The shop was surprisingly dark when Roxy stepped inside to pay for her coffee and make her escape. She had been in the Byron Shire less than an hour, had not even met Jed Moody yet, and already she felt wrung out. What had started as harmless anticipation at meeting her teenage idol had turned to deep apprehension. This job wasn’t going to be as straightforward as she’d anticipated. Already, one man was trying to steal pictures of her client and another was accusing him of murder.
Olie and her friends were right. It had become a recurring theme in Roxy’s life.
“That’ll be three bucks, thanks,” the waitress said, one hand on the cash register, the other wrapped around the toddler who clung to her hip like a baby koala. The child had a tangle of long, blonde curls and a strand of tiny amber beads around her neck, although she could easily have been a he, it was hard to tell.
Roxy smiled at the child, a girl she decided, and then realised with a start that she was suckling on her mother’s breast, which had now spilled out of her top. Both mother and child seemed perfectly at ease with this arrangement, the girl even watching Roxy intensely as she drank, her wide, yellow-green eyes twinkling with mischief, and Roxy couldn’t help blushing despite herself.
She was all for breastfeeding in public, admired it in fact, but it wasn’t something you encountered very often in the city, at least not at the cash register while paying your bill.
The woman deftly snatched Roxy’s cash, opened the till and handed her some change, all without causing any disturbance to the child. Roxy had to admire her skills. This woman took multitasking to a new level.
As Roxy turned to leave the cafe, the waitress called after her, “Say hi to Jed for me. Tell him Govinda sends her love.”
Roxy’s eyes widened. “You know Jed then?”
She jiggled her daughter higher on her hip. “Everybody knows everybody around here chook!”
As Roxy left the shop, she felt a sudden yearning for the overcrowded anonymity of the big smoke.
It was now just before 5:00 p.m., Roxy’s designated arrival time, and she stared at the publicist’s scribbled directions to the Moody property. “Moody Views” was located on Jasper Road; a good hour’s drive southwest from the airport, forty kilometres inland from the popular coastal town of Byron Bay. It had all seemed simple enough when she read the directions, but no sooner had Roxy turned down Jasper Road when she found herself hopelessly lost.
“This is ridiculous!” she hissed, pulling the car over so she could read the directions again.
“Moody Views, 88 Jasper Road, just down from the Goddess Café.”
That had to be the only Goddess Café in the area, surely? And this had to be Jasper Road. She hadn’t taken any unexpected turns. The problem was the numbers, which seemed to be all over the place. Lot 102 on one side, No 45 on the other, and there wasn’t a number 88 or a “Moody Views” to be found. Eventually, after turning back for the third time, Roxy decided to take a punt on the only driveway along the entire stretch of road that boasted a lock-up gate (currently open) and fresh, sealed tar. She figured if anyone had the means and motivation, it had to be the local celebrity.
Slowly, carefully, she manoeuvred her tiny red hatchback through the gate and across the bumpy cattle grid, then continued driving past a wide, open field. The road seemed to stretch for kilometres before plunging into thick, subtropical rainforest, which extinguished the remainder of the day’s light and forced Roxy to grapple with the controls to locate the car’s headlights. The canopy overhead was lush, but she soon drove out into a clearing where a historical timber mansion managed to dwarf what would otherwise have been an impressive fig tree beside it. The house resembled the pictures in Oliver’s press clippings and Roxy felt a flood of relief. She glanced at her watch and her relief evaporated.
She was fifteen minutes late. Damn it!
Several structures sat on either side of the main house, including what looked like horse stables, a sizeable polyethylene water tank, and a large timber shed with an extremely high roof and a vintage Valiant parked out the front.
Roxy turned towards the main house and rolled her car to a stop in front of the fig when a tall, painfully thin woman appeared from the stables. The woman was wearing tight jodhpurs and riding boots and she had the same dark colouring and the same haughty expression as the woman in the magazine. It had to be the wife, Annika Moody, Roxy decided.
As Roxy switched the engine off and got out, she spotted someone else exiting the stables, a man with dark glasses and a goatee. He was pulling his hoodie down over his face as he walked away from Roxy’s car and towards the high shed. He looked vaguely familiar but it wasn’t Jed Moody. She knew that much.
Annika was now walking swiftly towards Roxy, tapping one sinewy thigh with what looked like a horsewhip, her long black hair swishing from side to side, her frown intensifying. She wore a low, V-neck sweater, which emphasised her bony décolletage, and around her neck hung a thin gold chain with a tiny crystal attached.
“Houghton was supposed to be here before you,” she exclaimed. “I was expecting him first.”
She sounded extremely annoyed, and Roxy wasn’t quite sure how to respond. Did Annika want her to bugger off until the band’s publicist arrived?
“He did tell you I was arriving around five, right?”
“Houghton says lots of things, most don’t amount to much.” Now she sounded more weary than indignant. “Oh well, you’re here now. Might as well come in.”
Annika began crunching down the pebbled driveway towards the house where a tiny, fluffy white dog appeared, belatedly yapping at Roxy.
“Oh shut up, Coco!” Annika cried out.
“Should I bring my bags?” Roxy called after her.
Annika continued walking, “No, you should not. You’re staying the night in the bails.”
The bails? Roxy’s jaw dropped. Wasn’t that a barn where they milked dairy cows? She tried not to think the worst as she grabbed her oversized handbag from the passenger seat and locked up, before wondering why she bothered. It wasn’t likely anyone was going to pinch it out here. Burglars would be hard pressed finding the place.
Annika hung her whip on a hook by the front door and slipped her polished brown R.M. William’s riding boots off. Roxy noticed a pile of muddy shoes on either side of the enormous Balinese-style wooden doors and took this as her cue to unzip her boots. She hoped desperately that she was wearing a decent pair of socks.
Annika had already pushed open one of the doors and was padding softly down the long hallway, the dog one step behind. Roxy had to rush to catch up, her mismatched blue socks now on full display.
The hallway broke off into various different rooms, but Annika swept past them all and towards the back half of the house where the hall ended and a wide, curved doorway opened into a spacious living area. At one end of the room Roxy could see the opening to what looked like a kitchen and at the other end, a rather impressive bar complete with chrome and leather stools, and a staggering array of liquor bottles. Glasses of various shapes and sizes were hanging from an overhead railing, and there was an ornate mirror against the wall. Beside it were several gold and platinum albums that had been framed and hung up, loot collected during the Moody Roos’ heyday, no doubt. Just to the left of the bar was a side door that appeared to lead outside.
Annika was now behind the bar, Coco still at her feet, and she was holding a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka in one hand, a pair of silver tongs in the other.
“So, you found us okay,” she said.
Roxy wondered for a moment if she was talking about the trip from the airport or the trek down the hallway. In any case, it wasn’t put as a question so she decided not to mention her many wrong turns.
“We’re not on the GPS,” Annika continued, “which is just the way we like it. I suppose you need a drink?”
“Yes, thanks, that was certainly a long drive.”
Annika snorted. “How long did it take you?”
“About an hour.”
“And how many hours have you wasted sitting in Sydney traffic?” Before Roxy could reply, Annika was shaking her head. “I find it bizarre the way stupid city folk get so stressed the second they get on a country road. I’d much rather drive along a few dirt roads past koalas and rainforest than sit in the smog of the city waiting for the lights to go green. Wouldn’t you? Vodka cocktail?”
She was still waving the bottle in the air and Roxy nodded. It wasn’t her favourite tipple, but it would do the job. As she watched Annika mix the cocktail like a professional barmaid, splashing pomegranate juice, Cointreau and lime into the vodka, Roxy wondered whether to take her to task on her comment or quietly concede that she was right.
Roxy loved her city life, but there was no denying she had lost plenty of precious hours stuck in the middle of bumper-to-bumper traffic. The woman had a point, but it still riled her a little. Did she have to be so aggressive about it?
Choosing to avoid the bait, Roxy stepped away from the bar and towards the centre of the living room, which was as beautiful as the magazine spreads had promised, and then some. The main feature wall had been plastered with luscious Florence Broadhurst wallpaper, a decorative palm and vine design, and in front sat a plush purple velvet sofa, with matching armchairs on either side. An enormous TV set, stereo system and turntable dominated a second wall while the third was made up of pretty French doors that were currently closed but still revealed a dazzling green view beyond.
“Bottoms up,” Annika said, handing her a martini glass with the lurid orange concoction inside. She took a good gulp of her drink, sighing after she did so, before pushing open two of the French doors and stepping out onto the veranda.
The living room was stunning, but the veranda was clearly the heart of the house. Typical of a historical home, it had hardwood floorboards that wrapped right around the structure, and extended so deep there was room to hold several leather lounges and an entire dining suite. The railings had all been painted white and many were dripping with wisteria, small Chinese lanterns hanging at random intervals between tinkling chimes and fairy lights above. There was a wide set of stairs in the centre of the veranda leading down to the rolling green lawn, and beyond that a magnificent view that included the lush rainforest in the foreground and hazy valleys that dipped and dived as far as the eye could see.
At one end of the lawn, Roxy spotted part of the tall timber building she had noticed when she drove up, and at the other end an old shed on stilts with a wide timber deck that was strewn with party lights. A pebble pathway led back from the shed to a smaller set of stairs on the east side of the veranda that appeared to lead directly to the bar inside.
To the left of the main staircase sat a long wooden dining table, cluttered with dripping candles and what looked like detritus from the previous night—empty beer bottles, wine glasses, an old cheese platter and several ashtrays full to overflowing.
Annika had now positioned herself on one of the leather lounges, her long legs spread out in front of her, her little dog coiled into a ball beside her.
Roxy waved a hand to the view and said, “I’d tell you it was breathtaking, but you don’t need ‘stupid city folk’ to state the bleeding obvious.”
Annika looked up at her and was about to say something then appeared to change her mind. She smiled, her features softening a little. “I’ll drink to that.” She held her glass high.
Roxy held her own glass up. “Cheers,” she replied, wondering if this was a truce of sorts, or if they were just toasting the end of round one.