Christine Cave : The Night Valerie Parker

When I turned the key in the door of Jackie’s flat, all I could think of was the night Valerie Parker died.

I was supposed to be remembering Jackie, thinking of our good times together, of all she had achieved, and all the things that gave her life meaning. I was there to put her affairs in order, but my thoughts were stuck on her one fatal mistake.

I shut the door behind me and took a deep breath. The sun pushed weakly through the curtains on the far wall, suggesting a room of dark heavy furniture. The room smelled of dust and old newspapers. A clock ticked noisily on the wall, disagreeing with the flashing eights on the video. The clock must have had good batteries, it had been months since Jackie had been home.

The curtains shifted slightly with the breeze caused by the opening door, revealing a white rectangle on the bookshelf under the clock.

"Oh, Jackie," I breathed as I read the words she had printed. BRA-BRA.

"Ready Bra-Bra?" Jackie asked and before I could answer, she knocked on Sister Angela’s door. She opened it without waiting for the familiar deep reply and our little delegation bustled into the Principal’s office.

"It is our right," Jackie said to Sister Angela, or Adolf as we called her. "We are not children. We can vote, we can marry, drink, drive. We demand the right to conduct our own Graduation ceremony." The rest of us mumbled words of agreement.

Sister Angela ignored everyone except Jackie. She knew where the power lay. We saw her take in Jackie’s too short skirt, her hair falling illegally over her shoulders and her hatless head. Jackie locked eyes with Sister Angela, ready to battle.

We were fighting, as others had before, to cut out the day between our End of Year Gala Dance and the Graduation ceremony on the front lawn of the school. The nuns insisted it was necessary to spend a day after a big night out in quiet reflection and perhaps a little study, leaving a decent gap between celebration and graduation. "The ceremony on the lawn is the culmination of the school year," they would say. "Not the dance." They even refused to call that special event we had been waiting for since First Form a ball.

Jackie was sure she had them this time. She had started the campaign at the beginning of the year, researched other schools all over the state, prepared arguments and somehow even managed to get Father Fisher on side. She smiled at Sister Angela.

Then Sister Angela turned away from Jackie. We followed her eyes and were stunned to see Valerie Parker standing by the bookcase. Valerie smiled and handed a sheet of paper to Adolf.

"Here is the schedule for the end of school year activities," Sister Angela said. "Your School Captain has organised a retreat at Saint Raphael’s the day after your dance. With an open air mass, confession and time for reflection."

I pulled the curtains back and let light into the room. I can still see Valerie’s smug face as Jackie turned and stomped out of the room. Jackie always called Valerie "Himmler" after that. What infuriated Jackie most was that Valerie had been part of our committee even after she had been elected School Captain.

That was the beginning of the all out war between Jackie and Valerie, a fight until death. Would you have made those choices if you had known how it would end, I silently asked Valerie. Or you, Jackie?

I sat down at the table near the window and opened the letter.

The letter went on to give instructions on everything I would need to wrap up Jackie’s estate. She was organised. She was efficient. She had thought of everything

"Bra-Bra! Debra! Bra-Bra!" Jackie was shaking me awake. "Get out of bed you lazy lump and help me find my smokes."

I dragged myself out of bed. As usual it was too early for anyone to be up, even for early morning mass. I put my slippers on and pulled my dressing gown around me and helped Jackie rummage through the mess in her locker. I never knew how she managed to dress every day, and get her hair or face done in her own perfect way with such chaos. Everything was thrown into the locker in any old way - undies were top of biscuit packets on top of ties and exercise books on top of sports skirts.

"You have to be methodical," I said. "Start again, take everything out, one thing at a time, until you find them," I said and she stood shivering in her nightie and watched me take everything out of her locker, fold it up and put it all back neatly. We found the science assignment that had been due in last week, and Himmler’s missing beret, my Cat Stevens Tea for the Tillerman record and three empty packets of smokes.

"I was sure I had a couple left," Jackie shrugged, and I did as she wanted all along and found mine, hidden in my left sandshoe in the back of the hanging section of my locker. Then we climbed out of the window and sat on the roof of the science block and talked and smoked and watched the sun come up, until we heard Sister Catherine clattering up the red stairs with the wake up bell in her hand. Sister Catherine thought we were wonderful girls to be up already for morning mass.

Before I started following instructions, I went on a tour of the flat. It was small, two bedrooms, with an open kitchen dining living area, furnished mostly with items I remembered from her parents’ house in Binalong. There were hanging baskets empty of plants, and on the tiny balcony a circular stain on the tiles marked the spot where a large stone pot had once stood. It was only in my mind it was a stone pot, it could have been cheap green plastic for all I knew, but I could see Jackie growing tomatoes and basil and rosemary in large stone pots with moss growing under the rim. I wondered who was looking after her plants. Mark perhaps. Had Jackie hunted down Mark the way she had hunted down me when she knew she was dying?

Mark and Leo were students at Saint Thomas’s, across the other side of town. St Thomas’s and St Brigid’s used to get together a few times a year, most popularly for dances, but also for retreats and masses. The school sports carnival was always held at St Thomas’, because they had the best parish sporting facilities. It was at our Fourth Form Ball that I met Mark. That was our first meeting with the boys from Saint Tom’s. The day girls, (or day bugs as we used to call them) were free to meet St Tom’s boys any time out of school hours, but for boarders it was what we dreamed of during the long weeks of term.

It was Sunday morning and time for dancing practice. Before getting to the hall Jackie and I ducked into the church toilets to paint on illegal make up and hitch up our skirts as high as we’d dare. Once inside the hall we sat with all the girls on one side of the hall, with the boys opposite. While Brother Graham and Sister Ann showed us the steps, we eyed the talent across the room. Then Brother told the boys to take their partners, and there was a great thundering as a wall of boys raced towards us. Jackie was one of the first chosen, so was Valerie. Because I sat near Jackie I was picked somewhere around the middle, instead of being one of the girls who had to accept the really daggy boys, or much, much worse, have to dance with a girl.

On the day we were assigned our partners for the Fourth Form ball, they lined all the boys up, tallest to shortest, on one side of the room, the same with the girls on the other side. There was a lot of counting and shrinking or stretching done so that you could get the right partner, much easier for those up the front of the line like Jackie than for shorties like me. Jackie, as planned, ended up with Leo, but I miscalculated and Valerie got Sandy Dillon and I found myself with Mark O’Grady. Of course, for our graduation ball we got to choose our own partners, and I was happy to choose Mark.

The large bookcase in Jackie’s living room was full of important books, the ones Jackie had written, the ones she was supposed to read, books for show. But the small bookcase in her bedroom was different. There was the full set of the Billabong books that we had read together, and plenty of crime novels, a lot of which I had too. Lots of dog-eared old books, poetry, funny ones, some newer ones beside classics. On the bottom shelf there were photo albums. I took out the oldest one and opened it.

There we all were, dressed in white, carrying lilies, balancing on our high heels in that rickety stand, smiling for the camera. Jackie was up the back, but just before the camera clicked she had whisked out the handkerchief Sister Angela had placed at her throat to compensate for the plunging neckline of her dress. I was on one edge, the camera caught me just as I looked towards the flash of Jackie’s hanky. But it was Valerie I usually saw when I looked at this picture. Valerie was middle front, hair piled on her head, the only one wearing gloves, the belle of the ball. It was the last known photo of her before she died. Before that pretty face was bruised and battered, before those brown eyes had pleaded with her killer, before those lips had screamed as she plunged down the face of the Rotary Lookout.

Jackie also had a photo of me with Mark, taken not by the official photographer but by someone else. I had never seen it before. I was laughing, looking off to the side, and Mark had his arm around me as we walked out the door of the hall. In the background I could see Valerie, I recognised her because of the gloves, as her face was obscured by a big vase of lilies. Mark was reaching into his pocket with his free arm, his hair was falling across his left eye and he looked more stunningly beautiful than I have ever remembered him.

After the ball there was always a party at someone’s place, usually on a farm but this year it was at Lynnette Grieve’s, in the three car garage at the back of their large block of land. Not quite private enough, Jackie thought, even though Lynette’s parents had promised faithfully to be sound asleep all night. Another disappointment was that the ball was also the night of the Yarala Pop Festival, being held thirty miles up the river at the Yarala racetrack. Many of our favourite groups would be there, playing late into the night. We plotted and planned and schemed, trying to work out a way we could get there after the ball, but in the end none of us wanted to spend all that money on the last few acts of a pop festival.

We went to the party at the Grieve’s garage, but it was too quiet for Jackie, who hinted of much better things. So we took our bottles of Bacardi and Southern Comfort to start a private party at the Rotary Lookout on Coronation Hill. We had just started the walk up the steep part of the hill when the strap on my shoe broke. After a hurried conference, I crept back to the dormitory to get some more shoes, a pair for Jackie as well, and maybe a couple of blankets if I could get to the store cupboard, and I was to meet Mark and Jackie and Leo at the lookout

It is funny how a lifetime can be turned on the strap of a silly dance shoe. You can’t see my shoes in any of the pictures of that night, because my dress was long enough to cover them. I remember I paid (or Mum paid, to be honest) a lot of money for those shoes. $15? $20? It was a lot at the time, anyway. I turned the page of the album.

There was an envelope sitting there loosely, holding more photos. I almost left it, thinking of Jackie’s privacy, but then I remembered that Jackie was dead, and there is no privacy in death. I opened the envelope.

To say I was surprised would be an understatement. Stunned, I was, stunned. The photos were all of Mark. My Mark. The one of us at the ball I had seen earlier, plus one of him in school uniform, some taken after he had finished school, Mark at University, Mark at play. I had forgotten that Mark and Jackie went to the same Uni. I still call him my Mark, but I hadn’t seen much of him since that night. I tried to remember if I had seen him at all since then.

I had Mark on my mind as I made my wayback to the school. It was going to be a very important night for us, I thought, the night our love would flower. But all thoughts and dreams of our night ahead disappeared when I reached the school. Jackie and I had done this trip often enough to know that you always had to be careful. I crept up the outside stairs to the shower block where the lock on the door never worked properly, and once inside grabbed my dressing gown which I’d left hanging on the back of a toilet door. Luckily I took the precaution of putting the gown on, because when I made my way into the dorm I met Sister Catherine on patrol. I had to pretend I had just been to the toilet, and climbed into bed supposedly to sleep while Sister Catherine paced up and down reciting the rosary. Luckily she didn’t shine her torch over to our corner to see the unslept in beds.

I did my best to stay awake, but when my bladder woke me it was a quarter to four. Damn, I thought. I checked that Sister Catherine had left her post, grabbed shoes and blankets and crept out again. I ran as fast as I could to the rotary lookout, hoping that they would still be there. I nearly cried when the place was deserted.

The photos weren’t all of Mark. I found a very strange one of me. Or was it of Valerie? It was of both of us, anyway, but we weren’t together. I think the photo was probably a mistake, one of those ones where you press the button accidentally as you wind on the film. Valerie was in the front of the photo, a bit blurry because she was moving, playing ping-pong on the table on the south balcony. I was in the background, I had a book on my lap, but I wasn’t reading it, I was looking at Val. The look on my face can only be described as hate. Pure hate. It was awful. Why on earth would Jackie keep a photo like that?

I had forgotten how much I disliked Valerie Parker. I suppose when she died we all felt sorry for her, and we tried to distance ourselves from our earlier feelings. She wasn’t really that awful, but we were teenage girls, and I think I followed Jackie in nearly everything I did. Jackie hated her, so did I. But she was a pain, and she was a bit too keen on Mark, so I disliked her a bit on my own as well.

"Damn" I swore and kicked out. I was so disappointed. I had no idea where they could have gone. They had all the drinks, too. I only had the blankets, and you can’t have much of a party with blankets. I started walking back down the hill. I thought I’d try Leo’s place. Or Mark’s.

When I went past the children’s playground at the bottom of the hill I heard a groan. I stopped, frightened. When I heard it again I shone my torch around in all directions and stopped when it picked out a dark rumpled suit. The suit groaned again. It was Leo, asleep, holding a bottle. I shook him awake.

"Leo, where is everyone?"

Leo groaned again and rolled over. He was extremely drunk and very cold. I spent the rest of the night dragging him home, while he tried to kiss me, thinking I was Jackie, told me how much he loved me, and that he was really really sorry about our fight. It was with great relief I dumped him on his back veranda and crept back to school.

Jackie was asleep in her bed. I was very glad to see her. Typical Jackie, sleeping like a baby, hair spread out over her pillow. Her white ball dress lay crumpled on the floor beside her bed, her shoes on top of it. She’d get into trouble for that in the morning, so I picked her things up and shoved them into my bedside cabinet, hers as usual was full to overflowing. When I tried to shut the door, something was in the way, and when I pulled on it, I found it was one of Valerie Parker’s white gloves. I put it under my pillow, shut the door, and went to sleep.

There weren’t just photos in the envelope, there was a card, and a newspaper clipping. The card had a picture of Mark of the front, and a cross, and dates. 1.1.1957- 14.7.1976 - the dates of Mark’s birth and death. I didn’t even know he had died. I wondered if Leo knew. The newspaper clipping explained, a car accident in North Queensland.

Jackie hadn’t told me, perhaps she thought I knew. We weren’t very close by then. I knew that Valerie had been an accident, Jackie hadn’t meant to kill her, but it was always going to come between us. It was by a sort of mental telepathy we decided we would avoid the subject. And the easiest way to do that was to avoid each other. We sent each other Christmas cards, and said we must get together, and sometimes we’d run into each other in a pub or at a party and we’d pass a few pleasantries and be glad of the excuse to get away. I followed her career though the newspapers, read all her books, had fond memories of her. I sent her an invitation to my wedding to Leo (she declined, on a book tour of Ireland). She sent me cards on the birth of my children, and I’d write back and say we must get together but it never happened. Now it was too late.

It was unlucky that her letter telling me of her cancer and wanting to meet came just after Leo and I had left for a long awaited trip to England and Ireland. When we got back and I read her letter I came immediately, but I was too late. Oh Jackie.

There was an uproar when Sister Catherine came in to ring the wake up bell and found that Valerie Parker’s bed had not been slept in. Sister Catherine was furious, Sister Angela was furious. Hell was going to be paid. All the sixth formers were to be questioned, and Mary Ann Martignon wasted no time in telling everyone that Valerie had gone out to catch Jackie and Debra at "it" with their boyfriends, so she could report us and stop the school giving us our HSC’s. What a bitch, I remember saying to Jackie. It was nearly my turn to be questioned by Sister Angela and I didn’t know what I was going to say, when the news came through that Valerie’s body had been found at the bottom of Rotary Lookout.

I felt a cold fear grip my heart. I looked at Jackie and she looked pale and frightened. Then I remembered the gloves. Before I could think properly, I found both gloves and wrapped them in a ball and put them in the incinerette in the shower block. I never told Jackie what I had done.

There was a Police inquiry and all the things that go with a sudden death. Valerie died of injuries received when she fell from the Rotary Lookout onto rocks ten metres below. The police never discovered whether she fell or was pushed, but there were signs of a struggle. I often wondered where Mark and Leo were when this went on, but I was never game to ask. I sighed.

I picked up the envelope and put all the Mark photos back in. The one of me looking hateful was on top, so I moved it to the bottom. I almost felt like ripping it up. Then another photo caught my eye.

It wasn’t in the envelope, it was in the album, stuck in, properly, but the envelope had sat on top of it, obscuring it. It was of Jackie and Mark. But that wasn’t what made me look twice. I had got used to the idea that Jackie and Mark had had a thing, and anyway, Mark was long dead. The photo was of Jackie and Mark, on ball night. Mark was wearing the chocolate brown suit that all the boys wore and Jackie was wearing her white dress, and Valerie’s gloves. And they were both sopping wet.

I could see a stage in the background, with the words Yarala Rock Festival on a banner. And Jackie and Mark, dripping wet were hugging each other and smiling at the camera. They had found a way to enjoy the festival without spending any money. They had swum the river.

And to hammer home the point, there was another photo of them, again at the festival, but dry. They must have left soon after I went back to the dorm. I’d like to think they waited a bit for me. I’m sure they would have. I was gone a long time.

Then in a flash I realised that Jackie hadn’t killed Valerie Parker. She couldn’t have, she was at the festival all night. She was innocent. I thought of all the years we had spent apart over a misunderstanding. If only I’d opened my big mouth. If only…

Then I thought, Jackie could have opened hers. She had no need to hide, to be quiet. She wasn’t guilty. But she was quiet. I opened the envelope again and found the hateful photo. And realised that when Jackie crept back into the dorm that night, it was my bed that was empty. And I remembered that Valerie was keen on Mark, too. And that I had burnt Valerie’s gloves.

Jackie thought that I had killed Valerie Parker. She probably thought that it was an accident, that I didn’t mean it, it was just something that happened. But she thought that I killed her.

And then I thought that when I had finished here, had sorted out all Jackie’s things, made my peace with her, and was ready to live the rest of my life knowing my best fried wasn’t a murderer, I supposed I would have to go home. To the one man who surely knew the truth.

© Christine Cave 2001

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