by Kylie Kaden
She’d have to stay a killer. It was simpler.
* * *
Blake tried to ease her misery with an hour or two of trash TV and a packet of Clinkers, guessing flavours from taste alone like they were fourteen, before he figured it was time to grow up, and grabbed a bottle of red. They downed a glass each. He picked up the merlot from the coffee table, and poured them both another. As he leant across the couch to hand hers over, he smelt Abbi’s hair. She always smelt like apples, and it made him think of the rhubarb–apple tarts their mum used to make.
He was stuffed. ‘All right, well, I’m going to bed. And you’ve had too many to drive, so have a nap before you head off, okay?’
Abbi stiffened. ‘I should just go. Hannah will freak if she finds me here.’
Blake tilted the bottle of wine and saw it was empty. ‘Better than wrapped around a tree, so unless you’re walking …’
It was only a few blocks but Abbi screwed up her nose at the idea of an empty house.
He grabbed a waffle blanket from the linen cupboard and a bottle of water from the fridge. Abbi shuffled her jeans off and snuggled into the blanket in her undies and t-shirt. ‘It’s not even ten-thirty. Can’t you stay up five more minutes?’
Blake frowned. ‘Hannah’ll have my balls on a plate if she finds me out here with you. Especially since that was her wine.’
Her big eyes pleaded with him. ‘Just till I fall asleep?’
She’d been saying it his whole life.
He sat on the couch, flicked the TV on to something mind-numbing. She wormed under his shoulder and he felt her body uncoil.
He thought about their relationship trajectory, more aware now of her flaws. The power had always been with her, from the day he’d arrived at her home as the latest in a production line of troubled kids. She’d shown him the ropes, and held them ever since.
Chapter 25
39 DAYS AFTER THE MOON FESTIVAL
It wasn’t that they were together. It wasn’t a question of what they did. It was the way they lay – almost like parent and child. Abbi’s pouty, Cupid’s-bow lips were parted slightly, resting on his chest, his arm draped casually around her neck. It was different to how Blake lay with her, she accepted that – a protective posture more than a sensual one. There was no beard rash or hands on arse cheeks. But their entwined, sound-asleep bodies still made Hannah’s breath catch. They were so natural, peaceful with each other.
And was that her (now empty) bottle of wine on the table in front of them?
Blake stirred and she retreated to the bedroom in silence. The mocha linen they’d bought to signify their fresh start lay smooth on their bed; crisp lines, hospital corners, European pillowslips she’d ironed herself, and yet, Blake was curled on that mildewy old futon under a faded old blanket, with her.
She’d come home later than she’d planned, a little tipsy after drowning her sorrows. Blake must have heard her arrival and followed her into bed. He explained Abbi’s impromptu sleepover – that Will had left. Hannah was gobsmacked. Telling Will about the little lovers’ quarrel she’d witnessed between Abbi and Blake on the beach must have burst the bubble of denial he’d been living in. It was the only explanation. He was a man of integrity and would never stand for such seedy business.
* * *
The next morning, Hannah was relieved to see Abbi was gone, as she busied herself preparing for work, shooting glances at Blake biting into his cream-cheese bagel (she’d finally convinced him to ditch the sugary cereal). She stared blankly at the Berocca fizzing in her glass, arms tight across her chest, when Blake leaned in and kissed her goodbye.
All she could think as she drove to work was that he smelt like her.
Incest. The word played on her mind. She looked it up: an overly close, improper relationship between family members. Overly close; that part was undeniable. It always felt like the two were in a cone of silence and she was outside reading lips. Had they taken things a step too far? She had to know what Will had seen. What had made such a decent man leave his wife?
By end of the day, her thoughts were a wrecking ball.
Will’s mobile was out of range, so Hannah called the surgery and was greeted by an answering machine with a recorded message from the squeaky-voiced receptionist directing patients to the Harrison clinic an hour away.
She’d gathered the evidence as she went about her day. A kid at the youth centre said Abbi was seen crying, absentmindedly holding a rockmelon at the IGA. In the school office, people had started to talk about the state of Abbi and Will’s marriage. Abbi picked up Eadie in sunglasses and one of Will’s oversized t-shirts – not a sign of someone who was coping. Hannah overheard the uniform shop conveyor suggesting Abbi’s ‘sunny disposition’ with the stay-at-home dads had gotten out of hand and Will put a stop to it. Nothing else seemed serious enough to warrant the breakdown of such a rock-solid marriage, other than a true betrayal.
Curiosity consumed Hannah – she almost wished she could run into Betty and her sticky-beak nose – and she zoned out from her students, deep in questions. At least, that’s what she told herself was the reason she was obsessing about the tall, broad-shouldered man with kind eyes. She told herself it was normal to Google your friends’ names, read journal articles they’d published on things like ‘immune suppression increasing the risk of Merkel Cell Carcinoma’ (she lived in the skin cancer capital of the world, after all), and scroll through old Facebook posts for a glimpse of them. She was just curious. A social researcher, if you like. There was nothing stalkerish about it, when you knew them.
Yet with every bitchy thought, Hannah recalled her friendship with Abbi at thirteen, reading Dolly Fiction on the big boulder next to the rock pools, talking boys and big dreams. Was that sweet, fun girl really capable of such deceit? Was she so stupid as to risk what she had with Will? Abbi always struck Hannah as smarter and stronger than she ever let on, using the damsel-in-distress act a little too much for her liking.
Hannah couldn’t handle all this uncertainty. She needed sugar, and made do with a leftover birthday cupcake she found in the staff freezer. She didn’t even wait for it to defrost.
At first break, she spotted Eadie under the shade cloth at the prep precinct, chasing ladybeetles through the fairy garden. Hannah squatted next to her. ‘Princess E. How are you?’
‘Good.’ Eadie picked flowers from the clover, gathering them in her hand like a fairy bouquet. Her fingers were stained with every colour of the rainbow from craft time.
‘Missing Daddy?’ It felt wrong, using the innocent little thing, but it was for her father’s own good.
Eadie looked confused. ‘I only just sawed him yesterday. He watched my swimming lesson. He’s the only one who can do my cap without squinching my hair.’
‘Really?’
She nodded. ‘Mummy always does it too quick.’ That’s because Mummy is always running late. Not for the first time, Hannah realised it was the little things that set parents apart.
‘It was funny. When he waveded goodbye after, his fishing pole was so long it was sticking out the back window of his Mini.’
Hannah smiled. ‘Fishing, huh?’
The clue festered during middle session, before she overheard another staff member mention a protest at the town hall about development restrictions. Hannah thought about when her father was a labourer on that abandoned house near the lake, remembered Will mentioning the locals used it as a bit of a sleepout on fishing trips. A sixth sense told her it was the perfect place for Will to lay low for a few days, still skulk home to see his daughter, and do that thing men did to justify doing not much at all: fish.
Would it be rude to just turn up? They’d become close lately, but she barely knew the man. And he obviously wanted to be alone.
No. It was crazy. She’d just have to interrogate Blake. But he was always loyal to Abbi. What was Will playing at?
Hannah felt a sudden pang of dread. She was the only one who had any lead on Will’s whereabouts. The
re was power in that knowledge. Responsibility – what if he needed help? She thought of what happened to Trevor – a probable suicide from a man she never would have suspected was the type to self-harm.
So, when Hannah lied to her boss, saying her endometriosis was playing up and she needed to go home, she told herself it was neighbourly concern that steered her car out to the bush track to the old abandoned house.
Only a few locals knew how to access it. It was a relic from a display home, the planned show pony for a new estate before the greenies petitioned against the proposal. Fashion was a fickle beast – white Parthenon-like pillars flanked the entry, arched windows like she remembered from Playschool and a steep, Tudor-style roofline adorned the design. Now it was a graffiti-ridden eyesore, the ivory bricks green with mildew, the generously sized rooms full of leaves and suspiciously stained mattresses, and the whole thing smelt of possum piss. But the way it existed alone, so grand and overbearing, bursting with unmet potential reminded Hannah of Tara from Gone with The Wind (minus the plantation and slavery). The planned road was overgrown, never sealed. You really had to look for it to find it.
As she’d hoped, a racing-green Mini Cooper was rusting under a canopy of jacaranda leaves. Hannah parked next to it, a wave of excitement coursing through her like she’d solved the mystery. She looked around to see a humble campsite just up from the high tide mark of the lake. A hammock. An esky. A single folding canvas chair under a gum tree, like a modern-day Waltzing Matilda.
He wasn’t there. She wondered if she should be worried, and sat to contemplate what to do. She tentatively placed her weight in the hessian hammock, kicking the tree now and then to keep her swinging, and relaxed for a while in the nothingness.
Her own worries came to the surface like the speckled trout skimming the lake.
Blake. There was no denying they cared for each other, always had. But deep down, had it ever really felt right? Were relationships meant to be this much hard work?
Despite her reputation, Hannah had only been with a handful of men. There was Blake, of course, making several comeback tours and return showings; the hairy, hopeless moron she’d cheated on him with in her twenties; her older-man phase beginning with Trev and ending with Married Michael from New York for the last couple of years … Then, her thoughts travelled back to her first crush – didn’t they say the first heartbreak was the deepest?
Andy & Han. She could picture their names carved in the wet sand, and found herself missing that fresh-faced boy – his polite, quiet ways, the cute mole on his left cheek, even now, eighteen years later. Subconsciously she’d gauged every potential boyfriend against that well-bred young man ever since, and usually found them wanting. Did that make her sentimental, or pathetic?
The milky yellow sun filtered through the tree canopy. She’d forgotten how dark and still the lake was in these isolated parts. It had an eerie feel, like you could only imagine what lay in its depths.
Hannah felt strange, invading Will’s space, and wandered to the water, the lake dark and glossy under the setting sun. Despite the autumn chill, the brightness gave the illusion of summer. She felt compelled to immerse herself in the lake, imagined the cool water moving over her skin like a potion, removing the uncertainty and frustration of the past few days. A clear path between the scattering of pine trees led to a picturesque beach of multi- coloured sands, boulders of many shapes and sizes.
The lake was green with the reflection of trees, the ragged shoreline a mess of gnarled roots squirming down to the shallows like arthritic fingers. Shimmers danced across the surface, as if light itself was carried by the wind. It reminded her of a hidden lake in Corfu she’d visited during her ‘solo years’ and loneliness brushed against her. Moments were never as sweet when experienced alone – that’s why she always felt the need to flaunt it on social media, as if it didn’t count until somebody knew.
She slipped off her sandals, let her bare feet soak into the waterlogged sand. She didn’t stop there, pulling off her t-shirt and shorts, wading into the cool depths in her sports bra and undies. Ducking under, she felt invigorated, treading water in the deep, but a sadness plagued her. Perhaps she would always be alone, too broken to keep anyone for long.
When she returned to the surface, she heard a rustle in the bush and there he was, wearing a faded Goodies t-shirt. With a bait bucket in one hand, a rod in the other, and ragged straw hat on his head, Will looked like a scarecrow.
‘Miss Worthington.’ He breathed her name out.
‘There you are.’ Her mood picked up.
‘What brings you to this isolated lake in the middle of nowhere?’ He raised his eyebrows.
She felt foolish, but figured she was caught. She had to go through with it. ‘I thought you might be here.’ Hannah swirled her hands along the surface of the lake. ‘Don’t feel like a swim?’
He gave an emphatic ‘No’. He seemed to weigh his options then sat on his bait bucket under the patchy shade, like he had to reconfigure his plans.
‘Okay.’ She paddled her way back the few metres to the shore. ‘Sorry to intrude …’
‘How’d you find me?’
‘You told me, in a matter of words, about the old house being a fishing retreat. I hope you don’t mind me invading your peace.’ She stepped up the beach, wringing the excess water from her ponytail.
‘I can’t exactly make you leave. It’s not my place. They should probably add trespassing to my record.’
‘Record?’
He shook his head. ‘Forget it.’
She found her clothes by a rock, and sat down to drip dry a little before dressing.
She’d driven out here full of rage, determined to get to the truth about why Will left. Now, after a walk, a swim, her own patchy romantic history replaying in her mind, her jealousy felt childish and petty. She stretched her legs along the hot surface of the rock, enjoying the sun.
Will sat, watching the clouds race through the sky, and a quiet settled between them. He never rushed, never made you feel you had to hasten your response so he could talk.
Will turned to speak, before his eyes quickly flicked back the skyline. ‘Um.’ He twisted his mouth.
Hannah frowned. ‘What?’ It’s not like she was naked.
With his back to her, he continued, ‘Ah, you might want to cover up, you’ve got some see-through going on that I don’t need to see.’
She looked down; eggshell blue undies, as transparent as glass. She even saw a freckle above her public hair and a surgical scar she never liked explaining, glowing through the wet satin. ‘Oh God, sorry.’ Mortified, she hurriedly turned away and slipped her shorts over her traitorous knickers. Not exactly the bush he came to see. Hannah felt her face colour as she turned her gaze back to Will.
He swallowed hard and scuffed his thong on the sand but she couldn’t mistake where his eyes had been focused as she zipped her hipster shorts: the thin, pink scar, just above her panty line. She couldn’t miss the concern on his face, but he kept quiet.
‘Endometriosis,’ Hannah explained.
‘I’m sorry. It’s a real bastard, I hear.’ Will frowned, then stopped. ‘They don’t do laparoscopic surgery in the States?’
Hannah swallowed. ‘It was a long time ago. Anyway, that’s probably enough sharing about my girly regions for the day.’
Once her embarrassment faded, Hannah figured she’d broach the subject. ‘You’ve probably realised I’m not here for the fish.’ He didn’t answer, but then again, it wasn’t a question, and Will only spoke when he had to. ‘Abbi came over, told me what happened.’ She hadn’t, exactly. But Hannah figured Will might fill the gaps.
‘Really?’ His chin dropped. He shifted about on his bucket-chair. ‘She okay?’ His eyes pierced hers, reading, searching.
‘Heartbroken. Worried. Sad. Everything you’d expect.’ Hannah shook her head. ‘I know it’s not any of my business, but if you need someone to talk to—’
‘Hannah, you can’t fix this.’<
br />
She felt each syllable like a blow. She wanted to help. Why wouldn’t he let her? ‘Can I ask why you left them?’
‘I haven’t left anybody. I’ve just … stepped away.’
Hannah pulled back, drained the last drips from her auburn hair. ‘You don’t have to tell me what’s going on, but if it has anything to do with Blake, I think I have a right to know.’
‘Blake?’ Will turned to her. ‘Why would you say that? Has he said something?’
‘No.’
‘Then what makes you think …’
She shrugged and shook her head in one confused gesture.
‘Jesus, Han. You’re still hung-up on the idea they’re at it? Is inventing problems a hobby of yours? Like there’s not enough worries in the world already without people imagining more.’
Hannah’s eyes widened. He was sometimes insensitive, but never cruel. It stirred up her defences, made her scrounge for any evidence to illustrate there was substance to her fears. ‘What rock have you been living under? Do you know how I found them when I came home last night? On the couch. Together. Your wife. My boyfriend. Basically on top of each other, barely clothed.’ He didn’t react, so she kept going, unloading all her suspicions. ‘And what about the way she wipes food off his mouth? Blake tells her every single thing that ever happens to him – like he doesn’t know how he feels about anything until he runs it past her. When he made Sergeant, she was the first person he called. Not me. Her. Don’t you see the way his lips linger on her forehead when he kisses her goodnight? Sound platonic?’
‘They’re close. But that doesn’t mean they’re doing anything more.’
‘So, you’re okay with some bloke kissing your wife, sleeping with your wife, wanting to have sex with her, as long as he doesn’t actually slip it in?’
His face grimaced but he didn’t answer.
She let him imagine that vile thought. ‘You talk about trust, Will, but from here it looks a lot closer to denial.’
She thought she had him, but then he shook his head. ‘You’re not even close, Han, so don’t even try. It’s just your mind playing games. That’s all it is.’