Cedar Valley

by Holly Throsby

  Benny sat down again in her chair—her chest full of an acute anger—thinking directly now of one particular thing that Vivian had written in the Rubaiyat. Among all the quotes of poetry, and those little drawings, Benny had read one line and knew it was not Persian poetry. It bothered her right from the start: the girlishness of it, in neat red writing with a love heart drawn beneath it.

  Everything now is O.K.

  But of course it hadn’t meant that everything was all right, as Benny had thought, because it wasn’t. It wasn’t all right, or okay, and maybe Vivian never had been either. Those letters were initials: the name of some fabled man, who caught the fancy of her mother to such an extent that she’d never acted like her mother at all. Benny could see that now, but still she couldn’t shake the terrible feeling she kept inside her always: that everything about Vivian’s leaving was somehow her fault.

  Odette looked over at her and her mouth closed in a sad smile. ‘Oh, honey,’ she said, as two thin tears went down Benny’s cheeks.

  But ever the stoic, Benny Miller wiped them away with her shirtsleeve, took a sip of beer and said, ‘I’m fine. I should get changed.’

  Odette sat still, looking at the younger woman across the table; looking at her and seeing her. And she said, ‘Vivian was so full of shame for leaving you. I know she was. She was so ashamed that she could never face me again. I see that now. It’s why she disappeared out of my life and avoided me all those years, and sent me those photos, pretending she was there with you. I wish I could explain her. But I can’t. I mean, I have my hunches as to where her mind was at, but I can’t explain her. I just want you to know, Benny, that even knowing you for a short time, I can’t begin to understand it. If it were me—if I had been your mother—I could never have done that. Do you understand?’ Her eyes were glistening. ‘I could never have left you, Benny.’

  60

  At first it was just a few people mingling outside the Public Hall a little after 5 pm. Many of the shopkeepers had closed up and didn’t want to go home and then come back to town again, so they gathered a little early to talk among themselves. There were two long benches outside the white building, and by quarter past five the benches were full and at least twenty others were standing around in small groups.

  It was a clear evening—December-warm—and Betsy Dell opened the door of the hall a crack and stuck her head out to see how it was looking.

  ‘Good turnout!’ she yelled to Fran when she came back in, and Fran smiled and said, ‘I should think so,’ and put the finishing touches to their display: a little table had a vase of white lilies on it and a framed photocopy of the police sketch of the unknown man. Next to that were some newspaper clippings about the case, cut out from the Gather Region Advocate—‘to give mourners some context,’ as Betsy put it. And to the left was a framed photo of the Curios shopfront from 1978, on loan from Cora Franks, just because.

  When the doors opened at 5.25 pm, even Fran was bowled over at the number of people who streamed in. Keith Hand, from Cedar Valley Brake & Clutch, helped them fetch every remaining chair from the storage room, and even then it was standing room only at the back.

  ‘He’s struck a chord, hasn’t he,’ said Maureen Robinson as she joined Odette and Benny at their spot, halfway down on the side.

  Odette nodded, and Benny looked about the room, astounded by the number of people. Some women were dressed in formal attire, and others as if they’d just got off the couch from watching the soaps. Two men in council work wear sat on Benny’s right. In front was an elderly couple, holding hands.

  But to say the mood was sombre would be incorrect. Most people seemed simply curious; some slightly amused; and others were perhaps there for reasons they did not quite understand, driven by a kind of existential enquiry. They sat, introspective, questioning, as if the death of this unknown man on the main road of the town had thrown the nature of their own lives into sharp focus.

  Fran took her place at the podium—a simple black dress highlighting her doughy loveliness—and gave a brief introduction.

  She thanked the room; she thanked Betsy and others who had contributed.

  ‘He drew his last breath in our town,’ said Fran. ‘All we know is he was a decent-looking person. He was exceptionally dressed. We may never know what he was here for, but we do know that he was here. And we honour his memory as we should, as we would anyone who draws their last breath in our community.’

  A song played: ‘Stand by Me’ by Ben E. King. That had been Fran’s choice, as she found it both positive and profound.

  When it was time for Cora to stand, she did so self-consciously, and Benny Miller could hear that Cora’s voice was stung with nerves.

  ‘Thank you all for coming,’ she said, rather shakily. ‘I do think he—whoever he was—would so appreciate all of you being here to farewell him. And haven’t we all just taken stock a bit in the last week, and had a good think about ourselves?’

  •

  Cora was struggling. She was sure there had been a perceptible shift in the attitude of the audience with her rise to the podium. Why don’t they warm to me as they do to Fran? She briefly pondered this.

  ‘I, for one,’ said Cora, ‘have felt shaken up by it. I said to my husband Fred, I said, “Fred, if it’s that easy to pop off then maybe we should do that trip to Bali like we’ve always wanted,”’ and she gave a nervous laugh.

  And then a man with a booming voice said from up the back, ‘We might join you!’ and after that everybody laughed, and Cora beamed and began to relax a bit and she managed to speak quite well.

  ‘As many of you know, Lil Chapman and I were the ones to discover the unknown man last Wednesday. Lil’s here in the front. Give a wave, Lil. And while it was not the best circumstances to meet someone—when they’re already dead—he has certainly made an impression.’ Cora carried on with increasing confidence—Fred Franks, watching from the front row, lit with pride—and when she was finished she sat down again between Fred and Lil, and felt a rush of pleasure at how well it had gone.

  Another song played. This time it was ‘My Way’ by Frank Sinatra, and a surprising number of people sang along.

  Cora Franks smiled as she looked about the room, clasping the funeral brochure in her hand. She really felt very good. Betsy Dell glanced over and gave her an approving nod. Cora couldn’t believe the amount of people present and the cheery feeling in the room. She could see every shopkeeper on Valley Road, and so many people she knew from around town. And given the man had died outside Curios, Cora Franks couldn’t help but feel that, in some small way, all of this was a little bit about her; that all these people were somehow here to support her and her establishment—a Cedar Valley institution—as well as the dead man in the suit.

  Yes, Cora could see almost every shopkeeper, but not every one. She couldn’t see Dieter Bernbaum, the chemist from across the road, for instance. But he was such a strange man, his absence from community events was hardly surprising.

  She looked down at the printed brochure, at the sketch of the man on the front. It was a terrific likeness—some people could draw so well—and as Cora stared into the man’s sketched eyes, that same feeling came over her as when she had seen him in real life—or in death, as it were—and she’d sensed some hint of recognition. She blinked and, maddeningly, the sense dissolved. If only she’d gone out and spoken to him. If only Therese hadn’t been so upset that day and Cora hadn’t been so distracted by her—and it was then that it occurred to Cora that Therese wasn’t there at the funeral. Cora had been so nervous she hadn’t even noticed.

  Her ‘friend’ Therese, who simply didn’t care an inch about the man who’d died in the street, or about anyone really. She acted like her life was a long stream of misfortunes when it wasn’t at all, going on and on about Ed all the time—and Cora noted that Ed was nowhere to be seen either.

  Therese should have been there. It was an affront to Betsy and Fran that she wasn’t. Betsy was supposed to be Therese�
�s friend, and Fran was too. Fran was Therese’s neighbour! No, Cora Franks was appalled. She was absolutely appalled by Therese’s absence.

  And yet: what was this marvellous sense of freedom?

  Cora was struck by it. By the sudden and unusual feeling that she could just be, amid all those people, herself. Even more than appalled, Cora Franks was so very pleased, so deeply and powerfully relieved that, for once, Therese Johnson was, blessedly, not there.

  61

  ‘I think it’s probably beyond irrelevant, but you boys should still head down.’ Detective Sergeant Anthony Simmons was leaning on the edge of Hall’s desk in the common area.

  ‘Good to show a police presence,’ said Hall from his chair.

  ‘Whatever,’ said Simmons. ‘Just hang up the back. Imagine if our blonde woman showed up to pay her respects? Wouldn’t that be convenient?’

  Gussy Franklin, one desk along, said, ‘Can we go to the wake too? It’s catered.’

  And Tony Simmons chuckled at Gussy—he loved that guy—and he went back into his office, a little cooler now that an afternoon breeze was coming in the window.

  Jenny was taking the girls to the service. The ridiculous service. She’d called earlier and suggested she pick up Elsie on the way, but Tony had objected.

  ‘She’s too frail,’ he said, and he hated saying it. But Elsie Simmons was so bent over and slow and it was always such an ordeal getting her in and out of the house. Besides, it irritated Simmons enough already that Jenny wanted to attend.

  Tony had spent the afternoon reading through Vivian Moon’s letters to Odette Fisher. There was a thick wad of them and Odette had kept them in chronological order, which had made things easier for Simmons.

  The handwriting was consistent with the notes inside Vivian’s old copy of the Rubaiyat (Simmons had looked over that again too, briefly; who knew what those little poems were banging on about?) and by four-thirty he’d got to the end of Vivian’s communications, which ceased in June 1969. The last letter Odette had provided stated that Vivian was returning to Australia. It was sudden, and no reason was given. She was planning to settle in Sydney and find work. In that final letter Vivian seemed, given her earlier flourishes, oddly restrained.

  He heard the boys out in the common area, saying cheerio to the others, and Simmons thought to himself that the funeral was the type of event that exemplified why he’d prefer to live in Clarke. This kind of thing would never happen in Clarke, Simmons thought, as he lined photocopies of four letters alongside each other, all of them from Vivian’s time in West Berlin, and applied a highlighter to certain sections.

  The pen was raised in his hand when the phone rang—a call from the austere man from the German consulate.

  ‘I have some information,’ said the man.

  ‘Did someone recognise him?’ asked Simmons.

  The man said that yes, someone had.

  The German consulate had circulated the sketch and the description to its Australian offices, and to the Federal Criminal Police Office in Germany, also known as the BKA. The BKA had a database of unidentified bodies and missing persons, and the sketch and description Simmons had provided was matched to a photograph and description from Berlin, where a Mrs Klein had lodged a claim.

  ‘Who’s she?’ asked Simmons.

  ‘The wife,’ said the man on the other end of the line.

  ‘The wife of Oskar Konig?’ asked Simmons, the name that was highlighted before him on one of Vivian’s long and flowery letters.

  ‘No,’ said the man. ‘The wife of Oskar Klein.’

  62

  By the time the party pies arrived at the wake, the drinking had long started and the boisterous noise from the Royal Tavern spilled out onto Valley Road.

  The service itself was supposed to run for half an hour, but the difficulty of it was that there was only so much Cora and Fran could say about a person they had never met, and popular songs tend to be brief. At ten to six the congregation was heading out the doors of the Public Hall and walking up the street to the Royal, where Tom had Gary and Ern working with him behind the bar in anticipation of a crowd.

  The pub was as busy as Benny had ever seen it. It was as busy as most people had ever seen it, and the mood was surprisingly buoyant. Benny waited in a long queue at the bar to buy herself and Odette a drink. And when Tom Boyd finally got around to serving her, he said, ‘Benny, you should’ve come around and helped yourself,’ and Benny Miller felt a warm rush of belonging, which only expanded within her when Tom, smiling, dismissed her as she held out her money, as if it were a preposterous notion that she should pay.

  Odette certainly knew a lot of people, and she introduced Benny around. There were members of her book club present, and her writer friend, Arden Cleary—who talked to Benny kindly about local geology. Odette seemed to have deep resources for being social.

  The party pies provided by Fran were gone in minutes, and Fran walked around with an empty platter apologising for underestimating the numbers. Benny saw the two policemen that had been there on the evening the man had died—they were standing by the pool table now in their uniforms, talking with some locals. And she noticed Cora Franks, too, sitting at a table in the bistro with Fred and Betsy and several other people who Benny recognised from behind the shop counters on Valley Road.

  It was at least an hour later, perhaps more, when the crowd at the bar thinned and more people relocated to the bistro for dinner. Benny was returning from the bathroom to the table next to the window, where Odette was sitting with a small group of people, all of them eating chips from a basket, and Benny saw Odette break into a broad grin when a woman appeared beside her—a beautiful woman with wide, dark eyes.

  ‘There you are!’ said Odette, and the two women hugged before embarking on a rapid conversation, chattering away as Benny took her stool again, about a book this woman had just finished reading for book club. Carol Hargraves joined in—the book was about a man in a war hospital, burnt beyond recognition and unable to remember his own name—and Benny sat on her stool and listened and helped herself to more chips.

  ‘And then you start thinking he’s some kind of German collaborator, which is all a bit too relevant,’ said the woman, whose dark curly hair was grey at the temples, and Benny realised this woman was Annie Boyd. Tom was over at the bar working away, and Benny looked across at him and then back to this woman and thought: of course.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Odette, turning to Benny with a look that was almost apologetic.

  ‘Relevant how?’ asked Carol.

  ‘Well, because of what Elsie says about this Adelaide connection,’ said Annie Boyd.

  ‘We’d better save this discussion for book club; I think Maureen will have a lot to say,’ said Odette. ‘Benny, this is Annie Boyd.’

  Benny sat stiffly on her stool. She felt about as young as a seed. ‘Hello,’ she said to Annie.

  ‘Oh, you’re Benny,’ said Annie Boyd, and Benny felt quietly humiliated by her own jealous sentiments. How absurd she was to feel herself in competition with this bright and intimidating woman. Benny just nodded meekly as Annie went on with the kind of unwavering confidence Benny was so drawn to; the kind of confidence she was certain to never possess: ‘Well, it’s so nice to finally meet you. I was just saying to Tom last night that we should have you and Odie up to the house for a meal. You can meet the girls. They’re at that age now where they just love older girls; they get a bit starstruck, you know. What about next weekend? How does that sound to you, Benny?’

  •

  And all the while, as Benny was enjoying herself more than she would have expected, Gussy Franklin and James Hall were mingling with the locals and drinking lemon, lime and bitters, and then commiserating with Fran over the shortage of pies.

  ‘At least Tom will be happy,’ she said. ‘Everyone’s had to eat at the bistro.’

  ‘Ed will be run off his feet,’ Gussy Franklin said, and Fran asked after Gussy’s mum, and Jimmy’s mum, and the progress of thei
r investigation.

  ‘We’ve got a couple of leads,’ said Franklin. ‘We’re still looking into a few things.’

  Hall nodded, he finished the last of his drink and set the empty glass on the edge of the pool table. ‘We haven’t had any luck finding that blonde woman we were asking about the other day,’ he said. ‘But we’re looking. It’s a shame you weren’t in town when it all happened, Fran. I reckon you’d make a good witness.’

  Fran went Hmmm and gave an odd kind of smile. Then she cleared her throat and said, ‘You know, boys, I don’t think you should spend too much time on that one.’

  ‘Why do you say that, Fran?’ asked Gussy Franklin.

  ‘Oh, well, look,’ said Fran, and she sighed and seemed to deliberate a moment before she spoke. ‘I don’t want to start gossip, so I’ll just say this: Ed’s an old friend of mine. A very old friend. We went to primary school together, for goodness sake. And I’m not saying I approve, but he’s a friend.’

  ‘And what?’ asked Gussy.

  ‘And do you need me to spell it out for you, Gussy?’ said Fran. ‘That poor woman is not going to solve your case. I wasn’t going to say this to you boys when you came in the shop asking in front of everyone, but I’ll say it to you now, off the record. I live two doors up from Ed Johnson and I’ve seen a few things over the years that I did not need nor want to see. And all I’m going to say about last Wednesday evening is that it’s lucky Therese was up at Curios having a drink. I don’t know what Ed thinks he’s doing. Probably making promises he can’t keep, from what I can gather, and that kind of thing can send people crazy. Do you understand what I’m saying? You boys are barking up the wrong tree.’

  63

  Mrs Renate Klein was weary with sleep as she told Detective Sergeant Anthony Simmons, in a thick German accent, down an echoing telephone line from Berlin, that she had been waiting for his call and was just rising to a wintry day.