WHEN NICOLE WOKE IN THE MORNING, SHE BURST into tears at the sight of Val’s face, which looked worse now than it had the previous evening. Her eye resembled a ripe purple plum and wouldn’t open even slightly. The cut on her lip was black and jagged, and her cheeks were swollen like a chipmunk’s. She draped a scarf around her neck to hide the fingermarks, but had to invent a story to explain the rest of the injuries to her daughter.
“Your silly mom was tidying the bookshelf when that big fat dictionary fell on top of me,” she said.
“Did you cry?” Nicole asked.
“I did a little bit,” she said truthfully.
“You should’ve waked me and I would have kissed it better,” Nicole said. She sat down to eat her cereal, but kept eyeing Val as if she were a stranger.
* * *
All week Val kept herself to herself, wearing huge Jackie O shades to hide the worst of the swelling and looping colored scarves around her neck. She left home only to ferry Nicole to and from school, to pick up groceries, or to go to her cleaning job in the evening. Her brain was ticking over constantly, trying to decide what to do, weighing up one option after another. Every night she lay awake working out the repercussions and pitfalls of each plan. Tiny noises startled her: was it Tony coming back? She bolted the door and wedged a chair under the handle so it would be hard for him to break down, but still she slept fitfully and wakened at sounds as faint as that of a moth fluttering against the windowpane.
By the end of the week she had made her decision. There was only one route open to her. It was a terrifying prospect, but she had run out of options.
“Shall we visit Aunt Peggy today?” she asked Nicole on the Saturday morning, and Nicole clapped her hands in excitement. She loved playing with Peggy’s son, Lenny.
“What the hell happened?” Peggy exclaimed, taking a step back in horror. “Did you get mugged?”
Although Val’s appearance was much improved, she still looked as though she had come off worse in a boxing match, and her throat bore the clear imprint of her husband’s fingers.
“Was it Tony?” Peggy mouthed, after checking Nicole was out of earshot, and Val nodded.
“He’s an animal! You have to go to the police,” Peggy’s husband, Ken, insisted. “I’ll come with you. He can’t get away with this.”
“I can’t.” Val shook her head. She had given it a lot of thought. “I’m not brave enough to stand up in court and accuse him. He would hire an expensive solicitor and get off scot-free, then he would come after me. He’d never let it rest.” She took a sip of coffee and winced at the sting of hot liquid on her lip. It was still difficult to swallow; the swelling made it feel as though there was a rock stuck in her throat. “No, I’ve decided that Nicole and I will go to China to see my mom. We’ll be gone a couple of months, and on our return I’ll find a new flat and a new job. I’ve started from scratch before, so I can do it again.”
Peggy and Ken looked at each other. Ken spoke first. “How will you raise the money? We would help, but—”
“No, it’s fine,” Val broke in. “But I need you to look after Nicole for me this morning, just for a couple of hours. Is that OK?”
“Of course!” they said in unison. “What are you going to do?” Peggy added, wrinkling her forehead.
“It’s better if you don’t know,” Val told her. She checked the clock. Five to ten. It was time to go.
* * *
She stopped the car at the end of the street where she had lived for seventeen years and peered down. Tony’s car wasn’t under the carport. He always played golf on Saturday mornings, and she couldn’t imagine he would have changed that routine. She parked in the next street, pulled up the collar of her jacket, and put on her jumbo-sized sunglasses, then walked around the corner, her legs trembling. What if he came back unexpectedly? What if one of the neighbors saw her and came out to say hello, then told Tony she had been there?
She didn’t see anyone except some kids playing football, who didn’t give her a second glance. She walked up the drive and around to the back of the house, peering in the windows for signs of life. No one there. She took out her old keys and tried them in the back door, but as she had suspected, Tony had changed the locks. Probably did that the week she’d left, knowing him.
Beside the kitchen there was a laundry room with a small window covered by a fine-mesh insect screen. Val never used to close the window over the screen so that the room was aired and didn’t smell damp. She was relieved to see Tony hadn’t thought to close it either. She had brought a metal nail file with her and slipped it under the edge of the screen, pulling it away from the wooden frame. The aperture was narrow, only two feet tall and slightly narrower in width, but she managed to slide through headfirst and pulled herself over the washing machine to the floor on the other side. As she landed, she knocked over a bag of clothespins and froze, listening. Was anyone else in the house? Maybe Tony had gotten himself a new woman already and she would come rushing down at the noise . . . but there was no sound.
Val’s heart was hammering so loudly she thought she might have a heart attack as she crept into the kitchen, where the sink was stacked with dirty dishes. Tony’s breakfast plate was on the table, with dozens of ants marching around a spill of marmalade and trudging down the table legs carrying toast crumbs on their backs. You had to keep on top of the ants in that kitchen or they took over in no time.
In the sitting room, there were half a dozen crushed beer cans on the coffee table and dirty clothes slung over the backs of chairs; it didn’t look as though he’d been entertaining any women there. She made her way to his study and scanned the room. The plastic bag she’d filled with her father’s papers was sitting on his desk, but she couldn’t see anything unusual that looked as though it could have come from her father’s safe deposit box. She opened each of the desk drawers in turn, then checked inside Tony’s briefcase, but it was difficult when she didn’t know what she was looking for.
Suddenly there was a noise at the front door. Val ducked down at the side of the desk, making herself as small as possible so she couldn’t be seen from the hall. There was a rattle, then a dull thud. It took several seconds before she processed the noises and realized it was the postman delivering the mail. She clutched her face in her hands and breathed deeply before standing up again. It was imperative she get out of there as soon as possible. She couldn’t afford to spend any more time searching.
At the back of the usual drawer she found Tony’s checkbook and tore a single check from near the end of the book, where its absence wouldn’t be noted straightaway. She slid it into her handbag, closed the drawer, had a last look around to check everything was just as it had been, then hurried back to the laundry room. After squeezing out through the window onto the grass, which badly needed cutting, she retrieved a tube of glue from her handbag, dotted it around the edges of the insect screen, and carefully pulled it back into position, smoothing the corners. It would take a miracle for Tony to notice the difference.
Twenty minutes later, she was at Peggy’s house accepting another cup of coffee. She could have used a slug of whisky to calm her nerves but knew it would only give her a headache later. Nicole and Lenny were charging around the house in a boisterous game of cowboys and Indians, complete with whooping and pretend gunfire.
* * *
After taking Nicole to school on Monday morning, Val swung into action. First she went to the bank in Croydon Park, where all the tellers knew her. Vonny, the one with curly red hair, was free, so Val waved and hurried over.
“Tony’s only done it again.” She smiled. “He forgot to get the housekeeping money on Friday and he’s off on a business trip all week, so he wrote me a check for cash.” She handed it over. “How was your weekend, Vonny? Lovely weather. Can’t believe it’s May already.”
Vonny picked up the check and glanced at it. Val had forged Tony’s signature several times before and knew she could do it better than he did himself.
“My dad had a barbecue,” Vonny said. “Usual crowd.”
“Are you still seeing that insurance guy? What’s his name again?”
“Ian, yeah.” Her hand hovered over the stamp and Val willed her to pick it up. She shouldn’t really give cash except to the account holder, but she had done this for Val once before.
“He seemed nice,” Val said. “Very good-looking.” She continued, “Tony went off this morning without any clean socks for the week, even though I’d left them out specially. I pity the man sitting next to him at the conference.”
Vonny giggled and stamped the check. “How do you want it?” she asked.
“Tens and twenties,” Val said, waving her hand airily as if it was of no consequence.
As soon as she left the bank, she drove to the travel agent on Darling Street.
“Can you still get me on that sailing to China later today?” she asked, out of breath. “I’ve got cash.”
“Strewth! Talk about last-minute! I’ll call and check,” the agent said. “If not, I’ll ask when the next sailing is, shall I?”
The next sailing was no use to Val, and she hopped from foot to foot as the agent spoke on the phone. “Cash,” she heard her saying, and that seemed a good sign, then she began talking about the issuing of tickets.
“You’re in luck.” The woman smiled. “Come back in an hour and I’ll have the tickets printed for you. You have to get to the wharf at four, and it sails at five.”
Buzzing with a mixture of excitement and nerves—mostly nerves—Val drove to her flat and packed their clothes for the journey into a suitcase, then loaded the rest of their possessions into boxes and drove to Peggy’s with them, collecting the tickets on the way. She’d ask Peggy to pick up the furniture, then stick the keys through the mail slot. She hadn’t paid the rent for May and the landlord wouldn’t be best pleased, but at least she was leaving the place much cleaner than it had been when she arrived.
“So that’s what you were up to!” Peggy exclaimed. “You’re a dark horse. I’ll send Ken for the furniture after work and it will be waiting here for your return. Have a great trip!”
There was no time to hang about: next Val drove to the school to collect Nicole. All the time she kept waiting for something to go wrong. Had Tony discovered the missing check? Would the bank have called to alert him to her cash withdrawal? Had he worked out which school Nicole attended? As she walked into the playground, she kept looking over her shoulder, scared that his hand would land on her shoulder at any moment, followed by his right hook exploding into her cheek.
Nicole came hurrying out with her usual flurry of news, but Val was too distracted to listen. They drove to a Rozelle garage, where she went to the office, ignoring the girlie calendar on the wall, and asked the boiler-suited manager if he would buy her car. She had all the papers with her and crossed her fingers as he came out to inspect it, checking the bodywork, opening the hood, getting into the driver’s seat to turn over the engine.
“I’ll give you three hundred dollars,” he said, and Val spluttered.
“You’re kidding me! It’s worth at least a thousand.” She had seen them advertised new for five thousand, and it was only a couple of years old.
He gave an exaggerated shrug. “Take it or leave it.”
“Five hundred,” she countered, but he wouldn’t budge. She tried to bluff that she would go elsewhere but knew without checking that she was running out of time.
“OK, three hundred it is, if one of your men will drive me and my daughter down to White Bay with our luggage. We’re off on holiday.”
He looked her up and down. “Fair do’s. Come to my office and we’ll sign the papers.”
She sat there under big-breasted Belinda, May’s pinup, certain that she would have gotten at least twice the price if she were male. Nothing could be done about it. She was thankful that at least Tony had put the car papers in her name for insurance purposes so she didn’t need his permission to sell it.
Until they reached White Bay, Val hadn’t told Nicole that they were going on holiday, but after the mechanic dropped them off with their suitcase, she pointed at their ship, the Coolabah, towering like a mountain against the sky.
“Guess what? We’re going to China to see your grandma. Won’t that be fun?”
“Is it a joke?” Nicole asked, looking from Val to the ship and back again. “How do we get on? Where will we sleep? How long till we get there?”
Val peered back at the approach road. Still she feared that Tony might discover her plans. Perhaps he would manage to bully the information out of Peggy and turn up at the quay, tires screeching, to grab her and stop her leading Nicole up the gangway.
“I’ll tell you everything when we’re on board,” she promised.
She showed their tickets to a steward and they found their way to their tiny cabin, two levels below deck. Val didn’t dare go out into the open air again until the ship’s horn sounded and she could feel them moving out into the harbor. If Tony came now, he’d be too late. She felt the tension begin to melt.
They climbed hand in hand up the metal stairs onto the deck to watch as the ship glided slowly past the Opera House on their right, Taronga Zoo on the left, and out toward the shimmering vastness of the Pacific Ocean.