Scared Yet?

by Jaye Ford

  Liv’s eyes suddenly filled with hot, unexpected tears.

  ‘So have you, luv.’ He gave her fingers a squeeze.

  ‘I miss him. All the time,’ she whispered.

  ‘You’re putting up a good fight.’

  ‘There’s no fight, Dad. There’s nothing to fight. It’s a done deal. He lives with his father every other week. There’s nothing I can do about it.’

  ‘Sometimes the fight is just to stay on your feet.’

  She smiled. Her father had a life motto to cover every occasion. He’d made a living pounding them into tough-nut boys who needed something to make them feel like men. When she was little, she used to sprout his mottos like a mini-Tony. As a teenager, she’d rolled her eyes and hoped he didn’t embarrass her in front of her friends. In recent months, she’d been trying to live by them, as many of them as she could remember. The Tony Wallace manual of pop psychology. Fighting to stay on her feet. She’d forgotten that one but he was right. It wasn’t always about throwing punches and scoring points. Sometimes it was a huge effort just to make sure you didn’t end up on your arse. Not to sit down and wallow in the grief and loss and pain.

  ‘I’m staying on my feet, Dad.’ She wanted to believe it. She didn’t want to disappoint him. But it was getting harder and harder with every hit she took.

  She stayed with him for an hour, left when she could see he was tiring. She knew he’d never admit to exhaustion. That had never been a valid excuse. Keep going until you can’t go any longer then do it a bit more. He’d yelled that around the gym until he was hoarse. A few weeks ago, she’d been with him when his doctor tried to tell him there would come a point when it would be better to stop fighting the disease. She’d watched her father’s face and knew it was a concept he’d never understand.

  She scanned the parking area from the entrance before walking back to her car. It was getting close to hospital visiting hours – there were more parked cars out there and others driving around, pulling into spaces. People, too. Singles and small groups. She should feel better about that but she watched warily, looking for bruised faces, checking her wiper blades for another note.

  Home was in a suburban subdivision dense with townhouses and villas occupied by retirees and divorcees – as Liv would be officially in a month. It’d been a hasty purchase, bought for the location – a ten-minute drive to work, a five-minute run to the park – and four weeks in residence hadn’t given her much more to like about it.

  Her hand ached from holding the steering wheel as she turned into the long driveway and passed the first two identical residences. Waiting tiredly for the automatic door on the two-car garage to finish its rise, she looked across at the front entry with no sense of homecoming, no comfortable familiarity, no solace from her own private space. As townhouses went, there was nothing wrong with it – twelve years old, a little battered by previous owners, functional kitchen and bathroom. The flat above her dad’s gym had been a dive in comparison. It just wasn’t the family home she’d dreamed of. She’d had that. And when Thomas screwed it up, she’d put it on the market, sold it for less than it was worth, needing to finish quickly what he’d started. Slicing off the dead flesh before it poisoned the rest of her.

  She parked next to the double row of removal boxes stacked like a hedge in the other parking bay. The auto-door rolled back down as she collected her bag and by the time she eased out of the car, she was shut in and the sunshine was gone. There were three small windows set high in one wall but the second storey of the neighbouring townhouse was so close that they let in little more than deep shade. It was light enough to see, dark enough to cause a twinge of apprehension as she looked over at the boxes.

  The removalists had suggested she stack them against the wall but she’d wanted them in the middle so she could walk all the way around, make it easier to find whichever box she was searching for. Cameron had hidden behind them one day last week, sprung up and shouted, ‘Boo!’ as she’d walked from the car. After recovering from the shock of it, she’d laughed and chased him round the stack. The thought of someone crouching behind there now made the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

  Did the bastard with the balaclava know where she lived? Had he followed her home before he’d waited for her in the car park?

  She shut the car door, turned, saw a movement.

  And a pale face.

  9

  Liv gasped, slammed back against the car. And saw herself, bruised and dishevelled, in a mirror on an old wardrobe. Fuck. Her heart was a sledgehammer, her mouth dry and she looked like an idiot spread-eagled against the chassis.

  Calm down, Liv. This will not keep you on your feet. She smoothed her hair, tugged down her shirt, gripped her keys like a weapon and walked to the stack of boxes. Walked all the way around. No one there – but the caution didn’t fade. She opened the access door to the townhouse, glimpsed around the stairs into the open-plan lower level. Empty. She flicked her eyes up the stairs, licked her lips, tiptoed quickly, quietly to the top.

  ‘Hello?’

  She heard nothing but her heart beating fast. Would the man in black answer? Or would he freeze on the spot and wait for her to go back downstairs? She stood, undecided, for a long moment. Then made a lot of noise as she stomped down the hall, banging the doors as she threw all three of them wide – Cam’s room, the bathroom, hers. Walked on shaky legs down the stairs.

  She put the note in a plastic shopping bag and cast an exhausted, dispirited eye around as she waited for the kettle to boil – at the glass sliding door that looked into the overgrown courtyard, the old sheet that was making do for a curtain, the pair of sofas from her old house that were too big for the room, the unwashed wineglass and mess of newspapers on the coffee table, the packing cases still stacked at the front door and the collage of fridge photos that kept Cameron’s presence here when he wasn’t. Home, sweet home . . .

  A cushion slipped from the sofa as Liv sat up. Had she been asleep? It was dark, she must have been. She listened to the silence of the townhouse, tried to drag her mind from its fug, heard a knock at the door and jerked to her feet. It wasn’t a thumping, just a rat-a-tat-tat on the timber, but she stared open-mouthed at the front entry.

  ‘Liv, it’s Jase. Are you there?’

  She let out the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. ‘Yep, I’m here. Hang on.’ Her strained muscles had seized while she slept and she limped stiffly across the room. ‘You scared the crap out of me,’ she said as she opened the door.

  Jason smiled and he looked so normal and familiar that she stepped onto the porch, threw her good hand around his neck and held on tight. She wasn’t the hugging and kissing type, didn’t greet everyone with a peck and a gush. She was more likely to cuff Jason on the shoulder and call him an old coot but he didn’t hesitate like he had last night at the hospital, just wrapped both arms around her, pulled her gently in. And for a few seconds, she let someone else keep her on her feet.

  ‘Has something else happened?’ he murmured in her ear.

  ‘Yes, yeah, I’m okay.’ She pulled away, clearing her throat. ‘Sorry, I’m half asleep.’ She held the door wide for him.

  ‘Kelly said you missed a meeting,’ he said as he walked in.

  ‘Oh, shit! Neil Brummer. What time is it?’

  ‘Five-thirty.’

  ‘Shit.’ She dragged a hand through her hair, squeezed her eyes shut. ‘What did Kelly say?’

  ‘Just that you weren’t there. She asked me to drop by on my way to pick up the girls from swimming to make sure you were okay.’

  She shut the door, frowned at the rattle it made in its frame. ‘I should’ve been there.’

  ‘You probably needed the rest. Kelly said you weren’t looking too good when you left the office.’ He rubbed her arm, a kind of buck-up-girl, then turned his attention to the room. He hadn’t seen it si
nce the day she’d moved in, when he and Kelly had helped shuffle around furniture and boxes. His eyes moved right to left, from the old weights bench and running machine against the wall, to the two sofas arranged to look into the unkempt yard, to the make-do curtain. It probably looked like nothing had changed. Not much had. She braced for a jibe, a ‘Gee, you’ve really got the place looking nice.’

  ‘So how’s the hand?’

  She mentally winced. Skirting around it made it worse. ‘Sore,’ she said, flicking on lights as she moved towards the kitchen. ‘How did Kelly sound? Like it was bad news?’

  ‘Like she was worried about you.’

  Liv opened the fridge.

  ‘Haven’t been shopping in a while, huh?’

  Jason was frowning over her shoulder at the contents. Or lack thereof. A bowl of leftovers from the weekend with Cameron, a splash of milk in the bottom of a carton, a slab of cheese and a couple of tomatoes. Okay, there was a little more than that – a few condiments, a tub of margarine, half a bottle of wine – but nothing meal-worthy. There’d been plenty a week ago when Cameron arrived but she hadn’t bothered to stock up for herself once he’d gone. Still couldn’t get her head around shopping for one.

  ‘Something like that.’ She lifted out a jug of water and as she poured, Jason did a three-sixty around the lounge room and kitchen. It didn’t take much to guess what he was thinking. The fridge was bare, she hadn’t unpacked – she wasn’t looking after herself. Maybe she wasn’t but she didn’t need to hear it. She slid the note in its bag across the kitchen bench. ‘I found that on my windscreen this afternoon.’

  He smoothed the plastic over the words, a line forming between his brows. ‘Was it in a shopping bag?’

  ‘No.’ Liv repeated the conversation she’d had with Rachel Quest, her instructions for the fingerprinting, the reasonable level of concern.

  ‘If it was random, would he come back and leave a note?’ Liv asked.

  ‘He might. If he was upset at not finishing what he started, I suppose. Although there’d be no reason to think your car would still be there this afternoon.’

  ‘So if it wasn’t random, maybe he came back looking for it. Or for me.’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know. Do you want to come with me and stay another night?’

  ‘I, um . . .’ She wasn’t sure. Was it safer here or there? And how long could she keep sleeping on their sofa bed?

  He looked at his watch. ‘The girls will be finished in ten minutes.’

  That decided it. ‘No, I’ll be fine. I need to ring Cameron before the news starts and I haven’t changed or anything.’

  ‘I can come back for you. Kelly’s got a ton of curry in the slow cooker.’

  Was he trying to feed her, too? ‘No, really, I’ll be fine. I’ll lock the doors and avoid taking risks, whatever that means. Besides, you guys must be so sick of me turning up.’

  ‘Not likely. Our lives are so uneventful, we’d probably die of boredom if you didn’t keep arriving on our doorstep with another drama.’

  ‘Drama isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’

  ‘Neither is monotony.’

  She frowned at his back as he took another look around, not sure if he was trying to make her feel better or talking about himself.

  ‘Do you want me to take some of your boxes away? We’ve got a kerbside pick-up next week.’

  ‘They’re still full.’

  He pointed to the front door as he crossed the room. ‘These ones?’ He grabbed the top box. It didn’t budge. ‘Oh, right.’ Just to make sure, he knocked a toe against a smaller one standing on its own. ‘Being single doesn’t mean you have to do it all on your own, you know?’

  She walked to where he stood, arms crossed over her chest. ‘I’m still figuring out where to put everything.’

  ‘Kell and I could give you a hand. We could do it in a day. Then you can get the boxes out of here.’

  ‘Actually, Jase, I don’t give a shit about the boxes. They can stay where they are for the next year for all I care.’ She pressed her lips together to force back the sudden, unwelcome surge of emotion.

  His eyes stayed on hers for so long she thought he must have seen her unshed tears and was deciding what to say. Then his gaze dropped to her cheek, her taped hand, her jeans, her bare feet. When he looked up again, he raised an eyebrow. ‘Are they my jeans?’

  God bless him for not making a fuss. ‘Yep.’

  ‘Damn, you’ve been in my pants all day and I didn’t even get to enjoy it.’

  She made an exaggerated roll of her eyes. ‘Gross, Jason.’ It was tacky but at least it’d cut the tension.

  ‘I’m a guy. Give me a break.’

  She laughed but it felt awkward. He wasn’t meant to be a guy with Liv. He had the surrogate brother role. She opened the door. ‘Go get those gorgeous girls of yours. And tell Kelly to call when the kids are in bed.’

  She waited on the front step until his car disappeared. She needed to ring Cameron but she stayed in the doorway for a couple of seconds, holding off the depressing presence of the townhouse for a bit longer. As she swung the door shut, she waited for the silence to envelop her but what caught her ear was the rattle in the frame.

  She narrowed her eyes at it, remembering she’d noticed it earlier, when Jason arrived. She pressed the fingertips of her good hand to the timber and gave it a shove. The door bumped about in the jamb as though it was a size too small for the opening. Had it always done that? She lifted her hand to the deadlock, planning to give the knob a yank, but as she touched the cool metal, a sound made her snatch her hand back.

  She spun around, scanned the room. Her brain said intruder but her eyes saw Kelly’s old phone on the coffee table. And it was ringing quietly.

  ‘Hi, Mum.’

  ‘He-ey, Cam.’ Liv could hear a television playing at his end of the line but it didn’t sound like the news. There was time to talk. ‘How were the tryouts?’

  ‘Awesome. Me and Sam scored goals and the coach said we could both be strikers.’

  ‘That is awesome.’ She perched on the arm of a sofa and laughed through his blather about training and the new coach and the mud at the fields from the sprinklers. She felt bad about having to break the mood with her story so she let him ramble on, enjoying the sound of him. Then she heard a woman’s voice in the background and lost her smile.

  ‘I’ve gotta go have a bath,’ Cameron said. ‘I’m getting mud on the carpet.’

  No, no, not yet. ‘Tell your dad you’re talking to me.’

  ‘Dad’s not home yet.’

  The woman spoke again and anger sparked inside Liv. Bloody Thomas had demanded equal time with Cameron then he didn’t bother to spend it with him. Just left him with the goddamn mistress.

  She tried to keep the emotion out of her voice. ‘Tell her I haven’t finished talking to you yet. Then take your boots off and go outside with the phone so you don’t get mud on the carpet.’

  ‘Okay.’

  There were hollow crackles and muffled voices that went on for an age. Liv got up and paced the floor while she waited, gritting her teeth against simmering anger. She used the back of her taped hand to hitch the sheet away from the glass sliding door, peered into the deepening dark of the courtyard. The back fence glowed pale along the boundary, the uneven hedging in front casting a jagged shadow. In the light from the lounge room, she could see the weeds standing tall in the paving and the unkempt garden. The previous owners hadn’t had green thumbs and she’d done nothing to improve things. Her old garden had been lush and lovely. After they’d built the house, she’d spent a year digging beds, shovelling soil, installing watering systems, planning and planting. It had irritated the hell out of Thomas. He kept telling her they should get someone in to do it but she’d wanted to create her own home. Now she couldn’t b
ring herself to make a start.

  ‘Okay!’ Cameron yelled then said, ‘I’m back.’

  ‘Did you take your boots off?’

  ‘Yes but Michelle said I still got mud on the carpet.’

  Suck it up, Michelle. Liv took a second, tried to find the right place to start telling him what he should know. ‘You remember how Aunty Sheridan is on the news?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Well, she’s going to be talking to me on the news tonight.’

  ‘Oh, cool! You’re on TV?’

  She smiled at his enthusiasm, winced at what he’d see. She didn’t want him watching it but she couldn’t stop the kids at school talking about it so she had to tell him.

  ‘Actually, it’s not that cool. I look a bit funny today. I’ve got a big, fat bruise on my cheek.’ He didn’t say anything and she imagined his freckly face, the way he always looked up at her when they talked about serious stuff. They’d had more than enough of that in the last year and she felt bad to be doing it to him again. She kept it simple, told him someone had hurt her last night, that she’d tried her best to fight him off and that she was on TV to tell other people to be careful.

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Not too much.’

  ‘Does it look like that bruise I got when I fell off the table?’

  That had been a good one, up high on his thigh where there’s lots of flesh. The two of them had checked out the brewing colours for a week. ‘Oh, heaps worse than that.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Except it’s on my face which is not so cool. For a mum, anyway.’

  ‘Did you do what Gramps says?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Clench before impact, snap it back in.’

  Liv laughed under her breath. She’d heard her father yell that a million times to the beginners in the gym – tighten the fist just before landing the punch, then snap it back to guard position. When had Dad taught him that? ‘Yep, I did that. But only because I had to defend myself, okay? You know not to go punching people, don’t you?’