by Sarah Bailey
‘Was anyone angry with her about it?’
Nicholson looks confused. ‘Like annoyed? Well, maybe a bit. But not enough to do something like this. No way.’
‘Were you angry at her?’ I ask.
Nicholson doesn’t move. Outside the door the phone rings again. ‘No. I was frustrated for her. I wanted her to have her play and I was glad she finally got to put it on.’
‘So why didn’t you go to the opening night?’ Felix presses.
‘I felt it would be best if I didn’t make an overt show of support. I had planned to go this Friday. It was going to run for seven nights, you see.’
‘I heard it was very good,’ I say.
Nicholson nods. ‘Yes, yes. I knew it would be. She had a wonderful ability. So much insight. So talented. A great actress too, I think.’
‘Too talented to be teaching students at Smithson High?’
Nicholson looks at Felix, an unreadable expression on his face. He checks his watch and as he stands I notice his hands are shaking. ‘Well, that is a hard thing to measure, isn’t it? All I know is that she was determined. She rallied those kids, wrote that play, checked with the education department to see if she could have the year twelves use their analysis of modernising the script to count towards their final marks. She did all that.’
We stand and step aside so that Nicholson can show us out. ‘I think she was happy here. Especially lately. She was thrilled with the play. Proud of the students. She was happy.’
Felix smiles tightly at him. ‘Yes, well. Thank you for your time. We may need to speak with you again but for now we’re done.’
‘Thank you. Now listen, you do what you need to do, but please be careful with everyone. We are hurting very badly. We loved her, you know.’
Something about the way he says this is unsettling and Felix gives me a pointed look as we walk out past the frazzled receptionist into the white-hot sunlight and smack bang into a ghost.
My future is a slippery elusive thing that I have spent half my life trying not to think about too much. When Mum died it felt like everything stopped. I was surprised every time I woke up to a new day. It seemed unfathomable that out there in the world people were falling in love, having babies, studying, laughing. I struggled to think. To see. To breathe. Then somehow, one day, it was better. I started to make plans again and experienced moments of clarity where my dreams seemed possible. I met Jacob and my passion returned. I loved hard and fiercely. And then he died and I was catapulted all the way back into the relentless pain of breathing through every minute. I think, before he died, I had allowed myself to picture a future again. Just a vague one, with cloudy edges, but I’d glimpsed a life beyond school. I’d imagined uni, travel. Maybe even us getting a little place. But after he was gone there was no light in my black hole. Nothing made sense. The guilt was suffocating. I only kept going out of sheer determination to avoid drowning in my own thoughts because that was the one thing I dreaded more than trying to live a normal life. Sometimes I’m not actually sure that I ever came out of my hole. Not really.
But once I became a cop I was able to pull myself through the days a little more easily. See a direct line from A to B and feel clearer about how I was going to get there. The basic principles of right and wrong seemed solid and I grabbed on to them with everything I had.
And then I fell pregnant with Ben and that awful idea of the future loomed again. The idea of a baby terrified me. The concept of being parent to a child or a teenager was beyond comprehension. And the sudden introduction of Scott’s feelings into my life was even more difficult to navigate. I’m just not great when it comes to other people. That’s probably what makes me a good cop and is probably why I made detective so quickly. ‘Like a robot that just so happens to eat,’ Jonesy used to say affectionately.
Of course, Ben changed things in all the ways that everyone said he would. But I remained wary. I held him close at night and blinked away the thoughts that had me dying at gunpoint and leaving him all alone. I would fetch him in the morning and worry that I would have a heart attack after Scott went to work, or that I would slip in the shower and crack my head open. I comforted myself with the thought that Ben was probably better off with just Scott anyway. That my confusion confused things. That my ability to be the kind of mother he really needed was horrifically limited.
So I kind of just put one foot in front of the other and bathed him and fed him and held him, but I was still cautious about the future. I never let myself picture him in primary school or as a teenager. I didn’t make plans too far ahead. I lived in the moment and I placated myself with the notion that mindfulness is what half the world is seeking at any given time. I had just managed to find a version of it that had been born out of necessity rather than aspiration.
And then Felix arrived in Smithson and everything went out the window. I was giddy. Blindsided. I was a new mother and a young detective and all I could think about was him being inside me. I felt raw. I developed insomnia. Anxiety. But at the same time I’d never felt so happy. It was like having Jacob back again. The blood seemed to flow more smoothly around my body. For the first time in years I willed time to move faster. Our connection was so instant, so overwhelming, that everyone else in my world faded. I wanted his opinion on everything. I thought about him constantly and felt the deep guilt of someone who wished for a different life. At night I would turn over and over in bed beside Scott until, finally, I would give up and go to the couch in the lounge, where I would stare through US talk shows and wonder how it had come to this. Why did I have to meet Felix after Ben was born? Why did Scott want to be with me? Why didn’t Jacob just come find me that day? Why didn’t he think I was worth living for?
Within days we were brushing past each other, his hand touching mine as he handed me some papers, my arm glancing off his as I passed him at the printer. Less than a month later we were kissing in my car and making plans to do more. I could not get enough. I felt alive, charged with an invisible energy source.
The truth is, I never really got over Jacob. I’ve never quite managed to understand how it all went so wrong. How he could have left me like that. I loved him so much and after he died I had no anchor. Until Felix came along I felt like I hadn’t really spoken to anyone properly for years. Felix makes me want the future: to pull it towards me, grab hold of it, breathe into it. I know it will be messy and complicated and difficult, but the way I feel about him means I can’t see another way.
These thoughts invariably swarm around my mind. It’s exhausting but it’s better now than it was. Better than last summer, when I struggled to eat and found being around Felix akin to having a non-fatal heart attack. I can wait for our future. We are in this together, figuring it out as we go. Patiently yearning. But Jacob is always in my head. He’s always just below the surface.
And that’s why I almost faint when I walk out of Nicholson’s office, into the sunlight, and straight into him.
Chapter Twelve
Monday, 14 December, 9.52 am
My head spins. My throat feels like it has disappeared and I make a strange choking sound. Jacob, my brain chants over and over as I stare at his face. It’s the same slouched posture, the same rich brown hair. I’m conscious of Felix beside me and I feel suddenly confused about where I am and what year it is.
‘Gemma?’ The boy’s voice is not right. It’s lower, huskier. He’s not Jacob. His eyes are red raw and freckles dust his cheeks. Jacob’s skin had been clear.
My mind stumbles into reality. ‘Rodney?’
He nods.
‘Rodney, what are you doing here?’
The boy shuffles his feet. He’s wearing tight jeans and a loose black t-shirt that hangs like a dress on his slim frame. I realise the last time I saw Rodney he was seven years old. He shrugs and tilts his head so that his hair falls to the side, out of his eyes. ‘This is my school. A whole bunch of us decided to meet here this morning. We didn’t know where else to go.’ He looks down but not before
I see his jaw shudder. I notice the pulse in his neck is throbbing.
Nicholson has followed us out and is nervously surveying the scene. He mutters under his breath and then says, ‘Well, I guess it’s good for you to be with each other.’ He rocks manically on his feet and looks beyond us to where a group of students are hugging one another and crying in a small circle. One of the girls tucks the hair of another girl behind her ear and then runs a thumb under her eyes to wipe tears away. A tall ginger-haired boy is rubbing slow circles on the back of another girl as she stares at the ground. I can remember that closeness. That intimacy. That comprehensive, inexplicable human connection you can have at that age. I can feel Janet holding my hand as we wove through parties, her doing my make-up, her eyes inches from mine, her tongue sticking out in concentration. I remember Sandra teaching me how to backflip, holding my stomach in and pulling me up into the right position. Waking up next to her after sleepovers, rolling towards her and tickling her back. Brushing her hair. I remember Fox guiding my fingers, teaching me how to roll cigarettes, laughing when I dropped the contents all over the ground. Sneaking up behind me and covering my eyes with his hands. Jacob kissing my feet, playing with my hair, breathing me in. Fox, Janet and Sandra comforting me after Jacob died. Touching me. Holding me. It was like we shared skin, space and everything in between. I remember needing them like air.
But after school that closeness evaporated.
Jacob is dead. Fox, I barely see. And I have no idea where Janet and Sandra are now. They moved away years ago and we don’t keep in touch.
A new girl joins the group and starts to sob as the others pull her into their circle. I look away, feeling intrusive and oddly jealous. Their sense of belonging is palpable.
Next to me Rodney’s head jerks. Jacob’s square jawline plays through my mind. ‘Mum,’ he says.
I look over to see Donna Mason walking briskly towards us. Time has not been kind to her. Her eyes sink into her face and her wiry greying hair is pulled tight onto the top of her head. Her denim jacket is like a square across her small frame. I remember her cool stare as Jacob and I curled together on the couch at his house, watching a movie. She was always lurking in doorways, watching us. It was hard to relax when she was around. I can still picture her empty gaze at Jacob’s memorial service.
‘Gemma.’ She nods at me.
‘Mrs Mason.’ I nod back, feeling like a teenager.
‘Detective Sergeant McKinnon,’ says Felix, sticking his hand out towards her.
She takes his hand and shakes it firmly. ‘Donna Mason,’ she says. She crosses her arms. ‘Yes, well. Awful business all this. Just awful.’ Her large eyes blink at each of us in turn.
Nicholson kicks his shoes at the ground awkwardly. ‘Donna, hello.’
She looks at him and executes another little nod. Turning to Rodney, her face softens. ‘You can have an hour, sweetheart. I need to get to the shops but I’ll pick you up on the way back.’
‘It’s fine, Mum, I can grab a lift with Kai or Em.’
‘No.’ She shakes her head nervously, like a bird. ‘I’ll be back here in an hour. I’ll drive you.’ Her eyes flit to the quadrangle and then back to the group of distraught teenagers. ‘Meet me out front at eleven.’
Rodney’s body seems stiff but he shrugs before shuffling back to his friends. He quickly disappears into the writhing mass of grieving students. The boy with the ginger hair catches me looking and averts his eyes sharply. He’s still stroking the back of a crying girl.
‘Well, bye,’ says Donna, the edges of her mouth pulling up briefly into a polite smile.
‘Right, well.’ Nicholson turns in a flustered semi-circle and then drifts back towards his office.
Felix and I are left standing alone in the bright square of sunlight next to the sobbing group.
Our eyes meet.
‘Jesus,’ says Felix under his breath.
Chapter Thirteen
Monday, 14 December, 9.27 pm
‘Something feels seriously off. She was so polarising. I can’t get a grip on her.’ Felix is lying flat on his back, talking to the ceiling. I sip at my wine, the golden liquid sliding down my throat. ‘I mean, I don’t even know what to call her! Rose? Rosalind?’ He laughs. ‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘we need to get on to her old school. Something clearly happened there.’ He rolls over to face me. ‘What do you think?’
I shrug, still a little disoriented by his closeness. I love how desperate he always is to strip my clothes off and hold me. To push his way inside of me. My body is still smarting, raw from him holding me down. At some point my head connected with the wooden bed head and that, paired with the exquisiteness of what he has just done to me, has left me in a state that is both exhausted and energised. I don’t really want to talk about Rosalind right now, but we always talk about cases we’re working, and as her dead face looms in my mind again, I realise that avoiding speculation about what happened to her right now is unlikely.
Felix gets up to pour more wine and I stare at the side profile of his naked body and wonder for the millionth time how the hell this is my life.
We always meet here, at the tiny farmhouse that belongs to Scott’s brother. It’s about fifteen minutes outside of Smithson and I know that Scott would never come here with Ben at night. There is no reason for him to. Quaint and isolated, it’s empty about ten months of the year, and Scott and I have a set of keys and do basic maintenance in exchange for the steady supply of fruit and vegies that grow in the garden. I have wondered what Felix and I would do if we didn’t have a place like this to come to. I assume we’d end up pawing at each other in our cars, fogging up the windows along a quiet, out-of-the-way road somewhere.
I was worried I wouldn’t be able to have sex with Felix tonight but the bleeding slowed yesterday and today it’s as if nothing ever happened. Only the vague thrum of an ache reminds me that my life was temporarily heading in a very different direction.
‘And what’s with the principal? Was he into her or what?’
I prickle slightly. ‘C’mon, he’s allowed to be upset. They worked together. She went to school there. They were close.’
I push the faded image of Nicholson watching Rosalind on stage from my mind.
‘We work together.’ He wriggles his eyebrows at me suggestively and I throw a pillow at him.
‘I think Nicholson is a good guy. He really cares about the school. Cares about the kids. I just can’t see it.’
‘People change, Gem. Maybe the unrequited love finally got to him, or maybe his wife found out, or maybe they were together and then Rose realised it was creepy because he’s really old.’
I throw another pillow at him. ‘Careful. He’s only got about fifteen years on you.’
He rolls his eyes.
‘Plus, his wife is dead,’ I say primly. ‘Or at least I’m pretty sure she is.’
He throws the pillows back onto the bed and reaches out to me. I go to him and lie down in the crook of his arm.
‘At least we know that Marcus was one of Rose’s visitors,’ he says.
‘Yes.’ We spoke to Rosalind’s brothers again today. Marcus confirmed he had called on his sister about a month ago, though he drove a hire car, a modest Toyota. Timothy and Bryce claim they haven’t visited her place in years.
Felix and I still think that Timothy is suspicious; the preliminary search of his finances shows he did purchase tickets to the school play two weeks ago. When we asked him why he’d bought two tickets but gone to the play alone, he said that he hadn’t got around to inviting someone else along.
‘Seeing those kids today was full on,’ says Felix, into my ear.
‘Yeah.’ I shuffle through their faces. Caught between child and adult, they were so beautiful and so dangerous, tripping over themselves to grow up.
‘So that boy today, the one you spoke to?’ His fingers tickle the back of my neck. ‘He’s the lead in the play. The Romeo, right? What’s the story there? You knew him?’
&nbs
p; Outside a possum runs along the powerlines and cuts across the wire that leads to the house. It pauses, its tail dangling crookedly in the moonlight. I roll over and pull the sheets around me like a strapless dress. I have more wine as I weigh up what to tell Felix.
‘Yeah, I knew him.’
‘How?’
I look at him, slightly exasperated. ‘Like how I know everyone. I grew up around here.’
He nods slowly. I can tell he is deciding whether or not to let it go. He curls his fingers around mine, gently removing the wineglass from my grip. ‘Sure, but he’s way younger. Plus, you looked like you’d had a stroke when we saw him. How exactly did you know him?’
‘I knew his brother. Jacob.’
‘From school?’
‘Yeah.’ I let the second hand on the wall clock do a full half-circle before I add, ‘He was my boyfriend.’
The silence starts to make me feel itchy. I stretch out my feet.
‘Where is lover boy now? Still in town?’
I lie back on the pillow and watch his face. I know he is mapping out a typical teenage love story, all awkward limbs, promises set to moody tracks and epic stormy partings. He’s only half right.
‘No, he died. When we were in school. He jumped off the tower at the lake.’
Felix’s smile retracts like a snail into its shell. ‘Fucking hell, Gem.’ His fingers pause for a few moments before he picks up the rhythm again.
I wish that I could stay here with him doing that forever. I blink a few times but he holds my gaze, his green eyes steady. I’ve never asked Felix where this will go, whatever this thing is between us, and he’s never given me a real indication of what he wants it to be. I know he never wanted to come to Smithson. It was his wife’s idea, to move from London and have a sea change far away from the sea. Felix had loved his life in the city. He said he felt freer, more independent there. I suspect that being with me is a nod to that freedom. A lifeline to his old world where desire dominates and impulses are heeded. I also sense that his wife was determined that the move here would reset their marriage. Felix seems stubbornly determined not to participate in any such overhaul. He works late and is desperate to spend time with me. He is an engaged father to his girls and polite to his wife. I am scared to ask him point blank how he feels about her, but right now, as I look at him, I see real love and I realise how important I am to him. How important he has become to me. I squeeze his hand softly.