Crystal Coffin (11 page)

Nikki's legs turned to jelly. The second door down the hall seemed twice the distance that it had before and her bags felt too heavy now for her to carry in one trip.

She dumped one case on her bed and turned to go back for the second when she saw a face staring at her through the door. It was a dusty portrait by Rembrandt, one that she'd never seen or heard of before, and from working in her mother's gallery she'd thought she knew them all.

This one was the head and shoulders of a grumpy Civic Guard, but she didn't bother going over for a closer look. She was tired, and copycat prints had never turned her on. But it did feel appropriate in a weird way, she thought, to have a guard outside her door, even if he was a little oily.

Returning from the hall, Nikki pushed her door closed with her foot and dumped her second bag beside her first on the ivory bedspread. Then she explored all the empty drawers and cupboards in her room. She packed her things away and freshened her hands and face in a tiny shower, room she found hidden inside a closet. She left her ribbons on, unsure if she'd be out again that night and circled the floor a few times, like a caged but tired tiger.

At least her room was cool, she realised. It was on the morning sun side of the house, but the colours helped too: ice-coloured drapes with sky tiebacks and ivory painted bed and sideboard. The cool polished floor boards looked more inviting than the warm padded bedspread and she kicked off her sandals and lay belly-down on it to soak the heat away from her body.

She rolled over and saw a ceiling fan hanging lifeless above her head, and she staggered up again on stiff legs to twist a knob beside the lights to click it to life. Then she got down on her belly again and stared at the timber boards, but she didn't see the cracks between them, only Thorna Maitland's face.

The baby would have dropped right off in a cool room like this, she thought.

Her baby brother would have too. Little Dommie hated the heat, but rock him on his belly, give him his little rubber teething cross to suck on and put him in a cool room and he'd be dreaming little baby dreams in minutes.

Her memories of Dommie were dim now, but never gone. It had been six years since she'd felt rocks against her face and stared down a gully to see a fireball engulf her father's battered Volvo — but it seemed longer. She could still see the face of her elder brother Marko against the window as he tried to get out, and hear her mother's screams as she attempted to get close to the flames to help them. She remembered it every day, and her fingers played with a hole in her left ear lobe, empty now, where a baby angel should have hung to remind her that their souls were at peace, even if there had been no bodies left to lay to rest.

She got up and paced the floor. Her feet found a white sheep-skin rug at the foot of her tall queen-sized bed and she flopped backwards, letting her toes play in the wool while she waited in vain for the fan to spin her world to a nicer place.

She hadn't thought to ask the old woman at the employment agency how old her employer's kids would be and she regretted that now. Thorna's Bobby and her Dommie looked exactly the same age.

She pushed her eyes closed with her palms. The pain wasn't buried. Sedation, medication, psychotherapists and psychologists had all failed.

The bed was soft, and the breeze beneath the fan hypnotic. She listened to the blades stirring hot air with their rhythmic hum, until the growling from her belly drowned the melody. She waited another hour, but she could still hear noises coming from the kitchen. Her empty stomach gurgled with acids churning, which urged her to the door.

The voices were louder as she opened it. There were three, and two of them were arguing over vegemite. She followed the conversation down the hall past the scowling portraits and found Thorna in the kitchen dumping rotten apples from a fruit tray into the rubbish. The kitchen sparkled now, all except the cold wood stove, which Thorna was reaching into.

‘Hello,' Nikki said.

Thorna looked up and frowned, then went back to fighting with the steak grill in the wood stove. It didn't want to come out.

Nikki saw a large plate and an empty glass upturned on the sink. Suds defied gravity halfway down the glass while the kids still had glasses of half full orange juice in front of plates of barely nibbled vegetables. No-one could make food look less appealing than a six year old Nikki thought, but that didn't stop her from drooling over the contents of their plates. Her stomach snarled and she wondered if part of that was because she hadn't been invited.

Thorna Maitland thumped the steak grill in the wood stove with her hand and yelped. She sucked on her fingertip and tried again to pull it out.

‘Need help?' Nikki asked.

‘I can manage.'

Nikki held her tongue still between her teeth and fought the urge to rap her fingernails on the counter.

At the other end, the noisy twins sat perched on two piles of packing cases. Their noses were almost level with their soggy vegetables and they patted their mashed potato flat like a mudcake, watching her, then they decorated the potato with squashed-up peas and argued about the sandwiches they'd each had at school that day.

‘It's bee poo,' the boy said. ‘Honey is bee pee and vegemite is bee poo that's been factry-ised.'

‘No it's not!' Tina said. ‘Mum, tell him vegemite's not bee poo that's been factry-ised!'

‘Not factry-ised,' she corrected. ‘Man-u-fact-ured. And vegemite is not bee poo that's been manufactured. Now be quiet. Eat your dinner.'

The grill tugged free with a clang and Thorna dunked it into steaming suds, put her hands into rubber gloves and scrubbed. Above her, clouds of night bugs tapped the window like cheering spectators at a circus.

‘See, I told ya,' Tina shouted.

‘Tina!' her mother scolded.

‘Well I did,' she said, poking her tongue out at her brother. ‘Told ya, told ya, told ya,' she sang.

‘Mum!' Alex whined.

‘Tina, stop teasing Alex. Eat your broccoli.'

‘Actually,' Nikki whispered, sliding to their end of the counter. ‘Vegemite is dried dinosaur blood.'

‘Cool,' said Alex.

‘It is not!' Tina said, turning her nose up.

‘What's your name?' Alex asked. ‘I forget.'

‘Nikki,' she said, grinning at them. ‘And it
is
blood.' She held up her fingers like Dracula drooling over his next victim. ‘They chop up the dinosaurs into iddy-biddy pieces and then they stick them in a roasting pot and cook them. Everything that drips out of them is boiled and boiled and boiled until it's all dry and that's vegemite.'

‘It is not,' Tina cried. ‘There's no such thing as dinosaurs.'

‘Is too,' said Alex. ‘They all got cooked.'

‘Did not.'

‘Did too.'

‘Did not.'

‘Did too.'

‘Well, all right,' Nikki said, aware that her boss was frowning again. ‘Maybe they don't use dinosaurs anymore. It's made from cows now. Ever heard of beef extract?'

‘Sure,' Alex said.

‘You have not,' said Tina.

‘All right, all right,' Thorna ordered. ‘Leave them to eat their dinner. It's hard enough getting them to bed in this heat without getting them so excited first.'

‘How's the baby?' Nikki said, wondering how she was ever going to get along. ‘Did he go down okay?'

‘Bobby,' Thorna said, glaring as if she'd just declared war, ‘is just fine.'

Nikki smiled on the inside, realising that even if rocking him on his belly had worked, the woman wouldn't admit it if you rolled her in dirty nappies and staked her to an ants' nest.

‘Your dinner's in the microwave,' Thorna said caustically. ‘Two minutes on high should do it.'

Nikki followed her instructions, and her stomach growled
loudly while
she waited, making the twins laugh.

‘Your tummy's grumbly!' Alex said.

‘Have my broccoli,' Tina offered, pushing her plate away.

‘Tina!
You
eat your broccoli,' Thorna said, raising her voice.

Then the timer binged and Nikki tested her potato with a finger. She sat beside the twins, eating overcooked chicken slowly to enjoy the flavour as it slid down her throat. Ten minutes later, the kids still hadn't touched their broccoli and she wondered how long it would be before their mother noticed.

‘Aren't you going to eat your baby dinosaur trees?' she whispered, leaning over.

The boy's eyes widened as he searched his plate. ‘Baby dinosaur trees?'

‘Oh, yes,' Nikki said. ‘Big long-neck-a-saur-uses used to eat big dinosaur trees like the ones outside, and baby long-neck-a-saur-uses used to eat baby trees like that.'

‘She means a brachyosaur,' Tina said. ‘You don't have to talk to us like babies, you know. We're nearly six.'

‘Six? You're very tall for six.'

‘
Nearly
six.
He's
still five, you know.'

‘You're still five too!'

‘Yeah, but we're big kids,' Tina said, starting to munch on her baby trees.

The boy ate the whole top off one broccoli stalk and reached for another one, pushing bits of green leaves back between his teeth when his mouth got too full. ‘Are you Eric's wife too now?' he asked, smiling.

‘Okay,' Thorna ordered. ‘Bedtime!' She swept the children from the kitchen and marched them down the hall. ‘Off to bed,' she shouted, ushering them up the stairs in front of her.

Nikki didn't finish her meal. She listened to Thorna upstairs, chastising her son for calling his stepfather by his first name and obviously not for the first time. Nikki tidied their plates away, scraping the food scraps into a little rubbish bin beside the sink, and washed and dried the dishes before putting them away. She waited until after eight thirty, but Thorna Maitland didn't come back downstairs, and as much as she wanted her to, Nikki thought she could see why. What she couldn't see, was how her life could possibly get worse.

Nikki woke hearing bumping somewhere in the house and then footsteps in the hall towards the stairs. She lay silent in the darkness, not sure if it was only her imagination refusing to let her settle into a new bed. There was another bump, closer this time, and she looked at the dim digitals on her bedside clock.

10.38pm.

The gap beneath her door lit dully, like a torchlight flashing in the hall. She flung back the covers and hurried quietly to the door, pushing her weight and ear to the cool timber.

Footsteps.

Nearer now.

Her hand clasped the knob. Was it Thorna come to talk?

No. The footsteps were heavier, like boots. The door felt like ice and her cheek froze to it, listening.

Closer, then further, backwards and forwards up the hall. Whoever it was sounded busy. The walls bumped again down the hall, more footsteps and more bumping. As the sounds drew progressively nearer to her room, Nikki's hands clasped tighter around the knob. Her fingers found a privacy latch. She pressed it, wincing at the noisy click.

The footsteps, already close, fell silent for a moment and then they moved closer.

She tightened her grip on the knob. There was breathing on the other side of the door, but no sounds, no smells, no hint of who it could be.

The knob twisted inside her hand, turning as far as the lock allowed.

Silence. And the footsteps moved off, much quieter this time, as if deliberately staying on the rugs. The gap beneath her door grew dark and the stairs at the end of the hall creaked.

Nikki let out her breath, realising only then that she'd been holding it. She sat back in her bed, staring at the door and listening to the sounds of the night.

The timber floorboards somewhere above her creaked. A door closed. And the house fell silent.

She lay there with her sheet pulled up beneath her chin and her eyes fixed permanently on the door. But the only sounds she heard after that were from outside — a hollow thumping in the stable and a defiant whinny at the moon. Somehow, the sound brought her comfort — the thought that other living creatures were just as restless in the night as she was.