A Woman of Courage (15 page)

Despite everything that had happened in Sydney – the extraordinary, whisky-fumed episode in the hotel suite before the dinner at the Seven Stars and her lunchtime conversation with Mother – Jennifer was determined to make a final effort to restore her marriage to something like health and her cheery smile nearly cracked her face.

‘So nice to be home,' she informed the back page of
The Age
. Which did not reply. ‘I had a wonderful time. Such a lovely reunion! Mother is insisting I visit her more often.'

‘Why don't you?' Davis said from somewhere behind the paper.

‘I think I shall.'

‘Good.'

Was that all he cared?

Smoke began to billow from the bread in the toaster.

‘Oh God!' Jennifer leapt to her feet. Too late. She slid the charred offering onto a plate which she placed on the table in front of her husband. ‘I'm afraid it's caught a bit around the edges.'

‘I've no time to eat it anyway.' Davis was on his feet and heading for the door. ‘I shall be late tonight.'

‘It's not good for you to work so hard.' She gave the expected response. ‘We don't want you having a heart attack like Daddy did, do we?'

No answer. Davis was gone, taking the newspaper with him. Jennifer was alone with the burnt toast. She had a sudden and untypical urge to take the toast and the plate it was on and the breakfast things and the
cat
and fling them all against the wall.

She had read a magazine article that said isolation and loneliness might be the cause of what the author called aberrant behaviour. Like smashing up the breakfast things, Jennifer thought. But oh, how deeply satisfying that would be. She could almost taste the thrill of seeing the shards of smashed china crashing to the tiled floor, the smear of ketchup and egg on the wall, of hearing the ritual destruction of her suddenly unbearable life, her failed marriage.

She flung open the kitchen door and rushed into the garden, unable to get there fast enough. The rain was pouring down but she did not care. She stood outside, face raised to the clouds, mouth open to taste not only the rain but the sense that at this moment the equilibrium of her existence was slipping away. Slipping away, crashing like the splintered plates, and she did not care.

Her gown was wet, her fluffy mules saturated. Her hair hung in wet strands over her face and she did not care. Nothing, nothing mattered. Why, she thought in astonishment, I am having a breakdown. That is what it is. I am falling to pieces in the pouring rain in the bedraggled and saturated garden of my husband's multi-million-dollar house and I do not care. Not for the house or my husband or my marriage or anything. My poor, ruined, wasted life.

Tears came, floods of tears to mingle with the flooding rain. She was stifling, unable to breathe. She snatched at the neck of her robe, tearing it open, feeling a button rip free. Better but still not enough. She dragged off the robe and let it fall to the ground. She kicked off her mules. Her nightie next, the one with the embroidered rosebuds, so pretty. So meaningless. She drew a deep breath. Free at last.

Naked, Jennifer Lander stood in her garden and howled at the pouring rain.

5

It was a woman at one remove from reality who an hour later, having bathed and washed her hair, made up her face with meticulous care, buffed her nails and obliterated every thought of the episode in the rain-drenched garden, rang her friend Tessa and suggested they should meet for coffee.

‘Eleven o'clock? Our usual place? Good. I'll see you there.'

Jennifer went into the downstairs toilet and inspected her reflection in the mirror. She touched up her lips. She fluffed up her hair. She thought she was looking very well. The cracks were there but hidden now. She was detached. It was true that her equilibrium remained precarious within a precarious world but the crisis was past.

She made no attempt to retrieve her wet clothes from the garden. Let Mrs Harris fetch them; that was her job. There was another thing. The car was unreliable. She would not risk having it break down on her again. She would use a taxi and put it on her card. If Davis queried it she would say she needed new wheels, that she would neither endanger herself nor embarrass him by sticking with the old wreck that should have been put out of its misery five years ago. She imagined herself asking him what people would say, seeing the wife of a senior counsel driving around in a heap of junk.

Oh yes. She felt firm, strong. Under the shower, sluicing away the mud from her feet and warming her chilled and shuddering flesh, she had decided. She would make herself new, emerging not from the fire but the deluge. She would reclaim her life.

6

Tessa frowned, trying to pin down what she sensed was change. ‘Have you changed your hairstyle?'

‘Not really,' the new Jennifer said.

‘I'm sure there's something.'

The coffee arrived. Jennifer had been first at the café and had ordered before her friend had the opportunity to impose her views. Tessa frowned. ‘I had thought we might try –'

‘Harvested in the Jamaican mountains,' Jennifer said. ‘So aromatic. I am sure you will agree.'

It still tasted like instant to her but one-upmanship had become important to her new image.

‘It will be interesting to compare,' said Tessa, pursing acid drop lips. Control was Tessa's middle name. Perhaps that was why, having lost out over the coffee, she now said: ‘I am so glad you phoned. There is something I have to tell you.'

Having said so much she shut up, waiting for Jennifer to show interest, possibly even alarm. But Jennifer ate cake and sipped coffee and waited.

‘I wondered whether I should say anything but then I thought, she is my friend and it is my duty to tell her.' While her eyes watched.

Greedy vulture eyes, Jennifer thought. She knew her own face showed nothing. ‘This cake is delicious,' she said, brushing crumbs from smiling lips. ‘You really must try some.'

Tessa's mind was on things other than cake. ‘Have you heard of Juanita Santos?'

Every woman in Australia had heard of her. Supermodel Juanita was famous.

‘I may have done. Portuguese?' Jennifer guessed.

Had Tessa not been determined to be in control she might have shown exasperation. ‘She is a model from the Philippines,' she said. ‘You must have heard of her.'

‘Possibly. As I said. What about her?'

Tessa leant across the table and lowered her voice, the better to share the drama of this great secret. ‘I hear Davis has been seen with her.'

‘She is probably a client,' Jennifer said.

‘Seen several times. Sometimes at night. At Withershins once, I believe.'

Only one of the smartest and most expensive venues in town.

‘Thank you,' Jennifer said. She had a sick taste in her mouth and her heart was thundering but she managed a smile, secure behind the distance that since this morning's episode was keeping her safe. ‘I am always telling Davis he works too hard.'

‘If you say so,' Tessa said. She drank from her cup. ‘Do you really like this coffee?'

‘It is truly aromatic,' Jennifer said.

Tessa pushed away her cup. Jennifer saw it was still half full.

‘To trust is a truly Christian virtue,' Tessa said. ‘Provided it is not carried too far.'

‘Like all virtues,' Jennifer said and smiled. As a true Christian should. ‘I am grateful for your concern. It can't have been easy for you. You are a true friend.' And if I never see you again, she thought with a viciousness that surprised her, it will be too soon. ‘Your coffee is cold. I'll order you another cup on the way out.' She raised her hand as Tessa tried to speak. ‘No, I insist. I'd love to stay and chat,' she said. ‘But unfortunately I have things to do.'

And twiddled affectionate fingers from the taxi as it drove away.

Later, her mind once again in turmoil, it was another story. The naked woman baying at the clouds had learnt belatedly that if she didn't look after her own interests no one else would do it for her. Anger bubbling, she stood in the middle of the living room and looked about her. This was her home. It might be Davis's
house
but it was her
home
. She would permit no one and nothing to destroy that. She had been too tolerant in the past. Too submissive. That would stop. The new Jennifer would put her foot down. She would be strong, her own woman. Juanita Santos indeed… They would see about Juanita Santos.

She picked up the magazine she had been glancing through last night. She turned the pages, looking at the clothes and the models wearing them. Not that one. Not that one. There. She stared at the woman. What was she going to do about it?

She thought of the two occasions she'd met Anthony Belloc and the question he had wanted her to ask Mother. She'd felt uneasy – she had sensed something underhanded about it – but had asked anyway and got nowhere. Mother had fobbed her off with some story but Jennifer had a hunch she'd not told her everything. She didn't know what was missing but if there was something, she wanted to know about it, right? Was she not Mother's daughter? Her elder daughter? Didn't she have the right to know? Didn't she have the right to do what she could to protect her own interests? Very well.

Mouth set, she sat down and drew the phone towards her.

FORWARD INTO THE PAST

1

Sara had texted Millie to say she was having breakfast with her mother and would come straight to the studio afterwards. When she arrived at ten o'clock, her mind seething with everything Hilary had told her, she found Millie pacing like a tigress. Millie was dressed to punch your eyes, a study in scarlet and black: flame-coloured hair, high peaked shoulders on the wide-lapelled black tunic, high-heeled scarlet boots, an expression to make Lucrezia Borgia proud.

‘What time do you call this?'

Sara looked at her watch. She smiled pleasantly. ‘I make it two minutes after ten, Millie.'

‘Why are you late?'

‘I told you. I was having breakfast with my mother –'

‘Until this hour?' Millie raised her voice. ‘I don't care if you were having breakfast with the fucking pope –'

‘I doubt he'd be doing that,' Sara said. ‘Certainly not supposed to, is he?'

Millie stared at her. Sara stared back. Millie was used to people being frightened of her manner, her ratchet voice, most of all her power. Sara wasn't frightened. She never had been frightened but now, after this morning's talk with Mother, she felt a sense of relief. She was free. She saw that Millie knew it too, without knowing quite what she knew. Sara hadn't decided whether to go along with Mother's proposal and had made up her mind to say nothing for the moment. It didn't bother her; this too was power, to know and stay silent.

‘I am here now,' she said. ‘Let's get to work, when you're ready. What have we got lined up for today?'

It became the usual pressurised day with Millie putting on her drama queen act. She was intolerable yet Sara admired her almost as much as she despised her: a powerhouse of relentless energy that would drive her programme up the charts.
Her
programme,
her
studio,
her
vision. A force of nature or maybe of hell, she would make money for the company or die in the attempt. You had to admire such energy. Misguided, yes, but try telling her that.

And Mother had to know by tomorrow. Resentment flickered. Another force of nature. But Sara had no time to think about Mother now, or her future. Millie demanded not one hundred per cent but more like five hundred per cent concentration, expecting no less than she was willing to give, and Sara respected her for it. Responded, too, and until eight o'clock that night, with the final credits running, that was her world. An attack dog in an electronic universe.

It was an exhausting business but once again she couldn't afford to ease up. Off with the make-up, then, down in the lift to the garage and up and out into the maelstrom of Sydney traffic. She was putting the key in the door of her house twenty minutes after leaving Channel 12. Up the stairs and into the shower, then make-up, keeping an eye on the clock. Sexy underwear next. What dress to wear? She hesitated, chose one that she had picked up recently at Imogen's, a deep emerald item with some cleavage and embroidered with silver thread. She put it on and studied herself in the mirror. OK. Enough on show to be interesting but not too much. An antique silver necklace to complement the trim in the dress and she was ready.

By five to nine she was downstairs and glancing through the paper. She needed to think around what Mother had said this morning, but not now. Now she had a date. She shook her head as she thought about that.

When she had gone into television people had warned her you never dated people you interviewed; it made life too complicated and could cause all sorts of problems down the track. How right they'd been. She'd known it even at the time yet when Emil had offered she had barely hesitated before heading north with him. A gamble it had certainly proved to be, times of wonder and ecstasy, but many more when she had been tempted to murder him for his arrogance and the contempt with which he had treated her. Finally, when she had at last mustered the strength to break away from him his last words had been to tell her she would come back to him. And now, after a single phone call, she was willing to prove him right? Was she crazy?

‘No,' she said aloud. ‘He is offering me the possibility of an exclusive interview with a world-famous man who in the past has done everything he could to avoid giving interviews. Why should I not take advantage of his offer?'

The doorbell rang. She went and opened the door.

There had been a light shower and Emil had raindrops shining in his hair. She looked at him, then looked again, hoping she was able to conceal her shock. She had lived with this man for a year, had known every inch of his body. Now a stranger faced her. He stood in the doorway like a withered oak. His face and eyes were yellow and he had lost a lot of weight. This was a shadow of the man she remembered.