by Chloe Hooper
Thomas was standing right at the very edge of the oval. Possibly he enjoyed cricket more than Lucien did. I strode toward him, the dress smooth against my body. Averting my eyes, I tried to pass a group of fathers, but Mr. Stackhouse intercepted me. He was a swarthy man with broad hands, and he wore a T-shirt bearing the message: It doesn’t matter who wins or loses but who gets most pissed at the end of the game. He was talking to Henry Ledder’s dad. Mr. Ledder was charming in a thuggish way with a handsome, if slightly fat, face. I imagined he had a temper. (During Show and Tell Henry had told us about a video of his father’s recent fishing trip. Mr. Ledder and friends had filmed themselves driving hired cars, very fast, in second gear down gravel roads, slowing only to shoot stop signs full of bullets.)
“Heard you’ve had trouble with your car,” Mr. Ledder said slowly, not taking his eyes off my dress. News traveled here like wildfire: only minutes ago I’d dropped the car at the garage. “Someone’s playing funny buggers, hey?” The grin on Mr. Ledder’s face seemed designed to make me uneasy. Mr. Stackhouse also appeared pleased with himself, but I stood straight, smiling back, and he started looking nervous. “Cameron,” Mr. Ledder asked, “if you were to tamper with someone’s car, so as to scare them, how would you do it?”
Mr. Stackhouse scratched his chin. “Maybe I’d take all the oil from the sump.”
I giggled. “What’s the sump?”
“Oh, well,” he answered, “you’d have to get under the car and remove the oil by undoing the sump plug, or—” he coughed, watching as I smoothed my hair. “Or, I guess you’d put pinholes through the brake leads. Gradually, after about twenty minutes or so, all the brake fluid leaks out . . .”
“No,” corrected Mr. Ledder. “The best way, I reckon, would be to remove the plug at the alternator. The battery would slowly lose charge, stalling. That’s good because no warning light would spring up on the dashboard.” He squinted at me. “You should’ve seen a warning light on the car’s dash, last night.”
I looked up at him through lowered lashes. “I didn’t notice it.”
Mr. Stackhouse continued thoughtfully, “You could loosen the petrol plug, but,” he admitted, “you might smell petrol escaping.”
“Mate, there’s always sugar in the petrol tank.” The two men started to laugh but when I joined in, they grew silent. Mr. Stackhouse explained the joke to me: “Sugar blocks up the carburetor. Everything. People use sand or sugar.” He shook his head. “The bag of sugar in the petrol tank, or at least five hundred grams, and it runs up the pipes and into the carburetor and fuel injection system. Then you hear of divorcées, and that, bringing it in coughing and spluttering.”
The men both stared at the ground.
Still smiling, I excused myself. Thomas was standing on the side of the oval, yelling to his son. “Watch the ball!” he bellowed. “Watch the damn ball!” Usually I saw him wearing business suits; now he was dressed in leisure wear that was fashionable ten years ago. A jacket with the wrong collar; jeans cut in the wrong style. The clothes weren’t shabby. In fact, they looked expensive, premeditated. I sighed: no one—at least no one I knew—would wear aviator sunglasses like that, except as a joke. If I caught, say, my own father wearing those sunglasses, I’d shoot him down with machine-gun laughter. Now I didn’t care. I just wanted to be alone with Thomas. I wanted him to take me back to the hotel, and this time I’d be better behaved. He was not someone who’d cope well with rejection. Some very intelligent people, if treated badly by their peers as adolescents, develop a kind of megalomania that, unfortunately, I seemed to find attractive. What if after Thomas had dropped me at school yesterday, he’d found my car, tampered with the brakes, and cut the fan belt as practice for my throat? I had tried to end our affair as we drove back from the hotel. He was telling me, “You can leave, but first you’ll have to die.”
A tiny rip developed in this sporting picture, and I sensed the menace underneath. The ball flew through the air like a scarlet bird. On the boys’ white clothes, its stain was indelible. The boys were so serious about this game, as serious as their fathers. “When my son puts his cricket whites on and pads up, he looks like an eighteen-year-old,” I heard one father say. “Like a gladiator.” The boys’ poses were very masculine. The fielders swung their arms, practicing spin bowling. They mimicked what they’d seen on television. One child spat vigorously every thirty seconds, slapping any skinny friend on the back. Another child caught the ball, and then dived down, rolling with it, his arms outstretched in victory. After this, nothing will ever seem so green. One day these kids would realize this grass was the green of memory, but for now puberty seemed like a foreign disease they’d never have to catch.
The children’s attention spans were not exhaustive, and before long their legs-apart, hands-on-hips poses became slightly louche. A fielder put an arm to waist, hips pivoted. Another draped a wrist casually over his head: a little dying slave. In the sun, their whites were as bright as pale marble. A butterfly fluttered over the pitch, a light spot on one’s retina. To look at the boys I had to shield my eyes. They were statues on a well-kept lawn, in poses sketched by a noble to inspire other pedophiles. This was his garden of contemplation and each figure stood in silent dialogue. If children are born of original sin, Lucien’s statue was helping the others to remain saturated in wickedness. Little did the adults know that this child, despite his lack of popularity, was leading the children’s discussion on the merits of hell.
Billy: How come if scientists say we were apes, Adam and Eve were human?
Henry: How do we know they weren’t apes?
Lucien: Maybe apes evolved into Adam and Eve.
Darren: They wouldn’t have had names; they’d just be Oooga and Booga.
Billy: How could Oooga and Booga know how to talk? Who recorded what they said?
Alastair: Snakes can’t talk.
Darren: They might be able to.
Lucien: They can’t speak our language. Their teeth are too small, and their tongues are too small to make the right sounds. And it’s virtually impossible for us to teach a snake anything, because over the years their instincts have taught them not to trust us.
How would I tell Thomas that this affair had to end? Would he grant me an exit pass for the sake of his son? “My darling,” I practiced. “I couldn’t bear to be the cause of sadness. What if Lucien saw us together, and told his mother we were hugging with no clothes on? Oh Lord! Then you’d come home, and Lucien would ask, ‘Daddy, what’s a whore? What is a slattern?’ My heart would break if that happened, for you and me, but mostly, for him . . .” I paused: this approach would not necessarily work. If it were Veronica who was the puppet master, I’d need to appeal to her directly. And would the two of us really be able to strike a deal? The rules of this game were complicated and ever changing. As soon as I grew tired of playing, apparently, the consequences would be dire.
Darren: I think God is a phoney.
Henry: He’ll kill you for saying that!
Darren: What does he do for us? He doesn’t do anything for us.
Alastair: Like he doesn’t give us gifts.
Henry: He doesn’t send any of his helpers down.
Billy: Even if God was real, what does he do for us? So long ago were all the stories that no one believes anymore. Well, that’s when they had angels and stuff, and now they don’t have angels, so why’s the point. Because why doesn’t he send any angels down now?
Alastair: If Jesus is dead, why don’t they send down Jesus’s son?
Lucien: He didn’t have a wife.
Thomas was leaning over a children’s water fountain. These fountains were designed for five-year-olds, they were built low, but he looked so graceful bending down to drink, so natural. Nearby a jacaranda tree was swaying, its purple flowers pimpish. He rose with water on his chin and I almost rushed to wipe it, but stopped myself. Up close he looked tired. When he saw my pretty dress, he did a double take. Smiling slowly he asked, “How are you?”
“Lucien isn’t concentrating today.” Thomas scratched his head. “The ball may as well be invisible.”
“Has something upset him?”
Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Last night, after his mother returned from her reading, was tough, very tough.”
“Oh dear. How is Veronica doing?”
“She’s putting on a brave face.”
“Gosh.” I stood next to him, watching the play. “It was a bad night all round.” I paused. “Someone messed with my car’s brakes and cut the fan belt.”
He looked unfazed. “It probably just snapped.”
“And the brakes?” Something in my expression conveyed my suspicions.
“Oh, you don’t think . . . ?” He laughed. “You don’t think Veronica?” He laughed again.
“Of course not!” We stood next to each other, both staring straight ahead. “But have you ever . . .” I stuttered, “has it ever occurred to you that it was Graeme Harvey who killed Ellie?”
“Not you too!” Thomas erupted. “No, that’s crazy.” His brow furrowed. “He’s guilty because you can’t find his wife? He did it only because he seduced the girl, he bound her to him.”
“How did he do that?”
“With his dick,” Thomas muttered.
I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “Do you think, in any way, that months”—I paused—“years later, Graeme was relieved?”
“He loved that girl. Why would he be relieved?”
“Well,” I answered coolly, “it tied up a loose end.”
Thomas waited a moment. “No.” He shook his head. “He thought she would marry and have children. That’s not a loose end. He thought she would marry the most right of all the Mr. Wrongs: that is not a loose end.” Thomas turned to me, and said in a soft sly voice, “He would think of her sometimes, and he’d smile at how he’d been one of her adventures. And he would remember how she’d walked; and how she’d sounded; and how, for him, she did her funny dance . . .”
Cicadas were chanting. The new day was electric. I wanted the fathers to stop watching us. They were congregated under the cypress tree, paying too close attention. They should’ve been watching the match. I pointed to the field, as if fascinated: on cue, Billy started to run but I didn’t know why. I simply admired the anarchy of the boys’ game. By next year their motor skills would be improved and much of this slapstick fun over. “Lucien just doesn’t watch the ball,” Thomas repeated.
“Could there be a problem with his sight?”
“No, he just doesn’t concentrate.”
“Maybe you’re too competitive, Mr. Marne.”
His face grew stern. “Are you being a good girl?”
“Yes.” I pouted. “I’m being good.” It was better for Thomas to think I still believed in him. “A very good girl.” I gave a tiny moan. Confronted on that school excursion by my lover’s wife—a woman who exuded so much sexual urbanity—I’d felt deeply competitive, a kind of fury. I’d realized I was backed into a corner with all my willed innocence. And afterward, trying to turn this to my advantage, I’d started talking to Thomas in a nuanced baby talk. It wasn’t so much the manner of a child, as of a fourteen-year-old girl who was perhaps slightly simple.
“What did you do when you woke up?” he asked. “Did you eat your breakfast?”
“Yes, I was good.”
“Did you wash your little face?”
I fidgeted with my skirt. “Yes.”
“Did you do anything else?”
“No, I didn’t.” I bit my lip. “I wasn’t. It wasn’t me . . .”
“You brushed your teeth.” Thomas waited. “And then you got all dressed up for the grown-ups. Did you want to make all the other kids’ dads hot? Hmm? Did you want the other kids’ dads to look at you?”
I bridled, throwing back my head. “Maybe.”
“Tell me what you want them to do to you?”
“To give me toffees.”
“Yes.”
“And they could buy me sunglasses.”
“And would you suck their cocks?”
“Would I get to keep the sunglasses?”
Stretching, I turned in time to see Veronica come strolling through the gates. She wore a sun hat and with her long white neck there was an orchid look about her, as if she were shrinking from the sun, but not too much.
Imagine if every time you walked into a room, people thought of murder. The fathers—and now some mothers—watched as Veronica walked toward us. It was the usual practice for the mothers to join their husbands with refreshments. They also brought along the little sisters and more family dogs. Gossiping and cheering everyone on, their presence made this whole scene less primordial, or maybe more so—I wasn’t sure. How did the other mothers react to Veronica? Murder at Black Swan Point tended to be very popular with women of a certain age, just not in this neighborhood. They had all heard stories of Mrs. Marne driving down Murder Road to visit Ellie’s parents: “Hello!” she’d apparently greeted the old woman who’d opened the door. “I’m Lisa. I was in your daughter’s class at school.” Mrs. Siddell had apologized for her poor memory, ushering the true-crime writer into a small, neat parlor. “Tell me about your school friends. Do you girls keep in touch?” “Some of us do.” Veronica scoured her surroundings for any decorative flourish to spin through the story. As she noted the heavy drapes and wallpaper, now peeling, she took a photo of Lucien out of her wallet, and started talking of her own life, post high school.
“Listen,” I whispered to Thomas, “I need to talk to you. I’m in trouble.” My stare was intense. “Please.”
“Today’s a bad day,” he said under his breath. “Today’s a very bad day. Hello, darling!” he called.
Veronica wore a sheer silver blouse with a lace camisole underneath. A gray crushed-silk skirt. Ballet slippers. It was like a fashion spread where the stylist chooses the most devastating suburban scene—a bowls club raffle; trash and treasure in the local church hall—then inserts the model. Veronica took off her hat. She kissed her husband, then turned to me, smiling. “Miss Byrne, how’s everything going?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“The class is okay?”
“Yeah, it’s going fine, it’s going really great.” I paused. “Except for one thing.”
The Marnes both turned.
“Yesterday afternoon someone cut my fan belt and loosened a brake caliper!”
Veronica looked horrified. “That’s terrible. Have you reported it to the police?”
Thomas interjected, “The thing about fan belts is that they can snap.” He crossed his arms. “Fan belts can snap, and you just can’t really tell.”
I stared at him. “What about the caliper?”
He sighed, shrugging. “Well, from what I understand, it was an old car.” His face was stony. “It probably needed a service . . .”
“Could someone be trying to hurt Kate?” Veronica interrupted.
“It would be difficult to prove.”
“Someone with a grudge?”
“The more I think of it,” Thomas told her, “the more unlikely it sounds.”
“I see.” Veronica’s expression softened, and she spoke slowly. “You’re overwhelmed, Kate. It must be hard for you being so far away from your family.”
I paused, slightly hypnotized. “Yes. It has been.”
She gathered her mane of hair, pulling it over her shoulder. “Is this the first time you’ve lived away from home?” I nodded. “Well, I think you’ve been very brave coming and staying here all alone. Very brave.” She looked at me closely. “You must feel vulnerable?”
“Sometimes.”
“How old are you, Kate?”
“I’ll be twenty-three next month.”
“Well, you were right to move away,” she said. “These feelings are natural.” Thomas groaned quietly, but she ignored him, advising, “Now it’s time to grow up.”
I gasped for breath, coughing, and s
he patted my back. “It’s all right. Let it out. Let it out.” Before me the horizon line trembled: I’d been dumped by a wave. I stood feeling its slap, the way it belted my body. If you’re unaccustomed to malice, it’s shocking that someone would bear you ill intent. It’s like receiving a dream kick or a dream bullet. You’ve been injured, but since there’s no physical scar, one discounts the violence as imaginary. “Let it out.” Veronica continued patting my back. She was privy to every intimacy. She had told me to grow up because she even knew of my baby talk.
I finished coughing, and Veronica waited for some response. “Thank you.” Lightly touching her arm, I added, “I was speaking to my mother. And I just want you to know, she and her friends have been really moved by your book.”
Veronica raised her hand to block sun from her brow. She looked grave. “That means so much.” She closed her eyes. “The readers’ support has just been totally overwhelming.” She smiled a radiant smile, before reaching out to squeeze my hand. Then Veronica turned to her husband, and very naturally—the way one does when one’s body is aligned closely to another’s—he put his arm around her. I had heard it said, actually by Thomas, that in a threesome if one woman gets out of the bed to go and sit in a corner, rocking back and forward, shaking and crying to herself, it’s not because of any noble reason; it’s because the crying woman senses (correctly) that the other woman is preferred. I looked down at the ground. “Will you excuse me, Mrs. Marne, Mr. Marne.”
I moved closer to the other parents. The Marnes were gaslighting me, slowly driving me crazy. As far as Veronica was concerned, Thomas was only sleeping with me to benefit her work. And perhaps she was right . . . I imagined her trying to write the most difficult part of Murder at Black Swan Point, trying to feel murderous: Enter Thomas, disheveled, wild-eyed, after an afternoon at my grandparents’ house. He’d lean down to kiss her and she’d ask snakily, “Have fun?” She’d hand him a pencil, and he’d be about to draw diagrams, when she’d let fly with a tirade of abuse; the rudest, cruelest words. Then more calmly, in fact with the calm that only came with this inspiration, Veronica would have asked Thomas to leave, so she could complete the chapter. I had been the sacrificial lamb, a third party used to induce a jolt of frisson. They were the finest, the most refined criminals. It made sense—some jewel thieves orgasm during robberies.