Christmas at Remarkable Bay

by Victoria Purman

  The lights changed and they moved off. ‘That’s a good idea. She obviously trusts you.’

  ‘I need to tell you something, George. Before you tell her who you are. Abbie doesn’t trust the police.’ She took a deep breath. ‘That’s why I didn’t say it before, when we were back in the city. That’s why I said you were a friend.’

  ‘Friend will do,’ he replied.

  ‘And the truth is, I don’t trust the police much either.’

  He looked at her, guarded. ‘You want to tell me why?’

  ‘I have my reasons.’

  ‘Reasons to do with what? How her case was handled?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  George was silent.

  ‘It’s just that … her stepfather is free and she’s the one who had to run. Don’t you think there’s something wrong with that scenario?’

  He glanced behind him. Mara did too to ensure their charge was still asleep. They were both satisfied when a gentle snore escaped her lips.

  ‘I’m not going to defend every cop and every investigation. But she ran, didn’t she, Mara? An investigation without a witness gets complicated.’

  Mara hated that he was right.

  They drove in silence the rest of the way back to Remarkable Bay, and when they arrived at Mara’s rental, she gently woke Abbie and ushered her inside the house. Mara put her handbag down on the kitchen bench and poured them both a glass of water from the jug in the fridge. As Abbie drank it down, Mara glanced through to the lounge room. Where was George?

  Abbie yawned. ‘I can’t thank you enough for coming to get me, Ms Blumberg. I don’t know—’

  Mara put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. ‘Remember what I said? That if you ever need me, and I mean ever, all you have to do is ask?’

  Abbie nodded and tears welled in her eyes.

  ‘I meant it. And even if you’re not my student anymore, I’m still here. I’m just so glad you called.’

  ‘Who’s that guy?’ Abbie asked, nodding her head to the front window. Mara glanced over. George was sitting absolutely still in one of the cane chairs on the front veranda, as if he was guarding the place. Mara didn’t know why that felt so reassuring.

  ‘I met him down here a week ago.’

  ‘You two hooking up or something?’ Abbie smiled and Mara was so relieved that a little bit of her old spark was still there, despite all that had happened.

  ‘We’re just friends. He’s got a way better car than me and I was waiting for another text from you so I didn’t want to text and drive. I asked him to help me out and he did.’

  ‘Why is he waiting outside?’

  That was a good question. ‘He probably wants to make sure you’re okay before he goes. Listen, I know you’re tired, Abbie, but I know you’ll feel better after a shower. Do you have a change of clothes?’

  Abbie shook her head tearily. ‘I left everything back there. Not that I had much.’

  Mara shrugged. ‘No worries. If you can bear to wear some old lady clothes, I have a T-shirt and a pair of shorts you can wear to bed.’

  Abbie wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. ‘That’d be great.’ She swiped her face with the sleeve of the dirty black T-shirt she was wearing.

  ‘Okay.’ Mara took Abbie by the shoulders and guided her down the hallway. ‘Here’s the bathroom. There’s a clean towel in there. Why don’t you toss your dirty clothes on the hallway rug and I’ll pop them in the washing machine. And I’ll leave some fresh clothes on the bed in the spare bedroom. That’s where you’ll be sleeping. Sound good?’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks, Ms Blumberg.’

  Mara opened her mouth to tell Abbie she didn’t need to call her Ms Blumberg anymore but changed her mind. It reminded Mara that she still had a duty of care to her former student.

  ‘Off you go. I’ll see you when you’re clean.’

  Abbie went into the bathroom and a moment later, she’d shoved her clothes out into the hallway. Mara collected them up in her arms and deposited them in the washing machine in the small laundry at the back of the house.

  Then she went outside to talk to George.

  * * *

  George repositioned himself in one of the cane chairs on Mara’s front veranda, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, and thought carefully over the events of the evening.

  Abbie was a terrified kid. He’d seen a few like her in his life, and he was more than familiar with the suspicion and mistrust that drove their behaviour. From what Mara had told him, although she hadn’t given him much detail about the particulars of the case, the girl had been coping with a whole lot. And then his thoughts went right to what Mara had admitted. She didn’t trust the police.

  That had been hard to hear.

  He had a lot to prove, didn’t he?

  Because he couldn’t leave this untouched now that he knew what had been going on in Abbie’s life. He would wait, be patient with her, bide as much time as he had to, but the bastard who’d been abusing her was going to see justice. He heard the low murmur of Mara’s voice and then a reply from Abbie, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. A few minutes later, the door opened. Mara came out backwards, pushing it open with her arse, and she was holding two glasses of wine by their stems in one hand and a plate with some cheese and crackers on it in the other.

  He quickly stood and held the door for her.

  ‘Thanks. Here.’ Mara handed George a glass of white wine. ‘Thought you might need this.’ She put the platter on the small wooden table between the chairs and sat down herself. ‘Cheers,’ she announced and reached across, clinking glasses with him.

  ‘Cheers,’ he replied. Where he expected to see a smile on her face, instead she looked scared. She took a good slug of the wine and slumped back into the chair.

  He sipped his and joined her in looking out at the view. The stars were putting on their own display for New Year’s Eve, twinkling in the Milky Way above them. Unhindered by light pollution, they were dazzling. The ocean, almost invisible in the darkness, was crashing rhythmically on the sand below the cliff, creating a soundtrack to the light show above.

  Mara let out a shivering breath. ‘Thanks for coming with me to get her.’

  The lights in the lounge room were on, but Mara had her back to the glass and her face was in shadow. He didn’t need to see her expression to know that she was still rattled. Her voice was fragile and shaky.

  ‘I’m glad I could help. Is she asleep?’

  Mara held her wine glass so tight he thought she might break the damn thing. She looked back over her shoulder into the house. That’s when he saw the tears streaking down her cheeks. He gritted his teeth.

  ‘She had a shower and crashed. She’s exhausted … and terrified. Can you blame her? She left an appalling situation at home only to find herself in another one. That poor, poor girl.’ Mara sobbed suddenly, put her glass on the table and buried her head in her hands.

  George felt his jaw clench. When he saw her shoulders shaking, heard her quietly cry, something tugged at him so hard he felt a pain across his chest. Damn it. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t care this much about someone else. He had Karen to worry about and that’s all he had room for in his life.

  So why the hell did he pull his chair closer to Mara’s and rest a hand on her knee? Why did he start murmuring soothing words to help her calm down? And when she covered his hand with hers, why the fuck did he turn his over and twine their fingers together?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she finally managed and she wiped her face with her free hand. She didn’t let go of his hand. He didn’t let go of hers, either.

  ‘Don’t be. It’s been a big night. Things like this can make everyone pretty emotional.’ Including me, he thought.

  ‘It’s like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders, but I don’t feel better, you know? All this time she’s been missing … I was scared to look at any of the news websites in case your friends in the force announced they’d found the body of a young girl
somewhere.’

  ‘Jesus, Mara.’ He squeezed her fingers tighter. He edged closer on his chair so their knees touched.

  ‘I need her to feel safe here. Who knows who this guy Jared is, how much he’ll try to find her and cause her more trouble. She’s safer here with me, at least for the moment. I know what it’s like out there. Girls and women are found dead all the time. You know the stats, right?’

  He nodded. Not only did he know the statistics, he’d investigated abuse cases just like Abbie’s. And other cases where women were murdered by their intimate partners, by boyfriends, by husbands.

  ‘There’s something else I need to say,’ Mara said quietly. ‘When I said I didn’t trust the police …’

  ‘Forget it,’ George replied. Her grip on his fingers was tight.

  ‘No. I need to say it. I’m grateful for your help. Maybe you’re changing my mind about cops.’

  Mara met his eyes. Her words had been soft and sweet and kind, and he wasn’t used to kindness. Everything about her rattled him.

  ‘You’ve had a rough day,’ George said. ‘You should probably go to bed, get some sleep.’

  Mara’s eyes widened suddenly. ‘Did you hear that?’

  George cocked his head, listening.

  ‘There it is.’ She stood, held his hand firmly and tugged him to standing, too. ‘What’s the time?’

  He checked his phone. ‘It’s midnight.’

  Mara smiled. ‘Come on.’ They ran across the front lawn and across the street to the edge of the walkway which led to the sand and the water below. George let her lead him, following her down the stairs, slowly, carefully in the dark, until he felt soft sand underneath his shoes.

  ‘Look!’ Mara exclaimed. ‘It’s the Victor Harbor fireworks.’ In the distance, starbursts exploded in the sky. Greens and purples and bright oranges burst into fountains of light, one after another in a choreographed sequence, each explosion bigger than the last.

  George moved behind her and pressed their joined hands into her stomach. With his other arm, he reached around her and held her in the safety and warmth of his embrace. Maybe he hadn’t been able to find the words, but he could show her like this, that she and Abbie were safe. When she let herself rest against his chest, he took her weight, supported her in the best way he knew how, and lowered his chin on her head.

  Together, in total quiet, they watched the sky until the display ended. Mara hadn’t moved. But he noticed she was shivering again.

  ‘You cold?’ he asked. Holding her tighter, he rubbed a hand up her forearm and felt the goose bumps there.

  She turned in his arms and released his hand. ‘I’m not cold.’

  ‘So it’s midnight,’ George said. ‘I guess that means I should say Happy New Year.’

  She looked up at him. ‘Happy New Year to you, too, George.’

  And it was the natural thing to do, wasn’t it, to put his hands on her shoulders and lean down and kiss her for the new year. He pressed his lips to her cheek and then pulled back.

  Their eyes met in the dark and he could hear her breathing, fast and shallow. And something about the adrenaline rush of rescuing Abbie and being with Mara on the beach created something inside him he couldn’t suppress. When she lifted herself on her toes and came closer, he knew what she needed.

  He knew what he wanted.

  George took her mouth with all the hunger he had in him, and as he held her, tasted her, he realised that all the self-denial he’d imposed on himself had shattered the minute their lips touched. Her mouth was soft and their tongues danced as they kissed, and something filled with desire and need washed over them like a wave. She smoothed her hands up his back and then they were in his hair and his knees buckled and his own hands were on her arse, cupping her curves, pulling her towards him, every inch of her, so he could feel her body against his.

  Where the fuck had this come from?

  This wasn’t the time or the place.

  Mara sensed it too. That hot, demanding, unquenchable kiss was over almost as fast as it had started. It was like a starburst, exploding, hot, dangerous, and then gone. She slowed and then pulled her lips from his, biting his lower lip as she did. She was panting and so was he.

  She kissed his left cheek, then his right, and let go of him. She stepped back on the sand. ‘Happy New Year, George.’

  ‘Happy New Year, Mara.’

  They navigated their way up the stairs and back to the house.

  Chapter Ten

  Mara blinked open her eyes on New Year’s Day to a shimmering blue sky and the repetitive crash of waves on the beach, like the earth’s heartbeat. Her windows were wide open and the sea breeze billowed the curtains across her bed. She didn’t know what time it was and was still too sleepy to check her phone.

  All she knew was that the night before she and George had kissed each other senseless while the sky exploded above them.

  And then he’d gone home.

  Abbie had been asleep for hours when George had left, departing with a promise to come by sometime today. Mara had said goodbye, and then slipped between the crisp white sheets of her own bed and drifted off to sleep before she’d got to the end of Chapter One of the book she was reading. Not that she’d been able to concentrate on the words, anyway.

  She’d felt spent after rescuing Abbie. Perhaps it had been the comedown of the adrenaline rush of racing away from the homeless shelter up in Adelaide, with a panicked young girl in the back seat. Thank god she hadn’t driven up to Adelaide by herself. She’d made the right call to ask George to go with her. Just in case. He’d acted in exactly the way she’d thought he would: calm, professional, with authority. The last thing he’d said to her, just before he’d driven away, was, ‘I have to talk to her, Mara. You know that.’

  ‘I know,’ she’d said.

  Mara kicked off the crisp sheets. It was already hot. Or was she burning up at the memory of what had happened down there on the sand? She turned to the windows and looked out to the azure, cloudless sky. Kissing George, being in his arms, feeling the desire of a man for the first time in a really long time had been unexpected and indescribable. She’d felt alive for the first time in so long, but in the cold light of the morning after, she knew she couldn’t trust those feelings. They had both been through something emotional and they’d reacted. That’s all it was.

  All she knew was that she couldn’t put it to the test again.

  George would be back today and they both had a job to do.

  They had to convince Abbie to talk to the police. They had to help her be brave and help put a criminal behind bars. Mara would be there for Abbie every step of the way, as would Narima if they needed her.

  None of these feelings for George could get in the way of that.

  Abbie was still asleep—Mara had opened the bedroom door and checked—so she jumped in the shower. Once she was out, hair dried, and dressed in cut-off denims and a T-shirt with the name of her school’s last drama production emblazoned across the chest, Mara went to the kitchen and rummaged around in the fridge to see what she could cook Abbie for breakfast.

  She had eggs and she had a loaf of sliced bread, so she resorted to the comfort food of her own childhood: French toast. Well, a very simplified version of French toast. Bread soaked in whisked egg and fried in a little butter. This was her favourite version. No fancy cream or berries on top or anything like that. This was not only comfort food but forgiveness food. When Mara had woken up after one of her binges, she knew her mother had forgiven her when there was a plate of French toast on the counter, dusted with sugar.

  When she was sixteen, Mara had put her mother through hell. As she cracked the eggs into a plastic bowl and whisked the mixture into a froth with a fork, she thought back to her high school years with embarrassment. Mara had found her early teenage years overwhelming and confusing and she’d acted up by sneaking out at night and getting involved with a crowd who were not only wrong for her, but dangerous. Her night-time friends had been
the only ones who didn’t bully her, or put pressure on her to perform well enough at school to get into university. Her single mum would have loved the chance to study, but Mara and her two siblings had come along when she was way too young, and her mother had gone out to work, becoming a carer in an aged care home. She worked all kinds of shifts so she could earn a decent wage on which to raise her children. All she’d wanted was for Mara to have a better life than the one she’d been dealt, a chance for a decent, secure job, and enough money not to have to stress about how to pay the bills.

  It had all become too much for Mara and she’d looked for an escape. She’d found one but it had been down a dead-end road. When the police caught up with her, at the urging of her mother, all they had wanted to do was punish her, not help her. When she finally saw it for what it was, when she found a teacher she could talk to, she got help. And she got back on the straight and narrow. She convinced her mother to let her change schools, and found a supportive and kind environment in a high school two bus routes away, but she didn’t care about the travel. She had got her life back together.

  That’s why she’d become a teacher.

  And that’s why she was sure there was still a chance for Abbie. Mara knew that in the most fundamental of ways, there was no comparing her own situation to Abbie’s. What she had been through was heartbreaking and horrendous, and there would be many hard times ahead for her if she decided to tell her story to the police. She would need a lifetime to overcome what she had lived through but Mara knew she would do it. With help, with support, and fired by her own determination and strength, she would survive.

  Mara knew that one person could make a difference. When she’d come down to Remarkable Bay, she’d been seriously considering giving up teaching.

  Now, there was hope in her heart.

  ‘That smells great.’ Mara was flipping two pieces of bread in the frying pan when she heard Abbie’s voice, still soft from sleep. She turned. She smiled to cover her surprise at seeing this new Abbie, this punk girl, with choppy black hair.

  ‘Thanks. You hungry?’