It gave me a strange sense of connectedness, checking my messages.
‘You have, four, new messages,’ Mrs Automated Voice said. ‘Message, one, received at, twelve forty-five p.m.’ Someone had left a message while I’d been in the bathroom. ‘Dodie,’ the voice said. ‘It’s Inspector McClellan here. Please call. I know you have access to a phone; you just called a motel in Merimbula. What I don’t know is why you’re not calling us. You need to call me now, Dodie, as soon as you get this message. This is not some joke, or game. This is serious. By not calling me, you’re making me wonder about your involvement in this whole saga.’
And then she hung up the phone.
I felt a chill dribbling down my spine.
Inspector McClellan thought I was to blame for the disappearance of my parents.
I woke up in the cabin fully clothed, shoes and all. It was dark. I’d slept for a fair whack of the day.
Someone was knocking at the door.
‘Yeah?’ I said.
Jones opened it.
‘Coco said I should come and get you,’ he said. ‘We’re having dinner soon.’
I looked up at him from the bed.
‘They think I did it,’ I said softly. ‘The police. They think I’m the one who’s hurt my parents. They think I’m the reason they’re missing.’
He came over and sat on the bed beside me, pushing my hair off my face. I turned towards the wall, not trusting my eyes not to fill with tears like they seemed to be constantly doing at the moment. The weight of him tipped me towards him.
‘Big bad Dodie Farnshaw,’ Jones said, stroking my cheek. ‘As if.’
He ran his finger down my profile; down my forehead, down my nose, across my lips.
‘And it makes total sense,’ I went on, still facing the wall. ‘Why haven’t I called them if I was able to check my messages?’
He lay down behind me, his knees tucked in to the back of mine, his arms folding me into him.
‘Because you didn’t, that’s why,’ he whispered into my neck. ‘Because you were scared, because you were being watched, because you didn’t think you were able to. Don’t worry about it. We’ll sort it out. They’re not going to think you did anything.’
He rolled me over so I could look at him. He looked as if he was trying to memorise me. I wanted him to kiss me so badly I felt like crying. And then I did. Big sobs that made my whole body feel paper thin. Crying about Jones, crying about being kissed, crying about my missing parents, crying about stupid Holy Wars, crying about those guys who’d broken into our motel room, crying that I hadn’t called the motel in time.
Jones put his mouth to the top of my head, then to my forehead, my eyes, my cheeks. Left cheek, right cheek, right side of neck, my head tilting back so his access was clear. His lips on my throat, onto the other side of my neck, back up to my chin. He pulled his head back and looked at me. I could smell him, the bed-warm tang of him. My entire vision was taken up with his face. In my hands I could feel his hair. The sound of his breathing was all I could hear.
And then he bridged the distance from his mouth to mine, and kissed me.
Each of my five senses: touch, smell, sight, sound, and taste.
Filled.
We sat down for dinner. Six of us at the table while Taxi kept Jesus company in His room.
‘He’s super-tired,’ Taxi had said to Judd and Pirate.
‘So Sydney tomorrow, eh,’ Judd said, looking more at Coco than anyone else.
‘What time do you think we’ll get there?’ I asked. An important question. Because after we arrived – after we got Jesus to His meeting place – it was all going to turn to crap. We were going to call the police and they were going to ask me why I hadn’t rung, and I wasn’t going to have a good reason.
‘Mid-morning, I reckon,’ Judd said, looking at his watch and calculating the hours. Or maybe thinking it was time for dessert, who knew? ‘Where are you wanting to be dropped off?’
‘Where’s easiest?’ Enron asked. Cagey.
‘Wherever’s closest to where you want to go,’ Judd said. ‘Taxi was saying something about Lavender Bay, is that right?’
Enron licked his teeth, then nodded.
‘Yep. Around there.’
‘Lavender Bay it is then,’ Judd said, glugging back on his beer.
Lavender Bay.
I couldn’t imagine how it was going to turn out. How was I going to explain why I hadn’t called the cops? What was I going to say? I could always blame Enron – don’t worry, the thought had already occurred to me – but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do that. It didn’t seem fair. Whichever one of us they decided to blame was going to have to take the fall.
And then Pirate said, ‘So what’s wrong with Sam?’
We shouldn’t have called Him Sam-short-for-Sam-ta. Because every time someone said His name, I thought of Jones suggesting we put Santa in the boot and Enron wanting to punch his lights out, and Enron noogying Jones in the milkbar for suggesting Jesus bring his sled, and now here we were, sitting with people we didn’t know, trying to be serious and the very thought of Santa was about to set me off.
I put my napkin up to my mouth to conceal my grin, biting down on my cheeks to contain myself. But the harder I bit, the more my cheeks started inflating. Uncontrollable laughter nibbled at my mouth. I pushed my seat back and stood up.
‘You want to go outside?’ Jones asked, putting his arm around me.
I nodded, hiding my face in the napkin, the laughter burbling like water in a drain.
‘It’s hard for her,’ I heard Coco say as Jones led me to as far away on the deck as we could get. Which, seeing as it was a very-rich-person’s boat, was pretty far away.
And then the laughter erupted out of me. I was crying from the effort of having to keep myself straight at the table.
‘Sam-ta,’ I kept giggling at Jones. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking of Sam-ta.’
And he was laughing too, shushing me, trying to keep me quiet, our hair tangling together. We watched the sky darkening, the horizon curving like a new moon in the distance, and that’s when we saw it. The star falling, as if unpeeled from the Velcro that stuck it to the ceiling of the sky.
The firmament.
I remember reading that word once, and really liking it. It was in a Nick Cave novel, and it perfectly described the rounded roof of the sky. Firmament.
‘That was a falling star,’ I said to Jones. He looked where I was pointing and another star fell. And another one. And one more. And another. It was raining stars.
We went back inside. Enron and Coco and Judd and Pirate were sitting around the dining table, Coco tipping towards Judd. There were beers and mixed drinks and wine on the table.
‘You’ve got to come and have a look at this,’ I told them. ‘It’s beautiful.’
They followed us onto the deck. Jones went downstairs, coming back a couple of minutes later with Taxi and Jesus in the wheelchair.
‘Falling stars,’ I said, pointing at the sky.
‘A meteor shower,’ Pirate said. ‘There are weird things afoot. That luminescence last night and this tonight. This is spectacular. Like fireworks. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘A little something we arranged for You,’ Jones said to Jesus. ‘No, don’t thank me. It was nothing.’
And the eight of us sat there, watching the stars as they plummeted to the ground, Jones’s arm slung over the back of Jesus’s wheelchair.
The others went back inside, taking Jesus with them, but Jones and I stayed sitting out there. It wasn’t too cold.
It occurred to me that I should stay inside. Make sure Coco was okay. But Enron was there to protect her. Besides, I wanted to be with Jones. Out on the deck. It might be my last night with him. Tomorrow in Sydney, everything was going to change. For tonight, Enron could look after Coco. I was busy.
Jones rolled a joint and lit the twisted tip, inhaling the sweet-smelling smoke and leaning his head back as if he got rea
l comfort from it.
‘This is nice,’ he said. ‘I could handle this being my life. You know, if we’d been born back in the old days we’d be off doing stuff, this kind of stuff, sailing around the world kind of stuff. Trekking through mountains, discovering America, smoking hookah pipes in Arabia or something. People don’t do that anymore.’
‘Judd’s doing it. Pirate is.’
‘This is the first time in my entire life I’ve felt like I was doing something interesting.’
‘Here? On this boat?’
‘No, idiot,’ he said, grinning at me to soften the word ‘idiot’. ‘The last couple of days. Hey, I’ve got one for you.’
‘One what?’
‘What would you rather? Be here, now, or not have gone through any of this?’
The game I’d played with my mum being reshaped to suit us. I felt tears prickling my eyes, and blinked them away. It was a tricky question. Would I rather not have met Jones? Rather not be driving Jesus Christ to Sydney? Would I rather be studying for my final exams? Rather be with Minty and Jools and not be here?
‘I’d rather my parents weren’t missing,’ I said.
Jones kissed my face. Gently. Softly. Sweetly.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Stupid question. I shouldn’t have asked. It’s just that, I can’t think of one thing I’d change. Except for your folks, of course. I’d change that. But here, tonight, with you? I wouldn’t change a thing. And if I could have all of it or none of it, I’d take all of it every time.’
It was harder for me to say so. I was losing so much at that moment. But I knew what he meant. The past three days – would I give them up? The roses? The phosphorescence? The driving? The kiss? Even the drains. And Jesus? Would I want anything to change, knowing Him the way I did now?
‘My dad died last year,’ Jones said, taking a couple of deep drags of the joint and holding the smoke in his lungs as if that helped him hold onto the memory of his dad. ‘He had cancer. He was sick for ages.’
I didn’t say anything.
‘I’ve had a pretty shit time since he died,’ he went on. ‘This, now, this is the happiest I’ve felt in ages. Being with you. Dad up there.’ He chucked his chin in the direction of the sky and smiled. ‘I wonder if he’s watching, what he’s thinking.’
‘He’s probably sitting up there with my grandma and pop – who are the ones who got us into this mess in the first place.’ I put my hands around my mouth and yelled up to the sky. ‘Good one, Grandma. You couldn’t have just used your basement for furniture like everyone else does?’
Jones laughed.
‘You know what, though,’ I went on. ‘I kind of like thinking of them in Heaven. I loved my grandma and pop, they were the best. And I still really miss them. But I always think that if something ever happened to me I wouldn’t be alone. I wouldn’t have to be afraid or scared. Because they’re already there for me.’
Jones took a drag of his joint.
‘And now you’ve got the same thing with your dad,’ I said. ‘Just in case you ever need him, he’s there, watching over you, and ready to pal up with you again when you die.’
Jones looked over to his left, away from me. He licked his lips and took some more deep drags.
‘That’s good to know,’ he said finally, exhaling the smoke in one long breath. ‘See, I always got on really well with my dad,’ he said. ‘My mum, not so much.’
I frowned.
‘You mean she didn’t get on with him?’
He shrugged. Looked to his left again.
‘I mean she doesn’t get on with me. I think she thought I blamed her for him leaving when they split up all those years back. And maybe I did a bit. But if she hadn’t been so bitter after he’d moved out, after he’d moved in with Sophie, maybe we would have gotten on okay. But she didn’t. She always had to bag him, always had to tell me what was wrong with him, how crap he was as a dad, and the bad things I did that were like him. And I always had to pretend like I didn’t mind her telling me how bad a bloke he was, or pretend I couldn’t hear. Try to let it wash over me.’
He offered me the joint but I shook my head. Not with tomorrow looming. Not with Grandma and Pop watching from upstairs.
‘So he died,’ Jones continued, ‘and then Mum ended up in hospital with this infection, and I was looking after my little brother, cooking for him and washing his clothes and stuff, and you know what?’ He tipped his head over at me and grinned. ‘I did a bloody great job. Every day Robbie and I would catch the train in to hospital to see Mum, then we’d go home and I’d get him organised. It was my first time being a really great son. Because up till then, I really hadn’t been. We’d always clashed, and she never let up on me and I never let up on her. But while she was in hospital, I was a great son. I had one month exactly of being a really ace son. And when she came home from hospital, I even baked her a cake. It was a sponge. It tasted like shit. It was dry and awful, but you know what, I’d made it from scratch, just like a good son would do.’
I watched the sucking drags he took.
‘But a couple of days after she got home from hospital, I was putting some stuff in the washing machine, and she went nuts. Told me I was “just like my father”, thinking I was in charge, that I could take over. She told me that everything I’d done while she was in hospital meant nothing, that she couldn’t stand looking at my smug face and knowing I thought I was so good when I wasn’t.’
I couldn’t imagine my mum ever speaking to me like that. Sure, she got annoyed with me about stuff, and ranted when clothes weren’t picked up off the floor or I hadn’t done the dishes or whatever, but she would never have said anything like that to me.
Ever.
‘And I looked at her,’ he said, watching the night sky where the stars were still falling, maybe looking for his dad’s face in the glitter, ‘and I realised that she just didn’t like me. And I suppose that’s what sometimes happens, isn’t it? Sometimes kids are born, and their parents just can’t stand the sight of them. I’ve heard that baboons sometimes reject their babies.’ He took another deep drag of the joint. ‘My mum would have made a great baboon.’
He smiled at me, then flicked the joint over the railing of the boat, the falling ember mimicking the stars.
‘But you know what the good thing was?’ he said, folding his arms across his body. ‘I’d done the right thing. I’d spent a month doing everything I could to help. And I knew that if she couldn’t like me after that, if even the good, perfect, helpful me wasn’t good enough for her, the normal me had no chance. So I finished putting the clothes in the washing machine, put the powder in the tray, turned it on, and walked out. Haven’t seen or spoken to her since.’
He pulled at his lip as if he’d said too much. As if I was going to turn from him now that he’d revealed himself to me. I cupped his chin in my hands and turned him back to face me. His beautiful, beautiful face that had such kindness and sweetness in the crinkles around the eyes. That mouth which was soft and pillowy. Those eyelashes. God, who wouldn’t love those eyelashes?
And he brought my chin close to his and kissed me like his life depended on it.
It was as we were walking back inside that things turned pear-shaped.
Coco had had a few drinks, and being sixteen she didn’t need more than a few to get completely smashed. She was leaning over the table, her elbows splayed on the surface as Judd sat next to her. Enron was sitting morosely opposite them, turning his glass in circles on the table, watching the rim turn as the beer in the bottom reflected the movement.
As I looked at her bleary eyes, I realised I should have stayed with her. But would I have wanted to trade being outside with Jones for being inside with Coco? No. Coco was drunk and probably going to be throwing up in the next half hour or so, but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle.
‘So you want to know something?’ Coco was saying. ‘The phosphorescence and stuff?’ Phossh-phoresh-ensh. ‘It’s Him.’ She put her finger up to her mouth.
‘Sshhhh. It’s a shecret,’ she said. ‘If you promise,’ promish, ‘not to tell, I’ll tell you who He is.’
I could feel myself not reacting quickly enough, as I watched from the doorway.
‘You’re not going to believe who He is,’ she was saying, ‘but it’s true.’
Ish true.
‘Coco,’ I said.
‘Amelia,’ I corrected myself.
I felt fuzzy myself, and wasn’t even sure if what she was about to tell them was such a big deal or not. They seemed like nice guys. They’d given us a lift to Sydney after all. And it was true, so technically it shouldn’t be a problem.
Coco looked up at me and flicked her chin at me as if I was such a pest.
‘They’re fine,’ she said to me. ‘These guys,’ and she put her arm around Judd’s shoulder, ‘are our friends.’ And her mouth manoeuvred around the word ‘friends’ with deliberate care.
‘Amelia,’ Enron said. ‘You should go to bed.’
‘I love you, Enron,’ she said. ‘Oops. Matt. You’re such a sweetie. You’re the cutest guy. But you don’t need to worry about me, I’m fine.’
And when she said, ‘fine’, she blinked as if she was refocusing.
I walked over to her and dragged her up from the bench.
‘Co – Okay. Let’s go. You’ve got to go to bed. You’re really pissed.’
‘I’m not pissed.’
‘You’re smashed. And I don’t even know what you’re talking about but it sounds like you’re saying some mental stuff and it’s time for bed.’
‘But it’s true, isn’t it?’ Ish trooo. She put her finger up to her mouth again. ‘Shhh.’ And she giggled as if she was the cutest thing ever. ‘Shee-crettttt.’
‘Jones,’ I said. He hadn’t needed an alias. Seeing as he wasn’t on the news, we’d made the call that he and Taxi could stay as they were. Less confusing. Which was especially helpful when it was late and we’d all been drinking and Coco was saying stuff she shouldn’t be telling anyone. ‘Can you give me a hand with her?’
He helped me bring her down to our room, where we lay her on her bed and she went straight to sleep. Leaving Judd and Pirate with a whole lot of questions in their heads about what exactly this secret was that we were hiding.
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