And Noah had believed them. He’d believed the line from the nursery rhyme.
He’d told his father about that, months later, and the strangest look had passed over his dad’s face. It’s all coming back to him now, the part Joe had told him to put in the forgetting box in his brain.
Because Joe and his mum hadn’t been wearing any clothes … had they? Why is he only remembering that now? If his mother and Joe have been doing that all his life, then when did it start? When he was a baby? Before? And if it started before he was born, then what if — what if —
What if Richard isn’t his father? What if it’s Joe?
It’s a crazy idea, but once it’s in his head, he can’t wrestle it out. He doesn’t look like Richard. He’s a Mortimer through and through, from his blond hair and freckles to his Mortimer-knobbly knees. All his life, people have said, Oh, you can tell you’re your mother’s child.
They never, ever say he looks like his father.
‘No,’ he whispers.
He stands up and casts around for a rock. Then he hurls it, as hard and fast as he can, at the wall. After that, he throws his body at the wall. It hurts, so he does it again. A sob escapes. He wants to stuff it back down his throat. He wants to vomit. He wants it to be last night, when Lola was lying in his arms, and he didn’t know any of this.
His breath has hooks in it, sharp in his lungs and the back of his throat. Noah walks out of the cave, fat raindrops obscuring his vision. The waves are three feet from the mouth of the cave, maybe less. If he’s fast, he might be able to clamber over the rocks to the next bay. From there, he can escape into the bush before the storm really gets going.
He climbs up onto the ledge at the base of the cliff, is about halfway to the next bay when the first wave hits him in the knees. Too late to turn back now, so he keeps going, the nursery rhyme going around and around in his head.
It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring. He bumped his head on the end of the bed, and he couldn’t wake up in the morning.
But this is the thing about nursery rhymes. They don’t always have happy endings. In fact, most of the time they don’t.
Chapter 28:
LOLA
The air is thick, intermittent drops of rain settling onto Lola’s skin. The day is fading, the light more reminiscent of dusk than early afternoon. She speed-walks back to the house, the last conversation with Noah replaying in her head.
I saw your mum and Uncle Joe in the cave. They were naked, and they were doing it.
Doing what?
It. You know.
No, Lola, I don’t know.
Sex — they were having sex!
Perhaps she’s having a nightmare. Perhaps, if she opens her eyes wide enough, she’ll wake up, and she’ll stop hearing Noah’s plaintive voice.
It’s not true. Is it?
Lola is hurrying down the driveway when she hears Tom.
‘Hey, Lol, have you seen Noah?’
Lola tries to focus on her brother. ‘He was at the beach,’ she says. ‘Before.’
Tom’s brow furrows. ‘You’re shaking, do you think you should check your—’
‘My blood sugar is fine,’ Lola says between gritted teeth, before stalking around the side of the house. The next person she encounters is Austin, walking with his head buried in a book.
‘Watch it,’ she says, dodging around him. People, there are just people everywhere all the time. All she wants right at this moment is to be in her own room at home, surrounded by her own books and photographs and cricket trophies.
‘Ho-ly,’ Uncle Sully says from the back balcony. ‘Going to be one mother of a storm.’ She hears the crack of a beer can being opened, followed by the hiss of escaping gas.
‘There’ll be storm surges with that king tide,’ her father answers. ‘Shall I text Joe, get him to pick up some more beer?’
Lola doesn’t hear the answer. She has already gone into the downstairs lounge, past Beckett and McKenzie, who are watching some dystopian teenage movie, and into the bathroom. A bikini is sitting in a pool of cold water in the basin, a sandy towel on the lino.
‘Slob,’ Lola mutters, picking up McKenzie’s dripping swimming costume in a pincer grip. After bundling the bikini in the towel and throwing the damp parcel into the corner, she undresses and steps into the shower.
Blood sugar, five. Cousins who hate me, one. Mood, minus ten.
She tilts her head back, ignoring the rumble in her stomach. Later, she’ll eat later.
By the time Lola has finished in the shower, the wind is whipping around the house, rain sliding down the windows. She dresses in shorts and a t-shirt, twists her hair into a ponytail. After jamming earbuds in, she flops onto the bed.
Five songs later, her brain is still racing. Will Noah ever talk to her again?
Sitting up, she sees a blurred figure walking past the window. Uncle Joe. She’s about to lie back, to pretend she’s asleep when he catches sight of her. Too late, and he’s entered the house and is knocking on her door.
‘Lola, can I talk to you?’
Bracing herself, Lola opens the door and takes a step back. Her uncle’s wet hair is plastered against the sides of his head, and he’s breathing rapidly, as if he’s been running.
‘Seen Noah?’
Lola shakes her head. Joe twists the hem of his sodden t-shirt between his fingers, his eyes darting all over the place.
‘Are you sure?’
‘He was at the beach with Aunt Molly. Like, an hour ago.’
‘We’ve just come from there. He’s taken off, we don’t know where.’ He moves forward and she moves back, toward the bed. Joe shuts the door behind him.
‘Look,’ he says, ‘I heard about — Molly told me what you saw the other day. And — we’re really worried about Noah, about where he might be.’
‘I don’t know where he is.’ Lola sinks onto the bed, her own anxiety mounting. ‘Have you checked his tent?’
‘Yeah.’ Joe rakes his hand through his hair, sending water droplets flying. ‘I’m sorry about what you saw, Lola. I can’t tell you what to do, but maybe you could keep this to yourself until we find Noah. Can you do that?’
Lola’s never seen her uncle like this, pacing the room, his speech disorganised.
‘OK,’ she says, her voice low.
‘OK.’ Joe grips the doorframe. ‘OK,’ he repeats, almost to himself, and opens the door. ‘I guess he’ll come back sooner or later.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Lola says, but Joe has already gone.
Noah doesn’t come back sooner or later. By five o’clock, it’s still raining. Lola is sitting in the downstairs lounge, playing a never-ending game of Bastard with her brothers and cousins, while the defaced Christmas fairy stares malevolently at them from atop one of the pianos.
Tom slaps a card down and thrusts his fists into the air. ‘King again!’
‘You suck,’ McKenzie grumbles. She’s been the Bastard for the last three rounds in a row.
‘Wonder when the real Bas-tard will come back.’ Tom wanders over to the ranch slider and opens it a crack. ‘Where do you think he’s got to?’
Beckett yawns. ‘Dad said he had a fight with Aunt Molly.’
‘Must have been some fight,’ Tom says. Lola doesn’t say anything, just chucks her cards in the middle and stands up. Last time she saw Molly and Joe, they were heading out in Nana’s car, doing another scout for Noah. That must have been over an hour ago.
‘Hey, we haven’t finished,’ McKenzie protests.
‘I have. And I’m hungry.’ Lola’s pretty sure she hasn’t eaten enough for lunch again. She can’t be bothered checking her blood sugar, so she takes a barley sugar out of her pocket and slips it into her mouth before dashing outside.
The rain has eased to a light drizzle, but the wind is still up. Swiping strands of hair from her mouth, Lola jogs beneath the awning, sticking to the side of the house to avoid the large puddle oozing out from the lawn. Noah’s tent is sagging, th
e guy ropes loose.
You’d be crazy to sleep in this, Ants had said. Tom has taken his tent down already.
Still, Lola harbours a wild hope that Noah will leave his tent up, that they can somehow recapture the magic of the past few nights.
Somehow she thinks that won’t be happening again, not on this trip, maybe not ever. It’s making her feel ill.
Or maybe her blood sugar is lower than she thought.
Lola has just set foot on the bottom step when her name floats towards her, on the wind it seems. Turning her head, she hears it again: Lola. She moves towards the garage, gasps when an arm snakes out of the side door and tugs her inside.
Lola gapes at her cousin. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Nowhere.’ Noah is barefoot, wet shorts clinging to his sandy legs.
‘What, have you been in here the whole time?’
‘No.’ Lola wishes he’d stop scowling at her. What if he never smiles at her again? ‘I went up the bush walk,’ he says. ‘I needed to think.’
She twists her pendant between her fingers. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘I guess it had to come out sooner or later.’ For the first time Lola notices Noah’s eyes are red-rimmed, his face puffy. He passes a hand through his hair, and in that instant, Lola experiences such intense déjà vu that she thinks she might vomit. When Noah starts to pace, she thinks: Uncle Joe, he moves just like Uncle—
Oh.
She barely has time to think about that before Noah says, ‘I need to talk to you. Not here.’ He keeps looking through the door and outside, and Lola sees him too: Tom ascending the back stairs. She pushes the door to, so the outside world is no longer visible.
‘Where do you want to go?’
Noah sags back against the wall. ‘The beach,’ he says. ‘Where else?’
The clouds are sweeping across the sky, intermittent sunlight blazing through the gaps. Lola and Noah are walking fast, their breath short. The wind is relentless. They’re not touching.
As they advance down the road to the beach, they see fallen branches, broken palm fronds. The drizzle softens and slows, until all that is left is damp, humid air.
When they reach the beach, it is deserted, piles of seaweed strewn across the tideline. The sea is dirty and disorganised, and so very loud. Noah takes her hand, finally, and they aim for the end of the beach. There’s the cliff and the pohutukawa tree with its blood-red blossoms. There’s the deep blue sea. No horizon, not today, just clouds and mist.
They sit side by side on the rocks. Lola is feeling strange, slightly spaced out. Maybe it’s the storm, or maybe it’s the way Noah is breathing beside her, like he’s trying not to cry.
‘The eye of the storm,’ Lola says when the clouds part to admit the sun again, hot light filling the inside of her head.
‘The eye.’ Noah’s voice is oddly flat.
Lola turns to him. ‘I really am sorry.’
Noah says, ‘I think Joe might be my real dad.’
Lola doesn’t know what to say. But she stares at Noah, trying to see him as he could be in twenty years’ time, and she gets the déjà vu feeling all over again.
‘You should ask him,’ she says.
Noah squeezes her fingers. ‘I don’t know what to think,’ he says. ‘Fuck.’ He twists away, and Lola sees he is crying now. She wants to cry too.
I did this, it’s my fault. Some secrets should never be told.
‘Maybe you should just pretend this never happened,’ she says. ‘Maybe—’
‘How am I meant to do that?’ Noah swipes his t-shirt beneath his nose. ‘I used to wish Joe was my dad, but not like this. Does this mean I’m a monster? Is that what it means?’
‘No.’ Lola tries to put her arms around him, but Noah jumps into the sand.
‘I’m not going back to Melbourne,’ he says.
Lola slips down beside him. ‘OK.’ What else can she say? It’s drizzling again, but the sun is still sharp.
‘I’m not going back to school.’
‘But— where will you go?’
‘Somewhere far, far away,’ he says, and she thinks of Peter Pan, and never growing old. She thinks of what it’s like to fall in love and be wrenched out of its clutches.
No. No.
‘I’ll come with you.’ It’s a crazy thing to say, but Noah is smiling now, his eyes glittering. He steps forward, takes her by the wrists.
‘We could hitchhike around Europe,’ he says. ‘Sleep in fields of corn, and swim in the Dead Sea.’
‘You can’t sink in the Dead Sea,’ Lola says, remembering something Uncle Joe once told her. They’re both looking at their ocean now, at the dip and whirl of it.
‘I’m going for a swim,’ Lola says, and her head is tipping and dipping too, like the sea, like the horizon. It doesn’t matter what happened today. They’ll get through it, because they’re together, and they’re in love.
‘You’re crazy,’ Noah says, pulling his t-shirt over his head and shucking his shorts into the sand. Then he runs at the waves, and she follows. Always, she follows.
Chapter 29:
NOAH–LOLA
The first wave smacks Lola in the chest, taking her breath away. The water’s tepid, possibly even warmer than the outside air, and dirty with seaweed — kelp and Neptune’s necklace wrapping around her neck and limbs. She spins and jumps, her feet barely touching the bottom before the next wave moves in, whack, and then she’s tumbling, foam fizzing over her.
Noah dives beneath one, two waves. When he surfaces, the clouds have swept away from the sun again. The smack and churn of the sea is just what he needs; a welcome reprieve from the desperate thoughts that have been racing through his brain all afternoon. His head buzzing, he turns to look for Lola, and that’s when he sees it — a flat area of sea between the breakers.
‘Hey, look!’ Lola yells, her speech strangely slurred. And she’s pointing at the flat area — no, not just pointing, she’s flipping onto her back and letting the current carry her straight towards the deadly calm, what?
‘Lola,’ he shouts. ‘Lola, no, it’s a rip.’ And what else is there to do but to lunge towards her, because he’s pretty sure now that she’s having a hypo. Oh no, oh no.
The tug of the sea is so strong that Lola can’t stand up anymore. She’s feeling so strange, as if her head isn’t connected to the rest of her body, and it crosses her mind, ever so briefly, that she hasn’t had anything but a barley sugar for the last several hours.
Just before her head goes under, she glimpses a pair of figures on the tideline. They’re waving, and maybe they’re shouting too, but Lola can’t hear what they’re saying. All she can hear is her heart, beating desperately in her ears, and the massive rush of water.
The last thing Lola is aware of is Noah lunging for her, his voice in her ear.
‘Hold on!’ he yells, and she does, she does.
Lola’s arms lock around Noah’s neck, and she is an anchor, dragging them down. Her heart exploding in her chest, she takes one last gasp and the sea rushes in.
And now Noah knows what a death grip is, because he. Can’t. Wrench. Free. Lola’s eyes are glazed, her hair floating behind her like seaweed. Noah can’t breathe in. He can’t breathe out.
He thinks, mermaid. He thinks, orcas. He thinks, I won’t let you go.
Chapter 30:
MOLLY 1988
Molly was in love. She was in love with the world, the music, her friends. The band was playing ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’, the speakers so loud her chest felt ready to split open.
‘Oh oh-o-o,’ Kat warbled in her ear. Grinning, Molly flung her arm around her friend’s shoulders, and they bumped hips until they fell over.
‘You guys are trashed,’ Shane yelled. Molly gazed up at the stars. Shane was wrong; the weed they’d smoked on the trip down had worn off. She was just happy, high on an evening away from the dull crush of daily life.
Joe helped her to her feet, his rum-and-Coke breath
warm in her ear. ‘You all right, Lolly?’
‘Fan-fucking-tastic,’ she said, pinching her forefinger and thumb into an O. They danced again, arms above their heads. The band was whipping the crowd into a frenzy with their super-long intro to the next song. Molly had never felt so alive, as if she could do anything, be anyone she chose.
The crowd was chanting, louder and louder, and Molly joined in. Out of the periphery of her vision, she saw Kat grab Joe and plant a kiss on his lips.
‘Hey.’ Irritated, Molly turned to Shane, who was swaying beside her, holding a smouldering cigarette. ‘Got another one?’
‘Sure.’ Shane slipped a cigarette out of his top pocket and lit it before passing it to her. ‘Didn’t know you smoked.’
‘Sometimes,’ Molly murmured, stealing another glance at her twin and her best friend. They had separated again, and Joe’s eyes were on Molly. He mouthed something at her. Ignoring him, Molly jumped in the air, higher and higher, until she fell over again.
It was that kind of night.
An hour later, they began the long walk to Shane’s aunt’s place, where they were crashing for the night. Throngs of people streamed around them, laughing and shouting. To Molly’s left, a girl vomited into the gutter while a friend held back her hair.
Kat flung her head back. ‘The stars are particularly awesome tonight, don’t you think?’
‘Particularly,’ Joe agreed, keeping his distance from her, as if worried Kat was going to jump him again. But maybe Molly was imagining that. Maybe he was waiting until he and Kat were alone so he could kiss her without Molly watching.
A dark despair bubbled up the back of her throat. Everything’s going to change soon. Everything.
A sharp pain shot through the base of her big toe.
‘Ouch.’ She sat down, clutching her foot. ‘Ow, ow, ow.’
‘What have you— Oh.’ Joe crouched beside her and tugged a fragment of glass out of the sole of her foot. ‘What happened to your shoes, anyway?’
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