Second Sight

by Aoife Clifford

  Amy came running up. ‘Why didn’t you stop her?’ she said to him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She can’t run off like that by herself.’ Amy stood there, hands on her hips.

  ‘She already has.’ Tony picked up his jacket, deciding it really was time to go. These girls were crazy.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Amy demanded. ‘You’ve got to help look for her.’

  ‘This has nothing to do with me,’ said Tony. ‘Besides, I’m already late.’

  ‘Are you a complete moron?’ spluttered Amy. ‘This has everything to do with you.’

  ‘See you,’ he said to Gus, who had put his arm on Amy’s shoulder. She furiously shook it off.

  Tony started trudging back along the sand. It was cold away from the fire. The water would be freezing. Behind him, he could hear Gus saying soothing words to Amy, but before he reached the bush, he could hear them shouting out Grace’s name again.

  As Tony jogged along the track back towards his ute, the packet of condoms rustled in his pocket and he put a hand in to quieten the noise. Seeing Eliza naked had sent out sparks. He’d had sex before but it sort of didn’t count. Wes had taken him to the city and told the woman to make a man of his son. It had been messier and wetter than he’d imagined, no kissing involved, because that was the way she did it. He had got dressed quickly afterwards, not really knowing what to say. Maybe he should be the son his father expected and take a girl back to The Castle and lie next to her all night long, get to look at her body properly, spend a long time kissing her on the lips, maybe try to do it more than once.

  The ute was alone in the car park. Turning on the engine, Tony felt hot-wired in a good, confused kind of way. He swung the vehicle around and bounced up the dirt road, taking it carefully because it had been slicked up from all the rain and he didn’t want to get bogged. He was halfway along when he glimpsed a girl in the headlights, turning at the sound of the motor.

  Grace took a step back into the grass to let him pass, shading her eyes to minimise the dazzle. Tony was tempted to keep driving but he couldn’t leave her by the side of the road, alone at night. He pulled up and leant across to open the passenger door because the window was stuck. Grace took a tentative step forward and he could see her thick lashes, slight ski-jump nose, full lips and the cleft in her chin. Little spider webs of fuzz had escaped from the bun on the top of her head. He hadn’t paid attention to her before but now he noticed she was pretty.

  ‘Your friends are looking for you,’ he said. ‘You should head back.’

  ‘No,’ said Grace, and she leant in, her arms above her head holding onto the frame. Tony noticed a necklace swinging above the high ripe breasts swelling up under her singlet. ‘I’ll hitch up on the highway,’ she continued.

  ‘Might not get many cars coming through. They’ve all been diverted because of the landslide.’

  Grace shifted and her singlet gaped. Tony fixed his eyes on the gold chain, willing himself not to glance south.

  ‘Can you give me a lift into town then?’

  ‘I’m heading in the opposite direction.’

  The necklace was coiled around itself, twisted instead of flat.

  ‘You’re going to the paddock party,’ Grace said. ‘How much have you had to drink?’

  He blinked and the spell was broken. ‘I’m OK to drive.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘I’ll go with you.’

  Tony wasn’t convinced this was a good idea but then the thought of that bossy Amy wasting the night searching for Grace appealed to him.

  ‘You’re Aaron’s sister, aren’t you?’ he asked as Grace clicked on her seatbelt. ‘Will he be there tonight?’ Aaron was the local footy legend, the type of son Wes would have loved.

  She shook her head. ‘He’s away. I’ll know other people there.’

  The ute bumped up the trail, finally reaching the road. Grace wasn’t much of a talker so the silence was as thick as honey. Tony kept flicking his eyes over at her. She was lovely really, with long legs and smooth skin contrasting with the frayed ends on her denim cut-offs. Seeing Eliza naked was like dominoes falling. Now he couldn’t help but wonder what Grace would look like without her clothes. He could tell she was nervous of him, sitting as near to the door as she could get, holding on to the door handle. Maybe she was wondering what he would expect in payment for the lift. He’d heard stories like that in the pub. Truck drivers who got hand jobs from hitchhikers. How did they engineer that sort of situation? Flattery, he guessed, but then maybe they just took without asking.

  Part of him wanted to ask her if she was all right because she seemed miserable, but he couldn’t think of a way to say it without sounding like an idiot, so he asked her if she was doing anything in the summer holidays instead.

  ‘I’m going to catch a train to the city,’ she said. ‘Spend the summer there rather than in this place.’ Her tone was bitter, caught up with the night’s events.

  The trees lit up along Old Castle Road, tangled branches overhead, skeletal in the headlights. Ghostly mobs of kangaroos skittered away in the distance. As Grace got out to open the gate Tony looked up at The Castle, dark and black against the sky, outbuildings dotted around it. He drove through the gates then stopped, idling, and watched her lock up the gate in the rear-view mirror. He followed the shape of her curves. Her clothes seemed moulded to them.

  ‘Does everyone come this way?’ she asked, climbing back in.

  ‘No,’ said Tony. ‘They’re coming in from Ophir Road. Dad didn’t want anyone near The Castle.’

  ‘No offence, but it looks haunted.’

  ‘Maybe it’s the Nazi ghosts,’ said Tony.

  ‘Nazis?’

  ‘Yeah. It was a prison camp during World War II, for German sailors.’

  ‘That can’t be right,’ said Grace.

  ‘No, really. Dad got these old pictures when he bought the place. They fenced it all off and had guards and everything.’

  ‘Did the sailors die here?’

  ‘Nope. Went back home after the war.’

  ‘Then how would their ghosts be here?’

  ‘They were supposed to have buried treasure and were coming back after the war to get it.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Grace. ‘If they were prisoners they would have been searched. Any treasure would be confiscated.’

  Tony had never thought of that.

  ‘It’s just what they say at the pub,’ he told her. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘The whole thing sounds made up,’ said Grace. She went back to looking out the window as he edged slowly around the back of The Castle to the dirt car park. As he turned the corner he saw two circles of light ahead in the distance, then they vanished.

  ‘What was that?’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  He pulled the car up. ‘There were lights.’

  ‘Maybe it’s the ghosts,’ said Grace.

  But Tony had definitely seen something. He thought of the shotgun at The Castle and what his father had told him to do.

  ‘No, someone’s there,’ and he opened his door.

  8

  ‘You seem to be visiting Kinsale pretty regularly these days,’ my sister says, giving me a cool stare.

  Tess inherited my mother’s luminous cornflower blue eyes, along with long lashes, a narrow face, a kissable mouth and dark curls. She looks like one of those old-style matinee heroines – looks that make me want to tie her to the railway tracks and make men, like her husband, want to rescue her.

  She pours the tea and passes me a cup.

  ‘I’m only here for the memorial,’ I say. ‘I’ll head back tomorrow.’

  I had caught the coastal train first thing that morning, hoping to get some work done on the way. Tony Bayless had texted me the details. Gavin had insisted I visit him at home so he could take my witness statement without the entire town knowing, but only Tess was home when I arrived.

  ‘I’m staying with Amy,’ I reassure her.


  ‘You could have slept here,’ she says, her tone indifferent. ‘This is still your home.’

  But we both know that isn’t true and hasn’t been for years. I was the one my father sent away, Tess was the one he kept. A memory suddenly appears of homesick me, crying on the boarding school payphone, begging him to let me come back to Kinsale. Dad had listened until my words ran out and then told me that I needed to make the best of it, that I didn’t know how lucky I was. I still find it hard to forgive him.

  ‘Where’s Gavin?’ I ask.

  ‘He’s at The Castle,’ Tess says. ‘They were searching up there for Luke Tyrell.’

  ‘Tony told me he’d been the caretaker. Have the police got him?’

  ‘No, but apparently they found some bones.’

  ‘What sort of bones?’

  ‘It will be an animal. Easy to mistake sheep ribs for human. Happens at least a couple of times a year.’

  I nod and sip the tea.

  ‘I thought you would be too busy with work to be taking days off,’ says Tess. She folds her arms. There is an undercurrent of hostility to her words, but that isn’t new. Our conversations are always littered with landmines. ‘The rumour is you’re defending the heartless bastards who just about burnt this town to the ground.’

  The words carve the air between us, dividing Tess, the perfect sister who always does the right thing, from me, who is always in the wrong.

  I take a breath before responding. ‘Is that public knowledge?’

  ‘I haven’t told anyone.’ She watches me as she brings the cup to her lips.

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘Gavin heard it from a police prosecutor in the city. How could you work for them?’

  There are responses to this: that our entire justice system, the same system that employed Gavin, Dad and the gossiping police prosecutor, is based on everyone being entitled to legal representation; would she prefer to have a lawyer working for them who cares nothing about Kinsale and plays to win at all cost? But it doesn’t matter, Tess never listens to me, so I just bottle it up and look around the room.

  The living room is less cluttered than I remember from my sporadic visits over the years. Dad’s old chair, where he used to sit at night and work, is missing. The golf clubs that he kept in the corner for years but never used are gone, too.

  ‘I’ve put them in his study,’ she says, when I ask. ‘Everything needed a proper clean.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘I doubt that had really happened since I left town.’

  Gavin was a constable when Tess married him and they had stayed for a few years in Kinsale before travelling out west to one-man police stations, Gavin searching for promotions. Smaller towns were traded for larger ones until eventually the circle was complete and he inherited the job of Senior Sergeant of Kinsale after Dad’s accident, the Brotherhood paying their respects to my family.

  ‘I got rid of a skip’s worth of garbage from the shed alone,’ Tess continues. ‘And,’ there’s a dramatic pause, like she’s gearing up for a big reveal, ‘I’ve put the Mustang up for sale.’

  ‘You can’t!’

  ‘It’s just rusting away in the garage,’ she says. ‘Dad would want it to be driven.’

  This is a complete lie and we both know it. My father would prefer to be buried in that car than sell it.

  ‘But you could drive it,’ I say. ‘Or Gavin. It would only need a run every fortnight or so.’

  ‘I’m not getting in that thing.’ Tess practically spits out the words.

  ‘What’s the problem? Is it because you hit that kangaroo?’

  The teacup almost slips from her hands, spilling tea in the process.

  ‘You smashed that headlight and did panel damage. Remember?’

  Red blotches of anger crawl up her neck, a warning sign.

  ‘You always get things wrong,’ she says. ‘I never hit a kangaroo in my life.’

  I change tack. ‘But Dad loves that Mustang. You know he does.’

  ‘It’s time for a change,’ she says, getting up and walking away.

  Stung, I say, ‘Have you changed your bedroom yet? Or is it still a shrine to Tess Carmody’s teenage years?’

  I can tell by her face that it remains perfectly preserved.

  The minute I was packed off to boarding school, my bedroom was converted into a study for Dad, the one where Tess is piling up all his belongings like it’s a junk room. I came home those first holidays to find everything I owned in cardboard boxes shoved in the wardrobe, a not-so-subtle reminder that I wasn’t welcome back. Tess’s room is still exactly the same. The furniture, the pink walls, the rock star posters and frilly valances, all unchanged while she takes a wrecking ball to my father’s belongings in his own house. It is so typical of Tess, finally having to look after someone other than herself and resenting it, despite a lifetime of being cosseted by my father.

  ‘That’s completely hypocritical,’ I tell her.

  Her face is bright red now. Three steps towards me and then slap. I hear the whoosh of her hand, the crack on my cheek. It’s not particularly hard, mistimed in fact, due to her impatience. She stands there, her arm still raised, as though she’s in two minds about whether to give it another shot.

  White-hot anger surges up in me.

  ‘Why stop at a hand?’ I say. ‘Get a stick so you can damage the other eye.’

  Clenching my teeth so that more words don’t come out, I mechanically take my handbag off the back of the chair and stand up. The chair makes a rasping squeak of protest against the floorboards. The room is so quiet that I can almost hear the thoughts whirring around my sister’s head, and not one of them sounds like an apology, because in her mind she is always the injured person. She has never had to say sorry to anyone.

  Unsure what to do, I go to the bathroom. Looking at my reflection, there is no great big accusatory welt on my cheek, only a slight pinkish blush to my ear. Somehow that feels even more humiliating, as though I’m getting upset over nothing. She probably expects me to leave, so I decide to stay and wait for Gavin. Part of me wants to tell on her, as if Gavin is a proxy for my father.

  When I come out of the bathroom my sister is making an implausible amount of noise in the kitchen to telegraph where she is, the smell of bacon in the air. I push the back door open with force and it bounces off the weatherboards, just like it always does. Sitting down on the lower back step, the concrete is lukewarm from an indifferent sun. Autumn has arrived.

  This was my favourite spot when I lived here: not quite the garden, not quite the house, the doorway between two different worlds. I was the odd-eyed queen of the step, sitting there, sometimes trying to patch together faded memories of my mother (the feel of her holding my hand, the smell of her) while I watched my father tinker with his car in the driveway in front of the shed. Occasionally at night he would sit with me until mosquitoes forced us inside. The garden is overgrown now, but then Dad was never much of a gardener. Apparently that was more Mum. He preferred to spend his spare time in the shed. You needed a personal invitation to enter, partly because that’s where he kept the ammunition for his service pistol but mostly because he just needed a space for himself and his Mustang, the car that Tess now denies crashing.

  That’s the thing about being the youngest member of the family: you are always being told you’ve got things wrong, it didn’t happen that way, you were at boarding school, you weren’t even there. It’s the eldest’s version of events that is believed. Stubbornly, I push at my memory of the accident like it’s a wobbly tooth to see if I can remember something Tess can’t deny.

  There was a smashed headlight and ripples in the front panel, all surface damage, but Dad looked at it like it was fatal. He had yelled at me to get out, which was a shock because he was such a quiet man.

  The younger version of me idolised my father and followed him everywhere. He told me he would lock up all the bad guys, keep us safe, and I believed him. I loved him more than anyone else in the world. It was easier to t
hen.

  The door swings open and Gavin, in dark blue uniform, all brass and sharp edges, comes out with a plate of eggs and bacon in his hands. He sits down on the step behind me. A large man, he takes up most of the available space.

  ‘How are the sheep bones?’ I ask him.

  ‘You a forensic expert now?’ he says.

  ‘What, human?’

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ he says, and the fact that he’s not saying means they probably are. I know how cops work.

  ‘Tess mentioned . . .’ he begins.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ I interrupt. ‘She was the one doing the hitting.’

  There are deep shadows under Gavin’s eyes, inherited from my father along with the job.

  ‘She shouldn’t have done that,’ he says. ‘But can you give her a break? Being back in Kinsale has been more difficult than I thought it would be.’

  ’What’s so hard about being back here?’

  He pauses before answering, wolfing down his breakfast with the practised ease of someone who has most meals interrupted by work. ‘I guess it’s because nothing is quite the same and yet everything is.’

  Somehow this captures exactly how I’m feeling, but I’m still too angry at Tess to be sympathetic.

  ‘So, what’s with the . . . ?’ I point to the grey moustache, which has only become furrier.

  ‘Trying to get into Pat’s good books,’ he says. ‘She hasn’t forgiven me for not being Mick. It’s a fundraiser for our domestic violence initiative. The idea is to raise money growing it, and then raise even more when you look so ridiculous that your family sponsor you to get rid of it.’

  ‘It’s like your upper lip has gone mouldy.’

  ‘Put your money where your mouth is then.’

  ‘Twenty dollars.’

  He waves it away. ‘Anyway, your statement. The charges will be upgraded now, and there’s a lot of political pressure being brought. We need to do this by the book.’

  ‘Have you found Luke yet?’