Page 3 of Darling Girls

‘Did you hear that, Norah?’ Jessica cried on the way home. ‘Next time you’re going to jail! In the real world, you can’t use violence to deal with your feelings.’

‘Howdoyou deal with your feelings in the real world?’ Norah asked.

‘You bury them,’ Jessica replied. ‘Good and deep.’

It was a philosophy Jessica had always lived by. But a couple of weeks ago, Jessica had stumbled across an article which claimed that burying toxic feelings could cause cancer. Immediately Jessica decided she must be riddled with cancer. After all, no one repressed more toxic emotions than she did. The idea of a physical manifestation of her suffering held a perverse sort of appeal. She found herself visualising her insides, admiring the spoils.

‘You,’ she’d say to the tumour wrapped around her spleen, ‘were caused by that time I had to bail Norah out of jail for the four thousand five hundred and sixty-seventh time. And you,’ she’d say to the masses in her ovaries, ‘are the product of every time I had to worry about Alicia. And you,’ she’d say to the tumours dotted across her pancreas like confetti, ‘are the product of my childhood.’

She’d almost been disappointed when her doctor gave her a clean bill of health. All that repressed anger and nothing to show for it.

She’d been repressing anger about it ever since.

‘I hope I’m not calling at a bad time,’ the detective said. She sounded young and unthreatening and polite – which was something, Jessica supposed.

‘I have a few minutes,’ Jessica said. She put on her indicator to switch lanes. ‘What can I do for you?’

A learner driver pulled in front of Jessica, and she had to slam on the brakes to stop from hitting him. The mother waved in apology, and Jessica waved back, repressing her anger yet again.

‘It’s a little sensitive, to be honest,’ the detective said. ‘If you’re driving, it might be an idea to pull over.’

‘I’m not driving,’ Jessica lied. She had seventeen minutes to get where she was going – with no allowance for contingencies. She could listen and drive.

‘Good. I’m calling to ask for assistance with an investigation I’m working on.’

Jessica frowned. An investigation. Perhaps it would be like the time she was summoned for jury duty? A man was being tried for murder after strangling his wife in front of their three small children. Of course Jessica had been selected as a juror. A small, neat, thirty-something-year-old woman with honest brown eyes, scrupulous morals and tasteful nude flats – she’d been born for the role. Perhaps the judge had given this detective her name?

‘What are you investigating?’

‘I understand that you lived at Wild Meadows Farm back when it was a foster home in the 1990s?’

Jessica slammed on the brakes. A cacophony of horns sounded behind her.

Suddenly she understood why the detective had asked if she was driving.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine,’ Jessica squeaked. She pulled over to the side of the road, feeling strangely distant from her body.

‘As you may or may not have heard, Wild Meadows has recently been demolished to build a McDonald’s.’

Jessicahadheard. Even though she was now living in inner-city Melbourne, a two-hour drive – and another world – away from the country town where she grew up, her meticulous level of organisation in all aspects of her life meant she kept tabs on everything she needed to know – and quite a lot that she didn’t. She probably had a better idea of the goings-on in Port Agatha than most of the locals.

‘Well,’ the detective continued, ‘the excavators had to dig quite deep to make room for the car park, and . . . they uncovered something.’

Jessica thought she might vomit. She’d heard about these kinds of moments. One minute you’re living your life, caught up in trite little everyday stresses, the next you’re blindsided by a full-blown crisis. And on an otherwise regular Friday.

She started fossicking in her handbag.

‘I’m afraid that what I have to tell you is quite upsetting,’ the detective was saying. ‘Unfortunately there’s no way to sugarcoat it.’

Jessica’s fingers wrapped around the bottle of pills she’d tucked into the secret side pocket of her bag.

With two Valiums in the palm of her hand, she reached for her bottle of water.Thank goodness, she thought,for Mrs Montgomery-Squires.

‘What did you find?’ she asked the detective.

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