Friends Like These

by Wendy Harmer

  Michael unbuttoned his clerical collar and shrugged off his jacket. ‘Have you now? Good for you.’

  ‘It’ll be in the college accounts before the audit and no-one will be any the wiser.’

  ‘You know I’m going to ask.’

  ‘How much?’ Patrick was probably the only person on earth Jo would ever tell. Whether she would admit the rest? She might, depending on how this first confession went. ‘After Suze’s debt is settled, about four and a half million dollars. Which is an extraordinary amount of money...’

  Michael put his wine glass down and felt for his cigarettes.

  ‘No, don’t,’ Jo protested.

  ‘I’m having one. In your kitchen. Bad luck. I need it to steady my nerves because if I don’t, I’ll strangle the cat.’ Jo dutifully fetched the ashtray and Calpurnia, with uncanny feline sense, bounded for her life. After he’d taken the first, steadying drag Patrick was ready to speak.

  ‘Jo, let me be clear about this. Around almost any other table in the world, that news would be astonishing. In a slum in the Philippines or some shack in East Timor, that amount of money would be beyond comprehension. It could keep a village going for decades. But here? With what he’s worth? Maybe fifty million or more? It’s a pittance. What the hell have you done?’

  At the mention of that sum, so way off the mark, Jo knew she would have to tell the rest.

  ‘I know. It’s not a huge amount, considering, but...’ She faltered.

  ‘I thought you had a lawyer. What happened?’

  ‘I went and saw JJ at Parklea last Sunday. I had to. Anyway, that’s what we’ve agreed on and it’s enough. I want to move on.’ Jo turned away to get cutlery, napkins. She didn’t want to face Patrick for the lecture she knew was coming.

  ‘Of course it’s enough. It’s enough for anyone. But is it fair? The bastard has screwed you royally! It happens to so many of the women around here. Oh yeah, you hear about the odd one who gets her dough, but there’s still plenty who get harassed and bullied and choose their “freedom” over what’s rightfully theirs. Tell me you didn’t sign anything.’

  Jo turned back to see him leaning over the bench and eyeballing her, his cheeks flushed. But she’d had no choice. He had to understand that.

  ‘He knows about Suze. Doug McIntyre told Carol.’

  ‘Oh, shit.’ Patrick resumed his seat.

  ‘Yes, “oh, shit”.’

  ‘So he blackmailed you.’

  ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t see it that way. It was just good business sense. He had a commercial advantage. That’s all. No different to how he operates in every deal he does.’

  ‘Don’t do him any favours, sweetheart! Don’t excuse him from rank thievery. He’s no better than a ram-raider stealing an ATM from a shop window.’ Patrick lit another cigarette from the smouldering stub between his fingers. ‘The dickhead! You’re the mother of his kids. He can’t get away with it. It’s not right.’

  Jo hauled on her oven mitts and bent to retrieve the tagine from the oven. She fumbled and the clay lid slid off and smashed on the floor and the rest of the dish followed. She sprang back to avoid being burned by a blistering-hot concoction of lamb, chickpeas, honey, saffron and spices. She leaned against a cupboard door, her oven mitts sliding off her hands to join the steaming catastrophe that was their dinner. The now-ruined stew that was, dear God, her life.

  As they worked to restore the kitchen and found the makings for a supper of toasted sandwiches, Jo told him everything. The size of JJ’s fortune. Her confusion about Suze. Everything she could think of. Except about The Cape. That was too painful to mention, even to Patrick.

  He summed up her predicament succinctly, as she knew he would. ‘I suppose it’s like that old joke: a bloke asks this woman would she be willing to sleep with him for a million dollars? She says yes. Then he says: “Would you sleep with me for two bucks?” She’s offended and says: “What kind of woman do you think I am?” And the bloke replies: “I think we already know that. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”’

  Jo got it. ‘You’re saying that I already made my decision and what’s money got to do with it?’

  Patrick attacked his toasted sandwich and Jo, checking the clock, saw that it was past ten and was reminded that he probably hadn’t eaten for hours, save for a crumb of wafer at the altar.

  ‘Correct. You told me the other night you’d already decided on a course of action. You told me you were going to rescue her, and now the price tag is higher than you could have ever imagined. Does it change anything, really? But, God, Jo, the price of goodness has hit an all-time high. Sixty million bucks?’ He dropped his sandwich back on the plate. ‘There’d be hardly a person on earth who’d give that up. What could you do with that?’

  ‘I could buy Suze—all of them—a brand-new life.’

  ‘You could put them into some witness-protection plan and they could all live happily ever after in the Bahamas. You could buy them a boat and they could sail into the sunset.’

  ‘Not to mention all the other things I could do with a fortune like that.’

  ‘If I had that in the bank for the hostel...’ he added, and fell silent for a good, long moment. ‘There’s got to be another way through this,’ he said finally. ‘We can go to the school, try to make some deal—’

  ‘There’s no deal to be made except the one he’s offered. He said to take the money or he’ll bring in the police and there will be years of torture. And he’d do that. I know he would. There’s the girls to consider. Their friends. They’ll carry that stigma forever. You know how the college network operates. Suze’s mother’s still grieving and she’s not in the best of health. This news would be the end of her. Then there’s Doug and his reputation and his wife...’

  Patrick paused again and Jo could see he was weighing the options and coming up with nothing. ‘Can we trust it’ll never come out?’ he said.

  ‘If JJ gets involved in the cover-up he’ll be implicated. And we can trust if he wants something to stay hidden, it will.’

  Jo poked at her toasted cheese-and-tomato sandwich, her appetite gone. ‘I have to see that money as some kind of mirage. After all, I didn’t even know it was there until two days ago. It’ll all go to the kids eventually. Like I said, four and a half million is still a fortune. I’ll have enough to buy myself a house. Maybe go on a trip, put some in the bank.’

  ‘You won’t be buying anything much around here.’ Patrick pointed out what Jo knew all too well. The fantasy of the Watsons Bay house had already been carted away in a skip.

  ‘I might put an offer in on this place. It’s comfortable.’ She thought of her bed. Of Michael in it. That was a fairytale she was having more trouble letting go of.

  Patrick snorted. ‘Comfortable. While he’ll be living in splendour? I know how much you contributed to his fortune. You raised those kids by yourself while he was off doing...whatever it is he does.’

  Jo got up to clear the dishes. As if the weight of her doubts couldn’t settle if she just kept moving. Patrick was kneading his face and attempting to massage his frustration into something more manageable. ‘Have you told Suze yet?’

  ‘Not yet. I’m sort of hoping that she’ll come and apologise first. Show some sort of contrition. You know, all that stuff you said about “commutative justice”. Expressing her sorrow and guilt.’

  ‘That might not happen,’ he said. ‘It’s the first thing you learn when you’re a carer. I learned it when I was a kid and rescued the kookaburra that got trapped in the chook shed. Remember?’ He held up a finger. ‘It was about to be pecked to death by three demented hens when I rescued it. Then the bloody thing took the top off my finger and flew away.’

  Jo leaned over and peered at it; she could see a faint scar there.

  ‘“To give, and not to count the cost. To fight, and not to heed the wounds. To toil, and not seek for rest. To labour, and not seek any reward. Amen”,’ he recited. ‘I learned that prayer with the First Blaxland Rove
r Scout crew in 1982. Wasn’t till I was training that I realised Lord Baden-Powell had knocked it off from St Ignatius.’

  ‘Well, it’s impossible!’ Jo sat back in her seat and folded her arms. ‘And stupid. It’s the sort of thing they tell soldiers who end up dead in wars.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Patrick agreed. ‘Not any advice I’ve been able to follow. I’d quite happily murder my sister Sheila and bury her in a shallow grave.’ He poured himself the last of the wine. ‘It’s bloody ironic that today’s Maundy Thursday. It’s the day royalty give gifts to the poor. In that spirit at least, you should ring Suze and tell her you’ve got the dough.’

  ‘I will, but it’s getting late now. I’ll go see her face to face. First thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Good woman,’ he sighed. ‘And no-one will ever know how good. I swear, Jo, that in all my years, I’ve never known anyone called upon to make a greater sacrifice...At least in monetary terms. God must have some plan for you I’m completely unaware of.’

  ‘Light sixty million candles for me. Will that get me to heaven?’

  ‘Come on, eat your sandwich. “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.” Matthew 6:34.’

  ‘Bet he didn’t come up with that gem at the Last Supper.’

  ‘No. Probably not.’

  Jo was stacking the dishwasher when there was a knock at her front door. ‘It’s almost eleven,’ she complained to Patrick. ‘Probably Tory, forgotten her damned key again.’

  Instead, it was Rob Reynolds standing under the porch light in his usual ratty attire and, oddly, clutching flowers. There were no hellos. He was ducking, trying to see past Jo’s shoulder. ‘Is Suze here? I’ve been trying to track her down. She said she was going to come over here tonight and bring that five grand back, but then I found this on the kitchen table.’ He held out a manila envelope. ‘I would have called but I don’t have your number. I got your address off the front. I opened it. Sorry. I was worried.’

  Jo took the envelope and then his arm and ushered him inside. Her first thought was that Suze was most likely drunk. Maybe in a gutter somewhere or flaked out in the back of her van, dead to the world. She had been struggling to find any compassion for Suze after the hateful things she’d said.

  ‘She hasn’t been here but she has got a lot to think about,’ said Jo. ‘She could be at the pictures, or...’ The envelope contained cash. It would be five thousand dollars. Jo didn’t have to count it. There was no note.

  ‘Have you tried calling her mobile?’

  Rob was shuffling his feet nervously. ‘It’s switched off. And that’s weird because I know she’d leave it on with the girls away for Easter. They’re on a camp.’

  ‘Is she with her mother?’

  ‘No, she hasn’t seen Suze either.’ His next words came in a tumbling rush over the top of Jo’s thoughts. ‘I got back to the shop and the door wasn’t even locked, although her van was gone. That’s not like her. She always locks up. There was your envelope, this circle of flowers on the counter. She must have made it, but I don’t know why.’

  He thrust the flowers at Jo, who immediately recognised the ‘circle’ for what it was—a wreath. She was sure he knew it too but didn’t want to think what it might signify.

  In the lounge room Rob acknowledged Patrick’s presence with a deferential nod—‘Father’—and kept on talking. ‘I’ve been home. We were supposed to have dinner together. She’s been gone almost six hours now. She always rings. You know what she’s like with letting everyone know where she is, even if...well, you know, she’s not so good with other stuff, but she’s always on time for everything.

  ‘It’s like she’s been in a daze lately. Not herself. She’s been talking about guilt a lot. The bust-up she had with you has hit her pretty hard. You don’t think she might try to...’

  He couldn’t say the words. Neither could Jo.

  ‘To harm herself in some way?’ Patrick put it as gently as he was able.

  Jo was inspecting the wreath. It was an odd mix of bits and pieces—geraniums, bay leaves, a pink peony. At the top, tied with yellow ribbon, were three white roses.

  It suddenly came to her. ‘She’s left us a message in the language of flowers. Floriography.’

  ‘What?’ Patrick was nonplussed.

  ‘In Victorian times they used flowers to send coded messages.’

  ‘She reads those Dan Brown books. She loves all that stuff,’ said Rob.

  Jo could interpret some of the symbolism at least. ‘These three white roses, they represent you and the girls and mean eternal love. The geraniums are for stupidity and folly.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ said Rob. ‘Why’d she name the shop that?’

  ‘I didn’t know that’s what it meant either, until recently. I’ll have to look up the others.’ Jo located a slim volume on a side table. The Bouquet’s Whisper. It was the same book Suze used as a constant reference in the shop. She’d given Jo a copy as a gift before the Jacobsen baby-naming ceremony.

  She flicked the pages. ‘The peony means “shame”.’ Jo gulped with shame herself. ‘And the bay leaves...’ She shut the book.

  ‘What? What do they mean?’ asked Rob, now convinced that his fate might be revealed in the divination of a few green leaves. He’d learned never to scoff at Suze’s witchy pronouncements.

  ‘They mean: “I change, but in death,”’ Jo whispered.

  ‘Jesus!’ Rob groaned. ‘She’s going to kill herself! That’s what I’ve been worried about. I thought she had the other day.’ He buckled at the knees.

  Patrick stepped forward, put an arm around his shoulders to keep him upright.

  ‘She wouldn’t, Rob. She would never do that. She’d never leave the girls,’ Jo said, at the same time fearing that was exactly what Suze might do.

  Then it came to her. The dark shadow of a thought she should have examined in the light of reason and exorcised. And would have, if she hadn’t almost collided with a hop-on, hop-off bus. ‘I think I know where she might be.’ Jo found her car keys and moved towards the hall.

  ‘Where? I’ll come with you.’ Rob went to follow her.

  Jo shot a look back at Patrick, who immediately understood. If Jo was right, seeing Rob might push Suze, literally, over the edge. If she was wrong, he would panic even more. Patrick steered him to the sofa.

  ‘You stay here with me, mate, in case Suze rings. Let’s have a moment of prayer together and find comfort in God’s infinite wisdom and goodness.’

  ‘I’ll ring you as soon as I can,’ Jo called over her shoulder, and slammed the door behind her.

  The moon was one night past its Easter best and brightest when Suze greeted it from her towering sandstone battlement atop The Gap.

  In the midst of a silvery stand of thick banksias and tea-trees she had discovered a clearing that had once been an old gun emplacement, although now nothing more than a few rusty metal relics denoted the spot. In 1894, four muzzle-loaded eighty-pounders had been positioned here to defend ‘Fortress Sydney’. Suze had gleaned this information—with the aid of the tiny light of her key ring—from a handy tourist guide set on a post.

  The moonlight afforded a view right out over the heaving mass of lustrous waves to the glimmering horizon, a perfect place from which to launch an attack. Suze sat on a bare expanse of rock, swigged from her vodka bottle and scanned the ocean. She fancied that HMAS Darling Point hove into view in full, insolent sail and she issued a full-throated command to ‘FIRE!’ The wretched vessel listed, tilted and sank like a stone.

  Suze cheered in triumph. She scrambled to her feet, stumbled to the low wire fence and leaned over it to assure herself there were no survivors attempting to swim to shore. The bottle slipped from her hand and was gone. Swallowed by the rocky jawline of the cliff’s face. She clambered over the barrier to follow its descent. Couldn’t see a damned thing.

  White water exploded and blasted high into the n
ight air. Luminescent. Cleansing. Suze felt the refreshing spray on her face from where she stood, eighty metres up on a finger of stone that jutted into the void. She was beyond anyone’s reach out here. Beyond gravity. Beyond care.

  Waves swollen by the tilt of the Earth and dragged by the moon across the vast expanse of the Pacific heaved and smashed with a roar of indignation, then retreated and found their final expression in deep resignation.

  ‘To be resigned.’ Could this be what her father had been trying to tell her? Why hadn’t she thought of it before? It didn’t mean giving up or giving in. Instead it was a peace. A sigh at the end of a tumultuous journey. Merely an acceptance of the way things were. Down there, way below, was the promise of all that. Peace, acceptance and nothingness. Too easy. Just a careless slump, a tilt and a little letting go and she would be gone too. Down, down she would go into the immensity. In her small life she had hardly been noticed and would barely be missed.

  Her daughters would go on to make great art and music. They might be sad she was gone, but in fact, her absence would be her greatest gift to them. In years to come, when they were famous artists, they would be asked: ‘And can you tell us, where do you get your inspiration?’

  ‘From our mother,’ they would reply. ‘She lied for us and then died for us.’ They would always have a story to tell. It was the blessed legacy of martyred women everywhere. Could a mother do any more for her children’s cause than to die?

  Suze, now certain that she’d arrived at the perfect solution to her problems, sat down on the narrow ledge and dangled her legs over the edge. Her flat leather sandals slipped away into darkness and the swirling sea mist cooled her tired feet. And she was tired. Aching all over. In a moment she’d find rest. She fumbled in her bag for a cigarette and her lighter. Just a moment’s pause as she watched the waves surge in eternal motion.

  Jo bounded up the steps to The Gap and then halted at the top. Left or right? Which way to go? The pathway stretched along the cliff top in both directions and just beyond the dilapidated fence were any amount of sheer, catastrophic drops.