put Donald through hell! He could have been in Hollywood now, making movies, if she hadn’t been so selfish. All that effort . . . for fucking what? Selling French spatulas to bored housewives? Don’s missed out on a lot of opportunities over the years.’
‘You still see Donald?’
‘We’re in the same business. Hard not to. I’ve caught up with him a few times.’ Corinne sniffed and pinched at her nose.
There was no doubt about it, thought Annie, when it came to drinking Corinne was punching well above her minuscule weight. Perhaps there was an intriguing explanation for her frequent sojourns to her fragrant upstairs bathroom. Nina was face down on the table now, and breathing like a draughthorse with a chaff bag over its head.
‘It sounds like you’ve forgiven him for trying to rape you.’ A blast of icy water had defogged Annie’s brain. She was coolly surveying the crime scene. ‘That’s very big of you.’
‘All that was twenty years ago. We’ve spoken about it. He’s apologised. We were different people then.’
‘But you’re still furious with Meredith? Sorry, I don’t get it.’
Corinne turned, her pupils two glittering pinpricks in the taut, pale canvas of her face. ‘She’s so high and mighty, as if she thinks she’s better than everyone else. Taking the moral high ground. She was always like that and she hasn’t changed. I saw her tonight pawing my things like some fucking know-all from Antiques Roadshow. I know what she was thinking.’
‘What was she thinking?’
‘That I don’t deserve all this!’ Corinne flung her arm to the ceiling. ‘That I must have fucked my way to where I am. That I wasted my life on something stupid and inconsequential.’ Corinne downed the contents of her glass. ‘That’s what everyone thinks, apparently.’
‘And have you?’
‘You’re in real estate, you’re forty, you’re single. You tell me how our lives get wasted on meaningless shit.’
‘You’re pissed, Corinne.’
‘Oh, truly! Why don’t you all just piss off.’ Corinne turned her back and swiped the bottle from the table. Annie shook Nina’s shoulders.
‘Come on, Nina, sweetie. We’re going.’
Nina lifted her head. Straw-blonde hair was sticking out like the stuffing from a scarecrow. A string of saliva dangled from the corner of her open mouth to the sleeve of her cotton shirt. ‘Huh?’
Annie hooked her hands under Nina’s armpits and heaved her to her feet. As she steered Nina towards the door Corinne followed on spindly heels that peck, peck, pecked on the floor tiles. She would have the final word: that was part of her contract with the world.
‘You might be content with the way things have turned out for you, but it’s not over for me. Corinne Jacobsen’s got plenty to say yet. You just watch.’
‘’Night, Corinne. Lovely to see you,’ Nina slurred and waved a floppy hand. ‘Thanks for having us.’
Annie, her foot on the bottom step of the RoadMaster, looked back to see stumps of candles flickering. She could make out Corinne, still restlessly pacing, a small black insect flitting among the flames.
It was just on dawn and the bats were coming home to roost in Corinne’s garden when Nina attempted to back the RoadMaster through the wrought-iron gates. She had an award-winning hangover. The pressure behind her eyes made her head feel like an overinflated basketball.
Annie was in the laneway, feebly calling directions in between leaning against the fence to cool her forehead on the sandstone blocks. It was while she was picking grit out of her eyebrows that the corner of the van collected a pillar and sent a carved stone gargoyle crashing to the ground. Nina climbed from the front seat and they both stood surveying the pile of pink sandstone rubble.
‘Ah, stuff it!’ said Annie. ‘She won’t be up yet. Let’s just go—I’ll ring her later.’
‘Bloody hell, look at the van!’ Nina gasped as she saw one side of the aluminium had folded like tinfoil. Annie shrugged. There was nothing that could be done about it now. Another five minutes of manoeuvring and the van had cleared the lane-way and swung into the quiet street. With the tension of it all, Nina thought she might throw up on the steering wheel.
‘Navigate me to Centennial Park and we’ll stop there for the day and head off late this afternoon,’ directed Nina. Annie reached for the street directory and saw that Meredith had organised her corner of the cabin perfectly: the road maps were neatly stacked under her feet; the tourist brochures were tucked into the compartment by her side; the