IN AN UNCONSCIOUS synchronisation of their movements that afternoon, Grace and Erin finished unpacking almost simultaneously and found themselves facing each other on the single beds.
‘Right,’ Erin said, staring down at the stretch of worn carpet and gently thumping her thin upper thighs with her bony fists: steeling herself.
Grace smiled and nodded. ‘Right.’
Erin looked up. ‘My real name’s Karen Michael.’
From Karen Michael to Erin Mandel: not far enough, thought Grace. Her old name, Anita, had been suffused with fear and baseness and shame, and she’d had to grow into a name quite unlike it. A braver, better name.
‘Okay.’
‘I’m from Brisbane. I did fine arts at uni and got a job with a company that specialises in buying and selling art and antiques. I did research for them. Provenance checks. Catalogue entries. That kind of thing.’
‘Okay,’ said Grace again.
She was listening to Erin, but also to the creaky old house. The voices of six other women and their children; footsteps on the protesting stairs; the squeaking of other door hinges. She was mapping everything: the rooms and corridors, the residents, not knowing what might help or hinder her later. Could she escape via the backyard? When were the children allowed to play there, and how closely were they watched? Could she simply say, at some quiet point in the remains of the day, that she was going out for a stroll around the garden? To do a spot of helpful weeding?
‘I met Brodie when he came to examine an old revolver we were auctioning. We got talking and one thing led to another and we ended up getting married.’
He’s interested in handguns, noted Grace. She gave Erin another encouraging nod. ‘Okay.’
‘He was no pin-up, but then again, nor am I.’
Grace looked at Erin as if for the first time, and decided: a woman who is not plain but thinks of herself as plain.
Meanwhile Erin had switched from bothering her knees to pinching at the seams of her jeans. Then, catching Grace’s scrutiny, she stilled her hands. ‘That video clip of him outside the shop: he looks different now—kind of better toned and more dress-conscious—but it’s definitely him.’
‘What did he used to look like?’
‘A bit fat, a bit sloppy, always in old jeans and T-shirts and cheap runners. Long hair that he didn’t wash often enough. Didn’t shave every day.’
Grace didn’t know where this was going. ‘Do you think he’s trying to win you back with his new look?’
Erin shook her head violently. ‘God, I hope not. Actually, he started working on his image towards the end of our time together. He joined the gym, changed his diet, that kind of thing. But until then he was just a bit of a slob and always a bit flat and demoralised; needing reassurance. He seemed to think there was no point making an effort because women didn’t find him attractive. When I hooked up with him, it was like there must be something wrong with me. Crazy.’
‘Sounds insecure,’ Grace said.
She cocked her head: voices in the backyard. The shrill delight of small children and the low patience of a woman. She longed to know what they were doing, but remained seated, fixed on Erin.
‘He was insecure,’ Erin said. ‘Especially about women. He’d say they didn’t find him attractive because he’d lost out in the genetic lottery stakes—I mean, hello, I married him, didn’t I?—then turn around and say they were all shallow, manipulative bitches. Or slags. We’d be in the car and he’d see a woman and her kids on the footpath and go, “Welfare slut.” Or he’d see a teenager and say, “I’d do her.” Or an older woman and it’d be, “Not her, she’s probably had too much dick.” As if I wasn’t right there in the car with him.’
Here Erin paused. The silence was awkward, as if she thought she’d said too much.
Grace cleared her throat. ‘You said earlier he’s a tech nerd…’
Erin seized the conversational lifeline. ‘Anything involving computers and IT. Probably a bit of hacking now and then, and he was always buying and selling stuff. He’d be on his computers—he had more than one—day and night. It brought in a bit of money.’ She rolled her shoulders, embarrassed. ‘But mostly he used my money.’
‘I had that happen to me,’ Grace said, thinking of Galt.
‘Anyway, I had some shares my dad bought me when I first left home. Some little corner of me somehow knew not to tell Brodie about them, and they brought in just enough to get me started here. When I left for the last time, I also cleared out one of the accounts—not that there was much in it.’
Grace had done that, too. ‘Did he usually work from home?’
‘He had three or four proper jobs early on, but he always quit—probably before he was sacked. Never his fault, of course—always some dickhead boss.’
‘The things he bought and sold…Just old guns?’
Erin shook her head. ‘Swords, bayonets, uniforms—military memorabilia in general. That was one thing we connected on, after he’d had his fingers burnt with a couple of fakes. Brodie getting his fingers burnt, not a good scene. I showed him how to spot fakes and do valuations and provenance research.’ She paused. ‘One time he exchanged some rare Japanese memorabilia, belonged to a general or an admiral, someone high up, for a few netsukes. They’re worth a lot of money.’
Grace went still: she knew about netsukes. ‘I’m guessing you didn’t benefit.’
‘Kmart, Target and lukewarm tea,’ agreed Erin. ‘He let me have an allowance, but it was never enough.’
Grace thought of Galt again, as Erin went on: ‘He’d check the shopping when I got home. Why didn’t I buy home-brand cheese, kind of thing; why buy normal toilet paper instead of the double-length ones. Wore me out. I was actually in a shop once, buying a bra, and he must have been monitoring the credit card at that very moment, because he called and abused me for not going to Kmart.’
‘Was there anyone you could talk to?’
Erin shook her head and blinked at Grace, her tears an almost metallic gleam. ‘We were both kind of cut off from our families. At the start, that was another thing we shared.’ She shrugged. ‘My dad’s in Mount Isa, he’s a Subaru dealer, and my stepmother doesn’t want me around—not that I could tell either of them what was happening, anyway. And Brodie—classic abandonment issues. His mother left when he was six and his father just got depressed. He was barely there for him.’
Grace knew the control game plan: Brodie Hendren shutting Erin off from friends and family, dictating who she could spend time with, demanding to know where she was. ‘I suppose you couldn’t see a shrink; he’d have known.’
‘He knew everything,’ Erin said. She gazed calmly at Grace and said, ‘I’ve never told anyone any of this before, not really. There was never anyone I could trust, let alone try to contact.’
Grace flinched. Erin, you can’t trust me, either, she thought. Not long term. Right now, yes. I’ll listen. A shoulder to cry on. But later tonight, I’m running.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.
Erin shrugged. ‘What can you do? Things got gradually worse, and then one day the police came around and charged him with selling stolen goods.’
‘What happened?’
‘Charges dropped,’ Erin said, in disgust. ‘Worse luck for me. He got more paranoid after that, calling and texting a hundred times a day. Where was I? What was I doing there? Who was I with? Who was I fucking?’
Bafflement replaced the searing emotion. ‘One day this parcel came for him. It was an infidelity test kit. He started testing my underwear for semen.’
‘God,’ Grace said, thinking of Galt. He hadn’t trusted either, but he’d used his fists to get at the truth.
‘It was all tied up with what I could or couldn’t wear,’ continued Erin. ‘My T-shirts were too tight, my bathers too small, my blouse too sheer. As though I was constantly trying to make myself attractive to other men, when that was the last thing on my mind. I didn’t want anyone to look at or touch me. And he wanted sex all the time. He got so angry if I wasn’t enthusiastic enough.’ It was all pouring out of her now. ‘If I stacked the dishwasher the wrong way, or let the peas touch the gravy, there was hell to pay. He woke me once to say I was sleeping too loudly. Another time, when I was asleep—probably being too loud—he used my finger to unlock my phone so he could see who I was texting or calling.’ Erin gave Grace another of her direct looks. ‘The constant belittling. It turned me so full of self-doubt about everything—how I looked, my cooking, even just relating to people—that I got sacked for taking too many sick days.’ She gestured at her torso. ‘Look at me, still skin and bones.’
There was a scream from the backyard. Both women crossed to the window and watched a young woman wearing shorts and a hoodie bending to lift a small boy who’d fallen. Another child looked on, fear and guilt on her face. Grace took note of the yard’s layout and dimensions. No street access. No back gate in the high enclosing wall.
They returned to their seats on the edges of the beds, Erin smoothing the doona unconsciously before settling. ‘Thank God I never had children, eh?’
But the tone was wistful.
She went on: ‘An old story—I’m such a cliché. He apologised, blah, blah, blah, I gave it another go, got another job, but it soon started up again.’
A knock on the door. Erin tilted her face. ‘Come in!’
Tracey Dinakis poked her head in, wincing at the squeak of hinges. ‘Sorry to interrupt. Would you like tea and muffins downstairs?’
‘That would be lovely,’ Erin said, looking relieved.
And Grace was relieved. Holding back a little, and waiting until the others were near the bottom of the stairs, she said, ‘Start without me, I need a tissue,’ and hurried back to the bedroom. Found a deodorant in Erin’s kit and crossed to the door, listening. When she heard the others reach the bottom she sprayed the deodorant on the hinges of the door, then swung it experimentally to and fro.
Hardly any squeaking.
She clattered down the stairs and into the sitting room, where everyone was gathered around the coffee table. She sat, making barely a ripple in the room, thinking of the ripples she’d make later, when they discovered that she must have slipped away in the dark hours of the night. Thinking of the ripples if Hendren was soon arrested and she was still here: she’d have to give further statements to police, maybe even appear as a prosecution witness—exposure she really did not need.