Cold Justice (8 page)

‘You’re really lucky that Matt was able to move down with you,’ she said.

‘His work was happy for him to come,’ Georgie said. ‘He’s doing a training program while he’s here. He gets to walk across the bridge twice a day to work: he loves it.’

‘Where are you living?’

‘My brother’s a stockbroker and owns a flat in Milsons Point. He’s in London for a couple of months so we’re staying there.’ Georgie closed the file. ‘How about you? Are you nearby?’

‘I wish,’ Freya said. ‘We’re in Homebush. Not too far, so I can’t really complain. It doesn’t compare to Milsons Point though. You got water views?’

‘Yeah, it’s beautiful.’ Georgie looked around. ‘We done?’

Freya nodded. She felt she wanted to say something else, but what was there to say?

‘Thanks for a good day,’ Georgie said.

Freya smiled. ‘You too.’

They locked the place up and went out. Matt and James were talking and James hurriedly wound up the conversation as they drew near. Freya didn’t want to think about what he’d been saying. She wished he could calm down a little. He used to be so confident, like Matt was now, standing there all relaxed and smiling at her. James looked like he didn’t know what to do with his hands. Seven years at the school at Cronulla where he didn’t get on with the principal or his fellow teachers, where he’d intimated to her that he sometimes felt bullied but wouldn’t talk about it further, had ground away at him. He grabbed Robbie in a headlock. Robbie yowled as he knuckled his skull. Freya’s headache worsened.

‘See you tomorrow,’ Georgie said to her.

‘See you.’

She got in the car as James heaved Robbie into the back. Ainsley sat hunched against her door, earbuds in deep.

‘Turn it down,’ Freya said automatically.

Ainsley scowled.

‘Buckle up, buddy,’ James said to Robbie. ‘You too, chicken.’

‘Don’t call me that,’ Ainsley said.

Freya watched Matt and Georgie walk up the footpath hand in hand.

James got behind the wheel and followed her gaze. ‘He’s a good-looking guy.’

He used to be secure too.

‘Thanks for picking me up,’ she said.

‘Robbie’s appointment ran late so we thought we’d hang around.’ He squeezed between taxis onto George Street. ‘Matt works in finance, knows about the markets and all that. He’s going to give me some advice on getting an investment up and running.’

‘With what money?’

‘Look in the glovebox.’

She took out an envelope addressed to James with the emblem of Macquarie Secondary College in the corner. ‘Oh my God, you got it?’

‘I got it.’ His grin was miles wide. ‘I’m giving my notice at Cronulla tomorrow. Eleven more days and I am done with that place.’

‘Fantastic. Well done, honey.’

She unfolded the letter and started to read.
Dear James Craig, we are pleased to be welcoming you as a science teacher at Macquarie,
blah blah,
start in three weeks,
so on and so on. She skimmed the rest and was about to look up and smile at him when the name at the bottom caught her eye.

She put a trembling finger on the page.

James looked. ‘Dion Entemann. He’s the principal. Really nice guy.’

Freya saw her past explode into life before her eyes.
Dion’s hands all over me . . .

‘He’s got a couple of daughters at the school himself,’ James went on. ‘One doing the HSC, one in Ainsley’s year.’

Dion up the front of the drama group, telling us to act like we’re in love, me trying not to catch his eye, and Georgie beside me, giggling and elbowing me, as oblivious as anyone ever can be, and me acting my heart out, trying to pretend I really am just an innocent sixteen year old.

‘Freya?’

‘Huh?’ Her head was spinning.
Oh my God.

‘I spoke to him this afternoon. The school musical is on tomorrow night and he wants us and the kids to go along. Put in an appearance, meet a few people. You’re not working, right?’

First Georgie, now Dion. What is happening to my life?

‘Freya?’

‘I’m not working,’ she said weakly.
Oh my God.

‘I’m not going,’ Ainsley said.

‘Yes, you are.’ James looked at her in the rear-view mirror.

‘I’m going to the movies with Celia and Pareese and Donatella.’

James glanced at Freya. ‘We’ve been meaning to talk to you about them,’ he told Ainsley.

Freya struggled to pull herself together. ‘Not here.’

‘Oooh, busted,’ Robbie said.

‘Shut up, metalmouth.’

‘James, please,’ Freya said.

‘She’s got to know sometime.’ He looked in the mirror. ‘When I start at Macquarie, so do you.’

‘
What?
’

‘It’s long past time we got you away from that school and those goth friends of yours –’

‘We’re not goths!’

Freya heard the tears in her daughter’s voice and put her hand on James’s leg. ‘Let’s save this for home.’

Ainsley kicked the driver’s seat. ‘This is bullshit.’

Robbie gasped. ‘Um-ah!’

‘Enough.’ James glared at them both.

‘You can’t do this. You can’t just make me change schools.’

‘You’ll have no friends,’ chanted Robbie.

Ainsley punched him. Robbie screamed and burst into tears.

‘Enough!’ shouted James. ‘Both of you stop it right now. When we get home you’re going straight to your rooms and I don’t want to hear a peep out of you for the rest of the night!’

‘What about my McFlurry?’ Robbie howled.

Freya pressed her fists to her ears and tried to think.

‘It’s not fair!’ Ainsley raged. ‘I hate you all!’

Freya closed her eyes, trying to concentrate, trying to block out her daughter’s pain for just a minute.

It’ll be okay. He probably won’t even recognise you – and even if he does, he’ll be every bit as keen to hide the past as you are.

Keener.

‘Well, I’m just glad you’re okay.’ Matt swung Georgie’s hand as they crossed the bridge.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Even though –’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Even though.’

They moved to one side of the path to let a jogger go by.

‘And is Freya part of the cabal?’ he asked.

‘Stop laughing.’

‘Did you hear a single haw-haw pass my lips?’

She elbowed him. ‘I don’t know if she is or not. It’s weird, though. I knew her in high school, and you should’ve seen her expression when she first saw me this morning. Hundred per cent dismay.’

‘There you go then,’ Matt said. ‘She can’t be part of it. If she was, she’d have known ahead of time it was you and would’ve been all prepared.’

‘Not necessarily. She might’ve known she was getting somebody for assessment, somebody she had to fail, and that the person’s name was Georgina Riley. She only knew me as Georgie Daniels, and if I didn’t know she’d got married, why would she know that I had?’

‘You’ve really thought this through.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘Maybe the look on her face was surprise,’ he said. ‘Ever think of that? And what expression did you have?’

‘I don’t know. Probably surprise as well.’

‘You can’t immediately judge her whole moral system by a fleeting expression,’ he said. ‘How well did you know her at school?’

‘We met in Year Seven,’ she said. ‘She was two years older than me but had missed a lot of school when she’d lived overseas with her parents. We were best friends within a few months and I still thought we were when she suddenly left. There was no phone call, no goodbye or anything. I freaked out, didn’t know what had happened – I thought they’d all been kidnapped or murdered or something. Finally I heard she’d gone out west to boarding school. Once I got the address I wrote to her every week for a whole term. I wrote notes in class like we’d done for years, numbered them in order and posted them to her. She wrote back once, a birthday card sent three weeks late.’

‘Maybe she was busy,’ Matt said. ‘Boarding school – she was probably trying to keep afloat, make new friends. Maybe she was so homesick it hurt to write to you.’

Georgie saw herself at fourteen: awkward, gangly, lurching through puberty, her friendship with Freya a lifebuoy she clung to in the storm of her furtive, pathetic life.

‘She hurt me.’

Matt put his arm across her shoulders. ‘That’s probably the reason for her expression,’ he said gently. ‘She remembers all that and she feels bad.’

‘She said that when I asked her.’

‘There you go then.’

‘But even as she was saying how she’s sorry and how she’d wanted to find me to tell me that, I could see there’s something else going on in her head.’

‘And that’s why you think she still might be part of the cabal?’

‘I just don’t trust her yet.’

Matt pulled her close as they started down the stairs into Milsons Point. ‘You’re beautiful when you’re paranoid.’

She wouldn’t tell him about the man she’d seen at the Quay and St Vincent’s then. That’d make her so damn beautiful she’d explode.

After dinner, they went out onto the balcony. If disasters could ever have good timing, Georgie had to admit this one did, what with rents in Sydney being so awful. Similarly, the lease on the flat Matt’s copper brother, Adam, had been renting in Woolford had run out and now he was able to live at their place and look after things. Still, the unjustness of it all ate away at her.

‘This is awright, innit?’ Matt said. The lights were coming on in the CBD and the sky was pink and blue over the darkening land.

‘I miss home,’ she said. ‘I miss the grass and the animals and the house.’

‘I do too,’ he said. ‘But this isn’t bad.’

She could hear TVs playing in nearby flats, and cars crossing the bridge, and a siren somewhere distant. At home, eleven kilometres from town, there was the sound of birds in trees, and rain sometimes, and the only time you heard a car was if one was coming up the two-hundred-metre driveway, before it was drowned out by Harry’s barking.

Matt finished his coffee. ‘I’m going in for a shower.’

Georgie waited until she heard the water running then got the phone. Adam answered on the third ring.

‘It’s me,’ she said.

‘Hang on.’

She pictured him walking through their house, heard the screen door slam, the squeak of the hinges on the aviary door.

‘I’m in,’ he said.

‘I can’t hear them.’

‘They’re half-asleep, all just looking at me from their perches.’

‘Where’s Harry?’

‘Sitting outside the wire.’ Adam moved the phone away from his mouth. ‘Speak! Harry, speak!’

The bark echoed down the line and brought tears to Georgie’s eyes. The sound died away and was replaced by the peeps of Matt’s finches.

‘They’re all flying around me now,’ Adam said.

‘How is everything?’

‘Pretty good. Except there was a big storm last night and those young double-barreds died.’

‘Oh no.’

‘I came out partway through to check them and they all seemed okay, but this morning they were dead on the ground,’ he said. ‘I’m really sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault.’ She felt for Matt. He loved all his birds and loved the young ones more than anything. She heard the shower stop and spoke quickly. ‘Any trouble with the McCrows lately?’

‘Not that I’ve heard,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘Oh, just curious.’ She turned her back to the bathroom. ‘I bet they all walk the streets real happy they got rid of me.’

‘Haven’t seen them really.’

She didn’t know how else she could ask if Barnaby McCrow was around without being too obvious. If Adam knew she thought she’d seen him – or someone – watching her, he was certain to tell Matt, and Matt would think she was losing it. She would bide her time, see what happened. Ask again next time perhaps.

‘Tell you who I did see,’ he said. ‘Friendly. We got called to this big prang, into the big tree at the bend near the Stratton place. Guy’s pissed as a newt, trapped in the wreck, swearing his tits off, takes a special dislike to Friendly and keeps trying to swipe at him while we’re cutting the door off. Friendly asked how you are, said he misses you. Said they all do.’

‘Not all of them,’ Georgie said darkly.

‘You know what I mean,’ he said. ‘Everyone who matters.’

Georgie felt the bite of homesickness. ‘Is Harry still there?’

‘Speak!’

Harry spoke. The birds cheeped and peeped. Georgie imagined the view from the aviary, the lavender and rosemary gardens leading up to the house, the spread of land to the south, the trees in the distance over which they’d watch storms come up, the purple and black of the clouds making a contrast with the olive green and browns of the leaves that hit her in the heart.

‘I want to go home.’

‘I know, George,’ he said. ‘Hang in there.’

Matt was behind her. She turned to face him. ‘I want to go home,’ she said again.

She held out the phone and he took it and she went out onto the balcony. The tiles were cool underfoot, the headlights streamed across the bridge, and a sudden breeze brought the salt smell of the water. Yes, this was nice, but it wasn’t their white house with the gardens they’d dug in themselves, and the chook run they’d built that hot weekend, and the dam down the hill.

She heard Matt say, ‘I’ll call you back,’ and hang up, then he squeezed her shoulder. ‘Okay?’

‘I’m going to beat this assessment if it kills me,’ she said. ‘I’ll show them all, and go back out there, and Ross will have to eat his words and quit, and Kaspar will get the S/O’s job, and we’ll be back home with all the animals and everyone will be happy.’

‘Okay,’ Matt said. He lightly touched the scratches on her face.

‘I mean it.’

‘I believe you.’ He kissed her.

‘The babies died.’

‘Even if we were there, it could still have happened,’ he said. ‘We’ll breed more.’

They stood with their arms around each other. She could hear the easy movement of air in and out of his lungs, the deep beat of his heart.

‘I’m fine, you know,’ she said.

He pulled back to look at her. ‘Where did that come from?’

‘Just so you know.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Good.’

Ella put the chair into position by her bedroom door and looped the rubber exercise band around the handle. She fitted the other end around her wrist and pulled. After fifteen reps the pain burned into her shoulder and chest, and she touched the trembling muscles with the fingers of her other hand.
You can do it! Pain is good!
Mental shouting was good too.