by Toni Jordan
He’s had the best lawyers that money can buy, paid by a friend who has stuck by us. Of course.
‘You’ve seen him,’ I say. ‘Dad.’
‘My chess has improved out of sight but I keep getting Plato and Socrates confused,’ Daniel says. ‘He’s tearing his hair out.’
‘Is he still angry with me?’
‘He’s not even angry with himself. He’s planning a whole new career when he gets out. He’s going to become a fraud prevention consultant. He’s got lectures with banks and police forces all lined up. They’re recommending him for early parole on account of his willingness to reform.’
‘Reform,’ I say. ‘That’ll be the day.’
‘And you, Della? What are you going to do now?’
And right then I know. Now, for the first time in my life, there is no sting I have to practise for, no obligation to fulfil, no work to organise. I am free. There is something I want to do. Something I have wanted to do my whole life, but I’ve only just realised it now.
This is what I know. Her name, of course, and her age. When I was small, I remember Ava once wore a dress I had never seen before to a cocktail party in the city: sapphire blue, kimono-style, with embroidered gold dragonflies and flowing sleeves. When I told her how beautiful it was, she said, ‘It was your mother’s.’ I know my hair must come from her. I know my father met her when she was just seventeen, the daughter of an antique-dealer friend of his, my grandfather MacRobertson, who knew more about ageing timber and gluing Edwardian legs on to modern tables than he ought. I’ve seen her name on the flyleaf of books and once, when I was about twelve and playing hide and seek with Sam and my cousins, I found a small glass jar at the back of the pantry. The contents, brown and evil-looking, were not fit for pigs but a faded piece of cardboard attached to the neck with string said Apple, sultana and cinnamon chutney Marla September 1977. Once I heard someone say she had played lacrosse as a girl. She has a brother who is a printer in Manchester. When she left us, she was younger than I am now.
On the way to the airport we stop and pick up Ruby. She is staying in a motel deep in the suburbs, on the way to the prison. For a moment I wonder where she has found the money for that, but I look at Daniel and decide not to ask. She seems the same, in a dusty pink woollen suit. Chanel. I jump out to open the door for her and she smiles and hugs me a little gingerly. Either I am thinner than I thought or it pains her to touch these revolting clothes. She slides into the back seat of Daniel’s BMW with an easy, familiar motion.
‘I’ve been so concerned for you. So has your father. Lord, you look a mess.’ Then she says, ‘Hello Daniel dear,’ and she leans forward and kisses his cheek.
‘Ruby,’ he says. ‘I hope Larry’s well.’
‘Della. You can’t go in those clothes,’ says Ruby, as she cranes her neck from the back seat. ‘You can’t arrive in London looking like a scarecrow. Let me buy you a dress, something with a defined waist. Something that suits you. And for God’s sake, no pastels. Something dressy you can wear if you find her. I mean when. When you find her.’
We are in the terminal, Daniel, Ruby and me. It’s chaos here. We have had coffee and reheated lasagne and have walked around the shops while waiting. Around us are excited people: pale-faced teenagers with backpacks and crying parents; a group of Asian tourists and their guide who holds a flag over his head and blows a whistle from time to time; a bored-looking businessman carrying a shiny briefcase and reading Fortune magazine. All these people are flying overseas, but there’s one minor difference between me and them. Somewhere, deep in the belly of our plane, they all have luggage.
In the food court near the sign that says International Departures there sits a woman with three small children. The children are slurping noodles, squabbling, crying and kicking each other in the shins. They’ll be on my flight, definitely. The way they kick, probably in the row behind me.
Ruby pulls me aside, takes a fist-full of notes from a cash machine, presses them upon me.
‘I’m sorry about the cheque,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry about everything.’
She is fussing now, straightening my collar, tsk-ing over a broken button on the front of my shirt. ‘Wait until you get to the other side, past immigration,’ she says. ‘Then you don’t need to pay the tax. And no horizontal stripes.’
‘Tell Dad and Sam and the cousins I’m sorry.’
‘They’ll get over it. It’s time we got rid of that house anyway. Nasty, draughty old thing.’
‘Ruby. What will you do?’
‘Perhaps you should get some trousers. You’ve got the hips for it and they’re better for travelling. More relaxed. Something with a flat front.’
‘Thank you, Ruby,’ I say. ‘But you can’t afford this,’ and I try to give her back the cash. ‘You need it for you and Dad.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she says. ‘We’ve had our whole lives to get it right. Now it’s your turn.’ I think for a moment she’s going to hug me again, but instead she peers into my face. ‘And for heaven’s sake get some mascara.’
I cannot thank her for all the years of cooking and cleaning and teaching me to read and work and dress, so I don’t. I look at her face and see I don’t need to. I nod and take the money and fold it inside my bra. The boarding pass is tight in my hand, along with the spare passport I retrieved from the false bottom of my wardrobe before we left the house. Whoever buys that house is going to love the secret passages. I hope they don’t tear it down. I hope a herd of children live there and discover all our secrets.
I hear an announcement then: they’re talking about my flight. It’s almost time to go through. Daniel has stayed this whole time, as involved as if it was his trip.
‘I’ll pay you back for this,’ I say to Daniel. ‘For the ticket, I mean.’
He grins. ‘Will you? Why?’
I hold my arms out and twirl, as though I’m wearing an emerald cocktail dress instead of the Jervises’ old work clothes. ‘Can’t you see I’m a new woman?’ I say.
‘I kind of liked the old one,’ he says. ‘Life’s been dull without her.’
People are milling around the door to immigration now. They are hugging each other, tearful goodbyes. The mother has lost something and is pulling everything out of her handbag on to the floor. The kids have darted off to buy last-minute rubbish from the newsagent and one has fallen on the floor and is crying like a car alarm. The businessman is making a final phone call, ordering somebody about and raising his voice. He looks at the crying child like it might explode. For a moment my chest feels so tight that I can’t breathe.
‘Anyway,’ I say, and even as the words come out I know I have been meaning to say this all the way here in the car. ‘You’re looking quite tired. Are they bags around your eyes?’
‘Me? Bags?’
I run my finger over his face, pinch his cheeks. ‘Bags. And tired lines around your eyes. I think you need a holiday. A European holiday.’
‘Della,’ he says. ‘This is something you should do on your own.’
I nod. He’s right, I know, but I only just found him again. It isn’t fair. ‘I’ll ring you. When I get settled.’
He smiles and says, ‘I know.’ He runs the back of his fingers down my throat, then with one arm pulls me close. ‘Della,’ he whispers. ‘It’s a lovely name.’ Then he brushes my hair off my face and kisses me, arm around my waist, lifting me off the ground. It is an old-fashioned farewell from a time when air-travel meant something. I wind my arms around his neck and for a long time I think this trip is the worst idea I’ve ever had.
‘Della,’ says Ruby, tapping me on the back. ‘It’s time. You have to go through.
‘Right,’ I say, and I untangle my arms as slowly as I can.
There is a disorderly queue forming in front of the sliding doors. In front of me the businessman, now finished with his phone call, cuts in front of the harassed mother and almost steps on one of the children. The child stares up at him, picking her nose. He gives her a lo
ok of disdain. The Fortune magazine is tucked under his arm and he’s waving his boarding pass around like a fan. I can see the seat number: it’s in the same row as mine, only a few seats away. ‘Della, wait,’ says Daniel, and then he puts his hand in his pocket and brings out his wallet. ‘You’ll need more money than that, surely, for when you get off the plane.’
I’m right behind the businessman now. His shoes are fine leather, polished, new. His suit, I think, is Armani. Silk tie, crisp shirt, solid cufflinks with the monogram of a gentlemen’s club in the city. His wrist, the one carrying the briefcase, is heavy with a gold watch. Rolex. It sparkles under the white lights and even from here I can tell it is genuine. The businessman shuffles ahead in the queue. He runs one finger around the inside of his collar.
I smile back at Daniel. ‘I’ll manage somehow,’ I say.
Acknowledgments
This story was inspired by my long devotion to the work of the late Stephen Jay Gould, especially his books Wonderful Life, Ever Since Darwin and Eight Little Piggies. I am also grateful to the real-life monster hunter Paul Cropper, whose patience with my questions and whose books The Yowie: In Search of Australia’s Bigfoot and Out of the Shadows: Mystery Animals of Australia were invaluable.
For information on the profession and lives of con artists, I relied on the the following fascinating books: The Modern Con Man by Todd Robbins, Crimes of Persuasion by Les Henderson, Roger Cook’s Ten Greatest Conmen by Roger Cook and Tim Tate, Scams and Swindles by the Silver Lake editors and The Art of the Steal by Frank W. Abagnale.
For information on the life of the field scientist and the mind of the cryptozoologist, I’m grateful to Lucy’s Legacy by Donald C. Johanson and Kate Wong, My Quest for the Yeti by Reinhold Messner, Wildmen: Yeti, Sasquatch and the Neanderthal Enigma by Myra Shackley, Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science by Jeff Meldrum, Carnivorous Nights by Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson, The Origin of Humankind by Richard Leakey, Field Adventures in Paleontology by Lynne M. Clos, and The Back Road to Crazy edited by Jennifer Bové.
For their insight and generosity, I am indebted to my early readers Jess Howard, Michael Williams, Jane Sullivan, Kate Holden, Antoni Jach, Alison Goodman, Leah Kaminsky, Simmone Howell, Angelina Mirabito, Lyndel Caffrey, Matthew Hooper and Peter Bishop. For their support and assistance, many thanks go to Anna Nemes, James Reid, Simon Ramsay, Scott and Lee Falvey, Gabrielle Murphy, and to Vickie Lucas, who first made me think of emeralds. To Melissa Cranenburgh, who took me camping for a weekend yet still speaks to me: thank you. At Text Publishing, Michael Heyward and Mandy Brett were encouraging and inspiring, and their advice made this a much better book.
My own zoology studies, culminating in ZL321: Evolution and Zoogeography at the University of Queensland, were so long ago that we studied dinosaurs with live examples. Any errors in fact or theory remain my own, or Della’s.
Table of Contents
COVER PAGE
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
DEDICATION
BEGIN READING
