‘It really was very good,’ says Lucy. ‘She did an amazing job with those kids. Rodney Mason and Maggie Archer were incredible. They all clearly adored her. You should have seen the roses they gave her at the end. Just beautiful.’
The timer starts to beep and all three women jump. Amy and Lucy busy themselves with loading the trays of biscuit mixture into the oven.
Josie reaches for another muffin. As she chews, an unexpected image pops into her mind, of Rosalind Ryan in a stark white coffin, eyes open and seductive like the actress from American Beauty, surrounded with bouquets of blood-red roses. She laughs to herself, thinking that John Nicholson would slip quite nicely into the fawning Kevin Spacey role.
Chapter Eleven
Monday, 14 December, 8.41 am
Being back at Smithson High is completely disorienting. It’s not even called Smithson High anymore, a fact I am reminded of frequently due to someone’s eagerness to embrace the rebrand. The words Smithson Secondary College scream out at me from the signs directing us towards the various facilities, and there are stickers with the new logo adhered to all the bins. Wisps of the past are everywhere, but at the same time everything looks new. I’m half terrified that I will see a faded version of my former self running past with a group of childhood ghosts laughing and playing. I have only been back here twice since school finished. Once for Jacob’s memorial service, which still remains the single most difficult hour of my life, and once to arrest a kid I was chasing who had used the school as a shortcut to get to the lake. This time it’s different. This feels slow and bright and real. The heat crackles around us as we walk across the gravel car park, past the old flagpole with the rippling Australian flag and the set of classrooms that everyone used to call ‘The Sisters’.
‘Why are they called that?’ I remember asking my friend Janet, when we first came to the school. She always knew the answers to things because she had two older brothers.
‘Because,’ she said, rolling her eyes, ‘all their paint is peeling, like they’re taking their clothes off, and they’re a different colour at the bottom where it looks like skin. So all the boys say they look like slutty sisters with no undies on.’
Felix’s phone rings. He glances at the screen and says, ‘I need to get this, it’ll be quick.’
I nod and he wanders off. I watch a raven try to pull a burger wrapper out of a bin. Across the car park an overweight woman is struggling with something in her boot.
‘Okay, well, that’s a bit weird,’ Felix says, walking back.
‘What?’ I’m looking up at the old library. The former dark grey has recently been painted a thick rich cream but the same faded poster about the joy of reading is still on show in the window to the left of the door.
‘Rose bought that place outright about ten years ago.’
‘Really?’
‘Yep. No loan, just cold hard cash. She lived there for a few months and then rented it out until she moved back in just over four years ago.’
I kick at a crushed Coke can. ‘Well, maybe it’s not that weird when you consider who her dad is. I’m guessing he gave her the money for it. I mean, what would the place have cost back then? A hundred grand? One twenty?’
‘About one ten actually.’
I throw him a wry smile. ‘See.’
‘You’re like a Smithson property connoisseur, Gem.’
I give him a light kick on the shin. ‘She was nineteen then, so it must have been her dad’s money. We should find out if George Ryan gave all of his children a little kickstart like that.’
‘I still think it’s strange that she lived so frugally,’ says Felix.
‘She did have nice wine though,’ I remind him. ‘And that make-up. And the artwork.’
Another raven eyes us warily before marching over to its mate to join in the bin attack.
‘It doesn’t make sense, does it? I know her teaching salary wouldn’t have been much, but still.’
I like the way the light is cutting across Felix’s eyes, making them glow green. ‘I agree it’s odd,’ I say, picturing Rosalind sitting in the front row of our classes, her face pensive but her gaze playful whenever she caught me looking at her. I’d never been able to figure her out.
‘Stuff with money is always odd!’ Felix says it sunnily but I know that his family has had huge issues with money. His dad gambled away half the family fortune, leaving his mother with almost nothing. Then his wife, a dentist, was sued years ago when they lived in the UK, which led to them selling their house and moving here. I don’t know the details but Felix told me that they basically had to start over. He doesn’t like to talk about money, which suits me just fine. It’s never been a huge part of my life.
‘Let’s visit George Ryan again,’ Felix says. ‘Maybe he can fill in the blanks. Now let’s go see the principal.’
I nod. A strange shiver of familiarity runs through me as we walk past classrooms. Young faces peer at us from all angles. It’s 8.45 am and students are starting to arrive. They’ve updated the uniform since I left but it’s similar. Midnight blue jumper, a gold-and-blue-checked dress. I can remember the itchy pull of the synthetic fabric on my wrists and neck, the breezy freedom of the summer skirt.
‘Look,’ says Felix, pointing.
Stuck to the side of the brick wall outside the main office is a poster promoting Rosalind’s play.
‘“A modern day reimagining of Romeo and Juliet”,’ he reads. ‘Didn’t Baz Lurhmann already do that?’
I shush him and look at the poster, feeling a deep stab of sadness. It suddenly seems important that Rosalind got to see that first night of her play. Saw that it had all come together and got to stand back and watch the timeless story she loved so much play out. The poster is striking. Two shadowy profiles facing each other with bolts of lightning cutting between them. It strikes me as oddly dark and abstract considering Rosalind’s light and sunny Instagram images.
‘C’mon, let’s go,’ Felix says impatiently.
A trio of young girls walk towards us dressed in a uniform of denim cut-offs, thongs and singlet tops. They are a tumble of tanned limbs, lip gloss and long straggly hair. Short hair must be out, I think, absently running my hand through my shoulder-length tangles. All three have red eyes and the pinched look of grief.
‘Year twelves,’ I mutter, after they’ve passed. ‘They must have decided to meet here even though class is finished for the year.’
‘Yeah. They all look just like Maisie.’
I glance at Felix but his eyes are fixed straight ahead and I’m not quite sure what he is thinking. His daughters are a foreign concept to me; most of the time I can’t believe that they are real. He clears his throat and squares his shoulders.
I straighten too. John Nicholson is coming out of the main office, looking flustered, in a navy shirt and cream pants. His hair is thinner than I remember and his eyes sag a little to the sides. He still has the anxious gait that would have suited a woman far more than a man. His head bobs from side to side, and then he sees us and manages to seem relieved and terrified at once.
‘Gemma. Well. It’s been years. Well.’