She stopped in at the IGA, picked up some groceries and hosed down Mr Nicholls’ enthusiasm. They’d won the last home-and-away game on Sunday, finishing second on the ladder. It meant they’d not only made it into the finals, they’d leapfrogged straight into the semis. The whole town was positively buzzing. Clem had kicked herself for not freezing some bread, and now she’d run out of Ryvitas as well.
Mr Nicholls made sure he was at the cash register so he could serve her personally. Yes, she agreed—a great win, history in the making—then reminded him there was a long way to go. He took the opportunity to mention his generous donation for man of the match. Kelsey Flood had won the thousand-dollar cheque last week with his bag of four goals and five contested marks at centre half-forward. It was a shame Clancy wasn’t playing—he’d probably have won it and he could certainly use the money, she thought, before Nicholls had pointed out that Kelsey and his dad and younger brother were all still unemployed after the mine had closed.
She pulled out of the car park, stopping at the traffic lights on the corner of Main and Howard streets. Two pedestrians set out from the pavement, one of them Melissa Kennedy.
Melissa’s eyes narrowed as she recognised Clementine’s car. She drilled Clementine with a look, head tilted back defiantly, jaw thrust out. Then she turned away, keeping her eyes straight ahead as she crossed the street, demonstrating her indifference.
The lights turned green, but Clem didn’t notice. Here she was again, on the other side of that great divide.
Clem watched Melissa’s black ponytail sway as she crossed the road and heaved her bulk up onto the pavement. She was almost due, perhaps only a week to go. Clem kept watching as she went inside the Salvation Army shop on the other side of the street. A car behind honked its horn. She jumped forward in a panic, stalled, started the engine again and pulled off the road into the first parking space she could find. She sat for a moment but couldn’t get her thoughts straight, could not formulate a plan. All she could think was that she had to make an attempt to cross the divide.
She got out of the car and headed for the Salvos shop. The old lady behind the counter smiled at Clem as she came in. Melissa was in the baby clothes section, inspecting a lemon-yellow jumpsuit. Clem made her way toward her, past the men’s clothing racks with their mothball smell and the haphazard stacks of second-hand furniture.
‘So you decided not to find out if it’s a boy or girl?’ Clem asked. It was all she could think of.
Melissa turned around and stared at her coldly. She looked tired.
Clem chanced a smile. ‘Yellow’s safe, they say.’
Melissa turned back to the shelf and picked up a tiny blue jacket. The gap was getting wider, freezing over.
‘Hmm, maybe a boy, then?’
Melissa turned her back on Clementine.
‘I hear Clancy got a job in Yass.’
Melissa swung around to face her. ‘What do you want? Why’d you follow me in here?’
The divide was a glacier, a huge, freezing, impassable expanse between them. Clem scrambled for a credible reason. ‘Actually, Melissa, I need your help.’
Melissa looked incredulous. ‘What? Are you kidding? What makes you think I’d want to help you?’ She put the little blue jacket back on the shelf, walked towards the manchester section.
Clem stood there for a moment, then followed as Melissa picked up a purple towel with a splash of bleach discolouring one corner and examined the price tag. Clem put her hand on the towel. Melissa looked up, incensed.
‘I need your help to understand what’s going on, Melissa. I know the Plains mob are unhappy. It’s because of me, I know. Maybe the fight was because of me—I don’t know—but I want to do something about it, and I don’t know how.’
‘Fuck off.’
Clementine took a step back, shocked at the venom in her words. Melissa moved off further down the aisle.
‘You don’t understand. I have to speak at a function up at the school—the Minister for Indigenous Affairs will be there. It’s for a good cause—the Indigenous Knowledge Centre.’
Melissa didn’t look up from the stack of bedsheets she was surveying, but Clem noticed her blink. Twice.
‘You must have heard about it. They’re trying to get government funding for it.’
Melissa thumped a hand down on the sheets. ‘And what the hell has that got to do with me?’
Clem kept going. ‘I thought maybe you could help me with the speech. Maybe some history of the area from an Indigenous perspective or something.’
‘Why the hell are you speaking, of all people? Why aren’t my mob speaking?’
The response gave Clem hope—at least Melissa was talking. ‘Well, I’m pretty sure they are, actually. I think I’m just there to attract a few more of the parents and drum up some more press coverage, apparently.’
Melissa started hunting through the linen again, but Clementine thought she could sense a thaw in the air.
‘Maybe you could introduce me to your mum or one of the elders? Do you know anyone who might like to help me?’
‘Right, you gunna learn all about us in half an hour, yeah?’ She stalked off towards the electrical appliances, Clementine trailing closely behind her.
‘A bit of background would help,’ Clem said. ‘Might help me know what not to say, at least.’
Melissa picked up a sad-looking toaster with an eight-dollar price sticker on it. Silence again, but it was definitely there—a swirling of particles in the air, a melting around the edges.
Clementine decided to leave her alone for a bit and made her way back towards the front of the store, stopping to try on a cardigan in the women’s clothing section. Her hands shook a little as she struggled with the buttons. It fit well, and she could do with something light for spring. Then she picked out a rug that would be good for Pocket’s kennel. Noticing Melissa at the counter, she hurried forward, grabbing the lemon-yellow jumpsuit on the way. She queued behind her with the cardigan, the rug and the jumpsuit.
Melissa was buying two towels. As she handed over the coins, Clem put her things on the counter.
Melissa glanced sideways, saw the jumpsuit, her contempt palpable. ‘You can’t buy me off, you know, you dirty gubba.’
‘It’s not for you, shit for brains. I’ve got a niece in Sydney.’
The retort came quick, like a slap. There was a moment—a horrible, sickening moment, as Clem’s words hung suspended between them, the old lady behind the counter looking on in dismay—and then Melissa laughed. A loud, surprised, generous laugh, a laugh that grew wings and soared across the icy divide. Clementine joined in. The lady behind the counter smiled, relieved there wasn’t going to be a scene.
They finished paying and walked into the pub next door, carrying their Salvos plastic bags. Melissa had a lemonade, Clem had a wine. They talked about Clancy. The job near Yass had fallen through. Mel didn’t want to go anyway, she said, so she was relieved, and Clancy had kept on with his online studies in the meantime. But she was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to find another job—not in Katinga, anyway.
Melissa told Clem about the Plains mob—their anguish when Clancy had left the team, their rage when they realised no one from the Plains would be playing in the finals. At first they’d thought that the Earlville gang had intimidated Clementine into getting rid of Clancy and that she’d selected a relative in Richie Jones. But later, Mel said, she’d heard that the Earlville gang had probably threatened Clancy—retribution for his testimony at the bashing trial two years ago. They were used to it, said Mel—more white bullshit. And Clancy not being on the team was just another door slamming in their face, denying them any joy in the Cats’ success. Tensions remained high and Mel thought the fight last week was probably just the beginning.
Nineteen direct hits. How could that be? Thank God she hadn’t got into the Facebook thing or had a blog or anything like that.
Clem sat in the front room at the dining table, laptop open in front of her, the wine she’d had with Melissa earlier in the afternoon leaving her slightly fuzzy-headed. She’d received countless slaps on the back in the pub and turned down three offers of a drink. The town was alive with excitement over the Cats’ upcoming semifinal, the first in forty years. If they hadn’t already heard of her, they knew her now—every man, woman and child in Katinga. She’d become a real live local bloody celebrity.
On the drive home, as she swung the Commodore through the bends up Makepeace Road, one question had consumed her thoughts: how long before one of these people looked her up online? It wouldn’t take much to discover her real name, find out about her past. She’d put it off for months, unable to face it—but now, with a mounting sense of panic, she realised she could not delay the task any longer.
She’d been through every one of the hits. Five of them took her to Crozier Dickens’ website—old articles she’d written when she worked there. She’d phoned the firm, spoken to Julia, a newly arrived business development manager, who had agreed to take them down or remove Clementine’s name so the only attribution would be to her boss, the partner she’d worked for. Julia would have it done within twenty-four hours, she said.
She stared at the screen. Three of the nineteen hits were related to her LinkedIn profile, and she cursed herself for not deleting it. She remembered the day she had attempted to. It was a Sunday. She’d been released on Thursday, bought the Commodore and a new prepaid sim card on Friday, recovered her things from storage on Saturday and she was leaving that Sunday. That was the plan she’d mapped out for herself in those last weeks inside. Going through each step in her mind had been the only way she could get through those final days.
That Sunday morning she’d taken out her iPad at a cafe with free wi-fi, her back to the rear wall. She recalled the shock of seeing the headshot on her profile: the crisp edge of the collar on her cream shirt, the black velvet trim on the lapels of her favourite black suit. Her smile looked so confident, her hair perfectly arranged. She was seeing herself from the other side, a ghost.
But it was the bio that really got to her. The list of qualifications, the string of major files she’d worked on and the endorsements she’d received from big-name partners at the firm. Each word had screamed at her: FRAUD. She just wanted to erase it all—her name, her work, her history, everything she’d ever done. She’d tried to delete the LinkedIn profile, but struggled to find the ‘delete’ option, and with each failed attempt she’d ended up back on the profile page, that perfect smile staring out at her. She’d left her coffee sitting there, jumped in the car and fled. Just drove off and left Sydney forever.
She’d headed west. People hid in the country, didn’t they? Hadn’t stopped until late. Stayed in a tiny one-pub town, upstairs directly above the public bar. The bed sagged, the window was nailed open, and she had to use a common bathroom down the hall. The next morning she’d showered behind a curtain covered in black mould and brushed her teeth over a yellow-stained enamel basin. The woman she saw in the tiny cracked mirror was not the one in the digital profile. Gone were the expensive blond highlights, the white smiling teeth and lively eyes. In their place—mouse-brown hair, a weariness about her and a mouth set flat across a pale face.
She had kept driving for days, travelling south, staying at cheap hotels overnight and moving on the next day. She used her middle name, Clementine, and no one questioned it. The plan had been pretty simple: drive, be anonymous, don’t form any connections. After a week she was sick of driving and didn’t know what to do next. Taking a break from the monotony of the car, she’d walked up a mountain and looked down on a little town in a valley below. She drove along a country road, saw a ‘For Sale’ sign on a tiny, green, run-down cottage tucked in the saddle between two ridges. She’d paid cash, using up most of Gran’s inheritance, then hid in the cottage in the hills for another few weeks, venturing into town only to get food and supplies.
That was ten months ago. It felt like years.
Pocket barged his way through the dog door, stood at her knee looking up at her, his tail slapping against the table leg.
‘What you been up to, boy?’ she said, giving him a pat. His big brown eyes told the story—having fun in the backyard. She patted him again and he trotted over to sit at the fireplace, leaving a trail of wet paw-prints on the wooden floor.
She began searching through the settings. Using the laptop instead of a tablet, it had proved easy to delete her LinkedIn account. She moved on to the remaining eleven references, all of them newspaper articles about the accident and her conviction. Although the articles used her first name, it was still dangerous—anyone making a real effort would find her.
A notification flashed up on the screen: incoming email. She clicked it open. It was the same as the previous three:
Thank you for your email. We appreciate your interest in the Daily Herald. We will endeavour to respond to your inquiry within the next twenty-four hours. Your inquiry code is B6254. Please quote this number in all communications about this inquiry.
She got up, went to the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea, her thoughts wandering to the USB sticks still sitting in the glove box of the Commodore. It had been easier than she thought just to close the door and leave them there. And now, after her conversation with Mel, it didn’t feel right to keep prying into Clancy’s life. He hadn’t even told his wife what was going on. Who was she to think she could help?
Her phone rang. Gerard. She let it ring out. He rang back. She would have to take it. They exchanged pleasantries and he moved on to the purpose of the call: ‘I hear you’re spending time with Torrens, one on one. What’s that all about?’
Her stomach clenched tight. ‘Extra training sessions. The guy’s unfit—he needs to catch up.’
Gerard wasn’t impressed. ‘Why bother? There’s plenty of blokes in the reserves who are fit enough. Christ, Jones, you could have taken one of the boys from the Plains.’
Clementine sighed. ‘Because I need his size. You know that, Gerard. He’s a huge presence in the ruck and does a power of work up forward when he’s resting. We can’t do without him. What’s this about, anyway? Has there been another complaint?’
He skirted the question. ‘You know the Plains community is unhappy. It just seems to me to be one way we could appease a few people.’
‘Look, Gerard, you need to deal with the politics, not me. My job is to put the best team on the park each week and hope to God we can keep winning.’
Gerard didn’t let go. ‘You realise he’s not popular around town, Jones. He did a lot of unsavoury things, you know. There’s still people hurting.’
‘He served his time—I don’t see why he shouldn’t get a chance, and he’s the best man for the job. Footy is giving him a life and some hope.’
‘I’m assuming you heard about the incident at my place last week?’ Gerard snapped. ‘My friends were abused, their vehicle defaced. This week our letterbox was bombed. The police think it was Torrens.’
Her heart sank. She hadn’t heard anything more about the investigation since she’d spoken to Torrens.
‘You’re not his social worker, Jones. Steer clear of him. Steer clear of Clancy as well. Just do your job. Do you understand me?’ He rattled off each instruction like gunfire, but it was the final shot that alarmed her most.
‘Oh, and by the way, you haven’t sent me your resumé yet. I need to have a copy on file. Can you please send it through asap?’