by Jaye Ford
Okay, think. If he came home, he might have gone to the study. She crossed the hallway and swung the door open on the small third bedroom that he’d filled with desk space and shelving. There were definitely signs of a struggle in there but it always looked like that. Organised chaos, he called it. Talk about living in denial.
There were plenty of notes. Post-Its stuck to the edges of the shelves above the desk, lined up like little coloured flags. She ran her eyes briefly over them – dates and phone numbers and cryptic messages. Nothing starting with, ‘Hey Rennie, I’m going . . .’
She couldn’t think why he’d go to the second bedroom but looked anyway. It was the same as it’d been for two weeks – double bed, curtains open, wardrobe closed. In the bathroom, Max’s towel and a pair of board shorts were in the tub, his electric razor still plugged into the socket. Standard Max mess.
She kept going to their bedroom and threw open the doors to his side of the wardrobe. Bits of clothes were snagged in the drawers, tops stuffed into the shelves, wire hangers weighed down by jeans and shoes tossed in on top of each other. The shelf above the drawers was cluttered with . . . stuff: handkerchiefs, stray socks, pens, a tube of suncream, a leather belt. She picked up a bunch of papers and flipped through bills and receipts, a trivia night scoresheet, a program from a funeral. An old, bowl-shaped ashtray was full of small bits and pieces he must have emptied from his pockets. No notes for her. No clues to where he was.
She shut the doors and looked around the room, hearing her sister’s voice in her head: Safest to assume the worst first.
Rennie had bagged all that up and shoved it in the back corner of her psyche five years ago but it was so ingrained that she didn’t know how to do it any other way. Tonight, she’d assumed the worst and acted on it. Not like they used to but she’d called the cops, searched the road and the house and now she was here, eyeing off the clothes on the floor, remembering Max’s hands as he’d peeled hers off, his mouth on her skin, his breath on her face and the irritated words that’d followed.
And another ‘worst’ crossed her mind.
5
She pulled up the text from Max again.
Luv u b
Back at the cafe, she’d thought ‘b’ might be for ‘babe’ or ‘by the way’, as in Luv u babe or Luv u btw. He’d sent both of those before. Maybe Luv u back in a minute. He never included punctuation – easier to write, harder to read. Now she wondered if it was something else.
Luv you but . . .
But what? Love you but I need some air. Time to think. I can’t stand it any longer. Can’t stand you any longer. Oh fuck, had he left her?
She picked the clothes up, laid them on the bed, sat down beside them and heard her sister’s voice again. We don’t get to have what other people have and you’re a goddamn fool if you think you can.
The phone split the silence like a shriek. Rennie launched herself off the bed and grabbed the handset from the bedside table. ‘Max?’
A beat of silence. ‘Can you put Dad on?’
‘Hayden?’
‘How many kids has he got?’
Rennie clenched her teeth. Hayden’s attitude was like a programmed message scrolling across his forehead in neon lights: My Parents Suck, Their Partners Are Dog Turds on My Shoe. Tonight, it was the last thing she wanted to hear down the phone. ‘Max isn’t here.’
‘He’s not answering his mobile.’
‘No.’ She knew nothing about bringing up children or how to handle fourteen-year-old boys but she figured telling him his father was missing would do more damage than good. Besides, he might not be missing. He might be back any second. ‘Can I give him a message?’
‘Tell him to pick me up at the train station in fifteen minutes.’
She glanced at the alarm clock. ‘You’re on a train?’ It was nine minutes past three in the morning.
‘Well, duh.’
She ignored the sarcasm and thought about the text. Luv u b . . . uzzing off to pick up Hayden. Maybe the train was late, or Hayden missed an earlier one, and Max had been waiting at the station all this time with a dead phone battery. ‘Did Max know you were coming?’
Hayden’s answer was laced with defensive hostility. ‘Dad said he’d come and get me anytime. So tell him to come get me, okay? I’ll be there in fifteen.’
The phone went dead and Rennie tossed it on the bed. She wanted to wait here, stay by the landline, let Max in when he got here and make sure he was okay. Apologise, if that’s what it took. Why tonight, Hayden? She scribbled a note for Max – Picking up Hayden from the station. Be back soon. Don’t go. Please. – grabbed her handbag and left the lights burning for him as she walked out.
*
Hayden was sitting on steps under a streetlight when she pulled into the car park. He sauntered over like he had half an hour to fill before he needed to get there, chucked a backpack in the boot and opened the front passenger door.
‘Oh, it’s you. Where’s Dad?’
Hi Renée, thanks for coming out in the middle of the night. ‘He’s not home tonight. Are you okay?’
‘Yeah.’ He answered as though she’d asked if he was human, clipped his belt in and turned his face away, staring out the window as she drove into the street. He smelt of cigarette smoke and sweat and greasy takeaway food. There were traces of Max in there: the chocolate-brown eyes, the soft, wavy hair, the full lips. She wanted to like him, for Max’s sake.
Whatever made Hayden jump on a train in the middle of the night, it was clear he didn’t want to talk to her about it. It was probably just as well. If it was another argument with his mother, Rennie didn’t want to get involved, and anything she had to say wouldn’t be what he wanted to hear. Max told her to remember what it was like to be Hayden’s age. He used phrases like ‘teenage angst’ and ‘spiralling hormones’ and ‘pushing the boundaries’. They weren’t the things she remembered from her youth and Hayden had parents who loved him and two homes that were safe. She would have sold her soul for half of that at his age.
She tried to sound casual. ‘When was the last time you spoke to Max?’
‘I speak to him all the time, all right?’
She must be categorised as step-parent-on-his-back tonight. He’d never pulled his head out of his hormones long enough to notice she wasn’t interested in being any kind of parent. ‘Did you speak to him before you caught the train?’
‘No.’
‘Anytime today?’
‘No.’
‘So coming up was a spur of the moment thing?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And your mother didn’t mind?’ There’d been heated words before over when and for how long he came and whether Max would be at the station when the train got in.
He shrugged.
‘She knows you’re here, right?’
‘No, all right.’
Shit. He’d run away to Max. And Max wasn’t here.
*
It was ten to four when they got home. The doors were locked, the lights still on, no messages on the phone and the note on the counter hadn’t moved. The alcohol from the party had morphed into a headache and Rennie’s eyes felt like they’d been dipped in salt. Hayden dumped his backpack on the floor in the living room, his body on the sofa and flicked on the telly.
Rennie raised her voice over the bass beat coming out of the speakers. ‘Turn it off and call your mother.’
‘I’ll text her.’
She took the handset off the wall, turned the TV off and held the phone out to him. ‘Call.’
‘It’s the middle of the night.’
‘Exactly.’
He swore under his breath. ‘You going to stand there and listen?’
‘Yes.’ She could do the one-word answers, too.
‘Don’t you trust me?’
‘No.’
&nb
sp; He slumped on the cushions like it was a protest and dialled, not bothering this time to keep the cuss under his breath. She heard the drone of a single ring, then Leanne’s voice. ‘Hayden?’
Rennie recognised the high-pitched urgency in the word and it made her want to tell Hayden to make it quick, that Max might be trying to call. But the kid thought his father was out for the night and his mother deserved a few minutes of reassurance. Rennie stayed long enough to make sure Hayden passed on the right information then left them to it.
She kept her mobile in her hand as she wandered through the house, checking the rooms again and the notes on the fridge, trying the locks on the back door and peering restlessly into the night.
Then not so restlessly.
She moved closer to the glass, focused deep into the yard where the outer edge of the floodlighting touched the hedge at the fence line. Something had moved out there. She flipped the latch, rolled back the door, stood in the opening and listened. The sky was a black, starless dome, the air felt warm and cool at the same time. She could smell the sweet tang of jasmine and the earthy pong of blood and bone. She heard a faint, dull thump. Like a bump on a timber paling.
Taking a couple of cautious steps onto the deck, she stood for a long, silent moment, not sure what she’d heard or where it had come from. The mobile trilled in her hand and she jumped like it had fired an electrical current.
A message from James: He’s not at the office. Heard anything?
It was a little comforting to know someone else was as worried as she was. She tapped quickly: Not back. No messages. Thanks 4 looking. Hayden here. Haven’t told him. Talk latr.
She killed the screen and walked to the end of the deck, sensing the darkness being held at bay by the floodlights as she listened again. Her skin bristled as another unwanted memory scuttled through her, reminding her that dark was good and bad.
‘Max?’ She called it softly, inquiringly, nowhere near a shout but in the dead quiet of the early morning it sounded like she’d spoken into a megaphone. No answer. No noise at all. ‘Max?’ She said it louder, a little sharper. Heard nothing but her heart pounding.
The reserve was on the other side of the fence, a continuation of the park beside the shops. The walking and cycling track that ran through it was also a shortcut from the main street for residents along this side of the bay. Maybe he’d taken it, done an ankle and spent hours limping home. Rennie jumped soundlessly off the end of the deck into the centre of the glow from the floodlights. Maybe now that he was almost home, he couldn’t get any further. As she crossed the lawn towards the gate, the illumination on the grass at her feet grew dimmer and her steps hesitant.
Something made her stop. She couldn’t have named it but it froze her mid-pace, a couple of metres from the fence, the nerve endings on her scalp standing to attention. She listened, waited. No sound, no breeze, just an uneasy, apprehensiveness creeping into her bloodstream.
‘Max?’ she breathed.
A whisper of sound reached her from over the fence and she was moving before her brain had time to decipher it – fast, bent, diving for the hedge. She hit the ground on her hip, rolled to a crouch, ready to run. Wanting to. Telling herself to wait. Wait, for God’s sake. It might be Max. She slid her eyes along the garden and the fence, sweat prickling in her hair, panic grappling for a hold. If it was Max, he wasn’t on this side. She lifted her eyes, finding the top of the palings in the darkness. Her pulse pounded in her ears, in her throat. Shit, shit. Get a torch, Rennie. And something to swing.
She ran for the lights of the house, feeling the fear shrink behind her with the darkness, shaking the remains off it like soot as she passed through the door. She fumbled through the drawer in the buffet and hutch, found the torch. Her hands were trembling. Come on, pull it together.
The thump of a drumbeat starting up made her spin around. Hayden was off the phone, sprawled on the sofa, feet on the coffee table.
‘Turn it off,’ she called quietly.
He angled the remote and eased the volume down.
‘Turn it off, Hayden.’ It came out as a growl.
He turned his head, looked ready to complain then changed his mind. The sound died with the picture and the silence of the night rushed back in through the glass. Rennie glanced briefly at the darkened yard, crossed the room to the kitchen and pulled a long, straight-bladed carving knife from the block on the counter.
‘What’re you doing?’ Hayden followed her to the door, more cynical than curious.
‘Stay here.’ She expected to hear his footsteps behind her as she crossed the deck, figured it was disinterest not obedience when they didn’t.
Hesitation said fear, she told herself, and held the knife in her right hand, torch in her left and walked with purpose. Long, determined strides, shoulders squared, chin up, all front and no substance.
She stopped where she’d crouched two minutes earlier, made her voice firm, not even close to a whisper. ‘Max? Are you there?’ No reply. Just a shoosh in the canopy of the gums along the path as a breeze lifted. She tightened her jaw, stepped up to the gate, pulled it wide and stood in the gap, torch raised, the handle of the knife solid in her palm. Nothing in front. Or to the left. She moved the beam through a semicircle to the right and her breath caught. At the edge of the light, past their fence, near the neighbour’s gate, was a still, dark mound.
Oh fuck. A body.
No. Wait.
Keeping her back to the palings, she edged towards it, slowly now, wanting to know, not wanting to see. If it was Max, he wasn’t moving. The breeze lifted again and something dark flapped at one corner of the mound. A coat tail? Max hadn’t worn a coat. A shirt? He’d worn pale blue. Four steps away, she knew it was a tarp, could see a bright metal eyelet and hear the crunch of heavy plastic – and her skin turned cold. Was he wrapped in it? No. Oh Christ, no. She wanted to run, to turn around, get the hell away and not look back. Don’t, Rennie. It’s not that. She held her ground, gripped the knife tighter and, straightening her torch arm to stop it trembling, she edged closer.
It was the wrong shape for a person. Too square, too . . . even. Then she was standing above it, looking down at grass clippings spilling from under black plastic. She stretched out a toe and gave it a push – soft, unformed, disjointed and nothing like a body. Bloody hell. She was relieved and worried and shaken up and annoyed. This was Haven Bay. There weren’t bodies and she didn’t need to be walking around with a knife. Max was okay. He’d be back. There was an explanation. She just didn’t know what it was yet.
She turned to go and recognised the caution that held her to the spot. Another version of herself. One that was suspicious and guarded and alert – and other things she didn’t like to think about. Her name wasn’t Renée and she was warning her not to get careless. And here, in the dark, with a knife in her hand, Rennie paid attention.
She worked the torch beam around her and stayed close to the fence as she made her way back to the gate. She pulled it hard behind her, jogged back across the lawn, eyeing Hayden as he watched her through the glass.
‘What were you doing?’ he asked as she came in, making it sound like she must be nuts.
‘Checking the gate. You should go to bed.’
He followed her to the kitchen. ‘Why’d you take the knife?’
‘I thought I heard something. Your bed’s ready. Find a towel for yourself in the hall cupboard.’
He didn’t. He stood at the end of the counter, watching as she ran the tap to rinse her perspiration off the knife.
‘What were you gonna do with that?’
She dried it with a towel, keeping her hands busy to hide the shakes.
‘Were you gonna kill a cricket or something?’
She slid it back into the block.
‘Were you down there casting a spell? Ooh, abra-cadabra.’
She lifted her e
yes at the sound of his nasty laugh. He was a moody, pissed-off, self-absorbed teenager. He played his parents and said hurtful things. He thought he was tough, probably figured jumping a train in the middle of the night was cool. She was tempted to tell him the truth – that his father was missing, that there were times in life when a bloody big knife in your hand was exactly what you wanted. But he was just a soft, needy kid. He’d caught a train because he wanted his dad. She didn’t want to strip that from him. What she wanted was Hayden gone so she could focus on finding Max.
‘Is your mother coming to get you?’ It wasn’t Max’s access weekend and Leanne made a point of sticking to their arrangement.
‘Nah. She says there’s no time before the flight so I have to stay here now.’
‘What flight?’
‘To Cairns.’
‘You’re meant to be going to Cairns?’
‘Yeah.’ His smile was laced with victory. ‘I told her she couldn’t make me go. We went to the same resort last year and it was crap.’
Rennie’s jaw tightened. The soft, needy kid had put his mother through hell because he didn’t like the resort.
Shit, Max. Where are you?
6
Rennie slept for a couple of hours, if you could call closing your eyes and stuttering in and out of awareness actually sleeping. Her ears were trained on every sound, her body was conscious of the empty space in the bed and her mind rolled and pitched with fear and worry. And with memories that had found their way out, that didn’t belong here, that couldn’t hurt Max but could still scare the crap out of her.
The last time she woke, the porch light was glowing through the window in the pre-dawn darkness and she thought Max had come home, slipped under the sheet and the life she’d always believed could exist had returned. She’d felt his warmth at her back, an arm draped over her hip. He’d stretched a little and groaned sleepily with the start of the slow, wrenching process he went through to drag himself from sleep every morning. Four and a half years of watching it and it still made her smile.