Mrs Vickers was watching the six o’clock news, as she did every night, while sipping a Guinness and lemonade shandy. She liked the reader, Marcus Howell, whose deep voice was the same as that of her ex-husband. Howell was reporting about the night before, how a woman was murdered on Orient St. She’d been found near dawn by a hospital warden who was walking home from a graveyard shift. She’d been stabbed twice in the chest and had yet to be identified but was estimated to be in her early twenties. No wallet, driver’s license, or phone had been discovered on her person. Anyone with information about the crime was urged to contact the authorities.
Mrs Vickers lived five blocks away from Orient St, in a Department of Housing terrace, for which she and her ex had become eligible after the birth of Desmond. Her son was now twenty-four years old and still lived upstairs in his childhood bedroom, which was papered with posters of cartoon characters from his favourite Disney shows. Years before, he’d decorated it with Christmas lights and tinsel and in the new year had refused to take them down. Now, they hung in dusty wreaths against the curtains, and the lights had long stopped winking on and off because Desmond never had enough money to buy batteries.
During the final news updates, Marcus Howell mentioned the murdered woman again, and live footage of Orient St filled the screen: a row of dilapidated one-story terraces, with a frowning female reporter talking into a microphone, and a bunch of kids crowded behind a crime scene barrier tape, pulling faces at the camera.
Once the weather report was over, she called up to Desmond to set the table. They always ate dinner together at seven o’clock while watching the latest episode of Neighbours. She drained her shandy, stood up and walked into the adjoining kitchen. Earlier, she’d prepared their dinner, fish fingers and crinkle cut chips, which they always ate on Wednesday nights.
Mrs Vickers was lifting the tray from the oven when she heard heavy footsteps on the stairs and the sound of an opening drawer. She placed the tray on the sideboard and spooned the food onto separate plates. She heard the clatter of forks and knives as Desmond placed them on the table in front of the TV set. The opening credits of Neighbours were flashing upon the screen as they both sat down to eat.
“I wonder what trouble Crystal’s going to get into tonight,” he said, picking up the remote. He turned the volume up. “She’s a bit unstable, don’t you think?”
Desmond had always been tall and strong for his age. He now stood at six foot three, with hands as big as saucepan lids. He’d been born twelve pounds, three ounces, a record that year at the Women’s Hospital. He’d had soft silky blond hair, like the down of a dove. But he’d refused the breast, preferring the bottle and the pacifier.
As they ate and watched the show, she noticed that there was a new mobile phone sitting on the table. “Where’d you get that?” she asked, shaking salt onto her fish.
“It’s mine,” he replied, not looking up from the telly.
“But where’d you get it?”
He shrugged and swallowed a mouthful of food. “The early bird gathers no moss.” He laughed and shook his head.
Lately, he’d been coming home with quite a few new things, a watch, a briefcase, a leather jacket that was too small. He worked for the dole at a nearby charity shop, sorting clothes and household goods. She thought that he’d bought it at a volunteer’s discount. But two weeks before, he’d arrived home on a motorbike, even though he didn’t have a license. He explained it away by telling her that he’d won it in a bet.
During the second ad break a news bulletin flashed upon the screen. Desmond automatically stood up and took his empty plate to the kitchen. The murdered woman had at last been identified: her named was Michelle Fellowes, 22, and she’d been a nurse at the local hospital. The warden who’d discovered her body was assisting the police with their inquiries.
“What time did you get in last night?” asked Mrs Vickers, bisecting a fish finger with her knife. After dinner Desmond usually walked down to a pub near the wharves, where he drank pale ale and played the pokies.
“I was in bed by ten—” Desmond returned to the table and sat down “—you heard me come in, didn’t you?”
She wasn’t sure if she’d heard the squeak of the screen door, or not. Besides, she’d taken two Mogadon before turning out all the lights at 9.30. Desmond could have easily come home the night before and then gone out again. Even the roar of his motorbike kicking over wouldn’t have roused her from her sleep.
They watched the rest of Neighbours and Desmond helped her clear the table. In the kitchen, as usual, she washed up and he dried.
When all the dishes were put away, he bowed and kissed her on the cheek. “How ‘bout a cuppa for my special girl?” he suggested and began filling the kettle.
The following morning, while Desmond volunteered at the charity shop, she switched the TV channel from Good Morning Australia to the 24-hour news. Another prime minister had just been deposed and a vote later in the day, or possibly tomorrow, would decide who would replace him. Seven prime ministers in the space of six years. No wonder the country was going down the toilet. After the sports update more news of the Orient St murder was reported from the studio: the witness who’d come forward was now a suspect, and the warden who’d discovered the body had been released without charge from custody. They did a live cross to the victim’s sobbing parents, who were standing outside their pale brick house in suburban Epping, surrounded by cameras and microphones. The middle-aged mother was hyperventilating and was too distraught to make a statement. In a halting voice, the father read from a piece of paper. “If anyone has any information . . . Our darling daughter . . . We just want to find out who . . .” His face suddenly crumpled, and he hung his head.
Mrs Vickers sighed. What a thing for a parent to go through. She got up to make a cup of tea and to take her hormone replacement therapy pill. When she and her ex-husband had first married, they’d both agreed that they’d wanted four children—two boys, and two girls. But after Desmond’s difficult birth, and all the other problems, the couple had had no choice but to forget their plan. The child had tested their patience and devotion in so many ways: wetting the bed until the age of eight; repeatedly biting his fellow school mates; stealing from teachers, and torturing cats with firecrackers. One day in primary school, he simply walked out of the classroom and disappeared for two days. The police were alerted, and a local search party scoured the nearby streets and parks. His father finally found him camping under the wharves, sharing a bottle of metho with two drunks. After Desmond was admitted to a psychiatric ward for observation, his father came home, packed his bags and—she found out later—fled to South Australia on an interstate bus.
After Mrs Vickers swallowed her pill, she opened the cutlery drawer to check on her knives. They all seemed to be there: the serrated, the carving, the filleting, the paring. A few weeks before, two steak knives had gone missing, but Desmond had insisted he’d accidentally left them behind at a community barbeque down by the bay. He was often losing things: his Centrelink password, his keys, his prescriptions from the doctor. The psychiatrist who’d observed her son all those years ago had diagnosed him as suffering from developmental problems—whatever that meant. After three nights in the ward, he was released back into her care. As a mother, she secretly believed they should have kept him in longer.
She’d once had a part time job, as short-order cook at a local cafe. But after Desmond’s stay in hospital, and after he’d been expelled from yet another primary school, she’d had no choice but to resign and survive on a single mother’s pension, while schooling him at home. The education department had sent the curriculum package every week, but it had always been a trial to persuade Desmond to sit at the dining table and do his sums, his spelling, his comprehension. “Why do I need to know all this stuff,” he’d often complained, “when I’ve got you?”
In the milk bar across the road, it was all anyone could talk about. Mrs Blunt believed the attacker may have been a random looney; Wally was convinced that it had been a robbery gone wrong; the widowed owner of the shop, Maria Vittorino, wondered if the woman had been involved in a love triangle. Mrs Vickers hovered near the freezers just inside the doorway, amidst the smell of ripening bananas and stale oranges. On Thursdays, she always cooked Irish stew for dinner, and she’d run out of potatoes. But it wasn’t worth a special trip to the supermarket, because every Saturday morning she and Desmond would wheel the trolley up the hill to Coles together and do the weekly shop. They’d established this routine many years before, soon after her husband had disappeared. Mother and son went to the supermarket as regularly as Christian families attended church. And she’d always buy Desmond an extra treat to eat on the way home—a Violet Crumble, or a Milky Bar.
As she slipped two potatoes into her string bag, she glimpsed the nearby stand of newspapers. She swiped up a copy of the Daily Telegraph and folded it in half. At the counter she obediently joined the chorus of customers speculating on the stabbing of poor Michele Fellowes, who’d only recently moved into the area.
“Terrible business, terrible, just terrible,” she murmured as she pocketed change from Maria Vittorino.
Mrs Vickers sat in her garden and glanced at the front page of the tabloid, where a portrait of the victim appeared—a pretty girl with shoulder-length hair the colour of honey, wide-set blue eyes, and wearing a mortar board graduation cap. She was struck by how much the girl looked like Crystal from Neighbours, with her dusting of freckles and dimpled right cheek.
She shifted in her seat and ran a hand through her hair. The garden was now in full bloom, thanks to Desmond’s care. Six months before, just inside the gate, he’d installed a metal arbour and had planted jasmine vines along the bottom that were now braiding up into a fragrant arch. Beside the fence he was growing her some parsley and rosemary, and clusters of mint to season their Sunday roasts.
Inside, she began preparing the Irish stew, cubing the lamb, and slicing the carrots. After mixing all the ingredients into the casserole pot, she turned the gas on low to let it simmer.
At 4.30, Desmond walked through the door, carrying an unopened packet of Duracell batteries.
He beamed and kissed her on the cheek. “How’s my Special Girl?” he asked, before disappearing upstairs to his room. Half an hour later, she walked into the courtyard garden to drop the vegetable scraps into the compost bin. When she glanced up, she saw the tangle of Christmas lights hanging from the curtain rod of his window, blinking on and off.
Just before six, she mixed her shandy and turned on the television. Marcus Howell reported that a new prime minister had just been voted in, and the deposed one had already vanished overseas. The second item updated the Orient St murder.
During a live cross to the scene of the crime, a male reporter declared that there was a new piece of evidence, that the victim may have also been sexually assaulted, with an item of her clothing currently being tested for DNA. Mrs Vickers suddenly remembered some unwashed clothes of Desmond’s still sitting on top of the washing machine.
In the laundry, she began going through the pockets of his blue track suit. In the pants she found a receipt from McDonalds for a quarter pounder, chips, and a large Coke, which had been purchased the morning before, at 3.16 am., when he was supposed to have been safely tucked up in bed. As she walked into the bathroom, she ripped it up, dropped it into the toilet, and flushed. Back in the laundry, she pushed Desmond’s clothes into the washing machine and added a full cup of bleach.
Just before 7pm., she called up to Desmond to come and set the table. As they sat down to watch Neighbours, she asked him if he ever liked to eat at McDonalds.
Desmond frowned and shook his head. “Why would I go to McDonalds?” he said, “when I’ve got you?”
She was about to ask him about the receipt in his pocket, but she didn’t want to upset him. Instead, they sat in silence, watching Crystal on the telly flash her boobs at the man who was living next door.
“I told you she was unstable,” said Desmond, wagging his head in dismay. “They really ought to lock her up.”
On Fridays, Mrs Vickers always vacuumed the entire house, even though no one ever visited, not since Desmond had been expelled from his last school, thirteen years before. Sometimes, charity workers or religious proselytizers knocked on the door, but if Desmond answered it, for some reason they never crossed the threshold—not even the eager, fresh-faced Mormons.
She lugged the Hoover up the stairs, plugged it into the hallway power point, and pushed it around her own bedroom, making sure to nudge it into the dust-trap corners. Next, the landing, around the telephone table. Close by was Desmond’s closed bedroom door, decorated with an old poster of the cartoon character, Yosemite Sam, who was standing bowlegged on a desert rock, pointing the barrels of two pistols straight at the viewer.
She raised her hand to the doorknob, but hesitated. She thought again about the missing steak knives, the mystery of the new mobile phone, the receipt from McDonalds, the newly bought batteries. What other surprises lay in wait for her on the other side of the door?
She told herself that she shouldn’t jump to conclusions. That her mind was playing tricks. That it was her Time of Life. Desmond may have had his problems in the past, but he’d never been violent—except for that business with the cats years ago.
She slowly backed away from his bedroom and dragged the Hoover down the stairs. In an hour’s time, he’d come bouncing through the door, kiss her on the cheek, and ask, “How’s my special girl?” Then he’d disappear upstairs to play video games. Later, she’d have her shandy and watch the news. And at seven sharp he’d appear and set the table, and they’d sit side by side in front of the telly to watch the next episode of Neighbours.
And tomorrow would be Saturday, and on Saturday they did the weekly shop together, and on Saturday nights they always eat Desmond’s favourite dish, home-made pizzas with garlic bread.
Mandy Sayer is an award-winning novelist and narrative non-fiction writer. Her honours include the Vogel Award (Mood Indigo), the National Biography Award, and the Australian Audio Book of the Year (Dreamtime Alice: A Memoir); the South Australian Premier’s Award for Non-Fiction, and The Age Book of the Year for Non-fiction (Velocity: A Memoir); and the Davitt Award for Young Adult Fiction (The Night has a Thousand Eyes). In 2021, she was the recipient of the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship, which supported her research and writing of Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters: Australia’s First Female Filmmaking Team (2022). Her work has been published in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Brazil, Japan, and China. She lives in Sydney with her husband, playwright and author, Louis Nowra. Her memoir, No Dancing in the Lift, will be published in September by Transit Lounge. Find more from Mandy at her website.
