‘Yeah, but I feel like a creep. I mean, sending emails about her behind her back? There’s something off about it. Maybe I should just talk to her? Tell her what I’m doing? Explain that we’re just looking out for her?’
Lilla shakes her head. ‘Don’t you think they should be the ones to talk to her? If they decide it’s the best thing? And if they’re lawyers, then they can’t exactly be stupid, can they? Let them take responsibility for the situation. For God’s sake, Tim, be smart. Protect yourself. Believe me, it’s totally not creepy what you’re doing, and I have the most excellent creepiness detector. Believe me. It’s totally the right and responsible thing to do.’
‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘I don’t know. But, hey, Lilla, how do you even—’
‘Shit!’ she interrupts, looking at her watch. ‘I am so bloody late!’ She leans over, plants a kiss on my cheek. ‘You know what, Tim? It makes me feel all glowy and proud inside to see you being so thoughtful about the whole thing. Just keep on sending those emails.’ She jumps up, stares down at me, grins cheekily. ‘And don’t forget the knife. You might need it.’
And as I watch her go I’m overcome by the kiss, busy remembering the feel of her lips on my cheek, and I forget the question I wanted to ask.
*
I stroll back down to the quay and wait for the next ferry. When I get to Manly I take a walk to the beach, strip to my jocks and run into the water. I bodysurf until I’m too tired to continue, then trudge up the beach and sit on the warm sand until I’m dry.
Back at the house I find Anna in the courtyard. She has her skirt pulled up to her thighs, her bare pale legs stretched out in the sunshine. She straightens up when she sees me, covering her legs.
‘Want a Danish?’ I ask. ‘I bought four different flavours: raspberry, custard, strawberry and apricot. In case.’
‘I—’ she starts.
‘Of course you do,’ I interrupt, grinning. ‘How could you not?’
Despite the fatigue that’s weighing me down like a lead suit, I’m in an excellent mood. Though I tell myself it’s just the beautiful weather that’s making me feel so cheerful, I know deep down that the grin on my face has a lot to do with what Lilla told me about her and Patrick. Things aren’t going well between them. Lilla and I might move in together. It’s the chance I’ve been waiting for.
Anna and I eat our pastries in silence. I don’t mention the kitchen, or the fact that I’m pretty sure it was her watching me at night. I don’t even want to think about, let alone talk about, anything so heavy. And after what Lilla said about Patrick, my being here may only be temporary anyway. There’s no need to get overly involved. Besides, though I wonder what exactly is going on with Anna, I know there’s probably no single answer. She’s grieving. She’s unhappy. She’s unwell. She’s all of the above and more. The thing is, I have nothing to worry about. Anna’s harmless. She’s someone to pity, not fear.
25
THE MORE SHE GOT TO KNOW MARCUS AND FIONA, THE MORE SHE ADMIRED what they’d achieved. Despite their impoverished background and less than ideal childhood, they’d made something of themselves, and it was pure determination, brains and courage that had got them there.
One Friday night, several months after the night Fiona had stormed out, after things had pretty much returned to normal, Fiona and Marcus turned up at the house with bottles of champagne and baskets full of delicious food: prawns and oysters, caviar, olives, cheese, crusty bread. They were both in particularly good spirits.
‘Today we signed a lease on a new building. Harrow and Harrow will officially open in a month’s time!’ Fiona said as she poured champagne. Anna had never seen Fiona look so radiant. They took the food outside to the courtyard and Marcus and Fiona explained that they were starting a new business, a partnership. They hadn’t told Anna of their plans, they’d wanted it to be a surprise.
It must have been the excitement that made them drink that second bottle so quickly. They started on a third, and before long their faces were flushed and they were talking over the top of each other, laughing at stupid things, their voices fuzzy and blurred.
Suddenly Marcus sat up straight, tapped his knife on the side of his glass.
‘I need to say something,’ he said in a mock-serious voice.
‘Oh, good,’ Fiona laughed, and glanced happily over at Anna.
‘You two are the most important people in the world to me,’ Marcus said, lifting his glass. ‘And I just wanted to say that I love you both.’
‘And we love you too,’ Fiona said, her voice so solemn that Anna almost giggled. ‘We’re a family. The three of us. Forever.’
When they’d finished the third bottle, Fiona stood up.
‘I’m sorry to be a drag,’ she said. ‘But if I drink any more I think I’ll be sick.’
Anna helped her upstairs and into bed. She was disappointed that the night had ended so early; she was enjoying herself and wanted to stay up, celebrate some more. When she went downstairs she was pleased to see that Marcus felt the same. He’d put a bottle of whisky on the table, two glasses, a container of ice.
‘Let’s have some of this,’ he said, lifting the bottle as she entered the room. ‘I’m too happy to go to bed now.’
Marcus was uncharacteristically loose and relaxed. Booze had made his eyes shiny, his smile wide, his conversation easy. He’d loosened his tie and undone the top buttons of his shirt. The front of his hair sat up, as if he’d absent-mindedly run his hands through it. They sat at the table, getting steadily drunker, and talked of everything and nothing. At some stage, words stopped making sense, and instead of trying to understand what Marcus was saying, Anna watched his face, noticing for the first time the strong, square line of his jaw, the shadow of stubble on his skin, the deep brown of his eyes. She thought about kissing him, about touching his face, and without even thinking, she reached out and pressed her fingertip to his lips.
Next thing she knew they were clasped together, lips pressed tight. Marcus made a noise in the back of his throat that made her think he must have wanted this for a long time. They went to the living room and stumbled, giggling and clumsy, to the sofa. He was surprisingly strong and decisive, and much less inhibited than she would have imagined. He knew exactly what to do, where and how to touch her. Anna smiled and closed her eyes and held on tight.
26
I SPEND THE NEXT FEW DAYS WORKING AT NIGHT, SLEEPING, THEN surfing or swimming during the day. Nothing unusual happens at the house and I don’t see much of Anna. I don’t hear from Lilla, either – no texts or phone calls – and I force myself not to call and harass her about the idea of moving in together. But I think about it endlessly. I create different scenarios in my head: the two of us sharing a flat in Manly, having late-night beers together when I get home from work, getting closer and more open with each other until we both admit we should never have broken up in the first place. Inevitably, my imagined scenarios always end up with the two of us in bed. Sometimes it’s me who makes the first move, with Lilla opening her arms in welcome, asking why I took so long. Other fantasies have me coming home from work to find Lilla spread provocatively on the sofa, dressed in something outrageously revealing – all for the purpose of seducing me.
I’m having a post-work drink at the bar with Blake and some of the waitresses when I get a text from her.
You still at work?
Yep. Just finished.
Cool.
?
And then she’s tapping at the front door, her face pressed up against the glass. Blake lets her in. I introduce her to the others and get her a beer. Everyone else is seated around a table, empty glasses and chip packets in a mess in the centre. Lilla perches on a stool, folding one long leg over the other – showing them off. I stand next to her.
‘You got here fast,’ I say.
‘We’re just over at the Steyne,’ she says. ‘Having a drink.’
‘We?’
She ignores me, lifts her beer, looks around the restaurant
.
‘It looks good in here. I like the new lights.’
‘They’re not new,’ I say. ‘They’ve been like that for years.’
‘No kidding?’ She smiles. ‘I guess it’s a while since I’ve been here, then.’ She takes a swig of her drink then puts it down on the bar, slaps her knee. ‘Anyway. I didn’t come here to talk about the restaurant. I came to talk about that party.’
‘What party? There is no party.’
‘Your birthday party,’ she says loudly, so everyone can hear. ‘The party you’re going to have at that house.’
I shake my head. ‘Nah.’ I don’t know why she’s talking about parties. I’d rather be making arrangements to move out.
‘Oh, come on,’ she says. ‘Everyone! Tell Tim he’s having a party. Tell him he has to. That as a resident of one of the biggest houses this side of Sydney it’s his civic duty.’
And then Blake and the others start.
‘Why not, Tim?’
‘Go on, Tim. Do it. What an excellent idea.’
‘Yeah!’
‘Yeah, well,’ I say. ‘I have to check with Anna first. She owns the place.’
Lilla smiles, pleased with herself, and slides off the stool.
She kisses my cheek and pats my shoulder.
‘See you later, Timmy,’ she says on her way out.
*
I can’t avoid walking past the Steyne on my way home, but I don’t have to look in. I can’t help myself. I stop walking, press my face to the glass and stare straight in. A bloke sitting close to the window frowns at me and points me out to his friends, who all laugh and make faces. I ignore them and try to see beyond, into the tangle of faces and tables and glasses and flickering light.
I’m just about to give up when I see her. She’s standing in the middle of a crowd, talking, animated. I see only girls beside her and for a moment I’m happy, thinking she’s just out with a bunch of friends. Next minute he’s beside her. Patrick. He puts his arm around her shoulders, presses his face close to her ear, and she turns and kisses him.
I realise too late that I’m standing underneath a light, that I’m just as visible to the people inside as they are to me. Patrick’s eyes go wide as he sees me. And when Lilla finishes kissing him he smiles at me deliberately. His expression is cold and smug.
I turn away, start walking towards home. My heart pounds in my chest and I’m burning with angry humiliation as I make my way quickly along the Corso and the length of West Esplanade.
I reach the harbourside path and slow down, uncurl my fists.
I’m halfway home when I hear footsteps behind me. I don’t turn around to look – I hate looking like I’m anxious, I think it can invite trouble if you let people see your fear – but I move to one side so that whoever is behind me can go past. But the footsteps stop and I assume the person has left the path, gone up to the road, or into one of the many houses that line the path.
Suddenly I hear the much louder thump of someone running, getting closer. The noise stops as quickly as it started.
I turn around, but there’s nobody behind me.
‘Hello?’ I call out, and my voice echoes back at me. There are intermittent lights, but some of them are broken and parts of the path are still dark enough to feel sinister at night, if you’re in that kind of mood. Normally I like the quiet solitude of this walk, the only noise the distant hum of traffic, the gentle lap, lap, lap of the water, but tonight the quiet seems to sit over everything like a thick blanket, cloying and heavy, suffocating. I want to shake it off, emerge into noise and light and traffic and the security of other people.
I turn back, walking faster now, and move over to the grass so I can hear if anyone comes up behind me. But it soon occurs to me that anyone following could do the same and I wouldn’t hear a thing. As I walk my heart pounds and my skin prickles with fear, with the urge to turn around and watch my back.
I don’t hear anything for a while, and I start to relax, tell myself I’m just being paranoid. As soon as I step back onto the concrete path the sound starts up again: footsteps behind me. Footsteps almost in sync with mine, but not quite. I stop, and the footsteps stop. I start walking and they start up again. If I wasn’t alone, if it wasn’t so dark and quiet, I might think it was funny. But I am alone, and it’s too dark, too quiet, and the sudden certainty that I’m being followed makes my hair stand on end. A choked grunt of fear slips from my throat.
I swing around. ‘Who’s there?’ I call, trying to keep the fear from my voice, to sound amused, even, as if I think this is all a great joke. But the words come out sounding timid and high, and very obviously afraid.
I don’t wait for an answer, or to see who appears out of the bushes. I turn around and run as fast as I can.
When I get back to the house I don’t bother stopping to say hello to Anna. I go straight up to my room and try to calm down. I pace back and forth and take deep breaths, clenching and unclenching my fists. I sit on the floor and put my head between my legs until my heart rate slows and my panic dissipates.
There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m inside and safe, and whoever was out there was only playing some dumb joke. I’m tired and emotional and not thinking straight. I’m overreacting.
I stand up and turn on my laptop, log into Facebook. Lilla has updated her status with the comment, Lazy, happy daze with loverboy! and a whole bunch of new photos. I click through them one by one: Lilla and Patrick mucking around at the beach, Lilla and Patrick drinking in some kind of beer garden or pub, Lilla and Patrick cuddling on the sofa. For all her talk of moving out, she’s still close enough to him to spend the day letting him put his hands all over her. In fact, she looks positively thrilled to have his hands all over her. One photo in particular makes my blood boil. Lilla is facing the camera, mouth open, eyes half-closed, looking blissed out. She’s wearing something very skimpy, a bikini top or a bra. Patrick is behind her, his dog-like face buried in her neck. He has his arms around her and, though the bottom of the picture is out of the frame, it’s obvious that the palm of his hand is beneath her bra. I have to fight an urge to pick the computer up and fling it out the window.
I go across the hall to shower. I put the water on hard and hot, turn my face up, and wash myself thoroughly. Loads of soap all over my skin, a good handful of shampoo in my hair. I scrub until I know every trace of the restaurant is washed off, and the bathroom is thick with fog. A few tears slip out, and I feel weak and pathetic for letting myself cry, stupid for letting myself get sucked in by Lilla all over again. I have to move on, get over my obsession with her, and it occurs to me as I’m standing there watching the water swirl down the drain that having a party, just as Lilla had suggested, might be a way to help me do just that. It could mark a new stage of my life – publicly, a birthday party, but privately, a kind of moving on.
By the time I’ve dried myself vigorously and pulled some clean clothes on, I feel a lot better.
It’s past midnight but I have a sudden second wind. I go downstairs and get two beers from the fridge. I find Anna in the living room, in her pyjamas. She’s lying down on the sofa, her eyes barely open, the light of the television flickering across her face. She sits up when she sees me.
She looks wary, as if afraid I’m there for some kind of difficult conversation. I grin, trying to look as cheerful as I can, and hand her a beer. I sit on the couch opposite and lean towards her.
‘What would you think about the idea of a party?’ I say.
She blinks. ‘Here?’
‘Of course here. Why not? It’s the ideal place,’ I say. ‘I know it might be impossible or too hard or whatever. With your agoraphobia and everything. So just say so if that’s the case. I don’t want to make things worse. You probably don’t like crowds?’
‘No,’ she shakes her head. ‘That’s not really . . . I mean, I do have a bit of social phobia, but my anxiety is mainly . . . I could manage a party, I think.’
‘It would just be a casual thing. I
t’s my birthday this weekend. I know it’s short notice, but you wouldn’t have to do anything. I’d take care of it all. You could just sit back and enjoy yourself.’
‘A party.’ She says it slowly, as if testing the idea out.
‘Yeah,’ I grin. ‘You must know about them? You know, people come over? We put on music? Drink beer? Get drunk and dance? Hopefully have a bit of fun?’
She’s quiet for a moment, looking down at her hands. Eventually, she looks up and a slow smile spreads over her face. ‘I do vaguely remember something like that.’
‘What do you reckon?’
She nods, takes a sip on her beer, places the bottle carefully on the table.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Why not?’
27
WHEN TIM FIRST SUGGESTS HAVING A PARTY, HER IMMEDIATE REACTION IS dread. The very word conjures up so many conflicting emotions. Her memories of parties at the house are not pleasant: the days of tense, almost hysterical preparation beforehand, the awful, brittle people who would come, the horrible, lonely sense that she’d been born into the wrong family, the wrong world.
Then she thinks of the parties she’s enjoyed. Dancing with friends on New Year’s Eve. Birthday parties at other people’s houses. Bonfires at the beach in summer. All of these parties – the ones she thinks of as fun – were held elsewhere, away from the house, far from her mother.
But now that her mother isn’t here to ruin it, why shouldn’t she have a party?
Much as she’d like to, she can’t hide forever. She has to make some attempt to recover, lead a normal life. And a party in the safety of the house, in her own territory, seems a relatively unthreatening way to be involved, to see people, to remind herself what real life is like. And it would officially be Tim’s party, not hers, so if she had to retreat, disappear up to bed, nobody would really notice or care.
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