by Brandy Scott
‘It’s Aimee,’ she said, in case he was confused. ‘I know it’s late but I was driving past, and thought I’d check on you. And then I heard a crash —’
‘I kicked over a stool,’ he said.
Aimee looked over his shoulder. And yes, there was the stool, lying on its side, on the bedroom floor. And behind it, a bed covered in alcohol and pills.
‘Oh my God,’ said Aimee. ‘Pete, what have you done?’
‘I haven’t taken anything,’ Pete promised. He could feel the panic radiating off her, hear her fumbling with something — her phone? ‘Honest, Aimee, you don’t need to call anyone. I swear, I’ve had a drink, that’s all. No pills.’ He patted his hand around in the air until he found hers, which yes, was clutching the cold edges of a mobile. ‘Don’t. Please. There’s no need.’
‘I interrupted you,’ she said, sounding dazed.
‘Actually, I couldn’t get the safety tops off any of the containers.’ He tried to laugh, but it came out a bit more like crying. ‘Oh shit.’
She walked him over to the side of the bed and held him as he sobbed. She was crying too, quietly. He could feel her chest quaking, the dampness of her face on top of his head.
‘I’m sorry,’ she kept saying. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ said Pete, trying to pat her back and getting an elbow. ‘You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I’m sorry you had to find me like this.’ He’d assumed Cameron would discover him in the morning, but it could have been Aimee, popping in to check on him with a batch of muffins. Or the district nurse. Or any of the neighbours, or even the neighbours’ children. Unforgivable, how much pain he kept causing.
‘But why?’ Aimee whispered. She was propped up against the headboard; it knocked the wall gently. A sound he hadn’t heard in years, no matter what Cameron thought.
Pete shuffled backwards so he was sitting beside her. She reached over and took his hand. ‘Because I’m a coward,’ he admitted.
‘You’re not a coward. God, the opposite. Look how well you’re —’
‘I am,’ he said. ‘A total coward. You want to know why I was doing this? Because I don’t want to stand up there in front of everyone and admit I let my boy down.’ Even though they knew. ‘I don’t want everyone to judge me.’ He was squeezing her hand; he let it go. ‘Better I judge myself. Save everyone the hassle.’ But he couldn’t find any of Julia’s scarves, even though there’d been dozens of them. Cameron must have taken them, like the photo. Stolen them. Pete had kicked the stool over when he’d realised.
Aimee was taking deep breaths, the air whistling in and out. Pete tried to picture her face. When was the last time they’d sat on a committee together? Years ago. And yet she’d been his most constant visitor.
‘I’m sorry I scared you,’ he said. ‘You don’t deserve any of this. You’ve been a really good friend.’
‘I really haven’t.’
‘No, you have. You kept showing up when the others were avoiding me. You’re a good person, Aimee Verratti.’ Pete shifted so he wasn’t sitting on a bottle of who-knows-what. ‘Can I ask you to do one more thing for me? I know I don’t have the right, but . . . could you help me clean this up? I don’t want anyone else to find it.’
She didn’t move.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to do anything. It was stupid. Selfish.’ Just leaving his mess for someone else to deal with. ‘You can take it all with you, if you want.’ He swung his legs over the side of the bed and knocked a bottle of spirits to the floor. It made a dull but intact-sounding thud. ‘It’s just, I’d have no idea if I missed anything. And I don’t want Cameron to know.’
Aimee stayed on the far side of the bed. ‘What are you going to say at the inquiry?’ she asked. ‘What are you going to tell them?’
Pete clenched a box of paracetamol. ‘I’m going to tell them the truth. That I’m responsible for the crash.’
‘But how?’ Her voice was unnaturally loud in his closed-up bedroom. He didn’t even bother to open the windows any more. ‘How are you responsible?’
‘I made a mistake,’ Pete said, exactly as he’d told Arthur. Same as he’d tell the rest of Hensley. At least he wouldn’t be able to see the disapproval on their faces; a small mercy. ‘I saw this bright light and I thought it was a star. Thought it meant we were higher up than we were. I misjudged. And I pulled us down. Right into the hill.’ He gripped the painkillers in his fist. ‘I know what you’re supposed to do when you fly at night, I know all the rules and regulations, how to use my instruments. And I didn’t follow them.
‘And then,’ he said, ‘I tried to blame one of my mates. Which is unforgivable. So actually, all of this —’ He made a sweeping movement across the bed, heard another bottle roll off and across the floor. ‘This is a complete fucking cop-out. I’m glad you turned up. I deserve to stand there and be held accountable.’
Aimee stayed silent. Disgusted as well. Fair enough. Pete did his best to scoop the containers of pills into a clinking, rattling heap.
‘Can you help me?’ he asked again. Begged, almost. ‘I don’t want my son to know about this. He’s . . . a bit messed up. Angry. At me, mainly.’
‘You’re not responsible for the accident,’ said Aimee.
‘Oh I am,’ said Pete. ‘There were only two people in that aircraft, and one of them was supposed to know what he was doing. Make the right call.’
It was a way of atoning, for everything. Aimee crawled across the bed and grabbed Pete by the shoulder. ‘Did you hear me?’ she said. ‘You’re not responsible. You didn’t cause the accident. I did.’
She felt no fear as she spoke. None of the usual prickly skin or adrenaline surge. Just the certainty, deep in her gut, that this was the right thing to do. This must be how normal people felt when they talked about having the courage of their convictions. But it was obvious. This poor man was not only facing the rest of his life without his son, and probably his sight, but also with the misguided belief that he’d killed his child. Aimee could live with a lot of secrets, more than most people realised. She would probably never tell Nick about her night with Damien. She’d never confessed to him that neither of her pregnancies were accidents, and had no intention of doing so. She’d never told Melinda that she suspected Tansy was actually her niece, even though Lou had never said a word. She didn’t have to. You only had to look at the girl’s face — she was the spitting image of Melinda’s mum.
Actually, she might tell Melinda. Wipe some of that smugness off her face.
But she had to tell Pete this wasn’t his fault. Anything else was unforgivable. ‘I caused the accident,’ she said again. ‘I let off a couple of sky lanterns, to celebrate the new year, and one of them caught fire, not far from where you crashed.’
I, not we. Because no matter what the others thought, she wasn’t going to drag them all down. They were her lanterns, and this was her choice, to speak up. The others could do what they wanted; this was Aimee keeping herself sane.
It helped that she no longer gave a damn what her husband thought.
‘It exploded,’ she said. ‘I wanted to call emergency but there were already sirens. So I thought someone else had. But that bright light you saw, that confused you? That’s what it was. My lantern.’
‘You don’t know that. It could have been anything. A stray firework. Your lanterns weren’t the only distraction in the sky.’
‘But I do know,’ said Aimee. ‘I have proof.’ She reached across the floor to where she’d dropped her handbag and pulled out the stolen page. ‘Listen to this.’
Finally, she was doing something right. As Damien had sat up in bed and read the report to her, so Aimee read to Pete. He lay back against his pillows, hands folded on his chest like the corpse he’d nearly become. Aimee’s voice wobbled as she got to the incriminating paragraph, but she kept going.
‘So you see,’ she said at the end, ‘there’s not really any doubt.’
‘But what does
it mean for you? What are the consequences?’ He still sounded stunned.
‘I don’t know,’ said Aimee. The internet had been disappointingly silent, creating an unfortunate space in her head for a million worst-case scenarios. ‘But it doesn’t matter. The point is, I caused your accident. And I’m going to stand up at that inquiry and say so. No —’ She pushed Pete’s protesting hand away. ‘I have to. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.’
CHAPTER 35
Aimee woke up as far on the edge of her bed as she could be without tumbling to the floor. Only her tightly tucked sheets were keeping her in, suspending her over the side as if she was in a hammock. It was as though she’d tried to flee, subconsciously, in the night.
She and Nick had hardly spoken to each other when she’d finally made it home.
‘Where were you?’ he’d asked curtly as she crept into the bedroom.
‘Pete’s,’ she said. ‘There was an emergency. Where were you?’
‘Pub,’ he said. And they’d both rolled over and slept on opposite sides of the bed, hugging their respective resentment and guilt.
Did she feel guilty? Aimee stared out the window at her lovely garden, the dog trotting happily among the vines, her husband, tanned and fit in his dorky shorts, striding down the driveway to the sauvignon in the far corner. Aimee mentally shuffled through her emotions, naming them as she’d been taught. She felt exhausted, certainly. Drained. Emotionally spent. But there was also an unexpected lightness, as though the craziness of the evening had somehow been necessary. Cathartic. She’d been involved in ending a life, but she’d possibly saved a life, and she’d made a decision to own her part in things regardless. So there was relief, as well. But not guilt. How strange.
There was definitely hunger, though. Aimee pulled on her old robe, tied up her hair. Half past eleven, according to the alarm clock. She’d slept till nearly lunchtime. She walked slowly down the hall, the cat weaving between her ankles.
‘Who let you in?’ she grumbled, but she didn’t mean it. She gave Oscar a friendly pat. ‘Let me wake up properly, and I’ll fix you up with some livers.’ She’d cook up a big batch of the smelly meat and freeze it so the cat’s stomach could finally have a chance to calm down, and he could live inside with the rest of them. It wasn’t like he’d done anything to deserve to be kicked out.
Would they ever really talk about it, Aimee wondered, as she stopped to pull the lounge curtains open, let the light flood into the living room. Dust motes escaped from the chintz and danced in the air, like daytime stars. Or would they just pretend last night never happened, neither of them asking the other where they really were? Lots of people lived with unspoken agreements, deep secrets. Look at Lou. If you never told, then people stopped asking. Aimee could easily picture her and Nick slowly putting their anger aside as they got on with the day-to-day, never confronting each other head-on. Maybe he’d build his cellar door, as revenge for something he could sense but didn’t know for sure. Maybe she’d get a job in town again, make herself unavailable to help with the new venture, to punish him for Melinda. Aimee picked up the popcorn bowls that littered the living room floor. So much to look forward to.
At least her head was calm. In all her years of therapy, why had no one told her that doing the right thing would quell the panic? That the way to discern between a paranoid thought and a problem that genuinely required action was the lack of chaos in her head. Aimee breathed deeply, appreciating the silence. Her marriage could wait. She was going to enjoy the peace.
The only person in the kitchen was Shelley, colouring in. ‘Put the kettle on, will you, love?’ said Aimee, as she dumped the leftover popcorn in the bin.
‘You do it. You’re closer.’
‘Excuse me?’ Shelley didn’t talk back. Aimee eyed her daughter; there was a definite sulk to the lips. ‘Oh God, Shelley, don’t you start giving me grief. The last thing I need is two hormonal teenagers to worry about. You’re supposed to be the easy one.’ She pulled out a kitchen chair. ‘Just get me a cup of tea, there’s a good girl.’
The tea was delivered lukewarm with the bag still floating in it. Aimee went to say something, then stopped. Took in the hunched curve of Shelley’s back, the pressure with which she was pressing down on the page. She remembered thirteen. Boobs and thighs and bad skin, and the tendency to cry without warning. ‘You weren’t really human again until Year Eleven,’ her mother had said. Aimee and her mum had spent their last year together trying to share as many memories as possible, virtually pouring information into one another from the moment they got the diagnosis. She regretted those lost years, even if it was the same for every mum of a teenage girl. She shuffled her chair closer to Shelley instead.
‘Why don’t you and I make up a bit of a picnic, go have it down by the river,’ she said. She could see blue sky above dusty green hills out the window — another cracking day. ‘We could ride our bikes down, maybe get an ice cream or something.’
Shelley shrugged. ‘Whatever.’
‘Do you want to ask Byron if he wants to come? Or it could be just the two of us?’
Shelley looked at her as if she was stupid. ‘He’s not back yet,’ she said, angry.
‘Back from where?’ School holidays, her son usually slept till noon. He could sleep fifteen hours without waking. Aimee envied him.
‘Camping. With Cameron.’ It wasn’t anger, it was jealousy.
Aimee gripped her tea so hard a small tidal wave sloshed onto the table. ‘Shelley Verratti, what are you talking about? Are you saying Byron’s gone off on some kind of camping trip? Without telling me? That Cameron Kasprowicz has been back in this house this morning?’
‘Not this morning. Last night. They said it was a boy thing, that I couldn’t come.’ Her face was red with the injustice. ‘It’s not fair.’
‘But I checked on you last night,’ Aimee whispered. Although she hadn’t, she’d only looked in on Shelley. Too tired to take the extra steps down the hall. ‘What does he think he’s doing?’ She grabbed Shelley’s arm. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Ow!’ Shelley pulled away. ‘That hurts.’ She rubbed her arm, aggrieved. ‘And they did tell you. Cameron phoned you, left a message. I watched him stand outside on the porch there and do it.’
There had been no message on Aimee’s phone; she’d checked it guiltily all night.
‘Where are they? Where’d they go?’
‘I don’t know. They didn’t tell me.’ Shelley grabbed her pencils. ‘Phone Byron and ask him. He’s the one Cameron likes.’ And she stormed out of the kitchen, slamming the door so hard that Oscar made a little puddle on the floor.
Lou had always prided herself on never having to go to Sharna for anything.
If Hensley had been a medieval village, then Sharna would have been the wizened old crone people approached when they needed to woo back a straying spouse or stop their chickens from dying. Not that Sharna was particularly wizened; she looked pretty good for a woman who’d spent a lifetime in the Australian sun. Fillers, Melinda used to say, and she’d know. But she said it quietly. Even Melinda was a bit afraid of Sharna.
Lou wasn’t so much afraid as wary. Sharna knew everything; it was the reason the townspeople climbed faithfully up her stairs with envelopes and passport applications and desperate expressions. Not because they needed postal services — there was a letterbox on the main street; passport applications were quicker online. They went because they wanted the one thing that gave Sharna power over the town. Not spells or magic potions, but information.
Lou avoided Sharna for that reason. Because Lou had a lot of secrets, and she assumed the postmistress knew them all. Oh, Sharna was friendly enough, always happy to stop in the street for a quick gossip, but her eyes said, ‘I’m onto you.’ Those eyes made Lou feel guilty, which made her defensive, and when Lou got defensive she got angry. Better to stay out of the way.
Except now she had no choice. Lou trudged up the post office steps, once again at the mercy
of the Hensley hierarchy. Empty- handed; she was buggered if she was going to concoct some kind of ridiculous stamp-buying cover story. She braced herself as she pushed open the post office door, with its cheerful tinkle. There was no point pretending she was there for anything other than what Sharna could tell her.
‘Sharna,’ said Lou, ‘I’ve just found out Mum and Dad had a baby, before me. I need to know what happened to him. Or her.’
‘Well, good morning to you too.’
Lou sighed. ‘Sorry. But this is important.’ She pushed the picture across the counter. ‘What can you tell me?’
Sharna didn’t even look at it. ‘Hmmm,’ she said, squinting at her cross-stitch. ‘That’s a conundrum.’
‘Well, do you know anything?’
‘Maybe,’ said Sharna. ‘Depends.’
Lou was riding on about three hours’ sleep; she had no patience for games. ‘Just tell me.’
Sharna set her cross-stitch down on the counter. ‘Why should I help you?’
‘Because I’ve got a right to know,’ said Lou. ‘And you’re the obvious person. You know everything.’
‘Yes, but why should I help you?’ Sharna narrowed those all-knowing eyes. ‘Why should any of us help you, actually?’
‘Because . . .’ Lou had expected a bit of prickliness, but not all- out hostility. She felt her own blood begin to rise. ‘Well, I deserve to know.’
‘No you don’t,’ said Sharna, calmly threading her needle. Maroon; she was cross-stitching the Hensley logo. ‘And no one in this town owes you anything.’