The Wrong Door (6 page)

Should she call the researcher back? Maybe this Blue Mountains connection was important. Gwennie was suddenly very interested in what this woman was investigating. If it could shed light on Pete’s death, that placed it high on Gwennie’s agenda. Every moment of every day, every thought and every emotion, centred around him. Gwennie
wasn’t interested in engaging with the world and ‘moving on’. There was only one thing that mattered. Pete was dead and dealing with that had become her full-time occupation. She wasn’t ready to let it go. But as the jobs associated with his death started to dwindle her sense of panic began to rise. She was relieved to find a new direction.

Before she called the medical researcher back she ought to confirm that he was actually in the Blue Mountains. Laurelle would know. She looked at her watch. It was too late to call Laurelle now.

Ah, his tax returns. Pete kept meticulous records for his accountants. If he had been to the Blue Mountains on a work-related trip it would be in his logbook. Gwennie opened his briefcase again. She didn’t feel sneaky this time. She found Wednesday, 6 March. Pete had written CD – 220km. What was CD, she wondered. She flipped through the logbook to see if it appeared again. There it was. One month prior. On the Wednesday. She kept flicking. The Wednesday a month before that: CD – 220km.

Something shifted deep in the pit of Gwennie’s stomach. She started to flick faster, looking back over the past six months. The first Wednesday of every month showed the same entry: CD – 220km. Gwennie pulled out the street directory. The distance from the centre of Sydney to the Blue Mountains would be about 100 kilometres. A return trip would be about 200 kilometres. Close enough.

So what did Pete do once a month on a
Wednesday in the Blue Mountains? What kind of appointment could it be? And why did he never mention it to her? Gwennie searched the logbook entries all the way back to July, the start of the financial year. CD? Clare Dalton?

Even as the thought formed she rejected it. It couldn’t be that. Not Pete. They had been happily married and she didn’t believe he would ever betray her. No way. Pete would be so disappointed in her for jumping to such conclusions. She was disappointed in herself. Her mind was addled by grief, that’s all, and she had to keep some perspective or it would swallow her up completely.

There must be an innocent explanation, one that didn’t involve Pete suddenly developing a new character. Perhaps there was something in the Blue Mountains he was keeping secret because it was a surprise for her. A little place he had bought for them to escape to at weekends.

And Clare Dalton would turn out to be the … real estate agent he had come to know over the sale. Maybe she was an interior decorator he had hired. The house was really run down and needed major work before Pete showed it to Gwennie. And once a month he went to check on the progress. That seemed more likely, though nine months was a long time for Pete to keep anything from her. Whatever it was, it was innocent, Gwennie told herself. But it was a loose thread and she felt she should look into it.

So how to find this Clare Dalton? Laurelle would be the first place to start. Gwennie would
ring her tomorrow. No, better still, she would drop in personally. She hadn’t wanted to visit Pete’s office since he died, despite the open invitation. She hadn’t felt comfortable there since the day she had stopped working there. She knew the secretaries whispered behind her back. Well, let them. She didn’t care. Tomorrow she was going in. She wanted to visit Pete’s office one last time. And though she wouldn’t admit it to herself, she wanted to see Laurelle’s face when she mentioned the name Clare Dalton.

Clare listened from the kitchen to Peg and her clients in the lounge room. The matriarch of the Dalton household was in professional mode, pinning swathes of white taffeta to a shop dummy and talking animatedly to the group of five women watching her.

‘… with a heart-shaped neckline here … narrow sleeves that come down to a slimline cuff … very feminine …’

‘Oh yes, it’s quite demure yet sophisticated,’ said an older woman’s voice.

The bride sounded unconvinced. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I guess I was thinking something a little less, well, matronly.’

The older woman sighed deeply and with such long-suffering that Clare assumed it was the mother of the bride.

‘Oh Sandra, it’s your wedding day, not a disco,’ she said.

Yep, thought Clare, spot on. The mother is thinking Princess Diana, while the daughter is more Caroline Kennedy. Happened all the time.

‘But that’s my point,’ wailed Sandra. ‘It’s my wedding day. I want to look feminine and sexy. I don’t want to walk up the aisle and have Johnny say no, he’s changed his mind. He doesn’t want to marry a frump.’

The other three women, whom Clare presumed were the bridesmaids, giggled but didn’t offer an opinion.

Smart girls, thought Clare. Stay out of it.

In situations like these Peg was all tact and charm. Clare was often in awe of how her mother could cajole and gently manipulate her clients until everyone was happy.

It hadn’t been so long ago that Peg would make Clare stand in the middle of the room while she pinned fabric to her. Clare hated that. She was supposed to stay very still for up to an hour at a time, say absolutely nothing and fight the urge to laugh at some of the conversations between the brides and their entourages. Often that was the hardest part. But Clare enjoyed the intimate female world that went with the fittings. The average wedding dress took three months, from first fitting to last. In that time Clare and Peg would get quite a peek into the lives of the clients.

On rare occasions the wedding was called off before the final fitting and Peg would get a phone call, usually from the bride’s mother who was often angry enough to share all the details, which Peg
would recount to Marla and Clare over dinner, much to everybody’s amusement.

‘You know the petite Greek girl with the long fingernails and frizzy hair from the big hotel family? Ran off with her bridesmaid. Yup. The mother said she will make her work in their kitchen, peeling potatoes and making chips, to pay off every cent they have spent on the wedding.’

Clare wondered if this bride would make it up the aisle. First she had to get through these fittings with her mother. Clare could picture her own mother on her knees in front of the mannequin, her mouth full of pins, which she managed to keep in place and still talk, as she created in an instant another fabulous taffeta creation – a little less demure, a little less matronly – that would suit both the bride and the mother.

The mannequin was Peg’s exciting new acquisition. They usually cost about $1000, she proudly told Marla and Clare. But this one had fallen off the back of a truck and into the lap of her friend’s husband Gerald, who had tied a ribbon in its hair and driven it over secured to the roof of his Volkswagen. ‘Peg, meet Doris,’ he announced. Doris Dalton, with her long painted nails and permanently surprised thirties-style face, stood like a silent sentinel guarding the sewing machine and dressmaking paraphernalia that covered the lounge room.

Sandra’s voice was starting to acquire the tinge of hysteria that Clare recognised. It almost always appeared sometime during those three months. Why do brides always throw tantrums, she wondered. For
a time of life that was supposed to be so happy, often they seemed awfully unhappy. Clare knew exactly what she would wear to her own wedding, so she didn’t expect any stress on that front in the preceding months. It would be a simple cream sheath – no flounces or ruffles.

Her reverie was interrupted by the telephone ringing beside her. A young male voice with a heavy European accent asked for Peg Dalton.

‘I’m sorry, she can’t come to the phone right now. Can I take a message?’

‘Could you tell her to come and collect her daughter please.’

Clare felt the muscles inside her stomach contract in a combination of dread and fear. She had assumed her sister was at the frock shop where she worked a couple of days a week. ‘Is Marla all right?’

‘Yes, yes. You’d better come now though.’

‘What’s the address?’ She wrote down a street not far from their home. It was near the city, a suburb of terraces and apartments close to the university.

Another male voice came on the line. ‘And bring more beer,’ he laughed.

Clare smiled politely at the clients as she told Peg she was going out, saying she had an errand to run. The address turned out to be a rundown old terrace house with peeling paint and no front fence. There was a broken sofa on the verandah and three cars, each partly damaged, were parked half on the curb and half on the road. As soon as she opened her car door, Clare was assailed by the
music, loud and full of thumping bass. The front door was wide open but she hesitated.

A young blonde woman, about twenty, wearing very short shorts came running down the hallway laughing. A man in a sarong was chasing her and Clare stepped aside to let them pass. They seemed oblivious of her. Inside she could hear the hubbub of more voices. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and a party appeared to be in full swing. She tried the doorbell but couldn’t hear it ring above the music. Knocking was equally futile. She tried calling out ‘helloooo’ but it was impossible to make her voice heard. With all her senses alert, she walked through the front doorway.

It was a typical Edwardian terrace with a long hall down the left and rooms off to the right. The first was obviously a lounge. It was a mess of bottles and overflowing ashtrays, piles of blankets and clothing but no people. The ka-thump, ka-thump of electronic music was blasting out of a pair of waist-high speakers at either end of the room. In the next room an unmade bed was the only furniture. As Clare made her way down the passage she could hear raised voices and laughter from the back of the house. The carpet was sticky under her feet and everything smelled of stale beer and mould.

The passage opened into an enormous bright kitchen. Each wall was decorated with graffiti, the elaborate sort applied with cans of spray paint and found on train stations. The benches and a large dining table were covered with cartons and
half-eaten food. It looked like the party had been going for days.

Half-a-dozen glazed but animated people standing around the table turned to look at Clare when she appeared in the doorway. No-one seemed surprised to see her or inclined to come to her aid. They were all aged about twenty, university students who looked as if they spent a lot of time partying. At university there were lots of students dabbling for the first time in drinks, drugs and sex. Clare had never been one of them. The whole scene intimidated and terrified her.

Clare didn’t like the atmosphere or the way these people were looking at her, as if she had come to join their party. She wanted to get out of there as fast as she could. But she looked slowly about her, giving the impression that she was completely relaxed and confident. ‘I’m looking for Marla,’ she yelled.

‘Did you bring more beer?’ yelled back one young unshaven man in board shorts.

Clare recognised his voice from the telephone. She shook her head. ‘Sorry, no.’

He shrugged then moved a step closer, his eyes taking her in from head to toe. It was insolent and suggestive and made every hair on Clare’s body stand on end.

Another young man stepped forward. ‘I’m the one who phoned you. She’s upstairs, sleeping it off in Veronique’s room. I’ll show you.’

He was scruffy and unkempt, but his face was kind. Clare thought he seemed safe enough but still
she was reluctant to follow him up the stairs, deeper into the house. She had assumed Marla would be waiting for her at the front door. Clare would pick her up and take her home and that would be the end of it. She wasn’t used to going into strange people’s homes and didn’t like it. A range of possibilities rose in her mind – none of them good.

Upstairs the young man pulled back a beaded curtain into another bedroom. There was an unmade double mattress on the floor and a two-tier bunk. Marla was curled up on the bottom bunk, a sheet across her legs. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be asleep.

‘Is she okay?’ asked Clare.

‘Oh yeah. She’s fine. Just met her limit. She was heaps of fun. We met her at the pub at closing and she came back here to party with us last night.’

Clare sat down by her sister’s side and took her hand. It was very cold.

‘Has she taken anything?’ she asked.

‘If you mean drugs, then no. She stayed on the vodka all night. She and Veronique got into a drinking competition. Veronique is passed out on the top bunk.’

Clare stroked her sister’s hand. ‘Marla,’ she said softly.

Marla’s eyes fluttered open. When she focussed on Clare she gave a start, lurching violently into a sitting position.

‘What are you doing here?’ Her voice was thick and slurred and her eyes were two black smudges, mascara above and below her eyelids.

‘Get up. I’m taking you home.’ Clare felt a desperate desire to be as far away from this house as possible. She yanked back the sheet, pulled Marla off the bed and onto her feet. ‘Now,’ she said brusquely.

Marla was shaking uncontrollably and seemed unable to take her own weight. Clare put her shoulder into her sister’s armpit and half-hoisted her, forcing her roughly forward.

The young man seemed shocked by Clare’s treatment of his new friend. ‘Hey, lighten up. You never got pissed?’

Clare ignored him. The whole scene annoyed her. What was Marla doing with these doped-out people? They might think it was a huge joke to wake up in someone else’s bed, no longer capable of getting yourself home, but Clare didn’t. And she particularly didn’t like finding her older sister in such a state.

She propelled Marla down the stairs, half-carrying her, along the front hallway and past the motley group of students who had come out of the kitchen to watch the entertainment. They laughed and sniggered. Clare knew they thought she was stitched-up and a party-pooper, and she didn’t care. She was ready to belt the first person who came near them. Her disgust showed on her face and they stood aside. No-one tried to help as the two women staggered down the hallway, but they didn’t try to stop them either.

Marla spent the ride home slumped against the door, shivering. She was unable to meet Clare’s
gaze. Clare was surprised by her own anger. She wanted to scream at Marla, ‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’ But she kept herself in check. She knew from experience that after an emotional outburst she was usually sorry and often embarrassed. Mr Sanjay said that anything that was important enough to upset you should not be responded to without the benefit of a good night’s sleep. A closed mouth gathers no feet, he used to say.

Peg had a different view. Never let the sun go down on an argument was the way she dealt with conflict. No point in keeping it in, she would say. Clare kept her eyes on the road and drove her sister home in silence. Clare helped her up the stairs, staying out of sight of Peg and her clients.

In her own bedroom Clare paced and fumed. She really wanted to tell Marla what she thought of her, that she was a disgrace. But a nagging little voice told her it probably would be best to leave it till she was calmer.
Hell no, she wanted to give her a
blast right now.
Mr Sanjay would say that anger would cloud her judgement.
All the better reason to
let it out, Peg would argue. It wasn’t healthy to keep
strong emotions locked inside.

Clare knew it was her choice how she reacted. She could try to forget about her sister and concentrate on something else. Or she could give in to her emotions. Clare felt completely self-righteous. She didn’t want to let it go. And anyway, why the hell should she? As Peg would say, she had let the sun go down too many times.

She stormed into Marla’s room without
knocking. Marla was sitting on the floor. She didn’t look like Clare’s glamorous older sister right then. She looked like a frightened little girl. People had often said how physically alike the two sisters were and for the first time Clare could see it. The forlorn figure at her feet, looking vulnerable and broken, could have been her.

‘So now you know,’ said Marla. ‘I wish you didn’t. I’m sorry, Clare. So very sorry.’

Clare wasn’t sure she understood. She sat down on the carpet, facing her sister. ‘Know what?’

Marla didn’t seem to hear her. ‘Now you know,’ she whispered.

Clare pulled at a tuft of wool. She had been ready to unleash a tirade but now she was stuck for words.

‘I never wanted you to see me like that,’ said Marla. ‘I’d give anything that you hadn’t come there.’

Suddenly some of the pieces slipped into place for Clare. This wasn’t the first time that Marla had woken up somewhere and had to be collected. But usually it was Peg who took the call and went dashing off to the rescue, giving Clare some story or other to explain it. But today it was Clare who answered the telephone. So many things about her sister looked unexpectedly different. Marla’s fragile health. Those sudden, devastating migraines that she had to sleep off, spending days in a darkened room. Her fraught relationships with men. Her erratic behaviour. The trouble she had keeping a job. These days she was down to just a few mornings or afternoons a week at the frock shop. Clare hadn’t understood why she didn’t pursue
something more substantial like the nursing career she always talked of.

She saw it with sudden clarity. Her sister drank … a lot. Clare watched the heavy, silent tears roll slowly down Marla’s cheeks as she looked at the floor in front of her. She was a wretched sight. ‘I’m sorry, Marla,’ said Clare. So many things that she hadn’t understood started to make sense. The fights, the weekends away, the tension between Marla and Peg, the lost jobs, the mood swings. ‘You’re an alcoholic?’ she blurted. ‘How long have you …?’