Truly Madly Guilty

  When he found his seat, he got into a conversation with the man sitting next to him, who was Croatian, his name was Ezra, and he was there with his wife and they were both 'subscribers'. (Vid was now a subscriber too.) Vid told him he'd never been to the symphony before but he loved classical music, and he knew that cellist, sitting right there, and so he was going to be clapping very loudly for her, and Ezra told him that the audience didn't normally clap in between movements, so maybe to wait until other people clapped first, and Ezra's wife, Ursula, leaned forward and said, 'You clap when you want to clap.' (Vid was going to have Ezra and Ursula over for dinner as soon as he could arrange it. He had Ezra's number in his phone. Good people. Very good people.)

  He'd assumed the symphony would be like a show or a movie, where all the lights went out, but the lights stayed on; so he could see Clementine the whole time. At one point he even thought she'd looked right at him, but he couldn't be sure.

  She was clearly the best player in the whole orchestra. Any fool could see that. He was transfixed by the way her hand quivered rapidly on the neck of the cello, by the way her bow moved in tandem with the other musicians' bows, by the way she tilted back her head, exposing her neck.

  He was transfixed by the whole experience really.

  (Ezra was right, nobody clapped when Vid thought they should clap. They coughed. Every time the orchestra stopped playing there was a little symphony of coughing and throat-clearing. It reminded Vid of church.)

  He had to leave at the interval because Tiffany was expecting him but Ezra and Ursula said that the first half was always the best half anyway.

  As he drove home from the city he could still feel the music, as if he'd taken some hallucinogenic drug. He had so much feeling trapped within his chest he had to take shallow breaths while he waited for it to subside.

  He wanted to call her, to tell her that she was the best player on that stage, by a long shot, but then he kept remembering her face the last time he'd seen her in his backyard, and he understood that she didn't want to be reminded of that day. He didn't want to be reminded of it either, but still he longed, not for her exactly, he didn't want Clementine, not really, not in a sexual way, but he longed for something and it felt like she was the only one who could give it to him.

  *

  A police car was pulling into Harry's driveway as Vid, Tiffany and Dakota left for the Information Morning.

  'Maybe we should stop,' said Tiffany. Face the music. I let my young daughter read The Hunger Games, Officer. I didn't notice my neighbour was dead. I may have behaved in despicable ways.

  Vid put his foot on the accelerator. 'What? No.' The Lexus purred forward obediently onto the street. 'You've already spoken to the police. You've told them everything you know. There's nothing more to say. They're just finishing their report, you know, wasting taxpayers' money.'

  'I should have taken Harry meals,' fretted Tiffany. 'That's what a good neighbour would have done. Why didn't I ever take him a meal?'

  'Is that what you think the police want to ask you? "Why didn't you take him meals, you lousy neighbour?" You could say, "Well, Officer, I'll tell you why! Because he would have thrown those meals in my face, you know! Like a cream pie!" '

  'You shouldn't only be nice to nice people,' said Tiffany, observing the large homes they were passing, nice comfy double-brick homes with well-maintained lawns beneath towering canopies of trees. Had she become one of those entitled types? A little pleased with herself? Too busy to care?

  'Of course you should only be nice to nice people!' Vid looked at Dakota in the rear-vision mirror. 'You hear that, Dakota? Don't waste your time on people who are not nice!'

  Tiffany looked over her shoulder at Dakota, who sat upright and pale in her current school uniform (they'd be dropping her off at school afterwards), her body pressed right up against the side of the car, as if she were making room for other passengers. Why did you rip up that book, Dakota?

  'Once Mum took Harry over a quiche,' said Dakota without looking at her mother. 'I remember. It was a mushroom quiche.'

  'Did I? Wait, I did, didn't I?' said Tiffany, thrilled by the memory. It had been after a Christmas party they'd had catered. 'He said he hated mushrooms.'

  Vid chuckled. 'There you go.'

  'It wasn't his fault he didn't like mushrooms!' she said. 'I should have tried again.'

  'He was rude about it, though, right?' said Vid.

  Harry had been rude about the quiche. He had slammed the door so fast she'd had to jump back to make sure her fingers weren't jammed. Still, she knew that his wife and child had died years ago. He was a sad and lonely old man. She should have tried harder.

  'Don't you feel bad?' she said to Vid. 'At all?'

  Vid shrugged his big shoulders. He steered with his fingers barely touching the bottom of the wheel. 'I feel sad that he died alone, but you know, what's done is done, and the man spat at our beautiful Dakota!'

  'He didn't spit at me,' said Dakota. 'He just spat on the ground when he saw me. I made him feel like spitting.'

  'That makes me feel like killing the man,' said Vid. His fingers flexed on the wheel.

  'He's already very, very dead,' said Tiffany. She thought of the stench that had hit her when Oliver opened the door. She'd known straight away. 'I just feel ...'

  'You feel regret,' said Dakota in a flat voice, from the back seat.

  Tiffany turned again quickly. It was the sort of remark that Dakota used to make all the time, testing her vocabulary, testing out ideas, trying to work out exactly how the world worked.

  'I do feel regret,' said Tiffany, eager to chat, to have one of those conversations she used to have all the time with Dakota, where she was always left amazed and delighted by her daughter's quirky, clever observations, but Dakota just kept staring out the window, her jaw set, almost as if she were angry, and after a moment Tiffany gave up and faced the other way.

  Vid talked for the rest of the drive about a new Japanese restaurant some clients of his had been talking about which served the best tempura in Sydney, possibly the world, possibly the universe.

  'Here we are!' said Vid as they approached a giant set of iron gates. 'Look at your new school, Dakota!'

  Tiffany turned to smile at Dakota, but Dakota had her eyes closed, and she was letting her forehead bump quite hard against the window, as if she'd passed out.

  'Dakota!' said Tiffany sharply.

  'What?' Dakota opened her eyes.

  'Look!' said Tiffany. She made a gesture at the surroundings. 'What do you think?'

  'It's nice,' said Dakota.

  'Nice?!' said Tiffany. 'Nice?' She looked at the lush, green fields. The imposing buildings. There was a massive sports arena in the distance that looked like the freaking Colosseum. 'It's like Downton friggin' Abbey.'

  Vid wound down his window a fraction. 'Smell that?'

  'What?' Tiffany sniffed. Some sort of fertiliser? Damp earth?

  'The smell of money.' He rubbed his fingertips together. He had the same look of satisfaction as when he walked into an opulent hotel foyer. It was all just fun to him. He had the money. He could afford the best. So he'd buy the best and take pleasure in it. His relationship with money was completely uncomplicated.

  Tiffany thought of her own high school: a cheerful, graffitied concrete jungle out in the western suburbs. Did the girls here smoke ciggies in the toilets? Maybe they did lines of excellent-grade coke in marble bathrooms.

  Vid parked in a car park rapidly filling with shimmering luxury cars. Tiffany automatically curled her lip at the sight of all those cars. It was a habit left over from her childhood, when her family had sniffed at wealthy people as if there were something unsavoury and immoral about them. She still did it, even though her car was just as luxurious, even though she'd been the one to buy this car, with money she'd freaking well earned.

  The feeling didn't abate as the parents and their daughters were led into a magnificent hall. The smell of good perfume and cologne filled t
he air as dads in their suits and ties, and mums in effortlessly casually chic spring outfits, who obviously had older daughters at the school because they all knew each other, traded cosy, chummy, entitled rich-people remarks. 'How was Japan?' 'Great! How was Aspen?' 'Well, you know the children had never been to Athens before, so ...'

  'Snap!' A middle-aged woman with dark curly hair sat down next to Tiffany and pointed at their matching Stella McCartney silk skirts. She was wearing a white cardigan exactly like the one Tiffany had been looking for in Dakota's drawer.

  'Got mine on sale.' The woman leaned forward and put her hand over her mouth. 'Forty per cent off.'

  'Fifty per cent off,' whispered back Tiffany. An outright lie. She'd paid full price, but life was a competition and she knew non-working wives of wealthy men loved to talk about how they'd saved by bargain-shopping for designer clothes. It was their contribution to the household finances.

  'Dammit!' The woman laughed nicely which made Tiffany wish she'd told the truth. 'I'm Lisa,' she said. 'Are you new to the school?'

  'My stepdaughters went here,' said Tiffany, thinking that her stepdaughters would rather die than be described as her stepdaughters. They, as was their right, had many years ago decided the best way to show loyalty to their mother was by doing their level best to pretend that Tiffany didn't really exist. They tended to give a little start when she spoke, as if the pot plant had tried to join in the conversation. They loved Dakota, though, so that was all that mattered.

  'My two older daughters are here at the school,' said Lisa. 'Cara is our baby.' Lisa gestured to a little girl sitting next to her, swinging her legs and chewing gum. 'Oh God, Cara, I told you to throw that out before we came in! How embarrassing. And my husband, Andrew.'

  The husband leaned forward to give a little wave. He was in his late fifties with lots of grey hair (he'd be proud of his hair, like Vid was of his) and that distinguished, statesman-like confidence that comes with professional success in a career like medicine or law.

  He had distinctive pale hazel eyes, with dark rings around the irises. Tiffany's heart lurched as if she'd tripped in a dream.

  'Hi, Andrew,' said Tiffany.

  chapter thirty

  The day of the barbeque

  'So. Our stomachs are full,' said Vid, patting his.

  Tiffany knew he meant: My stomach is full, so I need a cigarette, like people once did in the civilised world.

  'Anyone for seconds?' asked Tiffany. 'Or thirds?' She scanned the long table as people pushed away their plates with satisfied sighs and complimentary murmurs.

  Vid, at the head of the table, leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers on his armrests like a king benevolently regarding his loyal subjects, except that in this case the king had cooked dinner and his subjects had praised him big-time: the tenderness of the meat, and so on and so forth. Clementine in particular had laid it on thick.

  Vid and Clementine were getting on like a house on fire. Earlier, they'd spoken for ten minutes straight about caramelised onions. Tiffany had got her own back by talking to Clementine's husband about the footy.

  'You're really into your sport, aren't you, Tiffany?' said Sam now. 'You're not just faking it to be polite.'

  'Oh, I never fake it,' said Tiffany.

  'Why would she?' said Vid. He lifted his hands as if to indicate his marvellous physique.

  Everyone laughed, except for Oliver and Erika, who gave pained smiles. Tiffany decided she'd better try to curb the risque jokes as she saw her neighbours give pointed looks at the children, who were out of earshot anyway. Dakota had the two little girls on either side of her in the hanging egg chair in the back corner of the cabana, and she was showing them something on her iPad. The girls were happily snuggled up to Dakota's sides like the dream little sisters she'd never have (a deal was a deal, but how could you not have a pang of regret watching that?) and were enthralled by whatever Dakota was showing them. Hopefully it didn't involve people's heads exploding. Barney was over in a far corner of the backyard contentedly involved with some sort of illicit hole-digging operation which Tiffany was pretending not to notice. Every now and then he'd look over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't about to be caught.

  'Poor Oliver pretends to be interested in sport whenever we're around,' said Clementine. 'Sam says, "Did you catch the game last night?" and you can see Oliver thinking, "What game?"'

  'I don't mind watching a bit of the tennis,' said Oliver.

  'Oliver plays sport,' said Sam. 'That's the difference between him and me. I get my heart rate up yelling at the screen.'

  'Oliver and Erika actually met on the squash court,' said Clementine. 'They're very athletic people.'

  There was something a bit over-eager about the way Clementine spoke, as if she felt the need to champion the couple, like she was their newly appointed publicist.

  'Were you playing against each other?' asked Tiffany as she refilled Erika's wineglass yet again. Tiffany wouldn't have picked her to be a heavy drinker, not that it was her business. Anyway, it wasn't like Erika had to drive home; she only had to walk next door.

  'We worked for the same accounting firm,' said Erika. 'Some of the staff started a squash comp on Thursday nights. Oliver and I volunteered to do the draw.'

  'We have a shared love of spreadsheets,' said Oliver, and he smiled at Erika, as if over some secret memory involving spreadsheets.

  'I love a good spreadsheet myself,' said Tiffany.

  'Do you?' Clementine spun her head. 'What do you use spreadsheets for?' There was just the faintest emphasis on the word 'you'.

  'For my work,' said Tiffany, with just the faintest emphasis on the word 'work'.

  'Oh!' said Clementine. 'I didn't ... what do you do?'

  'I buy unrenovated properties, fix them up, sell them,' said Tiffany.

  'You flip them,' said Sam.

  'Yep,' said Tiffany. 'I flip them. Like pancakes.'

  'She doesn't just flip!' said Vid. 'She's a big-time property developer!'

  'I'm not,' said Tiffany. 'I've only just gone a bit bigger. I'm doing a small apartment block. Six two-bedroom apartments.'

  'Yep, she's like Donald Trump! My wife earns the big bucks. You think this big motherfucking house, excuse my French, comes from my money?! You think all that artwork inside, all those masterpieces, comes from my money?'

  Oh God, Vid. Next he was going to say, 'I'm just a simple electrician.'

  'I'm just a simple electrician!' said Vid. 'I married up.'

  A simple electrician with thirty employees, thought Tiffany. But go for your life, Vid. I'll take full credit for our money.

  'They're not masterpieces by the way,' said Tiffany.

  'So how did you two meet?' asked Oliver in his courteous, proper way. He reminded Tiffany of a priest making conversation with his parishioners after Sunday mass.

  'We met at a property auction,' said Tiffany, before Vid got a chance to answer. 'It was a studio apartment in the city. My first ever investment.'

  'Ah. But that wasn't the first time I met her,' said Vid, with the anticipatory tone of someone sharing his favourite dirty joke.

  'Vid,' warned Tiffany. She met his eyes across the table. Jesus. He was hopeless. It was because he liked Clementine and Sam, and whenever he really liked people he felt compelled to share the story. He was like a big kid desperate to show off to his new friends by saying the naughtiest word he knew. If it were just the neighbours there he would never have said it.

  Vid looked back at Tiffany, disappointed. He gave a little shrug and lifted his hands in defeat. 'But maybe that's a story for another day.'

  'This is all very mysterious,' said Clementine.

  'So were you bidding against each other at the auction?' asked Sam.

  'I stopped bidding,' said Vid, 'when I saw how badly she wanted it.'

  'A lie,' said Tiffany. 'I outbid him fair and square.'

  She'd made two hundred thousand dollars on that place, in just under six months. It was her first
hit. Her first money-making high.

  Or maybe not quite. Her second.

  'But you can't tell us how you already knew each other?' said Clementine.

  'My wife has an enquiring mind,' said Sam, 'which is a nice way of saying she's nosy.'

  'Oh, don't pretend you don't want to know,' said Clementine. 'He's a bigger gossip than me.' She looked over at Tiffany. 'But I'll stop asking. Sorry. I was just intrigued.'

  To hell with it. Tiffany lowered her voice. 'It was like this,' she said. Everyone leaned forward.

  chapter thirty-one

  Erika stood in the pouring rain on the pavement outside her childhood home, an umbrella in one hand, a bucketful of cleaning supplies in the other. She didn't move, only her eyes moved, expertly tracking the amount of time and work and arguing and begging and pleading and tug-of-warring required.

  Clementine's mother hadn't been exaggerating when she'd said on the phone that it was 'pretty bad'. When Erika was a child, her mother's belongings had never spread beyond the front door. The house always had a sullen, furtive look to it with its closed blinds and its thirsty wilted garden. But it wasn't a house that would make a passer-by turn their head and stare. All their secrets were kept inside, behind the front door that could never open the whole way. Their worst fear was a knock on the door. Erika's mother would react instantly, as if to a sniper attack. You had to drop down low so you couldn't be seen by spying eyes through a window. You had to be still and silent and wait, your heart thudding in your ears, until that nosy, rude person who dared to knock finally saw sense and slunk away, never seeing, never knowing the disgusting truth about the way Erika and her mother lived.

  It was only over recent years that her mother's belongings had finally burst through the front door, proliferating like the mushroom cells of a killer virus.

  Today she could see a pallet of bricks, a pedestal fan standing companionably next to a mangy artificial Christmas tree of the same height, a mountain of bulging rubbish bags, a city of unopened delivery boxes that had got wet in the recent rain so the cardboard had turned to soft pulp, a stack of framed prints that looked like they'd come from a teenager's room (they weren't Erika's) and dozens of pieces of women's clothing with the arms and legs flung out at panicky angles, as if there had been a recent massacre.