by Dan Noble
It was exhausting. More dropping things, messing up at work. I didn’t like the effect and wanted to straighten it out. I gave myself a deadline. Life is simple, I kept telling myself. If I couldn’t think of a sticky reason not to by Friday, then I would tell Gavan about his wife’s affair and Mick’s house-watching. If that brought about the end of us, I’d deal with it. Simple. Child’s play.
12
GAVAN
I never thought I would let her into the house; it was sacred. But when she showed up at our door when Erin was away, it was as if her energy were tumbling over the threshold, and if I didn’t step aside, I’d be crushed in its path. She was coming in, and that was that.
She tried not to be obvious about it, but Irene’s eyes were scanning the house like she’d just stepped inside Kirribilli House, a mansion. Everyone tried to act like it wasn’t a big deal, coming here, but it was. Even to us, it still was; didn’t make tragedy any easier to take. In a way, it made it worse. You were meant to be on top of the world if you had the luck to be in a place like this because it came with your big-time job—not just in some dickhead finance company, but in something that mattered. You’d taken the high road, and you still made it. Everyone knew the chances. And yet.
Well, I let her have her look, made like I didn’t notice, but she stopped short four steps in, lifted her foot, and began unbuckling her sandal. She bounced a little on the other foot, and then looked at me, sheepish, and smiled. There she was. She put the naked foot down, and I could see her body melt. Whatever it was that had sent her reeling had gone warm and dripped out in a puddle. Her shoulders went limp. She stared at her foot for a minute, seemed to remember what she’d been doing, looked up, out the window, as if at a bird, and then very slowly, very thoughtfully, removed the other shoe.
“Right,” she said, straightening up and shaking out her lovely (pastel!) hair.
She picked up her shoes and started to bolt for the door.
13
IRENE
I didn’t belong there. The house itself was screaming that out to me. Butt out. This is not your place. You are just visiting. And aren’t fancy enough for that, even in normal circumstances. Which this is not. Be polite and shut up. In fact, I felt the urge to bolt. No matter how attracted I was to Gavan, was it worth this upset?
“Wait!” Gavan pulled my arm. It was the most intimate moment we shared; it said, I know you well enough to pull your arm a little bit rough, and you know me well enough to see that I don’t intend harm, only that you mean something to me and I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.
It was decided. I kept my mouth shut. We did understand each other, and I was meant to trust the part of me that said he didn’t want to know. Whatever burden that created for me to carry, well, that would be my gift to him.
He was so gentle then, carried me to a bed, which I suspected was not the one he slept in. A strange thing, but respectful, exactly what I would have expected of him. I respected his wife, too. I wouldn’t have been able to do the things that we did in her bed. Everything was deeper, intensified; something solidified between us there, and I knew I would never tell. Like it or not, I had too much to lose now.
“You can stay the night, if you like.”
I looked at him, unsure.
“I would like you to.”
How could I pass up the opportunity to stay here? “I would like to, too.”
He kissed me on the nose. I laughed so hard I snorted. He seemed to enjoy that.
When the sun dropped, he left me to pick up some fresh fish for dinner. Of course he couldn’t be seen leaving with me, and I was thrilled at the opportunity to be alone in the house for a few moments. I told myself I wouldn’t snoop, but as I sat on the verandah, at the table with the Middle Eastern style tablecloth, I could feel my neck craning away from the beautiful, calm ocean, and back toward the house. Wouldn’t there be clues in there? Maybe this was the answer: find out the truth of who knew what and ease my mind, and who knows? Maybe the whole problem goes away. Irene gets everything she deserves.
Erin Andrews’s office was like a treasure chest: international coins in a ceramic dish with Italian writing on the side, framed bits of frayed fabric that looked ancient, books in every shape and size, arranged artfully with figurines and vases and intricate boxes poked in here and there. Even the lamp looked like it should be in a museum: Chinese and chipped, but with a pristine white shade. And then there were bits from Gavan’s career: plaques and certificates framed on the walls. Emus and kangaroos and the rising sun. There was only one photo. The girl wasn’t in it. Just Gavan and the wife, each with an arm alongside, but not quite touching, John Howard. Gavan’s eyes were the same there as that day at BWS. What was this man thinking? Except for John Howard’s face, I wouldn’t have been able to guess if it was before or after what happened to the girl.
I ran my fingers over the loose pages on her desk. Without thinking, I removed the brass beetle paperweight and handled the top page. You want to hear what happened to the girl. I understand. It’s impossible to believe a thing like that could happen, so you want to hear about it over and over and over, but the truth is that no matter how many times you focus on the minute details, put it all together in a big picture, step back, and then sharpen your take, you’re never going to know anything that makes sense of the thing . . .
I heard a creak and panicked, slamming the beetle back over the stack with a thump. Standing stock still, I heard nothing else for a couple of minutes and poked my head back down toward the staircase. Gavan was nowhere in sight. Outside, the space for his car was still empty. I returned to the bedroom where the blankets were still unmade. One of my pink hairs was twirled on the pillow. The first time I saw that pale blonde-pink hair color, I knew I had to have it. It reminded me exactly of this long-petalled flower that grew each year along our front path. None of the other flowers Mum planted ever grew, but that one was lovely. My sister and I would lie with our chins in our palms and stare at it. We’d done it the first time to get a whiff, but it had no scent. The most beautiful flowers often have no scent, which seems like the devil’s work. I did not feel like I was looking at that flower, nor that I was with my long-lost sister when I saw myself in the salon mirror and then paid $150, but a lovely serenity settled over me, and I liked it.
When I saw my hair on that expensive pillowcase, I pinched it and twirled it around my finger before putting it in my pocket. Even so, I got the sense that all of this—him, the house, whatever thing of his wife’s I was about to read—was a dream. What was I doing here? There was Gavan’s phone and his money clip and a few coins piled largest to smallest. Was I falling in love with him? It was doomed to go nowhere, and then where would I be? I couldn’t help but picture a life with him: public appearances, rubbing shoulders with the governor general, wearing evening gowns and chignons with pearl earrings. No. I was a Band-Aid. I knew that. My fingers dipped in my pocket to feel for the hair. Held aloft, I let it slip to its full length, watched it spin in the light. No. I was not the kind of person who would steal someone else’s life. Just in case, I twirled it up again and swallowed it, happy with the gesture, though I’d fight back gags for half an hour.
I tiptoed back to the notebook and read the whole thing.
14
MICK
Erin was meant to arrive in ten minutes. There was rosemary lamb sizzling out on the grill. A Sav Blanc was chilling. Whatever this game was, he was getting good at it.
Watching her produced surprising results: it addicted him to her. This was a woman who spent 99 percent of her time alone. And that 1 percent she spent with her husband, if her writing was accurate, was lonelier than the other 99. And yet, she hatched this plan, on her own, and though it clearly did not come naturally to her, she was going to follow through. Sure, he would be collateral if all went to plan, but he knew she wouldn’t go through with it. Kiss, kill? Come on. He knew about that. Why was he alone in the first place? Krissy; she’d gotten the best o
f him. Knew how to push his buttons. It was their thing, initially. She’d tell him they were going to play out some scenario, like she didn’t want him anymore, but then tell him to meet her at the bar, wink wink. They’d giggle. She was hot. Always up for it. Rubbing him under the table, forgetting to wear underwear. Probably she was always imagining he was someone else, doing something else to her, but this was part of it, the challenge, trying to get her to want him. He couldn’t help himself.
And yet, there was always this anger sizzling just beneath the surface. Why didn’t she love him for him? If she didn’t, why didn’t she just fuck off? The two sides of the argument were like heart and soul; they were inseparable. He told himself he could not have one without the other, and he would just have to deal or let her go, which he could not. He was sick with love for her. The moment he saw her, he wanted to peel off every item of her clothing and take her against a wall. He’d done it plenty, too. Restaurant loos, parking lots, even once right on a street, which in the moment he deemed desolate enough to go for it—not that he’d been thinking straight. The second it was over, he’d have to kiss her, suck on her ear, anything to hold onto that feeling for a bit longer. And she knew it, but she’d shimmy her skirt down, pull away, and often, ignore him the whole night afterward—even talk to other men, touching her hair, leaning in, flirting, while she made him sit at a nearby table and watch. It was part of the act, to keep this black magic, or whatever it was, going.
He’d show up, where she’d told him to meet her. Always he’d show up. Beforehand, she’d make him watch while she dressed—in some kind of lingerie that didn’t have any structure, like a candy coating, or a bra with the crucial material cut out, tiny panties with a zipper he could undo to get what he wanted. Shit. Even now it killed him to think about it. He took a breath. That was in the past. He had something new that wasn’t merely a house to work on. Erin/Erika was astounding in her own way, and he was going to take it where it led him. He owed her that much; he was a changed man with her. Never once angry in all the weeks he’d known her. Considered himself cured. He wasn’t going to let that go.
Was he merely dazzled and not exactly in love? Probably. But he didn’t mind. He hadn’t planned to get this far again. And look what Erin/Erika was planning to do, and he didn’t even have one angry bone in his body! It was more than a nice break; it was a precipice he was reaching the end of. Pretty soon he’d have to decide whether to jump or back down.
She wouldn’t be able to kill him, obviously. Not if he was on guard, anyway. The problem was, what would he do when she tried? Would he wind up hurting her? Would this be a chance to tell her how he felt? How did he feel? This was the first time things had been so good, and he was bound to fuck it up. He’d told himself he hadn’t been lonely, but that was horse shit, he knew. This woman needed him. And he would come through for her. That was the real test, of this he was sure.
15
AGGIE
Aggie treasured her hours behind the bar, even if she still got the worst shifts. There was an authority to it that seduced people into trusting her, believing she had intelligence. Much better than sitting in a uni tutorial, having some middle-aged woman with expensive shoes lord it over her for not giving feedback on some short stories. As if that was going to be the end of the world!
There were terrorists out there, and this woman wouldn’t let her slide for allowing Kelly’s not very subtly veiled stream of consciousness with conventionally unconventional punctuation about a girl she may or may not have had a crush on to go without someone telling Kelly, via some useless feedback form, that it could use more “original imagery” or some such “constructive feedback” that they were meant to use.
She took the class for an easy A, but you weren’t allowed to say that when the tutor asked, were you? So she dropped it, and then the next one, until she was only registered in Urban Women’s Issues, which, she’d fancied while she’d been browsing the catalog, sounded independent and irreverent, but had really been beyond her comprehension and interests. You all have vaginas, and men have dicks. There you go, folks! Must we endlessly discuss this? Shit. No wonder the world was in the state it was.
She’d been wearing that formless black shirt that slid off her shoulders by design when she’d seen that fancy woman’s date—Mick!—come into the bar the first time, in his construction company T-shirt. She recognized the word ProBuild from trucks she’d seen around, and a billboard by the tracks. It was a couple years ago. She could tell there was something strange between him and the woman he was making eye contact with the whole night. For one thing, the woman wasn’t wearing any underwear and wasn’t all that discreet about it. Fucking gross. They’d have to burn that stool she was sitting on. And then there was the black eye she was trying to cover with her glasses and makeup. If you knew what to look for, there it was. They didn’t sit together, and they didn’t seem to like each other very much, but you could tell they were there for each other’s benefit. She chatted to other blokes; he pretended not to watch, got more pissed off, drank more beers. A few times, he got up to go to the toilet, and Aggie thought he’d take out the guy she was talking to, let out a deep breath each time the toilet door swung behind him. It wasn’t until later that there was trouble. The skank left with one of these guys, and Aggie didn’t see exactly what happened out there by the parking spaces in front, but Ms. No Underwear had to take an ambulance from here, and the construction guy left in handcuffs. Fucking Mick.
Aggie couldn’t believe it when he started coming back, like they were all family and would have to forgive him. How did he know they would? Why not go somewhere else where people didn’t think you were an abusive son of a bitch?
Well, she wasn’t going to tell that know-it-all woman about that, was she? Reminded Aggie of that uni tutor. Better idea of what the world needs than everyone else, huh? Well, we’ll see about that. Irene asked what Aggie knew about him—Mick—and she lied. Said she didn’t know a thing about him. Irene was always messing up her life doing the right thing. Stay home with Mum so you can give her your salary to keep up with the expenses while Dad does fuck all. If she were Irene, she’d say to that fancy woman: Oh, grand idea! Why don’t you go and fall in love with someone who everyone but you knows will beat the crap out of you, stuck-up bitch? Someone who thinks the world’s there for his taking?
Yeah, Mick did have a secret, but it wasn’t a wife, and that rich woman was the stupid one who’d next fall into his trap. Aggie had washed her hands of the whole thing. Don’t need no Urban Women’s Issues bitch to teach her that, now, did she?
16
ERIKA
She’d have to kill herself. Yes, obviously, there was no other way.
She’d been repeating the word bludgeon until it evoked a fat pigeon, but she knew she still couldn’t do it. Weak, she’d thought. Weak, weak, weak. She was a pathetic person. Not an adult, actually, but the kind of person whom someone like her husband would have to save, someone who couldn’t save themselves. Surely, she could set aside pedestrian worries like guilt and fear and physical disgust if she truly thought this would connect her to Olena.
Then it hit her: what if she didn’t need to kill him at all? End of life, complete the cycle, yes, obviously. But why had she ever thought that ending this particular life was crucial? Yes, someone needed to die. It was clear—symmetrical, beautiful even. But why would it have to be him? It should be her. If he was reading these pages when she walked out after her coffee in a little while, he would have mercy on her, help her along even. Wouldn’t he?
Yes. Without her realizing, the grotesque forensic vocabulary—putrefaction, incision, lesion; even a benign word like body in the wrong context—transformed from a stomach acher into something eloquent, a missing piece helping her to complete the circle.
Erika slid into the seat of her car. She’d watched Mick go around the side and fiddle with the patio slider with the dodgy lock until it pushed aside. They’d never enabled the security system. Wh
at the hell for? Who was going to get behind that iron gate? Who was going to get past the park’s security guy sitting at the hill’s precipice, drinking tea from a flask and listening to the rugby? Someone she’d left the gate open for—that was who.
The leather was hot on her exposed thighs. She knew he was aware of her watching, and that seemed like enough, so she drove away. She spent the day at the beach with the dog, and three hours later, she’d come back to get ready for her final evening with Mick. She hadn’t expected the calm.
17
IRENE
What was I meant to do with the information? At first I was riveted. This was a compelling story. I couldn’t put it down. My heart raced. With Gavan due to return at any moment, I read as much as I could. My fingers shook the pages; they swayed with my breath. My fingers smudged the ink, came away with words pressed into their grooves. I thought of Mother the whole time. How could I not? At its heart, this was a story about a mother’s love. Even more so did I treasure those idiosyncrasies I knew of my own mother—me and no one else. Mother. Lovely, silly, arrogant Mother.
But I only reached the bit where Erika is speaking with Mick, and Gavan (Gav, as she calls him, like a different person altogether) pulls up to the traffic light, when Gavan pulled up right outside the window where I sat, turning into the carport. It gave me chills to see him on the page, through her eyes, and then simultaneously, here, the iron gate rolling shut slowly behind him.