The Game You Played

by Anni Taylor

  A woman with brassy blonde hair served me a coffee and cake. I didn’t want the cake, but I could pretend to pick at it. I seated myself at the same table as last time, where I had a good view of most of the patrons.

  Bernice was sitting with her back to me. She had her umbrella looped over her chair, the wooden duck’s head of the umbrella handle staring at me. She often had umbrellas with her, even if there was only the barest hint of rain. Maybe she’d melt like a pillar of salt if she got wet, I thought darkly.

  Taking out my notepad and pen, I wrote down today’s date. No one would question me writing in the book. There were often writers here—some of them pompous looking, some of them serious looking, either jotting things down with a pencil or tapping away at a keyboard.

  I scanned the patrons, looking for someone to start with.

  The person who’d written the letters could be anyone. I couldn’t make judgments. I had to keep my eyes open for the I-never-would-have suspected-them person.

  I noticed an angry-looking young girl stirring her coffee. I’d seen her in here before. She always looked that way. I’d start with her. I began writing:

  Girl with dyed black hair and dove tattoo is looking especially fierce today. Sits close to the wall, like she’s protecting herself from attack from behind. Stirs her coffee like she’s mixing poison. No jacket or warm clothes despite the chill. She’s either someone who doesn’t feel the cold, or she’s the typical young person who pretends not to feel it.

  She was twirling the spoon in her fingers now, her lips set hard together. She drank the liquid down fast, with an expression of distaste in her eyes.

  The girl left abruptly. I could hear Nan’s voice in my head: Boyfriend trouble. According to Nan, all girls had boyfriend trouble. Boys never had girlfriend trouble. Boys and men held all the cards, in Nan’s eyes.

  I finished writing up my notes about the girl.

  Sipping my coffee, I looked around for someone new to study, someone who looked a little out of place.

  I noticed a man in a suit sitting two tables away from where the girl had been. I realised he’d been looking at me before I glanced his way. He turned his head before I did. Was that because I caught him looking or because he had something to hide?

  I made a new page for the man.

  Midforties man, in a suit that’s seen better days. Probably working in low-level management. Full head of grey-brown hair—more grey than brown. Slouching in his seat. He doesn’t want to be here.

  I called him Crumpled Suit Man. To be fair, the suit was not really crumpled. It just looked like a suit that had been lounged around in a lot and was soft around the edges. I made a guess that the man came home from work each night, mixed himself a tonic of disappointment and dissatisfaction, and then fell asleep on his sofa. Later, he’d wake and call a takeaway place for dinner. He’d silently curse the declining quality of the food and then watch some reality TV show. He didn’t live with a woman. At least, I didn’t think so.

  He turned his head as a woman entered the shop. With interest, he watched the woman in her tight black skirt, boots, and oversized jacket. He drummed his fingers on the table. I didn’t see a ring on his hands. He was probably divorced, with an ex-wife and kids somewhere out in the ’burbs. Everyone was someone else’s ex.

  He kept his eyes on her until she had her coffee and doughnut in her hands and she was walking his way.

  I wrote on his page: Not a paedophile.

  Then shut the book quickly. The look and sound of that word made my stomach turn on itself. Allowing myself to think about what might be happening to Tommy if he was still alive was a type of insanity. No parent could bear to think on it.

  People were shuffling in and out of the shop, disappearing into the mist.

  I watched them all.

  An elderly homeless man wandered past outside the window, deep in the fog. He glanced in momentarily. He seemed so other. It was not his life to be sitting on a comfortable chair in fresh clothing drinking coffee.

  I lost sight of the man in the fog when a woman inside the shop drew my attention. She was positioned towards the back of the shop, sitting alone. She was past the age of being a city worker. She couldn’t see me. I had a view straight through the potted fig tree that was next to me.

  Flipping my notebook open again, I made a new page for her.

  Woman, late seventies, red coat bunched around her. Hair whitish. Not blue.

  Old ladies didn’t have blue hair anymore. What had happened to the blue-rinse set? Who told them to stop dying their hair that powdery shade? Someone was replacing them. There weren’t even as many little old ladies around anymore. In their place were sharply dressed, coiffed ladies who looked well travelled.

  Would I be one of those well-dressed, poised ladies when I reached that age? Or would I turn into Nan—spending my days doing puzzles in my armchair, suspicious of everyone? I was suspicious of everyone now. The only difference was age. Or what if I became Bernice? Living a life away from everyone, never having children. God, why did that thought panic me so much? I hadn’t wanted to have children. That was the life that Saskia had chosen. She’d adored Tommy, but said she intended never missing a night’s sleep for a baby or having to deal with fingerprints on her walls.

  My thoughts were running in all directions. I needed to refocus.

  The woman in the red coat was sealing an envelope on her table.

  An envelope.

  It looked blue.

  Was it blue? I couldn’t tell from here for certain.

  I needed to see. Standing, I slipped the notebook into the back pocket of my jeans. Taking my coffee, I wound my way through the tables. The crumpled-suit man looked hopeful as I walked in his direction. Maybe he thought I was going to ask if I could join his table. His face fell as I moved past.

  I stopped a couple of tables away from the red-coat woman. She didn’t have a view of me. She wouldn’t see me looking over her shoulder.

  A scent reached me, above all the punchy, rich scents of coffee and Black Forest cake. Caramel Mochaccino. That’s what she was drinking.

  The envelope sat on her table, resting against the sugar jar. She was finished with it. But there was no name, no address. The envelope was completely blank. Except for its colour. The colour wasn’t blank. Because the colour was blue.

  Blue.

  I held my breath, looking away. The envelope looked similar to the ones I’d received before. Not exactly the same, but close enough.

  I sensed eyes on me.

  When I turned, I expected it to be the crumpled-suit man.

  It was Bernice. I guessed I did look strange, just standing here in an odd spot instead of at my table.

  Bernice had cake on her table. Banana cake with cream cheese frosting. Didn’t look like she was having any trouble with food, as Nan had told me.

  When I glanced back at the red-coat woman again, she was gone.

  My eyes darted around the shop.

  Outside, a flash of red punctuated the dull grey mist. Ignoring Bernice’s stare, I headed out after the woman.

  She’d had slow movements when she was seated at the table, but she was quick out in the fog. The fog inhaled her, its breath thick and damp. But she’d chosen to wear red, and that was her mistake. I followed her like a human missile, locked on, dogged. People in dark, wintry clothing bled past—like paint running from a watercolour picture. Guarding suitcases, clutching scarfs.

  I only just managed to catch up with the red-coat woman in order to board the same bus that she did.

  She got off the bus at Circular Quay. The noise of the city intensified here. Commuters running for ferries and trains, disturbed and annoyed by the mist obscuring their view. Ferries and boats slogged through an unseen ocean.

  The red-coat woman practically ran up the ramp to the Cremorne ferry, her head bowed.

  I hurried through the crowd. I was supposed to have a travel pass—an Opal pass—but I had no time for that. I squeezed throu
gh the turnstile together with a surprised child and then rushed up the ferry’s ramp.

  Businesspeople were sitting inside the ferry like proverbial sardines. But not the woman. Her shoes clattered on the metallic stairs to the top deck. I followed her.

  Holding onto the railing out on the open deck, she stared out at the drifts of fog on the harbour. Hugging my arms close to my chest, I moved alongside her.

  A corner of the envelope was visible from her handbag. I’d intended just to follow her. But what if she jumped into a taxi once we reached Cremorne (or another destination) and I lost her?

  I could slip the envelope out and take a look without her noticing.

  Could I really do that? Take something from a stranger’s handbag?

  Yes, I could. I could do the things that the police couldn’t do. The things they weren’t allowed to do and didn’t have time for.

  My fingers trembled as I tugged the envelope free.

  She jolted and spun around like some kind of red-coated Whirling Dervish.

  “What are you doing?” She tried to snatch the envelope back.

  “I need—” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. My brain was fused to the thought that I needed to look inside it. But I couldn’t tell her that.

  She yanked the envelope again.

  It tore. There was a card inside. And a red twenty-dollar bill. Half of the bill shot upwards in the wind, swirling out above the ocean and disappearing into the mist.

  She stared with horror at the ripped money and envelope in her hand. “I saw you, in the coffee shop. You watched me put that money in there, didn’t you? You stole it. My great-grandson’s birthday money.”

  People on the ferry were eyeing us with confusion and disgust. Stealing from an old lady! For twenty dollars!

  I backed away. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I thought it was something else.” I dug in my bag for my wallet. “I’ll give you the twenty.”

  “Just leave me alone!” She was shrieking righteously now, spurred by the attention of the people who were gathering around her.

  Someone had me by the shoulder. A man’s voice came from behind me. “Get your drug money someplace else. Kings Cross, maybe.”

  The man kept hold of me until security arrived. Until the ferry docked and the police arrived.

  I was led from the ferry with the mist saturating my hair and clothing.

  16.

  PHOEBE

  Friday morning

  LUKE AND DETECTIVE GILROY BANNED ME from the Southern Sails Café. Trent called Luke down to the station, and the two of them had sat there with their arms crossed, telling me that I was to stay completely away from the café and its noticeboard. The only thing I was allowed to check was the letterbox. (I’d checked it twice today already.)

  Trent managed to keep my name out of the media reports. The red-coat woman herself was simply told by the police that I’d been suffering an emotional disturbance, and she’d agreed not to press charges.

  The medication and lack of sleep were leading me to make poor decisions. I had to be smarter than that.

  For the second day in a row, Luke stayed home from work. This time to keep watch over me. He was fiddling with the arsenal of intruder alarm equipment that he’d bought yesterday, cursing loudly at the instructions. He knew a bit about alarms—he’d had to deal with enough of them at the properties that he’d sold over the years—but still, this one was causing him a bit of grief.

  I stayed out of his way, busying myself with the wall garden, making curried egg sandwiches for us at lunchtime and making a batch of scones for afternoon tea. I needed to redeem myself somehow in his eyes, and making food was the (second) best way I knew how.

  Luke liked me in this mode.

  I wiped the bench free of flour from the scones I’d made, picturing myself in one of the TV ads I’d once made, in which I’d played a smug homemaker serving dinner to her family.

  I’d made two commercials that day. One in which I was a happy-go-lucky girl enthused by her tampon brand choice, and that afternoon a homemaker magically transforming an ordinary meal into a gourmet meal (with the addition of a packet sauce).

  Women were always the ones serving food in ads. Unless the ad was for pre-packaged diet food. Then the husband would serve the wife—showing prospective female customers how easy and sublime it was to lose weight (also sending the subliminal message that your husband wanted you to lose the chub).

  The only real difference in my physical look between the tampon and sauce ads had been the clothing. Homemakers wore sensible shoes and neatly pressed pastel shirts over their pastel tank tops. The pastel layering was important. Homemakers layered their clothing.

  Homemakers no longer found joy in the outside world. They weren’t like tampon-girl out water-skiing and diving. They were fulfilled by the indoor environment. By the type of butter and washing powder and antibacterial spray they were clever enough to buy.

  In every one of those kinds of ads, the female homemaker frowned as a problem presented itself. But after a brief moment of stress, she solved her dilemma with a brand-name product. Then she could relax and sit down with a coffee, assured in the knowledge that her offspring now had the right kind of butter on their sandwiches or that her husband had soil-free shirts or that her house was completely sanitised.

  I didn’t get chosen for the same kind of commercials that the male actors did. Men weren’t happy in domesticity—the ads told everyone so.

  Men were always trying to sneak away from their wives, to win some time drinking beer with their mates or watching the game. Wives and girlfriends were boring creatures who tried to hold men back from their fun. (Unless the women were walking past in a bikini. Then women turned on the fun like a tap.)

  Luke and I had fallen into our respective roles even before Tommy was born. Luke had been absorbed by his work, and he used to go drinking after work with Rob, fulfilling his role of getting away from the wife and home. And I’d stayed in the house, becoming a thing I no longer recognised. I’d sanitised myself.

  I didn’t hear Luke step up behind until his arms were halfway around me.

  He kissed my neck. “Alarm is in. No one’s getting past that.”

  “Great.” What if I sleepwalked around the house while that thing was switched on? I’d set it off. I put a smile on my face before I turned around to him.

  He eyed the plate of scones on the bench. “Nice. Hey, did you even have any?”

  “I had a couple.” I hadn’t. Luke wouldn’t know that the scone tray made ten and that the four he’d already had were the only ones missing from the plate. Luke had never made scones or cupcakes in his life.

  “Good. You have to start building yourself up again.” He spread butter and jam on a scone and ate it in two bites.

  Noticing the alarm remote control sticking out of his shirt pocket, I slipped it out. “You’ll have to show me how to work that thing.”

  He took it back. “It’s okay, Feeb. I’ll set it every night and turn it off before I leave in the morning.”

  “But I still need to know how to use it. What if I want to set it during the day while I’m sleeping?”

  “I didn’t think of that. Okay, I’ll take you through it in a bit. Might kick back with a beer first. Come and sit down with me.”

  “I was thinking of heading out for a walk.” If I couldn’t go to the café, I’d planned on watching who went in and out. I still had the notebook and pen in my pocket.

  “Phoebe, you can’t go anywhere near the—”

  “I know. I wasn’t planning on going that way. Just along the water.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  I pressed my lips in and gave him what I hoped was a reassuring expression. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I just don’t think you should head out that far alone. Not until they catch the whacko who’s sending the notes. We don’t know what or who we’re dealing with.”

  “It’s daylight. You go out runn
ing by yourself. At night.”

  “Phoebe . . .” He eyed me intently, repeatedly flipping the remote over and back in his hand, almost as if he wished he could press a button on it and stop me from leaving.

  I needed him to trust me again. At least, as much as he trusted me the day before yesterday. My shoulders went slack. “Okay, I’ll stay at home.”

  Sitting with him, I watched TV instead of going on my walk, his arm safely around me. But I couldn’t focus on the show that Luke had put on. I started planning for tonight.

  I didn’t have time to leave everything to the police. The letters were personal, sent to me. And I had to figure out who was sending them.

  *

  I watched Luke sleeping in our bed, waiting to make sure he was in a deep, unshakeable slumber. The muted horns and blasts of the distant boats in the harbour penetrated my mind. It was only in the early hours of the night that you could hear those sounds from way up here on the hill.

  Luke was snoring rhythmically now. He wouldn’t wake.

  I stole from the bed and entered the guest bedroom. I locked the door and pushed a set of drawers firmly against it. My head was heavy and drowsy as I slipped into the bed.

  I’d already taken the sleeping medication. And I’d disabled the alarm, just in case. But I intended not leaving this room tonight.

  Now all I needed to do was to get to sleep. I tried a trick that Dr Moran had recommended. Imagining myself stepping down a staircase as high as a mountain, to my comfortable bed below, feeling myself growing wearier and heavier with each step.

  I drifted along in a haze.

  Someone was bouncing something outside the room. I tried to keep sleeping, but the noise wouldn’t stop.

  Thump, thump.

  Thump, thump.

  It sounded like a ball bouncing down the stairs.

  I sat up like a springboard.

  Thump, thump.

  Thump, thump.