‘Don’t you feel bad?’ she said to Vid. ‘At all?’
Vid shrugged his big shoulders. He steered with his fingers barely touching the bottom of the wheel. ‘I feel sad that he died alone, but you know, what’s done is done, and the man spat at our beautiful Dakota!’
‘He didn’t spit at me,’ said Dakota. ‘He just spat on the ground when he saw me. I made him feel like spitting.’
‘That makes me feel like killing the man,’ said Vid. His fingers flexed on the wheel.
‘He’s already very, very dead,’ said Tiffany. She thought of the stench that had hit her when Oliver opened the door. She’d known straight away. ‘I just feel …’
‘You feel regret,’ said Dakota in a flat voice, from the back seat.
Tiffany turned again quickly. It was the sort of remark that Dakota used to make all the time, testing her vocabulary, testing out ideas, trying to work out exactly how the world worked.
‘I do feel regret,’ said Tiffany, eager to chat, to have one of those conversations she used to have all the time with Dakota, where she was always left amazed and delighted by her daughter’s quirky, clever observations, but Dakota just kept staring out the window, her jaw set, almost as if she were angry, and after a moment Tiffany gave up and faced the other way.
Vid talked for the rest of the drive about a new Japanese restaurant some clients of his had been talking about which served the best tempura in Sydney, possibly the world, possibly the universe.
‘Here we are!’ said Vid as they approached a giant set of iron gates. ‘Look at your new school, Dakota!’
Tiffany turned to smile at Dakota, but Dakota had her eyes closed, and she was letting her forehead bump quite hard against the window, as if she’d passed out.
‘Dakota!’ said Tiffany sharply.
‘What?’ Dakota opened her eyes.
‘Look!’ said Tiffany. She made a gesture at the surroundings. ‘What do you think?’
‘It’s nice,’ said Dakota.
‘Nice?!’ said Tiffany. ‘Nice?’ She looked at the lush, green fields. The imposing buildings. There was a massive sports arena in the distance that looked like the freaking Colosseum. ‘It’s like Downton friggin’ Abbey.’
Vid wound down his window a fraction. ‘Smell that?’
‘What?’ Tiffany sniffed. Some sort of fertiliser? Damp earth?
‘The smell of money.’ He rubbed his fingertips together. He had the same look of satisfaction as when he walked into an opulent hotel foyer. It was all just fun to him. He had the money. He could afford the best. So he’d buy the best and take pleasure in it. His relationship with money was completely uncomplicated.
Tiffany thought of her own high school: a cheerful, graffitied concrete jungle out in the western suburbs. Did the girls here smoke ciggies in the toilets? Maybe they did lines of excellent-grade coke in marble bathrooms.
Vid parked in a car park rapidly filling with shimmering luxury cars. Tiffany automatically curled her lip at the sight of all those cars. It was a habit left over from her childhood, when her family had sniffed at wealthy people as if there were something unsavoury and immoral about them. She still did it, even though her car was just as luxurious, even though she’d been the one to buy this car, with money she’d freaking well earned.
The feeling didn’t abate as the parents and their daughters were led into a magnificent hall. The smell of good perfume and cologne filled the air as dads in their suits and ties, and mums in effortlessly casually chic spring outfits, who obviously had older daughters at the school because they all knew each other, traded cosy, chummy, entitled rich-people remarks. ‘How was Japan?’ ‘Great! How was Aspen?’ ‘Well, you know the children had never been to Athens before, so …’
‘Snap!’ A middle-aged woman with dark curly hair sat down next to Tiffany and pointed at their matching Stella McCartney silk skirts. She was wearing a white cardigan exactly like the one Tiffany had been looking for in Dakota’s drawer.
‘Got mine on sale.’ The woman leaned forward and put her hand over her mouth. ‘Forty per cent off.’
‘Fifty per cent off,’ whispered back Tiffany. An outright lie. She’d paid full price, but life was a competition and she knew non-working wives of wealthy men loved to talk about how they’d saved by bargain-shopping for designer clothes. It was their contribution to the household finances.
‘Dammit!’ The woman laughed nicely which made Tiffany wish she’d told the truth. ‘I’m Lisa,’ she said. ‘Are you new to the school?’