Beth had broken her arm once, showing off on the monkey bars at the park after school. Theo had been in the toilet block nearby, washing her hands, sticky with dust and ice-cream, when she heard her surprised, gunshot crack yelp of pain and shock. Theo had known that sound and known it was Beth who made it, the sort of sound you heard not with your ears but with your gut. Theo had known the magnitude of that sound and the moment that followed that wail was one of the worst Theo had ever lived through, the moment where she knew Beth was hurt, badly, but not how badly, and not why. It was just a broken arm, but it could have been anything, it could have been the moment Beth was taken from her.
Theo felt eyes on her, from the other side of the lookout, where any moment now the policemen and paramedics would appear, with their uniforms and equipment and calm, sensible voices. She thought it might be the cyclist looking at her from behind his sunglasses again, sizing up her swimmer’s shoulders and cropped hair, but no. He was on his phone again, one hand rubbing at his forehead as though it ached. Theo scanned the crowd. She definitely felt watched, like someone might be trying to get her attention.
And there she was. Standing perfectly still, the only stationary object in the flustered, pulsing crowd. Theo knew who was watching her before she saw their face. She knew in the way she would know her own sister, in the way your internal organs hum in recognition when you see an ex-lover again. She knew, too, that once her eyes met those of the woman who stared at her, it would all be over. There would be recognition. But it was already too late, her body was going ahead without her, caught in the momentum of the turn, and in a fraction of a taut, vibrating second they locked eyes. Theo could not turn away, some compulsion or shock or the throb of nausea in her gut or the eerie colour of the crowd under the yellow light and dark blue sky or just disbelief made her look, and look, and look at that face.
That face.
She had been trying to forget that face, the owner of that face, for sixteen years. And now here she was, on a Friday evening, at the Gipps Point lookout in Cardmoor, standing at the top of a cliff that a woman in blue pants had just jumped off.
Theo had been found.
The woman started to walk towards her, keeping her eyes fixed on Theo’s. The wind dropped and people shifted almost imperceptibly to move out of her path. Theo stood there, transfixed.
‘I need to speak with you,’ she said to Theo.
Her voice was just the same, and it made something in Theo’s stomach wrench and twist. She had to concentrate to keep herself breathing. She couldn’t have a conversation with this woman, she couldn’t even stand here with her. Theo took a step backwards, keeping her eyes on the other woman’s feet. They didn’t move. Theo scooped up her bag, turned and pushed herself into the cluster of people. When she’d made her way through to the cliff path, she began to run.
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The Vale Girl Page 29