‘Hi, Janice, it’s Krystal. I can’t come in to work today, sorry. Coming down with something. I’m going to drop Jasper off and head back home. See you Monday.’
Krystal disconnected the call, glad that Janice hadn’t answered her phone and she could just leave a voicemail. It was raining and the temperature had dropped again, a retreat to winter weather, and the darkness of the clouds seemed to fill her small apartment and drag her mood down further. She couldn’t deal with Janice’s power suits and heels today, nor sorting endless lost property, printing out head lice warnings or collating permission slips for the swimming carnival. Some days, it was just all too hard.
She rugged up her boys in long fleecy pants and jumpers, and hustled them into school and day care before driving numbly back home. After flopping back into bed and staring at the wall for nearly an hour, she forced herself to get up. She made some instant noodles and ate them. Then her thoughts turned to vodka. It was nearly eleven o’clock. That wasn’t too bad, was it? Sure, pubs didn’t open before midday, but it wasn’t like she was going to drink all day. She wasn’t some kind of drunk.
‘Pull yourself together, Krystal.’ She took her bowl to the kitchen and washed it, then forced herself to turn away from the cupboard above the fridge where the alcohol was kept and do laundry instead. Forced herself to think of all the terrible things her mother used to do when she was drinking, of all the ways she let her children down.
She folded clothes and put them away. Put a batch of muffins into the oven for school lunches. Found the missing library books. Scrubbed the awful mouldy bits from around the bathroom taps. Threw away the odd socks that had been sitting in a pile in the laundry room for months. Made a shopping list.
‘Just be a good mum. That’s all you have to do.’
But, oh, the ghosts were haunting her today. The memories of Evan. Thoughts of Cordelia-Aurora and the Arthurs at that horrible party. Of being escorted out of The Tin Man.
She looked around the apartment. The only reason she and Evan had bought an apartment here in St Kilda was because they’d both been working in the restaurant nearby. It had no view, except of the walls of the neighbouring buildings. But she’d left the restaurant when she was six months pregnant with Jasper, and now the boys were getting bigger. They were so active. The walls had scuff marks from shoes and soccer balls, and their squeals and chatter ricocheted around the small space. Life was moving on without Evan.
Maybe she should move out to the suburbs. Evan’s life insurance had paid off the apartment and given her a little bit to put away. Moving further out would mean more space for the boys and a bit more money in the bank to play with.
She touched the flags that stretched across the window looking out onto the apartment block next door. They were made of rough jute and dyed in bright colours that cheered even the greyest of outlooks. She and Evan had bought them at a stall at the Queen Victoria Market one scorching hot summer’s day. She liked it when Evan was hot and flustered, red and sweating, without any of the traces of haughtiness that sometimes filtered through from his upbringing. He was just a limp, damp mess like the rest of society, eating ice cream and guzzling water from plastic bottles that were never cold enough.
There were so many memories here in this apartment. She’d already lost so much of Evan; she wasn’t sure she could lose this too.
Her dark mood swirled to anger. That ridiculous party last weekend had reignited her resentment at years of rejection by the Arthur family, especially Cordelia-Aurora, from the very first day they met.
Six months into their relationship, when Krystal was still only twenty-two years old, Evan had taken her to meet his family. She’d been anxious that his delay in introducing her had meant that he didn’t see a future for the two of them, but he assured her it was more to shield her from them.
‘They can be difficult,’ he’d said. ‘Especially my sister.’
‘She’s mad at you for leaving the firm.’
‘That, and other sibling stuff.’
The date was set for Christmas Day, possibly the worst day in the history of dating for a new addition to meet the family, but as Krystal didn’t have anywhere else to be and Evan felt compelled to see his parents, she insisted she go with him.
‘It has to be one day. Why not today?’ They were at her place – a tiny one-bedroom apartment above a Chinese takeaway, where the smell of fried onions and soy sauce clung permanently to the air-conditioning vents, and each afternoon before they left for work they heard Mrs Kravitz next door crying into her chicken and sweet corn soup as she watched the news. She was only young, still in her thirties, but had lost her husband six months ago after a short and vicious illness; they’d had no children, and Krystal couldn’t imagine anything worse.
‘Because I’d rather stay here with you,’ he said, his voice husky, kissing her nose and lowering the bedsheet to reveal her naked body and lay tiny kisses across her chest.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘How bad could it be?’
‘Bad, trust me,’ he said, inching his way down between her breasts.
He murmured, getting back to delighting in her body for the third time since coming home late from the restaurant. They were both always so wired from the intensity of service that it took them ages to come down. It didn’t matter though. They slept in late each day, rarely rising before midday, and lived their lives in the nocturnal hours.
‘Well, it’ll be a quick trip then,’ she said, and broke out into squeals of pleasure as his tongue traced her hip bone, and the next little while was spent most definitely not thinking about the Arthur family.
But Christmas Day awoke hot and angry, and Krystal and Evan endured the slow crawl down to the peninsula to the white-pillared home of his parents, which in the future she would come to think of as The White House and to dread visiting more than having her wisdom teeth out.
She’d worn a simple yellow dress with red sandals, and brushed her long hair till it was shiny and put it up in a high ponytail. She was bringing Ivy and Wyatt a fruit cake which she’d made herself, having looked up a recipe online and bought all the ingredients and a square baking tin, and burned herself on the boiling mixture. She’d smothered the cake with thick white icing because it had broken just a little when she’d flipped it out of the tin.
She’d been very proud of her cake, tying a silver ribbon around it and adding a decorative piece of holly on top and covering it carefully with a triple layer of cling wrap for the drive down.
‘You really don’t have to take them anything,’ Evan had said several times, looking anxious, and she’d assumed it was because he knew her cooking skills were limited. She’d taken it as a challenge to show him she could be thoughtful and clever and lovable.
‘I know, but I want to,’ she said.
Finally, he stopped trying to talk her out of it and simply kissed her on the forehead. ‘You’re so sweet.’
She knew Evan’s family were well off, but she was utterly thrown by the magnitude of wealth on display. The white pillars and walls of the house were blinding in the light and there were so many rounded layers it looked like a ghastly wedding cake. A heavily manicured lawn sparkled with tiny rainbows from invisible sprinklers in the ground that were sending out mists of water droplets. Evan parked alongside lush topiaries. Aside from the fountain in the centre of the circular driveway, all was silent.
Back in her mother’s fibro shack in the Dandenongs, Christmas Day hadn’t been a barrel of laughs, but it was anything but silent, with the throaty revs of motorbikes, her mother’s latest boyfriend’s tools hitting the concrete floor of the carport with loud clangs, music blaring from car speakers, clinking beer bottles, whining dogs and bursts of drunken laughter.
Evan put his arm around her shoulders, squeezing her to him, not saying a word but, she thought, able to sense her plummeting courage as her soft footsteps neared the house. It was Cordelia-Aurora who met them, just after Evan pushed open the front door. Not a moment after he’d called hello she was there, gliding across the tiled floor as though she didn’t even need to walk, but invisible servants just picked her up and carried her wherever she needed to go.
‘Evan, darling, you look too thin,’ she purred, kissing him on the cheek.
‘Hello to you too,’ he said, stiffly.
Krystal stood with a stupid smile plastered on her sweaty face, waiting for Evan’s big sister to acknowledge her, or at least glance in her direction, but Cordelia-Aurora’s eyes were locked firmly onto Evan.
‘How was the drive? Was it terrible?’ she asked him. Not even a flicker of an eye movement in Krystal’s direction.
By now, Krystal’s smile had waned and she could feel the corners of her mouth wanting to draw down hard. Her cheeks flared with the embarrassment of someone who’d brought a homemade cake to this freaking palace.
‘I’d like you to meet Krystal.’ Evan forced Cordelia-Aurora to look at Krystal.
Cordelia-Aurora sighed …
She sighed!
… and slid her eyes to Krystal’s, nodding at her.
‘It’s lovely to meet you,’ Krystal said, and thrust out her hand.
Cordelia-Aurora looked down, very slowly, as if considering whether or not to touch the thing that was hovering between them. Some kind of finishing school manners must have kicked in because she roused herself, took Krystal’s hand (though didn’t squeeze it), tilted her head and said, ‘Pleasure. Thank you for coming.’
Krystal held up her cake plate. ‘I made a cake to give to your parents.’
‘She’s worked so hard on it,’ Evan said, nodding, encouraging Cordelia-Aurora to play nice.
‘Oh, lovely,’ Cordelia-Aurora said, sounding genuinely pleased.
Krystal’s hopes soared. She’d done the right thing! All that sweating in her stuffy apartment and burns and stress had been worth it. Cordelia-Aurora held out her hands for the plate and Krystal proudly handed it over, then looked up at Evan, who winked at her.
Cordelia-Aurora turned on her heel for them to follow and spoke as she walked away. ‘The caterers have everything sorted for our lunch today but the staff have all just gone for their tea break so I’ll give this to them. They don’t expect anything fancy from us so this will be just the thing.’
Evan sucked in air between his teeth and reached for Krystal’s hand, squeezing it hard. Sorry.
She smiled at him. It’s fine! It’s nothing!
But it wasn’t nothing, and she knew then that Cordelia-Aurora was going to make trouble for her till the day she died.
She took her hand away from the flags at her apartment window. Cordelia-Aurora would make trouble for her till the day she died … or the day Evan did.
It was Cordelia-Aurora’s fault that Evan’s heart had been ripped out and given to someone else. Krystal never wanted to do it.
Could she sue Evan’s sister for emotional distress after she forced her to sign the consent forms? She laughed out loud. Imagine suing one of Melbourne’s elite legal families. It would be like trying to sue the Mafia! It was completely outrageous.
Except it wasn’t completely outrageous, was it?
There had to be another law firm in the city who would just love the chance to take down the Arthurs. She simply had to find them. She would throw herself into this vendetta – oh, what a delicious word – and forget all about the woman in the cafe who might, or might not, have her husband’s stolen heart. Instead, Cordelia-Aurora would pay, if not in money then certainly in reputation.
She found a list of injury claims lawyers in the city and phoned a few until she found Trentino Cossa, who could see her after lunch.
‘If he can’t help you, no one can,’ the receptionist chirped cheerfully. ‘He hasn’t lost a case in over three years.’
Her heart bursting with hope, Krystal pulled on a black skirt suit left over from her days at the restaurant – she was thrilled to find it still fitted – and paired it with a soft white blouse, pantihose and demure heels. She wanted to be taken seriously and to be respected as the grieving widow that she was.
She treated herself to a cab, not wanting to fuss with parking or deal with public transport in the rain. At the firm, the receptionist ushered her into Trentino Cossa’s office, which boasted a two-metre-long aquarium of colourful tropical fish.
‘Please, take a seat,’ Trentino said, eyeing her through his Buddy Holly glasses and gesturing to the plush leather chair opposite his desk. ‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs Arthur. I met your husband once or twice but knew him mostly by reputation. He was quite the young lawyer to watch. I know my partners would have been happy to entice him over into our firm if they could have.’
Krystal swallowed. That was a version of Evan she’d never met, but she was still touched. ‘Thank you.’
‘Please, tell me how I can help.’
She clutched her sweating hands together and told him everything that had happened at the hospital in Sydney, everything Cordelia-Aurora had said to her, the blackmail she’d threatened, how she’d taken advantage of Krystal’s shock and devastation, and Krystal’s distress at feeling forced into signing the donation papers. Trentino took plenty of handwritten notes, allowing her to talk. When she finished, he put his engraved silver pen down, lifted his stormy-grey eyes to hers and said, ‘You won’t win.’
His bluntness was like a slap in the face. She wondered if she’d heard him right, or indeed if he’d heard her correctly.
‘What do you mean?’ she said, trying to sound calm, curious even, as though what he’d said was worth a discussion.
‘Look, to be blunt, Mrs Arthur, there wouldn’t be a lawyer in Melbourne willing to take on a case against Cordelia-Aurora. The Arthur family are legal royalty in this city.’
‘Right,’ she said, hope buoying, because maybe there was still a chance that a law firm outside Melbourne would take on the case.
‘But even if you could take away that hurdle, I don’t think you have a leg to stand on. You were Evan’s next of kin and you signed the papers. A whole world of legal process surrounds organ donation, and hospitals have to ensure that everyone is informed before signing.’
Maybe she could sue the hospital?
‘But you wouldn’t get anywhere with the hospital either.’
She blinked back tears, ignoring the pain in her throat.
‘The courts wouldn’t look favourably on your situation. There would be a media storm around the case and the public wouldn’t be on your side. Even if by some miracle you did win the case, your name would be mud.’
She could put up with that. She’d do it for Evan. Evan deserved justice and this was how she could do it. This was how she could make what she’d done right.
‘No firm in their right mind would take this on a no-win no-fee basis, because the chances of winning are slim to none, so you’d be made to pay up front. The legal fees would bankrupt you while the Arthur family would simply find ways to keep stringing it out through the courts for years and years, which they’d legally be able to do, and it wouldn’t cost them a cent.’
‘Oh.’ She hadn’t thought of that.
‘My advice to you,’ he said, more gently this time, ‘is to take good care of the money you received from Evan’s life insurance payout, invest it wisely, get some counselling, enjoy your kids, live a good life, and try to move on.’
Rain slid down the cab’s window and the windscreen wipers thumped from side to side. She couldn’t process the depths of her disappointment that there was no way to make amends for what had happened to Evan.
Her thoughts flicked to Gabriella McPhee the way she imagined a former smoker’s mind must jump, unbidden, to cigarettes. She pulled out her phone to distract herself and went to Facebook to look up The Tin Man, as she’d done before, reading through posts, looking for clues about Gabriella’s life, looking for photos, looking for one of Gabriella where she might be able to see the top of the scar. Then she entered Gabriella’s name in the search function, wondering why she hadn’t done it before. And there was her profile, accompanied by a smiling photo of her with her three children – a boy and two girls. But also listed in the results was another account. Gabriella McPhee Heart Transplant.
Krystal’s pulse quickened. She clicked on the profile. Heart transplant 5 October 2017, Melbourne. Looking for donor family. There were a number of responses on the page, some as recent as this morning. It looked as though the profile had only been there for a few days – since Monday, when they’d met at the cafe. She read through the posts, her own heart in her throat, hoping someone wouldn’t say something that sounded convincing enough to cut Krystal out of the race. But mostly, there were only awful responses on the page.
Against God’s will …
Leave the dead in peace …
Greedy … you already got their heart, now you want their family too.
Zombie …
Zombie? Krystal gasped with disgust on Gabriella’s behalf. How could people be so horrible? Suddenly, she felt a wave of sympathy for Gabriella when all she’d felt before was weird jealousy, desperation and even anger. It wasn’t Gabriella’s fault that she had Evan’s heart. Well, Krystal thought she had Evan’s heart. There was no way of knowing for sure, but she still had this urgent need to meet her and find out somehow. For the first time that day, she felt like she was on the right path. She messaged Gabriella privately.
It’s me again. From the cafe. I don’t know what happened the other day with your dog; it was all very confusing. Can we meet? I have Fridays off. Is tomorrow any good? Krystal