“Harold,” I said, and put the paper down as if it burned.
“I gather the allegations are true,” Dad said.
I smiled, closed my eyes. “Just for a while, Dad. I sent Duncan packing last September, actually, and I can assure you that I’m not a Lesbian, though I do have many Lesbian friends. They’re good people. A lot better than the awful little man who wrote this. When did it come?” I asked.
“In yesterday afternoon’s post.” Dad was frowning. He’s no fool, he understood that the way I looked today had nothing to do with an affair over and done with four months ago. “What is the matter, if it isn’t this?” he asked.
So I told them about today. Mum was appalled, wept afresh, but Dad-Dad was devastated. Rocked to his foundations. What had he felt for Mrs.
Delvecchio Schwartz in that one meeting, to grieve so for her? He kept gasping, squeezing at his heart, until Mum got up and gave him a big nip of Willie’s brandy. That put him a little at ease, but it was a long time before I could tell him what I had to tell him, that I was going for custody of Flo.
Maybe his profound reaction to the news of my landlady’s death had encouraged me to hope he’d be right on my side, but he wasn’t.
“Get custody of that freak of a child?” he cried, his voice rising. “Harriet, you can’t do that! You’re well out
of it, and well out of that house! The best thing you can do is come home.”
I didn’t want to argue, I didn’t have the strength to argue, so I got up and left them sitting there.
Poor people, it’s been quite a day for them too. They have a daughter who had an affair with an important married doctor, but that had paled into insignificance compared to murder, suicide and said daughter’s determination to get custody of a crazy child who can’t talk and fingerpaints in blood. No wonder they look at me as if I’m someone they don’t know.
So much for New Year’s Day. Not a nightmare, but a reality.
Monday January 2nd, 1961
I had the nightmare at five o’clock this morning, choked myself awake to sit bolt upright in my bed groaning for breath, still feeling that rich red lake of blood rising, rising until I stood on tiptoe with my nostrils sinking into it, and Harold screaming with laughter as he watched.
The sun was already on its way, light streamed through my open curtains. I got out of bed, fed Marceline, made a pot of coffee and sat at the table to tell myself over and over that Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz is dead. People like her are so alive that it’s incredible when they die-you just feel that it can’t be so, that there’s been a mistake. I don’t know why it happened, I don’t know why she let it happen. Because she did let it happen! She saw it in the Glass that last time, and made no attempt to avert it. Yet she was so happy at her party. Maybe she had felt the thing in her brain stirring, and preferred the quickness of Harold’s knife.
But I couldn’t feel grief, I couldn’t weep or mourn. There were too many things to do. Where was Flo? What kind of night had she passed? The first night of her life outside The House.
Job number one was to phone Queens X-ray and inform whoever was in charge of the duty roster at this hour that I wouldn’t be in to work. I gave no reason, simply apologised and hung up while the phone was still squawking. No need to do the same for Pappy, she had finished at Royal Queens on Christmas Eve. Stockton loomed.
I got dressed and went to see if Pappy was awake, opened her door to see her fast asleep, closed it, went upstairs. Not to the front room, that I couldn’t face yet.
Instead I explored the other rooms Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz had kept for her own use, three in all. A dreary bedroom for herself, its walls almost as smothered in books as Pappy’s domain. But what books! Had she really made Harold privy to this secret, or did he not comprehend?
“Now I know how you did it, you old horror,” I said, smiling. Scrapbooks stuffed with newspaper clippings
about politicians and businessmen and their lives, their scandals, their tragedies, their foibles, the oldest going back thirty years. Who’s Who of all the English-speaking nations. Almanacs. Court proceedings. Hansard records of the Federal and State Parliaments. Anything she thought might come in handy from Australian biographies to lists of societies, associations, institutions. A goldmine for a soothsayer.
Off her bedroom was a cranny for Flo, furnished with an old iron cot stripped to the bare mattress and a chest of drawers-not one picture of a puppy or a kitten or a fairy, not a sign that it had ever been occupied except for the scribbles all over its walls. It looked more like a dead child’s nook in an institution than a living child’s room, and I shivered in dread. Why had she stripped Flo’s cot if she didn’t know that Flo would be gone? Was it a message that, deprived of her life in The House, Flo would die?
Her kitchen was a poky alcove incapable of producing good food, its equipment ancient, battered, dented, cracked, chipped.
What had made her so indifferent to her own comfort? What sort of woman doesn’t care about her nest?
I left to go back downstairs feeling that the mystery grew thicker, that Mrs.
Delvecchio Schwartz’s death was only the start of an ever-branching maze.
Pappy was moving about, so I told her to come in for coffee and breakfast.
Yes, breakfast. So much to do, and all of it needing strength and health.
Jim and Bob called in on their way to work, said they’d stay home if I needed them, but I sent them off. When Toby arrived I was going to do the same, but he wasn’t having any of that, he marched in and stood ready to do battle.
“You’re going to need me today,” he said stiffly, his face very pale, his chin up, his eyes clear and luminous. In answer, I got up to hug him. He hugged me back, hard.
“Sorry about yesterday, but someone had to do it,” he said.
“Yes, I know that. Sit down, we’ve got a lot to work out.”
“Like getting her body for burial, looking for a will, finding out where they’re holding Flo, to start with,” he said.
But in the end the three of us did the worst job first. We went upstairs and cleaned the front room.
Toby handled the police, and found out that Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz’s body wouldn’t be released for burial until after the Coroner made his findinganything from one to three weeks. Then he went up the street to hunt for Martin, Lady Richard or anyone who might know about things like undertakers, funeral procedures-how ignorant we are of such matters unless we have experienced them, and none of us had, really. Toby’s father died in the bush. Mr. Schwartz had died while she was in Singapore, Pappy said, and my own family hadn’t lost a member since before I was born.
I phoned the Child Welfare, who, when I couldn’t assure them that I was either next-of-kin or even a remote relative, refused to give me any information about Flo except that she was being well cared for at some unspecified place.
“Not Yasmar!” said Pappy when I hung up.
I sat down limply. “Dear God, I never thought of Yasmar! “
“Flo is five now, Harriet, she could be sent to Yasmar.” It was the institution where homeless or problem girls were sent until their futures were sorted out. Currently it was the object of bitter criticism because no effort was made to separate the hapless victims of circumstance like Flo from the hardened, extremely wild and sometimes violent girls taken into custody for everything from prostitution to murder.
So I rang Joe the Q.C. in her chambers and started off by asking about wills, about what would happen if there was no will.
“If there’s no will in the house and no solicitor’s name, then the Public Trustee will step in. They’ll advertise in the law journals for anyone holding a will, and look after the estate in the meantime. Search for deeds as well as a will, Harriet, and I’ll see what I can do,” Joe said in that crisp, clear voice I imagined would set the rafters of a courthouse ringing.
“Don’t go yet,” I rushed on. “You can also find me the name of a firm which specialises in child custody cases. If my bo
nes are right, we’re not going to find a will, and
nor is the Public Trustee. So I’ll be seeking custody of Flo.”
She didn’t answer for a long moment, then she sighed. “Are you positive that’s what you want to do?” she asked.
“Absolutely positive,” I said.
So she promised to find me a name, and hung up. Then we commenced to search for a will. Klaus came in from somewhere and helped us open and shake out every book, turn over every page in the scrapbooks, feel the clippings to make sure there was no folded paper underneath. Nothing, nothing, nothing. We did find what appeared to be the deeds to 17 Victoria Street, which was very puzzling. Not 17c, just 17.
“Does that mean she owns all five houses?” Pappy squeaked.
“Surely not,” said Klaus, staring about. “She is not rich.”
There was a big wooden box under the stairs right behind the drum of eucalyptus soap we’d used to scrub the front room, but we hadn’t taken any notice of it, assumed it was a tool box. Then desperation prompted Toby to go back to the cupboard and lift it out. He put it on the tiny work bench in Mrs.
Delvecchio Schwartz’s kitchen, and opened it as if anything from Dracula to a concertinaed paper clown might jump out.
It contained an old but never used blue bunny rug, a huge single crystal of some clear mauve stone, seven cut glass tumblers still in their cardboard cylinders, a white
marble model of a baby’s hand and arm up past the dimpled elbow, and literally many dozens of little savings bank books.
Toby reached in and took out a handful of the bank books, flicked each one open, studied it in disbelief. “Jesus!” he exclaimed. “Every one of this lot holds about a thousand pounds, which is the amount you can have in a savings account free and clear, without anybody allowed to ask questions.”
In all, we counted over a hundred of them, though we didn’t go on opening them. Why, when the answer was plain enough? There was a system involved, simple yet arduous. She never used the same bank twice, which meant that she had accounts in every branch of every bank that Sydney owned. As the last twenty years wore on, she had to go farther and farther afield, until she was plonking a thousand quid in Newcastle, Wollongong and Bathurst banks. What did she do with Flo when she travelled all day long?
“Well, Flo certainly isn’t going to want for a thing,” Toby said as he packed the bank books neatly into an empty carton, wrapped it in brown paper and tied it with string-she’d saved miles of string as well as sheaves of brown paper, carefully smoothed out, then folded again.
“Flo might never get to see a penny of it or own The House,” I said grimly.
“The Government might end in collaring the lot-we haven’t found Flo’s birth certificate.”
Nor did we, though we renewed our search with redoubled energy. No will, no birth certificate, no name of any law firm. No wedding certificate either. Nor, it turned out when we quizzed her, could Pappy swear that Flo really was Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz’s child-she’d spent two years in Singapore trying to discover her father’s relations. It was after she came back that she brought Toby to The House, so he was no help. Whichever way we headed, we ran into a blank wall. It was just as if Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz had entered the world fully grown, never married, or had a child. One didn’t dream that such things could happen in this day and age, but they could. She was proof of it. How many people existed without the Government ever knowing they did? There were no tax records either, just a simple account book which recorded the minimal rents for 17c. No receipts for property rates, water bills, electricity bills, gas bills, repairs.
“She paid everything in cash,” said Klaus, who looked winded.
The last thing we tackled-we had to go through the front room to get there-was the little cupboard outside on the balcony where she kept her Glass and her cards and her heavenly spheres. They were all it contained, not one thing more. We riffled through the ephemeris, examined every horoscope sheet, turned it over, held it up to the light-we even took the tarot deck apart card by card. No birth certificate, no will, nothing.
“All right, let’s put it all back.” I sighed.
But Pappy gasped, grabbed my arm urgently. “No, Harriet, no! Don’t do that! Take it all downstairs and hide it in your flat.”
I stared at her as if she’d gone mad. “I can’t do that!” I said. “These belonged to her, they’re part of her estate. The Glass is immensely valuableshe said if she sold it, she’d be able to buy the Hotel Australia.”
Toby saw what I didn’t. “Pappy’s right, take them.”
I said no, he growled in exasperation at my stupidity.
“Don’t be a fool, Harriet! Use your head! The first people likely to inspect these premises will be from the Child Welfare, and what do you think they’re going to say when they find this stuff? Especially with all those bank books.
If you want custody of Flo, then her lifeand her mother’s life!-must look as ordinary and humdrum as possible. We can’t stop them thinking the old girl was eccentric, but for God’s sake, Harriet, don’t hand them ammunition like this!”
We piled the occult paraphernalia into another carton and we fled down the stairs to my flat at a gallop, terrified that we’d hear the door bell ring.
But it didn’t ring until five o’clock, which seemed an odd hour for the Child Welfare to arrive. I left Klaus busy at my stove cooking us a meal and went to answer it-we’d locked the front door yesterday, and now we kept it locked.
Duncan Forsythe was standing on the verandah.
“I won’t come in,” he said. “My wife is waiting in the
car.
He looked even worse than he had at Chris Hamilton’s wedding-thin and bent, defeated. His hair had hardly any red left in it, but he hadn’t salt-andpeppered. Broad streaks of white were mixed in with streaks of grey, very striking. His eyes were exhausted, but they gazed at me with such love that my heart twisted.
I peered over his shoulder and saw the Jaguar sitting within our cul-de-sac with its nose pointed at the kerb right where the Missus could watch everything that happened on 17c’s verandah. Taking no chances, the Missus.
“Your wife received a letter written in copperplate on very expensive paper,”
I said. “It told her that you were in the grasp of a whore-a vulgar, common trollop not fit to live in this world but not fit to enter the next. Its dates were inaccurate, and it implied that we were still seeing each other.”
“Yes, exactly,” he said without surprise. “It came in this morning’s post.”
“Further to go,” I said. “The one to my father got to Bronte on New Year’s Eve.”
That did hurt him, he drew a long breath. “Oh. Harriet, my dear! I’m so sorry!”
Oh, how much had happened! I seemed to look at him through a network of strands of pain and worry I hadn’t felt until I saw him there, yet none of the strands was
pain belonging to him, worry on his account. I had moved on to some other place, and, looking at him, I wondered if I could ever return to what had been our place. Before murder. Before they had taken my angel puss away to die.
So I answered him coolly. “Well, Duncan, if it’s any sort of consolation, there won’t be any more of these letters. Harold wrote them, and Harold’s dead. Now I only have to wonder if old Sister Agatha got one.”
“I am afraid she did. She phoned me this morning.”
I shrugged. “Too bad. What can she do? Sack me? Not in this day and age, she can’t. The worst she can do is take me off Cas and put me on routine chests, but I don’t think she’s that stupid. I’m too good at my job to waste on routine chests.”
He was staring at me as if I was as different from the old Harriet Purcell as I felt inside me. I put my hand on his arm and patted it, making sure that the Missus could see. “Duncan, you didn’t have to come and see me, truly. I am all right.”
“Cathy insisted,” he said, looking hunted. “I am to tell you that she’ll ignore our affair
and will support both of us by denying the story to anybody who gets one of these letters.”
Crikey, what a cheek the woman had! My detachment evaporated as I felt the anger mounting. How dare she patronise him! How dare she patronise me!
As if her sayso has the power to render anything insignificant! “Big of her,” I said. “Mighty big of her.” Growl, roar, snarl, out with the claws!
“I’ve given her my word that I’ll never speak to you again.”
That was the last straw. I butted Duncan aside with the point of my shoulder and strode to the car, grabbed the passenger’s door handle and had the door open before the Missus could find the lock. I reached in, fastened my hand in a French couture shoulder pad, and yanked Mrs. Duncan Forsythe out of her seat, onto the pavement. Then I backed her against the railings of 17c and towered over her-why do tall men always marry women with duck’s disease? She was terrified! It just hadn’t occurred to her that in forcing Duncan to come here with her riding shotgun, she’d meet Jesse James.
“Listen, you,” I snarled, my face inches from hers, “stay out of my life!
How dare you patronise me! If you’d done your duty and given your husband a bit of nooky occasionally, he wouldn’t have strayed. You’re only in it for the meal ticket, but you don’t pay your debts. I do, and this is a debt I owe your husband for being a decent man and a wonderful lover! It isn’t his fault that you’ve cut his balls off, but you leave him alone, hear me?”
She was gobbling, her face scarlet, her eyes starting out of her head, and by now Madame Toccata was standing on 17b’s balcony, and Madame Fugue and Chastity on 17d’s balcony, cheering me on.
Duncan had moved onto the pavement, but not to rescue his wife. He leaned against the railings, crossed his ankles, folded his arms and grinned.
“Mind your own business, you silly bitch!” I yelled as I dragged her back to the car. “If you want to be Lady Forsythe one day, then shut your mouth and wear me along with Balenciaga, you skinny little clothes horse!” And I threw her in.
Duncan stood howling with laughter while the Missus huddled in the jag’s passenger seat and cried into her lace hanky.