When she arrived back from the supermarket, Jeanie put the majority of the money from the first roll into the freezing compartment of her little fridge behind the ice cube trays. Better not to carry so much around. She checked: it was invisible unless you were sitting on the floor, even with the freezer compartment open. Not in the Plan, but surely a good decision. She stood up. A bit dizzy. But she needed to check if her stash of rolls hidden behind the wheel arch was intact.
She stood outside the caravan surrounded by grey tree trunks and dusty leaves, all senses on hyper-alert. It was quiet except for the drone of a lawn mower some distance away and the ever present hum of insects and the squawking of birds. No sounds that shouldn’t be there. Nobody on the path. Nothing stirred. She grappled for the pouch and pulled it out. Relief flooded through her. Her eyes closed and she swayed on her feet. She needed sleep, desperate for some. She shoved the pouch back in its hidey-hole and went back inside to lie down on the couch-bed, knowing she should roll out her sleeping bag. No matter, she fell asleep as if drugged.
An hour later she surfaced, disoriented.
Oh.
Pete. The mental images formed, frightening in their intensity. The stairs. The cricket bat. She went over her plan, as she had done at every available moment over the past year. The drinking late in the evening, getting him up upstairs. Waiting for the alcohol to be absorbed. She opened her eyes and her recollection faded. Is that what happened? Or was she just obsessing about it all? Like she’d done for months. Could she really have intended to kill him? She let it play in her mind. Little details came back to her. The shadow of the net curtains on the bed. The gape in his pyjama bottoms so his penis was just visible. A moustache hair that went over his lower lip. But how could she have seen that? It was dark and, for heaven’s sake, he wasn’t wearing pyjamas. She shook her head. Somehow she felt compelled to keep going over it. Like it was very important to get it right. She was a murderer. A murderer. So foreign to what she knew about herself. Impossible. Except that it happened.
But she could breathe now. She looked around at her little sanctuary. Slowly but inexorably, that old feeling of having no way out was fading.
Food. She needed to eat some of the food she had bought even though she wasn’t hungry. A scrambled egg. That would do. And a piece of bread. She’d force down an orange too if she could.
She ate the makeshift dinner at the pull-out table, gazing into the tea tree behind the caravan. Canopy of tiny green leaves, black shadows below. A portrait in nature. Her portrait. Canopy of bright with dark beneath. So dark, it frightened her and she shifted her gaze. She had to get a grip.
But she couldn’t leave it alone. Again and again her mind went back to why she had to kill Pete, why she had to disappear. She had carried out living as Jeanette for more years than she wanted to admit, but living a lie was one thing and telling bald-face lies quite another. When questioned by police? People at the business? By Beau? She knew she couldn’t carry it off. Never. This realization had come months ago. Leaving no alternative.
Bed. She had to lay out the sleeping bag. She huddled on the couch with extra clothes over top and read her murder mystery. It was not cold; it was just reaction. She was unaware of the light fading until her book dropped from her sleeping hands. She crawled into her sleeping bag and fell into a restless doze.
Dawn woke her and with this awakening she accepted she was well within the Plan. This was the way through. Not that what she had done had hit her fully in her sleep-befuddled state. But the idea was taking root and she savoured it. This was her way out.
A shower. Wash away all sorts of things. The ablutions block. Stepping out of the little caravan, she realized she would once have called this a beautiful morning. Many years ago. Green canopy against a blue sky, no wind, the noisy silence of the bush. But within herself she felt nothing. It was an intellectual exercise to call it beautiful. She put her head down and headed straight for the ablution block. It had that new-concrete smell and an echo-y stillness inside. But the shower water was plentiful and hot. No towels yet. Damn, she was so forgetful. She dried herself on a t-shirt as best she could and went back for breakfast. It reminded her to get rid of the dye-stained towel full of hair bits shoved in the bottom of her backpack. She took it out and carefully shook out the hair in the woods behind the caravan. She washed it and hung it over a cupboard door to dry.
When would Pete’s body be discovered? Maybe a while yet. It’s not as if they had friends who would go over to the house. They’d had no real friends for a long time. His mother had visited until Beau left home, but she was gone now. Thank goodness. Jeanie could not have contemplated the Plan had she still been alive. Killing an only son of an elderly mother? Never. Which brought Beau back to mind, Pete’s son and only living relative, other than some aunties she had never met. She hoped Beau had not come home unexpectedly to find his father’s body. No, Beau hadn’t contacted them in over a year.
She didn’t want to go there. An old pain. She wrenched her mind from Beau the man to Beau the boy as she toasted some bread under the little gas grill. He had been such a sweet baby. When had it all gone wrong? Pete somehow just took over. Like she gave birth to a beautiful son and saw him into school then it was Pete’s turn? Mum wasn’t necessary any more? Maybe. Or was it when Jeanie started to fade. Leaving only Jeanette the hostess, the public face. The emptiness inside with nothing to give to a child.
Jeanie, named after her grandmother Jean from Scotland. Why did she consent to being renamed Jeanette? More sophisticated, more the wife Pete needed? So why didn’t Pete take a new more sophisticated name himself? Like becoming a Humphrey or an Ashley or even a George? A little bit of resentment appeared in the corner of her detachment. She pushed it down. Numb would do.
Jeanie changed into her zip off shorts, washed the pair of pyjamas from the plastic bag, her underwear and the black hippy-dress at the sink and hung the clothes on the line provided by the campground conveniently close to the shower block knowing they would be dry in no time in the early morning sunshine. She was still detached – but she needed to be so – in spite of being increasingly aware of the sights and smells of the bush. But there was stuff to do. Back to the Plan. She had to have more appropriate bedding. And a big towel or two. Silly not to just get on with it, but her whole being screamed to sit. Hide. Read, or drink tea, but essentially be retired from the world. Still, this disconnection from life was better than shaking and thinking the unthinkable. She probed the sore lip to bring her back to earth. It was doing well. Only a day or so more and it would be gone. She was good at estimating healing times.
Jeanie made her way down the main road of the seaside village after her half hour walk into town. Silly coming out at this time; it was getting towards midday and the heat was building. Sweat trickled between her breasts and soaked her forehead under the hat. This part of the coast was not in any way prepossessing. One of the reasons she had chosen it. Three shops of interest and one facility in the little town: the grocery shop she had discovered earlier, the branch of the department store where she could get bedding and a second-hand shop. The facility was a library. Books. And for free. There were rubbish bins placed helpfully all along the main street. She needed to get rid of the now dry but stained towel. These bins seemed a bit public.
She bought a lightweight duvet in one shop and two sheets at the grocery. The second-hand shop proved to be interesting. She needed a few more hippy-like dresses similar to the one she had on. She was getting used to the Rebecca White persona and relishing it, in a way. She bought three cotton skirts and several tops. They were a bit big, but that went with the scenario. And another pair of summer pyjamas. At the last minute, a white terrycloth bathrobe to wear over to the ablution block. She almost forgot the towels but she wanted new ones. Recycling only went so far. She found some cheap ones in the grocery. While rearranging her purchases to make carrying everything possible, she slipped the stained towel into an empty supermarket bag. When out in the street, she deposited the bag in one of the rubbish bins. Only then did she allow herself the treat of going into the library.
It was cool and quiet. Several people were there but no one spoke. Her kind of place. She was allowed two books as a guest. A problem. How could she get a card? But two books would do, and she could exchange them on her guest card when she’d read them. So be it. She lugged everything back to her caravan before the day became even hotter.
Opening the caravan door with her key, she realized she had forgotten the newspaper. How could she forget? What if Pete’s body had been discovered? She had to know. She ate a hasty meal, still eating by the clock instead of by hunger, and set off in the waning afternoon heat. The cicadas were screaming and soon little sweat rivulets were running down the inside of her dress. The life of air conditioned comfort in her old suburban house came briefly to mind and she had the first twinge of regret. Miniscule. She put it out of mind. She called into the campground office, just in case they had newspapers. They did, but the proprietor said she could have his if she wanted; he was finished with it. She took it with thanks.
Jeanie read it through, the paper spread out on the ground in the shade. Nothing. Not a mention. She went back and skimmed through once more. Zilch. But the exercise made her agitated. Agitation in the heat. Not a good combination.
Swim. A swim in the sea. No bathing togs. Never thought of it. The idea of going back into town was repelling in the extreme, but a walk and a paddle at the edge of the sea would cool her feet, at least. She put on her sunglasses and floppy hat and headed for the beach.
She started to walk, one foot splashed as the swell came close, the other foot on the wet sand. The heat of the sun hit her shoulders. Sun block. Another thing she didn’t have. Stupid sun block. Reluctantly, she headed back to the shade of the campground. Otherwise she would shortly resemble a poppy, the Flanders’s field variety. Rule number one of the Plan: never call attention to yourself.
The next morning, Jeanie took back the Carol Shields book she had finished late the previous night and substituted another from the same author. Clever writer. What she wanted. An author who understood people. After exhausting herself by staying up so late, and immersing herself in the story, she had slept well. A good five hours.
She remembered when Beau first let her sleep five hours. He must have been about three or four months old. Her breasts were dripping with milk by the time he wakened her, she recalled. But he was a greedy little thing. Pete found it all mildly disgusting. Probably why he never wanted another. Just Beau. Her beautiful boy. How would he react? His father dead and his mother missing; he probably wouldn’t find out unless the story was in the nationals. Last she’d heard, he had a job near Perth. He hadn’t contacted her in all the years. He only contacted Pete. She was non-existent in his life. Had been since he was six or so.
The next morning she spotted an old radio in the second hand shop window. She plugged it in, and tinny music issued forth. Five dollars. Back in the caravan, she placed it on the fold out table, now more or less permanently folded out, except when she needed clean underwear from the drawers underneath. Silly design. Otherwise her little caravan suited her. More than suited her; it was becoming a sanctuary.
The best part was when the day closed down. Jeanie made herself a little nest with cushions and cup of tea at the end of one of the bench seats where there was a good light for reading. There she could become immersed in other worlds, her radio on or off depending on what was playing. Sometimes she fell asleep, only awakening when becoming stiff or cold. So before settling to read, she put on her nightclothes and made up her bed at the other end of the caravan. It took thirty-two seconds, timed by the oversize clock above her head. Open the little compartment, pull out bottom sheet and spread it out. Pull out duvet overtop, then the pillows, close the compartment lid and the bed was made.
More than anything else, Jeanie was revelling in the freedom. No one telling her what to do, what to think, how to behave. No one judging her. No one.
During the day she became addicted to the radio news. Nothing. Wouldn’t Pete be found soon? Surely someone would notice the junk mail piling up? Something. It was driving her crazy.
She noticed a continuing tendency to hide from the world. Maybe because her caravan was so calming. Maybe because life was that bit more predictable in its vicinity. Predictable? Not quite right. Maybe life was changing to a way that suited her. Quiet suited her. Whatever, going into town was a necessity not a pleasure, always driven by food shopping or needing to exchange her library books. She hated being there. It was quite clear why: people. She didn’t want to talk to them; she didn’t want them to see her. People disturbed her. Anybody. Even children. Her heart beat increased as soon as she left the vicinity of her caravan; her back prickled as if being watched.
One morning she was waiting to cross the busy road in front of the grocery, holding library books in one hand and her shopping in the other, when a car backfired. Jeanie jumped as if shot, so startled the library books flew out of her hand and the shopping bag crashed to the pavement. Her heart, trapped within an inadequate cage, was bursting to be released. She sank to the pavement, scrabbling for the books, seeing that the new jar of marmalade within the shopping bag was fractured into a million pieces – glass and marmalade everywhere, over all the vegetables and the fresh bread. She couldn’t help it; tears flowed. A passing woman asked if she needed help and Jeanie shook her head, furiously wiping her eyes. But it propelled her to her feet. She put the bag of ruined groceries into the rubbish bin and walked back to re-purchase the lot. A sense of defeat settled over her. Her first tears in years. The thought penetrated the defeatism and was the one spark in the darkness within. Tears. A sort of normal response.
She stumbled around the little supermarket replacing what she had thrown out. Lettuce, carrots, tomatoes. She made herself eat a healthy diet. It was different when she was Jeanette. For at least a year she had had no appetite, but she couldn’t eat, couldn’t force food down and she not only became unhealthy but lost a lot of weight. Now, in spite of still lacking an appetite, she made sure it was good food that entered her body.
‘Pardon me,’ the older woman at the checkout said. ‘But didn’t I just put this same order through?’
Jeanie cleared her throat. Her voice was rusty with disuse. ‘I dropped it all,’ she managed to say. ‘Glass shards. From the marmalade.’
‘Oh, you poor dear,’ the woman said as she put through the last of it. ‘Look, if you’re walking, just remind me to double-bag it. Or get one of the reusable bags.’ She gestured to a rack of inexpensive green bags.
‘Ah… yes, please,’ Jeanie said. Not that any bag would have helped in the circumstances, but something about the genuine sympathy shown by this stranger touched her. It was the impetus she needed and thoughts of getting back on track with the Plan occupied her all the way home to the little caravan.
The next day she extracted the stamped, addressed envelope hidden in the waterproof money pack in the wheel arch. She extracted two sheets, almost identical. No date on the first, just the word “Saturday”. She scrunched it up without reading it and went outside with the lighter. She paused. Burning – bound to be smelled by some nosy parker. She went back inside and tore the sheet into tiny bits. These she soaked in a cup of water before taking it over to the ablution block and flushing the lot down the loo. Overkill, but she could be sure they would be gone.
The other sheet was identical except it was headed with the word “Tuesday”.
‘Dear Pete,’ she read in her own looping script.
I do hope this gets to you before you start to worry. I am perfectly OK. Nothing has happened to me physically. However, I have had time to think while away these past few days. I don’t know who I am anymore. Somehow I am out of sync with life. Out of sync with Beau and have been for years. Out of sync with you and ditto. Nothing makes any sense any more. I need to get my head straight before I decide what to do. Please do not worry about me.
Pete, I know you. And I know you will want me to come straight home. So I am taking some precautions so you will not find me. I am writing this at an airport and the kind woman sitting next to me is going to post this letter from Darwin, where she is going. Of course, I am not in Darwin and I will not be going there. So you can cross that one off the list you inevitably will make. Please, please just let me get my head together before doing anything. I need time and space and solitude. No, I am not going back to that hotel on Kangaroo Island where we honeymooned. So cross that one off too.
Please just let me be for a little while.
Jeanette
When had she become “Jeanette”? Years ago. Before Beau? No, definitely after. “Jeanie” wasn’t good enough any more. “Jeanette” had to be created, and it wasn’t just the name. The “hostess with the mostess”. A role she had played for all it was worth. So many people only knew her as Jeanette. With the designer clothes.
It took not inconsiderable courage to put into effect this next part of the Plan. It meant exposing herself again. Leaving her sanctuary. But the Plan was inviolate. She gritted her teeth and tucked the letter and its sealed envelope back into the backpack. Out came her foreign-tramper guise packed away in a bottom drawer: trainers and socks, long shorts and sleeveless t-shirt. She dug out the baseball cap and the sunglasses and packed the lot into the backpack. Ready for the morning.
She tossed and turned yet again and finally got up for a hot shower as soon as dawn lightened the sky. Still shaky and feeling rotten, she left the campground in her hippy dress and hat afraid if she delayed, she wouldn’t do it. She had contemplated changing into her backpacker’s gear in the caravan, but she wanted to have her hippy self completely separated from the itinerant tramper. She headed for the changing sheds once more. A suitably kitted out backpacker in big sunglasses walked with loping strides to the bus stop.
For so early in the morning there were an amazing number of people waited for the bus, but she managed to get a seat to herself by subterfuge. She rummaged in her backpack on the seat beside her during the time people came into the bus until the last one had found a seat. She didn’t want to have to talk about tramping. Not when she had never tramped in her life. She would have to play a very silly and ignorant tourist if questioned and she didn’t have the energy. She shut her eyes as soon as the coach started its run to the airport. The movement of the bus was soporific. She slept, awakening only when the coach stopped at the Gold Coast airport terminal.
It took a while to find out where she could post the letter. Too many people, all excitedly talking, looking forward to their journeys, clogging her way wherever she turned. Her mood lightened once she’d heard the clunk of the letter inside the post box. She was as cheerful as she had been since … she couldn’t remember the last time when she could describe her mood as cheerful. Now she was a bit silly on it. Oh dear. Daft woman must have forgotten to post the letter she had been given when she arrived into Darwin, and mailed it when she got home.
Jeanie realized she had smiled at her inner musings. Spontaneously.
One other thing to do while she was away. Jeanie found a shop that sold bathing togs and she paid too much for a demure one-piece in black. With a pink bow. That would have to go. Jeanie treated herself to a cup of good coffee and bought a sandwich for her trip back.
When she passed the campground office clad again in her hippy dress, the proprietor called out to her. ‘Want the paper today, Miss?’
‘Ta,’ she said. She winced. She had never ever used that term since talking baby talk to Beau. Her persona as “Rebecca White” was developing. It was one thing to act a persona but to have it doing things she hadn’t planned was somewhat disconcerting. She started to feel giddy again. The very idea of something taking her over. Must be the heat. She slowed her walk to a stroll and kept to the shady side of the path.
Again the newspaper was free of any reference to a Mr Peter Connor, nor to any home accidents much less murders. It had been some time now, and still nothing. Nothing. The worm of worry appeared in the forefront of her brain until the numbness strengthened once more. The day had exhausted her. Sleep, that’s all she wanted. On reflection, maybe she was not quite so dissociated as she had been. The Plan was nearly finished. The end of the Plan signalled unknown territory. She would have to think. Start living. Frightening.
Jeanie’s life took on a routine. Swim early in the morning and back for a hot shower. Breakfast. Laundry except when it rained; one day only, so far. Read book in the deep shade behind the caravan. Tea and biscuit. Read some more. Lunch. A lot of salads. She was never hungry but she ate her healthy meals, unfettered by likes and dislikes. Read. Walk to the sea and have another swim. Cool shower. Read in the shade with a cold drink. Make dinner and eat it. Walk around the unpopulated areas of the campground until it began to get dark. Close up the caravan and construct her little reading nest. Crack open her latest library book, maybe even finish it. Bed, after a high calcium drink, read some boring non-fiction and sleep, even if only for a couple of hours. Day after day with the only breaks being her replenishment of the library books and groceries. And gradually, so slowly she had to remind herself of what she was like at the beginning of her stay in the campground, she began to feel again. Not totally, but it seemed the numbing was lighter. Any negative emotions or anxieties about the future were interspersed with the smallest pleasure in the feel of the cool water on her skin, the sight of birds against the blue of the sky or the bittersweet taste of marmalade. Maybe she had started the process. The process of healing.