Forbidden Fruit

by Ilsa Evans

  This was the man who was due to touch down at Tullamarine airport at five-forty on Friday morning – an event for which my mother was even taking the day off work, a rare phenomenon. Both Petra and I had offered to accompany her but she refused, rather curtly. Instead, they would come to my house for breakfast, after which my father was going to ‘help the police with their inquiries’. I suspected this was behind Yen’s monopolisation of his first hours; she wanted to discuss things with him before he spoke to anyone else. I also suspected that they both knew exactly who the blonde woman was, and that somehow she was linked to the events of that last Anzac Day weekend. And I very much doubted that they were going to share any more than was necessary, least of all with Petra and me. In fact, if you looked at our familial history, we had been treated as the proverbial mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed sustenance of the faecal variety. Although I suppose at least that way we didn’t see what we were eating.

  This analogy occurred to me on Thursday morning primarily because I was eating mushrooms at the time, on toasted rye, sitting on a dining-room chair that I had dragged out to the decking. I put the remains of my meal to one side and picked up my coffee, wrapping my hands around the mug as I stared out at Charlotte. Gusto sidled over and filched a mushroom from the plate, chewing briefly before spitting it onto the decking. He backed away, as if concerned it might follow.

  My father was involved, he had to be, though hopefully not as the actual murderer. Otherwise surely he would have remained stubbornly on the other side of the world, preparing to fight extradition, rather than voluntarily winging his way across the seas.

  I didn’t know how I felt about his return. Perhaps I was lucky that he had left while I was still so young, because it was his absence that had become my norm, gradually evolving into a casual complacency about our skeletal relationship. There was no father-sized gap that pulsed at the edges of my life, or daddy issues that propelled me towards older men with protective personalities. Not like Petra, who had had two long-term relationships with men who were much older. True, there was some residual resentment, just a little, gritty and a touch sour, but that was only natural.

  The sliding door shot open, bouncing in its frame, and Quinn emerged. Her hair curved up to the right, like surf, where the remains of last night’s ponytail wobbled cartoon-like. She shaded her eyes to peer at me. ‘Why’re you out here?’

  ‘Just enjoying the sunshine.’

  ‘Blech.’ She gazed around the backyard. ‘They’ve gone.’

  ‘Excellent observation.’

  ‘Did they take her with them?’

  ‘No, they left her here for us to dispose of. It’s the law of finders keepers.’

  She gave me a disparaging look and then picked up one of my rye crusts and nibbled it. ‘Do you know what you need out here? One of those egg chairs. You know, they hang from a hook.’ She gestured up to the extended eaves. ‘And then just swing.’

  Something nibbled at the edge of my conscience. ‘Swing?’

  ‘Yeah. They’re made of, like, cane stuff. You know.’

  I nodded, trying to anchor the thought. Swing. Swingers.

  ‘I’m gonna make toast.’

  The sliding door banged shut behind me, and the recollection popped into being. Grace June Rae, rummaging around for the tissue box with the scribbled date. Telling us that the timing hadn’t come as a big surprise to her. Because it was ‘one of those swingers, I’m guessing’. I blinked. Surely she hadn’t meant what I thought she meant.

  I jumped up and went inside, through the kitchen and into my study, where I googled swingers. The screen immediately filled with a dizzying variety of options. Swingers seeking partners, swingers’ sex personals, upcoming events for Melbourne swingers. I sat back for a moment, rather bemused, and then scrolled down until I found trusty Wikipedia. A few seconds later and I was learning that swinging was non-monogamous behaviour, in which singles or partners in committed relationships engaged in sexual activities as a social and/or recreational activity. Apparently it had all been part of the sexual revolution of the sixties.

  Try as I might, I could not situate the sexual revolution within Majic. Grace June Rae? Old Betty Rawlings? James Sheridan, perhaps dressed in his mayoral robes? Maybe it was still happening. Swinging seniors uncovered. Not a pretty picture.

  ‘Whatcha looking at?’ Quinn lounged in the doorway, toast in hand.

  I hit delete and the definition of swingers vanished. ‘Ah, just researching those chairs you were talking about.’

  ‘Excellent! Griffin’s mum’s got one and they’re, like, fantastic!’

  ‘Well, I’ll see what I can do. What are you up to today, anyway?’

  ‘Nothin’ much.’ She focused on a point over my shoulder. ‘Can Griffin come round?’

  ‘No, because I won’t be here.’

  Her gaze swivelled down to me. ‘So? It’s not like we need a chaperone!’

  ‘That’s exactly what you need.’ I raised my hand as her mouth opened. ‘And I’m not arguing with you. If you can persuade Luce to stay here, then he can come. Over.’

  Quinn’s face settled into a glare. ‘Whatever. I’m not a baby, you know.’

  ‘That’s precisely the point.’ I watched her flounce from the room, thinking, not for the first time, that the word ‘flounce’ was made for teenage girls. I turned back to the computer and stared at the wallpaper, which showed a photo of my five girls as they were ten years ago. A four-year-old Quinn sat on Scarlet’s lap, with Ruby sitting beside her and Red and Lucy leaning in from behind. I wondered if my father had kept photos of Petra and I through the years, or whether we had been replaced by his four later offspring.

  Swingers. Had this social and/or recreational activity been popular around here at one time? Like tennis, or bowls, or bridge? Perhaps the blonde woman had been involved in this world, but things had got out of hand. Which still didn’t explain how she ended up buried behind my father’s shop. Unless … my mind shied away, and then crept back. An image niggled, black and white, a group of young people with him laughing in the centre, but I couldn’t quite place it. One thing was for sure: I wasn’t going to get an explanation from Yen and, if she had anything to do with it, not from my father either. Even though that was exactly what I deserved, and after forty-three years, it was about time it was delivered.

  *

  Grace June Rae lived about a fifteen-minute drive from the town centre, on an odd-shaped block with a long, gravelled driveway. Originally a small farm, the surrounding land had been sold off some years ago for residential development, meaning that her California bungalow and cluster of old, well-established trees were now an anachronism among the network of two-storey brick and manicured lawns.

  There was no answer to my initial knock so I opened the screen door and tried again, louder. This time I was rewarded by the sound of footsteps and soon afterwards the door opened. Grace beamed at me. ‘Well, there you are! Come in, come in!’

  ‘Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,’ I said as I crossed the threshold. Brown and cream swirly carpet merged busily with flocked wallpaper.

  ‘Nonsense. Visitors always welcome. Come through.’

  I took off my hat and followed her down a long hallway into a large, square, country-style kitchen, where I realised that I was not the only visitor being welcomed at that particular time. Old Betty Rawlings was ensconced in an armchair in the corner, by the stove, while another woman with shoe-polish brown hair, about the same age as Grace, sat at the formica table in the centre.

  ‘Nell, this is Bernice Waters.’ Grace waved towards the other woman, whose flat-toned hair really did look rather bizarre next to her mid-seventies skin. ‘And of course you know Betty. Bernice and Betty have come over to help me get my story straight. I rang them after you spoke to me.’

  Considering I had only spoken to Grace thirty minutes ago, their relaxed presence said a lot for their powers of locomotion when required. I nodded to each and pulled out a c
hair opposite Bernice. Grace was filling a kettle.

  ‘Coffee? Tea? Bonox?’

  ‘Coffee, thanks. White and one.’

  ‘Coming right up. In the meantime, ask away; we shall attempt to be fonts of wisdom. Look, Bern, Nell wears a hat.’ She pointed to this item, which now sat on the table, as if it added to my credentials.

  ‘Nice.’ Bernice gave it a brief glance. ‘Just don’t misquote us in your article. No offence but I know that happens. I wasn’t born yesterday.’

  I opened my mouth to correct her, explain that the information wasn’t going to be used for an article, but then closed it again. Perhaps it was best to leave it that way.

  ‘Where’s your notepad?’ asked Betty, from her armchair.

  I fished around in my handbag and came up with a pen and the printed out Google map directions that I had used to find Grace’s house. I flipped the page over and smoothed it out. My interviewees did not look impressed.

  ‘Well, fire away,’ said Grace, arranging earthenware mugs.

  ‘Okay. Ah, as I said on the phone, it’s more about a comment you made, Grace, when you were telling us about the media conference the other day. About not being terribly surprised, and that she was probably one of those swingers. Remember?’

  ‘Sure I do,’ said Grace comfortably. She slid a large mug of coffee in front of me, together with a plate with a slice of Madeira cake and two teddy-bear biscuits.

  ‘Sluts,’ said Bernice, in the same tone of voice she might have said ‘coffee-drinkers’, or ‘blue-eyed’. More descriptive than judgemental.

  Grace rolled her eyes. ‘So do you have a word for the men, as well?’

  ‘Yes: lucky. And don’t start with all that sexist rubbish. It’s the way of the world.’

  ‘Not nowadays,’ said Betty from the corner. ‘You need to get yourself on Facebook, Bernice. Or Twitter.’

  ‘Ah, can I ask you about these people?’ I interjected. ‘When you say they were swingers, were they like a group of married couples that, I don’t know, met up every so often and swapped partners?’

  ‘I don’t know the details!’ Grace was laughing as she sat down. ‘I just know there were lots of rumours around at the time. Everyone knew.’

  ‘I think they threw their keys into a bowl,’ said Betty. ‘First come, first served.’

  Grace was shaking her head. ‘No, that’s from a movie. What was it called?’ She clicked her fingers. ‘The Ice Storm! Good movie. The hobbit was in it.’

  ‘Don’t think I’d be picking his keys then,’ commented Betty. ‘Size matters.’

  Bernice snorted. ‘Not so much. Overrated.’

  I coughed politely. ‘I don’t suppose you’d know the names of anyone actually involved?’

  ‘The chemist,’ said Bernice immediately. ‘What d’you reckon, Grace? I always thought he’d be one of them. Charmer, but with a touch of the sleaze.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure he was. Someone told me. He was one of those that’d stand just that touch too close. Say something like, “Well, isn’t your husband a lucky man, Mrs Rae?”’ Grace put on a different voice for this last, an oily drawl that had her two friends chuckling.

  I had been gripped by a surge of excitement ever since the word ‘chemist’ had been mentioned. ‘When you say chemist, d’you mean the one next to my father’s butcher’s shop?’

  ‘That’s it. Patrick’s Pharmacy. It was the only one in those days so we didn’t have much choice. Nice little wife, though. Never worked out what she saw in him.’

  ‘Dallas,’ said Betty suddenly. ‘That was her name. They had two little kids. All of them squished into that apartment over the shop.’

  I thought of Lucy’s upper floor, now redesigned into two bedrooms, a bathroom and a tiny landing at the top of the stairs. As an entire residence, it would have been cramped. Not even enough room to swing a cat, as my mother had said, let alone anything else.

  ‘What was his name?’ asked Bernice, frowning. ‘Was it Peter?

  Grace was already shaking her head. ‘Paul. Paul Patrick.’

  The names confirmed Yen’s recollection. I scribbled them onto my paper. ‘Do you know what happened to them?’

  ‘Oh, when main street was redone they closed the shop and moved away. I think they got compensation. We didn’t have a chemist at all for a while, then Abbott’s opened. Fred Abbott, now there was a funny fellow.’

  ‘The Grinch,’ said Betty. She beamed.

  ‘No, he wasn’t!’ Grace looked offended. ‘He was a lovely chap!’

  ‘Not him, the keys. You know, in the bowl. Loretta Emerson and I went to see it at the theatre. There’s a scene where all the little critters throw their keys in a bowl. Shenanigans, I can tell you.’

  Grace exchanged a telling glance with Bernice. ‘Thank you, Betty, fascinating.’

  ‘Didn’t they go over Ballarat way?’ asked Bernice. ‘I seem to recall they started up again there. Went into partnership with a cousin or something.’

  I sipped my coffee, now tepid, and added Ballarat to the notes I’d made. Paul and Dallas Patrick. I circled her name slowly and then looked up. ‘Ah, what did she look like?’

  ‘Blonde,’ replied Bernice immediately. ‘A slim lass. Always nicely dressed. The kids too.’

  Grace was watching me. ‘You’re thinking it might be her. The body, I mean. But you’re wrong. She went with the kids a few weeks before he did, to set up their new place. I remember now, because I ran into her down the street around that time. She had a sister or someone with her, helping her pack. She was all excited about them moving to an actual house. The kids would have a bedroom each.’

  ‘You’re right,’ added Bernice, nodding. ‘And I said to my Frank that I’m not going near that place now that he’s there by himself. Bad enough when she was around, heaven knows how grabby he’d get with her gone.’

  ‘Ah, this sister … what colour was her hair?’ I asked casually.

  Grace frowned, thinking. ‘She’d have been blonde too, I’m sure. But you’re still on the wrong track. They would have left at the same time. Now eat your cake.’

  I broke off half the slice of Madeira and nibbled obediently, even though I wasn’t hungry. Bernice made a comment about Abbott’s, and their willingness to provide home delivery in those days, and that started her and Grace reminiscing about how service had once meant service. Betty began to snore gently in the corner, her head having slipped forward to concertina her chin. Sister, my foot. It was far more likely that the mystery woman had been a single member of the swinger’s club, or even the third wheel of a ménage à trois. Maybe she had been a foreigner, a Scandinavian with limited English, who was being kept as a sex slave. With the Patricks’ big move on the horizon, she had become surplus to requirements, but they couldn’t risk her telling her story to all and sundry, and so she had been buried in the back of the empty shop next door. Somehow my father had seen something, suspected something, been involved in some way. And that’s what I needed to discover next.

  Chapter Eight

  Your column about sex for the middle-aged pressed all my buttons. Which is more than my husband has done for the past decade.

  I parked around the corner from Grace’s house, just before the turn-off to Majic, and considered my options. I had to find out the exact date that Patrick’s Pharmacy closed down, and also if the family had relocated before or after. Then I needed to ascertain where they went. Only then would I be able to start asking questions about this ‘sister’. I fished out my mobile and after a great deal of fiddling, connected to the internet. There I looked up the telephone directory and tried for any listings for Patrick in Ballarat – nothing. I thought for a moment and then entered Deb’s number. She answered after only one ring.

  ‘I haven’t forgotten! I’ve just been snowed under, but I promise –’

  ‘I’m not ringing about the street sign,’ I assured her. ‘This is something else. A favour.’

  ‘You mean another favour?’

&nb
sp; ‘No, because the street sign isn’t a favour. It’s righting a wrong. This is an actual favour.’

  She laughed. ‘Okay, what?’

  ‘I need you to use your contacts at the council, maybe in the archives, and find out for me when Patrick’s Pharmacy closed. It would have been sometime in 1970. Sheridan Lane. And I also need a forwarding address, possibly in Ballarat. And I really need it today, the sooner the better.’

  There was a silence at the other end of the line.

  ‘You don’t have to give me an actual address if you don’t want to. Just whatever business he bought into. Probably a chemist. The names were Paul and Dallas Patrick. Two children.’

  ‘Um, can I ask why you want this?’

  ‘I’d prefer you didn’t.’

  ‘Has it anything to do with the body buried in your backyard? And, on that subject, can I also ask why you didn’t mention this when you spoke to me on Monday? I had to find out from Karen Rawlings and her craft group.’

  ‘You didn’t ask.’

  ‘Oh, of course! My mistake!’

  I swapped the mobile to my other ear. ‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you. You’re too nice. Look, I know this is going to sound odd, but when I spoke to you, I was so fixated on the street sign that I’d actually sort of forgotten about the whole body in the backyard thing.’

  ‘Totally understandable. Why, I discovered two bodies last weekend myself. I was going to tell you but it just slipped my mind.’

  ‘Then you know how it feels. Does that mean you can do me this favour? Now-ish?’

  She groaned. ‘I’ll give it a try. But you owe me a thorough explanation of what happened, and what this has to do with it. Deal?’

  ‘Deal.’ I pressed end and checked the battery life. Two bars. I really needed to charge this thing more often. I took my hat off and ran my fingers through my hair, then clamped the hat back in place. The question was whether I should turn right and head back home, or take a left and drive through to Ballarat, which was about an hour and a half away. This second option was risky, not just because there was no real guarantee that the Patricks had gone that way, apart from a seventy-year-old woman’s vague recollection, but also because Deb might hit a brick wall with her inquiries. I checked the time. Eleven-fifteen. And I only had today to discover as much as I could, with my father arriving tomorrow.