The house had an eerie silence. ‘Christine?’ He called louder. First stop was the bathroom. He felt the panic rise as he pushed open the door. What if she had hit her head on the toilet bowl and knocked herself out? What if she’d run herself a bath and fallen asleep, and drowned? After last night’s panic session, Danny’s imagination was in overdrive.
No, she wasn’t in the bathroom. It was spotless and there was no sign of the vomit she’d parted with. He must have been in such a deep sleep not to hear her clean up in here. But where was she? No sign of her having slept in the bed. Had she left the house? Was she coming back? ‘Christine?’ Louder.
He pushed open the bedroom door and could have cried when first the smell, then the sound, of the coffee machine hit him. His heart slowed and he took a deep, calming breath.
Christine smiled sweetly and handed him a coffee.
‘Morning,’ she said. ‘Or should I say afternoon?’ Danny glanced at the clock. It was one minute past noon.
‘Geez, I slept like a log.’
‘Yes, you did. I could have vacuumed under the bed and you wouldn’t have even known!’
Christine was showered, dressed and wearing a slightly thicker than normal layer of makeup to hide the evidence of last night’s drinking session that had ended with one of the most passionate kisses she’d experienced in a while. Dangerous, drunk, thrilling, exciting. Nothing like the safe, loving, caring kisses with Danny. It was a kiss that made the safe life she’d chosen seem boring, staid and not at all attractive.
She moved to the stove and turned the gas onto the pans containing bacon, water for poached eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach. She pushed the sour dough under the grill and efficiently cooked, buttered and served all within ten minutes.
Danny watched her work, sensing a change he couldn’t explain. She was still the same old Christine, but she seemed like a new Christine. Was it the way a tiny smile tugged at the corner of her mouth every now and then, followed closely by a deep frown and a look of worry? Something invisible between them stopped him from going over to the stove to cuddle and caress.
Sitting across from each other at the table in silence, they demolished their brunch and made polite chit chat. Christine cleared the plates and made another coffee, before sitting in the chair beside him, up close and serious.
‘There’s something I need to tell you Danny. Something important.’
His heart went into panic mode again. He knew he wouldn’t like what was coming.
‘I met up with an old friend from The Cross, someone I knew a long time ago. Someone I knew well. Someone I cared about back then, but had forgotten.’
Danny took a gulp of scalding hot coffee. It burned all the way down.
‘I saw him a few weeks ago, on the train. It rattled me, really rattled me. He knew a friend of mine, Annabelle. She disappeared, she’s the reason I went and saw Bessie.’
‘Ahh,’ he replied stiffly, realising how the pieces were starting to fit. ‘So you run into an old flame on a train, it reopens old wounds of a missing friend, you go and see your former boss, who happens to have owned a brothel…I should go and write this all down, it’s a perfect storyline for a mini-series.’
Christine chose not to bite back.
‘It has all got me thinking that I should try and look into her disappearance again. Maybe reinvigorate it. These thoughts have taken over everything. It has become an obsession. I need to find her. I must find her. With all this new technology and everything, DNA, social media, a national database of missing people, we have a chance. I need to get everyone together in a room who knew her at that time, pool our resources, and get the police to take another look. A fresh look. I feel like they’ve forgotten…’
As Christine poured out her heart, Danny started to relax. Maybe she wasn’t going to tell him what he thought she was. The images of her having wild, passionate, unbridled sex with one of her old johns from The Cross started to fade.
‘…anyway, that was why I went back onto the train, onto the same train, to see if he was on it. And it turns out he was, and he’s been catching it every day to try and find me. So we decided to go and have a drink, and talk about Annabelle, and stuff.’
Christine’s heart started thudding as she worked up the courage to finish her story. But before she could say anything else Danny had her in his arms, kissing her, caressing her and whispering love notes in her ear.
‘That’s wonderful, a great idea. Find Annabelle, yes, it can definitely be done. We can set up a campaign on Facebook, talk to the media, get you on TV, absolutely.’ While Danny talked he started to strip her clothes off, his need becoming urgent. She couldn’t help her body from responding, deciding at that moment not to tell him about the kiss she’d shared with Ant. After all, it was just a kiss. And it wouldn’t happen again. As she fell into the safe arms of Danny, the safe, dependable arms who had held her for the past decade, she pushed all thoughts of Ant away. This was a cross road. She had to make the best, the wisest, the most appropriate, choice. Danny. Ant was an old friend, not an old flame. But mostly just a means to an end; he could hold vital clues in her search for Annabelle, and that was all. She could keep her new life while she delved into her old. Lying naked and bare on the cool timber floor, with Danny smothering her with his love and affection, Christine made her choice.
Danny, I choose you.
CHAPTER 13
The party
1988
Christine was the happiest and most peaceful she’d been for as long as she could remember. Who would have thought? Here she was, a city girl, out in the middle of nowhere sitting beside a roaring bonfire in the peaceful bush. No matter that she was still surrounded by bikies, drug dealers, prostitutes, petty criminals and a few other of life’s undesirables.
She felt happy, ecstatic, like she was in some heavenly place. More satisfied than a cat who stole the cream from the top of the milk pail. Admittedly, the quick bong she’d snuck in behind the bushes with Annabelle, out of sight so Ant didn’t realise she had reneged on her promise to stay clean, was aiding this feeling. But with or without the choof and the copious amount of Stones Green Ginger Wine she’d drunk, she’d probably feel the same. Something had shifted between her and Ant on this trip into nature, away from the streets and dark alleyways they usually frequented.
She snuggled into Ant a bit closer, feeling sleepy. He kissed the top of her head tenderly. She looked up and their lips met. She melted into him, and they soon became lost in their own passion.
‘Hey you two,’ Annabelle broke the spell. ‘Take your PDA somewhere else will ya? Some of us are trying to relax around here.’
‘Fuck off Annabelle, you’re just jealous because you don’t have your own fella to pash,’ Christine quipped.
‘Yeah well, looks like Ant’s well and truly taken now, I won’t be blowing him any time soon.’
Ant squeezed Christine with affection. They were used to this friendly banter, it was the way they talked amongst themselves. Everything out in the open, particularly sex. It was not a dirty conversation, it was just conversation. For the record, he’d never been ‘blown’ by Annabelle, and with Christine in his arms right now, was seriously thinking he was going to stick to one girl from now on. No more prostitutes. No more quick fixes in the back of his car. No more dirty-alleyway head jobs. No more sex up against brick walls outside a nightclub.
‘Don’t take it personally, Ant. But you’re just not my kind of guy,’ Annabelle kept the banter going. She was also in the happiest place she’d been for as long as she could remember. The happiest since, since…she’d had her last bonfire in the back paddock adjoining her and Mum’s garden, over the fence from the veggie patch.
They had a bonfire most weekends during winter, but the last one had been extra special. Everyone had come over. Her best friend Sara, Sara’s Mum Aunty Steph, other family members, extended family, the neighbours. And Nick. Darling Nick. About fifty people turned up. That night was similar to t
onight. Clear sky, full moon. Crisp, cool air. They’d had a pig on a spit and a table filled with accompaniments. Jacket potatoes cooked in butter and foil in the camp oven, bread rolls slathered with thick globs of butter, homemade coleslaw and rich, flavoursome gravy. Bringing it all together was a giant dish of her Mum’s famous apple sauce made from fruit from their tree and blitzed to a smooth cream in the blender.
While Ant and Christine loved it up on the opposite side of the fire, Annabelle let her mind wander back to that night at home. What am I doing here? Why am I here? Why don’t I just go back home, to the people I love? The people who love me.
Bell intervened. They don’t love you. They hate you. That’s why you’re here. That’s why you left. They were just holding you back. Trying to tell you what to do. Not letting you live your life. This is living. This is life. This is where you’re meant to be. Fuck them. Fuck the lot of them. Look around you! You have a new family now. New friends. Forget about Lee. Sara. Aunty Steph. Forget about the whole fucking lot of them.
Annabelle pushed Bell away. Even if she was right, she wasn’t going to let her ruin this night. Right here, right now, she was happy. Content. She did have people she cared for around her. People who also cared for her. Christine cared about her. Christine was her best friend. This was her new life. This was her path. She had to look forward. Not back.
She forced a smile. ‘Who’s up for another drink?’ She stood up and headed to the esky. A bloke was loitering in the background. She’d seen him plenty of times before but didn’t know his name.
‘Hey you,’ she called. ‘Wanna drink?’
‘Sure,’ he mumbled, stepping forward into the light of the bonfire to accept the can of VB she held out. In a flash he was gone.
‘Hey Annabelle,’ Christine said. ‘I’ll have one for the road. Ant and I are heading back to find a roadhouse or something. We’ve run out of smokes.’
‘Get me a pack, will ya?’
‘Sure, Winnie Blue?’
‘Yeah, you know me too well,’ Annabelle laughed as she took a swig from a fresh bottle of Stones. Christine came over to give her a goodbye hug.
‘Won’t be long, see you soon. You be right?’
‘Sure, don’t you worry about me. I’m right here at home by this fire, and this is exactly where I’ll be when you get back.’
A shiver ran over Christine.
‘Jesus, someone just walked over me grave!’
‘Get out!’ Annabelle laughed. ‘You’re just thinking about the big scary yowie lurking in the shadows.’
‘Fuckin’ oath I am, and you’d better watch out he doesn’t come and get you,’ Christine joked, still shaking off the uneasy shiver that had appeared from nowhere.
‘You comin’, Christine?’ Ant was standing at the car, ready to go.
‘Hold ya horses, and stop ya nagging!’
‘Naaaayyy,’ Ant joked. Christine rolled her eyes at Annabelle. ‘He’s so lame.’
‘Yeah, but he’s cute. And you’re smitten. I can tell.’
Christine punched Annabelle playfully on the arm. ‘Am not.’
‘Am too.’
‘C’mon, stop your chin wagging, anyone‘d think you’ll never gunna see each other again!’ Ant protested. ‘We’re only going to the nearest roadhouse for a packet of fags.’ He started the car in frustration and yelled out the window. ‘If you’re not in this car in five seconds I’m leaving without you.’
Christine hugged Annabelle one more time and ran, calling over her shoulder. ‘See you later alligator!’
‘In a while crocodile!’
‘Geez, how old are you two? Kindergarten?’ Ant said playfully as Christine jumped into the front seat and pulled the door quickly behind her before he sped off. She turned her head back to the fire for one last wave, and the vision of Annabelle sitting by a roaring bonfire burned into her brain.
CHAPTER 14
Where’s Annabelle?
After all the longing and the excitement of the chase came the wild locking of bodies. Neither wanted a millimetre of skin not touching. They grabbed then groped then made love like love-struck, misty-eyed teenagers.
Christine was so wrapped up in Ant she didn’t go back to Bessie’s until the following night, and it was only then she discovered Annabelle hadn’t arrived home. Kidding themselves out of their worry, she and Bessie sat up until the wee hours of the morning waiting for her.
When the morning light started to creep around the edges of the kitchen blind, Christine kissed Bessie on the cheek and promised she’d be back soon, with Annabelle.
Ant wasn’t home but she retrieved his spare key above the door, hidden in a tiny gap between the door frame and the wall he’d shown her. Doing errands was on a handwritten note on the pillow. Snuggling beneath the sheets, she breathed in their sex smells and dreamed of what he would do to her when he walked in the door.
She became so completely absorbed when he returned mid-morning, that all thoughts of Annabelle disappeared. The day blurred into night which blurred into the next day, without either of them going any further than the kitchen for a drink of water. It was just on dusk, two days after she’d last seen Bessie, when she kissed him goodbye so she could collect a change of fresh clothes.
Bessie greeted Christine at the door with a black cloud hovering above her head.
‘Where the fuck is she? Have you seen her?’
‘Whoa there, Bess, you’re like a thunderstorm out here on the back step, can you at least let me in and make me a cuppa before you go bursting my love bubble?’ Christine tried to kid with her to diffuse her anger.
‘Humph, you’re off with that no good drug dealer now? He gunna pay you for the blokes you’re not servicing, while you’re trying to pretend you’ve gone straight?’
Bessie’s words stung, but Christine refused to get dragged down when she was feeling on top of the world.
‘Fuck off old lady, my body and I can do what I want with it. And how do you know he ‘ain’t paying me good money to have me all to himself?’
‘Well, is he?’
Christine didn’t answer. She boiled the kettle and made herself and Bessie a tea.
'Make it a coffee,' Bessie grumbled.
Christine tipped out the tea and spooned two generous teaspoons of Nescafé into the cup, followed by two sugars. ‘Here, get this into you. Looks like you haven't slept a wink for days,’ she said, sitting down awkwardly, shifting to find a comfortable position for her sore fanny.
‘That’s because I haven’t, I’ve sat up for nights straining to hear her footsteps come to the door. I kept the kettle hot so I could make her a cuppa as soon as she walked in. But she didn’t, and she still hasn’t. Where the fuck is she? It’s nearly dark and it’s going to be another night somewhere on her own, without a roof over her head, without knowing she’s safe, without knowing she’s okay.’
‘Come on Bessie, calm down. Surely you’ve had your people go missing before? I bet you nine times out of ten they came back, or were absolutely fine, just moved on. Am I right?’
Bessie nodded. Christine was right, this wasn’t the first time someone had taken off without notice. Christine continued. ‘She’s probably got herself a lift home, her real home, in Queensland. She was pretty homesick I reckon.’
‘Yeah, maybe, but this feels wrong to me. That she just vanished like that. You reckon she’s headed back home, but I still reckon you’re wrong.’
They went this way and that with the possibles and maybes. Christine made them a second cuppa and sliced up tomatoes to put on toast. ‘Here, you got to eat something,’ she said. ‘Get some energy about you, especially if you’re gunna pull another all-nighter.’
They ate in silence.
There was a knock at the door. Christine spilt her tea in her haste to get out of the chair. Her face fell when she opened it.
‘Oh, it’s you.’
Ant feigned hurt. ‘That’s not quite the welcome I was expecting.’
‘Come i
n,’ Christine squeezed his hand.
‘Why the long face, Mr Ed?’ Even his bad impression from one of his favourite childhood television shows didn’t lift the mood.
‘You seen Annabelle?’ Bessie asked. ‘You usually see her pretty regular, don’t you? Top up her dope?’
‘When you come to think of it, I haven’t seen her. Not since the party. You worried or something? She’s a big girl, you know, can look after herself,’ he said casually.
‘Yes, we know,’ Christine cut him off, not wanting Ant to upset Bessie and get himself kicked out. Close wasn’t close enough right now. Is this what head over heels in love felt like? She touched his thigh under the table, wrapped her foot around his ankle.
‘But it is unusual don’t you think? That she still hasn’t come back?’ Christine pushed in closer as she talked, enjoying the heat move from his body to hers.
‘You’re damned right it’s unusual, something’s up,’ Bessie cut in. ‘You need to get the word out Ant, ask around. See if anyone’s seen her. Who was still there when you left? Find them, talk to them about what happened the next morning. Was she there when the sun came up? Did she get a lift back with someone we don’t know? Was there someone there who took her in a different direction? Maybe she hitched a ride?’
‘Jesus Bessie, what do I look like, a detective?’ Ant tried to humour her. ‘Relax, it’ll be fine. I’ll go and ask around.’ He extracted his leg from Christine and pulled away from the tight grip she had on his hand. She felt the cold air and longed for his warmth. But he was at the door, opening it, walking out. ‘You girls sit tight, I’ll ask around, and come back and report as soon as I know something.’
When he left, Christine reached across the table to hold Bessie’s soft, plump hands. ‘It’ll work out Bess, she’ll be fine. She’s probably hitched a ride back to her Mum; weren’t you talking to her about getting in touch with her Mum? Maybe being out in the bush made her realise just how much she missed home, sounds like that’s what she used to do all the time. Sit around the bonfire, eating food made in camp ovens, camping out.’
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