Читать книгу A Hand in the Bush - Jane Clifton - Страница 12

'She was a teenager, they said on 3AW.' Decca stared at Candy, then slumped into her office chair.

'Drove all the way from Hoppers Crossing.'

'What about the baby?' said Decca.

'What baby?'

'There was a Baby on Board sign hanging in the back window.'

'Shit. Didn't mention a baby. They said that she drove to the top of the bridge and stopped so suddenly that the car behind had to swerve to keep from piling into the back of her. Then that car hit another on its right and they both careered into the barriers in the middle of the bridge.'

'It must have happened before I got there. I didn't hear a smash. Was anyone hurt?'

'No. Everyone was so lucky-well, except for the girl, obviously.'

'Did anyone see her jump?'

'Not really. According to AW, drivers were concentrating on hitting the brakes. It must have happened real fast. Someone said they saw a girl get out of the car and walk to the railing.'

'So, how do they know how old she was? Or even that it was a her?'

'Well, beat this, the mother wasn't far behind her in the traffic. In another car.'

The yellow Hyundai, Decca assumed. 'That's terrible.'

'Yeah. Life sucks. I'll get you some coffee. You're free till eleven, you know.'

'How come?'

'Mr Kransky booked a double session, remember?'

'Of course.'

'So, chill. Okay?'

As Candy padded out of the room Decca wondered what, exactly, her receptionist had come as this morning.

The shoulder-length hair, dyed fire-engine red this week, was rolled, Star Wars-style, into two buns encircling her ears, from which hung two gigantic gold-hooped earrings. Candy's voluptuous body was swathed in layer upon layer of grey, charcoal and khaki: knitted tunic over leggings, shawls crossed and re-crossed over woollen vest, thigh-high socks, leg-warmers and tasselled ug boots. Yesterday it was Cowgirl Candy with plaits and gingham; on Monday, Kashmiri Candy in sari and bangles. Every day a different persona to pin onto what would always be the same basic paper doll.

Twenty-nine-year-old Candy MacIntosh from Sunshine West, single mother of two teenage sons, was baggage from the nine years Decca had spent as resident psychologist at a social welfare unit in St Albans. A job that had inspired her at first, then worn her down to the point where, even before her marriage had collapsed, Decca knew it was time for the physician to heal herself.

During an extended post-divorce sojourn in that land of the lotus eaters, Byron Bay, Decca had toyed with a complete career makeover: taking up permanent residence there, setting herself up as a Feldenkrais practitioner or something. She realised, in the nick of time, over one bowl of tofu too many, that all the balmy air and lukewarm seawater had turned her brain to peanut sauce. Then dragged herself out of the slough of self-pity and flew home to Melbourne.

This was her second year in private practice and she was enjoying the change of pace.

'Listen,' said Candy, popping her head round the door, 'I'm just going to duck out to that aquarium place for some more fish food, okay? The comets are wasting away to shadows.'

'I think I'll ditch the fish,' said Decca. 'I don't think it's a good idea for people with claustrophobia or obsessive-compulsive disorders to be looking at living creatures with short attention spans swimming around all day in a confined space.'

'I find them soothing,' said Candy.

'Yes, but you don't have psychological problems.'

'I do so!'

'It's not a competition, Candy. And, besides, I don't want to know.'

'Typical. I like the fish. They're my little buddies.'

'You are a worry,' said Decca, laughing.

'Aren't I just?' said Candy with a giggle.

'And, you were leaving?' said Decca.

'Certainly am, and I won't be long.' Candy closed the door behind her, but was back a second later, cigarette in hand, ready to light up the minute she hit the pavement. 'Before I forget, your driver's licence is due for renewal. The courtesy letter's in the pile. I didn't know you rode a motorcycle, you wild and crazy doctor, you. I need to see pictures!' She smirked. 'Of you on your fat boy.'

'Don't hurry back,' said Decca, reaching for the stack of mail and riffling through it. She fished out the renewal form and frowned.

LICENCE TYPE

CAR BIKE

A tiny wave of...What? Anxiety? Fear? Nausea? An unsettling sensation snaked up her spine.

She reached for the phone and pressed 3 on the speed-dial.

'Z.M.G. This is Lola.'

'Oh, hi Lola. It's Decca. Is Zan there?'

'Putting you through-hoo!'

A burst of wallpaper music, then Zan's nicotine-infused tones crackled down the line. 'Hi, babe!'

'Hi!' said Decca, releasing the breath that had lodged in her chest. 'Hey, Zannie, you're not going to like this.' She paused. 'I forgot.'

'What? The weekend? Oh, you are such a featherhead, girl!'

'I know. I am so sorry.'

'Oh, shut up. We can still go, for Chrissake. It's not a problem. It's not like you have a life.'

'Thanks!'

'My pleasure.'

'Thing is...I was going to...'

'What? Sock drawer getting a little outta line? Front lawn needs repainting? What, what, what?'

'Oh, fuck off. You are so mean to me! I have too got a life!'

'Yeah. Right.'

An asbestos friendship: they were both laughing now.

'You cannot not come, girleen!' Zan cajoled. 'The food at Watertower Hill is, like, the best! Not to mention the wine. It's a sleep-over! We'll have a great time! The rooms've got spas, the music'll be sensational, we may even score a root. We...'

'I've got a kind of...date,' Decca cut in.

Silence at the other end of the line.

'Well, you know, it's not really a date per se,' she stumbled on. 'It's a possible date...with someone I haven't met...yet...but, I'm meeting him tonight at,' she took a deep breath, 'the Hathaways.'

Zan exploded with snorts of derisive laughter.

'Oh, fuck me,' she shrieked, 'It's come to this? You are standing me-your oldest friend in the entire world, who has stood by you through thick and thin-you are standing me, and an all-expenses paid piss-up-you are standing me and Father-Christmas-in-July up to go on a blind date arranged by Dax and Flavia Hathaway!'

'Yes. I have to say I am.'

'Colour you D for Desperate. Haven't you heard of a vibrator?' Zan steamed on. 'You can borrow mine!'

'Yu-uck!' said Decca, starting to laugh again.

'Seriously though, haven't you learned anything from that cunt of an ex-husband of yours? What makes you think for one mad moment that loose men our age are going to be out there looking for loose women of our age? Single men our age have either been cut loose by their long-suffering wives after years of boredom, or they're G-A-Y, gay! Any of the ones that were even halfway decent have all gone out and purchased themselves a younger model!'

She was right. As usual.

Five years ago, while the smoke from the candles on her birthday cake still hung in the air, Decca's husband of fifteen years dumped her for Stacey, his voluptuous twenty-two-year-old P.A. The very same Stacey, in fact, who had organised Decca's birthday party as efficiently as she would, a few short months later, mastermind her own oh-so-white wedding.

The trophy bride had promptly pumped out three blond sons and heirs-Hans, Viktor and Kyle-in rapid succession. 'Hitler Youth', as Zan loved to call them, providing a further slap in the face to Decca, whose inability to produce children herself, as a result of a backyard abortion gone wrong during her twenties, had been a constant source of disappointment.

'Oh, she wept and she sighed and bitterly she cried' as the old folk song goes, but nothing would bring her marriage back.

Her beloved, foolish husband, Volker Danehart, jogged away in his brand new Nikes, down the well-trodden track marked Mid-Life Crisis, desperately staving off mortality with a shield of progeny and the sword of young flesh.

Fifteen years of marital contentment wiped out with a single blow job.

'Jesus, Zan, don't you get tired of being such a know-it-all?' said Decca.

'It's like my friend Bill the bass player says, "If you don't like it, get used to it."' Zan's voice was muffled by the action of placing a cigarette between her teeth and lighting up. 'Is this guy married?'

Deserted by his wife, Decca remembered the Hathaways' description of him with a jolt, but said nothing.

'Oh, shit,' drawled Zan, blowing a long stream of smoke into the receiver. 'Well,' she continued chirpily, 'you never know. You could get lucky. Stranger things've happened.'

'Yeah, I mean, they put a man on the moon,' said Decca, before they chorused in unison, 'but no-one knows why they brought him back!' And they laughed again.

'Well, fuck you and good luck to you,' said Zan. 'I'll call you from Coldstream.'

'Do,' said Decca. 'Especially if you score.'

'Dream on,' said Zan, and hung up.

Decca sat back in her chair, and glanced at her watch: only 9.45. More time to kill. The pile of mail lay where she had left it. She got up and paced the room.

What was going on today? Little bells kept ringing. Why had her motorcycle endorsement notice appeared on the very day that Winsome had, apparently, risen from the dead, and onto the pages of the morning newspaper? Synchronicity-the acausal connection between events? Or was Decca's anxiety about the impending date throwing up unresolved self-doubts?

She had had several opportunities over the past twenty-six years to let that motorcycle endorsement on her driver's licence lapse. Why had she kept it up? The only bike she was ever going to use again was the non-motorised sort she rode along the streets of Williamstown every morning.

One simple word: 'bike'. It had sat there, on the page, like a coded message from the old Decca to the new. A little yellow post-it sticker, left in place to remind her of unfinished business.

Was today that day? Was the past on the march? Were the demons limbering up? Her gorge rose at the remembered odour of mouldy earth and antiseptic.

Decca rushed to her door, heading for fresh air, and came face to face with a beaming, unshaven Oleg Kransky.

A dripping bunch of cerise carnations was clenched in his left hand, a bottle of Long Flat Red and car keys in the other.

'Let's go to a motel,' he said.