Just nine minutes before the boy left
“Traffic sent this over, Frank, thought we might be interested.” Detective Lambert’s line manager, Captain Duncan, hands him a sheet of paper.
“What is it?” Lambert asks, before he begins reading.
“Report of a traffic accident, possible perve behind the wheel. Guy likes getting about in women’s clothes, apparently. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
The Captain’s reference to the still popular American sit com makes them both snigger for a moment. Thank God for the digital television revolution.
Lambert picks up the e-mail print out and starts reading. Chris Baker, public servant, thirty-nine, single, crashed his silver Ford Focus turning across traffic on the highway just south of the Queensgate City shopping centre intersection.
When a kid goes missing, especially if they don’t turn up in the first twenty-four hours, sex is always considered as a possible factor. An alert is put on the CrimTrack system and anything that comes up that looks likely is fed through to the lead Detective, in this case, Lambert’s boss, Captain Duncan. Never mind that Lambert’s the one doing all the work.
The possible link with Chris Baker is the women’s clothing; a sexual deviance that might link to an unhealthy interest in young boys. That, and his address. He lives just around the corner from the boy’s school, just across the highway from Queensgate City.
“It’s always the ones close to home,” thinks Lambert as he studies the black and white reproduction of Baker’s licence photo at the bottom of the e-mail printout.
Lambert goes back to his case notes. The Fitzpatricks thought they’d seen a silver Mazda or Ford cruising the school before the boy disappeared. Maybe there’s something in this after all? He decides to have a look at the CC-TV tapes from the shopping centre on the day of the disappearance. It’s the only other thing he’s got to go on at the moment.
According to the CC-TV footage, Peter Johnson was inside the Queensgate City Shopping Centre for only thirty-nine minutes. The boy is on the tape entering and leaving by the same exit. The shopping centre has one other main entry/exit and two others that double as emergency exits. All four are covered by cameras. Detective Senior Sergeant Frank Lambert begins to view each of the tapes, beginning half an hour before the boy entered the shopping centre and stopping half an hour after the boy’s exit. If he doesn’t see anything interesting, Lambert will make up his mind then whether to watch a wider slice of time.
Nothing on the first tape. The usual parade of slack-jawed locals trudging in and out of the shopping centre doors. Smokers taking in and exhaling that last drag before going in the doors, or pulling out their boxes of fags so they can light up the moment they get outside; into the fresh air.
The second tape gives Lambert what he’s looking for. Going in the other entry, not the one the boy used, at 10.03 am, is Chris Baker. Lambert checks his licence photo on the system to be sure and it’s definitely him. Baker leaves the centre at 10.17 am, using the same door that he came in, carrying what looks like dry cleaning. Just nine minutes before the boy left via the other exit.
“Going to your car to pick up something else, are you?” Lambert mutters to himself. He’s cursing the shopping centre management for being too cheap to have CC-TV on the car parks as well.
Under that sky
The sky makes her dizzy. It’s so blue. Featureless. And it goes on for ever. You get vertigo just standing outside your front door.
The shops are just over the road. She can see them in her mind and, if she walks around two corners, she’ll be able to see them for real. Around the corner, across the main street at the lights and she’s there.
There’s no pavements in this suburb. It’s one of those built in the seventies when we were all going to ride in our cars for ever. No one was ever going to have to walk anywhere again, except to their car. She can’t drive; they don’t have a car. Her man is at work, the kids are around the corner at school, she’ll have to walk. To the shops. Under that sky.
She pulls her clothing tighter around her and takes the first steps up the driveway. The nausea is familiar, but familiarity doesn’t take the edge off it. She’ll be sick if she stops now, she just knows it. She keeps walking, feeling breathless, the vertigo is getting stronger. She knows that if she keeps walking, she’ll collapse, but to turn around and go back means she may never leave the house again.
She chants, over and over in her mind, “You can do this.” It’s all she’s got.
She finds herself across the road and making for the first left at the top of her street when he’s before her. She recoils without meaning to, pulls her clothing tighter.
“Don’t worry, love, I won’t hurt you. Just want to say ‘hello’. Don’t they do that where you come from, then?”
She concentrates on breathing. Concentrates on standing. Just staying upright is an ordeal she knows she won’t be able to endure. He stands in front of her, takes off his cloth bucket hat and rubs at his balding head with the one hand while he looks her over. Eventually, she has to move or die. She takes the first step around him and moves on up the road.
“Bloody ignorant cow!” She hears the venom in his voice, but she can’t reply. She’s got to keep moving.
As she nears the shops her breathing is laboured. Even the small rise up through the car park that leads to the entry is almost too much for her. She’s sure there’s something wrong with her heart. There has to be, there’s just no other explanation for it.
“You can do this,” she says to herself, aloud this time. She’s been saying it over and over in her head since she rounded the man at the top of her street. She could tell he wasn’t happy by the raised voice, his tone. But she just had to keep on moving. She hopes he’ll understand. More than that, she hopes he won’t be there when she goes home.
As she gets to the automatic doors that mark the entry to the cavernous other world that is the shopping centre, a thought halts her progress. She stands dead still, not close enough to the doors to make them open.
“The key,” she thinks, “Did I bring the door key?” She brings her purse out from under the folds of her black garment, where she’s been holding it all the time she’s been walking to the shops. She uses the thumb and forefinger of her right hand to open the black purse, holding it in her left hand, concentrating on regaining her breath, eyes eager to find the key, because, without it, she knows she’s stuck out here.
She knows the key’s in there. She can visualise herself putting it in with her change after locking the door. She’s always so careful with this ritual when leaving home, because she knows she’ll never survive out here if she’s got no way back. She knows all this, but she still can’t stop herself from having to look before she goes into the shops.
The woman stands motionless on the concrete. Purse in her left hand, all her concentration focused on its contents. Fingers of her right hand pushing through the coins while she looks. The sun presses down on the black material covering her head, she can feel a headache growing with the rising heat. She’s pinned under the wide blue sky.
She doesn’t see anything. Just feels the sharp snap of her left wrist, the blazing heat of the pain. Next her balance leaves her and she’s falling to her left, her left arm out from her side at right angles. She wonders for a moment why her arm would be sticking out like this while she watches the glass doors of the shopping centre tilt terribly.
She doesn’t feel the pain mushrooming through her head until her temple hits the concrete for the second time. It’s a surprise to the woman that her head should bounce, that it’s even hitting the concrete at all given that it was the doors tilting over. She sees her left arm lying next to her, her wrist at a sick angle, her hand seems like someone else’s. She worries that her garments are exposing too much flesh, that her modesty has been compromised. She can’t remember whether she managed to find her key, tells herself to remember to look for it again next time she gets a chance.
The world goes blank as her eyes and ears shut down.
His logic makes sense
Occupation: public servant.
Lambert’s checking out Chris Baker on the licensing system. There’s nothing on CrimTrack, the guy’s got no record, nothing at all.
Public servant. What’s a public servant doing with a bagful of women’s clothes? Cruising the school? Why was he at the shopping centre at the same time as Peter Johnson?
Lambert decides to go back and talk to the Fitzpatricks again. Maybe the old dears will be able to give him something else this time.
As he leaves his desk, Detective Senior Sergeant Lambert picks up the email from traffic with Chris Lambert’s details and licence photo on it. He dials the Fitzpatrick’s number on his mobile as he walks towards the car park. He knows they’ll be home. Their sort never leaves the house — unless they’re going to the shops.
“Mr Fitzpatrick, thanks for agreeing to talk to me again,” Lambert says as he steps over the threshold of the old couple’s neatly cluttered home. The garden’s run to weeds a bit, grass is beginning to grow through some of the pavers on the driveway, but inside is spotless. It’s packed with ornaments and pristine furniture that is obviously old, but looks to be in showroom condition.
Mr Fitzpatrick leans forward as he greets the Detective, shakes his hand with a firm grip, palm slightly moist with the effort of hurrying to the door, breath coming a bit hard. But he’s pleased the Detective’s here. It’s not often they get visitors, particularly not ones who bring such important — and interesting — business.
“Come on in. Would you like a drink? A cup of tea or coffee? Maybe a cold drink? It’s a hot day again, isn’t it?”
Lambert declines Mr Fitzpatrick’s offer. He wants to get on with this.
“I won’t trouble you long, Mr Fitzpatrick. I just need to see if I can get a few more details on the car we were talking about the other day.”
“Well, come in, please. Won’t you sit down?”
Lambert sits in the arm chair opposite the sofa and at the side of the TV. He can see Mrs Fitzpatrick in the kitchen at the back of the living area. She waves a greeting as her husband sits opposite the Detective on the two-and-a-half seater facing the TV and, coincidentally, the chair he’s sitting in.
“So, how can we help you this time, Detective?”
“The car you were telling me about. I was wondering if you could give me some more information. I’m particularly interested in the driver. Can you remember what the driver looked like?”
Mr Fitzpatrick thinks for a while, says nothing.
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“Oh, definitely a man. No doubt about that,” Mr Fitzpatrick answers with a hint of pride at his own powers of observation.
“Anything you can tell me about him? Did you get a good look?”
“Well, he’s probably a bit younger than us.” Mr Fitzpatrick looks over at his wife with a conspiratorial smile on his face. “Middle aged, fortyish, I’d say.”
“What about his hair? Long? Short? Colour?”
“Short, I think.” He looks again at his wife, for confirmation this time, and she nods.“ Yes, short, and dark coloured.”
“Anything else?” the Detective asks.
“No, I think that’s about it,” comes the reply after a long pause for thought.
Lambert looks up at Mrs Fitzpatrick in the kitchen. He leans forward in his chair and raises his voice to cover the distance of metres and age. “What about you, Mrs Fitzpatrick, can you add anything? Did you see the man, too?”
She stays in the kitchen. “Yes, I saw him too, but I don’t think I could add anything.” She seems reluctant to get drawn in. She’s not excited by all the attention like her husband is.
Detective Lambert sits back in his chair again and thinks. If Chris Baker is the man he’s looking for, he’s not going to need the Fitzpatricks to give evidence. He’d have to make the case on other evidence anyway. On an impulse, he decides to show Mr Fitzpatrick the photo of Chris Baker on the e-mail print out that came from traffic earlier that day. It’s not procedure, but no one besides him will be talking to the Fitzpatricks about this. Lambert’s convinced of that, and his logic makes sense. He needs something to help him keep the case moving and, if things keep pointing to Chris Baker, he’s not going to need the evidence of a couple of old buggers who have nothing better to do than watch traffic pass by their house all day. He’ll get something harder than that.
“Mr Fitzpatrick, is this the man you saw in the car?” Lambert shows Mr Fitzpatrick the e-mail print out, folded so that only the black and white reproduction of Baker’s licence photo is showing.
Mr Fitzpatrick studies the photo, leaning from the edge of his seat at full stretch across the room as Lambert leans towards him, his arm at the full extent of its reach, the paper held in his finger tips.
“it certainly looks like him,” Mr Fitzpatrick says. “Yes, I think so. Yes, that’s definitely him. What’s he done?” he adds quickly.
Lambert ignores Mr Fitzpatrick’s question. “Thank you, Mr Fitzpatrick, Mrs Fitzpatrick. You’ve really helped me out. I must be going now.”
Lambert gets up and starts making for the door before either of the Fitzpatricks can move. Mr Fitzpatrick hurries to his feet in an attempt to be at the door to open it for the Detective. There’s nearly a collision in the entry way to the Fitzpatricks’ house. At the last moment, Detective Lambert steps back and allows Mr Fitzpatrick to open the door for him.
“Thank you again. I’ll give you a call if I need anything else.” Lambert doesn’t hang about for any more. He walks quickly to his car, gets in and reverses down the driveway. Mr Fitzpatrick stays at his front door and watches until the Detective is out of sight.
As he drives, Detective Lambert thinks things through. He’s got circumstantial evidenced placing Chris Baker at the Queensgate City Shopping centre the same day and time as Peter Johnson disappeared. He’s got the e-mail from Traffic identifying Baker as a possible perve. Now he’s got the old dears, the Fitzpatricks, who’ve identified Baker as he driver of the car they’ve reported cruising around Peter Johnson’s school on Caulder Road. But the last bit of information he can’t use.
The only thing for it is to go to the hospital and have a chat with Chris Baker. The public servant.
Detective Lambert swings his unmarked car into the entry road marked ‘police vehicles only’. He needs to report in to his line manager, Captain Duncan before he moves on with his inquiries. When he catches up with Duncan, Detective Lambert outlines where he’s up to with his investigation of Peter Johnson’s disappearance, careful to leave out his last chat with the Fitzpatricks, but making sure Duncan knows that he’s got no other useful lines of inquiry at the moment.
“Well, I guess having a word with this Baker can’t do any harm. Not to us, anyway,” Duncan smiles at Lambert, as he says these last words. “Yup, go and have a chat with him, see what he’s got to say to explain himself.”
“Will do, boss. Thanks.”
Lambert’s happy he’s got the nod to go ahead. Wasn’t expecting anything else, really, but he’s found over the years it’s good to keep those further up the line informed. About most things, anyway.
The few bystanders who haven’t melted away
The first two people keep on walking. The third bends over her as she lies, inert, on the concrete, right outside the entry to the shopping centre.
“Are you alright, love?” the elderly man asks. His wife’s tugging at his sleeve, trying to pull him away, but he keeps leaning over the woman on the ground, his face getting closer to hers until he feels his back will take no more and he must fall, face first, onto her.
She’s still breathing.
“Better call an ambulance,” says the elderly man. “Here, you stay with her,” he says to his wife as he hands her the two green eco-friendly shopping bags he’s been carrying. His wife takes the bags reluctantly, she knows from the set of his mouth, the way his head’s down as he starts walking, that her husband won’t listen to the words that are half formed on her lips. “Just leave it, Brian,” is what she wants to say, “Let someone else deal with it.” Too late, he’s already disappeared back inside to the dark coolness of the shopping centre to find a phone.
Brian and Marge don’t carry mobile phones. They consider themselves too old to keep up with all that modern technology.
Marge stands close to the woman on the ground wishing someone else would take over her vigil. No one comes, until Brian gets back.
“Ambulance is on its way,” he tells her.
They stand, stiff in the thin air. Waiting.
By the time the ambulance arrives, a small crowd has gathered around the weekday morning drama at the local shopping centre. Someone from centre management has taken over from Brian and has put a pillow under the woman’s head. He’s crouching beside her making sure she’s still breathing. Marge can’t help wondering where the bloke got the pillow from, but then it is a shopping centre she supposes. Really, all she wants to do is get home before the celery wilts. She’s relieved when the sound of the ambulance begins to fade in from the distance. They’ll be able to go home soon.
The green and white St John’s truck pulls up on the bitumen alongside the concrete where the woman has been lying still for the last twenty minutes. The paramedics are all efficiency as they ask people to step back and start to attend to the woman with hands and instruments, checking and stabilising, preparing to take her to hospital.
As the paramedics go about their work, the cops arrive. The centre manager called them once he’d checked with Brian that the ambulance was on its way. They begin asking questions of the few bystanders who haven’t melted away. Brian tells what little he can. Marge wills him to shut up when he offers his name and address to the police in case they want to follow up with more questions. The young officer, the gun at his side nearly as big as he is, takes down their details, while his partner talks to the ambos, checking on the status of the woman. He confirms that they’ll come down to the hospital later to see if they can find out from her what’s happened.
The ambulance pulls away from the concrete pavement outside the shops and the cop car follows, but then heads the opposite way down the highway, turning left as a faded silver Mazda 3 with two men inside turns right, into the shopping centre car park.
May as well celebrate the new arrangements
“Good evening, I’m Tiffany Robson, this is Channel Six News at Six. Tonight, China successfully tests a satellite-killing missile sparking outrage across the region and in the US. A double murder suicide claims the lives of two young refugees and their father. And, a possible breakthrough in the search for Peter Johnson, who’s now been missing for five days. These stories and more, tonight on Six News.”
Tonight, Tiffany gets to the double murder suicide, introduces the story and then throws to the reporter at the scene, a suburban block of units, within sight of the city skyline.
“Tiffany, witnesses have told me that the family had been living in the units for about a year. It is thought that they were refugees from Afghanistan. The mother came home late this afternoon and found her husband and two young children dead from what were apparently gunshot wounds, although police have yet to confirm this. Police also have not yet confirmed that the father shot his two toddlers before turning the gun on himself. A neighbour spoke to me earlier today about what she’d heard last night.”
The vision cuts to a short-haired, overweight woman standing slightly oblique to the camera looking at the reporter who is just out of shot. “We heard arguing and loud screaming at about 6.30 last night, but to be honest, not speaking their language, we just thought they got a bit hysterical sometimes.”
The vision cuts back to the reporter and he continues with his account of events, but Tiffany’s not listening any more. Fragments of the witness’s words keep coming back to her: “not speaking their language,” “we just thought they got a bit hysterical sometimes.”
Tiffany misses her next cue. Her director has to yell in her earpiece to grab back her attention. She’s staring blankly at the camera while she should be introducing the story about the new evidence police have uncovered in the case of the missing boy. She begins to read the autocue again with a visible start. “Police have a new lead in the disappearance of missing boy Peter Johnson. They are appealing for witnesses to come forward with information about a car seen in the vicinity of Caulder Road school and the Queensgate City shopping centre, where the boy disappeared. The car is a silver Ford Focus or Mazda 3 similar to the ones shown here. Anyone who thinks they may have seen a car fitting this description on or around the time Peter went missing is urged to call Crime Stoppers at the number shown on the screen.”
As Tiffany closes the night’s bulletin, she can see her director in the shadows of the studio just behind the cameras. He rarely comes down from the control booth. The floor controller signals that they’re off the air and, as Tiffany pulls out her earpiece, she sees Bob cross the floor, coming towards her between the cameras and cables.
“Let’s have dinner,” he tells her. For Bob to want to miss the post-bulletin meeting, this must be big.
Tiffany collects her bag and, without changing out of her on-camera clothes, follows Bob out of the studio and gets into his car as he slams the door on the driver’s side and guns the engine. They travel to the city restaurant in silence.
Bob Mullen is not known for beating about the bush. Producing the weekday 6.00 pm news bulletin requires an ability to be economical when it comes to communication and an arrogance that leaves no one questioning your decisions. Without this, the news won’t get out and hundreds of thousands of people won’t know what’s important and what to think about it. Bob’s got these qualities by the bucket load.
As they enter the restaurant, a well known eatery in one of the city’s major hotels, Bob Mullen and Tiffany Robson are immediately ushered to a table. No fanfare and few glances in their direction, although one young couple does the double take that Tiffany’s grown used to over the years. Obviously they don’t get out much.
Bob sits down at the same time as the waiter is attending to Tiffany, pulling her chair back and laying the starched white napkin across her naked knees. When the waiter’s done, Bob is already comfortably seated and scanning the wine list that was on the table before they arrived. The waiter hands them a menu each and leaves them to their deliberations.
Bob waits only until the waiter is out of earshot before he starts speaking.
“I want you to take a break from reading the news.” He looks at Tiffany intently, waiting for her reaction.
Tiffany says nothing at first. She’s calculating what the best response would be. “Taking a break” from reading the news is the inevitable beginning of the end for her career. Next Monday Bob promotes the weather girl to her seat. There are a few weeks of letters, maybe more, maybe less, and, depending on her connection with the viewers, maybe a dip in the ratings. Then the letters stop, ratings return to normal, or even climb a little, and Tiffany is forgotten. Life goes on.
Tiffany shifts in her chair, raises herself up and leans forward. “What’s going on, Bob? What brought this on?”
“You’re getting distracted, Tiff. You need to take some time away from the news, it’s starting to get to you. Tonight was the last straw. We can’t have you on camera looking like ... well, like some dumb blonde who’s never seen the inside of a TV studio before. You know tonight’ll end up on the Christmas tapes at every other station in town, don’t you? Who knows, you could even end up on some bloopers program, World’s worst newsreaders.”
“Hey! Hang on a minute!” Tiffany’s been listening quietly, even acknowledging to herself that Bob’s right, but this is over the line. “Don’t give me that fucking shit. You know I’m good, Bob. Who would you replace me with, anyway?”
The look on Bob’s face tells Tiffany that he knows he’s gone too far. It’s another one of the qualities that makes Bob good at getting the news out there every night, his ability to bulldoze and intimidate anyone, any time. But it doesn’t always make him good at managing the egos and thin skins that seem to be compulsory among TV journos.
Bob back peddles without admitting he’s wrong. “Tiff, you’ve been telling me for a while you’re ready to move on. You know you’re bored and now you’ve started to get involved with the stories. It’s affecting your judgement when you’re at content meetings and you’re not being objective when you’re reading. Tonight was proof of that.”
Tiffany sighs. For once she’d like an apology from Bob. For something. Just once she’d like him to admit he’s wrong about something. Bob’s been her news director since she landed the evening news. He was the one who called to tell her the job was hers. He’s supported her through a lot. Not only the over amorous rock star, who showed his one-night-stand love for her with a Coke bottle and left her bleeding in a hotel room, but making the move to the city, introducing her to the right people, steering her away from the wrong ones, helping her make the right choices of endorsements and events to raise her profile, putting her in touch with contacts who could tell her what would be making local news weeks in advance. Bob gave Tiffany her start, he made sure she was successful, and now he was finishing her.
“I need to keep reading the news, Bob. Without this, I’m nothing, I’m back to junior reporter in some country town.”
“Tiff, you’ve got to take a break. Two, three months, do something different, then you can come back when you’re ready.” Bob doesn’t take a step back.
“After three months, there won’t be any coming back. Don’t fuck me around, Bob. Why don’t you just sack me?”
“Look!” Bob’s tone is short, sharp, “As of tomorrow, you’re not reading the news. I’m putting you on special assignment. I’ll maintain your salary and you can work on some in-depth reports. Take tomorrow off and come back in on Monday, after the weekend. That’s it.”
Special assignment. In-depth reports. Bob may as well have fired Tiffany, but they both know that if he did that he’d have had to pay out her contract. This way she keeps working, will be able to produce a few reports from the field so the station gets some compensation for her retainer. But they both know she’s finished.
“Fuck you,” Tiffany tells Bob. He blinks once, just before the waiter returns to take their orders. Tiffany asks for the steak, rib-eye, medium rare. No need to worry about the salads any more.
Bob orders champagne. “May as well celebrate the new arrangements,” he says to Tiffany while looking at the waiter.
“You evil fucker,” Tiffany tells him, not caring that the waiter can hear her. She’s laughing as she speaks but she knows it’s true. She’s always known it’s true.
It’s late when Bob drops Tiffany back at the station and her car. He drives off without waiting to see if she’s OK. She’s pissed, but she still gets behind the wheel, still pulls out her mobile to give Karla a call as she swings into what’s left of the late-night traffic.
Karla answers after multiple rings. “Hello?” Her voice sounds muffled in Tiffany’s ear.
“Sorry, K, did I wake you? It’s Tiffany.”
“Tiff, mate, how are you? Nah, s’OK, I was just dozing in bed in front of some crap. I think I was watching the sex program on SBS, but who knows? You’ve probably saved me from drowning in my own drool. What’s up?”
Tiffany genuinely loves Karla. They’ve been mates since high school and Karla’s always been the one who’s helped Tiffany keep things in perspective. She’s the only woman Tiffany knows who doesn’t seem to need anyone or anything to make her life complete.
“Can I come over? I’ve been fired.”
“What? Your fifteen minutes of fame is up? Serious?”
“Well, I haven’t quite been fired, but good as. Put it this way, you won’t be seeing me on the news tomorrow night.”
“S’OK, I’ve never really watched you, anyway.” Karla’s always been honest to the very last. Her directness used to hurt Tiffany sometimes, but now she just laughs.
“So, can I come over? You haven’t got some skanky man in your bed have you?”
“C’mon Tiffany, I know you’re a hot shot journo and you deal in incredible stories every day of your life, but don’t go overboard.” Karla hasn’t had a man in her life since the middle of last year. Well, not anyone Tiffany’s known about. “Sure, come on over. How far away are you?”
“About fifteen minutes. See you soon.” Tiffany touches the red button on her mobile and concentrates on her driving again. Things seem to be in order, but she can’t quite remember if she stopped at the last light. Doesn’t matter, no harm done.
Karla lives in one of the suburbs between the CBD and the beach, closer to the city than the water. She bought the house a few years ago, when it was in a bit of a state and her neighbours up and down the street were uni students in share houses; older couples hanging on between retirement and the nursing home, or death; dole bludgers; and the occasional junkie. Now the suburb is going through a process of gentrification. The house next door’s just had a second storey added and there’s a top-of-the-range Pajero parked outside. Builders are working on the one on the other side, too. Makes Karla’s DIY renovations look a bit out of step with the rest of the neighbourhood, but she doesn’t care.
As far as Karla’s concerned, she’d rather have a bit of colour back in the street than the suited automatons who’ve moved in recently. You can’t walk down the street on a hot summer evening and smell the heady odour of pot wafting through tatty flyscreen doors any more. Now it’s all security screens and automatic security lighting. The drug of choice is money with the occasional twist of cocaine.
Besides, the heat is flattening these days. No one walks anywhere any more.
Tiffany has trouble finding a spot for her Prado. Cars are parked all up and down the street and she has to drive a couple of hundred metres past Karla’s house before she sees a gap that looks big enough for her to be confident that she’ll be able to back in without damaging her duco.
Tiffany walks unsteadily up the pavement at the side of the street, ducking exaggeratedly under the low-hanging tree branches that punctuate her journey. As a girl, Tiffany used to walk up the middle of the road to avoid the spiders’ webs hanging from the rows of trees lining the suburban streets of her childhood. Too many cars on the road to do that now, so fear of getting run over beats the arachnophobia. Anyone watching her would think that she’s just about completely legless.
She reaches Karla’s front door after pushing aside the low gate that sits in the middle of a shin-high brick wall. Tiffany knocks at the door, careful to make contact with the wood and not the lead light glass that Karla is fiercely proud of (“It’s original, you know.” “Yes, I know, you told me before. About a thousand times.” Giggles. It’s become a standing joke between them.) A few moments later she sees Karla walking down the hallway, silhouetted against the hall light. The door opens and the friends greet each other with real affection. No air kisses and arms-length hugs for them.
“Come in,” Karla says and turns to walk back down the hallway as Tiffany follows her inside and closes the front door behind them.
Karla is wearing cream coloured satin PJ shorts and a white cotton singlet. Her hips have widened a little over the years, but her body is still firm and her dark honey-coloured skin is smooth and healthy. She walks with a haughty, fuck you swagger. She’d never make it on the catwalk, but Karla’s movements tell the world she knows she’s cute, even in her own hallway. Her shoulders are wide and the muscles of her arms and legs are well defined, perfectly accentuated by the shadows cast from the light of an unshaded globe.
Karla heads down the hall towards her bedroom, at the back of the house, and Tiffany follows, walking past canvasses stacked one on top of the other. Most of them are identifiably Indigenous. All of the paintings bear Karla’s signature. None of them has been hung in a gallery or sold.
Karla climbs onto her queen bed, top sheet pushed back to its foot, no doona in sight at all. It’s almost midnight, but the air is still and superheated. She sits cross-legged. Tiffany sits on the edge of the bed, props herself up on her left arm.
“So, tell me what happened, superstar.”
“Well, like I said, I got sacked tonight. You wouldn’t have seen me this evening, but I fucked up, missed a cue and got caught on camera looking like a … well, fuck me if I didn’t look just like a stunned mullet, I suppose. I haven’t seen the tape yet, I hope I never do, but it must’ve been bad.”
“And that was enough to get you sacked? What sort of place is that? Everyone makes mistakes, Tiff. It can’t have been that bad.” Karla’s brown eyes show her concern, the crinkle of skin just above her nose as she frowns.
“I got too involved. It’s been happening for a while now. I haven’t kept my distance from the material. Have you heard about the refugee who killed his two kids and then did himself in?”
“Yep, saw it on the news tonight. ABC,” Karla makes a point of being up front with her brand loyalty.
“Well, I don’t know if they interviewed the same so called “eye witness” that we did tonight, but we had this woman on who said she’d heard them screaming in the house last night, but didn’t do anything because she couldn’t understand the language, thought they just ‘got a bit HYSTERICAL sometimes’,” Tiffany’s voice rises as she breaks into a drawl of imitation strine. “Jesus! If only they’d gone next door and asked if something was wrong. Don’t people look out for each other any more? Or is it just because we’re getting more racist by the minute in this country?”
“Hey, shhh,” Karla’s tone is low and soothing. She leans forward and reaches for Tiffany, rubbing the top of her left shoulder gently with the palm of her hand.
“Anyway, it just all got to me tonight and I missed my cue and then Bob took me to dinner straight after we got off the air and told me he was putting me on ‘special assignment’,” Tiffany marks the last two words with air quotes using two fingers on each hand, heaping them with more sarcasm that cream on a pavlova. “Then we had dinner together, drank champagne, talked about how fucking hot it is and got pissed.” By now Tiffany is sobbing gently, her shoulders heaving as the tears begin to roll down her face.
“But that’s not getting the sack.”
“Might as well be. I’ll never read the news again.”
In the early hours of the morning, Karla helps Tiffany out of her clothes and settles her on one side of the queen bed. She hops in the other side and pulls up the sheet, there’s just a hint of cool air coming through the window. It’s been a long time since the two girls had a sleepover.
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