Three Hours Late

by Nicole Trope

When the police introduced themselves Liz had thrown Rhonda a quick look.

  Rhonda didn’t believe the police could do much until you were already bleeding.

  ‘You have to trust the authorities,’ Rebecca always said.

  ‘As far as I can tell the only person I can really trust is me,’ Rhonda would always reply.

  Liz didn’t know what the answer was. She had never called for help. Now that was just one more thing to blame herself for.

  Maybe the police wouldn’t have helped, maybe Alex would have only ever spent a few hours in jail, but at least they would have known who he was. When she had called them after he was twenty minutes late she would have been able to tell them to look him up on the computer. She wouldn’t have had to explain herself. She could see the policemen looking at her now and trying to figure out whether or not to trust her version of the events.

  ‘Perhaps it would be best if we just speak to Mrs Harrow for now,’ said Senior Constable Williams. His voice was even and calm, letting the jumpers on the ledge know he was there to catch them. ‘Or maybe Dave can speak to your mother here and you and I can go somewhere else to talk. I think the more we know the better our chance of finding your son.’

  Liz noticed her mouth was dry. She would have been happier if they’d called her neurotic and put the phone down on her.

  ‘You need to tell me everything,’ said the detective when they were seated at the dining-room table with the door slightly ajar. ‘I’m going to ask you some questions and I need you to answer them honestly, okay?’

  Liz nodded. ‘Constable . . .’ began Liz.

  ‘Call me Robert.’

  Liz thought that he looked like a Robert. He was tall, though not as tall as his partner, and he had the kind of body that had once played rugby and now drank a little too much beer. Liz looked into his caramel eyes and wondered if he really felt her pain or if he was just very good at making it seem so.

  ‘Robert, do you think he’s going to do anything to . . . to Luke . . . to my little boy?’

  She had already asked the question of Rhonda and Rebecca and her mother and father. She had asked the question of herself first and then, to retain her sanity, she had sought a different answer from those around her.

  ‘Liz, let’s start with some questions and then we can figure out where to go from there. You know that legally your ex-husband doesn’t have to bring your son back at a set time?’

  ‘I know. We don’t have a formal agreement yet.’

  ‘Okay, so has Mr Harrow ever had any dealings with the police?’

  ‘No, not that I know of.’

  ‘Does he have a history of violence?’

  Liz looked down at the rose-embroidered tablecloth. ‘Yes. Yes he does.’

  ‘So he’s violent with you? Or he was before you separated?’

  Violent was a strange word. It sounded like violet, which was such a pretty colour. Sometimes a bruise would go from black to violet if the right amount of blood vessels had been burst. It was such a pretty colour.

  ‘Yeah,’ she sighed, feeling her years pile up on her. ‘I mean yes, he can be. I left him five months ago. I left him because he gets so angry. He has these rages and then he hurts me. I don’t think he means to; I mean, I don’t think he wants to. He just . . . I don’t know—he just does.’

  ‘Have you ever called the police about it? Or spoken to anyone else?’

  Liz shook her head. ‘Not when we were married. Now I’m part of this group and we discuss things, but while we were together I just . . . I just kept hoping it would get better.’

  Robert nodded like he understood and Liz wondered how many women had told him the same thing.

  ‘Do you think he could hurt your son?’

  ‘I didn’t think so, not until today—but today . . .’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Today he’s angry. I made him angry and now I don’t know what he’ll do. I just don’t know.’

  ‘How did you make him angry?’

  ‘I wouldn’t discuss getting back together. I don’t want to go back to him and just now, when we were waiting for you, I yelled at him—and I know I shouldn’t have yelled at him.’

  ‘So he has been in contact with you?’

  ‘Yes, but now he’s switched off his phone and he wouldn’t tell me where they were.’

  ‘Has he ever hurt your son before?’

  ‘No, never—I wouldn’t have let him . . . I would never have stayed so long if Luke was in any danger.’

  ‘Okay, does Mr Harrow use any drugs?’

  ‘No, not that I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘What about alcohol?’

  ‘No . . . I mean he likes to have a beer but not in a big way. I don’t know about before we got married.’

  Liz felt the weight of all the things she didn’t know about Alex holding her down. She had no idea what the truth about him was.

  ‘Does Mr Harrow have access to any weapons of any sort?’

  ‘You mean like guns?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is he taking any medication that was given to him by a doctor or psychiatrist?’

  ‘No—at least, I don’t think so. We’ve been separated for five months. I’ve tried not to talk to him. I’ve tried to keep my distance.’

  ‘Do you think he might try to leave the country?’

  ‘Leave the country? No . . . Luke doesn’t have a passport. He would need a passport to leave the country, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Yes he would, so that’s one concern out of the way. But could he try to leave the state? Does he have family anywhere else in Australia?’

  ‘I guess he has an uncle down in Melbourne, but they’re not close at all. His mother left when he was very young so they don’t see much of her side of the family. I have no idea where he would go. I don’t think he’d take him out of the state, I mean he’s a good dad—he’s usually a good dad—and he knows . . .’

  ‘Even now I am defending him,’ thought Liz.

  ‘Is he employed?’

  ‘Yes, he’s an engineer. He works for ASPC—you know, the big company. He’s got quite an important job, I think . . . at least that’s what he says.’

  The answers tumbled out of her mouth but Liz realised, as she spoke, that she had no idea what was real. She didn’t even know if Alex still had the same job. He said he did, but he said he loved her and didn’t want to hurt her. He said he would bring Luke back by two and it was past three. He said a lot of things.

  ‘Does he have any friends with children, anyone who is also separated and may understand how he’s feeling?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He has friends but most of them are still single. Alex wanted to have kids when we were still young enough to enjoy them. Most of his friends are still trying to find the right girl.’

  ‘Is Mr Harrow a member of any gangs or anything like that?’

  Liz almost giggled imagining Alex in a motorcycle gang, but she just shook her head. Where were all these stupid questions getting them? What difference did any of it make?

  ‘Maybe you should start looking for them,’ she said to Robert quietly.

  ‘Look, Liz, nothing you’ve told me gives me much reason for worry. If he’s never hurt your son before he’s unlikely to do so now. He may just be having some extra time with the boy and, well, he may just be trying to upset you. A lot of guys pull this kind of stunt to punish their ex-wives. He’s just showing you he’ll do whatever he wants to do. I know what a three-year-old can be like. They’ll be back as soon as your son gets a little whiney.’

  Liz looked at the policeman and gifted him a small smile. ‘Silly man,’ she wanted to say. ‘Silly, silly man.’

  She tried to explain instead. Perhaps he would understand what each passing minute meant if she explained.

  ‘I know that’s what everyone says he’s doing. I know that, but I also know that he’s always on time. Time is very important to him. Time and order and control. He has never been
late before.’

  ‘Divorce can be difficult. It can change a person.’

  Liz couldn’t figure out how to make him understand. She could see him putting a tick next to her name. Tick—one more neurotic woman to waste my time. She had wanted to be dismissed as neurotic but she could see now, could feel now, that if she didn’t get through to the police they would walk away without helping her. Robert already looked like he was ready to move on to the next thing. She could see his eyes shift from her face to the room and out to the lounge room where his partner was drinking a cup of tea and charming the women around him.

  ‘He told me my time was up.’

  ‘Your time was up? What does that mean?’

  ‘He wants me to come back to him and last night we . . . he came over and we kind of got close and so he thought we were getting back together and he wanted me to tell him that I’d come home. But I can’t tell him that because he won’t get help and he won’t change—I can never go back to him. I don’t want to lie: I fucked up last night and now I don’t want to make it worse by lying. On the phone just before I called the police again he told me my time was up. And what I’m worried about, what I’m really wondering, is what will happen now?’

  Liz was crying again but there was nothing she could do about it. He stomach rolled and her head throbbed.

  In her head the last conversation she had with Alex played on a nasty loop. She had yelled at him. She hadn’t yelled at Alex for years. When she was living with him she had known what would happen if she yelled at him, but today her anger and her fear had burst out of her mouth and she had yelled.

  Robert looked at her with his kind eyes and she knew he was getting ready to leave. He had checked the situation out and done his job. Liz could see that he would be able to go back to the station and tell everyone that she was just another woman getting hysterical over nothing.

  She didn’t know how to explain things so that he would understand. She was terrified that the policemen would walk out of the house and do nothing.

  She could see the night come and the hours pass and she knew that if she did not have the help of the whole state she would watch the sun rise in the morning without having seen her son. She needed them to start looking for Alex and Luke, but in order to get them to do that she would have to let the police officer know that she had crossed a line. She had to admit her own stupidity. She had to accept her own culpability. Alex and Luke would have just been home late until she had ended Alex’s fantasy of his perfect family existing again.

  She didn’t want to admit her part in it. She didn’t want him to know how stupid she had been but she knew that there was no point in keeping quiet about anything now.

  ‘I yelled at him,’ she said.

  ‘So you said.’ He shrugged. ‘You were probably upset.’

  ‘In the last call we had. He called again after I called the police. I got angry at him for giving Luke a slurpee and for being late and I yelled at him and told him I was never going to go back to him. I used the word “never” and I yelled really loud and the last time I yelled at him—which was before I left him—he poured his hot coffee over me.’

  Now Liz pulled her skirt up almost to her underwear and showed Robert the burn.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I’m not allowed to yell at him.’

  Robert closed his eyes and rubbed his face.

  ‘I don’t think you understand,’ Liz repeated.

  ‘Then help me understand, Liz. I don’t want to push you but right now the guy has done nothing wrong—not today, at least.’

  Liz tried to get the words into line. She needed to make sense.

  ‘I left Alex five months ago after he gave me a black eye. I came here to my mother’s house and since then he has tried to call me or see me every day. I haven’t taken his calls and I try to see him as little as possible but every time he does get to speak to me he begs me to come back. Literally begs me.

  ‘I have managed to keep away from him for months. But last night he came over to see Luke and we . . . we had sex and he thought it meant that we were on our way back. On the phone just now I told him we were never getting back together again. I was really angry with him and I kind of . . . I kind of snapped.’

  ‘What did he say when you told him you were never getting back together again?’

  ‘He said, “You’re breaking my heart, Liz.” And then he told me—he told me that I needed to feel as much pain as he was feeling. And then he switched off his phone.’

  Robert sat back in his chair. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘So let’s start again. Tell me everything.’

  So she told him about the charming Alex and the controlling Alex and the lying Alex and the Alex who hurt her. She listed the jealous Alex and the needy Alex and the Alex who threatened her. She talked and talked and her throat dried out but she kept going until she had painted a proper picture. Until Robert knew what he was up against.

  ‘I’ll make a few calls,’ said Robert when Liz had run out of words, and he got up and left the dining room, leaving Liz to wipe away her tears, trying not to picture what might happen now that her time was up, now that Alex had decided she should feel the same pain he did.

  ‘If you left me I would die,’ he had told her one night after too much wine and too little sleep.

  ‘I will never leave you,’ she had said, because she was in love and who can ever imagine being out of love?

  She had watched it happen with her parents but, like everyone who had ever felt that sensational rush of emotion, she had thought, ‘Not me. I will never be like that. We will never be like that.’

  And now here she was and it was hard for her to believe but she wished that Alex had left her like her father had left her mother. A man’s disdain could break your heart but it couldn’t break your bones. A man’s disdain could alienate his daughter but an angry fist could hurt a son. An angry fist could kill a little boy.

  Liz rested her head on the pretty tablecloth in the dining room.

  If Alex knew there was no chance he would ever get her back she could see that he would decide to hate her instead. He would hate her to protect himself. And once he hated her, was there anything he would not do to hurt her?

  Liz thought not. There was nothing he wouldn’t do and no line he wouldn’t cross.

  Her tears dripped onto the tablecloth and she closed her eyes and prayed, because what else could she do?

  11

  Alex switched on the phone. He could see that while it had been switched off she had been trying again and again and again. ‘That’s what happens,’ he thought. ‘I tried to tell you but you wouldn’t listen and now I won’t listen either. That’s what happens when you won’t listen.’

  A stray thought floated around inside his head: ‘Watch what’s going to happen now.’

  He wanted to laugh at the thought of her frustration but he couldn’t even muster a smile. His body was weighed down by his unhappiness. He was underwater and it was hard to move. It was hard to breathe. The ache was there to stay. One day he would be an old man and the ache would still be there and with every breath he took he would know that she was gone.

  He wanted to tell someone how he felt but the only person he wanted to tell was Liz. It was difficult to feel this way about her. He loved her so much he couldn’t tolerate it when he hated her.

  She was his best friend. She had been his best friend, but now . . . what was she now? She was so angry with him and he knew why, he understood why, but what he couldn’t grasp was why she didn’t see that she could change the whole thing. With just a few words she could put their family back together and make them both happy again. His anger and his desolation would disappear. He could be the man she wanted him to be and she would be happy again too. If she would just give him the chance to be a better husband he knew he could do it.

  He would cook for the two of them. He would make the fillet steak with Béarnaise sauce she loved so much. He would sauté the asparagus and stea
m the baby potatoes and they could open a bottle of red wine and toast their lives and their child. He would do it if she let him. This morning, before he had picked up Luke, he had gone to the grocery store and bought all the ingredients he would need for her welcome-home dinner.

  He had cleaned the house and remade Luke’s bed so that the sheets would be fresh for him. He had fixed the broken latch on the front gate and put a bunch of flowers in the hall. He had seen how it would be—but it was all over now.

  There was too much food for just one person in the fridge. There was too much space for just one person in the house.

  He couldn’t go home to the empty house. He couldn’t just drop Luke off and sit alone in the silence of his home.

  Liz had always known he had a temper. He had never concealed that from her. If you love someone who has a temper you learn to give them space when they need it. That’s what he had done with his father. He had always been aware of what his father was feeling.

  Some mornings he would walk into the kitchen and look at his dad and he would know instantly that it was not going to be a good day. On those mornings he was the invisible kid. He would open drawers and cupboards slowly, trying not to watch the moving hands looking for something to break or smash. He would take his breakfast to his room and read comics or build Lego and later read car magazines and listen to music playing so softly he had to press his ear to a speaker to hear anything. His sanctuary was always filled with things for him to do.

  On very bad days he quietly slid the lock on his bedroom door, holding his breath. The lock had been broken many times, but on good days his father would help him fix it. Alex knew that there were days when Frank looked at him and didn’t see his son; he saw the woman who had left him. Was it any wonder, then, that he took his anger out on Alex?

  Alex had moved on from that a long time ago. He had told Liz some of the stuff but not all of it. It was something between him and his dad and they got along all right now. Barbara helped.

  On good days his father understood the need for the lock. He would mumble an apology and Alex would know that he was really sorry. That was an important part of loving someone. Forgiveness was the ultimate act of love.