Fall Girl (23 page)

I leave my room with plenty of time to spare. As I walk down the stairs I am aware of noise and movement: someone is in the shower and some of the bedroom doors are shut. I leave the house without speaking to anyone. I want this whole night to slow down so I can remember every moment.

I am conscious of walking down the hall, unfastening all the bolts on the front door and locking them again. On the way to the car I see a light flickering in the largest apple shed. There is movement down there, a dragging noise. For a moment I think I should ignore it and continue on my mission but instead I walk down the verge so the stones of the drive make no sound and do not scratch my patent leather heels. Through a chink in the door I see my father and Beau piling ropes and shovels and folding tarpaulins on to the back of a truck.

‘Della, go away. This is a secret,' says Beau, when he sees me at the door. He positions himself in front of a large crate and spreads his arms.

‘Oh well. I suppose the time has come,' my father says. ‘It's all right, Beaufort. Come in, my dear, come in. And shut the door behind you.'

When I step into the light, Beau whistles long and slow. ‘Hurly burly,' he says.

This is the cue for my father to say
what a girlie
and when he doesn't, I look up. He has paled, and his eyes are closed. He has almost collapsed back on the truck behind him and one hand has gone to his chest.

‘Dad,' I say, and I step towards him.

He opens his eyes and gives me a flat smile. ‘I'm fine, my dear,' he says. ‘You startled me for a moment, dressed like that. You are the image of your mother.'

I swallow. He is not dressed for manual labour: he is pressed and preened for going out, an old-man version of me, yet it's clear he isn't taking the Mercedes. I walk across the shed to the back of the truck. I open boxes and peer under tarpaulins.

‘Don't change the subject,' I say. ‘Ropes, pulleys, picks, shovels. Are you two planning a little grave-robbing?'

‘What an uncouth suggestion,' my father says.

‘We're treasure hunting,' says Beau.

I scan both their faces but neither is laughing. ‘Treasure hunting,' I say. ‘Right.'

I think: how can I get this equipment off them and take it away, without them noticing?

I think: is it legally possible to get someone, two people in fact, committed to an institution against their will? Or maybe I could just lock them in here for a few weeks and slide food in under the door?

But more than anything else, to my shame I think: how can I be lifted out of here? Levitation? Cyclone? Act of God? How could something just swoop down out of the sky and carry me away? I feel I am standing on the tracks and I can see the lights of the freight train bearing down upon us all and I doubt I have the strength to save everyone. And then I think: I am a coward.

‘No, dear. Don't sit. You'll crush your dress.' My father takes my arm and dusts my skirt, tugs the hem back into place.

‘It's the greatest job in the whole world,' says Beau. ‘It's going to make us millions and millions. We'll be famous.'

‘Famous,' I say.

‘Although notoriety is always something I have avoided,' my father says, ‘this job will be so monumental as to be worth sacrificing my anonymity. One might almost say that this is the job for which I have been saving my identity. I confess I haven't felt so alive since I was a small boy, travelling in a horse and buggy with your grandfather selling Ol' Doc Grayson's Magical Elixir good for bursitis, thrombitis, arthritis and anything that ails you at country fairs. Those were the days, my dear.'

‘We won't forget you Della,' says Beau. ‘We'll save you some jewels.'

‘How.' I am almost lost for words. ‘How could this happen?'

‘It was chance. Mere serendipity that led us to this. I was online, in a chatroom about early Victorian history. No particular reason, you see, just following my curiosity. I have found throughout my career that keeping an open mind and following a line of enquiry often leads to something remarkable. I remember in '65, when I first saw the emeralds. I knew nothing about jewellery as a young man. What young man does? Women's business, we thought it was.'

‘Dad. What happened in the chatroom?'

‘I'm just getting to that. That's how I met Marguerite McGuire and her brother.'

‘It's her brother who has the tattoo,' says Beau.

‘Of course, of course,' my father says. ‘Who would be so bestial as to tattoo a little girl? It would be an intolerable scar on such a beautiful woman.'

‘Is she a little girl? Or a beautiful woman?' I say.

‘She was once a little girl, but now she's a beautiful woman. That's what happens to little girls,' says Beau.

‘Dad. Perhaps you'd better start at the beginning.'

‘The beginning?' He chuckles. ‘The beginning was in Peru, where the pirate Benito Benita stole millions of dollars in gold and jewellery from a cathedral. The riches are beyond our imagination, Della. There was an entire altar made of silver, golden railings that ran the length of the aisle, bejewelled crowns that rested on the heads of statues of the saints.'

‘Right. And this pirate stole it,' I say. ‘What's the world coming to? Pirates have so little respect for the church these days.'

‘He's not a modern-day pirate,' says Beau. ‘He's dead. It was the 1790s. And it wasn't the church's gold originally. They stole it first, from the indigenous tribes. And then they killed them. The tribes, I mean.'

‘We would never steal anything that hadn't already been stolen,' says my father. ‘That would be theft.'

‘Well. That's fair enough then,' I say.

His face is flushed with excitement, his eyes are shining. I realise that it has been a long time since I've seen him so happy. ‘Oh our sympathies are with the pirate, no doubt. Poor Benito was set upon by the British Navy and he led them a merry dance, right along the southern coast of Australia. His ship began taking water. Imagine it, Della! Two majestic sailing ships in a terrific duel across raging seas! Benito knew he couldn't sail much further, that he was one or two days ahead of them at best. So he pulled in near Queenscliff. He buried the treasure in a cave and exploded the entrance with gunpowder. In 1798.'

‘Queenscliff. Only a couple of hours' drive from here,' I say. ‘Handy.'

‘This is all historical fact, Della,' my father says. ‘I have affirmed it from several sources. I've even got the journals from a very well-funded expedition from the 1930s that tried to uncover the treasure without success. The government doesn't want people to know, of course. Doesn't want them to descend upon Queenscliff, presumably, digging holes everywhere.'

Beau is pacing and wringing his hands like he has a fever. ‘This kind of thing happens Della. It really does,' he says. ‘I found out all about it on the internet. Back in 2007 some treasure hunters found five hundred million dollars of Spanish coins somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. From the wreck of a galleon. It was half a million silver coins. It happens all the time.'

‘All the time. And the tattoo?'

‘Benito was caught and hanged, but not before he tattooed a map of the location of the treasure on a cabin boy. That cabin boy grew up and moved to Tasmania.'

‘Right,' I say. ‘Tasmania.'

‘Where he proceeded to tattoo his first-born son with the self-same tattoo. And down the line it went, until it reached our friend Mal McGuire. Now brother and sister are here raising funds for an expedition to uncover the treasure.'

I close my eyes but when I open them again we are all still here, in the shed. ‘Funds. Dad, you don't have any funds.'

‘This is not a fly-by-night expedition. There are substantial costs, for excavators, surveyors and equipment, sonar imaging. And the living expenses of the McGuires. They have no source of income while we're working on this. Hotel bills. A car, so they can visit the site. Everything requires capital.'

‘You don't have any capital.'

‘We can't just stroll up with our shovels. If the authorities caught wind, we'd be handing the entire treasure over without so much as a finder's fee, probably back to Peru. The Peruvian Government is not the rightful owner. I doubt we could even negotiate with them. Since none of us speaks Spanish.'

‘Dad.'

‘We needed council uniforms, vehicles with government insignia, the right kind of paperwork and surveyors' documents. You can't just start digging on public land without a cover. We must have complete control of the treasure before the press release. It's been a tremendous undertaking.'

‘Dad.'

‘They drove a sharp bargain, the McGuires. I wanted a fifty-fifty split but settled for forty per cent, considering it is their family legacy. I'm very sensitive to the importance of family tradition. And I confess, Marguerite is quite beguiling.'

‘I bet she is.'

‘And quite a negotiator. I daresay I would have settled for a third. But this kind of discussion is ducks and drakes anyhow. Our share will be many, many millions.'

‘But Dad. You contributed the capital? Where did you get the money?'

‘I don't want Ruby bothered with this. What is an asset, if not a tool to build future assets? A great return always involves great risk.'

This is no longer a game. Of all the rules my father has taught us, the most important is that we all vote on every job. We decide everything together. I take his arm, and his face looks as tired as I have ever seen it, like he could just lie down on the floor of the shed right now and sleep. ‘You all thought my best days were behind me. Even you Della. But imagine the look in everyone's eyes when I unveil this. This risk is negligible. By the time Ruby hears of it, the title will be back safe in my hands. Don't worry my dear. I will look after everything.'

There are people who will lend money, yet they are not banks. They do not charge the official rate of interest. They don't require the same level of identification or security because they are confident in their ability to…ensure their interests are covered if the loan defaults. Their means are always unpleasant. That's how he raised the money. Cumberland Street.

I am sitting in my car around the corner from the Metcalf mansion. I am only slightly late. My father has become ill without anyone realising, not even me or Ruby. I should have noticed, instead of putting each little inconsistency down to age or mere absentmindedness. I am culpable. It is partly my fault that things have gone so far awry. For now I have done as much as I can: a quick phone call to the people my father owes so I know the details of the loan and when it is to be repaid, and I have extracted as many details about the McGuires as I could. I have made some calls to check their identities but I fear they will be long gone from their hotel. I thought the hardest part would be stopping my father from keeping his appointment this evening, but he was confused about the time or the day and was happy to be convinced to stay home.

Beau I sent on an errand of surveillance to the McGuires' hotel. I'll deal with him tomorrow, when I'll call an emergency family meeting to find a way out of this.

I take a few moments to compose myself, remembering my role. Remembering everything about me. I have bought new glasses for tonight; they are more elegant and suit my dress. I had feared it would be difficult to concentrate after speaking with my father about his treasure but it has actually made it easier, made me more determined. I have made the right decision, I know. I am focused, the result of decades of practice, I suppose. Everything else in my mind fades toward the edges.

Daniel answers the door and he is, amazingly, dishevelled. He looks like he's just woken up. His face is dark with a three-day shadow. He is wearing a tracksuit and T-shirt. His feet are in thongs and his hair is real bed-head, not stylists'. It is only when I see this that I realise I half-expected him to be wearing a tuxedo. If this was an Audrey Hepburn movie, he would be. My dress is now even more inappropriate but I do not care.

He does not mention my dress and he does not greet me or smile. ‘It's in here,' is all he says, and he turns his back on me at the door and walks up the hall to the room where I first met him less than two weeks ago.

I shut the front door behind me and follow, and I am reminded of our walk through the forest. Of watching him in front of me for all those thousands of paces, and of everything I thought about then. The clip of my heels is cushioned by the long runner. In the diningroom he sits down at the table where some paperwork is spread before him. He pushes an envelope across the table.

‘Quarter of a million,' he says. ‘As agreed.' Then he picks up his pen and continues working. I just stand there. My weight is even on my feet. My hands are folded. I have all night. Then I catch sight of movement out the window, a flash of white and bright orange in the corner of my eye. I look: this room faces the street, and at the end of the drive there is a white Telstra van parked across the driveway. A man wearing overalls and a fluorescent safety vest is placing traffic cones around the footpath, and signs that say:
Pedestrian detour. Men at work.
The back of the van is open.

I walk over to the window and peel back a curtain. There is no other movement in the street. ‘Are you having trouble with your broadband?' I say.

Daniel looks up and shakes his head. ‘Why?'

I peer out the window again. The workman is quite far away, but I know he will soon take a pneumatic drill out of the back of the van and there will be a god-awful noise. ‘There's a guy out there about to dig up the footpath across your drive. How will you get your car out?'

Daniel comes over then, and looks out the window. ‘Hell,' he says. ‘I'll be right back.'

I follow him to the door of the diningroom and watch him down the hall, down the drive. It will take him some time to speak with Sam. There will be arguments, paperwork to dig out, a supervisor to phone. When Daniel is out of sight, I head upstairs.