The Wife and the Widow

by Christian White

  Craving coffee, Abby dragged herself up, and half-heartedly made the bed before going downstairs to get the fire started. It took some effort because the only kindling she could find was damp. She fed it for a few minutes, then wandered restlessly around the room waiting for her coffee to brew, the dull rumble of the percolator filling the air.

  Two cups later, morning alarms sounded and water pipes rattled as the kids got up, followed quickly by an argument about hot water and allotted bathroom times. Lori emerged first, clomping loudly into the kitchen in her scuffed and mud-stained Doc Martens.

  ‘Can’t you just put those things on at the front door?’ Abby asked.

  ‘Not if you don’t want me to be late for the bus. They take like, an hour to lace up.’

  Lori shook apple Pop-Tarts from the box, slid them into the toaster and watched them cook.

  ‘I’d be careful if I were you,’ Abby warned. ‘I think it was Nietzsche who said: if you gaze long enough into a toaster, the toaster gazes back at you.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ Lori said. She fixed herself a cup of coffee and checked her reflection in the pot, taking a moment to brush down her fringe. Her piercing eyes were surrounded by a layer of heavy black eyeliner.

  ‘You look nice,’ Abby told her.

  ‘I’m not going for nice,’ she said.

  ‘Well, not nice, but cool. Grungy.’

  ‘Grungy?’

  ‘Goth? I don’t know. Whatever it is you’re going for, you’re nailing it.’

  Lori sipped her coffee, as black as her wardrobe. ‘Erk, Mum, you’re such a dork. Can I go to Finly after school with Carry and Elise? Elise needs something to wear at her brother’s wedding and she wants us to come help. Can I go?’

  ‘How will you get home?’

  ‘We’ll be done before the last ferry.’

  ‘You can go on one condition: you give me a hug.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Come on. It won’t kill you.’

  ‘Does it bother you that you have to bribe me for physical affection?’

  ‘Just a pinch,’ Abby said.

  Lori sighed and grumbled, ‘Fine.’

  She gave her mother the briefest of hugs. For a fleeting moment the teenager was gone, and the child remained in Abby’s arms. But then the Pop-Tarts were flung up from the toaster, and Lori squirmed away to fetch them.

  Eddie shuffled into the kitchen next and began banging open cupboards, looking for cereal. He had dragged his trademark hoodie on over his school uniform, and had drawn the pull-strings so tight that his face peeked out from a small fabric mouth, like a forest nymph peeking nervously out from a cave.

  ‘Morning, kid,’ Abby said.

  He grunted a reply and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Lori told him. ‘You look like you just learned how to walk upright.’

  Eddie flipped his sister the bird. She replied with her own middle finger, which seemed to settle things between them.

  * * *

  Abby ran the same route twice a week.

  That morning, starting from home, she turned left up Harvill Hill Road, feeling the incline in her thighs. The saltbush that lined the road was dewy, dancing wildly in the breeze. Further down, the low intersection between Brown and Delahunt Streets was flooded. It happened around the same time each year and took most of the winter to drain. The council had dragged out two bright-orange sawhorses to stop frustrated drivers from trying their luck.

  Fat rain lashed against her face, streamed down her cheeks, soaked her running sneakers. Her winter weight jiggled. Her left knee made a worrying clicking sound every few steps and something didn’t feel right in her ankle, but she pushed through it. Abby loved to run during winter. The combination of endorphins and bitter coldness was exhilarating.

  At the crest of the hill, a panoramic view of the island opened up to reveal large patches of dense bushland and a handful of freshwater lakes to the south. To the north, the town spread out like barnacles on the overturned belly of a whale. At least two thirds of the houses on the island were empty this time of year, bleak and functionless, like socks without feet.

  When the weather was warm, Belport swelled with tourists, campers and holiday-makers. But when the sun went away, so did the people. Blinds were drawn on stale rooms, plastic protective sheets were thrown over furniture, and all the big cedar beach houses that dotted the island sat empty for the majority of the following nine months. The island should have felt bigger with fewer people in it, but it was somehow smaller, as if the coastline was slowly closing in. She had tried to explain this feeling to Ray once, but he’d come back at her with a load of facts about erosion.

  Beyond the island, Abby could see the ferry coming in, cutting a foamy white line between Belport and the Bellarine Peninsula, connecting them like an umbilical cord.

  From Harvill Hill, she turned right and jogged down to Bay Street, Belport’s main drag. A single traffic light dangled across the intersection of Bay and Bramwell, blinking amber against the grey, storm-lit afternoon. On one side of the street stood the All-You-Need Gas & Petrol station. On the other was the Belport Inn, known colloquially as the Belly, a cosy, Irish-themed pub full of stained-glass lamps and nautical paintings.

  The restaurants, gift shops and newsagency were all closed for the off-season. Huddled together at the bottom of Bay Street were the post office, the public library, and the Belport Police Station.

  The boardwalk carnival rose on her right as she neared the coast, looming in silhouette beneath an overcast sky. The front gates were padlocked. The Sky Winder, a famously dull roller-coaster, stood still and silent, its scaffolding like a giant, jagged ribcage. The Ferris wheel, a twinkling ring of yellow lights in summer, was dark.

  Abby kept running, down along the promenade, through the deserted foreshore campgrounds and down onto the beach, where the sand was wet and hard. The choppy blue waters of Bass Strait stretched on and on to her right. The air smelled like fish and salt.

  A flock of nervous seagulls watched her from under the awnings of the shuttered bait shop, as if wondering why a human would be punishing herself like this.

  A stitch had settled in Abby’s left side that sent darts of pain through her abdomen, but she kept going. Her breathing was hot and arrhythmic, her legs like dry bamboo, shuddering with each stride. Her bowels felt like slippery eels trying to escape a bucket. The fear of shitting herself had never been more real. She hurt, but it was a wonderful hurt, one that reminded her she was alive.

  She didn’t stop to catch her breath until she reached the big stone seawall that stood at the far edge of the beach. The wall separated the beach from the boat ramps on the other side. Huge clumps of tangled seaweed clung to it like tentacles. A large metal warning sign was bolted to it: Strong currents, submerged objects, slippery rocks, shallow water, unexpected waves. Alcohol prohibited, diving prohibited. Across it, written in red spray paint, was Fun prohibited.

  Hands on hips, Abby straightened up and looked out over the water while she caught her breath. Between May and October, it wasn’t uncommon to see humpbacks, southern rights, blues, and even the occasional orca pass by the island on their annual pilgrimage from their feeding grounds in Antarctica to Australia’s warmer waters, but today the water looked hostile and sullen. It was hard to imagine anything going on beneath it.

  There’s not a whole lot going on above it either, Abby thought.

  * * *

  Abby changed her normal run to go past the Buy & Bye, the supermarket where the owner, Henry Biller, gave her three shifts a week during the winter and six during the summer.

  When she walked in, Henry, a solid man with ruddy cheeks and a gentle smile, was running a broom over an already spotless floor.’

  ‘I don’t think that floor’s getting any cleaner,’ she said.

  ‘If you’ve got time for leaning you’ve got time for cleaning,’ Biller said with a smile. ‘You’re three hours early for your shift, by the way.’ />
  ‘I was on my way past and thought I’d pick up my pay so I can get to the bank before it closes. Anyway, would you let me work if I turned up looking like this?’

  He took in her rain-drenched, sweat-soaked hair.

  ‘Good point,’ he said. ‘Can you watch the store while I run to the safe?’

  He dusted his hands off on his apron and slipped through the plastic flaps at the back of the store that led to the receiving bay. There was no need for her to watch the store while he was gone. Aside from her, it was empty.

  The supermarket wasn’t huge, but the shop floor was laid out to make the most of the space. There were twelve aisles, and in a fit of optimism Henry had installed seven check-outs, though they rarely needed more than two. There were three short lanes of shopping trolleys and a large liquor department in the top-right corner. The place was stocked to bursting point over summer, but Biller let the stock run down at this time of year.

  A bitterly cold wind swept off the bay, howling up the rugged, rocky slopes of the island, strong enough to shake the glass-fronted wall of the store. Beyond the window – Grocery/Liquor/Bait! spelled out backwards on the glass – the bay was wild and dark.

  ‘Could be another big one,’ Biller said when he’d returned.

  ‘Nah, we won’t get another big storm for the rest of the season,’ Abby said. ‘This island can only handle so much excitement.’

  Biller handed her a yellow envelope. He paid in cash to keep it off the books. ‘It’s a little light. It’s that time of year. Mind if I fix the rest up next week?’

  Abby hesitated a moment. She might have told him things were tight all over the island and that the Gilpin household was no exception, but instead she nodded and stuffed the money into her sports bra. ‘Funny, I was going to ask if there were any extra shifts going.’

  He wet his lips and pushed his hands into the pockets of his apron.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ab.’

  ‘No big deal,’ she told him. ‘It’s the price for nine months of peace, right?’

  ‘That’s what we keep telling ourselves.’

  She turned to watch thunderheads gather on the horizon. One lone powerboat chugged in towards Elk Harbour, trying to outrun them.

  * * *

  When Abby got home, there was a police cruiser parked outside her house. A woman in a crisp blue police uniform was bobbing around outside her front door, leaning to get a look through the windows.

  ‘Do you have a warrant?’ Abby called out, startling her.

  Bobbi laughed. ‘You bitch. You scared the shit out of me.’

  They hugged. Abby and Bobbi used to work together at the Buy & Bye, where Bobbi would complain about having to wear shoes and a bra and would routinely remove both during the course of her shift. She’d left the supermarket years ago to join the police, but she and Abby had only become closer.

  ‘I’m here to pick up your disgusting baby stuff,’ Bobbi said. ‘Maggie sent me.’

  ‘It’s not disgusting, I swear.’

  ‘It’s fifteen years old.’

  Bobbi’s partner, Maggie, was eight-and-a-half months pregnant. She had been asking about Eddie and Lori’s old hand-me-downs since the foetus was the size of a peanut, but Abby had been slow to hand them over. She wasn’t sure exactly why. It wasn’t as if she and Ray were planning on pumping out a third kid, but the idea of giving away all those cute baby relics filled her with a mysterious sadness.

  ‘Follow me,’ Abby said.

  She led Bobbi down the outdoor passage connecting the house to the garage. The rain had eased, but a clogged roof gutter was sending a torrent of water splashing down into the grass, turning dirt to mud. They had to step around it.

  ‘It’s like a fucking zoo in here,’ Bobbi said.

  On the shelving unit that ran along the rear wall of the garage, were some taxidermy animals she hadn’t managed to give away. Small stuff, mostly: birds, mice, a marsupial rat and a fat grey toad that Abby had a hell of a time skinning.

  ‘I think I’m getting better,’ Abby said. ‘I might even be ready for the rabbit Whitley Higgins’s been keeping in his freezer for me. He found it on his back doorstep and thinks his cat dragged it over just for me. I’m still not entirely sure what I’ll do about the ears.’

  ‘Sometimes I don’t know why we’re friends,’ Bobbi said.

  While Abby pulled out the crate of baby clothes, Bobbi picked up the worn and well-dog-eared paperback sitting on the workbench. On the cover was a landscape of dead trees, at the feet of which was a chalk outline depicting two dead bodies, entwined. The title, printed in bright red font, read: The Buck River Murders: A true story of family, revenge and betrayal.

  ‘I’m almost done with that if you want to borrow it,’ Abby said.

  Bobbi turned the cover over in her hands, nodding. ‘Any good?’

  ‘It’s a meaty one, Bob. Back in 1986 they found two bodies near this river in Denver. One was a black guy in his sixties who’d been killed by a shotgun blast to the chest; the other was a teenage runaway, and he died from blunt force trauma to the head. The bodies were dumped within ten metres of one another, but the police couldn’t find any other connection between them.’

  Abby got through a lot of books during winter, and true crime was a particular favourite. It seemed darkly appropriate in a place like Belport, where the streets didn’t just feel empty, but emptied.

  Abby set the crate down on the workbench and flipped open the lid. It was filled with jackets, hats and teeny-tiny booties. She had even kept the bright-blue puffy beanie they got for a trip to the snow when Eddie was still in nappies. She held out a bodysuit with green and black stripes and inhaled all the memories that were trapped in its fibres. It filled her with a deep sense of nostalgia.

  ‘We bought this from a market in Queensland,’ Abby said. ‘It’s all hand-stitched.’

  ‘God, who’d have thought your kids used to be cute enough to pull these off,’ Bobbi said. She had just plucked out one of Lori’s old sleeping gowns, and it seemed impossibly small.

  ‘I know, right? What happened to them? I can’t believe they used to actually fit into—’

  ‘Oh no,’ Bobbi said, fingering a jagged hole at the base of the gown, roughly the size of a fifty-cent piece. ‘Ab, how long since you last checked these?’

  Abby didn’t answer. She’d just discovered a pair of red woollen booties, riddled with holes. She riffled through the crate, pulling out item after item. Everything was moth-eaten. It hurt her more than it should have.

  When the weather cooled, moths appeared all over the island. Fat, brown and blind, they gathered in huge numbers by Abby’s verandah light, thrumming in wild chaotic unison like hundreds of pieces of a greater whole. They clung to the air vents above Abby’s check-out at the Buy & Bye, lay in wait whenever she went to split an old shard of firewood and danced wildly in the headlights over her car. And, they ate her kids’ clothing.

  ‘Damn,’ she said softly.

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up. Those little fuckers get in everywhere. A couple of mornings ago I heard Maggie give this God-awful scream from the kitchen. She’d just poured herself a bowl of bran flakes and it was practically full of moth larvae. I asked her what the big deal was – it’s not like she’s a vegetarian. She didn’t think that was funny.’

  ‘I wonder why,’ Abby said.

  ‘Seriously though, are you okay?’

  Abby neatly folded the clothing, set it back down in the crate and shut the lid. She shrugged. ‘Yeah, this just feels a bit like a bad omen.’

  Right on cue, the two-way radio on Bobbi’s lapel shrieked. It spat radio static for a moment, and then a gruff male voice said, ‘Bobbi, are you around? Over.’

  Bobbi put her index finger to her lips. She was, after all, on duty. She gave the radio a squeeze and said, ‘What’s up, Sarg?’

  ‘I need you over at Beech Tree Landing,’ the voice on the other end of the radio squawked. ‘This might be a big one, Bobbi. Over.’


  Abby and Bobbi exchanged a curious glance.

  ‘That’s a worry,’ Abby said. But neither of them could quite hide their excitement.

  5

  THE WIDOW

  Kate’s home was an elegant renovated Victorian house in the inner suburb of Caulfield. It was open and bright, with original leadlight windows and polished banisters. The extended living space was wrapped with floor-to-ceiling windows that, at sunset, reflected and refracted light like a prism. But it was long after sunset now. John was out there, someplace beyond the glass, someplace beyond the dark.

  And somehow, beneath a four-metre-high ceiling, Kate felt claustrophobic. Her sneakers slapped loudly against the oak parquetry flooring as she looked for her daughter. Under other circumstances she would have insisted on enforcing her strict no-shoes-inside policy, but a few scuffs didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.

  Mia was sitting on the leather sofa in the living room with her grandmother, Pam. She had hardly talked or eaten since returning from the airport without her father and was now staring dreamily out the window. With the front light switched off, the glass was a black mirror, reflecting a pale, ghostly version of Kate’s daughter.

  Pam didn’t hear Kate approach – she was completely deaf in one ear and refused to use a hearing aid because it would make her look too much like her mother. She was in her seventies but had the taut smooth skin of someone much younger. Clutched in her hands was a Gucci handbag and an extravagant pair of Saint Laurent cat eyes – six-hundred-dollar sunglasses.

  ‘Daddy loves you very much and I’m sure he misses you,’ Pam told Mia. ‘He just needs to stay away a little longer. For work, that’s all. He’ll be back soon.’

  ‘How soon?’ Mia asked.

  ‘Just as soon as he can, darling.’

  John’s parents had descended on the house and set up base. Fisher was a chain-smoking wreck, while Pam was unnervingly calm. Kate wasn’t sure which was worse.