by Phyllis King
Instead Sophia’s focus was on Sally’s neck.
‘That shell, is that from one of your Australian beaches?’
Sally’s hand slid to her neck where the good luck cowrie, made into a necklace soon after Amanda’s conviction, sat between her jutting collarbones.
‘Yes, I found it last summer.’
‘Beautiful,’ the woman nodded as she stood up. ‘Well thank you for the tea. I must get back to the bakery.’
Sally smiled and waved. Her other hand traced the fingers that now rested her shoulder. The skin was cool and still slightly damp from the shower.
Sally looked up and smiled at the man she should have married in the first place and not carried on a two year affair with first.
She had lost weight since that fateful camping trip all right, about 95 kilos to be exact. They had laughed about that in bed the other night. It was the maximum kill weight suggested on the spear, and by the way Michael collapsed like a sack on the bed, that would be about correct.
Sophia waved as she walked through the door.
‘Goodbye Mrs Sally, Goodbye Mr Geoff.’
Sally squeezed her palm around the cowrie shell as had become her habit. It had certainly been good luck, just like Tony said.
Sally smiled up at her new husband.
The shell had been the second best thing she took home from the beach last summer.
<
Cold Comfort
Sarah Evans
‘Hi, Granddad. I’ve brought you dinner. I’ll heat it up for you, shall I?’ Mum had nabbed me to be the dutiful granddaughter because the old man lived too far out of town for Meals-on-Wheels to deliver.
‘Take it away. I don’t want it.’ Under his patched tweeds, Granddad was still in his post-war blue and white stripy PJs and sitting in his bald armchair by the dust-thick Metter’s stove. It was about five in the afternoon and the hot sting of the day was waning into comfortable honeyed slumber.
‘But it’s beef stew and dumplings. Your favourite.’
He shoved his dentures into his pale pink gob and glowered. ‘Go away, girlie. I don’t want your charity.’
I glowered back. No way was I going to be put off by his sulks. I was up for bolshie behaviour. I was a teacher, wasn’t I? And anyway, Mum had put the hard word on me to watch over him while she did the grey nomad thing with Dad and that’s what I was going to do. ‘I’ll pop it in the freezer then.’
‘The freezer’s full.’
‘There’ll be room for a small dish.’
I ignored his spittle-and-curse tirade to take the beep-beep stew and get lost and went out to the shed where he kept the freezer, nestled among tractor parts, rat-ridden Hessian sacks and rusty cans. The place stank of kero and vermin piddle.
And, yep, Granddad was right. There wasn’t room. The old chest freezer was stuffed to the gunnels.
Because Mrs Benotti was in there, rock-solid, frozen and frosted.
I slammed the lid down with so much force it bounced. I jumped backwards, screwing shut my eyes, and sucking in a shaky breath. Perhaps I’d just hallucinated that awful thing? I’d been working pretty damn hard lately. Hadn’t had enough sleep for weeks since taking on promotion. Or maybe there’d been something in the school canteen mushroom quiche I’d eaten for lunch? The school cook was a bit of a hippy.
Cranking open my eyes and bravely levering the lid upwards, I peeped inside the freezer again and then repeated the lid-slamming routine because, hell, it was Mrs Benotti, all right. She’s Granddad’s next-door neighbour. Or was. How long had she been resident his side of the farm fence?
Clutching the stew pot to my chest, I wobbled back across the yard to the kitchen and Granddad. He was still glowering at me under his snowy mono-brow. His yellowed teeth were back on the cold Metter’s hob.
‘Told you it was full,’ he said with a shower of spit.
‘Yes, but you failed to mention with what.’ I sat down hard on a steel-framed vinyl chair, still holding the stew. ‘This maybe a stupid question, but what’s she doing in there?’
‘Simple. I didn’t want her going off,’ said Granddad. ‘Summer heat’s a bitch and I didn’t want her attracting flies.’
Logical. Be thankful for small mercies. I wouldn’t have fancied coming across a decomposing Mrs B and a bevy of blowflies. She was a big woman. Deep bosomed and stern, with waves of iron grey hair held back in a no-nonsense bun and a voice to strip the skin off your backside if you were naughty. I’d been dead scared of her as a kid. She was still scaring me now, lying in her makeshift coffin among the frozen peas and lamb’s livers, ice crystals up her nostrils and filling her ears.
‘I don’t like to ask, Granddad, but did you kill her?’
His mono-brow bristled like a threatened porcupine. ‘What a dumb fool question. Why would I kill Maria?’
‘How did she get there then?’
‘I put her there.’
‘Dead?’
‘Of course, dead. Why would I stick her in there alive?’
Tension knots the size of walnuts popped fully formed around my neck and shoulders and a throb of magnitude proportions began pounding between my eyes. I went to massage my temples to stave off the imminent migraine when I realised I was still hugging the wretched stew pot. I shoved it on the table and dug my fingers deep into my pressure points. I had to keep a clear head and I couldn’t do that with a stampede of hooves racketing about inside my head. And I still had books to mark and a costume to prepare for the next day’s Book Week celebration at school. But I felt less like Little Bo Peep, my character of choice given we lived in a sheep country, and more like the Grim Reaper.
‘How did she die?’ My voice croaked.
‘We were making out and she must’ve had a heart attack.’
Oh my goodness. I didn’t want to know that. I tried to blot out the disturbing image of old people snogging.
‘You should have called the police straightaway.’
‘Don’t want those interfering buggers here, seeing her naked.’
Naked? Mrs Benotti? Yeuwck. Another vivid image to delete in a hurry.
‘I had to get her dressed first. Looking nice, like.’
This was getting worse by the second, as was my migraine. Jagged watery lines were skidding across my retinas. ‘Why didn’t you call them later? Once she was, er, decent?’
‘Because I went to sleep and in the morning I decided to put her in cold storage to keep her fresh.’
My stomach heaved. My throat gagged.
‘You’re not going squeamish on me, girlie?’
‘Granddad, you’ve a dead body in your freezer.’
‘Yeah, and?’
‘Call the police. Clear this up. Now. You don’t have a choice.’
“Course I do. Maria can stay there a while. There’s no rush. She’s comfortable.’
I left after twenty minutes of fruitless arguing. I had flounces and flaxen tresses to organise but my heart wasn’t in it.
‘Caro, there’s a new parent to see you.’ The school secretary beamed at me from just inside my office door and mouthed ‘He’s gorgeous!’ ‘He’s the one who booked in his daughter yesterday,’ she said. ‘Rosa’s due to start on Monday.’
‘Thank you, Jenny, just show him in.’ I hadn’t had time to read up on the new pupil the previous night. I’d spent the hours sweating over Mrs Benotti’s frozen corpse dilemma, wondering what the heck to do, while stitching metres of Broderie Anglais to my candy-striped skirts. Today I was cruising on Nurofen and black coffee and the jagged lines were multiplying behind my shades.
The parent strode in and the next thing I knew, I was staring into a face from the past. I could have given Mrs B a run for her money on who was colder because the blood suddenly froze in my veins and I could have sworn my heart stopped beating.
Dammit, I should have done my paperwork last night instead of stressing out on hypotheticals of hung juries and life sentences.
Dammit, then I could
have made a run for it and been over the WA border by morning.
The new parent stood there, big and imposing with a wide chest and thick waves of lush black hair.
Of course I recognised him straight off. Way back when, he’d been a little pre-pubescent tyke with mad bad hair and an off-key voice along with an annoying know-it-all attitude. He’d bugged the bejeepers out of me one ENTIRE summer holidays when I’d stayed out at the farm, earning money for my first stint at university.
And he still had the devil’s dimples to die for.
And the oozing self-confidence.
And the know-it-all smile.
But was I going say Hi! Remember me?
No way! Not with a large Italian woman in my Granddad’s freezer.
Because Salvador Benotti was Maria Benotti’s nephew.
I was dead in the water.
‘Miss Cooper,’ he said. There was no recognition in his eyes. Perhaps the wig with its thick sausages of butter-yellow curls was enough of a disguise. Coupled with an old fashioned straw bonnet and a candy-pink striped shepherdess outfit. And the red bow lips and the coolest black shades south of the Swan.
And maybe twenty years of living.
‘Mr Benotti.’ I held out my hand; it was swallowed up in his.
‘You’re cold,’ he said, surprised.
To the core, I wanted to say. Because of your dead aunt. But I just squeezed a smile and blamed it on the air conditioning.
‘What brings you to our town?’ I tried to keep my tone light but my heart had kick-started into overdrive and was deafening in its thundering charge of panic. I was sure half the school could hear it.
‘I’ve family here.’ He smiled and I wanted to faint, because I knew different.
‘Nice,’ I managed to reply.
‘And so when the police sergeant’s position came available here, I jumped at the chance. It means I can keep an eye on my elderly aunt.’
Omigod. He was the police!
‘Nice.’ It came out a burble.
And why wasn’t I surprised he’d donned the uniform? Because the kid had always been trying to piece two and two together and coming up with a shady half a dozen. Granddad had been right not calling in the cavalry. We didn’t want Sal on the job.
‘Aunt Maria doesn’t know I’m here yet. I’ve been trying to telephone but she never seems to be around.’
‘Oh.’
‘But once I’ve unpacked and got my kid settled, I’ll go and see the old girl.’
‘Ah.’
‘Maybe this weekend.’
‘Mmm.’
That was it. Today was Thursday. Too close to the weekend by half. I’d be back over to the farm tonight, pronto. That body just had to go. Because I didn’t want him finding dear old (scary) Aunt Maria dead in my Granddad’s freezer and having the finger of suspicion pointed at us like a compass needle trained on magnetic north.
I was the school principal. I had standing in the community. I’d worked damn hard to earn it and I wasn’t going to wave it all goodbye because an oldie had died on the job.
I was saved from further sparkling repartee on my behalf by the assembly bell.
‘I mustn’t hold you up any further,’ said the dead aunt’s nephew. He held my hand again and then frowned slightly. ‘This may sound like a bad chat up line, but haven’t we met before?’
I gawped for a reply and was saved again, this time by the arrival of Superman in an ill-fitting costume made by a doting mum. “S’cuse me, Miss Cooper, they’re waiting for you to judge the best book character.’
I could have kissed him except the kid would have had a coronary and then I’d have another body to worry about. ‘Thank you, Scott. I’ll be there straight away. Sorry, I do have to go, Mr Benotti.’
‘No worries. No doubt we’ll be seeing a bit of each other.’ He flashed a dimple.
‘Small towns, it would be hard to avoid each other,’ I stuttered and staggered off to assembly, leaning heavily on my shepherd’s crook for support and trying not to inhale random flaxen strands as I sucked in extra oxygen to clear my whirring brain.
Sergeant Salvador Benotti. Who would have thought? And now!
Face it, I hadn’t like Sal the kid.
And I sure wasn’t keen on Sal the cop.
That evening Mum telephoned from Whoop-Whoop before I had a chance to leave for the farm.
‘Everything all right, darling?’ she said, the line crackling like a grass fire.
‘Fine.’
‘How did Book Week go?’
I gave her a scant précis. ‘And Granddad?’
‘Fine.’ Another précis, even scanter.
There was a pause.
‘Caro?’
‘Yes?’
‘You’d tell me if anything was wrong.’
‘Sure, Mum.’ And I ended the call fast. My mother was too canny. I didn’t want her cutting her holiday short because she sensed something untoward. Though I don’t even think her sixth sense would have sussed out her dad had stuffed a body in his freezer. No, I must handle this on my own. Or at least with Granddad.
‘Granddad,’ I said after breaking the speed limit to reach the farm before dusk. ‘We’ve got to get rid of the body.’
The kitchen was rank, smelling of roll-ups, old flesh and urine. And stew. Granddad was eating it cold out of the pot.
‘Want some?’ he offered, waving a spoon at me, and I tried not to shudder.
‘No thanks. Look, Salvador Benotti, Maria’s nephew, has come back to town. He wants to see Maria.’
‘He can if he wants. I look at her several times a day.’
I ignored that last comment. Too weird.
‘Granddad, pay attention. He can’t see her. She’s dead.’
‘And?’
‘And Sal’s the new police sergeant.’
Granddad opened his gummy mouth and shovelled in a dumpling. He stared hard at me and began chomping.
‘That’s not good,’ he said around the congealed suet.
‘So we’ve got to deal with her.’
We peered into the freezer. The dusty low-watt light bulb cast a dim yellow over Mrs B. It didn’t improve her skin pallor, which, from memory, had always been sallow.
‘There’s no way we can lift her out,’ I said, taking a step backwards. I couldn’t do this. Hey, I was virtually vegetarian. I hated touching raw meat...
‘Stop being a wuss.’ Granddad poked Mrs B’s chest. Did he really have to do that? ‘But you’re right. We won’t be able shift her. You’ve gone soft since you’ve been in the city. You’ve got no muscles.’
And you have, old man? I felt like saying, with his weedy little body clothed in soft cotton PJs and cracked welly boots.
Instead I said, ‘Granddad, how about we throw ourselves on the mercy of the police? We can explain what happened. I’m sure they’d understand.’
‘You’re forgetting Salvador.’
Ah. Good point. But that meant I had to touch the corpse. Bad point. ‘Perhaps he’s changed?’ I said hopefully.
‘Maria wouldn’t have a bar of him. Said he was too sneaky. He’s probably here to get hold of the farm.’
Okay. We weren’t the only ones who didn’t warm to him.
Granddad pursed his lips. ‘I’ll drive the Bedford in. We’ll winch her out.’
Half an hour later and Mrs Benotti was robustly twirling on the end of a thick chain like a seasoned aerial performer in a circus act, although she wasn’t very graceful. She was huge and stiff and intimidating in her loud blue floral dress and I prayed the chain wouldn’t break because if she fell from that height, Mrs B might shatter body parts across the concrete floor and muggins here would be the one clearing her up.
‘Now what?’ I asked Granddad who was standing by the old truck and admiring his handiwork. Or perhaps he was just trying to perv up her frock. I wouldn’t have put it past him.
He hawked and spat. ‘I’ll drive out and dump her in the tractor bucket.’
&
nbsp; While Granddad manoeuvred the truck out of the shed, I turned to shut the freezer lid.
And froze.
Because there was another flipping body crammed in the nether regions of the old chest.
I think the lid bounced triple time as I whacked it down with outraged force.
