by Meg McKinlay
“I’m not sure,” I said. “He doesn’t really show us stuff while he’s working on it.”
“Well, he’d better make me look good.” He laughed. Then he flicked his eyes across to where Liam was sitting. “Speaking of fathers …”
Liam nodded, as if he had expected this.
“How’s he going? Enjoying the work?”
“Yeah, it’s been good.”
“It has, hasn’t it?” Finkle said enthusiastically. “I thought so too. I mean, he really seems okay, doesn’t he?”
Liam flushed a little, then replied. “Yeah, it suits him. He says he likes the weeding best.”
“And what about you? Everything okay? Enjoy the camp, did you?”
“Um, yeah. It was great. Thanks.”
I frowned. It could only be our school camp Finkle was talking about, but then why didn’t he ask me as well? And why was Liam thanking him? I tried to catch Liam’s eye but he had looked away and was staring out the window.
We stopped at the bottom of the hill so Finkle could unlock the barrier across the track, then eased out onto the main road. The smooth surface was a relief after the ridges of the track and the way we had been careering wildly around the sharp turns.
We picked up speed for the short stretch of road until we came to the outskirts of town, then Finkle jabbed at the brake to slow us back down. We rolled past the school and the timber yard, then around the corner into the main street. As the town square came into view, Finkle flicked another glance at us in the rear-view mirror.
“I’ll see you both at the centenary, I hope? Not long now.”
I nodded. I was only too aware of how close the centenary celebrations were, what with Hannah constantly stressing about the book, and Dad doing the same over the head and how to make Finkle look good while still maintaining his artistic integrity.
“Well, shall I let you out here somewhere?”
Finkle slowed to a stop and Liam opened the door on his side. “Thanks,” he began, but then the car jerked forward. Finkle was staring out the window to the left, at the clocktower.
“Maybe a bit further?” he said suddenly. “Maybe just up here? Should we–”
Liam yanked the door shut as the car lurched forward past the square and into the intersection. A horn blared behind us.
“What are you doing?” A car swerved around us on the right-hand side, its driver yelling angrily out the window. “I thought you were parking!”
“Sorry!” Finkle called. “My fault. Changed my mind.” He swivelled in his seat. “Sorry. Just thought I’d take you a bit further.”
“Just drop us off at the council,” Liam said. “You’re going there anyway. And I can check on Dad.”
“Of course! Good idea.” Finkle sounded relieved as he kicked the car back into gear and cruised up the hill.
When we had parked outside his office, he turned back towards us. “Remember what I said before. It’s not safe where you were. Technically, I could have you prosecuted. Don’t let me catch you up there again, okay?”
I stifled a smile as I climbed out of the car, then hurried around to Liam’s side. I wanted to remind him how technically not being caught wasn’t the same as not going.
But Liam didn’t look my way. He followed Finkle inside and the heavy door closed shut behind them with a sigh.
sixteen
“I didn’t know if you’d come back,” I said as Liam pulled alongside the raft. I had seen him coming through the trees and down the bank. I had watched his long, relaxed stroke as he made his way to me across the water.
It wasn’t Liam I’d been keeping an eye out for. It was Finkle. Or any other so-called authorised person who might try and tell us we had to move on.
I even had my excuse all ready – that I had just come to get the raft, that I was heading straight back to the Point. Sure, I had been stopped in one spot for about half an hour, but everyone knew Cassie Romano had weak lungs. Everyone knew she had to pace herself.
Sometimes, living in a small town could work to your advantage.
It didn’t make sense if you knew my bike was up here, that I’d had to trek all the way up here on foot and that paddling over to the Point would mean leaving it behind again.
But there was no way for anyone to know that.
No one except Liam.
He threw an arm up onto the side of the raft and swung one leg over. I shifted my weight to the other end as a counterbalance while he clambered up.
He stretched out next to me on the warm wood. “Did you think I was going to let Finkle scare me off? He’s all talk.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Yeah, you seem pretty friendly with him. Or he’s pretty friendly with you. Or something. How come he was asking about camp?”
Liam looked as if he wished he had a leaf to strip but they were hard to come by in the middle of the lake. “I’m not really supposed to tell anyone. I mean, I don’t care, but he said not to make a big thing out of it.”
“Out of what?”
“The scholarship. At least that’s what he called it. For the fees.”
“The council paid your camp fees?”
“Yeah. Or no. I’m not sure. I think he might have paid it himself. Mum said we couldn’t afford it. I don’t know if Dad mentioned it at work or something but the next thing we know, Finkle’s on the phone offering to pay for the whole thing.”
“Wow. That’s pretty nice of him.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Our camp was a big deal. It wasn’t some overnight pitch a tent in the bush and cook your own damper trip. It was a train all the way up to the city, two nights in a hotel, surfing lessons and a 4WD tour. It was expensive. Mum made me do chores for months to help pay mine off.
Liam raised his arms in a big, lazy stretch. “It’s so cool up here. We should tell the others.”
I felt myself stiffen. “It’s cool because it’s just us,” I said. “Don’t you think?”
“Maybe just a few?” He turned towards me slightly. “Maybe just–”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to.”
How many was a few anyway? Even if we only told Emily and Max and Amber that would already be too many. That would already be splashing and squealing and the kind of loud mucking around that left no room for scratching maps out of mud, or trailing your toes lazily off a raft, or sitting quietly with your back to the warm wood of a drowned tree.
I had always been the girl who focused quietly on the spine of a leaf while other kids ran around squealing. And Liam had always been the boy who looked up when someone came along, who stood up and walked off easily with them, smiling and talking.
Sometimes I wondered if it was because I spent the first couple of months of my life alone in a plastic box that I got used to being by myself, with myself. But Liam was born with a ready-made friend. So he learned to be with people, to make room for them in his space. And then all of a sudden he didn’t need to, because it was just him.
“Do you miss him?” I said. And then I froze. Because that was one of those thoughts that should have happened only in my head and now there it was, hanging out in the still summer air.
“Miss who?”
I scrambled for something to say. His dad? Could I pretend that’s who I meant? Liam often talked about him when we sat out here like this, together but apart, looking out at the water and not at each other. Somewhere along the way that had become possible out here, but when we stood up to head back we pretended it didn’t exist any more, that those conversations had happened somewhere else, to other people.
But that didn’t make sense this time. His dad wasn’t gone. He was just … different.
Liam’s head turned slightly. “You mean Luke.”
Luke?
“My brother.”
I nodded. Yes. That’s who I meant.
“It feels weird to say his name.”
It felt weird to hear it. Everyone knew what had happened, of course. Everyone knew there was a miracle baby an
d another one who wasn’t so lucky.
“No one ever says it.” There was a tightness in Liam’s voice. “Like he didn’t live long enough to make it stick or something, like he wasn’t an actual person.”
“That’s not …” I began. “I mean, I just forgot, that’s all.”
“Yeah.” Liam drew his knees in to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. His knuckles clenched pale across the tan of his legs. “I know.”
We fell silent, but it wasn’t a comfortable silence. It was the kind of silence where it feels like time is stretching and stretching, and if you don’t let the pressure off, something will snap.
“Sorry,” I said finally. “I shouldn’t have asked that. You don’t have to talk about it. I mean, I know–”
“No, you don’t,” Liam said quietly. “You don’t know. People think they do, but they don’t.” As he spoke, the thumb of one hand ran roughly over and over the edge of his scar, turning it briefly white with each kneading movement. “I bet you didn’t know he was the good one,” he said. “Mum said so. I was always crying and he was always calm. She said there was something in his eyes, like he was an old soul.”
“She said that to you?”
He shook his head. “It was in one of those baby books. She was writing everything down. Every time we burped and slept and cried. It’s all there, for five weeks. Then …”
I nodded. There was no need to say anything to fill in that gap.
“You know how there’s always one twin?” Liam went on. “One who takes more, who gets stronger, and one who hangs on and takes what’s left.” His voice took on a lightness that didn’t quite ring true, as if he was delivering a punchline he didn’t find funny. “So that’s me. The one who hangs on. Parents say they don’t have favourites but he was hers, already, and we were hardly even born.” He stood up suddenly and leaned out across the metal frame that surrounded the platform. “I always wondered if it was me … if I caused it.”
My head snapped up. He couldn’t mean what I thought he meant. That didn’t make any sense.
“He was the good one,” Liam repeated. “I was always crying. Screaming, Mum said. All the time. Like all the time.” He gouged a piece of rotting wood off the raft and crumbled it between his fingers. “She said car trips were horrible, that she was always turning around to settle me.” His voice cracked a little, coming out finally in a whisper. “I guess that’s okay when someone else is driving.”
“Liam …” I began, then trailed off. He was shaking his head.
“Dad was on his own with us. What if he was turning around? Because I was screaming. And then …”
“No,” I said quickly.
“Why not?” He glanced down at me briefly then back out across the water. “There was no reason for it. Straight road. Good weather. Clear visibility. That’s what they said.”
“You can’t think like that. No one knows what happened, not really.” As I spoke, headlines unrolled themselves before my eyes. Driver Error. Fatigue a Factor?
“Yeah.” Liam let the crumbled pieces fall slowly through his fingers down onto the water. “But they think they do.”
He was right. People thought they knew stuff. They thought that what mattered was what they could see. They let what was on the surface tell the story.
I should have known better. I did know better. I knew that a heavy red glaze could cover a network of tiny hairline fractures that would shatter something utterly if you struck it hard enough in just the right spot. I knew that if you could bring yourself to stop staring at the smooth, clean surface and push your way through it, you might be surprised at the world buried deep underneath.
“You’re right,” Liam said suddenly.
“About what?”
“This.” He nodded out across the lake. “Let’s not tell anyone. Let’s just keep it for ourselves.”
“Yeah.” I smiled slightly, glad of the chance to talk about something simpler, to hear that easy lightness return to his voice. “Let’s.”
“And also,” he said, standing up suddenly, wobbling the raft so that I had to hang onto the sides to stop myself tumbling off, “let’s find this thing.”
seventeen
Liam had been clever yesterday.
While I was worrying about being prosecuted, he was counting his strokes. He was positioning the raft on the bank, pointing it in the direction we needed to go to get back to the spot.
“Good thinking,” I said, looking up at him from where I sat on the still-wobbling wood.
“I counted 297 to here,” he said. “Yesterday we were at 312. Give or take.”
We went out a little further – Liam swimming, counting his strokes, and me following on the raft.
We dived down. Both of us. We had goggles and flippers, which I had stuffed into my backpack and lugged up the hill. We had a torch.
Liam raised his eyebrows. “What’s that for?”
“What do you think?” I pressed the rubber button on the shaft and flashed the light on and off.
“Underwater?” He snorted. “That’ll last about ten seconds.”
He was wrong. It lasted five. Approximately. Not that I was counting. It had taken me long enough to fix it to my head using the Velcro strap I had brought specially. It made me feel like an underwater explorer, the kind you see on ABC documentaries hauling themselves through underground caves on their way to discover treasure and fantastical lands. And, in my case, to discover the fact that batteries and water don’t play well together.
When I came back up, Liam was laughing. “You realise they have waterproof torches, don’t you?”
“I do now.”
“Forget the torch,” he said. “We’ll just feel around until we find it.”
We were close enough. Close enough to find whatever it was quickly with the goggles and the pair of flippers we had to share between us and the mostly useless torch. The goggles weren’t very useful either, not once you got a metre or so down, but they did help me feel better. Having something on my face, protecting my eyes, made going down headfirst slightly less creepy.
We took turns. We dived. We kept an eye out for Finkle – for anyone.
We brought up pieces of wood and pieces of wood and … more pieces of wood.
“It’s a shed,” Liam said finally, surfacing for what felt like the hundredth time.
“A shed?” Of course. That would be it. An old wooden shed, left to rot out on someone’s property.
On the one hand, I felt a bit let down.
A shed wouldn’t have any rooms to explore. It wouldn’t have passages to lead you down, nooks and crannies to uncover. A shed wouldn’t have much of anything. It would just be a space, a present you open to find an empty box.
But on the other hand, I couldn’t help feeling a bit excited. When someone gives you a present, you can’t help unwrapping it, can you? You can’t help opening it up, just in case.
“The door’s on the other side,” Liam said. “It’s got a padlock.”
“Locked?”
“I think so. Or rusted shut.”
When I went down, I realised that he was right. It was definitely locked, the padlock snapped tight through the links of a thick chain. I tried rattling the door but although it was loose, the hinges were still bonded to the metal frame.
“We need a hammer,” I said.
Liam laughed. “A special underwater hammer? You could strap it to your head.”
“Ha, ha.” I thought about the door, the hinges. “Or not a hammer. A screwdriver.”
Liam shook his head. “The screws would be rusted.”
“Well, what then? We want to get the door open, don’t we? It’s stuck. So we need something to open it with.”
I picked up a piece of wood and held it in the palm of my hand. The solid weight of history and all that. It was surprisingly light. And crumbly.
Something flashed across Liam’s face.
“What?”
He raised a hand and smacked himsel
f across the forehead. “We’re such idiots.” He stared at me. “Actually, a hammer would be kind of helpful. Here …” He reached out a hand. “Give me the torch.”
“Oh, now you want–”
I didn’t get the chance to finish. He grabbed the torch, strap and all, and said, “Wish me luck!” Then he sucked in a big breath of air, and was gone.
Gone. Under. He was gone and he was under and he had been both things before but this time was different. This time he wanted a hammer but took a torch and I didn’t know what he was going to do, only that he was gone too long.
That he was under too long.
Probably. Not that I was counting or anything.
I leaned over the edge of the raft, scanning the surface for signs. For bubbles, a rush of something, anything.
Nothing.
Even though I wasn’t counting, it had to be more than thirty, definitely. More than forty. Fifty, maybe. Was that even possible? There were people who did that, who held their breath for ages. I had seen them on documentaries, hauling themselves down long cables that led them, like ladders, deep into the ocean. Maybe they had torches strapped to their heads? Or maybe I was mixing them up with the cavers. But the torches didn’t matter, probably. It was the breath that mattered. Wasn’t it always the breath? And they trained for it, didn’t they, for days and weeks and months and years? They didn’t just grin and grab a torch and take off for … how long now? A minute?
I should have counted properly. It was so easy to speed up without realising, to tell yourself it was a minute when really it was only thirty or maybe forty.
I should have done one-cat-and-dog, two-cat-and-dog, three …
That way I would have known how long it was.
Too long.
There were no bubbles, no churn.