by Kim Lock
Fairlie digs her fingers into her palms. She doesn’t give a tiny skidmark about local political history and people in the shops. ‘Bullshit!’ she cries. ‘This is about the colour of my skin. You couldn’t fucking hide it. Black people stick out amongst all your white privilege.’
Evelyn shakes her head furiously. ‘It’s not that.’
‘Balls –’
‘Fairlie,’ Pattie scolds. ‘Just listen.’
Fairlie bites her tongue until red spots appear in her vision.
‘After you were born, I tried. I tried to make it work for months. But we were prisoners inside the house. Eventually, Stephen couldn’t cope, and I couldn’t cope, and it all began to fall apart.’ Evelyn swallows thickly. ‘I loved Stephen, and I was committed to him. But that other man?’ Her sigh quavers dangerously. ‘God, I loved him. But people don’t get that – you simply cannot love two people. They don’t see that it’s possible – all they see is a slut.’
Jenna’s mother goes on. ‘I loved two men. But because of that I betrayed them both. I betrayed you both. Could I have hidden it forever? No. One day the truth would have come out. And I’d hurt everyone I loved.’ Evelyn presses a hand beneath her nose. ‘I couldn’t be a good mother to you. You deserved a life – a great life – and this way you could have it. You deserved a good mother. So I found her.’ Evelyn finishes, weeping silently. Pattie reaches over to squeeze her hand and Fairlie feels like she’s wandered onto the set of a soap opera.
Evelyn continues, ‘Watching you grow up, so close . . . There was part of me that was grateful that I never really lost you. But seeing you every day was like rubbing salt in the wounds.’
‘You poor thing.’ Fairlie’s tone drips sarcasm.
‘I get it, Fro,’ Evelyn sobs angrily. ‘You can be mad at me. But watching you every day was an utter joy. I felt so lucky to be a part of your childhood. You grew into this amazing person and it was a . . .’ she searches for the right word, ‘gift for me to even observe that, let alone play such a big part as Jenna’s mother. I was your best friend’s mother.’ She dashes tears from her cheeks. ‘It felt like an undeserved mercy. I got to be with you.’
The room goes quiet.
‘I was right around the corner for nineteen years, Ev,’ Fairlie says at length. ‘Why didn’t you ever tell us earlier?’
Jenna’s mother deliberates, taking her time to answer. ‘We wanted to tell you both. But . . .’ A shudder racks her body. ‘It was an awful time. Recalling it became more and more traumatic. With each year that passed, the scars just seemed too strong to pick open.’
With her long fingers, Evelyn rubs at a seam on the upholstery; outside on the street an engine revs momentarily and then quietens.
Evelyn says, ‘There’s something else I haven’t told you.’
‘Evvie,’ Pat warns. ‘Maybe that’s enough for today.’
‘No, it’s time.’
‘Evelyn’s right.’ Fairlie sits up straighter. ‘All out in the open. What happened?’
Pattie grips Evelyn’s hand firmly, gives it a fortifying shake. Then Evelyn says, ‘They tried to kill him, Fro.’
Then Evelyn looks into Fairlie’s eyes and begins to tell her about her father.
20
THEN
The elastic bands snapped around the pile of books. Jenna lowered the bundle into the box, then stuffed balls of newspaper to secure them. Long strips of packing tape peeled from the roll with screeching sounds. Wrapping the strips tightly around the whole box, she picked up a marker and wrote on the cardboard.
The sound of the LandCruiser rumbled up the driveway. Hastily, Jenna ripped the last strips of tape between her teeth, securing the flaps down tightly. She fought the urge to hide the box.
Her heart was knocking back and forth as the front door opened and closed, Henry exclaimed ‘Dada!’ from the lounge room, and Ark strode into the kitchen.
Henry was clutched high on his chest; Ark had one arm slung effortlessly around his small body, veins standing up in his bare forearm. Four years ago, at the pub, it had been the same smile: promising, convivial, almost peaceful, like upward-held palms. Promises. Reassurances.
It was all bullshit. All shattered.
But Jenna smiled back because it eased the fisted knot at her sternum. She masked the tremor in her hands by smoothing the tape down snugly over the box, then busied herself gathering tape and scissors and markers from the table.
‘I had an excellent day,’ Ark said. He came to kiss her, leaning down to linger over the kiss, Henry giggling and puckering up at his father’s cheek. ‘Found a dozen pickers easily.’ He set Henry down and the toddler immediately fastened himself around Ark’s leg. ‘What you got there?’ He tilted his head to read her handwriting on the cardboard. ‘“Birth kits”? What are they?’
‘Donations,’ Jenna answered smoothly, resting her hands on the parcel. ‘Women in third world countries give birth in terrible, infectious conditions. A charity is asking for donations – sterile scissors, suture kits, scalpel blades –’
Ark shuddered and turned his face away. ‘Okay, that’s all I need to know.’
Internally Jenna apologised to women worldwide for using their trauma for her own lies, then said aloud, ‘Sorry. Will you take me to town so I can drop these at the post office?’
A pause. Her heart thumped. Then he nodded.
She exhaled. ‘So. You found enough pickers?’
‘Yes! And even better,’ he said, heading for the fridge and dragging a giggling Henry on his leg, ‘I’m paying them the same wage as last year.’
Jenna said, ‘It’s all working out for you.’
ii
‘Jen, have you seen any workbooks around?’
Nausea flushed her skin. ‘Workbooks?’ she asked. ‘Like what?’
He came into the lounge room and his whitened face terrified her. ‘Spiral-bound notepads with hard covers,’ he was saying. ‘They’re . . . really important. Records of stuff. Business things – finances and important dates.’
‘No, sorry.’ She frowned and tried to look concerned. ‘Important?’
‘Very,’ he said, raking an agitated hand through his hair. ‘Eight years worth of records.’
‘Shall I help you look?’ Jenna held her breath.
He swore quietly. ‘No.’
He left the room.
Jenna breathed out.
iii
Two weeks later.
Jenna waited for Ark to emerge from the fridge with his beer and then asked, ‘Can we go for a quick drive?’
‘Where to?’ He flicked the bottle-cap into the sink.
Clearing her throat, she forced herself to casually hold his gaze. ‘I want to stop by the cemetery, actually.’
He stiffened. ‘Why?’
The lie came out easier than she’d thought. ‘It’s the anniversary of Jennifer’s death – you know, the nurse I used to work with on night shift? I wanted to pay my respects.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, babe,’ he said with genuine sympathy. Of course, Jenna thought sourly, he always had sympathy for everyone else. Maintaining the ‘good guy’ façade meant adhering to social responsibility – sympathy, kindness, joviality. Being considered by others as anything other than a great guy was simply unthinkable. Ark’s shoulder hitched. ‘Someone you knew well?’
Jenna shook her head. ‘Not really. But I wanted to do the right thing, you know?’
‘Sure.’ He nodded slowly. ‘I can’t . . .’ He tore a strip from the label of his beer, looking at her with apology. ‘As you know, but . . .’
‘It’s okay.’ She took the scrap of label from him and balled it in her fingers. ‘I’ll only be a minute. You can wait in the car with Henry, perhaps?’
Relief crossed his features, then he made to set his beer on the counter. ‘Now?’
>
‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘finish your drink.’ She flicked the ball of paper into the sink. ‘Did you find those books you were looking for?’
*
They pulled up at the top of Old Cemetery Road. Ark rolled two wheels onto the knotty grass shoulder, leaving the engine running. When he turned to her, she could see his terror in the set of his jaw.
Ark took hold of her arm.
Leaning across Henry, strapped snugly between them, she kissed her husband’s cheek with all the affection she could muster. ‘I’ll be fast. Are you sure you don’t want to take Henry for a milkshake or something?’
‘We’ll wait here.’ He released her arm, leaving clammy impressions of his fingers on her skin.
‘Won’t be long.’ She stepped from the car.
It took her twenty seconds to come into view of the cemetery. Gum trees surrounded summer-drying lawns, a jumble of tilted old headstones amongst newer, shining granite markers with gold engraving. Rest In Peace; In the arms of Jesus; Much loved and dearly missed.
Jenna didn’t need to glance over her shoulder to know she was out of sight of Ark in the LandCruiser – he wouldn’t be in view of the cemetery. He couldn’t stand to face such blatant reminders of death: the headstones, the dried and rotting bunches of flowers on coffin-shaped sunken ground. The inevitability of it.
Puffing, she jogged through the main gate, thongs slapping against her heels, clutching her handbag against her chest. She slowed, glancing around. Gravel crunched beneath her feet as she strode up the centre path.
Reaching the middle of the plots, Jenna came to a halt beside a tall marble headstone: a deity of some sort kneeling atop a thick pillar. A warm breeze whispered first through a tall pine tree at the edge of the yard, then swooped and skittered across her feet. Something nudged against her bare toes. Looking down, Jenna saw a faded red silk flower resting against her foot. Stemless with cupped sun-streaked petals, it paused there, pushing softly against her skin, before the breeze plucked it again and sent it tumbling away.
She took an instinctive glance back at the road. The LandCruiser was nowhere in sight.
A stillness surrounded her: the warmth of the sun, the uninhibited chatter of the birds, and the calm nothingness of the end of life. The unassuming oblivion of death. There was a peace there, and it felt undemanding and inexorable. Jenna filled her lungs, her head lightening as though she were already moving up and away, out of her body.
Then she turned right, aimed at the side street, and bolted from the graveyard.
*
The mailbox was only a hundred metres away. Jenna sighted it, red like a homing beacon, and sprinted, her breath rasping, the contents of her handbag jostling against her ribs.
Dropping to her knees on the pavement, she pulled out the battered, almost-filled purple-and-black covered notebook and slipped it inside the envelope she’d already addressed to her mother. A few days ago Evelyn had sent her the message Jenna had been tearing strips from her fingernails awaiting: Storage unit all sorted.
Jenna had wept with relief. The evidence would be safer there. Safer than with her mother. What if Ark went looking and confronted her mother? How could she trust Evelyn not to sell her out?
With shaking hands, Jenna pulled out the second envelope. Smaller, letter-sized.
Pulling open the chute, she dropped in first the parcel with the notebook.
Lifting Fairlie’s letter to her lips, the key inside slid into the corner. She kissed it, then dropped it tremblingly into the letterbox.
21
NOW
‘Both of his legs?’ Fairlie puts her hand over her mouth.
Evelyn nods. Tears stream freely down her face. ‘He needed one knee reconstructed. But both legs were broken in several places. After they knocked him unconscious, they propped his legs up on the coffee table and jumped on his shins.’
A gutful of whiskey makes a second appearance up Fairlie’s throat. Twenty-five years ago, Evelyn is explaining, her lover was violently assaulted in his own house. ‘Stephen’s brothers did it?’ Fairlie manages to croak out. ‘Jenna’s uncles?’
Again, Evelyn nods tearfully.
Pattie squeezes Evelyn’s hand, rubs her arm. ‘It’s hard for her,’ Pattie breaks into the taut silence. ‘She hasn’t talked about the attack since it happened. He almost died. She blames herself for that. But it’s not your fault, Ev. It never was.’
Jenna’s mother fiercely shakes her head, then tilts her face up and wipes away her tears.
‘Did Stephen ask them to . . . do the assault?’
‘No,’ Evelyn answers with a vehemence that almost spills Fairlie’s whiskey. ‘He would never. After the birth, when he found out about the other man, Stephen kept it to himself for months. But when it all became too difficult, and he decided to leave, he confided in his brothers. I think he was just looking for support. But his brothers are thugs. Stephen is nothing like them.’
Fairlie says, ‘So after the attack . . .’
Evelyn squeezes her eyes shut. ‘The assault was the catalyst for my decision to give you up, yes,’ she whispers. ‘I realised how selfish I had been. I had to think of others. You were all suffering and it was my fault – I had to make it right, somehow.’
Pattie leans forwards, stretches out to take Fairlie’s hands in her own. ‘Fairlie,’ she says earnestly. ‘Look at me. You were a gift. I am eternally grateful for you. And for Evvie.’
Fairlie pushes the last dregs of her whiskey away, sickened. She doesn’t know what to say.
‘When I was little, I thought I was painted,’ Fairlie says. ‘I thought my skin was white underneath, but I’d been painted brown.’
‘I know.’ Evelyn gives her a small smile. ‘Pat told me. I thought it was cute.’
‘Cute? What fucking drugs are you smoking?’
‘Fairlie,’ Pattie scolds.
‘No, Mum. You have no idea what it’s like to grow up not knowing your heritage. So Evelyn didn’t want to be like her hippie parents? So what! At least you know who they are. Me? Every time a new study came out linking some disease to genetics, I’d have to worry if it would apply to me, if my genetics carried some bomb. Breast cancer, heart disease, mental illness. Who am I? Who are my ancestors?’
Fairlie bolts upright. ‘Wait a minute.’
Pattie and Evelyn both jump.
Fairlie’s heart hammers like a racehorse. Nostrils flare in and out. ‘My biological father is a local black man,’ Fairlie says. ‘His identity had to be protected. And he has severe, old leg injuries.’
Evelyn’s lips quiver as she nods. Pattie erupts into sobs.
Fairlie says, ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Evelyn says. ‘I am.’
‘Little comfort, Evvie.’
‘I might never be able to make it up to you, but I will try.’
‘It just hurts.’
Fairlie knows she is drunk. It’s likely she’s not making any sense to anyone – she certainly isn’t making sense to herself. Her head is spinning, spinning, spinning like a carousel. Her sister, her mothers, her father.
Sister. Mother. Father. Heteropaternal superfecundation.
Outside, the sounds of nightfall have taken over from the day. Traffic from the street has quietened, the birds are silent. Off in the distance a car alarm sounds briefly then stills. They hear the low click and hum of the hot water service.
Evelyn says, ‘I suppose Jenna got her ultimate revenge.’
‘How so?’
‘She finally escaped that arsehole.’
Fairlie can’t help an irreverent snort. ‘You never met him. Bit stiff to be hurling insults. Although,’ she adds, ‘I’ve often shared your sentiment.’
In the silence that follows again, Fairlie’s phone beeps with a text message. Stretching her legs out she fishes he
r phone from her pocket. It’s from Ark: Can I drop Henry 2U tomorrow afternoon?
Henry. Fairlie sends back: Of course. Any time.
‘You’re right,’ Evelyn agrees. ‘I’ve never met Ark. But I know him.’ Strangely, Evelyn smiles. ‘Just recently Jenna began to send me text messages, the occasional email.’ She looks wistful. ‘I thought we were getting there. After four years of silence, I thought she was coming back. She was opening up to me about things.
‘The storage unit?’ Evelyn goes on. ‘I arranged that for her. She asked me to, a few weeks ago. We worked out all the details together through text messages.’
Fairlie’s eyebrows draw together and she sets her glass down. ‘Wait – you arranged the storage unit?’
‘It was Jenna’s idea. She sent me everything in the post, I arranged rental of the unit and then mailed her a key.’
‘Why?’
‘Honestly, Fro, I don’t know.’ Evelyn sighs. ‘Why send it all the way here only to have me put it somewhere else? But she was terrified of Ark finding out. And she didn’t trust me. Can you blame her?’ The older woman traces circles around and around the rim of her cup. ‘I thought she wanted the books in storage so that once she’d left him, she could collect them without having to see me.’
At this, Pattie offers a sad sigh and shakes her head. ‘I wanted her to trust me,’ Evelyn goes on, ‘so I just did as she asked. No questions. It was the least I could do.’
An uneasy roil starts up in Fairlie’s belly. ‘Hang on. What exactly was she so terrified of Ark finding?’
Evelyn eyes her calmly. ‘I think Jenna has more to tell you.’
‘The books? I saw them.’
‘Yes, those too but –’
‘Honestly I was side-tracked by the my-twin-sister-was-separated-from-me-at-birth phenomenon. Forgive me for not giving too many rats’ clackers about a whole heap of dates and figures.’
