Fall Girl (21 page)

He walks toward me and for a moment I think he's going to touch me again and I don't know which direction to run. But I don't run and he doesn't touch me. He steps around me as if I have a force field and he opens the back door, takes his stuff out of his pack and throws it on the back seat then slams the door shut. The pack topples into the dirt. He sits behind the wheel and starts the engine, then opens the window on my side.

‘The mistake I made,' he says. ‘Was at the very beginning of this conversation. I said, if you remember, “if we can put aside the issue of the money for a moment”. That's where I went wrong, isn't it Ella? You'll never be able to look at me without thinking about the money.'

He waits, as if he expects me to speak. I can't speak.

‘So let's get it out of the way. I need to shower, and there are some things I have to do this evening. Come to the house late tomorrow afternoon. I'll have your cheque.'

‘I thought you said. This morning. You said that doing any more research was a waste of my time.'

‘I meant that I had already decided to give it to you.'

He starts the car and drives off, and I step away before a cloud of gravel swallows me whole. I watch him careen out of the car park too fast, almost skidding, and join the main road with only a cursory slowing in case of traffic. It takes a long time for him to disappear over the horizon. I am left standing here alone, hands limp by my sides, with two stained backpacks and my borrowed car.

My home should be my castle, my haven. Usually, after two gruelling days in the forest with a barrel o' monkeys, I would have anticipated a little recognition. A banner across the door, perhaps. Minions throwing streamers. Today I do not feel like that. I don't think I have ever been so glad to see Cumberland Street but what I want is to creep in quietly, unseen.

I park the car in the drive and sit behind the wheel as if I am glued, as if I lack the energy even to open the door. I have no memory of the drive except the ten minutes when I filled up outside Kooweerup—I am thankful the car knew the way home. I have not eaten since a hurried breakfast of muesli bars and fruit juice at the camp. Unfastening the seatbelt requires an act of will. I move each leg individually out of the car and pivot my weight up. As I stand I feel my knees will give way and I fear I will be forced to crawl to the front door. I leave the pack on the back seat. It can wait till tomorrow. At this moment I can barely lift myself.

Ten people live and work in this house but there is no one here when I arrive and for that I am grateful. I undo the locks, sneak in. I can't even make it all the way up the stairs: I sit on the landing for a while and rest my head. When we were children, we would slide down this banister backwards on our stomachs, like small monorail cars. My father laughed, and said it was kind of us to polish the wood. He had Uncle Syd saw off the large carved pine cones at the bottom and reattach them with a screw, so they could be removed when we were playing and we wouldn't hurt ourselves. Sitting here, looking at the banister, I can see the grain of the wood. It is noticeably worn.

When my legs can move again, I choose the big bathroom on the first floor where the ornate mirrors are smaller and will show less of my body. It feels bruised all over. I close the bathroom door, turn the key in the lock and run water into the large claw-foot bath that stands in the middle of the room. I remove my clothes like a snake shedding skin and stand in the steam. The bathroom is tiled in lilac, antique and cold against my back as I lean against the wall.

The muscles in my shoulders and calves are tired and my head hurts and my thighs ache when I squat to sit. Every inch of me feels dirty: between my toes, the folds of my elbows, underneath my nails. My hair is like straw from swimming in the sea and the backs of my arms are sunburnt. I fill the bath with bubbles from a crystal bottle that belongs to Ruby and soon everything except me smells like strawberries. The bubbles cascade down the sides of the bath and puddle on the floor and I could not care less. I lie in the hot water until the pads of my fingers are as shrivelled on the outside as the rest of me feels on the inside.

I am sitting on the edge of the bed in my satin dressing gown, hair up in a towel. There is a knock at the door. Answering seems too much effort: I am staring out the window over the tops of the trees and they are absorbing all my attention. I don't answer the door, but it opens anyway. Four of them: my father and Ruby, and Sam and Beau, all crowded into my little room.

‘Well?' says Beau.

‘Well what?' I do not turn my head.

‘Della,' says Sam.

‘What happened?' says Beau. ‘Did you get the money?'

I'd like to tell them that I'm in the middle of a chess game, but I don't know who my opponent is. That I feel excited and exhausted and confused. That part of me wishes this whole job had gone according to plan and was done, and the other half of me has never felt so alive. I don't tell them any of this.

‘He said to come around tomorrow night,' I say. ‘He said I could pick up the cheque.'

‘My dear girl,' my father says, and he sits beside me on the bed and puts his arm around me. ‘Felicitations.'

‘This must be your biggest score ever,' says Beau. ‘Is this your biggest score ever?'

‘You actually did it. You crazy woman, I can't believe it,' says Sam. ‘Don't tell me you managed to make a cast of a footprint. Paw print. Whatever. You can't even change a washer. You might have broken a nail.'

‘Did you picture him as a chicken?' says Beau. ‘I bet that helped.'

‘We need champagne. Champagne and caviar. I have one bottle of '85 Krug that I have been saving for a very special occasion. Ruby, where is that bottle? And five glasses. Not the flutes, too stern. Too utilitarian. Let's have the wide ones, the ones shaped like Marie Antoinette's breasts. We'll have champagne, and then you must tell us, Della,' says my father. ‘Tell us everything that occurred.'

There is certainly much to say. At the very least I should be threatening Sam with evisceration over Timothy's visit; talking with my father about new furniture and maybe a new car. A holiday. How long has it been since we all had a holiday? This should be a celebration. We should all be having a good laugh.

‘Uncle Syd and Aunt Ava,' I say. ‘Are they all right? It was very hot. They walked a long way.'

‘They're fine,' Ruby says. ‘Kept their fluids up. Ava had a rest on the way back. They said it went well. They were full of admiration for your Mr Metcalf.'

‘But how did you manage it,' says Sam, ‘the science? You actually faked it well enough to fool him? Thank God for brainless men of privilege. You know this time, for once, I almost hope he finds out he's been taken. I'd love to see the look on his face.'

‘You'll find, Samson, that often rich people never realise,' says my father. ‘Even when it is absolutely obvious that they've been done like the proverbial, their pride is too great to acknowledge it. They'd rather keep believing in the most outrageous scheme than admit to themselves that they've been idiots. Master Metcalf will never allow himself to work out what's happened. Mark my words.'

‘I wouldn't count on it,' I say.

‘Hello hello. What have we here? Head of the Daniel Metcalf fan club?' Sam raises his eyebrows.

‘Privilege and its arrogant cousin, noblesse oblige, are contagious Della. I hope you haven't become infected,' says my father.

‘I don't know if Della wants to talk about it,' says Ruby.

‘Of course she wants to talk about it,' says my father. ‘This will be a Gilmore epic, a story that will grow in the telling. Della versus the Metcalfs, armed only with a slingshot. This is history in the making.'

‘Della,' Ruby says. ‘Have you hurt yourself ?'

‘Maybe she doesn't feel like champagne. She might feel like a beer. Do you want a beer, Della?' says Beau. ‘There's some in the fridge. Imported. Timothy did me a good deal on a few cases.'

‘Della?' says Ruby.

‘Let's wait until the others get home,' I say. ‘They might be late. They might stop at the pub on the way. Let's wait for them. And I want to sleep for about a week. And we should wait for me to get the cheque, before we celebrate.'

‘He must really have the hots for you,' says Beau. ‘Just as well you're so pretty.'

‘Just as well,' I say.

‘I think you are very tired, and perhaps slightly ill,' says my father. ‘Too much sun I expect. Would you like me to tell you a story, before you take a nap? Your favourite from when you were little.'

‘I don't know that I'm in the mood for Charles Ponzi right now, Dad.'

‘Scintillating George Parker and the Brooklyn Bridge, then? You used to love the part where he sold Madison Square Garden.'

When I don't speak again, Ruby shuffles the three of them outside. They grumble, but they submit.

What is this
, Sam says,
secret women's business?
My father says,
we'll
see you later for a real celebration
. Ruby stays. She shuts the door behind them. She moves some of my teddy bears aside, sits on my cane chair.

‘A very successful job,' she says.

‘Yes,' I say.

‘You're to be congratulated.'

‘I guess so.'

‘You don't seem very happy, that's all.'

‘It was a hard couple of days. A hard couple of weeks. I'm tired.'

She leans back in the chair and smooths her skirt over her knees. Her nails are flawless as always. ‘I've seen you during and after a lot of jobs, since you were a little girl. You're usually happy and excited. High on adrenaline, raving about the money and what you'll do with it. You're not acting like someone who's just pulled off their biggest-ever sting.'

I stretch toward her and pick up one of my teddy bears, then I shuffle across the bed to lean against the wall. I set him on my lap and brush my hands over his soft ears.

‘I'm just trying to keep a lid on it. Follow Dad's rules.'

‘“Dad's rules”.' She gives a little smile. ‘Della. I think your father is having an affair.'

I laugh out loud, I can't help it. ‘You must be joking, Ruby. He's working on something big, that's all. He said so himself.'

‘He's dressing better. He's dyed his hair—did you notice? And he went to the shops, by himself, and bought new underwear. What else could that possibly signify? Everyone knows that men who start to buy their own underwear are having affairs. He's not as young as he used to be, I know that. But at our age men are scarce commodities.'

‘What do you mean, “at our age”? You're twenty years younger than him. He's lucky to have you.'

She nods then, and is quiet for a while. I close my eyes and almost fall asleep. When I open them, she is still here. Her face has turned pale and serious.

‘Do you ever think that every family is like a country?' she says. ‘With its own leadership and language and customs, just like a country has?'

I almost laugh at this as well—it is so unrelated to what I'm thinking. I shake my head. ‘Honestly Ruby, no. I've never thought about it.'

‘This family is a classic example. We have very strange habits. Like the way we only talk about the good times. As if ours is the only business in the world where no one has a bad day. That's your father's way.'

‘It's understandable.' I don't try to hide my yawn. ‘It keeps us motivated. Besides, there's been some wonderful times, in the past. I remember lots of them. Exciting, glamorous times.'

‘“Exciting, glamorous times”?' She laughs: I have made a joke that isn't funny. ‘There's been lots of awful times too, but you don't remember those. No one does.'

‘Ruby. I'd really like to sleep now. Can we talk about this later?'

‘There was that time when you were about six. There are some people, very dangerous people, who you should never try to con. Your father chose the wrong mark. Someone who was planning to extract his own form of justice. We just piled in the car and drove, you and Samson and him and me. We kept going for about six weeks until we were sure they wouldn't find us. We slept in the car, ate whatever we could scrounge. Snuck in the back of orchards to steal fruit. Fished, when we managed it.'

‘I do remember that. It was a holiday. A driving holiday. It was an adventure.'

‘Della. It was a flight of desperation. We thought our systems had failed, that this house had been compromised. We were trying to prevent your father from ending up in an unmarked grave,' she says. ‘We didn't even have time to pack. We had to leave with the clothes we were wearing and some cash your father had hidden.'

Days of driving, sleeping stretched out along the back seat or under a tree on a picnic rug. ‘I don't remember it that way.'

‘He would never have wanted to frighten you. He only ever wanted what was best for you both. You were too young. You wouldn't have understood.'

‘That's right,' I say. ‘He's only ever wanted what was best for us. I had the best childhood in the world.'

‘But that wasn't the only time we were in trouble. Once we couldn't even keep you both with us. We sent Samson to an old friend of your father's with a cattle property in New South Wales. You, we sent to a woman I went to school with. Down on the coast.'

‘I remember that,' I say. ‘She had two dogs—kelpies. I used to play with them. That was a holiday too.'

‘That's not to mention the stings that didn't come off. The months we were all hungry and didn't have fuel for the cars. Beans. God, if I never eat another lima bean it'll be too soon. The times we were too hungry to sleep. Ava once took a job as a barmaid, to bring in some cash. Sydney went fruit picking. Your father was furious with them; to him, it was a betrayal. He thought if they just held their nerve another job would come along. They were thinking about putting food on the table. They had four kids.'