Sydney, 1967
Joe put his keys down on the kitchen table, which was exactly as he’d left it that morning. The ashtray was full. The toast he hadn’t eaten was still on the plate. The note Louisa had left—if you could call it that—was folded, facedown, under a dirty coffee cup.
He sat, pushed the toast away. Tried to think straight. She’d been gone around twenty-four hours, he figured; she couldn’t have gone far. He’d checked her wardrobe; she’d barely taken anything. Isla’s Digby bear was still in her room, and so were most of her clothes. She must have gone to stay with some friend he didn’t know about, someone from work who could put her up for a bit. She was sulking, waiting long enough to scare him. He wasn’t going to play her games. But he had to admit, he was getting worried. The thing he hadn’t done, that he would have to do now, was call Hordern & Sons to see if she’d gone in to work. And if she wasn’t there, if they didn’t know where she was, he’d have to call the police. A sweat crept up his back at the thought of it.
The note was what worried him. Just one word—sorry—written neatly, at the top of the page. There was no anger in it, nothing to suggest she’d written it hastily. Sorry was a considered word. Nobody apologized in advance unless they were going to do something serious, something permanent.
He’d had too much to drink last Friday while Louisa was out at Mandy’s. He’d found the empty bottle of whisky in the bin the next day, but he didn’t remember putting it there. He remembered leaning over Louisa in bed, the two of them struggling, her face close to his in the dark. Nothing after that. She’d said nothing about it the next day. He’d woken on the couch, but that was nothing new. He’d wondered if he’d dreamt it, but it felt real, and he had a guilty feeling in his gut, like he’d crossed a line. But blackouts always left him feeling like a monster. Surely she’d have said something if he’d hurt her. She’d have given him hell for it.
It made him want a drink, the thought of it. He stood and looked out the back door, tried to distract himself. Mandy’s laundry was hanging across the length of her yard, propped in the center with a wooden post. Sheets and towels strung out like bunting in the sun. She was out there; he could see her, over by the eucalyptus where the grass was longer. The pale pink of the scarf she wore around her head and the yellow-blond of her hair. She was gathering flowers to bring inside, by the look of it. He watched her for a minute or two, snipping flowers at the base of the stem and draping them over the crook of her arm.
Mandy knew where Louisa was. The thought brought the blood back to his head, stopped his heart racing. He’d seen her skipping back inside when he went out into the yard this morning; it made perfect sense now. She’d promised Louisa not to tell him, most likely.
He waited for Mandy to turn back toward the house before he walked out onto the deck. She looked straight at him, nodded, and put the flowers down on the garden chair in the shade of the vine.
“Mandy!” he called out, as loud as he dared without sounding rude.
She straightened up, wiped her hands on the apron around her waist. It was roasting hot. She looked flushed in the face, reluctant. For a moment he thought she might turn away. He raised his hand: a hesitant half-wave. He tried to smile and found he couldn’t.
“Can I have a word?” He stood at the line of shrubs that separated his yard from hers. Louisa’s roses were a bright, cheery pink. The sky was blue, cloudless. Beach weather. The salty air, the colors, all of it filled him with a nameless terror.
“Afternoon.” Mandy moved closer, a few feet back from the shrubs. “Humid today. I’d give anything for a southerly.”
Joe got as close to the shrubs as he could, one foot in the dirt. “Mandy, did Louisa say she was thinking of going away for a bit? Anything like that?”
Mandy pushed her hands into the pockets of her apron. “She said she was leaving. She told me when she came over on Friday night. I’m sorry, Joe. I tried to talk her out of it.”
“She said she was leaving?”
“That’s right.”
“She used that word?” Joe had a sick, scared feeling. The cicadas were loud in his ears. When had they started that noise? He could barely hear himself think. “Are you sure?”
“She promised me she’d go home and talk to you.” She was squeezing the tip of her finger with a clothes peg she’d brought out of her apron pocket. “I really thought I’d changed her mind.”
Joe didn’t like the words Mandy was using. He didn’t like her tone of voice, her sorry smile. As if this were a situation he might just accept. As if it were definite.
“Where are they, Mandy?”
She dropped the clothes peg. Stared at it, lying in the grass. “You don’t know where they are? She didn’t leave you a note, or—?”
“No.” His shirt was stuck to his back. “No idea.”
Mandy’s eyes moved over his face. “You must be worried sick.”
“She wrote one word on a piece of paper. Sorry. That’s all.” He gave Louisa’s rosebush a kick, making the petals shake. “Which doesn’t help me much.”
Mandy bent and picked up the clothes peg. Her shoulders were red; he saw a pale stripe as the strap of her dress slipped down her arm. “They went to England,” she said, as she stood. She put the peg in her pocket. “They left the country, Joe.”
Joe shook his head. The cicadas screamed. “They can’t have.”
“I’m sorry. Louisa should have told you herself.” She looked away. “I can’t believe she’s left me to tell you this.”
“They can’t have gone to England.” He felt exasperation wash through him. “That’s not possible, Mandy. She couldn’t just go to England.”
Mandy smiled apologetically, and he despised her for pitying him, for telling him what he didn’t want to know. “I saw them go in a taxi. She asked me not to tell you right away.”
He kicked the rosebush a second time, sending petals into the air. For a couple of seconds the cicadas fell quiet. He kicked it again, harder.
“I’m sorry, Joe.”
He turned his back to her, facing his house. His empty house. Jesus, the note. The guilty, final-sounding note.
“If there’s anything I can do, Joe.” Mandy sounded nervous. “Anything at all.”
He turned around. She’d stepped back a couple of paces. “Why didn’t you tell me she was going to do this? I could have stopped her!” It felt good to shout. “I’d have stopped her if I’d known she was thinking this way. You should have said! You should have told me!”
Mandy threw her hands in the air. “Do you think I like being wrapped up in your business? Do you think I like being the one to tell you where your wife and daughter are? I wish I’d never tried to help her.” She turned on her heel, back toward the chair where she’d left her flowers. She picked them up, held them in her arms: purple, with bright yellow stamens.
“Mandy.” He called out to her as she reached the paving stones. “Mandy, I’m sorry. I just. I can’t make sense of this.”
She looked down at the flowers, which were wilting in her arms. “Drop by if you need to talk, Joe. Anytime.”
He crossed the grass and fell into the house, sat down at the kitchen table, beside the stale toast and the coffee and the note. Pink rose petals were pressed into the soles of his shoes; he’d trodden them through the house. Louisa’s beloved roses. He pulled a shoe off and threw it with all his strength across the room.