True Stars

by Kidman, Fiona

  For a week she had stalked him. It amazed her how careful it made you, following someone. Her shoes were soft-soled, she did not wear scent, or smoke near him, and when she was sitting in his orchard as she had done the day before, she moved very stealthily so that birds did not flurry or get agitated. But it was there that she had nearly been caught when his dog got wind of her. It was a large dog, a Dobermann she thought, and it came at the hedge where she sat half frozen in the frosty August air. Minna had been teaching her a mantra and she said it, hoping that if she did not respond to the dog it would go away.

  Mungo, inspecting the way the buds were setting on the stone fruit, cultivated for a hobby and because the orchard gave him a little extra space (as he was fond of telling people), called the dog. The mantra worked. She did not scream or move, continuing to sit cross-legged amongst the bushes until the dog loped away.

  It was no good going to Mungo’s house, of course. One of those houses like the Appleblooms’ and the Warners’ (and look what good it had done Toni Warner, poor bitch, poor cow, poor dumb broad, getting done in over a man for Chrissake), or her sister Rose’s (and she’d never heard her have a good word to say about her borer-ridden dump), only newer, it was bristling with children and his wife looking beatific and earth motherish with her hair pulled back from a middle parting and a bulge under her handwoven putty-coloured dress. Katrina had actually been up to the door one day earlier in the week when he was out, to case the joint. The woman did not look at all surprised or ruffled when Katrina said that she must have come to the wrong place, it was the address someone had given her where there was a chest of drawers for sale. Even the dog was quite calm about her appearance on the scene, perhaps thinking it knew her now. No problem at all, the wife had said, would she like to use their phone to check out the number, and stood chatting easily while two small children stared at her from behind her skirts, like something in a Bergman film. Only when she smelled a pot boiling over in the kitchen did the woman excuse herself, by which time Katrina was getting frantic in case Mungo turned up and saw her.

  After that she was more careful. Neither the orchard nor the house would be suitable.

  Instead she watched the surgery, noting the times that he came and left, and when his receptionist arrived and went home. This was more difficult because it appeared that the receptionist was there a great deal more than he was. When he came out of the rooms (and she had sat on a bench seat on the street outside for so many hours she felt as if her backside was welded to it in the black leather pants) he slid into the Range Rover, throwing papers into the back seat along with children’s toys and brightly coloured rugs. She had watched him glide away a dozen times already, always with one hand casually manoeuvring the steering wheel and the fingers of his right hand carelessly curled around the top edge of the car roof. His stereo would start playing even before he moved off, usually some Mozart, sometimes cool and soulful jazz. When he turned towards her, never seeing her, she was astounded by his good looks. He reminded her a little of Wolf. There was a time when she would have considered it a privilege to get laid by a man like Mungo. It was satisfying to think how much she had changed.

  ‘I hope you’re not going nuts, I don’t want to be the one to put you away,’ said Minna at the end of the week. Sharna was sitting on Minna’s lap acting as if she was her mother and not Katrina. Katrina didn’t think she cared much. She cared less for this child than she had for the others and her funny eye gave her the creeps.

  ‘Of course I’m nuts, what do you expect?’

  ‘It’s not healthy, you walking round day and night like this.’

  ‘I never fucking asked to be happy, did I? Just to have Basil.’ Any moment she knew she would cry if Minna did not leave off. The memory of him running in the door and grabbing her breasts assailed her. As she remembered him, and already that’s what he was, just a memory, he was the sweetest little boy. The scent of him was in her nostrils. She turned away, and a tear and some snot did trickle down, hitting her tongue. Salty, just the way Basil had tasted that first day that they had known there was something wrong. Sometimes she hated Minna for having alerted her that he was ill, as if through not knowing, nothing might have happened.

  ‘Where are you going, anyway?’ Minna asked for what must have been the fiftieth time.

  ‘Just out.’

  ‘You sound like a kid.’

  ‘Don’t. Don’t fuckin’ hassle me Minna or I’ll turn you out.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ She glanced at Sharna.

  ‘Okay, okay, just leave me, all right? I have to get out of here a bit. It’ll come right.’

  ‘Are you seeing someone?’

  ‘Oh give over.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Minna, I didn’t give up seeing men to get heavied like I was.’

  ‘But are you?’

  ‘Jesus, Minna, my kid’s just died. Remember? Gentle Jesus, loving father of thy flock, and all that. It’s a week since I was in that crematorium and thank Christ Jim Diamond coughed up with the money for the funeral or I’d be up shit creek without a paddle. Even if we did have to sing hymns.’

  ‘His wife’s going to Memphis to see Elvis Presley’s grave, did you know?’

  ‘Well, fine, she’s doing something, isn’t she? It’s more than just sitting round on our backsides in Weyville doing nothing.’

  ‘Trust you, there’s a very unsavoury side to your nature, Katrina.’ Minna’s voiced was prim.

  In the end Katrina settled for the hospital car parking lot. She knew what time he did his rounds; from her observations she would say that it was the most deserted territory that Mungo Lord traversed.

  When he came out to the Range Rover it was exactly as she had planned. Not a soul in sight. It was the moment she had been dreaming of. His shirt was pale blue under his red tie and it was as if a slash of blood was already cascading down him. She could see the shape of his mouth contorting into agony and she almost laughed before she stepped up to him.

  ‘Dr Lord,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Katrina,’ he said, and she was grateful to see that he was disconcerted.

  ‘Ms Diamond.’

  ‘Well sure. How’re you getting along?’

  ‘I wanted a word.’ She inserted herself between him and the vehicle.

  ‘Sure. How about fixing a time with my receptionist, and we can have a chat. You’ve got our number?’

  ‘Now.’ He was such a big man and she had to get the ribcage lined up just right.

  ‘You’ve had a tough time.’ His voice was quiet, almost sexy, she thought. The steel was warm from lying against her body. She had come to like its feel and could almost understand how Toni Warner went back to collect it. You touched steel once in a certain way and there was a kind of dizzying pleasure in it. Like looking up at the sky, the great clean bright sky, into the eye of God.

  Hesitating. Just long enough for him to scent danger. Turning swiftly to catch her nimble wrist and taking the brunt of the blade on his arm. But wounded all the same, and calling out for help.

  ‘You can help put these letters in envelopes while I feed the baby. Then we can have something to eat. That’s what you’d like, wouldn’t you, honey?’ Joylene spoke with a slight assumed American twang while she spooned food into the mouth of a pert child called Angel who sat in a high chair.

  ‘It’s up to you.’ Larissa was sitting on her hands and trying to keep her ringers crossed at the same time.

  ‘And your daddy’ll be home for his lunch real soon. What would you like me to make for you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Joylene, honest, I’m not that hungry.’

  ‘Why, honey, you just said. The Lord’s work is hungry business.’ She stopped feeding the baby long enough to flick through a pile of the folded circulars, counting at speed. ‘Only another hundred and three to go.’ Larissa couldn’t take her eyes off her cleavage. It was a wonder she didn’t get cold in this weather, though the central heating in the house was turned
up high.

  As if reading her thoughts, Joylene touched her breast. ‘Paul and I do sunbathing by electricity regular twice a week. We’re into massage too, he has such beautiful hands, your daddy. I can’t think of any better expression of married togetherness than a little massage. When you’re a big grown up girl and get a husband of your own you ought to keep that in mind.’

  ‘How long do you think Paul’s going to be?’

  In fact Paul had just arrived and on his own Spanish hacienda, circa 1980, was more in charge than the last time Larissa had seen him.

  He stood, allowing the door to frame him, and surveyed the scene of domesticity. ‘Well now, if that doesn’t beat everything,’ he exclaimed. ‘Praise the Lord.’

  ‘Actually, the good news is, I’m not staying long.’

  ‘She will,’ said Joylene. ‘We’re going to have something nice to eat, and see, Larissa’s been helping me with the circulars. Oh the Lord moves in mysterious ways His work to perform.’

  ‘Oh Jesus.’ Larissa threw down a pile of folders, knowing she’d made a mistake as she spoke. ‘I mean, cut the crap will you, Joylene?’

  Paul stepped up so close to her she could smell his aftershave. She felt like throwing up.

  ‘You can leave right this minute if you speak to your mother like that.’ He raised his palm sharply, holding it close to her face.

  ‘She’s my stepmother.’

  ‘You better do what your daddy says to you. He is the head of the household, you know.’ Joylene’s voice was satisfied as she lifted Angel from her chair, purring into her hair.

  Larissa took a deep breath, longing for a cigarette. She needed something to help her through this. Jason had offered her a joint before she came, but she told him no because she’d be sure to blow it if she was too loosened up; Gary had told her she was out of her head anyway coming here, and for once he was right. She sat very still and Paul dropped his hand.

  ‘Sure,’ said Larissa, addressing Joylene. ‘I’d like something to eat. Can I hold the baby for you?’

  The tension eased. Paul sat down opposite Larissa. The baby didn’t want to sit with her, but climbed on to Paul’s lap instead. It suited Larissa, though sitting there with nothing to do except keep on stuffing the stupid envelopes she felt exposed to his stare. She folded faster.

  ‘It gives my heart ease seeing you do that, Larissa.’ He was wearing a gold chain on his wrist and a heavy gold signet ring on the little finger of each hand.

  ‘You sell any cars this morning, hon?’ Joylene sounded just like an advertisement for second-hand cars Larissa had seen on television, where the mother asked a question like that and the baby squeaked excitedly when the father said yes.

  ‘Did I what? Two cars. Both in the twenty-five thousand range. We are going to have ourselves a holiday soon, baby.’

  ‘God is good,’ Joylene sighed.

  ‘When are you going to start dressing like a Christian woman?’ Paul asked Larissa.

  She tore the corner of the envelope trying to stuff the paper in too fast. This was too much; she had washed her hair three times trying to get the rinse out, and ironed a blouse. Herbert had nearly had a heart attack when she asked for the camp iron. It was the jeans, she supposed, but they were decent. Definitely decent, and no tighter than Joylene’s bodice.

  ‘Paul, I’ve come about Sharna. Dad,’ she corrected herself, because it was too important to give it away now, having come this far.

  Nobody said anything. Joylene was defrosting frozen muffins in the microwave; Angel sucked Paul’s golden bracelet.

  ‘Who’s Sharna?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘Lighten our darkness, Larissa.’ She remembered, incongruously at this moment, that he and her mother had called her Larissa after the heroine in a Russian film … Some day my love you’ll come to me, some day we will be fre-ee. Her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘My sister,’ she mumbled. ‘She’s in social welfare. They took her away when Mum went in jail.’

  Paul sat stroking Angel’s hair, his eyes thoughtful. It’s going to be all right, Larissa decided. He’s going to come across, fix it up, make things okay this time.

  Maybe.

  ‘That seems like the proper place for her. Your mother never had rights to a child that has no father.’

  ‘Dad. Stop.’ Larissa put her hands up to her ears.

  ‘Who would look after the child if she was not taken into care?’

  ‘Her friend Minna. She really loves Sharna. If you could just see somebody, tell her that it would be all right for Minna to look after her. Sharna must be real scared where she is.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ He looked at Joylene. The microwave pinged.

  ‘She is a child innocent and beloved in the eyes of God.’ Joylene buttered the muffins with a slick and practised hand. ‘We could save her.’

  ‘I don’t want you to save her,’ Larissa cried. ‘I want you to get her back for Minna to look after.’

  Paul looked back at her with his hard prominent blue eyes. She was grateful she had never taken anything from him, not even his looks.

  ‘She’s unfit to look after a child.’

  ‘You don’t know her.’

  ‘I’ve seen her.’

  Joylene put a plate of muffins in front of her. ‘You eat up now and don’t worry about a thing. The grown-ups’ll take care of everything.’

  Larissa stood up angrily. ‘You can’t do this to me, Paul. It’s the only thing I’ve ever asked.’

  His lip curled. ‘There’s always your Auntie Rose. I thought you only had to snap your finger at her.’

  Larissa wished she had brought Gary with her. He carried a knife these days which was kind of fashionable in Weyville.

  ‘You don’t know where she is, do you?’

  Larissa said, ‘So. Are you still pushing, or is the free market getting to you?’

  He jumped out of the chair then, letting Angel slide, wailing, into a heap, and before she could duck smacked her hard across the face the way he had wanted to in the first place.

  ‘I’m clean, damn you.’

  She rolled away to avoid his flying foot and climbed off the floor. ‘Now.’

  ‘Whore.’

  Hate filled her in a pure sweet wave. Her head was spinning but it was great, like flying, a great buzz of joy, to hate anyone as much as she hated her father. What a charge.

  ‘You don’t know where she is.’ His voice pursued her towards the door. Joylene’s muffins gleamed in buttery clusters on the plate, turning soggy. Faster than him, now the action was on, she picked up a handful and threw them at Angel.

  Out on the street the elation passed. The cold sang in the telegraph wires and bit her cheeks like wasps. It had been a tough winter and she never seemed to have enough clothes. The wind bit through her thin jacket. The op shop was out of dufflecoats. Lately she had been thinking about getting a job. Gary was hardly ever at the camp nowadays. He had ‘business’. When he was there he was stoned, right out of it more often than not. Sometimes she spent time with Poppy, but she couldn’t make sense of half the things she said and she had had her cup and her hand read so often by her (she never told her the same things twice, and nothing ever did come true) that it was boring. Poppy made her go through the camp putting plastic bottles of water round the caravans to stop the dogs from shitting. Larissa couldn’t see how this would work. She mentioned that it could be a hoax but Poppy said it was a scientific fact, it was all in the papers. Other times, when Jason was there, though that wasn’t often either, because he was usually off with Gary, he would sit and talk to her, or just sit. The shape of the blue hills she had always known but never studied before were imprinted on her brain; she wished she could climb them.

  That was on the same scale as getting a job. Pigs might fly. More than once it occurred to her that nobody wanted her much, except perhaps Jason and she didn’t fancy him. Even if she did, it would be like doomed love. Gary would do one of them, maybe for good. Like the Wa
rners, only there wouldn’t be lots of flowers and mourners for either of them. Probably less than there had been for Basil.

  Paul had struck a bitter chord when he spoke of Rose. It was true, Larissa did not know where she was. She had tried to find her and failed. Even the letter she had so painstakingly written had gone unanswered. Not that she could have changed things much, she supposed: not her brother’s death (she had taken to thinking of Basil as her brother) or her mother’s despair and subsequent imprisonment. But she might have saved her flawed pathetic sister from vanishing. That, at least.

  Her footsteps led her toward Cedarwood Grove. Gary had told her to keep away but she couldn’t today.

  Neither could Jeffrey Campbell.

  Cruising slowly in that direction for the third time this morning, he looked again for the Studebaker. It had headed up here early and then he had lost it. For more than a week he had tailed it. That, and three other cars. Buff Daniels’s note had given him the four combinations of numbers which his scrambled brain had come up with. As well as that he remembered the shape of the old car which had run him down; it was like a bomb, he said, or a bullet.

  The match was perfect when the numbers had been checked out. A Studebaker ’51? Campbell had asked him over the phone.

  Daniels couldn’t remember what they looked like, but he went to the library that night and matched a picture with the blurred impression in his memory.

  Yes, he had said in the next call, that’s what it could have been.

  It was fitting into place. Well, something was, but Campbell did not know what just yet. He asked Teddy if he had checked the Kendalls’ house recently.

  ‘Every second day. Not a sign of life.’

  It seemed that O’Meara had missed something. The Studebaker had gone up that driveway not once but five times that week. Campbell had watched it from a driveway at the bottom of the street.