Chapter 43 #2
Ellie still remembered Arthur’s grief at eleven, when Lynette had been snatched by a wandering urban fox, the little backyard memorial service they’d had with no little guinea pig body to bury.
She and Zara had had a slightly more pragmatic view of small pets, with years of their unpredictable mother giving them responsibility for creatures they were ill-equipped to care for.
But Arthur was different. He’d felt the loss keenly, and Genevieve had been moved indoors, where, it turned out, guinea pigs were actually supposed to live in the harsh Australian climate.
To this day, Arthur still protectively shepherded her on little supervised runs on the grass, his eyes out for predators, keeping his little charge safe.
As she held her crying nephew in her arms, Ellie felt the full weight of it crashing down, his disappearing innocence, the fragility of his tenderness.
Would this go too? She held him tight as she, too, started to cry.
“Oh darling,” Zara joined them and Arthur gripped hold of his mother and cried and cried and cried.
To Ellie and Zara’s surprise, Arthur still, at fourteen, wanted a funeral for his beloved pet.
Zara dug a grave while Ellie raced to Bunnings to pick out a little orange rose bush to plant on top.
They stood back while Arthur gently placed a little collection of homegrown marigolds in the shoebox in which Genevieve lay, the sisters gripping each other’s hands in silent mutual recognition of this little return to Arthur’s aching vulnerability.
Arthur insisted on being the one to fill the grave with dirt, but halfway through he was crying so hard that Ellie took over.
Together they planted the little rosebush.
“Goodbye, Genevieve,” Arthur said softly. “You were really loved.”
They all sat on the couch together afterward, Arthur sitting close to his mother, his head on her shoulder.
“Do you think it’s my fault?” he asked, looking over at the empty cage. “It’s been hot recently, maybe we should have had the air con on more?”
“No, darling,” Zara soothed him. “She was very elderly for a guinea pig. You gave her a wonderful life. It was her time, that was all.”
“Do you think it’s dumb, that I’m crying over a guinea pig?” His voice got a little bit harder. “I mean, it’s bit weak, right? Like, I know it’s not like it’s a dog or anything. And I’m not eight years old anymore.”
“It’s not dumb.” Ellie saw white. “Men have feelings! Men love things. Men only end up weak when they refuse to feel their fucking feelings like they’re not just human beings like the rest of us.
” She tried to unclench her jaw. Arthur was staring at her, and she felt as though she was fighting a battle for his very soul.
“Men who act like you’re less of a man if you feel any emotion other than anger are just lost and lonely and cut off from themselves.
You, Arthur Graham, will be exactly the kind of man people want to be around if you just keep feeling and tell anyone who tells you that you can’t, to get well and truly fucked. ”
For a moment, there was silence in the living room. Then Zara spoke up. “What your aunty said. But without swearing in literally every sentence. Jesus christ, Ellie, no wonder he’s looking for role models.”
Arthur snickered. It was the first time Ellie had heard him laugh in weeks.
The next day on set, one of the runners, Josie, came up to her as her makeup was being retouched mid-shoot. “Hey,” she said. “Were you expecting a visitor?”
“What? No,” Ellie told her, distracted. “Was there someone here for me?”
“No, not really,” Josie said. “Just security reported a guy lingering around last night. He wandered off when they approached. But just now someone tried to deliver flowers to your trailer, but he wouldn’t hand them over to the staff to give them to you, insisting they had to do it personally. Any ideas?”
“No,” Ellie said. She tried to keep still, as the makeup artist re-powdered her face, but her mind was racing. There was a solid chance it was nothing, just a persistent delivery driver. She tried to think who would send her flowers, and on her next break, texted Hugo.
None from me, darling. I’m waiting to send you an elaborate bouquet on wrap night if you’re hinting though.
Ellie felt disturbed enough to check in with security. “Dunno,” he said with a shrug. “Just some guy. Gave me the heebie jeebies, though, so there was no way I was letting him on set. We have all sorts turning up here. You know, considering the subject matter.”
His meaning was loud and clear. They were depicting real characters, and some of those characters had a vested interest. Estella wouldn’t be behind this, surely? So who was it? A Florelli? She felt sick.
That evening when she got to her apartment, she stopped sharply.
In the hallway, propped against her door, was a large box of white roses.
The hair on the back of her neck went up.
They hadn’t been left at the manager’s office, or at the mailbox alcove.
Instead whoever had left them had somehow gained access to the inside of her apartment block and up the security-card-accessed elevator to her floor.
She inspected the box and found it had no florist sticker and no card.
She whirled around, staring out at the empty hallway, before turning her attention to the door itself.
It was still locked tight and didn’t seem to have been tampered with.
She opened it cautiously with her phone in hand, ready to call the cops, her heart in her throat as she thoroughly checked her apartment: inside the wardrobe, under the bed, in all the cupboards, as if a thug might be crouched terrifyingly amongst her dinner plates and politely wait while she dialled triple zero.
She packed a bag hastily and left.
She booked a hotel close to set, looking out over the city fringes to the southeast. She comforted herself by figuring it would be a tax write-off, even though technically her apartment was only around a thirty-minute drive across the city at five in the morning, which was when she was due on set.
It was probably overkill, she knew that.
Maybe her apartment manager — usually recalcitrant — had decided to drop the flowers off for her.
Maybe the card had gotten lost. Maybe it was Estella after all, just wanting to tell her that despite it all, Ellie was still in her thoughts?
Ellie shivered. She wondered, not for the first time, if maybe Estella had her under surveillance, a misguided and unwelcome attempt to keep Ellie safe in the aftermath of her actions.
Ellie, now fully aware of Estella’s version of protection, wanted nothing to do with it.
Perhaps this was for the best, then. A hotel for the rest of filming, out of Estella’s view.
She numbly ate a delivery meal for one, then lay back on her bed.
It was barely after seven p.m. but her hotel room was so small there wasn’t really anywhere else to sit.
She considered switching on the television but the idea of more voices, more movement, more noise felt disorientating.
Instead, she rolled on her side and gazed out at the deepening twilight above the rooftops, letting all the endless loops inside her mind play out.
She was exhausted and strung out, resigned but caught in a spiral of her own thoughts.
She was in Estella’s body, reaching out for yet another woman to dominate.
She was in her own body, longing for Estella’s arms around her.
She was making eye contact with a furious Alison Hartmann.
She was excusing her behaviour to Hugo. She was arguing with Zara and reaching with all her might towards Arthur, who turned away.
She was lifting her fingers to her head and bringing them down to see blood on her fingers.
The blood was Gio Florelli’s and her hand held a heavy lamp.
She was in her hotel bed listening to the sirens as police cars screamed down the block.