Chapter 6: Space Dust
The wind picked up, when Mrs. Fanny Turner wandered down Cambridge St. She had decided to take the long way home, partly because she wanted to re-familiarise herself with the area and partly, because she wasn't sure she liked being alone in their cottage. Nothing much had changed, she found. Of course, things were different. Some factories had closed, others had opened, small shops appeared out of nowhere, while others had given up, cottages had finally stopped resisting physics and succumbed to crumble into dust, while new ones had been erected. The grubby children playing in front of the school were surely new ones, yet they still looked the same. She stopped to watch them. A small group of girls were skipping rope in the corner underneath the old gum tree, which by now looked positively rotting. Half of them weren't wearing any shoes, even though the autumn had firmly settled in in Melbourne.
Phryne wanted to keep walking, but found her feet firmly rooted to the spot, as memories flooded her brain. Blonde braids, flying, whenever she jumped, laughter sounding through the air. The bell rang and the girls abandoned the gum tree, which creaked dangerously in the wind. Phryne wiped the lost tear from her cheek, when something brushed over her ankle. She looked down, gently picked up the piece of fabric. Her heart seemed to stop. But Murdoch Foyle was long since dead and it wasn't even the same colour. Nevertheless she slipped the faded blue hair band into her pocket. "Thank you, Janey," she whispered under her breath, feeling silly in the same moment. She didn't actually believe in messages from the grave. But when she walked on, the wind, playing behind her in the eucalyptus leaves, sounded suspiciously like a little girl's laughter.
X
Silence had fallen over the three people sitting around the kitchen table. Mr. Butler had finally left to see about lunch for Jane, who would soon return home from school. The yelling match between the sisters had subsided; now Nell looked miserable and Dot like she wanted to strangle someone, but couldn't decide which of them. Constable Collins nervously glanced at the kitchen clock. He was incredibly late for his shift right now and if nobody had called yet it was only because the Inspector leaving had thrown the station into chaos. He could not really afford to be sitting here, but the expression on his wife's face made it impossible for him to leave. He didn't quite understand why she was so upset. He hadn't done anything after all and neither had Nell. Of course, he had heard that women who were in the family way, could be sometimes a little complicated.
"I just cannot believe you wouldn't tell me this!" Dorothy grumbled.
"Well, I can see clearly why they didn't."
The maids sparkling eyes locked with her sister's, who shrugged.
"You're making such a big deal of a simple business transaction. And it was actually your Miss Fisher who asked me if I wanted to help."
Dot gasped for air. She expected thoughtlessness and betrayal from many people but not from her Mistress.
"It's Mrs. Robinson now! And you just happened to agree to have sex with the Inspector?"
Nell huffed.
"I hate to disappoint you, you goody-two-shoes, but it was perfectly innocent. He was a complete gentleman. And I think he almost died of embarrassment."
Dot let that sink in for a long moment, while the clock ticked more time away. Hugh rubbed his sweaty fingers.
"Surely there would have been another way," his wife finally said with resolve, "than pretending to..." She made a wild gesture in the air that had nothing to do with sex. Nell had to bite her lip to not burst into laughter.
"Inspector Robinson and your employer obviously didn't think so or they wouldn't have asked me to help with their charade."
"And it didn't occur to you, that you would embarrass me?" Dorothy asked, unwilling to see reason.
"I honestly didn't think this had anything to do with you," Nell said with a sarcastic smile, after a moment of thought. "I tried to save my friends and their clients from a killer. My sister, sitting in her nice little house with her good little hubby didn't occur to me at that stage."
Dot opened her mouth, but was interrupted by Hugh clearing his throat, loudly. Sweat was pouring down the back of his uniform by now.
"Stop!" he said, looking surprised at his own forwardness. "Please. This is ridiculous. We were doing a job, all of us. The Inspector, Mrs. Robinson, me, Jones and your sister. And we caught a killer in the act. The newspapers made up something that's completely untrue. Dottie, you're over reacting."
This was probably the closest he had ever come to lecturing his wife and she looked positively thunderstruck. Then her pale cheeks slowly started to glow in righteous anger.
"I am over reacting? You slept with my sister and the whole city knows about it!"
The words hung big and ugly in the room. Dot was panting, while Nell looking confused and Hugh disgusted. To the surprise of both woman, he got to his feet and fished for his hat.
"That is such incredible nonsense, Dorothy, that I will not even respond to it. I am late for my shift and we cannot afford for me to lose my job. We'll talk tonight."
He turned and marched out of the room, without looking back. Seconds later the front door fell into its lock with a loud thud. The two sisters stared at each other in breathless silence.
"I believe your husband is angry," Nell pointed out carefully. Dot didn't respond for a long moment.
"He called me Dorothy," she finally whispered, before bursting into tears.
X
The sky was turning a dusty shade of violet by the time Jack approached their street. Across the road an old man was sitting on his porch, lifting his pipe to him and the Inspector wondered briefly, how far Phryne might have gotten already with her mission to befriend the neighbours. A brown chicken was wandering down the street from the other end, looking confused. Jack didn't blame it. He felt quite lost himself at this point in time and there had been some moments, where he honestly wasn't sure he could deal with this. Maybe dedication to the job wasn't everything. He really wanted to tell Phryne about it, but was hesitant. She had so much emotional baggage on her plate herself right now, that whining at her about his first work day really didn't seem very fair. Loud voices tore him from his pondering. It seemed to come from the house right across the street of their own. Jack eavesdropped out of habit more than actual interest. It sounded like a domestic fight and unlikely to result in any crime at this stage. Not that he could have done much about it either way without blowing his cover.
"You stupid wench!" a female voice yelled. "You're father can barely feed us. He'll be damned if he feeds your bastard!"
"He won't have to, will he?" another woman yelled, obviously much younger. "Cause I'm gonna marry him and there's nothing you can do 'bout it."
There was laughter than sounded more like cackling, before it turned into a nasty sounding cough. Obviously the mother didn't think the young man marriage material. Jack tried to shrug off the conversation and knocked at the door to the cottage that acted as his home. The door was pulled open with enthusiasm seconds later. Suprised, Jack looked at his wife, who stood with glowing cheeks in the middle of the small kitchen, the wool dress she was wearing hugging every curve in a way that made it necessary to remind himself, that it would be rude to drag her to bed before even saying hello. The next thing he noticed was the place. It was gleaming. He cleared his throat, closing the door behind himself.
"Have the cleaning fairies been here or have you discovered hidden talents, Miss Fisher?" he asked.
She pulled her lips into something resembling a pout, while stirring in a pot from where a delicious smell wafted through the house.
"Not hidden, only reignited. It's only sandsoap and a scrubbing brush. And I have not always had servants, Jack."
The Inspector stared at her for a moment.
"Of course not."
He seriously had forgotten or possibly just never paid much thought to it. He knew that she had grown up here and also that she had spent years after the war in poverty, after cutting herself lose from her family. Yet, in his mind she had always been glamorous. He considered her in silence for a moment, his wife, who was standing at a stove after what must have been hours of scrubbing this place clean. Yet she still was glamorous. He stepped behind her, laying his hands on her hips and pressing a kiss to her cheek.
"You never cease to amaze me, Miss Fisher," he whispered.
"I would recommend you wait until you tasted dinner with your verdict," she laughed, ushering him to the table. He obediently sat, while she ladled out soup into his bowl, before sinking onto her chair.
"So, how was your first working day, Mr. Turner?" she asked, after he had burned his mouth on the first spoonful.
"Excruciating," Jack sighed. "At the place that advertised in the paper there must have been 40 people waiting. So I moved on, asked around. Three more places sent me away, at the fourth I got lucky. James & Willerson's shoe factory. They had just fired a worker this morning and needed someone to jump in."
He stared at his fingers that were still not quite clean despite his best efforts to scrub them. He cleared his throat.
"But at least I do have a job now, and we won't have to starve, my dear wife." He smiled wryly. "Not that I am worried, considering your many talents."
He took another spoonful of soup, this time blowing onto the surface carefully. It was nice, he had to admit. Not as refined as Mr. Butlers cooking or done with as much practise as Mrs. Collins, but for a woman who hadn't lifted a kitchen knife in at least ten years, unless it was to aim it at an attacker, this was quite astounding. He looked up to find her watching him with a thin smile on her lips, obviously waiting.
"I am impressed," he admitted. "If I had known you to possess such qualities as a housewife I might have considered this arrangement earlier," he continued teasingly. She rolled up her eyes in mock annoyance.
"You wouldn't dare," she said. Jack smiled. She looked so utterly self-satisfied right now that it was hard to believe that only last night she had suffered doubts. He slipped a hand over the table to grasp hers.
"I wouldn't. I find I am rather attached to my life," he smiled. Phryne pressed his hand briefly, before turning her attention to her bowl.
"Don't get me wrong, Phryne, but don't you think the cleanliness of this place might stand out a little bit?" the Inspector asked after several more minutes only being filled with the clattering of spoons. She shook her head.
"My mother always kept our house spotless, and trust me, that was some accomplishment with two grubby girls and a man who had a tendency to throw up beside the bed on a regular basis."
Jack said nothing, his fingers wrapping tighter around the spoon. She didn't talk much about her father and he had always accepted that. But the odd hint made his skin crawl.
"Many of the woman around here were almost hysterical about cleaning. I believe it was born from the fear of losing their children to TB or scarlet fever."
Jack nodded and let his eyes sweep another time over the kitchen, spotting a big huntsman crouching in the corner of the window.
"I see you have made a friend," he pointed out dryly.
"Albert? Yes, he seems to like that corner. I offered to escort him outside, but he wouldn't budge."
"As long as he doesn't sit on my nose when I wake up, he can have his will," Jack said warningly in the spider's direction where it chewed casually on a moth ignoring him.
"Don't be silly, he is well behaved," Phryne grinned. "He doesn't come cuddle unless invited."
Jack raised his eyebrows at his wife, watching the thoughts change in her pretty head.
"I made someone else's acquaintance as well today," she pointed out so casually, that it could only be terrible what she had to say.
"A neighbour I suspect?" he asked curiously, breaking some bread off the loaf.
"Yes, a very nice lady. Must be Belgian or Dutch. Beautiful woman, really. I believe her name is Adelheid Willis."
She noticed with some satisfaction the brief moment of hesitation in Jack's hand, before he bravely brought his spoon to his lips.
"Is she nice?" he asked calmly.
"So it appears, Jack. But then you would know better than I. Or are you always so quick to forget your former lovers?" she teased.
He looked up at her, humour glittering in his eyes. He had somewhat hoped, Phryne would have forgotten about this little anecdote he had shared in a weak moment. But of course she hadn't.
"Firstly, this might be a coincidence. I do not believe her name was Willis. And secondly, Miss Fisher, we were never lovers. We shared one kiss and that only because she surprised me with her attack."
Phryne grinned.
"Surnames tend to be subject to change in women, I find and I assume Rosie would beg to differ on your definition of lovers."
The Inspector wondered, if this was harmless teasing or if there was actual worry lurking, while he finished the last spoonful of soup. It was sometimes hard to tell with Phryne.
"Even Rosie had to eventually admit that I would never cheat on my wife," he finally pointed out. Phryne grinned, then got to her feet, taking his bowl from him.
"I would be inclined to call her a smart woman, but then, she did divorce you," she quipped, collecting his spoon.
"I tend to be rather grateful for that," Jack stated, watching her.
"Yes, I believe bigamy is not a terribly good move for a policeman," Phryne grinned from the direction of the stove. Jack shook his head, leaning back in his chair. His arms were aching from the unfamiliar movement and what he had seen today didn't make him terribly hopeful that this would turn into a joyful experience. Yet, he found there was something oddly fascinating to living in a tiny house with only Phryne for company. Though he had to admit that he missed Jane. The girl had smuggled herself into his heart from the first day and when he had found that he had accidentally lined himself up to be her legal guardian, while she was still travelling Europe, it had been an overwhelming experience. It was a fatherhood he had never expected or aimed for and when it'd happened, it had been as shocking as it was amazing. Where his developing relationship with Phryne had been complicated at times, his attachment to Jane was not. She had, after a few moments thought, accepted that she was to be his daughter and Jack sometimes dared to think that maybe the rather fatherless teenager had been looking as much for him as he, the decidedly childless Inspector, had been looking for her. It was an awkward thought and he wouldn't have shared it with anyone, even under torture, but nevertheless the word "miracle" might have crossed his mind once or twice.
"Where were you off to?" his wife asked smiling, while sitting down across from him. Jack realised that he had been staring at the tabletop.
"I am just tired," he lied. Phryne raised her eyebrows at him.
"Would you like to try that again, Jack?"
He smiled.
"Alright, Miss Fisher, I am hoping that Jane won't destroy my chess board, left to her own devices."
Phryne gave him one of those looks that seemed to read him down to his bones, before pulling something from her pocket.
"I'm afraid I can't offer chess or turn into Jane, but we could play a game of cards," she pointed out.
"We could," the Inspector smiled, realising that he actually found the idea quite endearing. "Give me a second."
He returned a moment later with a bottle of amber liquid.
"Mr. Butler was so kind as to hide this in my suitcase," he stated, while pouring them both a drink in their water glasses.
"He obviously had a fair idea we would need it," Phryne quipped, shuffling the cards. "So, how do you feel about a game of poker, Jack?"
He sat back down, moving the candles out of the way, before answering.
"I'd prefer a game in which I have the slightest chance of winning, Miss Fisher."