Benny sat straight in the car seat and the wind blew her thoughts around—from Odette and Lloyd to the box of books in the shed and the notes Vivian had written all over them. Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, before we too into the dust descend. Benny could not tell why these lines angered her so much.
Odette, lost in her own world of the past, stared through the windscreen with a dry kind of smile.
‘I was so devastated by the final miscarriage. Losing our baby so late. I wanted to feel anything but that. Do you know what I mean?’
‘Yes,’ said Benny, as they went over a bridge above a wide lake.
‘And Lloyd was dependable. Very smart, very philosophical, very steady. I can’t believe it now—how I’d lie there next to him just wanting more. And of course Lloyd didn’t have the more I wanted. I’d have probably stood outside in an electrical storm at that point, just so I’d be struck. And so, I pushed him. And he pushed back. It’s hard to think about even now. I said such awful things to him, Benny.’
Benny Miller wanted to say something very good at this point. She wanted to offer something helpful and even wise, because what Odette was saying to her was something she could understand.
‘You were in distress,’ said Benny, who felt much older in that moment, being admitted to the intimacies of Odette’s history.
‘Yes, I suppose I was,’ said Odette, and she was quiet for a while before she added: ‘That’s a generous way of seeing it.’
The sign for Cedar Valley appeared and Odette turned off and drove along past a paddock of cows—an old bathtub sat near them at the fence, full of dirty water—and there must have been thirty of those white cow-birds standing with them, at least two birds to each cow. Soon the car arrived in the town, past the police station and the florist, and then right at the grocery store towards Wiyanga Crescent. Odette pulled to a stop behind Benny’s station wagon. She turned the engine off and they sat there, with Bessel’s head in between them, the dog panting in anticipation of getting out, his hind legs on the back seat.
‘I was reading over Vivian’s letters last night,’ said Odette. ‘That’s why I’m thinking about it. She was describing this … this particular scenario. And I mean—the way Vivian felt about love? I think I thought that’s how it should be for everyone, all the time.’
Bessel barked and Odette said, ‘Okay, Bessel!’ and her face lightened again as she opened the door and Bessel hopped out across her lap and went straight over to raise a leg at the gum tree.
Then Benny and Odette got out and went around to the back of the car and began to unpack the seedlings and soil. The bumper sticker on the back of Odette’s car said: Where the hell is Hay?
‘I guess if we see Lloyd at Stockfeeds next time, I’ll point him out.’
Benny smiled. ‘Okay.’
‘Thanks for listening, honey,’ said Odette, holding the chives, standing there by the dusty car in her overalls and her work boots. ‘It’s all a long time ago now. And what can you do? I didn’t deserve Lloyd in the end. I’m spoilt just by the memory of him in his stupid pyjamas.’
56
Cora Franks sat behind the polished counter at Curios with a notepad in front of her and a pen in her hand, tapping the pen against the paper and wondering what on earth she could say.
She had spoken at four funerals. One for each of her parents, one for Betsy Dell’s husband, and one for her father’s sister—Lynette—who was such a horrible woman that it was very difficult to muster up anything nice to mention.
And now she was faced with this new challenge of what to say at the funeral of a man she had never met, and had no idea about whatsoever.
Cora tapped her pen and wrote down the only things she could be certain of: the quality and vintage of his suit, the date and approximate time of his death, the reassuring quality of his face. He looked like an old-fashioned movie star—that’s what she had thought at the time. And she had felt he was very dependable.
Oh, how funny.
How she had formed such opinions, just by looking at his resting countenance. But oddly enough, Lil Chapman seemed to agree. They’d discussed it on the night he was found, over a glass of brandy, and Therese had rolled her eyes. Then Lil had reiterated it just that morning over tea. Just before she left to go back next door, Lil had said it like this: ‘Don’t you think he looked like a really decent person? Like, a bit noble or something?’
And Cora said, ‘Yes,’ and thanked Lil for her input.
Now, Cora wrote down Decent and Noble and then she sat back on her stool and sighed, and she was sitting there quietly thinking when Detective Sergeant Anthony Simmons and Constable James Hall walked through the door and approached the counter.
Cora Franks looked at them over the top of her reading glasses.
‘Hello, Tony,’ she said. ‘James.’
‘Hi, Cora,’ said Constable James Hall, who seemed to Cora to always look like he’d just heard something rather surprising.
‘Mrs Franks,’ said Detective Sergeant Simmons.
And it just stuck Cora like a pin the way Tony called her that. Mrs Franks. There was something about the way he said it, so disdainfully, that made Cora wonder how any child of Elsie Simmons could have turned out so aggressive.
‘I’m just putting some words together,’ she said. ‘For the funeral of the unknown man.’
‘I heard about that,’ said Tony. ‘A funeral with no body. Don’t you call that something else?’
‘I think it’s a called a commemorative service,’ said Hall.
‘You call it a funeral, Tony,’ said Cora, and she took off her glasses and set them down on the counter.
Simmons grinned and he put one hand on the polished benchtop, another on his hip. He towered over Cora in a deliberately commanding position. ‘Much to my disappointment, we’re here to talk about antique silver,’ he said, still smiling.
Cora nodded, desperately pleased that they were there on official business, and determined not to show it.
Simmons began to explain, quite vaguely, dispensing as little information as possible, how a particular piece had come into their possession—an antique—and they were wondering if Cora could take a look at it.
‘You want my professional opinion,’ said Cora.
‘We thought it wouldn’t hurt if you took a look at it,’ said Simmons, as Hall casually examined the watch cabinet, taking particular interest in the watches with the thin gold bands.
‘What is it?’ asked Cora Franks.
‘It’s part of an ongoing investigation,’ said Simmons, and Cora said, ‘Well, if it would help in your investigation,’ and then embarked on on a tangent about the funeral for the unknown man, and how Elsie Simmons had told Cora first about the Somerton Man business, and that Cora was still astounded that it was so pertinent. Elsie was like an elephant with her memory. ‘She may be getting a little forgetful here and there, but she can recall 1948 as clear as crystal; she’s a wonderful resource.’
Simmons experienced the distinct discomfort he felt when someone spoke about his mother, even in friendly terms, and the instinct rose in him, as it always did, to come to Elsie’s defence.
It had been his idea to come to Curios and speak to Cora Franks, even though it went against his personal preferences. He could have sent Franklin along with Hall, and avoided Cora altogether. But on his drive to the station that morning he knew he wouldn’t do that. Despite his aversion to the woman, Simmons was a man who liked to see things for himself. He wanted to walk into Curios with the comb and watch her face as he showed it to her. Why? He wasn’t entirely sure. There was just something about how it was all beginning to fit together in his mind.
Hall stood upright again as Simmons produced the clear bag with the comb in it from his pocket. ‘This is it here,’ said Simmons. ‘It’s a comb, obviously. Just wondering if you have any thoughts about it.’ He said this casually and set it on the bench.
Cora Franks raised her eyebrows.
She put her reading glasses back on and picked up the plastic bag and held it so the silver comb was a foot from her face. Then she turned it over in her hand to inspect the marks on the handle, and looked up at Tony Simmons.
‘Well I’ll be damned,’ she said.
‘You recognise it,’ said Simmons.
‘It’s just the weirdest thing,’ said Cora Franks, plainly aghast. ‘I was just thinking about it. Just yesterday.’
‘You were thinking about the comb?’ asked Hall. He looked at Simmons and then back at Cora Franks, whose eyes were wide and bright.
‘Well if you want to know about it, it’s German. I can tell you that for certain. German-made, sterling silver, either late nineteenth century or very early twentieth century. It belonged to a set. I have the brush and the mirror at home. I use the brush every night. It has lovely soft bristles.’
Cora looked quite pleased with herself now, being the custodian of such information, and Simmons stared steadily, careful not to react, even as he felt within him an engine firing up. It was deep down in his belly: a little motor of excitement. ‘Huh,’ said Hall, confused. ‘Why were you thinking about the comb yesterday?’
‘Well, because I had the whole set in my cabinet. It’s the kind of thing you sell as a set. If you lose a piece—well, you can’t sell them separately. And I was talking with my new neighbour, Benny; she’s the new girl working at the Royal. You see, Benny’s mother used to work for me. And I was telling Benny how I had to let her mother go.’
Hall retrieved his notepad from his pocket, and a pen from his other pocket and he wrote down the name Benny while Simmons just stood there, his arm on the bench, his body tingling.
‘When did the woman work for you?’ asked Hall.
‘It was 1971,’ said Cora.
‘1971?’ asked Hall, looking more surprised than usual.
Staring straight on at Cora, Simmons calmly breathed in and out of his nose. ‘You’re talking about Vivian Moon,’ he said.
And Cora Franks narrowed her eyes, peering over her reading glasses, and she said: ‘Yes, I am, Tony. I was talking about her yesterday and here I am talking about her again. What I’m telling you is this: Vivian Moon worked for me and I fired her for stealing this comb in 1971 and I’ve never doubted that decision for a second.’
57
Benny and Odette spent several hours in the overgrown garden behind the cottage, clearing away the weeds, digging out the long runners from the Boston ferns, pulling the overgrown vines off the fence and making a big long bed for vegetables. Odette dragged out several pots from the shed and they planted chives and parsley in them, and Benny set the pots on the deck near the back door, positioned for the morning sun. Then she opened a packet of garbage bags and they put leaves and weeds and small branches in five of them, until they were full.
At some point Odette had yelled for Fred over the fence, and he came over to help remove a clump of bamboo that had shot up alongside the shed but, even with the three of them, they made little headway. Fred Franks, with his Bob Hawke hair, was a man with a particularly pleasant demeanour and Benny liked him immediately. She was pleased when he stayed for a chat around the table, all of them sweaty and tired.
Then Fred went home and the two women made tea and toast and sat down again and chatted away some more. The tall trees gave a dappled light to the yard and it was such a nice place to sit.
When they heard a knock at the front door some time later, Odette thought it must be Fred again and she went inside to let him in, and Benny sat back with her feet up on the wooden table, cupping her tea in both hands. She was covered in dirt and had some sunburn on her shoulders. The gloves had got wet so she’d taken them off and her fingernails were black with earth.
She could hear Odette talking at the front door, and then a man’s voice was speaking.
Benny put her tea down and got up, and entered the kitchen to see Odette leading a man down the hallway. A policeman. Benny could tell in an instant by his shirt and tie and navy name badge.
‘Come through to the garden,’ said Odette, and the tall man followed, glancing about at the house.
Benny walked back out to the garden and stood there awkwardly, not knowing if she should sit down or not, wondering, as she always did when she saw a policeman, if she had done something wrong.
•
Detective Sergeant Tony Simmons followed along behind the graceful woman he knew to be Odette Fisher. His mother knew Odette quite well, and Tony had met her a few times over the years. She used to be in the book club and now she lived up in the bush on the mountain. He knew she owned this house that he had once slept in as a boy.
The hallway had a long rug that ran up it—it was exotic-looking with red and brown patterns—and under that were polished floorboards. Tony felt the wood creak under his weight as he walked past the first bedroom on the right—there was an unmade bed and a lamp on a small bedside table—and then the bathroom with the pink tiles and the big bath with a showerhead over it. He looked in quickly and a flash of memory came: Viv in the shower, beclouded by steam, water rushing over her perfect body.
‘Benny’s just out the back,’ said Odette, and Simmons walked past the last bedroom on the right—the one he had slept in. He stopped in the doorway and looked at the little single bed.
‘Just out here,’ Odette said, and he turned and said, ‘Right,’ and soon he was standing in the yard, hands on his hips, looking around the garden, which was clearly in the midst of some kind of transformation.
‘Nice place you got here,’ he said meaninglessly as Odette stood there, waiting for him to explain his presence.
‘This is Benny,’ said Odette. ‘Benny, this is Tony. Would you like a cup of tea, Tony?’
Simmons said, ‘No thanks, just a quick chat,’ and the girl called Benny sat down slowly at the table, and then Odette and Simmons sat down, too. And when the three of them were sitting there around the outdoor setting, Odette asked after Elsie, and Simmons gave a brief appraisal of his mother’s health.
Benny sat, self-consciously, and Simmons noticed her redden when he turned to her and said, ‘Your mother’s name has come up as part of an ongoing investigation and I wanted to ask you a couple of questions.’
Well, that was not what Odette Fisher had been expecting him to say.
‘Vivian?’ said Odette. ‘What investigation?’
‘Just an ongoing investigation,’ said Simmons, and he coughed loudly as if to halt any further questions from Odette Fisher.
It had been a few hours since Tony Simmons and Jimmy Hall had spoken to Cora Franks at Curios. They had returned to the station and held a sit rep with Franklin, and then Simmons had got on the phone to make some enquiries into Vivian Moon, her death, and her most recent living arrangements.
Franklin had said, ‘So this Vivian woman stole the comb from Curios and at some point she gave it to our guy?’
‘That’s a theory,’ said Simmons.
‘So the comb is the gift?’ said Franklin. ‘That’s what the note meant?’
Simmons shrugged his shoulders.
‘It could be,’ said Hall, as Simmons sat there looking over his notes about Vivian Moon, who in December 1971 had left Cedar Valley and returned to Sydney, where she lived with a man called Frank Miller—currently not answering his phone—and, in 1972, gave birth to Benita Miller.
After that, the thin trail grew cold.
It seemed that Vivian Moon had travelled in and out of the country a fair amount over the past twenty or so years, and it was clear she was not really part of ‘the system’. She kept a passport and a driver’s licence, but no credit cards or memberships or insurance policies. She wasn’t on the electoral roll, he was yet to uncover any bank accounts, and the telephone at the house she had lived in at the time of her death was unlisted—a silent number.
Now Benny Miller was living here in Cedar Valley, in the very same house that Vivian Moon had lived in, and a quick call to Tom Boyd confirmed what Si
mmons had suspected: that Benny Miller had arrived in Cedar Valley the same day that the unknown gentleman in a vintage suit had sat down against the window of Curios and died.
And now, here was Simmons: sitting in the backyard of the cottage, looking at this reserved and somehow defiant young woman, who sat as stiff as a board and had a face to match the otherworldly beauty of her mother.
‘So, Benny,’ said Simmons, ‘I’m curious as to whether you can shed some light on your mother’s general whereabouts. Where did she live when you were growing up?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Benny.
‘What about when you were older? A teenager?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Benny.
Simmons asked Benny if she had been in touch with her mother recently, before she died, and the answer was no. He asked her if she understood the circumstances of her death, and Benny, without so much as flinching, said she did. Odette Fisher flinched, though, Simmons saw it and noted it in his mind as he continued on.
He asked Benny if her father was in regular contact with Vivian and she said, again, that she didn’t know. She didn’t know her mother’s occupation. She didn’t know her qualifications, her financial situation. She didn’t know any of her acquaintances or friends—apart from Odette Fisher—and she did not know her boyfriends. She had no knowledge of an antique silver comb that may or may not have once been in the possession of Vivian Alice Moon.
‘I think we’ve established that she didn’t know her mother very well!’ said Odette, who was visibly distressed by this wretchedly monotone interaction—as distressed as Benny was indifferent.
‘Do you have anything of hers we could take a look at?’ asked Simmons. ‘I understand she lived here permanently for a time in 1971. I know it’s a while ago, but it looks like the house hasn’t changed much. Did she leave any personal effects?’
Odette, who looked at that point like a lion whose cub was in danger, said: ‘Tony, I don’t know why on earth you would care about Vivian’s things, but if it’s important to you I have some of her letters at home. If you want them I’ll bring them to the station tomorrow, and then I’ll have them back when you’re finished. Right now I think Benny has said all she can say.’
Cedar Valley Page 23
