The Accusation

by Wendy James

  (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 STAFFROOM 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, 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 staffroom 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 favour. 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 neighbour, 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 towards 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 end up being a wild piss-up as it had for the past few years, the P&C opted for semi-formal 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 only be described 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 school-teacherly bun. When I offered myself up for inspection, Mary asked me if I was going to a funeral, and even Sally – the respite nurse who came three days a week, and on the occasional evening when I had to go out – asked whether I had a bright-coloured scarf, or maybe a bit of red lippy, just to cheer things up a little? I wound a crimson paisley scarf around my neck, added the 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 neighbours, we’d somehow not crossed paths. But I’d googled him, curious about the house and its history, so I recognised 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 farmer-y 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, mesmerised, as the woman made her way to our table.

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

  Karen blushed. ‘Of course not, Honor. I didn’t think you – I was just thinking how lovely you look.’

  ‘Of course you were. I was only joking.’ The woman bent and kissed her on the cheek. ‘You look lovely, too.’ She turned to me and held out her hand. ‘And you must be the famous Gypsy. I’m Honor Fielding – I live across the road from you, I believe.’ She beckoned to the man, who was talking to someone at an adjacent table. ‘Chip, come and meet the woman who bought your old house. I think we need to reassure her that we’re decent citizens. Kaz has been telling her stories.’

  The man looked over, raised his eyebrows coolly, and went back to his conversation.

  Honor rolled her eyes. ‘He’s a rude bastard. I’ll introduce you later.’

  Karen, her colour still high, left the table, excusing herself with a murmur.

  Honor pulled out the empty chair on the other side of me and sat down. ‘You don’t mind if I sit here do you?’ I shook my head. ‘I haven’t been here for two minutes and I’ve already pissed Karen off. I think that’s some sort of record. She was always taking offence at school too. And somehow I always forget that she hates being called Kaz these days.’ She gave a deep sigh. ‘I don’t know why I say yes to these things – everyone’s just as hung up as they were thirty years ago. It�
�s as if I never left.’ She sighed again. ‘And tonight is going to be a debacle. I might be completely trivial, but I’m utter crap at trivia. I offered to make a donation, a big one, instead, but Tom can be very persuasive.’ She looked around the room despondently. ‘Oh, God. This is going to be a long, long night. I don’t know about you, but I need a drink.’

  It was a long night, requiring many drinks. It turned out that Honor wasn’t utterly crap at trivia, which on this occasion revolved around sport, local history and local sporting history. In fact, she was something of a whiz. The other members of the table, including a surprisingly competitive Karen, were equally well informed, and – with negligible assistance from me – managed to win most of the major prizes, including the signed photograph.

  In between questions, Honor and I conducted a whispered conversation, lurching randomly from local gossip to personal confidences in the way that drunken conversations tend to.

  ‘So, are you over it yet?’ she’d asked

  ‘Am I over being the only person at the table who doesn’t have a clue what the hell the Green Cup is, let alone who won it in 1985? I honestly don’t understand how you people remember this stuff. Or why.’

  ‘Ha. No, I meant are you over teaching drama to a bunch of kids who can’t see the point. Country life. Being stuck out of town.’

  ‘Oh. All that.’

  ‘Yes.’ Her eyes were brimming with mischief. ‘It can’t be your most exciting gig.’

  ‘I haven’t been here long enough to be over it. And as far as gigs go, I’ve had worse.’

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘I once did a margarine commercial where I had to butter a slice of bread about two hundred times before we got the take right.’

  I refilled our glasses, noting Karen’s quickly masked look of disapproval. Honor took a long sip, moved closer, lowered her voice even further. ‘Just so you know: the Green Cup was a yearly sporting competition between Enfield Wash and Chester High, and 1985 was the year the students secretly added a “hook-up” tally – although I don’t think that was the term we used. The Wash flogged Chester – and our girl Kaz was the overall winner. It’s not something any of us will ever forget.’

  Back when I was acting, I’d known plenty of women like Honor in an official capacity – talent agents, publicists, producers – but for reasons I could never put my finger on, those relationships never seemed to go beyond the professional. Even though we were all basically engaged in the same business, there was a huge gulf between the two sides. When I first started out I’d assumed people like Honor were the bit-players in the spectacle that was celebrity life. But as time went on, and I witnessed the way the wheel of fortune seemed to turn more quickly and dramatically for those in the limelight, while the people like Honor not only survived, but thrived, I realised the converse was actually true. Now, at such a distance in time and place, there was a peculiar pleasure in talking to someone like Honor, someone who understood the world I’d once belonged to, who had some insight into who I’d been, if only for a short while, all those years ago.

  By the end of the night it felt as if we knew both everything and nothing about one another. And by the end of the night I couldn’t resist.

  ‘So is there a story to tell? About you and Chip Gascoyne?’

  ‘Oh.’ She laughed. ‘Only ancient history. We went out a couple of times when we were kids. Actually, I think it’s possible that Chip Gascoyne has a “story” with practically every female in the room.’

  ‘Actually, I’m pretty sure I don’t have any sort of story with Karen.’ The subject of our gossip was standing right behind us.

  I was sober enough to be embarrassed, but Honor didn’t even blink. ‘Only because she’s some sort of cousin.’

  ‘That’s no impediment. So is Sarah Newman.’

  ‘Sarah? Oh my God. You didn’t?’

  ‘We did.’ And then to me: ‘I think we may have exchanged contracts, but I’ve been away a bit, and I don’t think we’ve met. It’s Suzannah, isn’t it?’ He held out his hand. ‘Chip Gascoyne.’

  ‘Hi. Yes, I’m Suzannah.’

  He clasped my hand hard, regarding me critically. ‘You don’t look . . .’

  I interrupted, impatient. ‘I know, I don’t really look like I do in the photo. It’s already been pointed out. What can I say? It was taken almost twenty years ago.’

  He laughed. ‘I was actually going to say that you don’t look sober enough to drive. And you’re pissed as a newt, Fielding. How about I drive you both home. Pretty sure you’re going my way.’

  The following day I was in the kitchen garden, planting seedlings. I’d come to love the dirty work of gardening – these days it was practically my only physical activity. Where once I would have gone for a run in the early evening, or visited the gym after work, being responsible for Mary had made anything more time-consuming than the occasional quick jog around the perimeter fence difficult. When we’d first moved in I’d decided that while the front garden was too daunting for anything but mowing, I’d have a go at resurrecting the old kitchen garden. I’d also imagined that growing vegies could provide some sort of occupational therapy for Mary, get her out of the house, give her an interest, but she’d looked at me as if I was mad. Gardening is for the elderly, she’d said dismissively.

  I’d already had some success. My initial efforts had produced more pumpkin and zucchini than two people could ever eat, and I’d been inspired to plant more. I took a taxi into town to pick up my car, and despite my hangover, called in to the local nursery and bought seedlings: lettuce, spinach, broccoli, beans.

  No doubt there were other things someone with even a smattering of gardening knowledge would have known to do as preparation, but I was blissfully ignorant. My modus operandi involved simply pulling out everything that had previously taken root, whether weed or not, turning the soil in the established beds, then pushing the little sprouts in, patting the dirt around them, adding water.

  I was digging in the bean seedlings when a deep voice asked dryly, ‘You do know beans need something to climb up, don’t you? They’re a vine.’

  It was Chip Gascoyne. He looked like a picture-book Aussie farmer – the tanned sinewy forearms, untucked checked shirt, riding boots, jeans, Akubra tilted back on his head.

  ‘I thought I’d come and check that you’d survived the trivia night. And see whether you needed a lift into town to pick up your car. But it looks like you’ve already got that sorted.’

  ‘I didn’t actually drink that much.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘So you can remember what you said to me when I dropped you off?’

  I tried to remember the possible indiscretion, but came up blank. ‘You dropped me off?’

  The joke was lame, but he grinned anyway.

  ‘So what embarrassing thing did I say?’

  ‘It’s okay. You only said thank you. Or maybe thanks. You did better than Honor, though.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I had to practically carry her inside. Lucky I know where she hides her front door key. You’re clearly in good shape today. You could probably do with a shower, though.’

  I looked down – my knees and fingers were black, and there were smudges of dirt on my legs, my shirt, and no doubt on my face too.

  Chip was looking around at the garden beds. ‘It’s good to see this all coming alive again.’

  ‘Well, I hope it all actually stays alive. I’m completely clueless, really. Do the beans really need something to grow up?’

  ‘I think so. Though I’m not really much of a gardener either. You’ll probably get a better crop than we ever did. Mum was good with flowers, but her kitchen garden wasn’t ever much chop. The only thing that ever grew was pumpkin, and they weren’t those sweet Kent ones you get at the supermarkets now. They were those old man blues. Jesus Christ – every year we all prayed for Mum’s pumpkins to fail. She insisted on us eating every single one, which meant we had pumpkin in some shape or form for months. And to
be honest, there aren’t that many shapes or forms. I think we maybe got a few weeks’ reprieve.’

  I went to tell him about my own success with pumpkins, but was interrupted by the slam of the screen and Mary’s ringing tones. ‘Well, what have we got here? If it isn’t farmer Jones.’

  Mary had her hair in two long messy braids, with a few grey feathers (from a pillow, a feather-duster?) poked in the ends. She was wearing a long floaty stretch-cotton skirt – hers – and a loose but low-cut raw cheesecloth top – a relic from my misspent youth. Her feet were bare, and almost fluorescently pale, her toenails painted badly in an assortment of bright colours, the enamel covering almost as much toe as nail. She had two circles of bright red on her cheeks – my lipstick, no doubt – and her eyes were rimmed with black.

  ‘Mary, this is Chip Gascoyne. We bought the house from him.’

  ‘I know who Chips Rafferty is. My dad always watched that movie whenever it came on – what was it? Something to do with cows and the Japs; I can remember that. God, it was boring.’ She looked over at him suspiciously. ‘You were younger, though. And you had those terrible sticky-out ears. I always felt embarrassed for you.’

  ‘No, he’s not—’

  ‘Well, I guess we were all a bit younger then, weren’t we?’ Chip had slowed down his speech, put on a country drawl. ‘And I eventually had my ears pinned back.’ He took off his hat to give her a better view.

  She looked him over critically. ‘You’re definitely older, but you’re actually better looking in the flesh.’