direction her life had taken? Probably not. But it had been a tipping point, and the tide of human history was often turned by one vain or stupid act. Corinne’s behaviour was driven by a self-serving obsession Meredith still had trouble understanding.
Without Corinne, Sanctified Soul had lacked that one voice—that glorious, angelic, soaring top note—that raised them from the ranks of the mortal to a choir of heavenly angels. The most galling thing was that Corinne had known it and had campaigned to be given most of the solos. They had sung at Carols by Candlelight in the Domain one Christmas and Sanctified Soul, led by the tiny ethereal figure in the white satin pantsuit, complete with feathery halo, had been the stellar attraction.
‘There’s a star in the East on Christmas morn,’ Corinne had sung, her voice ringing like a church bell across frozen fields.
‘Rise up, shepherd, and follow,’ they had replied in stirring, harmonious unison.
On that night at the Athenaeum when Corinne didn’t show, Meredith had given herself the solo in ‘Rain On Me’. One tiny uncivilised corner of her soul had hoped that she might eclipse Corinne and be noticed by Roscoe Fortune as the star on the top of the tree. They had taken their places on stage, without Corinne, and sung two numbers beautifully, until Meredith stepped forward for her solo in the light of the follow-spot:
‘Showers of sadness cloud my soul.
When the sun comes out,
I look for the rainbow.
When night turns to day,
I long for—’
What? Meredith remembered the stark, horrifying moment as if it were yesterday. Was yesterday the word she was searching for? Or was it today, another day, bygone days or—Jesus help her—hip, hip hooray? She had faltered in that instant. Slowed, then stopped until the auditorium was silent and all she could hear was the rustling of scorched-almond packaging, and her heart, fluttering like one of the pigeons under the eaves. The performance had been a fiasco. The only thing that made it bearable was that Roscoe Fortune hadn’t turned up either. Meredith had stopped to stuff her appalling purple gospel robe into a bin in Collins Street as she ran out of the theatre.
When she heard, barely a month later, that Corinne had moved to Sydney and was being represented by the very same Mr Fortune, she saw the whole scenario for what it was—professional sabotage. Corinne hadn’t been in a life-threatening coma, nor was she actually dead, so she had no excuse that would mollify Meredith. And Meredith had never, ever, in all the years since, asked for an explanation from her. She didn’t want to hear one, and it would be the same tonight.
The likes of the RoadMaster Royale roadshow had rarely been seen in Double Bay. It wasn’t so much the size of the unit that affronted the well-heeled inhabitants of postcode 2028—they were used to seeing giant cement mixers, cranes and pile-drivers in their winding, hilly streets. Anonymous Hong Kong bankers and home-loan moguls regularly hired massive mechanical hitmen to muscle in on a view of Sydney Harbour.
It wasn’t that the tackiness of the paint job on the van particularly offended them either—Double Bay was Tacky Paint Job Central. If you ordered a coffee at a café in Cross Street, it would only be a matter of time before you spied a matron in a headscarf who was delusional enough to believe that, if she applied her Chanel make-up with a trowel, no-one would notice the three-day-old facelift scars weeping into the collar of her Valentino jacket.
However, what did give passers-by pause for thought was the sheer audacity of the driver who crawled around up and down Bay Street in the massive rig while a procession of luxury European cars stuck behind it honked their disapproval. After some time two women were observed jumping on board toting bags from Cosmopolitan Shoes, a glossy white cake box and a bunch of creamy tea-roses. By the time the interloper (the Victorian numberplates were the subject of much scathing comment) had moved off, there were at least three locals who were now running late to pick up their daughters from Piano, Ballet and Mandarin.
Bang on 6 pm, after casing the front of the house—a massive three-storey cream rendered pile surrounded by a high fence and screened by fig trees—Nina squeezed the vehicle up a skinny back lane. Annie was reminded of how she used to pull her stretch jeans over her hips with a coat hanger in the zipper. On