‘Merry Christmas,’ she called. Then two other women popped up beside her, a redhead and a blonde.
‘Merry Christmas,’ they chimed in chorus.
Mara waved back. ‘And to you, too.’
She should seriously look into booking for next Christmas, she’d thought as she’d sauntered away.
Today, the street was busy, as if everyone on holiday had emerged from their post-Christmas sofa slump and had decided to get out and about all at once. The little supermarket had a steady flow of customers; the DVD rental place, which seemed to have miraculously survived the onslaught of online everything, was doing a brisk trade; and the Remarkable Bay Surf Shop had a steady stream of customers, judging by the holidaymakers walking out with bulging shopping bags.
And Mara’s new favourite place—the bakery—already had a queue out the front door and down the street.
Her stomach growled and she tried to ignore it. Once she was done with her Pilates class, it would definitely be her next destination. A reward for exercising, if you will. She was thinking about changing her life and that meant she had to try some new things, right? Like exercise. On her walk yesterday, she’d walked past the Pilates studio and, with a rush of blood to the head, she’d decided to try a class. She’d never tried Pilates before, or yoga, or spin classes or running or PT of any kind. It just wasn’t her thing. Her mother had always been into fitness and Mara thought perhaps that particular gene had skipped a generation. Once, when she’d been hunting through her parents’ vinyl collection for a classic Smiths record, she’d come across the Jane Fonda Workout Album—‘With Instructions by Jane Fonda’—and she’d asked her mother, Alison, what the hell it was.
Alison had looked at it and laughed at Jane’s burgundy leg warmers. She’d smiled as she turned the album over to look at the song list. ‘I’d forgotten I had this. REO Speedwagon? Whatever happened to them? Those were the days. We used to wear extraordinarily high-cut leotards with leg warmers and we’d run around some musty old hall in the ’burbs in an effort to look like Jane Fonda. We didn’t know at the time, of course, that she had an eating disorder, did we? There were no gyms back then, Mara. It was the Israeli Army Diet and Jane Fonda.’
These days, her mother and father kept themselves fit and healthy by rising at the crack of dawn and walking ten kilometres before they went off to their office jobs. Mara rose at the crack of dawn too, but she got in her car and drove the fifteen kilometres to school. Hers was almost always the first one in the car park, and aside from the principal, she was often the last to leave. And that, Mara was certain, was the reason her colleague and dear friend Narima, one of the school’s student counsellors, had gently suggested she try something to help her de-stress.
It all happened when Narima had found Mara crying in the staff room one day, early in term four. Mara thought everyone else had gone home and she’d been overwhelmed and lost. It was the day she discovered one of her students, Abbie Patterson, had disappeared. Narima had come over to her, held her friend in a tight hug, and tried to find soothing words. She knew about Abbie’s troubled life, the two teachers having tried to convince Abbie to go to the police.
‘Don’t cry, Mara,’ Narima had said. ‘No matter how hard you try, you can’t change every kid’s life.’ She’d made two cups of strong coffee and brought them over to the table. The staff room had been empty and quiet and her voice echoed in the high-ceilinged room. ‘Believe me, I’ve tried. I spent my first five years in this job busting a gut with every single student. But now I’ve realised that all you can do is encourage and talk and advise. And if things get really serious, you call the police. Which is what we’ve done with Abbie, Mara.’
Mara had nodded through her tears.
Narima lay a hand on Mara’s and squeezed. ‘And at the end of the day … sometimes you have to walk away and realise that you are powerless to fight against a lifetime’s worth of disadvantage and chaos in these kids’ lives.’
‘Is that how you cope with it?’ Mara dabbed at her cheeks with a balled-up tissue.
‘It’s the only way. If I took the problems of every student and every family I deal with to heart, I would have quit after my first week. It would be too much. Your problem is that you need something else in your life, Mara. You need to find something outside of this place to fill your well. You need something else so you don’t fill your head with these thoughts that somehow you’re a failure.’
‘I do feel like I’ve failed Abbie,’ Mara had said quietly. It wasn’t just Abbie. It was her marriage, too. ‘She told me what was happening to her and I followed every rule and procedure and protocol and in the end it meant nothing.’
‘C’mon, Mara, you know that’s not true. She trusted you. That’s the first thing. That’s a huge step for a girl in Abbie’s situation. And you did what you are legally obliged to do. You called the police.’
‘And they didn’t do anything. Her stepfather’s not in jail where he damn well belongs. And she’s disappeared.’
Narima thought for a moment. ‘Here’s what I know. Sometimes, for really good reasons, the police can’t tell us what’s happening. I get the feeling in this case that things are being investigated. But it’s all the more complicated because their main witness has gone. Despite what it may look like, they take these things incredibly seriously, in my experience.’
‘They couldn’t protect Abbie. That’s all I know.’
Narima finished her coffee in a quick gulp. ‘You know I don’t beat around the block.’
‘The bush. Beat around the bush.’
Narima waved a hand. ‘You know what I mean. So listen to me when I tell you … you need a life, girlfriend.’
Mara sniffed. ‘I have a life.’
‘No, no, no. I mean a life that doesn’t revolve around your work and your students and nothing else.’
‘I have plenty of things going on,’ Mara said.
Narima looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘Oh yeah? Like what?’
The clock above the doorway ticked loudly in the silence. Mara turned her head to it. She never normally heard it above the lunchtime noise of talking and laughing and the sounds of the microwave and the coffee machine.
‘Books. I like reading.’ Mara didn’t follow up that thought with the truth: that she hadn’t finished a book in six months because she never got through more than one page before falling asleep, which meant she had to go back and re-read the same page every night. She couldn’t even remember the title of the novel that had been on her bedside table. It was part of the furniture now, as ignored as the dust bunnies under her chest of drawers.
‘That’s a start. Go on, then. Name a book you’ve read in the past, oh, I don’t know, six months. And I mean one that’s not on the English curriculum.’
Mara racked her brain. All she could come up with was a windmill and a woman in a hat.
‘I watch TV. Sometimes.’
‘When you’re not marking students’ work in the evenings. Do you have any secret hobbies you’ve been hiding from me?’
‘Hobbies? You mean, like sewing or something?’
‘Sewing. Carpentry. Gardening.’ Narima paused to raise her eyebrows with great brevity. ‘Men.’
Mara gave Narima a teary smile. ‘You know full well that there hasn’t been a man in my life for a while. And you also know full well that you would be the first to know if there was even the remotest possibility of there being any man in my life.’
‘I know,’ Narima replied.
Mara glanced down at Narima’s gleaming engagement ring. ‘You saying I need to get laid?’
Narima held a hand to her chest in mock outrage. ‘I would never say such a thing. But, Mara … it’s nearly the end of term. Why don’t you go away somewhere, smell the fresh air. Read some books. Eat cheese and cakes oozing with cream and drink all the wine you can fit in.’ A wicked grin lit up her face. ‘And, you know, maybe find a handsome man and have a cheap, meaningless holiday fling.’
A cheap, meaningless holiday fling?
Didn’t Narima know her better than that? Mara didn’t do meaningless. She took everything very seriously.
And perhaps that was her problem.
It was that conversation with Narima that had spurred Mara on to book her holiday and now, glancing across the road at the Remarkable Bay bakery, she was so glad she’d taken her friend’s advice. She hoped there was a cake oozing with cream left for her when she finished her Pilates class.
She had taken Narima’s advice in all kinds of ways. She’d already indulged in the cheese and wine. After the Christmas Day lunch debacle with the taciturn cop, she’d scoffed all she’d brought with her from home, and then hit the nearest supermarket as soon as it was open. And sunsets? She’d had four of them since she’d arrived in Remarkable Bay. Each had been more beautiful than the last, like a postcard coming to life each evening. She’d read three books—importantly, NOT from the school curriculum but from that year’s bestseller lists. She had walked along the beach of Remarkable Bay with nothing in her ears but the wind, and had been to the bakery once. Okay, twice.
She walked towards the building in which the Pilates classes were held. As she got closer, she stopped to read the advertising signs stuck to the inside of the window.
Keep Fit Classes for Seniors. Phew. She didn’t qualify.
Pilates for Flexibility. That’s where she was headed now. It shouldn’t be that hard. She was flexible. She could bend down to pick up a dropped whiteboard marker and right herself in half a second so she could keep an eye on her students. Sometimes they threw things. At her and at each other.
And after Pilates, she’d organised Surfing Lessons and Bird Watching Tours Through The Mangroves. She’d never surfed but she liked birds. She’d smiled to herself. Perhaps this town was exactly as sleepy as she needed.
She looked through the windows of the Pilates studio and hesitated. She wasn’t fit. She didn’t exercise, aside from yard duty, and didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of everyone in the class. She’d tugged on some old black yoga pants (for cleaning the house, not for actual yoga) and a tank top.
But dammit. Narima’s voice was in her heard. ‘Stop stressing and just do it.’
Mara grabbed the round brass handle on the door of the studio and went inside.
Chapter Five
George checked his watch and swore under his breath when he saw the time.
He was going to be late for the Pilates class and he hated being late. Especially when he’d spoken to the instructor just yesterday, a woman called Keira, and told her he’d be coming. He’d actually felt sorry for her, given that she was running a small business in a town the size of Remarkable Bay. It was a population so small it probably quadrupled during summer holidays, Easter and maybe school holidays, and then was a ghost town the rest of the time. He’d spent Boxing Day on the couch watching the first day of the Test cricket and he figured if he was going to do that for a few more days, he’d better get some exercise in, too.
He’d been delayed by Karen’s damn mutt. He’d opened the front door when he’d returned from his run that morning and she’d darted out, a scruffy Speedy Gonzales. He’d been taken by complete surprise because the damn dog had barely moved a muscle the whole time he’d been staying at Karen’s house, except to reposition to show him her butt or look at him with dog disdain.
Mara Blumberg, the woman he’d had lunch with on Christmas Day, had gasped when he’d shown her the teeth marks on his thumb. He couldn’t let the hound get the better of him again, so he’d run after her, down the stairs, onto the beach, into the dunes and then, finally, into the water. When the lapping waves had reached her belly, she’d turned and waited. He’d waded into the water in his runners, scooped her up in one arm and stomped back to the house. When he’d put her in the fenced-off backyard, the damn thing had sat on his foot.
A morning’s adventure under his belt, he’d changed and jogged to the Pilates studio. With a quick glance through the polished and gleaming front window, he could see the class was already underway. He quietly opened the door, waved a hand to the instructor, who nodded at him, and walked to the back of the class where a spare yoga mat was already laid out. He slipped out of his runners and socks and looked over the heads of the twenty or so people in the class, so he could follow along.
‘Stretch your arms out to the side,’ the instructor called out in a gentle tone.
He followed her instructions, taking in a deep breath. His fingers brushed up against someone else’s. He turned.
Mara.
She gave him a strange look.
‘Sorry,’ he said and took a step sideways, giving her space.
Mara turned her head and looked to the front of the class. He checked her out. She wore a tight-fitting singlet top and those clingy tights women wore when they were working out. All that tight-fitting and clinging revealed a voluptuous body. She had hips and breasts that curved in and out in all the right places and when he looked down to her elegant ankles and feet, he noticed she’d painted her toenails bright blue.
That was interesting.
‘Now tuck in your butts and lift your right leg.’
George did as he was told. This was the only place he did as he was told. He breathed when he was told to. Stretched and balanced and bent.
And he tried not to look at Mara Blumberg.
He didn’t want to think about Christmas lunch and what an idiot he’d been. Why the hell had lunch with a stranger made him so nervous? He stared down crooks all the time. He tackled drunks and the guilty and those who should be locked up and usually were once he’d finished with them. He’d given evidence in the Supreme Court before the most relentlessly cop-hating judges on the bench. So what was it about Remarkable Bay that had him running off at the mouth like a seriously nervous teenager and at the beck and call of a dog that seemed to hate him?
He breathed deep, tried to hold the pose, felt his stomach muscles tighten as he balanced himself.
He knew what it was about.
He’d seen the way Mara had reacted when he’d told her he was a cop. She’d gulped down half a glass of wine and then stared at what was left. He hadn’t been surprised. He’d had that reaction from women before. Once you say you’re a cop they think you’re a macho meathead, or someone who can’t leave the job at the office, who is hardened and too tough, who’s one case away from falling apart.
He’d tried having a relationship with a fellow cop but that hadn’t worked. Then he’d dated a pharmacist for a while, someone he’d met in a bar in the city. But neither relationship had lasted. Maybe he wasn’t the relationship type. He lived and breathed being a cop, just like his father had done. And now, his focus was on seeing his partner well again.
So he would look after the dog and not look at Mara’s arse.
There was no point getting any ideas.
* * *
‘I’m throwing in a bit of yoga here,’ the Pilates instructor called out to the class. ‘But I know you can all handle it. All that turkey and pudding and wine you’ve been indulging in is probably stuck right here in your gut.’ She patted her own flat stomach. ‘Let’s try the downward dog.’
Turkey. Dog.
George the cop.
Mara’s brain played the word association test as she stretched one leg out behind her and then peered ahead to the instructor, trying to copy her movements. She didn’t dare look to her right where George the cop had his arse in the air. Okay, just one tiny look. His muscled arms seemed to effortlessly hold him up. Mara looked away.
‘Breathe out,’ the instructor called, and Mara huffed.
A cop. In her experience, police seemed to be way more interested in paperwork than people. That’s why she’d reacted the way she had when he’d told her he was one. And she’d ruined lunch. It had been a perfectly decent Christmas meal of roast turkey, with all the veg, gravy and cranberry sauce, followed up by a delicious pudding. Honestly, it had been better
than anything Mara had ever made for herself or her family when it was her turn to cook. But why couldn’t she have let herself enjoy the experience?
Because he was a cop. Even if he did have lovely arms and a nice smile.
She’d had her own experiences with the police that made her suspicious of them and now, with Abbie, she’d had no luck convincing them something was wrong. She’d disappeared from school and had cut off contact with her friends.
‘She’s already turned eighteen,’ the smarmy officer had told her when he’d come to school to interview her. ‘She’s probably run off with her boyfriend. You know what young girls are like.’
His comments had riled her so much she’d wanted to punch something. And it might have been him if he hadn’t left the principal’s office shortly after.
No, she didn’t have much faith in the long arm of the law. Since Abbie had been missing, it seemed to Mara that they’d hardly lifted a finger to find her. They wouldn’t tell her why, but they didn’t even suspect she was missing. Mara had watched enough crime dramas to know that probably meant Abbie was accessing her bank account. Mara had tried to find her on Facebook, but there was no one with her name there. She was a smart girl. No doubt she’d changed it to avoid discovery.
It had been three months since Abbie had broken down in Mara’s classroom and revealed what had been happening to her at home at the hands of her new stepfather. Mara had guessed that something was wrong, had seen a change in behaviour in the normally studious and polite student, but would never have guessed it was that. Never that. Mara still woke up with nightmares about what Abbie had told her—about her stepfather’s abuse and her mother’s stubborn refusal to even believe it had happened—and when the police wouldn’t look for her, Mara had to wrestle with the thought that perhaps Abbie was safer away from her family.
What a horrific choice for an eighteen-year-old young woman to have to make. Mara wasn’t a Pollyanna. She didn’t automatically think the best of everything or everyone. She’d been a teacher for almost fifteen years and knew that things happened in some families that people would never want to imagine. Polite society believed it was a tragedy when a child turned up at school not having had breakfast. It was the children who didn’t turn up for school at all that kept Mara awake at night.
Christmas at Remarkable Bay Page 3
