The Good Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘Your mother was inspirational – a real life force. I liked her very much. It seemed cruel to me that she should die. Do you mind me talking this way?’
    Rebecca’s still trying to control her coughing; she shakes her head.
    ‘I thought at the time how unfair it was – so many boring people in the world, especially in Kiona. Quite frankly, you could lose a couple of Ben’s sisters and not even a blip would register on the radar, although I suppose the washing would build up – but the one real person within cooee is the one who’s lost.’ Mrs Kincaid sucks in long and hard on her cigarette, seemingly unaware she’s coming across as nutty. ‘It made the place seem so much flatter when she was gone … I really felt it.’
    Rebecca can’t help herself. She says, ‘I didn’t know you knew my mother?’
    ‘I didn’t. But that’s not to say I didn’t feel an energy like hers leave.’
    The dogs are beginning to stray too far. Rebecca whistles at them, fingers curled against her lips, sharp and piercing, deliberately too loud.
    Mrs Kincaid winces, but says, once recovered, ‘I’d love to be able to whistle like that.’
    Rebecca drops her cigarette and grinds it into the dirt. ‘Zach whistles louder than that,’ she says. ‘You should get him to teach you. He whistles at me from one side of the schoolyard to the other.’
    Rebecca demonstrates – the harsh note of it, the derogatory undertones, unmistakable, as though she’s calling a dog.
    Mrs Kincaid pushes back the peak of her cap and holds Rebecca’s gaze. ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘I’ve offended you.’ She waves a hand in front of her face as though to indicate the fog that’s inside her head. ‘I’m sorry.’
    The awkwardness, the apologies, only seem to bring them closer. Rebecca looks at her, feels strangely on equal footing. The dogs have come to her whistle. She checks they’re all there, pats some of them, and busies herself putting them in the yard while Mrs Kincaid blows her nose, dabs at her eyes.
    ‘Rebecca,’ she says, ‘could I ask you a favour?’
    ‘Yeah?’
    ‘Could I come into town with you? Would you mind?’

7
    Kiona can look pretty when the sun is low, like it is now – everything tawny, amber colours – or it can look flaky and ugly, in proper light. It’s got all the basic requirements of a country town – a pub, a post office, a war memorial, a rotunda in a well-watered park. Tourists pull up on their way through and have lunch at the bakery, sit under the row of deciduous trees, let their kids play on the rusty swing set, use the public toilets and no doubt read about how Rebecca Toyer supposedly takes it up the arse – lovely weekend reading.
    Rebecca sits with her feet up on the dash and looks out her open window. Mrs Kincaid is driving. She still pronounces everything ever so precisely , still pitches her sentences somewhere between a question and statement, so that it’s hard to know if she’s taking the piss or not, but she seems about ten times more relaxed. She’s no longer smoking with her cigarette holder.
    They turn at the town hall and head towards the river. They travel down a picturesque oak-lined street with grassy banks and houses set back on big blocks.
    At the end of the street they roll to a stop in front of Emily’s, the only restaurant in town. It’s a refurbished weatherboard house. There are watermarks on the picket fence from the last time the river flooded. It has a cottage garden and one of those milk-can letterboxes. On a chalkboard attached to the fence is a list of specials and above them are the lines To Whosoever Famishing, to Beggar and to Bee .
    The sign on the door says Closed , but Mrs Kincaid says, ‘I’m going in,’ and it’s exactly like that – as though she’s about to embark on an endeavour of epic proportions.
    ‘Okay. I’ll wait here.’
    Before getting out, Mrs Kincaid takes the packet of tobacco she bought at the shop.
    Rebecca says, feeling the need to