Where was his money?
How could he get it back?
Had she already gambled it?
How could he undo this?
How could he rewind?
How, how, how?
She was here, in the kitchen, staring at that goddamn glass cabinet like it was any old Thursday night. Like she hadn’t just kicked the bottom out of his world.
He walked out of his bedroom and into the kitchen, barely registering Henry peering out from behind his bedroom door.
‘Where’s my money?’ Mason demanded, leaning over the table.
Ivy looked him up and down, slow to react. ‘What money?’ She picked up a coffee mug filled with something resembling water. The empty vodka bottle shoved to one side told the real story.
‘You know what money. My money,’ he said, thumping a closed fist against his chest. ‘The savings from my job.’
She snorted in a dismissive way and took a drag of her cigarette. ‘You been hiding money? Knowing how hard we have it around here?’
The vodka had taken the edge off her words but the curl in her lip showed the cruelty lurking beneath. Mean was her default setting. Mean and drunk was usually Mason’s cue to make himself scarce.
This time he couldn’t.
Not without his money.
‘You have no right,’ he said.
‘If you bring money into this house, I have every bloody right to it.’ She slammed the coffee mug down so hard vodka sloshed up the sides. ‘After everything I’ve done for you. You owe me.’
‘I owe you nothing. Nothing. Not anymore,’ he said. ‘This isn’t even about that.’
‘It’s always about that,’ she spat back, standing so quickly the chair banged into the wall. ‘I protected you. I am your mother.’
Mason clenched his fists by his sides, fingernails digging painfully into his palms. His throat ached with the effort of containing the roar inside his chest.
‘A mother doesn’t steal from her children!’ he said. ‘A mother doesn’t gamble away the grocery money and leave her kids to fend for themselves. A mother doesn’t get so wasted she needs her child to scrape her drunk arse off the floor and hose her down. You are not a mother. You are a burden!’
Once the words were purged Mason thought he might feel better, but saying them aloud only filled him with self-loathing. After everything, he couldn’t even manage to get away from her successfully. He was too weak and useless to even do that right.
She flicked her cigarette onto the floor and reached for the empty vodka bottle.
‘Don’t!’ Mason cried. ‘If you throw that I will not hold back—’
It was already spinning through the air. He wasn’t fast enough to dodge it. The base of the bottle bludgeoned him across his lower jaw. Mason heard the meaty smack of glass against his skin, the dull thud against bone inside his head. The bottle bounced off his shoulder and clattered to the floor. It didn’t break, instead rolling across the kitchen tiles and coming to rest out in the hall.
Pain now. A throbbing ache and blistering sting. It brought tears to his eyes he couldn’t be certain weren’t already there.
‘How dare you,’ his mother said. ‘Turn eighteen and all of a sudden you think you rule the roost around here?’
He almost couldn’t hear her over the ringing in his left ear. Everything was muffled as white dots crept into his vision. It wasn’t the injury; it was rage. It was coming. He felt it rumbling up from deep inside his core.
He jerked around and strode across the kitchen, wrenching the broom out from beside the fridge. His limbs trembled with an intensity he couldn’t control, his mind floating somewhere outside his body. He proceeded towards his mother and she backed against the wall, the dining table between them.
‘You hit me with that,’ she said, ‘and it’s all over for you. I’ll have you arrested. I’ll tell them to lock you up and throw away the key!’
Mason swung at the table and struck the coffee mug like a baseball. It shattered in midair, shards of porcelain flying off in all directions, a splash of vodka flicking across the wall.
‘I’ll tell them what you did! They’ll think you’re one of those sociopaths. You tried to drown your baby brother and now you want to do me in as well!’
Mason raised the broom handle high over his shoulder like a baseball bat.
‘You’re just like him,’ she screeched, cowering.
‘I am nothing like him!’ Mason cried. ‘And I am nothing like you.’
He watched her flinch as he swung the broom forwards in a large sweeping arc. It connected with the plate cabinet, dead centre, destroying one of its doors in a sparkling shower of glass. He brought the broom up and around again, taking out the other door and shattering one of the side walls as well. Plates jumped and toppled from their stands, making satisfying cracking noises as they hit the tile floor.
He smashed again. And again. He kept swinging until his arms ached, and even then he kept going. He tossed the broom aside and pulled the plates out one by one, flicking his wrist to propel them at the ground. He smashed the remaining few underfoot, crushing them up like cookies, the crack of each one beneath his work boots like an exclamation mark punctuating what he’d done.
When he’d finished, Mason looked around with a mixture of euphoria and horror. His chest heaved with shuddering breaths and he sagged as his full weight returned to his body. He felt changed, somehow more free and yet more trapped all at once.
Behind him he heard Henry’s bedroom door click shut, then something heavy being dragged across the room. A bump against the back of the door told Mason he had braced it with the bed.
To keep Mason out.
That was when he knew Henry had told her where to find the money.
Henry said he would stop Mason from leaving. With one petty whisper to their mother, Henry had destroyed it all. Mason would never forgive him.
Outside, thunder rumbled across the sky. The windows shook and the walls trembled as Mason advanced on Henry’s bedroom door.
Now
‘Hey, hey,’ Sabeen says as we slip through the ribbon curtain into The Shallows Pizzeria just as it’s getting dark. The greeting is a bit more subdued than her usual enthusiasm. She manages to offer a smile, though. We’ve agreed not to bring up the whole Bernie-polaroids thing in front of Tom until we understand more about it. I made a similar pact with Raf regarding what we discovered at the bush hut.
‘Let’s get through dinner,’ Raf suggested, ‘and then we’ll figure out what to do next.’
I agreed, but now I’m feeling on edge, like I’m bursting at the seams.
Tom and Rina are here, sitting up at the counter and chatting to Sally while she’s rolling out pizza dough. I suspect Rina hasn’t mentioned anything to Tom about the catfishing because he hasn’t contacted me. Although there’s a slight stiffness in his demeanour that suggests I could be wrong.
Liv comes out from behind the counter to give Raf a hug and to flip the Closed sign around on the door.
‘Once Mason’s here we’ll lock it,’ she says. ‘After today’s effort we want an early night.’
Raf glances my way at the mention of Mason. Sabeen really did invite everybody tonight, trying to repeat the reunion dinner that didn’t quite eventuate last week. Either Rina didn’t say anything to Sabeen about seeing Mason on the night of the storm, or Sabeen’s reserving judgement until she hears it from Mason directly. Like her brother, Sabeen is loyal. Not even Rina and Mason’s break-up would prompt her to exclude either one of them from a group dinner.
Henry’s burnt baseball cap feels like a lead weight in my backpack. Raf and I agreed we shouldn’t mention it to anyone until we’ve shown it to Sergeant Doherty. I’m worried Doherty will merely add it to Henry’s file and do nothing about it, but short of waving it around and seeing who looks guilty, I’m not sure what else I can do at this point.
I help Sabeen carry plates and napkins to a booth by the window, then slide in opposite Raf,
placing my backpack between our feet. Rina joins us, choosing to sit beside Raf instead of me. Good cop, I think wryly. I’d rather sit next to Raf too.
‘What happened to your hand?’ Rina asks. I notice black ash has crept into the creases of my skin and under my fingernails.
‘Oh. Um …’
‘We’ve just come from a bushwalk,’ Raf says, and doesn’t elaborate. It seems to be enough for Rina, who is already staring out the window. Mason’s car has pulled up outside.
‘I’ll go and wash my hands,’ I say quietly to Raf. He gives me a whisper of a nod and I touch his leg with mine under the table before climbing out of the booth. As an afterthought, I grab my backpack too, in case there’s any ash on that I need to wipe off.
I head for the back of the restaurant, to the bathroom outside in the courtyard. As I lather up my hands, scrubbing at the dark dust around my knuckles, I feel a sudden wave of sadness as my initial shock at finding Henry’s hat wears off. There’s a certain callousness in burning someone’s personal belongings. Why would anyone do it, other than to cause hurt or to hide something?
Turning off the tap, I lean against the sink and take a moment to compose myself. I’m about to reach for some paper towel when voices float in from the courtyard. I wipe my hands against my jeans and move closer to the door.
‘So you’re just gonna walk right past me and not acknowledge me again?’
Mason? It certainly sounds like him.
‘I have to use the bathroom.’
Tom’s voice. Definitely Tom.
‘Yeah, okay,’ Mason says dryly. ‘So this is how it’s gonna be. I only bothered turning up tonight because it’s the only way I can get you in the same room.’
‘What do you want me to say?’ Tom hisses. ‘You’ve put me in a really awkward position.’
‘So I’m dead to you now?’ Mason says. ‘Because of what I did?’
I bring a hand to my mouth and press my lips closed. What did Mason do?
There’s a scrape of footsteps pacing the courtyard. Somebody releases a heavy sigh.
‘Believe me, I wish I could undo it,’ Mason says, his voice thick with emotion. ‘Now everything’s messed up.’
Another shuffle of feet, an uncomfortable silence until finally Tom says, ‘What’s done is done. You can’t put it back in the box.’
Mason makes a scoffing sound. ‘Great,’ he says. ‘That’s perfect. Fourteen years of friendship down the toilet.’
‘You’re the one who changed everything!’ Tom says in a vicious whisper. ‘You’re the one who messed it up. Jesus, why is everything always about you?’
‘Are you for real?’ Mason’s voice cracks. ‘Nothing is ever about me.’
My head is pounding as I try to understand what they’re talking about. I press myself against the bathroom wall and wait out a long silence.
‘It’s best if we don’t hang out for a while,’ Tom says at last, sounding calmer now, more like himself. ‘Things will get easier with time.’ It sounds like he’s trying to convince himself as much as Mason.
‘Fine,’ Mason says. ‘It’s done then. You’ve helped me make up my mind.’
‘About what?’ Tom says, alarm creeping into his voice. I hear footsteps walking away, across the courtyard.
‘About what?’ Tom says again. He swears under his breath. The door to the men’s bathroom squeaks open and slams shut. Tom swears loudly again through the wall.
What is going on?
I take the opportunity to sneak out of the bathroom and across the courtyard, pausing by the back door of the restaurant for a deep breath before going inside. Sally has dragged a square table alongside our window booth to accommodate all six of us, and I realise this will be the most uncomfortable dinner of my life, not counting the one where I asked my mother why she skipped book club to drive over to Sergeant Doherty’s house.
Mason is now sitting opposite Raf at the window. His blond hair is unkempt, his neck red and blotchy. He looks completely worn out, like he hasn’t slept in days. Rina is diagonally across from him with her arms folded, staring pointedly at the ceiling. I wait till Sabeen returns to the booth so she can slide in beside Mason, then I take a seat at the square table. Tom soon returns from the bathroom and joins me, giving me a big smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
‘Now that we’re all here,’ I say, raising my glass, ‘I’d like to wish Henry, wherever he is, a happy fourteenth birthday for a couple of days ago.’
‘Cheers,’ say Sabeen and Rina, clinking my glass.
Mason keeps his attention on the window. Raf stares around the table during the awkward silence that follows, picking up the basket of garlic bread and offering it to us one by one.
‘Any news, Mason?’ I say, because it seems weird if no one asks. ‘Sergeant Doherty have anything new to report?’
Raf throws me a desperate look. Don’t go there, he says with his eyes.
Too late.
Mason sits up and clears his throat. Rina glances at him for the first time all evening.
‘No,’ he says to nobody in particular. ‘But if there is, Chloe, I’ll make sure you’re the first to know.’
He doesn’t say it in a sarcastic way. He doesn’t really need to. Friction ripples across the table and falls squarely in my lap. I’m not sure how to respond, and Raf ’s face is begging me not to. Before I have a chance to say anything, Tom leans in.
‘You don’t need to be rude,’ he says to Mason.
Mason turns to Tom, his jaw clenched. ‘Lucky you’re here to defend her then, eh Tommy?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Tom says, nudging his glasses.
‘You do realise you’re in the friend zone, right?’ Mason says. ‘She’s got it bad for Raf.’
Raf ’s eyes go wide, huge and hazel, blinking back at me in surprise. I feel every inch of my skin glowing. Mason isn’t wrong, and Raf and I both know it, but to hear it announced so casually over dinner, as though we’re not here, is excruciating.
‘You’re way off,’ Tom says. ‘Did you have a few in the car on the way over?’ He wiggles his hand like he’s holding an invisible bottle.
Mason recoils as though he’s been slapped. He swallows hard and stares down at the table, his lips pressed together.
‘Speaking of my doofus brother,’ Sabeen says, attempting to change the subject. ‘Are you heading out to photograph your waxy gibbon moon tonight?’
Raf forces a laugh, trying to run with it. ‘Waxing gibbous. And no, not tonight. It’s been a big day.’ His gaze meets mine. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’
‘What did you do today?’ Sabeen asks.
‘Bushwalk,’ Raf and I say together. Everybody looks up at once. It sounds like a cover story and yet it’s actually true.
Mason smirks at Tom, as though we’ve confirmed what he suggested.
‘See what I’m saying?’ Mason mutters. ‘No chance, Tommy.’
‘Why don’t you have another drink, mate,’ Tom shoots back.
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.’ Sabeen moves her hands in a timeout gesture. ‘Guys!’
‘We need some pizzas over here, stat,’ Raf calls to his mums. ‘Everybody’s a little hangry.’
Rina watches all of this without saying anything. She seems to linger on Mason’s words, every now and then sliding a glance at Tom. When I think everything might settle down again, she says, ‘Where did you go that night, Mason? When you said you were at home?’
Silence falls over the table. Sally and Liv chatter on in the kitchen, oblivious, the radio humming an Ed Sheeran song.
‘What?’ Mason splutters. ‘What night?’
‘The night Henry went missing.’
I can sense Raf staring at me but I keep my full attention on Mason. Please, nobody interrupt.
Mason’s eyes find Rina’s. His face is impassive, all sharp lines and shadows. He stares at her like he’s weighing up what to say next.
Don’t lie. Don’t look her in the face and lie. Even in the dim lighting
of the pizzeria, I can see the colour flooding across his cheekbones and around the curve of his ears.
‘I was at home,’ Mason says. ‘How many times are you going to ask me that?’
Rina glowers at him, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘As many as it takes until you tell me the truth.’
‘You want the truth?’ he says. ‘We stayed together way longer than we should have, Rina. I was never with anyone else. I just didn’t want to be with you.’
‘Mason,’ Sabeen gasps. Rina looks down at her hands.
‘Hey,’ Raf says. ‘Come on, mate …’
‘She keeps accusing me of cheating on her,’ Mason says. ‘If she wants the truth, there it is.’
‘Really?’ Tom pipes up.
Mason slides him a wary glance. ‘You calling me a liar too?’
I lean forwards in my seat. ‘So you weren’t driving your car out in that storm?’
‘For god’s sake, no!’ Mason cries. He picks up his fork, tapping it like a microphone. ‘Is this thing on?’
‘Mason?’ Liv calls from the kitchen. ‘You okay, love?’
My backpack is already in my lap, my fingers on the zipper. Raf looks from my hands to my face and back again. He shakes his head quickly: No, no, no.
‘You should probably leave,’ Tom says, rubbing a hand across his chest and wincing.
Mason scowls at him. ‘Should I, Tommy? Would that suit you?’
‘Is everything okay?’ Liv says, from behind the counter.
‘We’re cool, Min. We’re cool,’ Raf assures her, one hand on Mason’s forearm, his attention still on me.
The zipper is open. My hand is inside the backpack. Rina mumbles something under her breath and puts her head in her hands. Sally clangs pizza trays out of the oven and Sabeen jerks her head towards the sound.
Raf ’s eyes beg me not to do it. I can tell he doesn’t want this to escalate. But it might be the only way Mason will drop his guard and admit to knowing more than he’s letting on.
I toss the green hat into the middle of the table.
‘Know anything about this?’ I ask Mason.
It takes him a split second to register what he’s seeing. The green fabric is charred and puckered with holes, some edges completely burned away. The embroidered number seven is untouched though, clear as day.
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