The Fancies, page 16
Firing off a quick text to her daughter, Penny stood in front of the pie warmer, a still-life in the act of filling it, watching Abigail out the window until she heard the back door opening and turned to see Beverly Dinwiddle’s frame appear through the plastic strips.
‘Bev,’ Penny said. ‘If it’s a toastie you’re after, I’m all out.’ It would only take Penny a few minutes to make a sandwich, if that’s indeed why Mrs Dinwiddle was here, but Penny was still piqued with the postmistress after yesterday morning, when she had bailed Penny up in her own kitchen and practically called her daughter Jessica a slut.
But the postmistress did not want a sandwich.
‘I’ve just had Abigail Fancy in the post office,’ said Mrs Dinwiddle.
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. And I’m afraid to say, she’s up to something.’
‘How so?’
‘She purchased a phone.’ The postmistress came behind the counter and stepped right in close to Penny Bram, so close that Penny could smell the rose-scented talc the postmistress sprinkled on herself after her morning wash.
‘A phone?’ said Penny, pushing aside pies to make room for pasties.
‘Yes.’ Mrs Dinwiddle leaned in and stage whispered, ‘A burner phone.’
Penny set down the tongs. ‘A what?’
Mrs Dinwiddle gestured to the front windows, out of which both women could see Abigail standing by the wifi spot, ripping open a box.
‘A burner phone,’ the postmistress repeated. ‘Something that can be used to make illicit calls and dumped. Untraceably.’
‘You been watching Breaking Bad again, Bev?’
Mrs Dinwiddle sniffed. ‘I’m not interested in gossip. I’m just passing along something that may be important, for the future. Because of, you know—’ She pursed her lips and lifted her chin, indicating the sordid business between Col Morton and Penny Bram’s daughter Jessica in the pub kitchen that she did not want to spell out explicitly.
‘I see,’ said Penny. ‘And how exactly does this—’ now Penny waved a hand at the window, Abigail Fancy ‘—concern me and my “future”?’
‘She also deposited cash.’
‘How much cash?’
‘I’m not at liberty to say.’
Penny reconsidered Abigail Fancy out the window. Now Abigail had discarded the box and was staring intently at the phone in her hand. A few seagulls had landed near her feet. Penny told herself that the reason Nell’s daughter appeared so transfixing through the window was not because of who she was, but merely because her red pants were so bright against the green of the grass and the blue of the harbour, circled by the snowy dots of the gulls. It was an arresting display of colours, that’s all. Penny would tell everyone that’s why Abigail had caught her eye: the colours.
Two doors up, at the gift shop, Jessica Bram was also staring out the window.
Jessica happened to be looking at her phone when the text from her mother came in—Abigail Fancy out front—so Jessica had looked out front and indeed, there was Abigail, limping painfully along the grass.
A few minutes earlier Jessica had also been busy with a sudden rush of customers: a fisherman’s wife bought six miniature potted succulents; a pair of tourists bought a handful of postcards; a hippy from just across the border had wanted the display of crystals unwrapped so she could hold them in her hand and decide which one was calling to her.
Jessica liked working in the gift shop. She liked its unpredictable, eclectic flow of customers, so different from the deli, whose mind-dulling patterns she could set her watch by. When the hippy had picked a smoky quartz and left, the store was empty, so Jessica sat down and took out her phone. But she had not gotten far in deciding what angle of her breasts to send to Col Morton when her mother’s text appeared and she had been obliged to leap to her feet and go to the front window.
So, yes, there was Abigail Fancy, alone on the grass in the middle of town, opening a box and taking something out of it. What was it? Jess wondered briefly, then recognised the item as a phone.
Jessica watched Abigail for a while, waiting for her to do something, but nothing happened. Abigail continued to stare at the phone. Jessica had to wonder what Abigail was doing. As far as she was aware, Abigail Fancy was not on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube or LinkedIn; once, Abigail had been on Facebook, but a while back Jessica noticed her account had disappeared, or Abigail had changed her name to something untraceable and unfriended any mutual friends through which Jessica may have been able to find her, or those mutual friends had changed their names, too. So, given how long Abigail was staring at that phone, Jessica had to assume Abigail was messaging someone. Jessica watched and waited, but Abigail appeared to take no photos or videos of herself, nor anything else. Not even a seagull.
Then Jessica’s phone buzzed with a message from her mother.
Dinwiddle says Abigail Fancy bought a burner phone
Jessica pressed her nose against the glass. In the time it had taken her to glance down at the message, Abigail had moved. Now she was putting something in the bin.
Jessica sucked in a short breath.
omg she just put it in the bin! she typed to her mother.
She deposited cash too, her mother wrote.
how much
Dinwiddle says ‘literally too much for her to say’
Jessica jerked back from the window as Abigail stepped onto the street.
Adrian Turner was in the hardware-cum-surf store when Abigail came in. He was standing by the light globes, right by the entrance, looking for a ninety watt bulb to replace his mother’s blown back porch light which his useless little brother still had not fixed. The door opened and there she was.
Abigail Fancy, gliding into the store: a vision in red pants and boots, hair in glorious disarray from the salt mist. Strands of it, blonde as cut wheat, clung to her flushed cheeks and moist lips and Adrian had the image of peeling those strands of hair from her mouth with the crooked tip of his finger; he imagined feeling her humid breath on his knuckle, how his own lips might part in mirror of hers. He remembered the sensation of her hot breath in his face in the car on Wednesday morning.
Instantly Adrian’s head snapped back to the light globes, searching with a renewed sense of urgency, now feeling intense gratitude for his brother having not already done it.
Abigail’s footsteps moved behind Adrian, slowly away from him, clop-clopping down the aisle. He ached to turn around, to see where Abigail’s attention was directed, to find out what need or interest had called her into the store.
‘Abigail, love!’ called David Wimple from behind the counter. ‘Long time. How’s things going, eh?’
Adrian waited for the sound of Abigail’s reply but when it did not come he swivelled his head, peering over his shoulder into the dim depths of the store. He couldn’t see her; the shadows of cheap surfboards had swallowed her up. He caught the store owner’s eye. David Wimple shrugged.
Turning away from the light globes, Adrian stepped into the aisle. He made his way along it, pulse rushing in his ears. Reaching the surfboards at the end of the aisle, he turned and found Abigail at the back wall. Her head was bent forward, her hair falling loose across her face. In her hands was a blue work shirt wrapped in plastic. As Adrian watched, she set the shirt back on the shelf and picked up another; the plastic made a dull rustle.
A gift for her father, maybe? Adrian wondered. Or her brothers? Hamish and Dylan worked up north, FIFO workers on a gold mine. He dismissed that idea. Her brothers would buy their own shirts. People were saying Abigail had spent yesterday with that new vet, the blow-in who had replaced dead old Carlisle—maybe the shirt was for him? At that thought, Adrian felt sour.
‘Are you going to watch me the entire time?’
His mouth went dry. Abigail lifted her head to look at him and he saw the bruise around her eye had lightened at the edges to a greenish hue. She was wearing a baggy jumper and the neckline had slipped, revealing the milky ridge of one collarbone. He wanted to press his tongue to it.
Adrian cleared his throat. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Just wondering if you want some help?’
‘You work here?’
‘Oh,’ Adrian said with a diffident laugh, shaking his head. ‘No.’
‘You just like to offer assistance to customers in any store?’
‘Uh, no.’
Abigail returned to looking at the shirt. She dropped it back on the shelf and picked up another. When she moved, all of her moved, all hips and breasts and belly, and Adrian felt a desperate sense of not knowing what to do. Three times in his life he had kissed Abigail Fancy—once under the old lighter at the playground; the second time at a party at Ricky Leake’s house; and the third time she had turned her head away at the last minute but his mouth had still connected with the edge of hers—and he could feel every one of those kisses tingling on his lips now. He watched as she moved away from the shirts and towards the rack of pants, a single rail with a few pairs in shades of blue and brown. Her fingers played across the hangers as if checking for a particular size, and watching her fingers flick and listening to the barely audible click and scrape of the hangers sent a frisson of hypnotic pleasure across Adrian’s scalp. She took a hanger off the rack and Adrian blinked rapidly to wake himself up.
‘What do you think?’ Abigail said, turning her body square on to Adrian and holding the pants at her waist.
A few years back, when Adrian and his kids’ mum were still living together, he had once worn a denim shirt with denim jeans and his ex had called him a dickhead. In terms of fashion sense, Adrian knew that pants went on legs and a T-shirt on a torso, maybe a jumper if it was cold, and that was it. His two daughters didn’t seem to care much about clothes either, as long as the item was not yellow (the five-year-old) and didn’t have annoying seams (the three-year-old), so Adrian could not even claim to have absorbed some fashion insights from them. And his ex? Adrian tried to remember, but come to think of it, he couldn’t picture Sal from the neck down at all, even though he saw her every day. Huh, he thought now, maybe Sal was right. He didn’t pay attention to her.
‘You having a stroke?’
Adrian started as if a gun had gone off. He realised he had not answered Abigail’s first question about the pants, and now she had asked him another and still he was standing there, slack-jawed as a dog in the sun.
‘I’m not looking for your actual opinion,’ Abigail said. ‘Relax.’
‘They look nice,’ Adrian said at last. ‘They suit you.’ The pants were a kind of dark green with reinforced patches at the knees and pockets all over the place.
Abigail snorted softly, and the sound unclogged something in Adrian. She went to put the pants back on the rack but for some inexplicable reason, Adrian found himself continuing.
‘Very flattering,’ he said. ‘I like the colour.’
Abigail glanced back down at the pants. ‘Khaki does it for you?’
He was trying to stop but the words seemed to keep coming. ‘The pockets would be really handy. You could keep your purse and phone and …’ he flailed, ‘… lip gloss in there.’
Abigail’s eyebrows twitched.
‘And I like how the bottom of the leg is, like—’ he found his finger pointing, waggling, ‘—cut out, that way, in a curve. It’s trendy—’
‘I think it’s just cut for work boots but okay.’
‘—and figure-hugging—’
‘Good to know, Giorgio.’
‘—and slimming—’
Abigail returned the hanger to the rack. ‘Dude,’ she said, and he thought she was trying not to laugh but he couldn’t be sure, ‘stand down. I think you’re about to say something you might regret.’
Adrian felt his eyeballs darting about, between the pants and shirts and Abigail. He could not find an explanation for what had just occurred, the things that had spouted out of his mouth about pants. Adrian Turner did not care about pants; he did not care what anyone wore unless they were wearing nothing and he’d rather they weren’t (his little brother) or were wearing something and he’d rather they took it off (pretty much any woman over the legal age). But he found himself with such a desire to hold Abigail’s attention, to insert himself into her day. Is this what feminists were going on about, he thought, when they talked about male entitlement? Was he mansplaining, he wondered, to his horror.
Abigail crossed her arms and considered him, and Adrian felt undressed. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘The other day, when I saw you. I’m sorry I brought up … the past.’
Abigail said nothing.
‘I wasn’t thinking straight, I guess. That was uncool.’ He could see her nostrils flare slightly, her chest expanding as if she were taking a deep breath. ‘It just took me straight back to when we were kids,’ Adrian explained, ‘seeing you on the side of the hill like that. All these fun memories came up.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Well, no. What I brought up … that memory wasn’t fun. Sorry.’ But he’d said it now, he’d cracked the ice, so he ventured, ‘Did you keep in touch with her?’
‘With who?’ she asked, but he heard in her voice that she knew.
‘Honnie.’
A beat. Then, ‘No.’
‘Ever? Not even after—’
‘I said no.’
He gulped. But he’d asked. And he had the sensation of being stronger for it. Had anyone else in Port Kingerton been brave enough, Adrian wondered, to voice that thing they had all been thinking? Had anyone else—all those folk stalking about, talking big, reckoning they knew it all—had the balls to actually walk up to Abigail Fancy and put it there, at her feet, like a steak in front of a tiger? They had not, Adrian told himself. Overinflated chicken shits, the lot of them.
‘Listen.’ He took a step towards her. ‘If you need anything, I’m always around.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ said Abigail. ‘What might I need?’
Adrian felt a grin spread slowly across his face. ‘Ah, you know,’ he said with a shrug. ‘To, like, talk, maybe? Or just hang. Whatever.’
Abigail tapped her lips with a finger, a thoughtful expression on her face. ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Talk or hang. What a choice.’
A long pause ensued and Adrian began to wither inside, but then Abigail smiled. ‘So what’s your take on all this?’ she asked.
‘The … pants?’
‘The leg bone,’ she said. ‘And Lofty’s boat.’ Then she stepped closer to him, lowered her voice and added, ‘And Col Morton shagging Jessica Bram in the pub kitchen.’
Adrian felt he was soaring.
OLD DICK
Ask me how long I’ve lived here and I’d tell you this: I can’t say.
Maybe I got here yesterday, or maybe I’ve always been here. A man can’t always keep track of these sorts of residential things, he has better things to do. Luce would know, though.
By ‘here’ I mean this house—not Port Kingerton. Don’t even dare ask me how long I’ve lived in Port Kingerton because I’ll knock your block off. I was born here, just like my father and my grandfather and my great—no, wait, I think that one floated here from England. My point is, I’ve been here forever. So the house doesn’t matter. I can’t see the house right now, anyway. I’m in the middle of a paddock.
This is the back lawn, Dad. Thought you might like some sun while it’s out.
What are you calling a lawn? This is a paddock, boy. Look at that clover and ryegrass. And look there—a goose. Who wants goose turd all over their lawn? No one, that’s who. So it’s a paddock.
The mare’s gonna foal soon. You want to take a look at her? Make a bet when it’ll be born?
All right, I’ll look at your mare. But I’m better with heifers, it must be said.
I know, Dad. You’re good with cattle. Mum was, too—remember? She could always pick which cow would calve next. Every time. He gives a laugh and I don’t know why he’s amused because he’s right. Luce never got it wrong.
Speaking of Mum, look at that—your chrysanthemums are coming into bloom. That’s special. Luce loved the ‘mums, didn’t she, boy? You remember? I feel so happy, seeing those yellow and pink petals. Bunches of them on the kitchen table in autumn, brightening up the dreary days when cray season’s finished and the weather cools and the skies turn grey—
Wait, I say. Wait. Why’ve you got a mare foaling in autumn?
The young fella sighs. She got out.
What kind of a farmer lets his mares run loose, getting themselves into trouble? A drongo, that’s who. No wonder you don’t know when she’s gonna foal. Give me a look at her. I’ll do my best, but you’re really better off asking Luce. She’ll know. She always knows. She knew when that girl was in trouble and she was right.
Dad—
No, listen to me. Because I didn’t listen to her. Your mum told me there was trouble. She said that man was a bad egg, but I said there’s no proof. I thought she was just being a gossip—your mum was queen of the grapevine, after all—and a man can’t go accusing another man of that kind of unpleasant business without proof. But she was right. Because they found the child, poor little mite, and then what happened? All hell broke loose. Because I didn’t listen to your mother. So listen to me, boy, because it’s when people start ignoring each other and making up their own stories and believing those made-up stories as if they’re real, that the truth gets lost and no one can tell their elbow from their arse anymore. That’s how lynch mobs happen. I know because I’ve seen it. The minute you stop listening? People lose their heads.
ABIGAIL
Dubiously, Abigail considered the work shirt on the bed. Dusty plastic wrapper, orange ‘clearance’ sticker faded and peeling. After buying the phone and shirt, she had just two dollars left.
A vague low-level anxiety gnawed. Her fingers fluttered with the craving for a smoke.
So, there it was: a return of that old urge to run. When she’d settled at the restaurant, into her tiny apartment in the city, she’d thought that perhaps, finally, she’d outgrown it. That she might be experiencing what everyone else seemed to at a certain point in life: the desire to settle down. But now she could feel that familiar pressure, an inner voice goading her forwards. Just like that cow breaking for the gate, the promise of liberation was within reach, if only she’d hustle.
