by C. A. Larmer
The woman reread the newspaper report about a Joan Doe discovered mutilated at Rushcutters Bay. It made her stomach shudder and she hid it, quickly, out of sight. She knew she should not be reading it. Breathing deeply, she leant forward in her chair and applied strong brush strokes, slowly, surely, across the clean white canvas. She didn’t like the man before her but she didn’t have a choice. The green would make good skin coloring she thought, wickedly, and began mixing the palate, relishing the sensuality of the paint as yellow merged with blue to form a glowing green hue. It reminded her of Limrock Lane and the old days, before. Things weren’t so good now but at least she had her paints. It was really all she needed.
Chapter 3: Catching Up
The frothy white foam was missing its chocolate sprinkles and Lorraine Jones was about to complain when she noticed Roxy’s scowl and shut her lips. Her daughter had no patience for her, she knew that, and she knew why. They were like chalk and cheese, it had to be said, there was no helping that. But she really wished her daughter would try slightly harder to be a little more, well, accommodating.
‘I don’t know why you like this place,’ she said, unable to help herself as Roxy stared into her latté.
‘It’s full of...’ she lowered her voice a little, ‘gays.’
‘So?’
‘So. So you’ll never meet a husband in here.’
‘Who says I want to meet a husband?’
‘Well you have to meet one to marry one, dear,’ her mother scolded, missing the point. Or at least pretending to.
Roxy stared past her to the bustling room beyond. They were in inner-city Surry Hills in a small cafe called Lockies, with cozy lounge chairs to snuggle into and a fireplace that roared in winter. The walls were cluttered with amateur works of art, mostly by the owner, a gangly Scottish guy called Loghlen, and Roxy wondered now if he knew anything about Heather Jackson.
‘So what happened to your face?’ her mother was asking and Roxy reached her hand up to stroke the fine scratches still left along one cheek.
‘Fell over myself yesterday.’
‘So that explains the glasses.’
‘Yes, I know. Hideous.’
‘They’re fine dear, better than the other ones, they made you look like Nana Mouskouri, or whatever her name is. Easy with the sugar dear.’
Roxy continued pouring the sugar dispenser into her coffee. ‘So how’s Charlie?’
‘Fine dear.’
‘Shot any living creatures lately?’
Lorraine glared at her daughter, weighing up her sarcasm and then said, ‘Nothing wrong with hunting, dear. Man has been doing it since the Stone Age.’
‘Yeah and you would have thought we’d progressed a little since then.’
‘We have,’ she said. ‘We use rifles now not spears—a far more accurate kill.’
Roxy couldn’t help a smile and Lorraine winked back. ‘Roxanne you really shouldn’t take life so seriously.’
‘Hmf!’ she snorted but let the subject drop. She wasn’t in the mood for politics, certainly not that of Lorraine and her stepfather Charlie. They were old-school conservatives, and the antithesis of Roxy. As the older woman scooped up her froth, Roxy wondered how they could be so different. Lorraine was almost 60 but a smattering of freckles on her nose leant a certain girlishness to her face which she played upon when she could. Her hair was dyed ivory blond and cut into a bob above her neck, and she was wearing a velvet headband, like snooty English schoolgirls were prone to do. Her jumper was camel-colored with a thin gold necklace popping out deliberately over the collar, and her nails looked like they’d been manicured only that morning, the clear nail varnish gleaming as she twiddled her spoon. She dressed and acted like an aristocrat, Roxy thought, without the fortune to go with it. A regular two-bob snob.
‘Charlie wants to have you over for tea next Monday night,’ Lorraine was saying, ‘You available?’
Like her own mother couldn’t invite her. ‘What’s he got planned?’ she said instead.
‘Oh, I don’t know, a nice home cooked meal.’
‘No, planned. What’s up his sleeve?’
Lorraine placed her cup down noisily. ‘Really Roxanne you are the most ungrateful—’
‘Who’s coming over, Mum? Who’s he setting me up with this time?’
Lorraine shook her blond head angrily and turned her attention to her nails, holding both hands out before her as she scrutinized them. ‘I believe he’s a very nice chap.’
‘Muuum!’
‘Now listen, Roxanne, he’s a charming young man called Mason Gower, a lawyer for Featherby & Phillips I believe. You’d really get along.’
‘No, actually, we wouldn’t.’ But there was something about his name that rang a bell.
‘Well how do you know unless you give it a go?’
‘Mum, I’m 30. I know.’
Lorraine pushed her empty cup aside and searched through her brown, imitation Gucci handbag for a handkerchief. When she located one, she dabbed at her lips, removing traces of coffee that weren’t actually there. Roxy glanced about the cafe at the growing clientele. Like-minded people enjoying each other’s company. She felt oddly melancholy.
‘How are you ever going to meet anyone if you don’t accept our help?’
‘Mum!’
‘No, Roxanne, I’m serious. Marriage may not be one big bowl of roses but it’s better than hanging in...’ she lowered her voice, ‘queer cafes and living all alone like a nun for goodness sake. Better to be with a man than miserable.’
‘Who says the two are mutually exclusive? Besides you make marriage sound so unromantic. And you wonder why I’m avoiding it.’
‘I know why you’re avoiding it.’
‘Because nobody’s asked?’
‘Nobody’s had the guts to! Your problem Roxanne is that you’re too independent for your own good, always pretending you don’t need anyone but yourself.’
‘It’s worked well enough for 20 years.’ She regretted the words instantly, not interested in arguments today. But her mother had already taken the bait.
‘Your father deserts me and I’m supposed to struggle to bring you up and be the perfect mother at the same time?!’
‘No but just being a mother some of the time would have helped, and he didn’t desert you. He died, remember? He couldn’t help it. Look, Mum, I don’t want to get into all of this. You called me, you wanted to catch up. Was it to fight or did you have something to say?’
Lorraine placed her coffee cup aside and pouted her penciled lips.
‘I’ll consider dinner,’ Roxy said, trying to cheer up but her mother was still pouting and she felt her own anger rising. Why did Lorraine insist on doing this, every time they met? Roxy drained her cup dry.
‘Look, I’ve really got to go. Oliver’s given me a big biography to write. Better get on with it.’
‘You’re still working for that slimeball?’
She took a deep breath. ‘That slimeball pays half my mortgage. And besides, he’s not really a slimeball—’
‘Looks like one.’
‘Hmmm...Come on, let’s pay.’ Roxy scooped up the bill and dashed towards the till.
At the door, mother and daughter exchanged quick, conciliatory kisses and strode off in separate directions. At the corner, Roxy hesitated and, turning around, watched her mother disappear across the street and out of view. She retraced her steps and slipped back into the cafe.
‘Forget something, Roxy?’ the young waitress asked.
‘No, just wondering if Loghlen is about.’
‘Yeah, out the back I think, do you want me to—’
‘No, I’ll just wander through, thanks.’
At a door marked ‘Head Honcho’, she knocked once, loudly.
‘Yo?’ Roxy pushed the door open and entered. ‘Roxy Parker, good to see ya!’ came the thick Scottish accent of the cafe owner. Tall and skinny, Loghlen O’Hare was a geeky looking guy with a propensity for polyester and a head of thick bla
ck hair that turned into orange pork-chop sideburns down each cheek and fluffy sandbars above each sea-blue eye. His lily white skin was badly dimpled where acne once reigned, and his temperament as mellow as a sleepy Labrador. In three years, Roxy had never seen him cranky, not even during the frantic lunch-hour rush. He could teach both Roxy and her mother a thing or two.
‘Hey, Lockie,’ she said, leaning across to give him a kiss. ‘How’s business going?’
‘Oh, greeeaaat, yeah! You?’
‘Pretty slowly, actually, although I am working on a story right now and I’m wondering if you can help me.’
‘Suuure, suure. Pull up a pew.’
The office was small and cramped with old menus piled up randomly and a paint easel propped against one wall. A half-finished piece featuring yellow sunflowers was resting on the spare chair and Loghlen placed it back on the easel.
‘Nice piece,’ she said, lying, and he shrugged her off with a giant smile. ‘So tell me, know much about Heather Jackson?’
‘The artist?’
‘Yeah.’
He scratched his head thoughtfully. ‘What’s to know? She’s brilliant. Why?’
‘I’m interviewing her tomorrow.’
‘Interviewing her? You looky booger! I didn’t think she did interviews.’
‘That’s the problem, she doesn’t so I don’t know much about her.’
‘Well, she’s an abstract artist…’
‘Oh I know all that. I’m just wondering if you know any personal details? Boyfriends, hobbies, scandals, that sort of thing.’
‘Aye, you want the juicy stuff, eh? Let’s see... she’s unmarried as far as I know and there’s never anyone too serious on the scene; her hobby would be art, I guess, and as for scandals?’ He brought his long, skinny fingers together in a prayer-like manner and rested his ruby lips upon them, thinking. Eventually comprehension flickered across his eyes. ‘Aye, that’s right. There was qui’ a bit of press about a book that was going to come out.’
‘Yeah, a couple of ex-lovers were having a whine.’
‘No, no, no’ that. There was somethin’ else...her maid, or someone like that was about to do a tell-all. I remember it because I was studyin’ Heather at art school and, well, to be honest I didn’t want to know the oogly truth. I just like her work. Why should anything else matter?’
‘And did the maid talk?’
‘No’ as far as I can recall. Ye know, I have a fuzzy feeling she might even have disappeared. You know, it all went kinda silent after that. But this was at least 15 years ago and me memory’s not what it used to be.’
‘So how did you know the truth was, as you say, “ugly”?’
‘Well if it was nice do ya think she would’ve vanished? My guess is, Heather paid her off to shut up and leave town. I never heard of a celebrity puttin’ a stop to good publicity.’
‘Especially Heather “the hedonist” Jackson.’
‘Hey, easy there. I have bi’ of a soft spot for her, in case you couldn’t tell. Even if she can only paint one style.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well she never does anything but abstract portraits. You don’t find that a little strange?’
Roxy shrugged her shoulders. ‘To be honest, I wouldn’t know. Is it?’
‘I reckon so.’ Lockie leant towards a bookcase and retrieved a thick textbook subtitled ‘Modern Australian Artists’. ‘Take a look for ya’self, around section six, I think. But then what do I know? I’m no art critic, can’t even ge’ a sunflower right.’
‘You could try chopping off one of your ears,’ Roxy suggested and Loghlen laughed uproariously. ‘Can I hold onto this book for a while?’
‘No worries. So, you wan’ a cuppa?’
‘Already had one, thanks Lockie.’ She placed the book in her handbag and got to her feet. ‘Gotta go.’
‘That should be your second name,’ he cried out as she closed the door behind her.
Halfway along Pitt Street in the heart of the city, Roxy located a well-lit shop called ‘What A Spectacle!’ She entered and, ten minutes later, returned outside with her new glasses firmly in place. They were identical to her last pair, with a tortoise-shell rim that was thick and glossy and shaped in the current wayfarer style. She adjusted them on her nose and headed back down Pitt Street towards her car. She had 20 minutes to get across town and down to Mosman. Didn’t want to keep Beatrice Musgrave waiting.
‘Good afternoon, Miss Parker,’ Beatrice purred. ‘Come in, dear, I was expecting you.’
Beattie was well into her 70s, although one or two eye jobs might suggest otherwise, and her pale, bone-china skin was stretched tightly across two chiseled cheekbones. Beside them, on each ear sat two pearl earrings and behind that, her glistening silver hair was cut short and blow-waved back. Today she wore a pale pink silk shirt beneath a thick brown plaid jacket and cream trousers. Add to that brown court shoes and a powdered face and you’d be forgiven for thinking the stylish socialite was about to head out. But Roxy knew better. Beatrice was always well groomed, as though Royalty might drop over at any moment.
Yet despite this impeccable exterior, Beattie, as she liked to be called, was anything but a snob. She lent her name and fortune to a myriad of charities that other socialite do-gooders steered well clear of, from AIDS to Narcotics Anonymous, and was frequently seen dishing out food to street kids and assisting the Salvation Army on their blanket drives. And it was probably because of this, more than the hefty pay check, that Roxy had readily signed up for the job of co-authoring Beattie’s autobiography. Of course she needed to pay her bills, but Roxy also didn’t suffer fools gladly and she knew that it would have been impossible to work with Beattie so closely if she had turned out to be more fluff than substance.
A housekeeper appeared from behind her to take Roxy’s things and then lead them through the spacious lounge room, past antique furniture and extravagant artworks, out on to the balcony where a table had been set up in the shade, complete with a fresh pot of tea and a plate of wafer biscuits.
‘We must lap up this splendid day!’ Beattie exclaimed as she was helped into her seat. Then, with a quick nod and a smile, she dismissed the housekeeper and prepared the tea herself. Before taking her own seat, Roxy stepped to the edge of the balcony to admire the view. They were perched high above a cliff and the water that crashed against the rocks near Balmoral Beach below was vibrant blue and as frothy as a milkshake.
‘Looks tasty down there,’ Roxy declared before joining her host at the table.
‘Tea, dear?’
‘Yes, thank you. Milk—’
‘And two sugars,’ she interrupted, ‘yes dear, I remember.’
Of course you do, Roxy thought, always the consummate hostess. Beatrice Musgrave’s life played out like a social climber’s fantasy. Born into an upper-middle class family in a quiet, leafy suburb of Adelaide, Beattie Alexander had been sent away to a posh girl’s school in Sydney less for the education, it seemed, than the opportunities it allowed to meet wealthy bachelors at the neighboring boys’ schools. And by her account there had been several interested eligibles, including a young lad from rural New South Wales whom she was particularly fond of. ‘Frank was my first love,’ she had said, a little misty-eyed, ‘and you can never forget your first love, not even if you try.’
‘So what was this Frank guy like?’
She considered this for a moment. ‘Sweet. Devoted. And…’ she smiled sadly then, ‘perhaps a little naïve.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Oh dear, let’s discuss him later. I want to get on to Terence.’
She was talking about her husband, but Roxy was not particularly interested in him, at least not yet. She nodded politely. ‘Of course, Beattie, I understand. But, well, it’s important to add some color to this book and it’s often the sideline characters, such as the first love, that do that.’ She was worried. She didn’t just want to write this book, take the money and run. She was hoping that it migh
t actually make a half decent read, sell a few copies perhaps. At this rate, it’d send potential readers into a coma.
Beattie clearly understood her. ‘You will get your story, Roxanne, I promise you that. But I need to get the basics down first. Then we’ll get on to the juicy stuff. And I promise you, there is some very juicy stuff.’
Roxy must have looked surprised because she burst into laughter. ‘Oh dear, you must think I’m such a frightful bore!’
‘No, of course not…’ she tried some back peddling, ‘it’s just that—’
Beattie dismissed her with a wave of one paper-thin, elegant hand. ‘Now, about my husband…’
And so she continued telling her story, of how she eventually married Terence Musgrave, the wealthy heir of one of Australia’s leading department store chains who had been a keen suitor and would make a good match. And so they had married on her 21st birthday.
‘A truly pretentious affair, as you can imagine,’ Beattie had declared with a throaty laugh, and then hesitated. ‘But I guess you’d better not use the word “pretentious”. Say...’
‘Extravagant?’
‘Hmmm.’
‘Spectacular, magnificent?’
‘Yes, either will do. But boy it was a party!’
The party, Roxy understood from her own research, did not last long. Terry Musgrave’s enthusiasm soon switched to other women and he became known as a philanderer, as unfaithful in the bedroom as he was in the boardroom. Yet Beattie had stuck by him and, if the newspaper pictures were anything to go by, mourned dutifully at his funeral five years ago when he had dropped dead of a heart attack during a polo match. Their only son, William, was by her side. But, in the photos at least, he was not weeping.
Roxy had heard a little of Beatrice before taking on the job, mostly through the social pages and mostly regarding her charity work. While it was all positive stuff, Roxy wasn’t convinced it was worth an entire book, but Beatrice Musgrave had insisted. She wanted her story told, ASAP, and she was paying generously for the privilege. Besides, their meetings, for two hours every Monday morning and Wednesday afternoon, were pleasant enough affairs, Beatrice a gracious host, Roxy an attentive listener. In the four weeks they had been meeting, they had even become quite close. And now, with the turbulent marriage years about to unfold, Roxy wondered whether things might start to heat up.
