The Wrong Door

by Bunty Avieson

  She looked at the box of clothes on the floor. What was she supposed to do with that? Give it to the local welfare agency? She couldn’t bear the thought of seeing someone walk past in Pete’s clothes. Nor could she imagine throwing them all in the garbage bin with the empty tins of tomatoes and the cheese wrappers. Could she post them to another country? Afghan Refugees, care of International Red Cross. Send them to the Brotherhood of St Laurence in Perth?

  She felt a sudden blinding urgent panic. It had been hovering all day in the recesses of her mind and now it rose to the surface. Hardly aware of what she was doing, Gwennie telephoned Pete’s secretary Laurelle. She would know what to do.

  When the other woman answered Gwennie had trouble expressing herself. Her thoughts came out in a bundle of disjointed sentences. Pete’s clothes. His shirts. There was so much. She was babbling but even as she recognised that, she was unable to stop. Laurelle seemed to understand, replying with exaggerated slowness. She told Gwennie to sit down and write a list of Pete’s clothes. She would be over in ten minutes.

  Gwennie raced around the kitchen. She had one thought in her head and she concentrated on it. Write a list. Write a list. Laurelle needed a list. She couldn’t find a pen. She couldn’t remember where she kept paper. She was staring at the dishwasher trying to think what it was she was looking for when ten minutes later Pete’s secretary knocked on the front door.

  Gwennie stood in the centre of the doorway, limp and beaten. She made no move to let Laurelle pass. It had taken all her strength to open the door. Laurelle put her arm around Gwennie’s sagging shoulders and led her to the kitchen.

  ‘When did you last eat?’ asked Laurelle.

  Gwennie looked at her mutely, tears rolling down her face. She shook her head.

  Laurelle helped Gwennie onto a stool then bustled around the kitchen making a sandwich from what she could find. There was bread in the freezer, a small tin of tuna in the cupboard and one solitary cheese slice in the fridge. She threw mouldy vegetables and fruit into the rubbish bin as she went.

  She studied Gwennie closely. Gwennie was usually such an elegant woman, beautifully manicured and coordinated. It was one of the things the women in Pete’s office disliked about her. No matter the occasion, she made them feel underdressed. But not today. Laurelle was shocked by the change. Gwennie’s clothes were smelly. She reeked of stale sweat. Her hair was dirty and clearly unbrushed. Her eyes seemed to have sunk back into her head. But it was the expression that was most worrying. It was blank. Unfocussed.

  ‘Have you been out in the past few days?’ asked Laurelle.

  Gwennie didn’t reply. She sat on the stool in the same slumped position as Laurelle had placed her. She seemed hardly aware of the other woman’s presence.

  ‘I thought not.’

  Laurelle stayed for an hour. She made Gwennie eat and then she took the box of Pete’s things with her to the car. She promised Gwennie that she would treat them with respect, that Gwennie would not see someone in the supermarket wearing Pete’s trousers, nor would they end up rolling around with the orange peel and cheese wrappings in the back of the local garbage truck. Gwennie also made Laurelle promise she would never ever tell her what she had done with them. On this point Gwennie was resolute to the point of hysteria.

  When she got home Laurelle made a few telephone calls. She called Gwennie and Pete’s doctor, and related her concerns about Gwennie’s state of mind. The doctor promised to call on her. Late in the afternoon, just as the northern hemisphere was waking up, she called Gwennie’s sister Beth in London.

  Beth said the family was in chaos. Her father had put his back out and her mother was run off her feet, looking after the family pub on her own. However, she would see what she could do about taking some time off and trying to get down to Australia. It would take her a few weeks to organise her job but she would try. Her tone made it clear what a sacrifice she considered that to be.

  Laurelle hung up the telephone, shaking her head in frustration. ‘Selfish, selfish, selfish.’

  Gwennie forgot about Laurelle as soon as she had gone. She closed the door behind her and walked into the bedroom, wondering what to do with herself for the rest of the day.

  The pile of Pete’s clothes she planned to wear was lying on the bed and it cheered her. She carefully rehung each piece in the wardrobe, mixing them with her own shirts and jackets. It felt good, intimate, like she was absorbing some of Pete. In a reflex action as she hung the blue blazer, she emptied its pockets. In one was a clean, unused handkerchief and an American Express slip. She supposed she should keep that. Their lawyer had told her to keep anything financial or legal of Pete’s, no matter how insignificant it appeared, and just put it aside in a box for him to sort out. She glanced at the receipt. It was dated Wednesday, 6 March, the week before Pete died, and was for petrol and a can of Coke from a petrol station in Katoomba.

  Gwennie had travelled little outside Sydney but she knew damn well where Katoomba was. It was where one of the women who taught with her at school had her wedding reception. Lilianfels in the heart of the Blue Mountains. Her colleague had fussed and carried on for weeks beforehand till Gwennie thought she would go mad. She was on the telephone to them every day arranging what colour flower petals she wanted sprinkled in the finger bowls. Then there was the saga over the size of the bows on the linen napkins. Gwennie doubted she would ever forget it.

  She didn’t think she had ever heard Pete mention the Blue Mountains and yet it had popped up twice. First the researcher, Ms What’s-her-name, and now here it was again. So maybe he had been up there. That wasn’t so odd, and yet it was. Perhaps he had gone up there for some sort of work project. It was an awfully long way for him to go and not mention it to her. They used to speak a few times a day on the telephone. And Gwennie knew all the projects Pete was working on. Or she thought she did. He cheerfully brought his work home and talked through with her what he was doing and why. It was how he made some of his decisions, explaining the problems to her and solving them as he talked.

  Should she call the researcher back? Maybe this Blue Mountains connection was important. Gwennie was suddenly very interested in what this woman was investigating. If it could shed light on Pete’s death, that placed it high on Gwennie’s agenda. Every moment of every day, every thought and every emotion, centred around him. Gwennie wasn’t interested in engaging with the world and ‘moving on’. There was only one thing that mattered. Pete was dead and dealing with that had become her full-time occupation. She wasn’t ready to let it go. But as the jobs associated with his death started to dwindle her sense of panic began to rise. She was relieved to find a new direction.

  Before she called the medical researcher back she ought to confirm that he was actually in the Blue Mountains. Laurelle would know. She looked at her watch. It was too late to call Laurelle now.

  Ah, his tax returns. Pete kept meticulous records for his accountants. If he had been to the Blue Mountains on a work-related trip it would be in his logbook. Gwennie opened his briefcase again. She didn’t feel sneaky this time. She found Wednesday, 6 March. Pete had written CD – 220km. What was CD, she wondered. She flipped through the logbook to see if it appeared again. There it was. One month prior. On the Wednesday. She kept flicking. The Wednesday a month before that: CD – 220km.

  Something shifted deep in the pit of Gwennie’s stomach. She started to flick faster, looking back over the past six months. The first Wednesday of every month showed the same entry: CD – 220km. Gwennie pulled out the street directory. The distance from the centre of Sydney to the Blue Mountains would be about 100 kilometres. A return trip would be about 200 kilometres. Close enough.

  So what did Pete do once a month on a Wednesday in the Blue Mountains? What kind of appointment could it be? And why did he never mention it to her? Gwennie searched the logbook entries all the way back to July, the start of the financial year. CD? Clare Dalton?

  Even as the thought formed she rejected it. It couldn’t
be that. Not Pete. They had been happily married and she didn’t believe he would ever betray her. No way. Pete would be so disappointed in her for jumping to such conclusions. She was disappointed in herself. Her mind was addled by grief, that’s all, and she had to keep some perspective or it would swallow her up completely.

  There must be an innocent explanation, one that didn’t involve Pete suddenly developing a new character. Perhaps there was something in the Blue Mountains he was keeping secret because it was a surprise for her. A little place he had bought for them to escape to at weekends.

  And Clare Dalton would turn out to be the … real estate agent he had come to know over the sale. Maybe she was an interior decorator he had hired. The house was really run down and needed major work before Pete showed it to Gwennie. And once a month he went to check on the progress. That seemed more likely, though nine months was a long time for Pete to keep anything from her. Whatever it was, it was innocent, Gwennie told herself. But it was a loose thread and she felt she should look into it.

  So how to find this Clare Dalton? Laurelle would be the first place to start. Gwennie would ring her tomorrow. No, better still, she would drop in personally. She hadn’t wanted to visit Pete’s office since he died, despite the open invitation. She hadn’t felt comfortable there since the day she had stopped working there. She knew the secretaries whispered behind her back. Well, let them. She didn’t care. Tomorrow she was going in. She wanted to visit Pete’s office one last time. And though she wouldn’t admit it to herself, she wanted to see Laurelle’s face when she mentioned the name Clare Dalton.

  CHAPTER 5

  Clare listened from the kitchen to Peg and her clients in the lounge room. The matriarch of the Dalton household was in professional mode, pinning swathes of white taffeta to a shop dummy and talking animatedly to the group of five women watching her.

  ‘… with a heart-shaped neckline here … narrow sleeves that come down to a slimline cuff … very feminine …’

  ‘Oh yes, it’s quite demure yet sophisticated,’ said an older woman’s voice.

  The bride sounded unconvinced. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I guess I was thinking something a little less, well, matronly.’

  The older woman sighed deeply and with such long-suffering that Clare assumed it was the mother of the bride.

  ‘Oh Sandra, it’s your wedding day, not a disco,’ she said.

  Yep, thought Clare, spot on. The mother is thinking Princess Diana, while the daughter is more Caroline Kennedy. Happened all the time.

  ‘But that’s my point,’ wailed Sandra. ‘It’s my wedding day. I want to look feminine and sexy. I don’t want to walk up the aisle and have Johnny say no, he’s changed his mind. He doesn’t want to marry a frump.’

  The other three women, whom Clare presumed were the bridesmaids, giggled but didn’t offer an opinion.

  Smart girls, thought Clare. Stay out of it.

  In situations like these Peg was all tact and charm. Clare was often in awe of how her mother could cajole and gently manipulate her clients until everyone was happy.

  It hadn’t been so long ago that Peg would make Clare stand in the middle of the room while she pinned fabric to her. Clare hated that. She was supposed to stay very still for up to an hour at a time, say absolutely nothing and fight the urge to laugh at some of the conversations between the brides and their entourages. Often that was the hardest part. But Clare enjoyed the intimate female world that went with the fittings. The average wedding dress took three months, from first fitting to last. In that time Clare and Peg would get quite a peek into the lives of the clients.

  On rare occasions the wedding was called off before the final fitting and Peg would get a phone call, usually from the bride’s mother who was often angry enough to share all the details, which Peg would recount to Marla and Clare over dinner, much to everybody’s amusement.

  ‘You know the petite Greek girl with the long fingernails and frizzy hair from the big hotel family? Ran off with her bridesmaid. Yup. The mother said she will make her work in their kitchen, peeling potatoes and making chips, to pay off every cent they have spent on the wedding.’

  Clare wondered if this bride would make it up the aisle. First she had to get through these fittings with her mother. Clare could picture her own mother on her knees in front of the mannequin, her mouth full of pins, which she managed to keep in place and still talk, as she created in an instant another fabulous taffeta creation – a little less demure, a little less matronly – that would suit both the bride and the mother.

  The mannequin was Peg’s exciting new acquisition. They usually cost about $1000, she proudly told Marla and Clare. But this one had fallen off the back of a truck and into the lap of her friend’s husband Gerald, who had tied a ribbon in its hair and driven it over secured to the roof of his Volkswagen. ‘Peg, meet Doris,’ he announced. Doris Dalton, with her long painted nails and permanently surprised thirties-style face, stood like a silent sentinel guarding the sewing machine and dressmaking paraphernalia that covered the lounge room.

  Sandra’s voice was starting to acquire the tinge of hysteria that Clare recognised. It almost always appeared sometime during those three months. Why do brides always throw tantrums, she wondered. For a time of life that was supposed to be so happy, often they seemed awfully unhappy. Clare knew exactly what she would wear to her own wedding, so she didn’t expect any stress on that front in the preceding months. It would be a simple cream sheath – no flounces or ruffles.

  Her reverie was interrupted by the telephone ringing beside her. A young male voice with a heavy European accent asked for Peg Dalton.

  ‘I’m sorry, she can’t come to the phone right now. Can I take a message?’

  ‘Could you tell her to come and collect her daughter please.’

  Clare felt the muscles inside her stomach contract in a combination of dread and fear. She had assumed her sister was at the frock shop where she worked a couple of days a week. ‘Is Marla all right?’

  ‘Yes, yes. You’d better come now though.’

  ‘What’s the address?’ She wrote down a street not far from their home. It was near the city, a suburb of terraces and apartments close to the university.

  Another male voice came on the line. ‘And bring more beer,’ he laughed.

  Clare smiled politely at the clients as she told Peg she was going out, saying she had an errand to run. The address turned out to be a rundown old terrace house with peeling paint and no front fence. There was a broken sofa on the verandah and three cars, each partly damaged, were parked half on the curb and half on the road. As soon as she opened her car door, Clare was assailed by the music, loud and full of thumping bass. The front door was wide open but she hesitated.

  A young blonde woman, about twenty, wearing very short shorts came running down the hallway laughing. A man in a sarong was chasing her and Clare stepped aside to let them pass. They seemed oblivious of her. Inside she could hear the hubbub of more voices. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and a party appeared to be in full swing. She tried the doorbell but couldn’t hear it ring above the music. Knocking was equally futile. She tried calling out ‘helloooo’ but it was impossible to make her voice heard. With all her senses alert, she walked through the front doorway.

  It was a typical Edwardian terrace with a long hall down the left and rooms off to the right. The first was obviously a lounge. It was a mess of bottles and overflowing ashtrays, piles of blankets and clothing but no people. The ka-thump, ka-thump of electronic music was blasting out of a pair of waist-high speakers at either end of the room. In the next room an unmade bed was the only furniture. As Clare made her way down the passage she could hear raised voices and laughter from the back of the house. The carpet was sticky under her feet and everything smelled of stale beer and mould.

  The passage opened into an enormous bright kitchen. Each wall was decorated with graffiti, the elaborate sort applied with cans of spray paint and found on train stations.
The benches and a large dining table were covered with cartons and half-eaten food. It looked like the party had been going for days.

  Half-a-dozen glazed but animated people standing around the table turned to look at Clare when she appeared in the doorway. No-one seemed surprised to see her or inclined to come to her aid. They were all aged about twenty, university students who looked as if they spent a lot of time partying. At university there were lots of students dabbling for the first time in drinks, drugs and sex. Clare had never been one of them. The whole scene intimidated and terrified her.

  Clare didn’t like the atmosphere or the way these people were looking at her, as if she had come to join their party. She wanted to get out of there as fast as she could. But she looked slowly about her, giving the impression that she was completely relaxed and confident. ‘I’m looking for Marla,’ she yelled.

  ‘Did you bring more beer?’ yelled back one young unshaven man in board shorts.