Liar Bird

by Lisa Walker

  ‘Don’t go,’ I said. ‘I’m pleased we bumped into each other, because I’ve been meaning to ask you — were you happy with the work I was doing? It’s just that, you know, I didn’t get much support from you guys when the shit hit the fan.’

  Damien wriggled out from under me and gathered up his clothes. ‘Tricky business, that,’ he muttered.

  ‘Don’t rush on my account.’ I swivelled on Anthony’s chest to face him. ‘Stick around — let’s catch up on old times. We never really debriefed properly. And guess what? I’m available again if you need some work done. How lucky is that?’

  He mumbled something about a breakfast meeting and ran out the door, pulling his Lacoste polo shirt on as he went.

  ‘What’s eating him?’ I said to Anthony.

  Beneath me, Ant’s eyes were wide. ‘Cass, Cassie …’

  I jumped to the floor. ‘Shut up, Ant. Coffee. I’ve been driving all night.’

  Striding into the kitchen, still wearing only my G-string, I thrust coffee beans into the grinder and helped myself to Ant’s homemade organic yoghurt. ‘Good morning.’ I waved at the startled couple in the next door apartment, whose kitchen windows looked into ours. They twitched their blinds closed.

  Ant pattered after me, draped in a sheet. He looked like a dog that’d been caught stealing the dinner. ‘It was the first time, Cassandra, I promise. I don’t know what came over me.’

  I ignored him, shovelling the yoghurt down my throat with a wooden spoon.

  ‘You know I’d never do anything to hurt you,’ Ant said.

  I turned on him. ‘What, you just woke up and thought to yourself, I’m feeling a bit gay today? Seeing as Cassandra’s away, maybe I’ll go to bed with Damien? You do realise you’ve become a stereotype — the gay hairdresser?’

  I finished the yoghurt, flung the tub in the sink, and opened the fridge door to see what else I could eat. I was taking this remarkably well, I thought, as I devoured a whole Camembert.

  Ant hovered next to me — poised to run if I turned violent.

  ‘The thing is …’

  He jumped as globules of Camembert flew out of my mouth towards him.

  I finished my mouthful. ‘The thing is, I can’t decide if you cheating on me with a man makes it better or worse. I’m away one week and you realise you’re homosexual?’

  He backed away as I stepped towards him. ‘It wasn’t like that, Cassandra. Damien came in for a haircut and, well, I was lonely without you.’

  Closing the gap, I jumped at him, my breasts jiggling, and pulled his hair. ‘You could have got a dog or something. Did you think of that? Ferrets are very in at the moment.’

  ‘Stop it, Cassie, ow …’ Ant covered his head protectively.

  I kicked his shin.

  ‘I’m sorry, Cassandra. I feel really bad about it.’ He rubbed at his leg.

  I snorted and went back to the fridge. ‘You feel bad about it? How do you think I feel?’ I scanned the racks for sustenance. There was way too much fruit and vegetable and not enough fat, sugar and salt. ‘You on the Israeli Army Diet again?’

  Ant was slumped at the table. He shook his head. ‘Pritikin. I didn’t know if you were ever going to come back, Cassandra. I thought you’d meet a sexy ranger or something.’

  I looked around sharply.

  ‘I know how you feel about uniforms,’ he added.

  Ant and I had first met when he was hired as beefcake for a military-themed launch of a new fashion label. Modelling was a little sideline for him. He’d been wearing a white uniform with gold epaulettes and buttons that I’d enjoyed undoing later.

  Ant’s big brown eyes followed me. ‘I suppose it’s over between us now.’

  ‘I suppose it is.’ I tested my emotions. They were very quiet. Was I repressing a deep grief or was I okay with the concept? I wasn’t sure. Folding ten slices of smoked salmon in half, I slid them into my mouth as a pre-emptive measure.

  ‘Can we still be friends?’

  ‘Todd Rundgren, 1989,’ I muttered through the salmon. I have a photographic memory for song titles from my childhood years.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Joining him at the table, I sipped my coffee. A desperate need to share the horrors of my past week overwhelmed me. ‘Oh, Ant,’ I sighed.

  ‘What?’ Ant eyed the coffee warily, visibly relaxing as I drained the last of it.

  ‘You’ve got no idea what it’s like up there. There are frogs in the toilet. And snakes …’

  ‘Snakes?’ Ant’s eyes bulged. ‘How many?’

  ‘Just one,’ I admitted. ‘But it was in the toilet. I almost sat on it.’ I shuddered.

  Ant reached out and took my hand.

  I didn’t shake him off.

  ‘That’s awful, Cassie. I don’t know how you put up with it for so long.’

  I let the ‘Cassie’ pass. ‘It’s only been a week.’ I’d forgotten that one of the nicest things about Ant was the way he listened.

  ‘It seems like longer,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry, poochy.’

  I waved my hand at him. After all, he’d just beaten me to the inevitable infidelity. It’s not like I’d been totally guiltless. I remembered Mac’s ripped T-shirt with a pang. A lost opportunity …

  ‘I hate to see you looking so sad,’ said Ant.

  ‘No, no, I’m fine, fine.’ I forced a smile. ‘So, you and Damien? Is it serious?’

  Ant blushed and shrugged. ‘I’m a bit confused right now. I feel like an idiot. I’ve missed you, but then he just came along and …’

  ‘Mmm.’ I knew what he meant.

  ‘So, this snake, how did it get in the toilet?’

  ‘Umm.’ My brow furrowed. ‘I’m not sure. Through the roof, I suppose, there’s this hole …’ The roof … Suddenly, as if someone had turned on a switch, I remembered what I’d seen as I’d looked up before going inside.

  Mac had glanced down to check I was going. I replayed that glance: hadn’t there been a touch of guilt there? And then, out of the corner of my eye, I’d seen him pull something out of his backpack … My memory homed in on it. It had been a sack. And, now that I thought about it, hadn’t there been a faint suggestion of movement? My face flushed red with rage.

  ‘What is it, Cassandra?’

  ‘That bastard. I’ll show him.’

  Chapter Ten

  A silly phase

  The drive back from Sydney on Sunday night gave me plenty of time for reflection. Retracing the landmarks I’d passed with such excitement on Saturday could have made me feel bad, but it didn’t. My focus was elsewhere.

  It was funny, but I wasn’t as hung up about Ant as I felt I should be. After all, he’d cheated on me. With a former client. In my bed. I weighed it up. It was irritating, certainly, but was I heartbroken? No. Maybe I was in denial. Would I break down in tears at Newcastle? Port Macquarie? Kempsey? As each town went past I glanced at the block of chocolate on the car seat next to me and decided I didn’t need it.

  Ant had seemed more cut up about being sprung than I did.

  ‘It doesn’t mean I don’t love you, Cassandra. This Damien thing, it’s not like I’m in love. I’m just going through a silly phase,’ he’d said as I got in the car.

  I don’t think he even realised he was almost quoting from an old song again — ‘I’m Not in Love’, 10CC. He just happens to think in mushy song lyrics. ‘Look, Ant, chill out. Take your time to figure out which way you’re swinging, right? You can stay in my apartment if you want, or come and visit me in Beechville — not that I’d recommend it. It’s not what you’re used to.’

  ‘Why are you going back there, Cassandra? It sounds horrible, not your thing at all.’

  It was a good question. It wasn’t like Beechville held any attraction for me. Sydney was my town and I longed to return to its embrace, but it wasn’t ready to take me back yet.

  Ant and I had gone out to breakfast at our usual spot on Sunday morning …

  It had been a funny
feeling to be back in Café le Mer at Manly. I’d felt like I’d been away much longer than a week. I was a soldier returned from the war zone, an explorer back from the jungle …

  I’d soaked up the passing parade of well-dressed walkers and yachts on the harbour like a child with her nose pressed to a lolly shop window. I’d spied a few familiar faces but quickly looked away before they could snub me, pulling my sun hat lower. Their eyes had skated over me with the merest flicker of recognition.

  My iPhone had lain switched on next to my perfectly brewed skinny latte but Wazza was notably silent. ‘Give me a call,’ I’d said to Ant, when I couldn’t stand it any longer. ‘I don’t think my phone’s working.’

  He’d flicked open his mobile and pressed my number.

  ‘Dirty Deeds’ sang my phone. I do like that old AC/DC stuff. I’d picked it up. ‘Hello?’

  Ant waved at me across the table. ‘Hi.’

  Pressing ‘end’, I’d banged it back down. I’d shovelled down my eggs Benedict, but they tasted like rotting seaweed. Why didn’t Wazza call?

  So Beechville was still my bolt hole, my burrow, the cocoon I could hide in until I emerged as a reformed PR butterfly.

  But something else was drawing me back too. Why are you going back there? Ant’s words hung in the air. Sheer bloody-mindedness pretty much covered it. ‘I’ve got scores to settle,’ I drawled, as I slammed the car door.

  I waved at Ant as I drove off. The sun shone on his white polo shirt and caught the highlights in his hair. It was a little sad that I’d probably never have him on the kitchen bench again. My body tingled at the thought. We’d had some fun, hadn’t we?

  Now, I slowed down as I cruised through Coffs Harbour. Looking back on the last nine months, I realised there’d been something missing in my relationship with Ant. It was annoying, after a while, having a partner who did what you told them to all the time. Maybe for some people that would be good, but for me it wasn’t. I liked Ant; he was sexy, obedient and a good listener, but I needed more than that.

  And what I needed was a bit of resistance, a touch of unpredictability, a dash of bad attitude … That feeling with a man of never knowing what you’re going to get back — like a game of ping pong. Mmm, now that was sexy. And when you finally hit that winning stroke that leaves them in awe … well, the sense of achievement. You can’t beat it. Cross-gender verbal ping pong should be an Olympic sport.

  This brought me back to Mac. If putting a snake down a girl’s toilet didn’t qualify as resistance, then what would? As I drove past the Big Banana it occurred to me that I was looking forward to the challenge of getting him right where I wanted him.

  Now that I didn’t have a snake looking up between my legs it was almost funny. He clearly wanted me gone, but why? I thought about it off and on all the way back to Frog Hollow. Why did he want me gone so much? I had that quiver in my stomach I get when my PR antennae are vibrating. That man was hiding something, and I wanted to know what.

  I tuned to the North Coast radio as I got closer to Beechville. An angry emu threatened a bike rider at Broadlake National Park today, said the announcer. I smiled. I wouldn’t say I was exactly glad to be back in a place where emus made headlines, but, well, it beat home invasions and drive-by shootings. And Sam had been right when she’d said it was busy up here. It was amazing just how busy wildlife could keep you.

  No lights showed at Mac’s house when I got there on nightfall, or I would have gone over and confronted him. A package was sitting on my doorstep, though. I ripped it open — my uniform had arrived. I tried it on in front of the mirror. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Too much Girl Scout, not enough va va voom. Luckily I had a stapler and some sticky tape left over from the feral pig morning in my car. It took a couple of hours to get the look I wanted, but I was happy with the result.

  There was another task I needed to complete before I went to bed.

  Living in a house with a snake in the toilet was going to be problematic, but I’d come prepared. I pulled the heavy-duty duct tape out of my handbag, slammed the toilet seat down, not checking to see if it was still at home, and started wrapping. Fifteen minutes later I had the seat completely encased in silver tape. There was no way that snake was getting out of there — not this way anyway. It could go back out the way it came in if it wanted.

  It’s all right, René, don’t look at me like I’m a serial killer. I’d Googled snakes at home before I came back, so I knew they could hold their breath for twenty minutes, and they could certainly climb. It wasn’t going to die in there; I didn’t want that on my conscience.

  You probably thought I didn’t have a conscience, didn’t you? Well, it’s not true.

  Crawk.

  Was I missing you? Strangely enough, I was. Your philosophy had been annoying — who needs that from a frog? Not to mention the way you’d commandeered my toilet, but, yes, the house did seem quieter without you.

  Crawk.

  Never accept a thing as true? There you go again … see what I mean? Who needs it? Where’s the relevance?

  Anyway, the bathroom was now useable, and as for the toilet, I’d sort that tomorrow. In the meantime, there was the grass.

  I gave Mum a ring before I went to bed. I knew I should have called in to see her while I was in Sydney. Manly to Blacktown is a long way, though — I could get to Coffs Harbour, almost, in the time it would take me to get there and back.

  She picked up the phone, sounding breathless. ‘Cassie? You should know better than to call on Sunday at this time.’

  My mind ticked over. ‘Sorry, Mum. I forgot about Gladiators.’

  ‘I’ll have to be quick, darl, they’re about to have the elimination round. I’m afraid we ate your sausages. Brian’s girlfriend came around for the barbie so we had to defrost them. How are you going up there? Is Anthony going up to visit? I really need to get my tips done. I don’t suppose he’ll be coming over here anytime soon …’

  ‘Tell her the one about the interrupting cow,’ yelled Brian in the background.

  ‘Tell her yourself,’ said Mum.

  ‘Mum, I —’

  ‘I might need to find another hairdresser. Don’t tell Anthony, will you? I don’t want him to think I’m playing the field or anything.’

  ‘Mum, Ant and —’

  ‘I hope you’re still using that lavender sachet I gave you next to your underwear. It will keep the insects away — very calming scent, too.’

  ‘Yes I am, Mum, but Ant isn’t —’

  ‘Oh, got to go, Cassie. They’re about to duel with the Sumo ball. Talk to you soon, darling. Bye-bye.’

  ‘Bye, Mum.’

  Mac’s house was still dark when I went to bed; no doubt about it — he was a man of mystery.

  I stopped short as I came into my bedroom. That was strange. My pashmina shawl was neatly folded on the end of my bed. I eyed it — I was pretty sure I hadn’t done that before I left. In fact, I was positive. I hadn’t even realised I’d left it behind.

  A faint aroma rose from it as I picked it up. There was my lavender, and something else — an earthy, sweaty, beery smell. It sounds disgusting, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t at all …

  Climbing into bed, I pulled the shawl up to my nose and pressed my knees together as I breathed in deep. It smelt like Mac.

  I consulted Alice before I went to sleep. ‘Oh my ears and whiskers …’ said the White Rabbit. I remembered the ripped T-shirt. Oh my ears and whiskers indeed.

  At work the next day he was trying for Mr Innocent. I’d got there before him and stuck a note on his computer — I’m onto you.

  He glanced at the note, then crumpled it up without looking at me.

  So that’s the way you want to play it. I opened a new email — I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOUR PROBLEM IS, BUT IF YOU THINK YOU CAN GET RID OF ME THAT EASILY, THINK AGAIN BUDDY. I pressed ‘send’.

  I thought I detected a certain amount of fluster as my email arrived. But then my inbox went ting, there was one from him — Sorry, don’t know
what you’re talking about. Has the frog come back? I snorted and deleted it. He’d soon find out who he was dealing with.

  Grinding my teeth, I moved on to scanning the newspaper — Local Man Nets Record Cane Toad Haul. A blurry image of a man in a battered felt hat accompanied the article. He held a cane toad in one hand and a bucket, presumably containing the record haul, in the other. People in Beechville didn’t have to wait long for their fifteen minutes of fame. Everyone got a turn in the limelight. There was something nice about that, I supposed.

  My inbox had a couple of grenades I needed to deal with, notably an angry email from Christine Bowles. Where is the mouse? The Minister will want to hear of this.

  With everything else that was going on, I’d completely forgotten the mouse. I’d had to pack the trap away for the weekend as apparently it was a breach of animal ethics or some such to leave it unchecked for longer than a day. I set it up again with a blob of peanut butter before I checked the rest of my emails.

  Then another one arrived from Christine Bowles.

  My letter to the Minister goes in the mail at eleven a.m. unless I hear from you with identification.

  Just as I finished reading this there was a metallic click. The trap had snapped shut. I picked it up, pushed the door down a fraction and peered inside. There it was, trembling in the corner — that furry little problem. ‘Ohh, it’s so cute.’

  ‘What’ve you got there?’ Rodney had just come in. He did a double take as he noticed my uniform. ‘You, you look good in that,’ he mumbled and blushed.

  I smiled at him sweetly while he got over it. ‘It’s a mouse. I think we’d better ask the ranger to identify it for us.’ I looked over at Mac. His head was pressed against his computer screen; heavy breathing drifted towards me.

  ‘Mac,’ said Rodney loudly. ‘Have a look at this.’

  He started and pulled himself upright. ‘Just, um …’ He yawned, gave up on finding an excuse, and got up from his chair at the speed of an arthritic ninety-year-old. ‘Let’s have a look.’ Taking the trap from me, he pushed the door down a fraction. ‘Hmm, Mus musculus.’ He handed the trap back.