The Fancies, page 6
‘The dress and cardigan.’
‘Oh.’
‘I didn’t get bail, remember?’ Fumbling open a jar of gherkins, she sniffed, recoiled and put the jar back.
‘Right,’ said her father. ‘You made that additional, uh, threat.’
‘“To his person”,’ she quoted, peeling a foil lid from a tray and inspecting the contents. Cannelloni. Hell yes. She took the tray in delight.
‘So I guess you didn’t have much time to sort things out.’
‘No.’ She opened the cutlery drawer and picked out a fork. ‘Remanded in custody, then straight into His Majesty’s finest. One hundred and fifty-two days. Three thousand six hundred and forty-eight hours, give or take a few for the strip searches and bureaucratic dicking around.’
At ‘strip searches’ her father looked as though someone had kicked him in the shin. ‘So it’s all gone?’ he said. ‘You’ve got nothing?’
‘Not a cent,’ she confirmed. ‘I didn’t even have my phone on me when I was arrested. This stupid dress has no pockets. Without time to cancel anything it doesn’t take long for a few direct debits to clean it all out. Rent, electricity, phone … poof. Gone.’ She offered a wry smile. ‘Not that there was much there to begin with—’ she lifted a foot, waggled her red boot ‘—too much Afterpay debt. And now all my boots are gone, too. This is all I have left, literally the clothes on my back. Landlord took the rest, the cocktrumpet.’
It had, perhaps, been the worst of the salt in her already smarting wound, the loss of her boots. None of Abigail’s clothes were expensive—her salary from the restaurant hardly allowed for it—but she was a junkie for good boots. The higher the better. She thought now of her black suede thigh-highs and wanted to weep. And although her landlord had seized all her possessions when her eviction had been made formal while she was inside, Afterpay didn’t give a shit. She was responsible for the debt and its eye-watering interest until it was paid off, even though all the boots were god knows where—landfill, eBay, her landlord’s basement for his dark web dress-ups. It did not matter. Debt trumps humanity.
Her father was quiet for a while. Abigail stood at the bench forking up cold spinach and ricotta cannelloni and thought it was possibly the best thing she’d ever eaten. ‘Grandpa said the cops were here yesterday.’ Swallowing, she added carefully, ‘Is that true?’
Young Dick was quiet so long she thought he wasn’t going to reply. When he spoke, his voice was measured. ‘Yes. For most of the day. But they’re gone now.’
‘Why?’
If Abigail knew one thing about her father it was this: he could not lie. His life was structured around keeping information safe and the weight of that—a generation of guardedness—meant he had to be able to remember everything he said and the easiest things to remember are facts. And that meant never telling an outright lie. Even when the truth could never possibly come to light.
Which was why she watched her father wrestle internally with her question—why were the cops here?—and knew he was trying to figure out what he could say that was true. And this, his clear grappling with the truth, meant that the facts were uncomfortable.
‘Maybe you should sit down,’ he said.
‘No thanks.’
‘I said sit down.’
‘And I said no thanks.’
‘All right.’ The wrench hit the sink with a clang. ‘The cops were here because yesterday morning Mrs Potts found a bone on the beach. A human thighbone.’
Ludicrously, Abigail heard herself say, ‘A fresh one?’
‘Don’t know. It’s been in the water. Seals gave it a hard time.’
Putting down the fork, she pressed two fingers to her lips, holding the cannelloni inside. She swallowed several times, but it didn’t work. Hurrying to the sink, she bent over and closed her eyes as spinach and ricotta came back up. At least it lubricated the Teflon tape, which popped off her knuckle. Her father didn’t want the tape returned to his tool bag. He took it from her gingerly and dropped it in the bin.
THEM
There were several people in Port Kingerton who considered themselves to be Young Dick Fancy’s right-hand man, even though Young Dick had stated adamantly over the years he had neither need nor desire for one.
There was Col Morton, young and strong, skipper of his own boat already and the kind of man who came to the back door. And of course, there was that time he’d taken a bullet in his foot for Young Dick.
There was Tim ‘Twitch’ Witchens, in his sixties like Young Dick, also a fisherman, but the kind of man who always texted first (Twitch had five kids and eighteen grandkids spread all over the state; his phone was welded to his hand whether he liked it or not).
Trisha Loft, one of many Loft grandkids and a stealthy, introverted type, had also proved herself loyal to Young Dick on several occasions, most of which remained known only by way of urban legend, but one verifiable instance was the time Young Dick found himself tipped from his boat a kilometre offshore, clinging to a craypot buoy, and Trisha had plucked him from the water with only the strength of her upper body.
A shortlist of others were possible: Adrian Turner; another Loft; David Wimple from the hardware store in a pinch.
The point is, Young Dick had a lot of support from the men and women of the community. A lot of muscle, too, should persuasion be necessary.
So why had Young Dick told his daughter no one would give her work?
The kitchen tap was still leaking, but Young Dick packed away his tools and headed outside. He crossed the backyard, pushed through the gate and walked into the stables. His footsteps echoed on the stone floor, shafts of dusty light fell across the sawdust. All but two stalls were empty; most of the horses were turned out on the autumn grass. In the third stall, a nose poked over the door, briefly assessed Young Dick then disappeared, uninterested.
‘Nell?’
‘In here.’
Young Dick went into the feed room. Grain bins, molasses-stained buckets and scoops lined the walls, and a stack of lucerne hay in the corner gave off a grassy scent. Sitting on that stack was his wife. She was dressed in old jeans, fleece vest over a black T-shirt, scuffed riding boots. Hair pulled away from her face. She was reading a book.
Young Dick climbed onto the bale alongside Nell. Even sitting down she was much shorter than him. Tucking his chin to his shoulder, he looked down at the top of his wife’s head. The grey peeking at the roots of her hair sent a rush of tenderness through him. Picking a piece of straw from her crown he said, ‘How can you read in this light?’
‘I don’t need light. It’s not all that interesting.’
‘Then why are you reading it?’
Nell closed the book and considered the cover as if it might offer a reason for the use of her time. ‘Truthfully,’ she said, ‘it’s something to look at that doesn’t need anything from me.’ She set the book aside. ‘What’s Abigail doing?’
‘Helping herself to the leftover cannelloni.’ He didn’t add that it had taken her two goes at it. After Abigail had washed the vomit from the sink, then gone upstairs to wash herself, she had come back for seconds. Nothing, it would seem, was going to stand between Abigail and those tubes of baked ricotta.
Nell nodded in satisfaction. ‘Good.’
‘She thinks you’re ignoring her.’
‘I am ignoring her.’
Young Dick knew better than to ask why. ‘How long for?’
‘The same length of time anyone of my generation ignores someone. Until I can figure out my thoughts and feelings enough to stop blaming the other person for them.’
‘I believe they call that projection, my love.’
‘Call it whatever you like. She’s made such a mess.’
‘You know Abigail.’
‘But that’s the thing,’ Nell said, suddenly wild. ‘Clearly I don’t. Showing up here, looking like she is—it’s the last thing I expected. Nothing’s ever easy with her. Why does she have to make everything so hard?’
From the stalls came a thud, followed by a lazy snort. Nell leaned over to tug her phone from her pocket.
‘I told the boys,’ she said, thumbing the screen. ‘Hamish wrote, “good news hope she stays and gets her shit together” and Dylan hasn’t written back.’ She shoved her phone away. ‘So I guess it’s not only my generation.’
Young Dick considered offering an excuse for Dylan’s non-response—he was busy; phone service was sporadic in Far North Queensland; maybe he was working nights and asleep—but decided against it. ‘What did you tell them?’
‘That she was back, and that I can’t face her, so don’t ask me any questions because I don’t know.’
‘Well, there you go. If you’re pissy, Dylan will side with Abigail—he always has. You know that.’
Nell didn’t respond. She picked up the novel, turned it over a few times in her hands, set it back down.
‘She wants a job,’ Young Dick said. A little sheepishly, he added, ‘I told her she wouldn’t be able to find anything.’
‘Why would you say that?’
‘Because I don’t want her in town.’
Nell bristled. ‘You want her to leave?’
‘No,’ he hastened to say. ‘I’m glad she came back. I don’t know what she’s going to do, but if she’s here, I can finally keep an eye on her.’ He tipped back his head to consider the roof. ‘Like I should have done twenty-odd years ago.’
‘You can’t keep her confined to the house,’ Nell said. ‘Whether she’s here or in town, people will talk. People will think and say and do whatever they want. Are you trying to protect her from that?’
‘Yeah.’
Nell laughed softly. ‘She doesn’t need protecting.’
‘I know that.’
‘Well?’
Young Dick plucked a stem of lucerne and began breaking it into small pieces. ‘The timing is unfortunate.’
‘Actually the timing is perfect, if you take a look at her.’
He shuddered, brushing the hay from his hands. ‘That black eye, Christ.’
Nell stared into the middle distance. ‘Whoever it was,’ she said mildly, ‘I’ll kill them.’
‘Now you sound like Dad.’
Nell lifted her face to look him directly in the eye and Young Dick saw flint there, the same steely conviction he saw in Abigail.
‘She can’t go back again, Richard. She can’t. Look at her.’
‘I know.’
‘Well?’
‘Shit,’ Young Dick said, glancing at his watch. ‘I’m late. Twitch’s got the tractor at the ramp, he’ll be waiting. There’s rough weather on the way.’
From the stall came another thump, another snort, the sound of a hay bag being thrashed against the wall.
Nell put a hand on her husband’s arm. ‘The boat can wait.’
‘The weather won’t. If I don’t get it into dry dock and get that anti-foul on—’
‘What are you going to do?’
He gave a heavy sigh, taking up Nell’s hand and squeezing it. ‘What was it you said last night? That it wasn’t my problem to fix?’
Nell narrowed her eyes. ‘That was about three seconds before she knocked on the door.’
‘Ah.’ He kissed her knuckles. ‘So she’s my problem, is what you’re saying.’
They both went quiet as from inside the stall came a shrill, indignant whinny. A moment later a fainter answering cry came from the paddocks.
Young Dick inclined his head in the direction of the stall. ‘How much longer has she got?’
‘Not long,’ Nell replied. ‘It seems everyone is running out of time.’
OLD DICK
My father once shot a man over a pair of horse clippers.
In the leg, I should add—not somewhere fatal like the chest or neck or balls. The way my father told the story, the man he shot used to work for my father but hadn’t for a few years, then one day the man came waltzing into my father’s kitchen while Dad was innocently eating his supper and demanded my father give him the horse clippers.
‘Where are those horse clippers?’ the man said, in an offensive manner.
‘I don’t know anything about them,’ replied my father.
‘You do,’ said the man.
‘You had better leave the room,’ suggested my father. ‘You better go outside.’
‘I will not go out and you cannot put me out,’ expostulated the man.
What happened next was subject to a sizeable amount of interpretation—my father said one thing, the man who wanted the horse clippers said another, and a third man, who was at that time working for Dad and happened to come into the room as events unfolded, said something else. Police court dismissed it as a trifling affair, which it was if you ask my father or the third man who entered the room.
I don’t know how trifling it would have been for the man who got shot in the leg. Because when I say ‘shot in the leg’, I admit I’m sugar coating it. A less sugary description is the man got shot in the knee. Right through his kneecap. My dad kept a twelve gauge shotgun leaning against the kitchen cupboard, and one of those through your kneecap at close range would not be pretty. It would mess up your day.
I was only a small boy at the time and I don’t recall what happened to the man afterwards. Ma never talked about it but then again Ma never talked about anything much at all, except to rouse me for getting grass stains on my good Sunday pants. I do recall there was a man who got about town with a limp, though, so maybe that was him.
I can’t see the boats now because there’s a mist come in and it’s swallowed up my view of the breakwater. Out the window I can see the cheesewood bushes and a goose, but that’s about it.
Whatever happened to that man Dad shot? I ask the woman.
She’s dragging a big box across the floor. She stops and looks at me.
Sorry, hon, she says, What did you say?
That man Dad shot, over the horse clippers. What happened to him?
She’s looking around the room now, as if she’s trying to find someone. She looks alarmed. Does she think the man who got shot is here and can answer for himself?
I’m not sure, Richard, she says. Would you like a cup of tea?
What I’d like is to know what happened to that man my father shot, and if any bastard’s stolen my mooring, and where the hell they’ve hidden the ladder, but it seems to me that a man can’t get answers today, all he can get is a cup of bloody tea.
But I’m a gentleman and Luce would have my guts so I say, Yes, thank you, and the woman goes into the kitchen, leaving the big box right there in the middle of the floor.
ABIGAIL
‘Abigail, come down here.’
Early afternoon. Abigail lay on the bed in her childhood room that wasn’t hers anymore, dozily watching sunlight inch across the floor until it was beaming through the window. The room had grown stuffy. At the sound of her mother’s summons, a tug-of-war played out in Abigail’s mind. The instant resentment that she didn’t have a choice but to comply hauled against the realisation that she did. The obedient child against the rebellious child, the bound crim against the autonomous woman. It tangled up in the space of a few seconds but by the time she rolled off the bed and came to the top of the stairs, she felt tousled and angry.
Her mother was standing at the bottom of the stairs. At her feet was a large cardboard box.
‘She speaks,’ Abigail said.
Her mother ignored that.
‘What’s in the box?’
‘Come here.’
Abigail didn’t move. ‘Do you have another animal in there that’s going to attack me?’
‘You’re still mad about the goose? That’s just Kitten. He’s harmless.’
‘You called your goose Kitten?’
‘What else would I call him?’
‘Puffer jacket?’
‘I want my jeans back. You can’t wear them undone like that. Don’t make me come up there.’
Abigail was wearing her mother’s jeans and a T-shirt of her father’s that read Holden Repair Kit with a picture of a hand grenade. Slowly, the stairs squeaked in reverse: ninth, seventh, fourth. She ensured she found every squeak, stepping on it with her full weight. The closer she got to her mother the more the air between them seemed to compress. Time slowed and strung out. Her mother wouldn’t meet her eye as she descended, but Abigail saw Nell observing each footstep, eyes darting between Abigail’s feet and body and hand gripping the rail, until she stood on the floor in front of her, the box between them.
Finally Nell looked her in the eye. Neither of them spoke. This went on for quite some time, this looking and not speaking; it went on for so long Abigail began to wonder if Nell had forgotten that it was she who had summoned her in the first place and was instead waiting for Abigail to explain herself. Outside the waves crashed and the sun crawled across the sky and trees pumped sap and meanwhile, Abigail and her mother stood at the foot of the stairs, looking at each other, not speaking.
Abigail moved first. Hooking her thumbs in the waistband of Nell’s jeans, she shoved them down. Wriggled her hips, inching the denim down her legs. Once she had the jeans off, she handed them across the box.
‘Thank you,’ said Nell, folding the jeans and setting them on the sideboard.
Once again silence fell, only now Abigail had no pants on. She dug her nails into her thigh and gave it a delicious hard scratch.
Nell clucked her tongue. ‘Is that a bite? Don’t scratch it.’
Abigail eyeballed her mother, scratching harder.
Nell pointed at the box. ‘All these clothes were donated last year for bushfire relief,’ she said. ‘Then the pandemic hit and we weren’t allowed to give anything out. Since then the box has been sitting in the shed and I haven’t had a chance to look at it. I want you to go through it. Anything old or stained, toss it. Anything in good condition, wash it, fold it and bag it up. Then you can take it down to the gift shop, where they’ll sell it for charity. As payment for your time you can keep whatever you can wear.’
Abigail glanced into the box and laughed. ‘I’m not wearing any of that.’
