FRIDAY, AUCTION DAY. As Grace drove to work, her old Toyota clanked, shook, whined and stuttered—the music of her days. She parked in the alley, entered the shop, touched her treasures, and worked through the morning. At 1 p.m. she placed a closed sign in the window, changed into a pale-yellow summer dress and took a takeaway salad to a park bench beside the leisure centre. The sun was high, the light dappling under the gums and pines. Kids on the swings, mothers nattering, two old blokes with dogs.
The auction was at 2 p.m. and by 1.55 she’d parked at the rear of Woodside Auctions. A good crowd, at least fifty men and women of various ages and appearances, and she scanned them all, looking for anyone more interested in her than the bidding, but they all wore the barely contained intensity of hopeful greed, so she settled back to watch and wait.
The pair of jarrah library chairs came on at 3.45. She lost the bidding to a gross old man with damp armpits and a breathless wheeze. She clocked his vehicle later: a Mercedes van with Norwood Olde Wares scrolled across the side. Then the Whiteley etching came up, The Back of the Asylum, St Rémy—framed, signed, number 22 of 100 printed. But it was flawed slightly, with dark smudges in each corner of the white border, and no one was much interested. Bang: sold to the young lady in the yellow dress.
She called Erin before driving home. ‘No luck with the library chairs, but I did get the Whiteley.’ Describing the flaws, she added, ‘Maybe get it cleaned before we sell it?’
‘Hang on,’ Erin said, coming back a moment later with a name, address and phone number. ‘Gaynor Bernard, lives in Mount Lofty. I’ve never used her but she does a lot of conservation work for galleries in the city.’
‘I’ll give her a call.’
The woman who answered was brusque, with a low, rasping voice, and Grace sensed impatience as she described the Whiteley’s stained corners.
‘What kind of stains?’
‘I don’t know.’
Bernard, humming and hawing a little, said, ‘I’ll be out a fair bit of next week. Can you bring it in tomorrow afternoon, around four?’
‘Sure.’
‘I live at the top of a steep driveway. It would be best if you parked at the bottom and walked up.’
‘See you then,’ Grace said.
She was accelerating away from the auction house carpark when she noticed that her engine was screaming, stuck in first gear. Then a scorched smell, and an almighty shudder and clunk, so she pulled hard alongside the kerb and switched off.
Forty-five minutes later, she’d become a member of the RAA and the roadside emergency mechanic was saying, ‘You need a new gearbox.’
‘Is that expensive?’ asked Grace, standing beside her car and looking in at him behind the wheel. She knew the answer, but was playing a clueless female driver so that she wouldn’t be remembered.
‘’Fraid so,’ the mechanic said, looking up at her. He was a young man, tall and lanky with dark eyes. ‘You have to ask yourself if it’s worth it,’ he added with a sympathetic grin.
He made a not-quite-graceful swivel to get out of the car, brushing lightly against Grace as he closed the door. It was accidental and fleeting but also strangely intimate, leaving Grace with a powerful sense of the man’s body beneath the overalls. The unsettling physicality meshed in a confused way with the sense of panic that had been growing since she’d called for help. She needed a car: the likelihood of having to flee was ever-present. And she’s getting distracted by some man?
She gave a little cough. ‘You mean, worth repairing, given the age and mileage?’
He nodded. ‘Could cost you a few thousand.’
Grace gazed at the car forlornly. ‘In other words, not really worth it.’
‘I know a wrecker?’ the RAA man said.
He made a few calls, chatted shyly for a few minutes and drove off in his yellow van, one lean hand waving from his window. When he was gone, Grace removed the Victorian numberplates and stowed them in her bag. The registration was legitimate, but the address was false. She didn’t want anyone following up out of curiosity. Then, checking the boot and the glovebox for anything of value—finding only a packet of tissues—she settled in to wait.
Half an hour later, a truck from Woodside Wreckers pulled up and a burly mass of overalls and tattoos stepped out. ‘You the lady with the Corolla?’
She was the only lady anywhere in the vicinity, with or without a Corolla, but she smiled and said brightly, ‘That’s me.’
‘The boss said two hundred?’
Grace nodded. ‘Two hundred.’
Then, poorer by one old Toyota sedan, richer by two hundred dollars, Grace stood waiting for an Uber to take her home to Landau Street. Friday afternoon traffic whizzed by; drivers looked at her with mild curiosity. According to the app, Omar was still three minutes away, so she walked up an inclined nature strip to where an old red Volvo station wagon was parked: $5,500 in spidery writing on a cardboard carton flap behind the windscreen.
A toot: Omar had arrived. She walked to his car despondently. She couldn’t even afford to buy a clapped-out old Volvo. What would the old Grace do? She’d think about doing over Norwood Olde Wares for the sheer satisfaction of aggravating the owner. She’d also think about old winery families—old winery money—in the Barossa Valley.