False Advertising (12 page)

‘How does it feel?' asked Charlie.

Tears sprung into her eyes, uninvited. This wasn't like her – she didn't get soppy and sentimental. She swallowed. ‘Terrifying.'

He reached across the table and took hold of her hand. ‘It's going to be all right, Gem, you'll see.'

Gemma wished she could be so sure.

Helen couldn't put it off any longer. She'd talked about it with the counsellor and it was time. After all, it was a simple trip into the city from Balmain, it was no big deal. Of course, a simple trip to the city took somewhat longer now because she had to drive, and that involved finding somewhere to park, so it was expensive as well. In the past she would have just taken the bus, but Helen had discovered she couldn't bring herself to get on a bus. It made no sense, she was well aware of that. David had not been a passenger on the bus that day, at least not on the bus that killed him. He'd caught a bus to the city as usual and arrived in one piece. Passengers on the bus that struck him were unhurt. So why should Helen be bothered about getting on a bus? If she was trying to protect herself, the last thing she should be doing was driving a car, which was by far the most dangerous of all modes of travel. But for some unreasonable reason, she just couldn't step foot on a bus. She hadn't mentioned that part to the counsellor; she didn't want her to think she was crazy.

Of course, the problem was, driving in the city involved being behind, ahead or beside a bus for much of the time. And that still made Helen uncomfortable. No, more than uncomfortable, it made her anxious, even frightened.

By the time she found a parking station she was a wreck, and the walk to David's office only made her worse. She jumped every time a bus barrelled past her, and she had to circle around in a wide arc to avoid the site of David's accident. She felt like a basket case by the time she arrived at the front entrance of the Railco building.

Going into David's office to pick up his belongings was never going to be an easy thing to do. Helen had been promising to go in for months now, not that anyone had hassled her. As if. Helen was becoming used to being handled with kid gloves. A contingent from the office had showed up at the funeral, and they'd sent flowers to the house as well. It was the right thing to do, the least they could do. David was a young man killed in a tragic accident before his time. They came because it could happen to anyone, they came because they felt guilty that they were glad it hadn't happened to one of them.

Helen caught the lift to the floor where David had worked. When the doors opened she stepped out and walked over to the reception desk. ‘I'm here to see Mr Craven.'

The woman glanced up at her with a fixed smile. ‘Is he expecting you?'

‘Yes, he is.'

‘And your name, please?'

‘Helen Chapman, um, Mrs . . . David Chapman.'

The woman's eyes registered. She got to her feet. Here we go.

‘Oh, Mrs Chapman, I'm sorry, I didn't realise it was you.'

What did that mean? What had she planned? To roll out the red carpet, have a group of wailers greet her?

‘I'll take you to Mr Craven's office,' she said, coming around the desk.

Helen knew visitors would usually just be given directions, but losing a husband obviously meant losing your bearings as well.

‘I'm Sally,' said the woman.

‘Helen.'

‘I didn't actually know your husband –'

Oh, this was by far the worst kind. People who had never met David thought it was their duty to wax lyrical about his reputation. That somehow, hearing what he was like from people who didn't know him from a bar of soap was going to make her feel better.

‘I started just before . . . but anyway, from all accounts he was a fine colleague. Dependable. Solid.'

Helen groaned silently. If David was still alive and this woman
had been asked about him, she would mostly likely have said, ‘Gee, don't know him really. Can't help you.' But instead she felt duty-bound to give a meaningless eulogy.

This wasn't like her, sniping at people this way, even if it was in the privacy of her own mind. Helen had to remind herself that people were only trying to be kind; they just had no idea what was the right thing to say. Helen had no idea either. That was the problem: there was no right thing to say to someone whose husband had been hit by a bus.

They arrived at the door of Paul Craven's office; it was ajar and Helen saw him look up, his eyebrows raised expectantly.

‘Mrs Chapman,' Sally announced, her tone heavy with foreboding.

Helen watched his expression change to dread, and her heart sank. She should be getting used to it, but how do you get used to that? It was as though she was a marked woman, an emissary of the Grim Reaper himself, forever a reminder of the fate that awaits us all.

Sally held the door back as Helen walked through and Paul Craven got to his feet, composing himself. Sally closed the door as she left, relieved to be escaping, no doubt.

Paul Craven walked around the desk and grasped one of Helen's hands with both of his, meeting her eyes directly. ‘I'm so sorry for your loss, Mrs Chapman.'

Rehearsed, but nonetheless genuine. ‘It's Helen.'

‘He was a very decent man, your husband,' Paul Craven went on. ‘A good worker, reliable, never one to gossip or have an opinion, couldn't draw him on anything . . . Even the football – David would never take sides.'

Helen wondered if he realised that these weren't necessarily traits worth lauding.

‘And reliable,' he said, releasing her hand and forgetting he'd already said reliable. ‘You could always count on David to do the job and not ask any questions.'

Helen had half hoped she was going to find out that David was the office clown, or a brilliant problem solver, or a leader of men . . . not the reliable one who never had an opinion about anything. He'd certainly had enough opinions at home. He liked
to talk everything out ad nauseum, to the point where it exhausted Helen at times. In the end she usually just agreed with him, but he saw right through her. He was not content till he was certain she was genuinely seeing things his way.

But apparently he had kept to himself at work. He had told her that he didn't feel as though he belonged. He didn't fit in, he had different aspirations, but it didn't bother him too much; he wasn't going to be there forever. Helen had never met any of David's work colleagues. Christmas parties were for staff only, and David had never stayed long anyway. She could probably count the number of times on one hand that he had stopped in to have a beer with them on his way home. He said they were all nice people, he had a lot of respect for Paul Craven, felt he ran the place fairly, but Helen couldn't recall any other names. Of course he had mentioned people, but that was all, only a mention.

‘Would you like a seat, can I get you a coffee . . . or something?' Paul Craven said awkwardly, breaking into her reverie.

‘No, no, I'm fine. I can't stay.'

He looked relieved. ‘Well, let me show you to his things. I hope you understand, when you didn't come in right away . . . well, we had to clear his desk.'

‘Of course.'

Helen followed him to a storeroom on the other side of the office. One or two people looked up as they passed, but as they had no idea who she was, they were uninterested. Helen was glad to be anonymous; in fact, she found her greatest relief these days in anonymity. Paul Craven opened the storeroom door and turned on the light, ushering her inside. It was about the size of a small bedroom, windowless, with shelves lining the walls either side, stacked with files, paper and other items of stationery. There were two overhead projectors against the end wall, one on a stand and the other on the floor beside it.

Paul Craven stepped on a stool and reached up to the top shelf to retrieve a Reflex box with ‘David Chapman' written on the side in thick black marker. He stepped down again and handed it to Helen. It wasn't heavy at all.

‘If you'd like to have a look through first,' he suggested tentatively, ‘I could find a desk for you outside, or you can use my office.'

‘That's very kind,' said Helen, ‘but just here will be fine.'

He frowned mildly. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Absolutely,' she replied, ‘I won't be long.'

‘Take all the time you need.'

He left her alone and Helen sat on the footstool and rested the box on her lap. The lid was taped down, and she peeled the tape away carefully so that it could be resealed. The inside looked rather forlorn. It appeared to be mostly stationery: there was even a pen clearly marked with the departmental logo. Perhaps there was a policy that on the death of a staff member the family inherited everything on their desk at the time. There was a notepad and a half-empty box of paperclips; a couple of old Christmas cards that must have been given to him at work, from Paul Craven, and from a Sue and family to David and family. And there was a framed picture of Noah at preschool; they had given him that last Father's Day to replace the baby photo, but that was still here as well. Helen picked up a packet of Tic Tacs that didn't look as though they had been touched. Was that because someone had given them to him and he didn't like them, or because he'd only just bought them? And did it matter? What did it tell her about David? What did any of this tell her about him? Here was his whole working life in a cardboard box. It didn't tell her anything.

Helen realised she was finding it hard to breathe – there was no air in this tiny windowless room. She shoved everything back into the box and carried it with her out of the room, out of the office and out of the building. She didn't speak to anyone, or even make eye contact. And she did not look back.

‘So what are we going to do with this?' said Gemma, holding up the bottle of champagne Phoebe thrust at her as she opened the front door.

‘Celebrate, you know, drink to your new place.'

‘Except I can't drink.'

‘Damn, I keep forgetting,' said Phoebe. ‘I can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that you're not drinking.'

‘You and me both.' Gemma stood back as Phoebe walked past her into the hall.

‘Wow, it's a great old place,' she said, gazing around. ‘A bit shabby, but imagine what you could do with it.'

‘I'd rather not,' declared Gemma. ‘I'm glad it hasn't been homogenised into some poncy designer's wet dream. It has character.'

Phoebe raised a dubious eyebrow. ‘So, is your landlady home?'

Gemma winced. ‘Don't call her that; she's barely older than me.'

‘So? She's still your landlady.'

‘Yeah, but landlady makes her sound like a little old woman with hair rollers and an apron,' said Gemma. ‘And no, she isn't here right now, but she should be home any minute. She sticks to a pretty rigid schedule with Noah, and it's bath time soon.'

‘Rigid schedule? Must be a challenge for you,' Phoebe remarked. ‘So, are you going to show me around?'

Gemma took her on the grand tour, bypassing Helen's and Noah's bedrooms, and ending up in the family room at the back of the house. It had probably been tacked on sometime in the sixties, and the larger windows helped make it feel a little less claustrophobic than the rest of the place. But it was still cluttered and dreary.

‘It's like a museum,' Phoebe murmured.

‘Apparently she grew up here,' said Gemma. ‘I think she's lived her whole life in this house.'

‘And nothing's changed all that time, by the looks of it.' Phoebe wandered across the room, pausing in front of a closed door. ‘Where does this lead to?'

An ornate but ugly hall table was pushed up against the door, filling the alcove. It was topped with a large cut crystal bowl stuffed with dusty artificial roses. The door, frame and architraves had been painted the same dirty green as the walls, as though to disguise they were really there.

‘I have no idea,' Gemma said. ‘Helen, my um, landlady, well, she's an incredibly private person. Obviously whatever's behind there, she certainly doesn't want anyone to see.'

‘You're sounding like an Agatha Christie novel. It probably just leads outside and they wanted to block the exit.'

‘No, there's definitely a room beyond there. I checked from outside.'

‘Ooh, the plot thickens. It's probably just a storeroom or something.'

‘Then why seal it up? Don't you think it's a bit strange?'

‘No, I think you're a bit strange.' Phoebe turned her attention instead to the sideboard nearby, which was covered with framed family photographs. Most of them were quite old, stern black-and-white portraits of apparently humourless people from another era. But there was a wedding photo that was much more recent, of a striking dark-haired woman arm in arm with a tall, blond man. Actually, the only thing that suggested it was a wedding was that the woman was holding a bouquet; the couple were both dressed in fairly nondescript day clothes.

‘That's Helen,' said Gemma when Phoebe paused in front of the photo.

‘She's very attractive. How long ago was this taken?'

‘A few years, I guess. She hasn't changed much.' Gemma leaned closer. She wasn't all that cheerful now, though oddly, for her wedding day, she didn't look all that cheerful then.

‘He looks like the guy in that police show in the seventies,' said Phoebe.

‘Yeah, right,' Gemma said dubiously.

‘What was his name?'

‘I have no idea who you're talking about, Phee.' Gemma rolled her eyes. ‘Do you know how many police shows there were in the seventies?'

‘Oh, but you do know,' Phoebe insisted. ‘There were two of them, red car, one wore a big chunky cardigan all the time.'

‘You think he looks like Starsky? Starsky had dark curly hair; he looks nothing like Starsky.'

‘Well, it must be the other one then, Hutch.'

Gemma peered closer at the photograph. ‘Mm, I guess,' she murmured. ‘It's giving me the shivers looking at him.'

‘Why, is he dead or something?'

Gemma looked at her. ‘Yeah, actually, he is.'

‘What?' Phoebe blinked. ‘What happened? How did he die? He's so young.'