like she’d been sedated or lobotomised or something.
‘I told Scott to put my name down for infant respite care,’ she continued, her eyes fixed on the baby. ‘Short-term placements for babies who are removed from their parents at short notice. There are so many innocent babies who need homes, and I decided that we should do our part.’
Jessica was surprised to hear this. She had assumed Miss Fairchild was only prepared to take in older kids. After all, babies were a lot of work, and Miss Fairchild was so attached to her routines, her clean house, her ability to control everyone and everything. It was hard to imagine how a baby would fit in with the environment she’d created at Wild Meadows.
In other ways, though, it made sense. Above all else, Miss Fairchild demanded utter devotion. She’d made it clear that Jessica had failed to provide it. She wasn’t sure Norah and Alicia were ever expected to provide it – their purpose, as far as Jessica could tell, was to help pay the bills. Obviously she’d decided to find someone who would offer the unconditional adoration she craved. Who could be more devoted than a baby?!
Jessica heard muffled voices in the hallway, and a moment later Norah and Alicia peered around the corner.
‘Come in, girls,’ Miss Fairchild said cheerfully.
‘It’s a baby,’ Norah said, entering the room then almost immediately taking a step back, as if afraid the baby would leap at her.
‘A little girl,’ Miss Fairchild replied. She cooed softly at the bundle in her arms. ‘Her name is Rhiannon.’
‘Are we keeping her?’ Alicia asked.
‘It’s just a respite placement for now, but who knows?’
Norah’s lip curled, making it clear what she thought of the idea.
‘Anyway, I might put Sleeping Beauty down for a nap, and then I might have a nap myself. Little Miss was quite unsettled last night, and I’m exhausted.’
Miss Fairchild heaved herself to her feet, baby still in her arms. Before leaving the room, bizarrely, she kissed each of them on the forehead.
‘I think she’s gone mad,’ Norah said, when Miss Fairchild had disappeared upstairs.
‘I think she’s in love,’ Alicia said.
The three of them got busy with the morning chores, but Alicia’s comment reverberated in Jessica’s mind for hours. I think she’s in love. It was distressing how much it hurt.
Rhiannon was an astonishingly unsettled baby. In the three days she’d spent at Wild Meadows, the only time she wasn’t crying was when she was asleep, which wasn’t very often.
‘That baby is broken,’ Norah said for what felt like the fiftieth time. ‘It has no off switch.’
‘She,’ Jessica corrected. ‘She has no off switch. She is a human.’
‘She is a monster,’ Norah muttered.
Miss Fairchild tried everything she could to soothe her – patting her, singing to her, reading aloud. Nothing seemed to work. For a newborn, she had an impressive set of lungs.
‘Norah is right,’ Miss Fairchild said tersely on the fourth day. ‘This baby is broken.’
Miss Fairchild’s buoyant mood had well and truly sunk by then. Jessica wasn’t as worried about it as her sisters were. They’d enjoyed her brief period of good cheer, when she’d been far too worried about the baby to bother with persecuting them, but Jessica, to her shame, hadn’t enjoyed it all. As far as she was concerned, the less Miss Fairchild liked the child, the better.
On the fifth night, Rhiannon’s crying just didn’t stop. When Jessica finally peeked into Miss Fairchild’s bedroom, she noticed Miss Fairchild hadn’t even bothered to pick her up from her crib.
‘Want me to have a go?’ Jessica said.
‘Would you mind?’ Miss Fairchild replied with an almost comical level of gratitude.
‘Of course not.’ On the contrary, the idea of feeling needed and appreciated by Miss Fairchild was still like a drug to her. ‘You go to sleep. I’ll take care of everything.’
Jessica carried Rhiannon downstairs, where she rocked, soothed and sang to her. Rhiannon didn’t seem to care for Jessica’s singing, because she screamed the whole night through. But as the sun rose, she finally drifted off to asleep in Jessica’s arms, likely out of sheer exhaustion. And Jessica lowered herself into the armchair and slept too.
When Jessica opened her eyes again, Miss Fairchild was standing in front of her.
‘Oh,’ Jessica said.
Miss Fairchild was showered and dressed in a fresh white top and jeans. Her hair was wet from the shower. She peered down at the baby, who was sleeping peacefully.
‘I found the off switch.’ Jessica smiled. ‘Took a while, but we got there.’
Miss Fairchild didn’t return her smile. ‘Well, well,’ she said tightly. ‘Aren’t you clever?’
Jessica was still groggy, that was the problem. She hadn’t meant to offend Miss Fairchild. And yet somehow she’d unwittingly suggested that she had a skill Miss Fairchild lacked, or that she was better with the baby. But it was too late to correct her mistake; the damage was done.
‘I think she just got worn out from all the crying,’ Jessica said desperately. She felt like she might cry herself.
Miss Fairchild glared at her. She was still a young woman, but faint lines had started to appear in her cheeks, slanting downwards. They looked especially pronounced today. ‘Or maybe perfect Jessica just had the magic touch? Why not? Jessica is perfect at everything.’
Jessica struggled for something to say, but nothing occurred to her.
‘Since you’re so perfect,’ Miss Fairchild said, ‘why don’t you look after Rhiannon from now on?’
‘But I have school,’ Jessica reminded her.
‘Not anymore,’ Miss Fairchild said, and she stalked out of the room.
‘How do you make a baby alien go to sleep?’ Alicia said.
It had been a week since Rhiannon became Jessica’s full-time responsibility. Feeding, burping, bathing, soothing, all of it. Miss Fairchild didn’t even reach for her anymore. It was as if the baby had been sullied. As if she didn’t exist. Luckily, Norah and Alicia were willing to share the burden.
‘You rocket.’
Jessica and Norah were too tired even to laugh. They hadn’t been to school in a week, instead working in shifts, pacing the floor with Rhiannon as she howled. Norah was unexpectedly good with her. She’d borrowed a book about babies from the local library and they’d started tilting her crib at a slight angle, to help with reflux. If they got it exactly right, occasionally she stopped crying long enough to sleep.
Every now and then, Miss Fairchild stuck her head in the room to glare at them, as if the baby’s presence was their fault instead of hers. After a while, Jessica became too tired even to feel hurt by it.
They all developed a ringing in their ears from the crying. They started walking with a bounce in their step, whether they were holding the baby or not. The house went to hell. Chores didn’t get done and the laundry piled up. Miss Fairchild let it go, perhaps aware that they had nothing left to give.
The following week, when Scott arrived to take Rhiannon home, no one was upset.
‘Bye,’ they called from the door, while Miss Fairchild walked Scott and Rhiannon to the car.
They’d just fallen onto the couch, fantasising about the full night of sleep that awaited them, when Miss Fairchild returned.
‘This place is a pigsty,’ she said. ‘No one sleeps until it’s spick-and-span.’
Two weeks later, when they came downstairs for breakfast, there was another baby in Miss Fairchild’s arms.
‘Shh,’ Miss Fairchild said. ‘She’s sleeping.’
‘Am I having déjà vu?’ Norah muttered. ‘Or is this a nightmare?’
This baby was older than Rhiannon, maybe a year old, with masses of dark brown hair. One of her eyes was covered with a white surgical patch.
‘Her name is Bianca.’
‘What happened to her eye?’ Jessica asked.
‘Her stepfather happened.’ Something flickered and tightened in Miss Fairchild’s jaw. For a moment they were all silent, watching the poor baby sleep.
‘I need one of you girls to get the bus to the pharmacist for fresh gauze and bandages for her eye. Then head to the op shop and buy whatever you can find in her size. I have a voucher for formula and nappies over there on the dining table.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Jessica said. She was still wary of Miss Fairchild after what had happened with Rhiannon, but there was also something about being needed that she was helpless to resist.
‘It’s unimaginable, isn’t it?’ Miss Fairchild said, looking from Jessica to Norah to Alicia. ‘To think that someone would hurt a child.’ She shook her head, lowering her gaze back to the baby.
