Not Bad People

by Brandy Scott

  She was only listening, Melinda told herself. Just providing a safe, neutral sounding board. Nothing wrong with that.

  ‘So what do you reckon? Should I call the old guy she saw last time? Make an appointment and have a quiet word?’

  Melinda shrugged.

  ‘Come on, I need to know what you think.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘It’s not fair.’ Because she was never completely neutral, was she. Melinda had enjoyed Nick’s company just a little too much during those hospital months. Having someone to sit up talking with, to veg out next to on the sofa watching crappy television. She could reach out her hand, only a few inches, and they’d be touching.

  Nick rolled towards her. ‘Will I open another one?’

  Melinda nodded, despite herself. She watched his tall, slightly awkward body move around her kitchen. He looked good in there. Like he belonged. Melinda bit down hard on her lip to bring herself back to her senses.

  They might not have crossed the line, but they’d pressed right up against it. Long hugs hello, longer hugs goodbye. Nights they’d accidentally fallen asleep on the sofa, the floor. That one night she’d been crying over some bloke she didn’t even remember, and Nick had pulled her head into his lap, stroked her hair until she was quiet. That night he’d been too drunk to drive and she’d let him stay over and they’d woken up in her bed. Clothed, him on top of the doona, her under it. But still.

  He was rummaging through her cupboards. ‘Where do you keep the decent stuff these days?’

  Intimacy didn’t have to be physical. Melinda and Nick had been in love once. And even though they weren’t any more, it gave a charge to their conversations she didn’t feel with anyone else. With Nick, there was always what they were talking about and what they weren’t talking about.

  He reappeared carrying something Argentinian she’d bought in duty-free. ‘Hey, this looks bloody good.’

  And what they were talking about wasn’t fair. Because it was Aimee. In words and tones they wouldn’t use if she was in the room.

  You didn’t have to take your clothes off to cross the line.

  Melinda stood up and gently took the bottle off Nick. ‘We’re not drinking this.’

  ‘But I’ve already opened it.’

  ‘We shouldn’t have.’ She set the bottle carefully down on the floor and handed him his shoes. ‘You need to go home.’

  He looked down at his Adidas, and then up at her. ‘We didn’t . . . We’re not —’

  ‘Yeah, we kind of are.’ She walked him, regretfully, to the door.

  ‘I didn’t mean —’

  ‘I know.’ Melinda held out her hand. ‘But I think you’d better give me back my key.’

  It felt as though she was losing something as she closed her hand around the key ring. There’d be no more Nick letting himself in to take a look at the pipe under her sink, no more coming home to find the guttering had magically been cleaned out. She was giving all that away. No, Melinda reminded herself. Giving it back. She held him close, one last, long hug.

  ‘Go home to your family,’ she said into his hair.

  The kids weren’t bothered in the slightest. Didn’t even look up. ‘I’m heading out for a bit.’ Aimee had said, poking her head into the den. ‘Fundraising drama at the nursing home. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.’

  The only person who twisted around to say goodbye was Cameron. ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Verratti,’ he’d said with a wide smile. ‘I’ll take good care of them. Least I can do, given how well you’ve been looking after my stepdad.’

  That smile was bothering her now, as she drove towards Hensley’s main street. First thing tomorrow, she’d tell the kids not to have anything more to do with him. She didn’t have to give them a reason. She was their mother.

  Aimee turned at the pharmacy, headed onto the main drag. The streetlights were haloing in her dirty windscreen; she turned the wipers on, gave it a quick wash. And was left with crystal-clear glass, just in time to get a nice, good look at her husband, letting himself out of Melinda’s building.

  Melinda sat on the edge of her bathtub and howled.

  She’d never really cried over Nick. She’d been so busy pretending not to mind, then so genuinely busy with the business, that she’d never stopped to grieve. Just moved on to the next thing. The next goal, the next house renovation, the next go- nowhere relationship. You’re so resilient, Melinda. Nothing ever bothers you. But she’d been carrying a torch, just a small one, her own little shining lantern, all these years. And now it was time for a private letting-go ceremony.

  Melinda let herself cry, the sort of embarrassing wailing she hadn’t done since she was a child. Mouth-gaping, nose-running, chest-heaving cries. Thank God her tenants had all gone home for the day; it meant she could mourn in peace. She turned the taps off and tipped a jar of expensive oil into the hot water. Melinda had never been a bath type of person; she’d installed the claw-footed tub simply because it looked good. Five-minute showers with the news turned up loud, that was more her style. But tonight she was going to have one of those long pampering baths that women’s magazines always banged on about. Not that Melinda read women’s magazines, unless she was in them. But she occasionally flicked through one on a plane. Melinda grabbed her copy of The Economist, and the good Argentinian wine and a block of Swiss dark salted caramel. She was going to have a proper, old- fashioned wallow, just a couple of decades too late.

  God, that was good. Necessary. Melinda sank lower, let the hot water soothe her. Because it wasn’t just Nick she was mourning, she realised as she flicked through an article about the ageing population in Europe — it was all her younger expectations about how her life was going to turn out. Yes, she was successful and well-off, even semi-famous, in certain circles. And that was all only set to increase. But the whole idea of a husband, two kids and a dog? Melinda needed to put it to bed.

  It will probably never happen, she told herself as she ducked her head under the water. She might manage to adopt, but if she did, motherhood was more than likely going to be a solo endeavour. Life was not a movie; the perfect bloke was unlikely to roll up while she was effortlessly raising an adorable small child in her forties. And she had to be okay with that. Just like she had to be okay with the fact that, yes, she might still meet Mr Right, but she also might not. She might be single for the rest of her life, and she had to accept that and be grateful for what she had. Because she could feel herself getting bitter and, God knows, that never suited anyone.

  And acceptance was not the same as giving in, Melinda reminded herself, as she came spluttering to the surface to the sound of her mobile phone. It wasn’t giving up. She’d keep waxing, keep plucking, keep going to business conferences with favourable male-to-female ratios. Melinda padded naked and dripping to the phone. But she would also do her best to enjoy her life right now, and not keep thinking how much better it would be if only there was someone else in it.

  ‘Hey, Clint.’ Melinda tucked the phone against one damp shoulder as she searched the kitchen for more treats. ‘Yeah, all good. Just in the bath.’

  She hadn’t meant it as a come-on, but he took it as one. He was on the highway, only ten minutes from her turn-off. Did she want company? There was an unattractive leer in his voice. He could stay the night, head back down to Melbourne in the morning. It’d be no problem.

  You wait hours for a bus, and then two turn up at once.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, grabbing another bar of chocolate from her secret stash. She took a deep breath. ‘In fact, I don’t think this is a great idea, full stop. You and me.’ Now that she’d remembered what it felt like to really be into someone, there seemed little point wasting time with someone she could barely stand to have a conversation with. ‘Nothing personal,’ she added. How many times had she heard that? ‘I think we’re probably better just as colleagues.’

  Clint expressed surprise and regret while Melinda tore the wrapper off. Yes, she agreed, the sex had been f
un. No, she didn’t want to talk through it. There was nothing to talk about. Melinda would rather have no man than the wrong man. She took a large bite of chocolate in celebration of something everyone else had probably figured out in their twenties.

  ‘Well,’ Clint said, slightly huffily. ‘If you don’t want to talk to me, you need to speak to Stacey Manning at least. The journalist. She keeps calling.’

  Melinda pictured Aimee in the video again: Stacey’s video. The best way to shut down a story was to not to fuel it. ‘You talk to her,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing I need to comment on.’ And she switched her phone off.

  She’d just topped up the water, was settling into a fascinating article on the future of North Korea, when the doorbell rang. ‘I told you both to go home!’ Melinda yelled, and ducked her head under the water.

  The bell was still ringing when she came up for air. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ she muttered, pulling a pair of jeans up her damp thighs. When she actually wanted a night alone . . .

  Melinda made little puddles across the hallway as she padded to the door. Puddles she’d have to be careful to clean up later; her floorboards didn’t like water.

  ‘I told you it wasn’t happening,’ she said, but kindly, as she opened up the door. No need to hurt anyone’s feelings. But it wasn’t Nick or Clint. It was Lou.

  Damien opened the door in a singlet. ‘Hey,’ he said, slightly flustered. ‘I wasn’t expecting you so quickly.’

  ‘I drove fast,’ said Aimee, still feeling as though she’d been hit by something heavy across the back of her head. One hundred and thirty kilometres an hour, all the way to Meadowcroft. She hadn’t even realised until the speed camera caught her coming into town.

  ‘Nice place,’ she said, wandering around as Damien pulled a T-shirt over his head. The hotel room was dark and depressing, the sort of place you’d choose if you wanted to end it all. Cheap laminate furniture. Heavy curtains. There wasn’t even a view. There was a miniature fridge though, under a foggy mirror. Aimee knelt down and started going through it.

  ‘We can go down to the bar, if you want a drink,’ said Damien.

  Aimee pulled out a miniature bottle of chardonnay from a rival vineyard. ‘Do you mind if I open this?’

  ‘Is that what you want?’

  She didn’t really, but she also didn’t want to feel anything, and she could hardly down a couple of miniature vodkas in front of the man. ‘Please,’ she said.

  Damien seemed uncertain as he took the bottle from her, but he screwed the cap off anyway. ‘I don’t think there are any wineglasses,’ he said, fumbling around in the wardrobe. He emerged with a single coffee cup and a drinking glass. ‘These’ll have to do, I’m afraid.’ He handed her the larger measure. ‘Cheers.’

  Aimee sat on the sloping edge of the hotel bed and tried not to gulp.

  ‘Don’t you want to take a look?’ he asked.

  She stared at him blankly. ‘What?’

  ‘At the report.’ He held out a thin ring-bound document.

  ‘Right.’ Aimee wasn’t sure she even cared any more. She tried to remember why it had felt so vital to know what was happening, to stay on top of everything. What a joke. Aimee didn’t even know what was happening in her own home. She tipped the rest of the wine down her throat. Everything had exploded, not just the plane.

  ‘It’s just the preliminary findings,’ said Damien, flicking through the document. ‘But if it makes you feel better to have a quick read, go for it. Although you can’t take it with you, obviously. And for God’s sake, don’t tell anyone I showed you. They’d have my head.’

  He held the report out again, but Aimee didn’t move. Just stared glassily at this kind man who was risking his job for her. Who’d made her feel attractive and interesting, for the first time in years. He was going through a separation, he’d told her over one of their lunches. Chasing accidents around the country didn’t really help a marriage. Two kids, grown up now. He wasn’t that bothered about being single. Meant he got to have lunch with a beautiful lady like Aimee, without any guilt.

  She waved her empty glass at him. ‘Can we open up another one of those?’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to go downstairs?’ he asked. But he pulled out another little bottle. ‘Not bad this, I have to say.’

  The wine was terrible, but Aimee didn’t care. Finally. She, who cared too much, who never did anything without worrying about the potential impact on her husband and her children and her bloody community, no longer gave a damn. She stood up and clinked her glass against his coffee cup. They made a hollow clunk, like something broken.

  ‘What are we drinking to?’ he asked, watching her face closely.

  ‘Whatever you want,’ she said. ‘Whatever the fuck you want.’ And for the first time in sixteen years, Aimee Verratti leaned forward and kissed a man who was not her husband.

  CHAPTER 32

  The absolute bugger about being blind was that he couldn’t read the labels. He could find the bottles easy enough. Vodka and gin beside the root vegetables on the pantry floor. Paracetamol in the junk drawer with the spare keys and batteries, as it always was. But the mother lode, Julia’s pain medication, was mixed up among every other pill and gargle and elixir they’d bought or been prescribed since Lincoln was born.

  Pete leaned against the bathroom wall, getting his breath back as he felt the shapes of bottles and rattled containers. Cameron was out, had disappeared with the car earlier in the evening. Pete needed to get this done and dusted before he returned. Not because he thought Cameron would stop him; he probably wouldn’t even bother to call an ambulance. But Pete didn’t want to spend his last moments at the mercy of his angry son, Cameron whispering poison in his ear.

  His son. Pete still thought of Cameron as his own, even if Cam didn’t. He’d raised him since the age of three; the loser Julia had been married to before could barely remember Christmas. Pete shuffled through the medication, moving as quickly as he could. He’d truly thought Cameron would straighten out. That he’d find himself in Sydney, or wherever he ended up. But he was still the same angry young man, inflicting pain on others so he didn’t have to feel his own.

  Well, Pete didn’t fancy feeling pain any more either. The public inquiry had been set for the beginning of next week — three days away. ‘Let’s see if we can help you and your family find some closure,’ the bloke from the ATSB had said. Closure. Exactly.

  Pete decided to take all the heavy glass bottles and the small pharmacy-issue plastic vials. They seemed likely to do the most damage. If he ended up swallowing a few dozen vitamin E along the way, then he’d just be a well-preserved corpse. Pete piled the bottles in the bottom of his polo shirt and carted them over to the bed.

  How he actually wanted to spend his last moments was with his wife, clutching one of Julia’s scarves, breathing in what he could imagine was left of her scent as he drifted out of his body and towards wherever she was. Religion had always been more her thing than his, but for the first time Pete hoped that she was right, that there was something out there after death. And also that she was wrong — that they let you in regardless of whatever you’d done on earth.

  CHAPTER 33

  ‘You look like shit,’ Lou said, staring.

  ‘You don’t look so hot yourself,’ said Melinda, and it was true. Lou’s nose and chin were red, as though she’d been rubbing at them, and her eyes were tired. She was still wearing her work clothes, even though it had to be nearly eleven. ‘Bit late for you to be out, isn’t it? You’ve got to be up at six.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Lou, as she walked straight past Melinda and into her apartment. ‘I don’t have a job.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’ Although, truthfully, Melinda had been waiting for this day for years. Both she and Aimee agreed it was only a matter of time. Lou had the worst work ethic in Hensley; she did the crossword in council meetings instead of taking minutes. But even so.

  Melinda pushed the door shut and gave her a big, wet
hug. ‘Oh Lou, I’m sorry.’

  Lou stood stiff in her arms. It was the first time Melinda had seen her since their fight in the town hall. Their big argument, the most serious the three of them had ever had. But she must be over it if she’d come here for sympathy. Melinda rocked her from side to side; it was like rocking a plank of wood. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again.

  ‘Yeah, so am I,’ said Lou. There was no emotion in her voice: shock probably.

  Cold bathwater dripped down the back of Melinda’s T-shirt. ‘Give me two minutes,’ she said. ‘I’ll just sort myself out. Stick the jug on or something, whatever you want.’ She nearly slipped on the damp wood as she ducked into the bathroom. ‘There’s chocolate in the freezer!’

  Melinda felt almost jolly as she pulled her wet hair up on top of her head, not even taking the time to apply hair oil. The sacrifices I make, she thought, but cheerfully. She’d missed the others. Melinda knew her life was empty, that she was all work and no play, but she hadn’t realised she had no other female friends in Hensley until that week, not a single person she could call and say, ‘Let’s go for a drink.’ Which was entirely her own fault. Melinda had never bothered to make any other friends because Aimee and Lou had always been there. There was no need for anyone else.

  But now drama was bringing them back together, as always. Melinda smiled to herself as she quickly rubbed in moisturiser. How many times had they sat up late at night, listening to Lou’s outrage, Aimee’s worry, Melinda’s big plans? When Aimee’s parents got divorced Melinda and Lou had all but moved in, sleeping on the floor of her pink-and-white bedroom, wearing each other’s uniforms to school. When Aimee’s mother died twenty years later, they’d done the same thing again, only with proper bedding. They were the kind of friends who rose to the occasion, Melinda thought, as she went humming into the kitchen. Who were able to put the nonsense behind them when it mattered. She shoved a couple of slices of nice thick wholemeal into the toaster. Tomatoes on toast and a cup of tea — Lou’s favourite comfort food.