Mother Undone — Part Nine
A Psychological Thriller That Explores the Dark Side of Motherhood
The story so far…
Johanna, a woman haunted by guilt following the death of her children decides to make a fresh start in a new city in a house inherited from her grandmother. Later, she discovers that one of Australia’s most famous poisoners, Martha Needle, used to live there.
Together with her new friend, Kate, Johanna decides to fulfill a long held dream and write a book about Martha Needle, not realising what memories might resurface and unsettle her…
I entered the Boondarra Cemetery gate at the top of the hill. Below me lay a giant Persian carpet of headstones, crypts and memorial walls dotted with tiny gardens containing bright-coloured flowers.
Kate wanted to include a moody, emotional scene in our book about the real-life disinterment of the bodies of Martha’s children and begged me to visit their grave for some on-ground research. Reluctantly, I’d agreed.
But how would I ever find Martha’s family plot in this maze? I spied an electronic map on the front wall of the reception building and punched in the surname Needle. Seconds later, the screen informed me that Martha’s husband Henry and her children — Mabel, May and Elsie — were buried together in the same grave in the Church of England section of the cemetery.
I set off down the hill in what I hoped was the right direction but, after twenty minutes of fruitless searching, was ready to give up. I stumbled as the heel of my boot punctured a hole in a brittle slab of ancient bitumen worn thin by a century of weathering and the steady pounding of thousands of feet.
As I righted myself, I noticed a plot of earth with no headstone. I checked the photograph of the Needle family grave in Millie’s book. I’d found it.
This plain, bare rectangle of compacted earth was the only physical evidence of Martha Needle’s murdered family. Three little children slept below with their father, all dead for over a hundred years.
I thrust my hands into the pockets of my coat and drew it closer around my body. Despite bursts of sunshine and patches of blue sky, a cold wind gusted and a bank of slate-coloured clouds reared threateningly on the horizon.
Why had I let Kate talk me into coming here?
But how could she know it would force me to remember what I was trying so hard to forget?
BEFORE
On a warm, spring night, three days after my twenty-fifth birthday, I emerged from the London Underground and crossed Waterloo Bridge to Southbank. I was on my way to a party, hosted by a young, up-and-coming opera singer who’d featured in the latest edition of the magazine I worked for.
The tepid, twilight air smelt of perfume, curry and cigarette smoke and rang with the laughter of diners at pavement cafes. I dropped a two-pound coin into the hat of a busker singing American Pie, dodged a gaggle of teenaged skateboarders and weaved through an obstacle course of amateur photographers waiting to catch the perfect shot of the River Thames. An unexpected frisson of excitement ran through my body, as though the hordes of people out and about had infected the air with joyful anticipation and I’d somehow caught it.
My parents, born and raised in Australia, moved to England in the nineteen-eighties after my father secured tenure at a minor university in a quaint, picturesque town in the northwest of England. I was sixteen when my father died of cancer three years later. Within a year, my mother — heartbroken and inconsolable — collapsed to the floor while making dinner one evening, the shadow of a smile on her lips. I always wondered if she had been thinking of my father just before it happened.
My parents’ estate left me financially comfortable so I moved to London after finishing my A levels and rented a small flat in West Hampstead. Five years later, I graduated with a BA (Hons) in Journalism and found work at a local rag called London Calling.
I walked the one-and-a-half kilometres from Southbank to the party at Walcot Square. Trance music blared from an open window and, with a delicious rush of energy, I bounded up the stairs two at a time and slipped through the open front door. Inside, I bumped into Benny from advertising whom I hugged, before excusing myself to get a drink from the makeshift bar set up against the wall.
I noticed the man because he reminded me of a former lover. Dark-haired and stocky, he wore a white t-shirt and jeans. He stood with his back to the wall, arms crossed, staring straight ahead while a slim woman with wavy, auburn hair spoke to his profile, her lips almost grazing his ear. The man raised his hand as though swatting away an insect, accidentally knocking the woman’s drink from her hand. He stalked away, throwing me a brief glance as he left the room.
A click sounded in my brain when he re-entered five minutes later. The redhead was nowhere to be seen. I gulped my champagne and weaved my way towards him.
“Hi!” I said holding up my half-empty glass to toast him.
“Hi yourself,” the stocky stranger said, his dark eyes meeting mine.
I tried to place his accent. “Canadian?”
“No,” he said broadening the ‘o’. “Guess?”
I played along. “I know! You’re a Kiwi!” He looked so annoyed, I burst out laughing. “I’m kidding. I know you’re an Aussie. Well, I should because I’m one too… sort of.”
He still looked morose. “You don’t sound like one.”
“Well, I wouldn’t. My parents came to England to live when I was thirteen. I was raised here, hence the accent.”
The man looked at me, more interested this time.
“Are you here on your own?” I asked innocently, looking around the room for the redhead. I loved that about parties. You could come up with every corny cliche known to womankind and still get away with it.
He grimaced. “Well… no, actually. I came with someone.” He glanced at the door. “But she seems to have disappeared. How about you?”
I came up with a quick story. “Just me. I was supposed to be bringing someone, but he decided to stay in and watch the football.”
“He must be mad. I’m Stuart — Stuart Fletcher.” The man smiled and put out his hand.
I took it, transfixed. How could one, simple facial movement transform a face from handsome to spectacular? I fell promptly in lust. “I’m Johanna. Cheers!”
This time we both raised our glasses.
The rest of the party was a blur. Later, in bed, I started to ask him what the redhead at the party had said to annoy him. Instead of answering, he thrust his face between my legs and I forgot everything except the tiny button of lascivious flesh that surged and throbbed beneath his tongue.
The next morning, I woke early with a headache, the man from last night asleep beside me. My insides rose and somersaulted as I stroked his stubbled cheek and caressed the lobes of his ears with a tenderness that made me tremble.
I slipped out of bed. I couldn’t be here when he woke. One-night stands had never worked for me. Even if I saw them again, it wasn’t the same. Once the thrill of the chase had ebbed, once they were sure they had me, men became cocky or casual or humdrum — or all three at once. It was much safer if I left Stuart Fletcher a note and never saw him again.
I found a pen in my handbag and scribbled on the back of a crumpled restaurant flyer: Thank you for a beautiful evening.
I read the note through once more. It would do… nice, simple, expecting nothing. I signed it, Johanna, folded it in half and placed it on the pillow. He’d find it when he woke up.
In the days following, every time the ‘phone rang, I jumped, my heart sinking when it wasn’t Stuart. I told myself it couldn’t be him anyway because I didn’t leave my number. But, if he wanted, he’d have found it out, wouldn’t he? All he had to do was ask someone from the party.
I was so desperate to see Stuart Fletcher again, I even called the opera singer who said she’d never met him before, that he’d come as a guest of her make-up girl, the red-head who’d argued with him the night of the party.
So I turned my misery inwards, lecturing myself on the transience of one-night stands; that only lovesick, deluded tragics ever believed they led to something more. I relived the glorious, bitter-sweet memories of Stuart’s kisses, his fingers on my face, my breasts and between my legs. I downed an entire bottle of red wine and faced the awful truth: I’d fallen hopelessly, convincingly and irretrievably into the agony of love.
“Are you avoiding me?” Stuart asked five days later on the telephone. “None of the people I asked could give me your number.”
Warmth spread throughout my body, my heart drummed. “How did you find me?” I asked, trying to contain the grin spreading across my face.
“Contacts — and I’m pretty persistent.”
I exhaled. “I’m glad.”
Three months later, Stuart received news of his promotion as Head of Global Sales, which meant transferring back to his bank’s head office in Sydney, Australia. I jumped at the chance to return to my country of birth. I was certain to get steady work in Australia. Until then, there was always freelancing.
It was the best year of my life. We lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Woolloomooloo with white walls, floor-to-ceiling windows and an easterly view across the bay to Potts Point. The rent took a large chunk of our income but we were both working — Stuart in his new position and me as a features writer for the Morning Herald’s weekend magazine.
Sometimes days would pass before we had dinner together but our weekends were sacrosanct: breakfast at Bondi or Watson’s Bay on Saturday, croissants and coffee in bed on Sunday. It was a hectic, hedonistic life; we dedicated ourselves to the gods of work, bars, restaurants and sex.
I didn’t want it to end. At the back of my mind, I knew there’d come a time when we’d have to stop and make some decisions about the future but, right now, I was enjoying my own personal slice of heaven.
“What about getting married?” Stuart dropped it as casually as he might ask if I wanted fish and chips on a Sunday night. We were having dinner at Maria’s Cucina, one of our regular haunts.
Excitement and alarm surged in equal measure. But we’re doing great as we are, I thought. Getting married might change all that. What if Stuart wanted to move to a house in the ‘burbs? What if he wanted kids? Was I ready for that?
Stuart took my left hand and stroked it. “Such beautiful hands,” he murmured. “I love the feeling of those fingers wrapped around my cock.”
I giggled and tried to pull my hand away but he held it fast while his other hand reached inside his pocket. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“I was wondering how one of them might look with a diamond — ”
I gasped as he opened a small black box and removed a simple, yellow-gold two-carat diamond solitaire and placed it on my ring finger. It fit perfectly. Tears rushed to my eyes. “You planned this.”
“Well?” He was staring at me, dark eyes wide, his head cocked to one side like a loveable cocker spaniel.
“Really? You want to get married?”
“There’s nothing I want more.”
“Then the answer’s Yes.”
We stretched our necks across the table and kissed amidst a burst of clapping and cheering from the regulars.
To be continued…
