Good Little Liars

by Sarah Clutton

  ‘Uggh! That’s terrible!’ She spluttered as the alcohol hit the back of her throat like a grenade.

  Clementine laughed. ‘It’s bloody fantastic is what you mean.’ She took a long gulp. She was so small. She seemed completely unaffected. Emma wondered how it was possible.

  Clementine unclipped her seat belt and swivelled, leaning back against the driver’s door. She tilted her head to one side and stared at Emma through the dim light thrown by the phone. Emma squirmed.

  ‘You’re beautiful. I’d love to paint you,’ said Clementine.

  Emma was glad it was shadowy. Her head swam and she felt her face becoming splotchy and hot. How could Clementine, with her elfin face, her velvet eyes, her sweet, perfect features think Emma was beautiful? She felt like a huge, clumsy horse next to Clementine.

  She reached over and took the bottle out of Clementine’s hand and took another swig.

  ‘There was always something about you, Emma. You’re so girl-next-door innocent.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Yeah. You were always like that. So sweet, without even knowing it.’

  The vodka was making Emma feel like she was floating. What a nice thing for someone to say to her. She looked across at Clementine. Would it be possible to swim inside those huge eyes?

  Clementine reached across and put her hand on Emma’s cheek. It felt lovely. Emma closed her eyes as Clementine began stroking the side of her face with her thumb. Then, surprisingly, she felt Clementine’s lips touch hers. They were soft, gentle. They were kissing her. She tasted like vodka and sweet vanilla. It was the most beautiful sensation. Emma thought how nice it would be to kiss her back. Then she was. It was dizzying; gentle, dream-like, warm. She wanted to dissolve in the feeling forever.

  And then without warning, it was as if a cold wind had swept through and Phillip was in the car with her. Emma jerked her head away. What was she doing?

  ‘Oh God, Clem, I’m…’ Emma felt a cloud envelope her words.

  Clementine watched her patiently, a half smile on her lips.

  ‘Clem, I’m not… I don’t really think… well, I’m not gay.’

  Clementine let out a tinkling laugh. ‘Okay.’

  It wasn’t okay. Emma wanted to experience the perfection of that kiss again. But she couldn’t. Everything was wrong.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Emma, it’s fine. You don’t have to be anything. You’re just you. It was just a kiss.’ Clementine looked out over the lights of the city and beyond, to the freezing, endless black of the ocean. Antarctica was the only possibility. A heavy silence settled.

  ‘This place makes everything hard,’ said Clementine. ‘Nothing feels right when I come home.’

  ‘Tasmania you mean?’

  ‘Yeah. But it’s not really my home. It’s a graveyard.’ Clementine wound down the window and tipped her head towards the void. A freezing blast of wind filled the car.

  Emma felt the blackness of the night pour in.

  ‘It’s not so bad, is it?’

  ‘No. I suppose it’s not. I suppose it’s really because of Tessa I don’t like being here.’ She wound the window back up and stared straight ahead.

  ‘What?’ Emma felt a thread of fear.

  ‘You asked me at the pub why I don’t come back,’ said Clementine. ‘I think that might be why.’

  ‘You mean because of Tessa dying?’

  Clementine nodded. ‘Yeah,’ she said slowly. ‘It was a shitty time.’ She pulled a second smaller bottle of vodka from the bag and took another swig.

  Emma turned back to look ahead to the city. The darkness seemed to encourage a tenuous intimacy.

  ‘It was horrible,’ said Emma.

  ‘Well yeah. But not just that. I loved her. Not just as a friend.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Clementine looked away, staring out at the dark sky sprinkled with stars. ‘I told her, the day before she died.’

  Emma stared at Clementine’s perfect profile through the black shadows.

  ‘Oh,’ said Emma again, blank as to what she might be expected to say.

  The silence expanded unbearably.

  Emma didn’t know if she wanted to talk about it anymore either. Had Tessa been attracted to Clementine in return? That would mean she really hadn’t known her at all. Tessa was a chapter from a book she’d read long ago. It was a crazy idea that you could take that book off the shelf to read it again and the words would be different.

  When she spoke again Clementine sounded distant. ‘I was pissed off that she didn’t want me. She said she liked boys. I should have just kept my mouth shut.’

  Emma heart hammered unevenly. She kept staring at Clementine’s profile. The night had a surreal quality. Nothing felt tangible. She was in the car with a famous painter. She had kissed a girl. Clementine had been in love with Tessa.

  ‘It’s good to speak up. It’s staying silent that eats you up,’ said Emma.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I saw something just before Tessa died. I didn’t tell the police about it.’ She noticed that her own voice was breathy, quiet.

  Clementine bent her head closer. ‘What did you see?’

  ‘Oh…’ Emma felt the rattle of emotions clambering for escape. The sickness of the secret, the squirming guilt over her own weakness.

  ‘What?’ asked Clementine again.

  ‘She told a couple of us, the morning she died. She said he was in love with her. She was going to seduce him before we finished school. We didn’t think she’d go through with it. I mean, she was always so confident, but… he was a teacher.’ The awful truth that had been confined for years in the tiny dark basement of her mind was picking its lock. Emma felt her chest heating up. Expanding with it. What she’d seen afterwards had been related. She knew it. She’d always known it really.

  ‘Who was?’

  ‘Mr Brownley… I mean he’s Dr Brownley now. The headmaster.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I saw them. I was in the upstairs store room… I saw her running and then he caught up to her and grabbed her arm. He looked angry.’

  ‘What were they talking about?’

  ‘I don’t know. I couldn’t hear, but they were definitely arguing. I could see that. Then she shook his hand off her arm.’

  Emma was trying to focus. The lights of the town were hazy balls that kept expanding and fading. Clementine’s breath came at her in jerky clouds of alcohol.

  Clementine turned back to stare out the windscreen. Emma wondered what she was seeing.

  ‘Afterwards they both went behind the hedge near where she was found and I… couldn’t see what happened. I didn’t… I didn’t know what it was all about, so I didn’t tell anyone.’

  There was silence for a while, then Clementine spoke. ‘Maybe it was nothing.’

  ‘Why didn’t I tell the police?’ asked Emma, as if Clementine could fathom the murky depths of her conscience. ‘It could have been important. It’s just… I mean, he was such a nice teacher and everything. He was lovely. I didn’t want to cause trouble, or say anything bad about Tessa in case it was just her being silly. But if they’d been together it would have been important to the police investigation, wouldn’t it?’ She turned to Clementine, wanting something she couldn’t articulate. Agreement? Absolution? She felt an inkling of nausea mixed with fear. The start of the downer. The vodka was turning tricks.

  ‘I should have said something. I’ve felt guilty for years, keeping that secret. But I suppose I thought, well, maybe it was nothing. We were all kind of crazy over him, and I thought, well, maybe nothing happened with her plan. I mean she probably backed out! She said she was going to go to his house. But maybe she didn’t – that’s what I told myself.’

  Clementine stared out the window. ‘He’s my uncle, Emma.’

  Emma’s stomach lurched. She had forgotten that about Clementine. That Dr Brownley was her uncle. But it didn’t matter. Now that she had said the words out loud, she knew it was the tru
th. Jonathan Brownley had been involved, whether Clementine believed it or not. She felt a lead weight descending on her through the darkness.

  ‘Jon’s my uncle,’ Clementine repeated, almost to herself. ‘He’s a good guy. He’d never have hurt Tessa. Even if you did see them together, that doesn’t mean anything. Maybe she just ran ahead and fell into the hole. If she was upset, she might not have been looking.’

  ‘There was a barrier around the building site.’

  Emma felt a shiver of fear. There were too many puzzles to Tessa’s death. Why would Tessa have been in that part of the school so late? It wasn’t near anywhere she might have been going to. The nearby gates were always locked. Why would she squeeze inside a building site area that was fenced off? Why was she arguing with Jon Brownley?

  Clementine spoke again. Her words didn’t seem to follow from the ones before. ‘When I left for art school in Sydney, I told Mum I wasn’t coming back to this hole. She knew I hated the way this whole town talked about each other, so she didn’t tell me much about what went on back here. I guess I was partying and drinking too much and doing lots of other stupid stuff. I managed to push Tessa – the whole thing – out of my head after a while.’

  Emma pondered Clementine’s words. ‘Well, you couldn’t help it if you loved her. I’ve tried to forget it all too. But, Clem, what if he did have something to do with it? If he pushed her? Is it ever too late to go to the police?’

  Clementine turned to Emma, her eyes huge. ‘He’d never have hurt her, Emma. Why would he? I know you’re wrong about this and if you say anything, you’ll bring him down, even though he’s innocent. He’s high profile. Respected. What could the police do anyway now? There’s no proof. It’s just speculation and he’s a good guy.’ Clementine rested her elbows on the steering wheel, then flopped her face into her hands.

  Occasionally, Emma still woke with nightmares about school. Usually it was because she hadn’t studied for her maths exam. In her dream, she would look at the scribbled equations on the page taunting her like an ancient unknown screed. Then she’d wake in a sweat, and realise, with supreme relief, that she was a grown-up, with a family and no more maths exams ever again.

  But very occasionally, the dreams would be about Tessa – sitting on the circular slatted chair around one of the huge trees in the South Courtyard and she would be calling out to Emma in the drama room. I’m not going to die. Don’t worry, that was just a dream. He loves me. Then Tessa would run towards where they were digging the foundations of the new building and Emma would be screaming at the very top of her lungs, STOP! But the window was closed and her fingers were scrabbling with the catch, pushing it round, jerking at the window rim. Open. Please just open. She was always trying to call out as she yanked it up, but Tessa couldn’t hear her. Each time she’d wake herself up with the scream – Stop! She’d be sweating, heart pounding. She would turn on the light and take a sip of her water, then put it down with a shaky hand and Phillip would mumble, ‘What’s the matter? Are you alright?’ She’d wipe away the tears and pretend she was fine. Tessa was dead, and each time it seemed like the first time she’d heard.

  The thing was, she’d always known Jonathan Brownley was there, at the edge of every single dream. His gleaming, blond hair and heavenly face. A perfect shadow. His beauty was a pure counterpoint to Tessa, who hadn’t been beautiful at all. Not really. She had a big nose and an ordinary kind of face. Her hair was brown and straight, although she teased some body into it. Her eyes were a lovely dark brown, but they were just a standard sort of size. Tessa had one exquisite feature though – her perfect, olive skin. There was a purity in it that marked her as special, and once you knew her, those other ordinary features suddenly became something. If a stranger had said to you ‘Who was that girl? You know, the short girl, really plain, serious looking?’ You would have said ‘Who?’ and you honestly would have been wondering which person he’d been talking about, because nobody nearby fitted that description. In the eyes of people who knew her, Tessa wasn’t plain or big-nosed. There was something magnetic about her, electric even. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it, but you knew it could be shocking and beautiful and dangerous all in one, like a lightning strike.

  ‘Clem, I really think they had something going on between them.’ Emma felt a clash of emotions – the urgent desire to make Clementine understand that she’d always thought it was about Jonathan; the need to make her feel okay about having loved Tessa; the guilt that she’d stayed silent and let Jonathan’s career blossom.

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Clem, I think it really is possible he was involved in her death.’

  ‘Well – yeah, I get that maybe he upset her about something. But there’s no way he was involved in the way you’re suggesting, Emma. Jesus, why would he be?’

  Emma pondered this for a moment. ‘Because I think maybe he had feelings for her. I’d seen her in the hall with him in guitar lessons. They sang these amazing ballads and they’d just be looking at each other so… intensely. We all loved Tessa, Clem. That voice of hers, when she sang… it made every girl in the school want to be her. And he was just a young guy. What… twenty-two? What if he’d been under the same spell as the rest of us. What if they were involved with each other?’

  ‘Emma, he wouldn’t hurt a fly! I know it was a lifetime ago but the truth is, I just know Jonno wouldn’t hurt anyone. He’s one of the good ones.’

  They both sat in silence for a while. Emma knew that Clementine was right. If her secret came out – even the little she knew – it would ruin Jonathan Brownley. You couldn’t have someone who had withheld evidence from police in a homicide investigation being in charge of hundreds of impressionable young teenagers. Not in the minds of the parent body. Probably not in the minds of anyone.

  ‘That vodka’s making me spin. Let’s just leave all this shit in the past and drive this baby home.’ Clementine patted the steering wheel of the car, then turned and ran her finger tips over Emma’s cheek. ‘You are so gorgeous, Emma. You know that?’

  Emma squirmed again and looked out the windscreen.

  ‘You can’t drive down the mountain yet, Clem. You’re drunk.’

  Clementine dropped her hands from the wheel. She stared ahead as if she was thinking hard. ‘You might be right.’ She opened the car door and the wind blew in, ferocious and cold. She slammed the door shut as she got out.

  Emma watched her walk off across the carpark and disappear down the dimly lit path to the visitors’ centre. She stared out at the blackness and wondered why she’d let Clementine drink anything at all. The mountain descent was a death trap. She wondered how Rosie would cope without her if they drove off the edge. Tears welled in her eyes. Would anyone miss her? What had she achieved with her life anyway? She thought of Tessa, a box of bones in the cemetery, nobody willing to blow the lid on her death. She hadn’t spoken up when it counted. Would anyone believe her now if she accused her boss of killing Tessa? How did you even go about something like that? It didn’t matter what Clementine said, he was obviously involved. She couldn’t just live in fear of looking stupid or protecting others. She needed to do something about it. If she got off this mountain alive, she would do something about it. She made a silent promise to herself.

  She wasn’t sure how she was going to keep her job at the school when she accused the headmaster of murder. Or maybe it would be manslaughter. Either way, it wouldn’t look good for Rosie. But there must be some way forward that didn’t jeopardise everything. She would ask Marlee. She’d know what to do. Emma closed her eyes and felt her head spinning sickly. She just wanted to sleep. She let herself dissolve into the feeling, and drifted down into it, losing consciousness for what felt like only moments.

  ‘Boo!’

  Emma screamed.

  Clementine was spread across the bonnet of the car, her face jammed against the windscreen like a bolt of lightning in the blackness. She gave Emma a loony grin.

  ‘Christ, Clem. You scared the p
ants off me,’ said Emma as Clementine climbed back into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Clementine, giggling. ‘That’s cleared the cobwebs. All good to go.’ She started the car.

  ‘How long was I asleep? Maybe we should wait a bit longer,’ said Emma.

  Clementine ignored her and patted the steering wheel then turned the key and revved the engine. ‘Come on, baby.’ They listened to the car’s engine purr in response.

  Emma knew Clementine was still over the limit. She wondered if she could insist they call a taxi. But no sensible taxi driver would accept a fare to come up the top of a winding deserted mountain summit in pitch darkness, and she didn’t have the energy for an argument. Emma clutched the sides of her seat and closed her eyes as Clementine took the first bend. The vodka was making her spin too.

  From: Peta Kallorani

  To: Jemima Langdon-Traves

  Re: Holidays and reunion and things!

  * * *

  Dear J,

  I can’t get that email from Emma Tasker out of my head. Flashes of memories from the day Tessa died keep popping up at the strangest times – while I was tying Theo’s shoelaces this morning and then when I was in the Deli, picking up the fig and prosciutto salad for a tennis lunch today. Weird.

  I suppose it’s because I knew something wasn’t right that day too. Did I ever tell you that I saw Clementine Andrews just before they found Tessa? She was pelting out of the staff cottages, running up towards the far end of school where they found Tessa dead. And then the next day when I asked her about the rumour – about Brownley and Tessa – I remember vividly, she went white. Literally white. She said that Tessa couldn’t possibly have been with him, because she was with her. But I know Clementine was lying, because she was alone when I saw her, and running as if her life bloody well depended on it. From exactly the direction of Brownley’s cottage too. I couldn’t work it out, so I didn’t say anything.

  I’d quite like to skip this reunion but if you’re coming from London I suppose living in Sydney is no excuse! The whole thing is doing my head in though.