by Anna Romer
‘I’m going nuts inside,’ he said, manoeuvring awkwardly down the back steps.
‘Just don’t get that plaster wet.’ I held his crutches, an ache forming between my eyebrows as I watched him. ‘We don’t want you sliding over and breaking everything again.’
‘Yeah, thanks for your concern, Florence. I’ll be fine.’
At the foot of the steps, he took back his crutches and refitted them under his arms, inhaling a lungful of the damp air. Then he swung off along one of the wide pathways, avoiding the puddles as he headed towards the garden’s bushland perimeter, me hurrying along beside him. Soon, the house disappeared into the tall trees behind us.
Tom stopped walking and drank in another breath. ‘Taste that air. Always so fresh after the rain, isn’t it?’
‘Hmm.’ I flipped through my notebook to the jottings I’d made last night, and uncapped my pen. ‘Don’t you want to find somewhere to sit? You might be more comfortable.’
‘It’s good to stretch my legs.’ He narrowed his eyes at me. ‘Unless you need to sit. You’re not worn out after only five minutes, are you?’
I scoffed. ‘Hardly. Are you ready to start?’
‘You’ll give me final say before this thing goes to print?’
‘You have my word.’
‘Great, then let’s get it over with.’ He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and placed it on top of my notes. ‘There you go.’
‘What’s this?’
‘A list of topics I’m willing to discuss with you.’
I glanced over the paper, heat flooding my cheeks. ‘This wasn’t what we agreed. I mean, “Where do you get your ideas?” Seriously?’
His shoulders twitched. ‘A classic interview question. What’s wrong with it?’
‘What’s wrong is that first of all, you’re not the one conducting the interview. I am. And second, it’s boring.’
His brow shot up. ‘So now you think my ideas are boring?’
I groaned. ‘Okay. So where do you get your ideas, Tom?’
‘Newspapers, mostly.’
‘And?’
He shrugged. ‘That’s about it.’
‘Fascinating.’
‘Why aren’t you writing it down?’
I scrunched up his sheet of paper and flung it into the nearest garden bed. ‘You write fiction based on true crimes. I think we all get the gist of where your ideas come from. Look, my readers want to know the juicy stuff. Why your marriage failed, for instance.’
‘Too personal. Anyway, why would your readers want to know that?’
‘You’re a famous author. When people read about your divorce, they don’t feel so bad about their own dysfunctional lives. It’s comforting.’
‘And will knowing I’m an emotionally stunted arsehole comfort them too?’
‘Really, Tom. You’re not that bad.’
He grunted and continued down the path. ‘Many would beg to differ.’
I caught up to him, squelching through the sodden grass. ‘Okay, what about this. How did you get published?’
‘Fair question,’ he muttered, giving me a sideways glance. ‘Okay, let’s see. After my dad died – I would have been about twenty or so – I deferred uni and bought a motorbike, rode it wherever the mood took me. Camping at roadsides under the stars. Following the rivers into the wastelands of beyond, and then on to the desert. Dad hadn’t made it to retirement, so I was living his bucket list for him. I learned to trap rabbits and find bush tucker and raid abandoned orchards.’
‘Didn’t you miss being in town?’
‘Yeah, after a while I got restless. But then I realised that it wasn’t the desire to return to civilisation that was giving me itchy feet. I had a dream of my own that I’d been avoiding.’
‘Writing?’
He nodded.
‘Why were you avoiding it?’
‘Failure terrified me. But the more I tried to suppress my dream, the louder it shouted. So I started small. Began my first novel in an exercise book. The story spilled out of that book and into another, then another. Pretty soon my backpack was bulging with slim, dog-eared volumes. When I finished that novel, I started another.’
‘Were they any good?’
‘First novels – are you kidding? They were crap. But then I began writing about things that mattered to me, you know. I guess my dad was a humble hero in my eyes. He was a cop and loved nothing more than speculating over unsolvable cold cases. I loved hearing him map out all the clues and try to puzzle them together. So I started with that and the story just seemed to flow from there.’
‘You were discovered by a publisher while at university, weren’t you?’
‘Well, that was media hype, it was a bit more roundabout than that.’ He stopped walking and regarded me, his eyes dark in the dreary sunlight. ‘My savings ran out. I planned to return to Sydney, work for a few months to top up my reserves and then hit the road again. But fate had other ideas. I happened to mention my story in passing to an old university mate. He had a friend who was chummy with an editor at a big publishing house. It took me twelve months to marshal the courage to hand over my manuscript. But then when I did, a surprising thing happened.’
‘They loved it and the rest was history?’
He shook his head. ‘I got lucky, that’s all.’
The garden fell silent around us. The breeze held its breath, the trees stood motionless. Raindrops glittered in the grass. Even Tom was still, and I found myself feasting on the sight of him, his wind-blown hair and square unshaven face, the fierce directness of his gaze as he studied me in return. Then the wind picked up and rattled the branches and the spell broke. Shadows shifted across Tom’s face, gathering in his eyes.
I tried to smile. ‘I’m sorry your dad never got to see you achieve all that. He would have been proud.’
Tom straightened. ‘I reckon he would. He was one of the good guys.’
‘What about your mum, is she still around?’
‘She remarried a few years after Dad died, and went to live in Melbourne. She’s a radiologist. Planning to retire soon. I fly down a couple of times a year to visit, ring her every week or so. I don’t think she and Dad were all that suited, because she seems a lot happier these days.’ He looked over at me. ‘What about your family? You said you lost your dad.’
‘Yeah, there’s just me and my brother Duncan now. Mum ran off when we were kids. We’re not in touch with her.’
‘That’s tough. Must have been hell for your dad. I bet he found it a comfort to have you around.’
‘Dad and I weren’t . . .’ I stopped myself. I’d been about to trot out my old line about us not being close, but in light of Tom’s admiration for his own father, it seemed a callous thing to say. Besides, there had been a time when Dad and I were very close. ‘Dad did his best with us. In the early days he took us camping all the time. He was a bit of a survivalist. Wanted to make sure me and Dunc would know how to fend for ourselves in the event of major catastrophe – zombie or alien invasion, that sort of thing. But after Mum left, he withdrew into himself. Hit the grog . . .’ I drifted off, distracted.
Tom seemed to be standing too near, his gaze too searching, the bubble we had created around ourselves too cosy – as though we were old friends having an intimate heart to heart, or even lovers on a first date. Clutching my notebook against me, I stepped over a puddle and into the wet, weedy grass. Sodden stalks slapped my bare ankles, and my heels wobbled on the uneven ground, but at least now there was a degree of distance between us.
‘So tell me, what have you got against journalists?’
‘That’s digging a bit deep, isn’t it?’
‘When an author smashes a TV camera, people want to know why.’
‘Well, let them mull over this then. When a guy’s just been served his divorce papers, don’t shove a damn camera in his face.’
‘Divorce?’ I asked hopefully.
A soft growl came from his throat and he set off along the path
. ‘My ex-wife was like you in a lot of ways. Smart, ambitious. An independent woman with an enquiring mind. Do anything for a story.’
‘She was a—’
‘Yeah, one of your mob. I liked all those things about her, that’s what drew me to her in the beginning. I really, you know . . . cared. We’d been an item for seven years, and we were good together – or so I thought. But then one day I discovered that she’d been fooling around behind my back with another journalist. When I confronted her about the affair, she retaliated by writing a bunch of lies about me. That I was a womaniser, a drunk. That I plagiarised to my heart’s content, and badmouthed other writers. Okay, I might have gone a bit heavy on the booze at times, but none of the other stuff was true. To be honest, the whole thing broke my heart. I could handle the media storm that followed . . . and the bad reviews, the dip in sales. But her betrayal . . .’ He shook his head and fell silent.
‘We’re not all like that, you know.’
He muttered under his breath and kept walking.
We came to a clearing where the openness of the garden met a broken wall of bushland. Eucalypt saplings glimmered with raindrops, and a tall, rough-barked angophora raised its crooked arms into the grey sky. The roar of water drifted from down in the gully, but a dense screen of trees blocked our view of the river. Spots of rain began to fall.
Tom squinted up at the sky. ‘Those clouds look pretty bleak. It’s already spitting, we might as well call it a day.’ He turned away and headed back towards the house, sagging on his crutches.
I trailed behind, flipping through my notebook. Could I get one last glimpse into Tom’s private world before he escaped back into his silence? What a pity the questions I really wanted to ask were out of bounds. Why is a man like you, gorgeous and smart and intriguing, living all the way out here in the bush? What are you hiding from? Why are you alone? Is there someone you love, and if so why aren’t you with them?
Catching up to him, I tapped the page. ‘Here’s another one for you, Tom. What brought you to Gundara? And before you ask, when a bigshot Sydney writer lands in a blip on the map and buys a remote property, people want to know the details. What family connections you might have here, for instance. Or if the place inspired you for some particular reason . . .’
I stopped walking and blinked down at my notes. Pretended to read them, while my thoughts flew ahead. A true crime writer buys a remote house on the edge of national parkland – land that has a tainted history.
‘Deepwater,’ I whispered. ‘You’re planning to write about the Deepwater murders.’
Tom shifted in the shadows. ‘Planning to. Just not getting very far.’
I took a step back. ‘Why?’
‘Writer’s block, I guess.’
‘No, I mean why would you want to write about Deepwater?’
He sent me a curious look. ‘Why not? It’s a fascinating case.’
I dragged in a breath and tasted the rain; tasted dampness and wet leaves and earth. Last night I had dreamed of Alice once again, and out here under the trees with cloud shadows swarming, and raindrops glittering on my cardigan like diamonds, Alice seemed even more real to me than she had last night. But it wasn’t just Alice that bothered me. Deepwater was mine; I had an intimate understanding of the events; hell, I’d nearly been one of the victims. I intended to write a feature on it, had already begun my new outline. And now this stranger, this Sydneysider, this out of towner – to whom Deepwater was just another ‘fascinating case’ – had rocked up thinking he could stake a claim?
‘But you can’t.’
Tom huffed. ‘If you’re worried about the victims’ families getting hurt, you needn’t. When I’m done with the story, most of my readers won’t even recognise the original case. That’s how I roll.’
‘What’s the point of that? If no one knows.’
He shuffled into a patch of sunlight, squinting for a moment, then he shaded his eyes. ‘I write fiction, Abby. I’m not trying to solve any crimes or bring anything new to the case, at least not usually. When I fictionalise these stories, the crime is only a vehicle. My main goal is to explore the darker places of the human heart. What makes a good person do bad things, or what makes a bad person go beyond the scope of normal human experience and commit the unthinkable.’
‘What did you mean, just now? “Not usually.” Does that mean you’re going to try and solve this one?’
‘I thought it was already solved.’
I inhaled deep into my lungs, and tore my attention away from his steady, river-water gaze. Behind us the roof of the house had become visible between the trees, its dark red tiles almost black in the stormy light. A shiver flew over my skin, and I hugged my cardigan tighter. Into my mind drifted a round pixie face with a rosebud smile and cinnamon eyes. Already solved, she agreed. But are you quite sure? Then she morphed into another girl, similar in age and build, her hair as dark as a crow feather; a girl who wore a red sequinned jacket and was, I hoped, still very much alive.
‘What is it, do you think, Tom, that makes someone commit the unthinkable?’
Tom sighed and started back for the house. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
• • •
Tom sat at the big redwood table on the verandah, bathed in the yellow glow of a citronella lantern. It was only five o’clock, but the sky was almost dark, mottled by oppressive, black storm clouds.
He glanced at the doorway. Abby was taking her time. No point waiting. He uncorked the brandy bottle, savouring the syrupy sharpness in his nostrils as he poured a glass and tossed the contents down his throat.
How had it come to this? Sitting outside on such a dreary day, feeling weirdly alive, despite having just exposed bits of his fiercely guarded past to a woman he’d only just met. A woman who was, God help him, a bloody journalist.
He topped his glass and swallowed another shot. She wasn’t like any of the journos he’d encountered before. Maybe it was that funny little expression she pulled when she asked a question – brows up, chin tilting to the side. Or her husky voice, her wary grey eyes, the cosmos of tiny freckles that dotted her skin. Or the fact that she listened. Actually listened, her attention riveted on him as though what he said mattered to her. Something about her awareness made him want to try harder, to open up more and share parts of himself that he’d closed off for years.
Abby appeared in the doorway, lit from behind by the kitchen light. ‘The rain seems to have eased.’
Tom stared. He had lent her some clean clothes while her own were drying after the sudden downpour they’d been caught in earlier. A favourite threadbare old pair of jeans he’d hung on to since his university days, and a thin cashmere jersey he’d recently shrunk in the wash. She had belted the jeans and rolled up the legs, tucking the jersey into the waistband and pinning her dark hair in twin bunches. Far from the shapeless figure he’d hoped the clothes would bring her, he found she was just as distracting as ever.
‘Yeah, what? Oh, the rain. I guess you’ll be heading off in the morning, then? If the road’s clear.’
She joined him at the table and eyed the brandy, toyed with her glass. ‘I’ve still got a few questions, Tom. That was our deal, wasn’t it?’
Tom gulped more brandy. ‘Nothing too personal, I hope?’
She sighed, fiddling with a spike of hair that had escaped its bunch. ‘How would you feel about me staying longer so I can write the article here? Then you can read over it, change anything you’re not comfortable with, while I’m still around. Sound fair?’
‘How long will it take to write?’
Her shoulders slumped. ‘In other words, how long will I continue cramping your style? Couple more days, at most.’
Tom reached for the bottle, but Abby hadn’t touched her glass, so he recorked the brandy and pushed it aside. He didn’t want a top-up. His head already swam. Partly from the liquor. Mostly he blamed her for his whirling, unsettled thoughts. He got to his feet and collected his crutches.
‘S
tay as long as you like. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.’ Before she could say anything more, he hauled himself up from the table and escaped inside. In his office, he shut the door and switched on his desk lamp, settling into the familiar cocoon of light.
He wound a fresh sheet of paper into the Remington. Typed a sentence, then drifted again. He shouldn’t have been so gruff with her. She was being fair. But what had possessed him to open up to her in the garden the way he had?
‘Those big, soulful grey eyes, that’s what,’ he said out loud.
Part of him resented Abby for gatecrashing his solitude, distracting him. But since she’d been here, he’d found himself seeking her out, observing her with increasing interest. Her slim body bent over one of his boxes; her bare arms as she’d rolled her shoulders and stretched. She wasn’t what he’d expected. Nothing fazed her. His criticisms fell on deaf ears, his harsh words rolled off her. Last night, for instance. When he’d gotten snappy over her rough handling of his valuable old dictionaries, she just smiled to herself and gave him that look – yeah right, loser – then continued unpacking.
Was she still on the verandah? He reached for his crutches, eager to see her, hear her, maybe even make her laugh.
‘You idiot,’ he groaned, sagging back into his chair. ‘Don’t even go there.’
No point getting ideas. He’d already messed up his marriage. Alienated his wife and made mortal enemies of his in-laws. Not to mention pissing off an army of girlfriends. With that sort of track record, he had no right even glancing sideways at another woman. Especially not a journo. And especially not one with the looks and brains to do a whole lot better than a cynical bastard like him. All he had to do now was resist temptation for a couple more days – and then stand back and let her walk right out of his life.
8
‘Any luck at the hospital?’ I asked, almost jogging to keep up with my brother’s long strides.
It was nearly lunchtime and we were walking along the foreshore of Lake Winsey, a ten-minute hike from our childhood house on the north side of town. As kids, my brother and I had spent all our spare time here, searching the shoreline for big flat stones to skim across the grey water, or playing hide-and-seek in the maze of tea-tree thickets. These days it was still our favourite meeting place.