Mason brought his fists to his temples now, pressing them hard to drive out her voice. He needed a drink. He needed to forget who he was for a while.
He could head over to the graveyard – he’d been going there since he was a little kid. His friends used to think it was funny that Mason found solace among the gravestones, but it was the most peaceful place in town. The temperature was climbing though, and the graveyard offered little protection. The bush hut seemed like a better option. It was cool and quiet, and Mason would enjoy lying on the floorboards with his eyes closed, feeling his body grow weightless with every sip.
He should probably stop drinking so much.
He didn’t want to be like her.
He didn’t want to be like his father.
As he plucked his jacket and car keys from the wreckage of his bedroom, Mason tried to bury the insistent voice that whispered over and over, You already are.
Now
Dad’s already dozing in front of Downton Abbey by the time I lock up the motel office. I offered to cover reception after Luisa went home so Dad could take a long shower and have some of the pasta I cooked for dinner. Luisa somehow managed to get the online software working again, so before I shut down the computer I take a quick peek at the bookings for the next few weeks. Apart from a handful of pre-booked rooms for the Easter long weekend, it’s like a ghost town. Something has to turn around soon. With Cutler Bend closed, we don’t even get spontaneous drop-ins coming from the freeway anymore. How can a motel survive if the only guest is an unruly teenager who occasionally crashes for free?
After switching the computer and lights off, I grab the office keys and step out onto the driveway. We leave the laundry open twenty-four hours because the machines and washing powder dispensers are all coin-operated. Guests like to do laundry at all hours, especially if they’re checking out the following morning.
I glance at the clipboard hanging from a hook beside the laundry door. It’s a simple cleaning schedule so we know when the dispensers have been topped up and the lint filters emptied. A red ballpoint pen dangles from a chain attached to the hook. I unfold Henry’s note and hold it up against the wall, seeing how far the pen reaches. He must have written it standing up, which explains some of the wobbly letters.
Why did Henry come in here? If there was no answer at the door or my window, as his note suggests, why didn’t he ride back to his place?
Maybe he was stalling.
Perhaps he was watching the driveway in the hope I’d return home and he could still sleep over. He didn’t know about Room Fifteen, the key under the pot plant. Dad had only offered it to Mason a week or so before the storm, and he asked me not to mention it to Henry. Henry already had the sleepovers, dinners and movie nights at our place. This was somewhere for Mason to come when he needed to be alone.
The flyer is slightly buckled in places. Did it get wet from the rain that night? Henry could have been sheltering in here while he waited for the worst of the storm to pass. By my calculations, that would have been sometime around midnight. When the rain and hail hit I was already up at the bush hut, nervously checking the weather app on my phone and hoping Raf had adjusted his timing to get ahead of the storm as well.
Despite the identical route we both took, there was no sign of Raf at all when I walked up there. I arrived early, reaching the hut by around eleven-thirty, as the first drops of rain plopped in the dirt at my feet. It was probably ten minutes later that Raf turned up, almost completely soaked to the bone.
How long did the storm last after that? Maybe twenty minutes? Thirty? By shortly after midnight, it would have mostly blown over.
What was Henry doing here at midnight?
What did he want to talk to me about that he couldn’t have mentioned when he was here earlier in the evening?
I really need your help with something.
Leaving town? Did he make that decision in the few hours since we’d last seen each other? Maybe me turning him away really did nudge him in that direction.
I read the note again in its entirety. My gut’s telling me that when he wrote it he had no intention of running away at all.
In my pocket, my phone starts bing-bonging with the Skype melody. I pull it out expecting to see my mother’s face pulsing in the circular profile pic. To my surprise it’s Tom.
‘Hi,’ he says as I answer.
‘Hey!’
‘Hope you don’t mind the video call. I wanted to see a friendly face.’
I squint at the background. ‘You still at the shop?’
He sighs. ‘About to head home. Just going through all the crap in Grandpa’s filing cabinets. It’s been a looong day.’ His face moves closer to the screen. ‘Where are you?’
I flick my phone around to show him the row of washing machines.
‘Late-night load of socks and jocks?’
‘No, I came in here to check on something.’ I weigh up whether to share Henry’s note with Tom. His opinion has always been important to me and he’s good at playing devil’s advocate. But I’d have to explain why I have the note and where I was that night, and that seems more of an in-person conversation. ‘Tom, do you think Henry’s in Sydney?’
His eyes widen. ‘What’s that got to do with the laundry?’
‘He’s on my mind tonight, that’s all. More than usual anyway.’
‘Because it’s his birthday soon?’
‘Yeah.’ I lean against the wall. ‘And also because I received a postcard in the motel’s PO Box a couple of days ago, claiming to be from Henry.’
‘Are you serious?’ Tom’s face jerks closer to the screen. ‘That’s amazing! Did he tell you where he is? Oh my god, everyone’s going to be so relieved!’
‘I showed it to Sergeant Doherty.’
‘And? What did he say?’
‘He thinks it’s unlikely it’s really from Henry.’
‘What? Why?’
I hate seeing the disappointment on his face. It’s like giving him a gift and snatching it away again. This is why Sabeen didn’t want me telling anybody. ‘Doherty says it’s likely to be a troll who got my details from Facebook somehow. They’re probably doing it for a reaction.’
Tom frowns. ‘Really? That’s the scenario Doherty’s going with?’
‘You really think it could be from Henry?’
‘Absolutely. Why not?’ He rubs at his eyes, and I can’t tell if he’s emotional or just tired. ‘What did it say?’
‘That he’s okay and not to worry about him.’
‘Maybe he actually did it,’ Tom says.
‘Did what?’
‘Found his dad.’
‘What do you mean?’ I say. ‘Henry doesn’t know where Wayne is.’
Tom rests back in his chair, his face now much smaller on my screen. ‘He asked me about Sydney because he knows I have an aunt there I stay with sometimes. He was particularly interested in knowing more about the Northern Beaches area.’
‘That’s where he thinks Wayne lives?’
‘When I questioned him on it,’ Tom says, ‘he explained he was trying to locate his dad.’
‘He never once asked me about it,’ I say, stung.
Tom shrugs. ‘I guess he was trying to keep it quiet. I can’t imagine Ivy would be happy if she found out.’
I don’t want to burst Tom’s bubble by explaining the doubts Sabeen and I have about the handwriting.
‘Chlo,’ Tom says, leaning forwards again. He breaks into a smile. ‘Don’t look so worried! A postcard from Manly is a good thing. We have to cross our fingers he reaches out again.’
‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘Anyway, it’s late and you must be wrecked. I need to let you get home.’
‘Can we catch up for a coffee or something soon? I feel like I’ve barely seen you since we arrived.’
‘Sounds good,’ I say. ‘I’ll text you tomorrow.’
I slide my phone into my pocket, then head back outside into the night. It’s not until I’m halfway acros
s the motel forecourt that something occurs to me. I never actually told Tom the postcard came from Manly.
* * *
I pace up and down in front of the reception window, my gaze bouncing back and forth between Henry’s note in my hand and the garden bed with the rock I returned a few hours ago. Things are getting sketchier by the minute around here. How is it possible I just caught Tom, of all people, being dishonest? It’s clear Sabeen’s already told him about the postcard, but why did he pretend not to know?
Shivering slightly, I pull my light jacket close and continue up the driveway until I reach the front lawn, then cut across to the side path that runs down between the motel and the field. I purposely left my curtains drawn and window unlocked so I could test Sabeen’s theory about Henry tossing his note into my bedroom.
I’ve just managed to shove my window open when I hear a noise behind me. Not close. At the far end of the field, somebody is coughing.
I stiffen, holding my breath. The coughing stops as quickly as it started. I scour the tree line like I did a few nights ago, and sure enough I can make out the shadowy form of a figure disappearing up the walking track towards the reservoir. There’s nothing vague about it this time.
Scrambling over the motel fence, I cut through the field and hit the dirt trail at a run. I refuse to leave this question unanswered; I’m sick of having only half the information. It doesn’t sit well with my need for resolution. Sabeen calls me a fixer. She thinks it started when my parents split up because I couldn’t repair my broken family, so now I try to fix everything else. ‘You don’t cope when things are beyond your control,’ she told me once. ‘When things go sideways, you have this obsessive need to put it all right again.’ I don’t deny it, but it started long before my parents’ marriage fell apart. Ever since I was little I’ve had trouble processing things and moving past them unless I could understand the reasons why they occurred. The one phrase I’ve heard probably more than any other in my life is, ‘Let it go, Chloe.’
But I refuse. Especially when it’s something as important as finding Henry.
When I reach the point on the track where I stopped the other night, I find myself hesitating again. This time it’s to listen. It’s a clear night with a whiff of chimney smoke in the air, no breeze hissing through the trees. I hear the telltale scrape of a person’s shoes skidding down a dip in the path. Up ahead, the walking track forks, and if I don’t catch up, I won’t know which way they went – one trail leads down to the reservoir and the other in the direction of the old bush hut.
Visibility is almost zero now as the walking path narrows, large tree ferns spilling in from both sides. I keep stubbing my shoes on rocks and tree roots, hoping it’s not loud enough to announce my presence. The torchlight on my phone will be too obvious, so I turn the brightness all the way down and point the screen at the ground. It’s only then that I groan. My phone. I should have left it behind at the motel. I guess we’ll know tomorrow if my mother’s been checking up on my movements. She certainly won’t wait long to rake my dad over the coals.
The fork in the walking track creeps up on me, and before I know it I’m standing in front of a waist-high sign and a wall of trees. The sign points to the right with the words SHALLOW RESERVOIR 1KM carved into the wood. I hold my phone against my chest, making the darkness absolute. Only then do I notice a glowing light further down a bend in the reservoir trail. It shimmers through tree branches like embers from a bonfire.
Who is heading down to the reservoir after eleven at night when it’s dark and there’s barely anything to see?
I slow to increase the gap between us, slapping at a pinprick on the back of my neck. The mosquitoes are probably making a meal of me. In the distance a curlew starts up with its haunting call, wailing like it’s in agony. The trees crowd in, reaching for me with blackened boughs, reminding me that everything out here is alive.
When I finally reach the clearing at the edge of Shallow Reservoir, I don’t expect to find it deserted. I can’t see the light anymore, and there’s only a hint of moonlight to make out the lonely picnic tables. I study them for a moment, in case somebody is sitting out there in the shadows. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Are they hiding? Did they somehow sneak past me back there on the walking track and leave the way we came in?
A flicker of light catches my eye on the far left of the picnic area, moving up the narrow trail that leads to a rocky outcrop jutting over the water. Devil’s Rock. It’s a huge slab of sandstone with a four-metre drop into the reservoir below, perfect for a running leap or a pin drop, or a forward somersault if you’re brave. We jumped off there all the time as kids even though it’s not allowed, which only added to the thrill. I haven’t viewed it in the same way since the day Mason pushed Henry in.
I make my own way up the trail, using the large boulders on either side of the track to steady myself as I navigate the uneven ground. The light up on the rock is stationary now, as though someone has placed it down on the rock’s surface. I get as close as I can without crawling onto Devil’s Rock itself, taking a quick peek around a scrubby tree that has grown between the rocks. The figure is on their knees, hunched over something, hands working quickly. Off to one side is a small picnic rug spread out with a hiking pack and an expensive-looking camera, all lit up with a camping lantern.
The person turns to reach for their backpack, and I’m so surprised at who it is I step forwards out of the shadows. ‘Raf?’
He jerks around.
‘Holy crap!’ he says, clutching his chest. He scrambles to his feet. ‘Where did you come from?’
I can’t help but chuckle. ‘Sorry. I thought you always said I was about as stealthy as a rhinoceros.’
‘I take it back,’ he says, holding his hands up in surrender. ‘Why are you laughing? You’d better know CPR because I’m having a friggin’ heart attack over here.’ I snigger at the way he’s stroking his chest. It’s the icebreaker we’ve needed to get us talking again.
A million things flood into my mind all at once. Questions I want to ask him, things I want to explain. Most of all I want to tell him how much I’ve missed him.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask. I can now see he’s in the middle of assembling a portable camera tripod.
‘Err, shouldn’t that be my question?’
‘I followed you.’
‘Yeah, I guessed that part,’ he says wryly. ‘Just not the part about why.’
‘I saw someone lurking behind the motel, so I wanted to check it out.’
‘Lurking?’ His voice travels out over the water. ‘I was walking from my house to the reservoir trail. No lurking about it, if you don’t mind.’
‘So it was you I saw walking out here on Friday night as well?’
‘I thought you might have seen me. Your bedroom light was on as I was coming down the hill from my place. You appeared at the window and I hesitated. Then the light blinked off so I kept going.’
‘I followed you that night too.’
Raf laughs. ‘Seriously?’
‘I wanted to know who it was,’ I say. ‘But I stopped at the beginning of the walking track because I got spooked.’
‘It can feel a bit creepy out here sometimes. All that fades into the background once I get started, though.’
‘Night photography?’ I ask, glancing at his equipment again.
‘Night sky photography, specifically.’
‘So you really do have a new hobby,’ I say. ‘I thought that was just an elaborate ploy to get me alone at the bush hut.’
Raf guffaws, a bit too loudly. ‘There was no way I was bringing my camera gear out in that storm. And anyway, after I got there we sort of talked about … other things.’
My cheeks grow warm. Thank god it’s dark.
The truth is, we did talk. For hours. Raf had brought pizza leftovers and a couple of beers he’d snuck out of his mums’ bar fridge in the garage. We sat cross-legged on the threadbare rug in the bush hut and talked abou
t school and Netflix and what kind of dessert pizzas we could invent if Sally and Liv gave us half the chance. It’s amazing how much you can babble on about while you’re nervously anticipating a kiss that may or may not happen.
‘So you come out here a lot?’ I ask.
‘I have to make the most of the new moon phase because that’s when the sky is the darkest. But look, it’s already waxing crescent.’ He points out the sliver of moon suspended over the reservoir like a white banana, its twin rippling below it on the surface of the water.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s halfway between a new moon – when the moon is invisible – to the first quarter, when about half the moon is visible. Once it gets that bright the conditions aren’t as good for star photography.’
‘So the moon is a problem?’
‘Only if I want to photograph stars. It’s the hero when I want to take photos of moon craters.’
‘You can do that?’
‘I’m still learning’, he says. ‘This time next week the moon will be waxing gibbous, which is my favourite phase. You can see most of the moon except for a segment in shadow. Like the opposite of tonight.’ I’ve never seen him so animated about a topic. ‘And you get this curved edge that feathers off into darkness, throwing all the craters into relief. The detail can be incredible if you know how to photograph it successfully … which I don’t. But I’ll be out here trying to figure it out.’
I take a closer look at his set-up, his DSLR and tripod. ‘I should have guessed you’d be into something like this with all those sci-fi novels and movies you’re obsessed with.’
‘What can I say? I’m an astronomical nerd.’
‘You got that right,’ I say, and we both snigger.
‘Come back next week, if you like,’ he says. His voice is quieter, almost coy. ‘I mean, you’ll probably be out here stalking me anyway since you seem to love it so much.’
‘Har har.’ I whack him lightly on the arm. ‘I guess I’m a sucker for astronomical nerds.’
Silence falls between us. Raf scrapes his shoe awkwardly against the rock.
Deep Water Page 12