Call Me Evie, page 23
I reach back and stroke Beau’s side. He doesn’t move.
“It can’t have been more than an hour since he ate it. It says online if he shows symptoms within the first couple of hours—well, it doesn’t look good. You can’t even look after a bloody dog. The poor thing.”
“Where are we going?” I ask as we start up the hill toward our place.
“You’re going home. I just can’t trust you enough to take you anywhere.”
“Home? We don’t have time.”
“You haven’t left me any choice. I found a vet not far out of town. She said to bring Beau immediately. This could be our last night together and you just have to go fuck it up.”
Another sharp turn into our driveway. I’m thrown against the seat belt when he yanks on the hand brake.
“Our last night? What do you mean?”
He ignores me. “Come on, quick.”
I reach back and pet Beau once more, stroking his head before I get out of the car and head to the house. Jim follows.
“Move, Kate. In your room.” He stalks behind me down the hall.
“Go—you don’t have time,” I say.
He slams the door behind me and walks away. A drawer opens, slams closed, then I hear him coming back up the hall. Beau is dying in the car—what is he doing?
I hear the drill. The lock is going back on. Over the sound he calls, “We’re leaving here tomorrow.”
“What did you do? You killed him, didn’t you?”
“What do you remember, Kate? What was I holding?”
A brick. He was holding a red brick. I’m sobbing. “I just wanted to see the news. I just wanted to read about what happened.”
“I could have shown you,” he says. “If you really wanted to see it. Just stay in there and think about what you’ve done to the dog.”
“No,” I say. “No, I—I closed the cupboard, I know I did.”
It’s happening again; I’m weak with it. Grief makes us feeble. The longing to have the warm dog there in my arms. It comes on like waves in the sea, rocking me. The front door closes. The car revs and he is gone.
I do not feel Beau’s hot breath against my leg, I do not see his wet pleading eyes staring up at me. I do not hear his paws scratching on the wooden floor. The bedcovers waft stale air as I collapse on them, drained of energy, the familiar anxiety foaming inside.
Why is he always in the shed? Why was he not inside? Is this another game of his? The stories were there: the Sydney Morning Herald, the Herald Sun, the Huffington Post. There is nothing for me in Melbourne but the opportunity to clear my name. What will I tell the police? Will they investigate Jim if I tell them what I remember: Jim holding the brick? He was holding the brick.
I have my flight to Melbourne booked. Maybe when I get to the airport I can choose to fly somewhere else. If Jim has convinced all of Australia that I’m a killer, and if I am going to be locked away, maybe I really can go to Europe, or South America. I just need my passport. For that, I have to get into the shed.
I rise, go to the window, and look down into the yard. The sun is setting, making long shadows up the back lawn. I press the window open, feeling the crisp cool on my skin.
The ladder is still there.
After glancing up to check that the branch is still obscuring the camera’s view of the yard, I climb down to the ground. I find the ax beneath the stairs near the woodpile and stride across the lawn to the shed. Without aiming, or considering what I’m doing, I swing the ax as hard as I can. The blade crashes into the steel door. The birds in a nearby tree take flight. I swing again, this time striking above the door handle. A snapping sound. One more strike and it swings open. I step through into the darkness. Something touches my face. I swat at it. It swings back. It’s a cord. I snatch it, pull down, and a single bulb lights up the shed.
A filing cabinet, an old cupboard, a desk with sheets of paper, pens. Then I see something else. Long, sleek barrel and wooden stock. The door swings on the breeze, whining like something dying. The rifle stands at the rear of the cupboard. I creep toward it and reach out, touching the cool steel of the barrel. Above me the light swings, oscillating all the shadows. For one term at school we had lessons at the rifle club every Tuesday afternoon. At first we were only allowed to handle fake plastic guns, practicing safety procedures and how to aim before they let us touch the real thing. This gun looks different. I lift it and pull the bolt back. It’s empty. At least he doesn’t keep it loaded. I find a box of ammo and take it outside with the gun beneath my arm; I must hide it from him, there’s only one reason he has this gun. I hold it over the neighbor’s fence. Dropping it, I hear the crack of twigs snapping. It doesn’t hit the ground; it must be caught in the bush. Next I drop the ammo.
My heart thuds as I return to the shed. I try the filing cabinet but it doesn’t open. There’s an empty key slot at the top. I pick up the ax again; I can’t stop now. The blade crashes into the lock. The corner folds about the wedge of steel, but the drawer won’t open. I hit it again, harder, the sound making me flinch. The top drawer rolls open.
Inside, there’s a broken wine bottle and the tannic whiff of wine hits me. I find other bottles of alcohol. The drawer below won’t budge; I twist the ax head into it and jerk it back until it comes unstuck. Papers, lots of them. I pull them out and hold them beneath the light. Sheets and sheets of articles are bloodstained with red wine. I scan them quickly. Fractured skull . . . found on the road . . . There are photographs. I recall that night, taking the car keys, setting out. Some photos show yellow tabs like morbid Post-it notes all over the road and the footpath. More photos of me . . . more stills from the video, the same as the one I found in the letterbox. It wasn’t Iso’s friend Mick who put it there; it was Jim. He left one in the letterbox and kept these others for future use. He did it to frighten me. Or is it possible these are others left by the same person and Jim was collecting them, hiding them from me? Is it possible someone else has known all along?
Then I find the envelopes. My letters. The letters he handed to Tiriana. She was in on it too. This entire town has conspired against me.
Blood pulses in my chest and everything—my breathing, the sliding clatter of the drawer, the whine as the shed door moves in the wind—is too loud.
I open the doors of the cupboard and feel around on the top shelf. My hand touches something small and hard: a wallet. I pull it out. Not a wallet—a passport. I open the first page. My face looks out. My passport. It’s happening. It’s coming together. I jam the passport into the pocket of my jeans and keep looking.
On the next shelf down I find a pile of magazines, a dozen of the same issue. And pages, the missing pages from my magazine, are here: the pages he cut out. I see my face; I see Thom’s face. I look happier, my face rounded and my hair long. It barely looks like me at all. He must have bought every copy so I wouldn’t see it. It’s a story about the sex tape. Maybe Jim bought them all so no one else in this town would find the article.
On the bottom shelf I find all the sharp objects he took from the house: the scissors, the knives, his razor blades.
The door creaks. The light in the room changes.
“What are you doing?”
My heart stops. I don’t turn around. I can’t move at all. The ax is beside the door. I cringe, bracing for the blow. I can feel myself fading; the scene before me blurs. I close my eyes and breathe. No flee, no fight, just resignation.
BEFORE
Thirty-three
You’re a tough old boot, aren’t you?” Thom asked me. In his sly, laughing way he had spoken of this meeting at our local café as if it were a date. He reached across the table, the one I had chosen in the far corner near the window, and clasped my hand. I resisted the urge to pull it away. He had had a week to apologize but he still hadn’t, even though my concussion and these stitches in my head were caused by his jealousy. I had been obsessively combing my hair down over the bald patch to hide it from Dad. I lived with the consequences while he was the one who had started the argument that led to the fight. He had abandoned me, yet here he was joking about it.
“My head’s still very sore, Thom,” I said. I chewed my thumbnail and watched the people passing by the window.
“So what happened afterward? I was really worried when you didn’t answer your phone.”
I turned my gaze to him. “Willow looked after me. I slept on her couch.” Willow’s dad had sat close to me, his long, lean arms around me, his breath on my collarbone. I knew he wanted me. I craved the feeling it gave me. The sense of power.
“Willow? So you’re friends again.” He sounded annoyed.
I pulled my hand away from his. Anger came over me quick. “She looked after me. And it doesn’t matter if we’re friends. The fact is, she was there and you weren’t.” My voice was rising. “And where were you, Thom? Where did you go when I was bleeding and concussed?” I tried to calm myself but something had changed between us. This wasn’t the Thom I had dreamed about, the Thom I thought I knew.
His face dropped. “I didn’t see. It all happened so quickly.”
“But you started it. It was your fault. Can you not see that? You got so jealous and if you had kept your head we could have just walked away.”
“You were the one flirting with them.”
I bit down, clenching my teeth to keep from screaming. Only my lips moved when I spoke again. “So what if I was? Would that justify what you did? Would this inch-long cut to my head be justified then?” The café was almost empty but the only other diners, a family at another table, had fallen completely silent now.
“I wasn’t the one that hurt you, Kate. We can still get them. We should go to the police.”
“No,” I said. “Definitely not. I can’t risk Dad finding out. I wasn’t supposed to be there.” I glanced over my shoulder as more people entered the café. “So you’ve got nothing to say? You’re not going to apologize?”
“Okay. I’m sorry that you got hurt, but you’ve got to accept some responsibility too.”
What would he say if the tables were turned and I’d left him bloody and barely conscious?
“That’s a bullshit apology, Thom. You can’t even say sorry.”
“Those guys are the ones who should be apologizing,” he said. “People like that get away with too much.”
“Just fucking say you’re sorry. Not you’re sorry I got hurt, but you’re sorry for being such an arsehole.”
I could feel tears coming.
“Hey,” he said, reaching for my hand again, but I pulled it back into my sleeve. The barista was watching us over the coffee machine. “Don’t cry, please, Kate. I fucked up, okay. I’m sorry for being an arsehole that night. Just please, we’re making a scene.”
I glanced at the barista and mouthed, “Sorry.” But for what? Sorry for crying? Sorry for being angry? It was Thom’s fault. Boys are so skilled at drawing apologies when they’re the ones who owe them.
“It’s okay. We’re going to be okay,” he said.
But I didn’t feel okay. Something had shifted between us and I wasn’t sure it would right itself again. I didn’t kiss him when he walked me home.
Up in my room, I took out my phone and went to the recently dialed list. I knew which number was his; he had called his own phone from mine to find it at 2:39 a.m. on the night of the party, the night I had fallen asleep in his arms and woken in Willow’s bed.
* * *
• • •
I was out in the yard lying beneath the eucalyptus. A magpie cawed from up on the eaves of the house. I pointed at it, making a gun with my fingers. “Pow.” The bird continued undeterred. The sun warmed my ankles where the shade didn’t quite reach. I peered past my phone up at the branches cutting pieces from the sky.
There was something about communicating in the digital realm that didn’t feel real, I thought as I scrolled through my messages. It was like there was another world where my messages existed but they were sent by someone else. In that space, I was someone who was always happy and uninhibited.
Kate, do you think it’s a good idea that you message me?
I don’t think there is anything wrong with two people sending text messages.
It could reflect badly on us both.
I think it’s okay. No one has to know. I like it. I like you.
I took a photo of my face, angled in such a way that you could see my collarbone and the skin on my chest. I looked pretty in the photo, lips slightly pursed, dark hair fanned out on the grass, eyes narrowed a little against the light. I held my breath and hit send.
* * *
• • •
I hadn’t seen Willow since the night a week ago when she had tried to reconcile our friendship, but I said yes when she invited me over. And if it was someone else in her house I really wanted to see, well, she didn’t need to know. I deliberately wore my sheer black top that Thom hated—he said it was “attention seeking”—and my tightest black jeans. I knew I was overdressed for the casual shopping trip we had planned, but I wanted to look nice for him.
Willow was up in her room getting dressed, so it was her mum who let me in. I went into the lounge to wait. Sitting on the couch, I was conscious of my heartbeat, the fluttering in my stomach. There was no sign of Willow’s dad, though I had seen his car parked in the driveway. After a while, I walked through his study as if on my way to the bathroom. Does he know I’m in his house?
Footsteps. I turned to see him coming into the room. “Hello, Kate.” His voice rolled over me, honeyed and warm.
“Hello,” I said, my voice barely audible. I dragged a finger over his desk. He stood close by. I turned to him, my heart thumping in my chest. I wet my lips.
He glanced back toward the hall once. When he spoke it was so soft, I found myself stepping closer to hear him. “I’ve been thinking about you.” So frank, so direct. None of the irony I had come to expect from Thom. A blush scorched my cheeks.
“I know the feeling.”
I stepped so close that he would have to touch me to get past.
“You have the most beautiful hair,” he said. “Did you ever think about cutting it?”
“I like it long.”
“I think you could pull off a bob.”
I could hear the footsteps on the stairs.
“That’s probably Willow,” he said without urgency. “It would be best if she didn’t find you in my study.” Did he realize I could barely breathe? Would it be the end of the world if Willow found us? I walked away, deliberately pausing at the door and looking back. His eyes traveled my body. Good.
That night I got a message. You looked stunning today, Kate.
Thirty-four
We arranged to meet for coffee. If we were caught, it could be explained away. We might have both been at the same café, coincidentally, and bumped into each other.
He was there before me, one ankle on the opposite knee, looking down at an open newspaper. I scrunched my hair with my fingers, caught a look at myself in the reflection of the window, then entered. The café was busy.
“Kate, hello,” he said, rising. He kissed my cheek, and suddenly I realized this was real. No one’s parents had greeted me like that before, like a peer. “Grab a seat.”
I ordered a latte. He already had a black coffee half drunk in front of him; how long had he been waiting? I reached for the sunglasses sitting beside his keys.
“Are these yours?” I said, pushing them on. I had to hold them to my face to keep them from falling off. “How do I look?”
He smiled. “Sophisticated.” He closed the paper and folded it on the table. “Are we eating?”
I shrugged. “I’m not so hungry.”
“Let’s get something small,” he said.
When my coffee came, I loaded it up with sugar and quickly stirred it through while he spoke to the waiter. He ordered a slice of carrot cake.
“So how’s school going?”
“School? It’s okay. It’s just . . . school—kind of boring.”
“And what about next year, what are you planning to do?”
“I want to study architecture at uni.”
His dark eyebrows rose. “Architecture. My brother is an architect. I could put you in contact if you wanted. You know, to find out what it’s like. Hard work, but I’m sure it’s a rewarding career.” Dad had never really spoken to me about my dreams and ambitions, and the offer, to meet his brother, a real architect, was not one Willow would ever have made.
“That would be great. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. And if you’re looking for work while you’re at uni, I’m sure I could talk him into taking you on, even if it’s just answering phones. It would be good experience and you’d see how an architect’s practice worked.” The carrot cake came out with two small forks. He took one, trimmed off the tip of the cake, and ate it.
“That would be cool, if you could introduce me.” I sipped my coffee. It still wasn’t sweet enough but if I added any more sugar I would look like a child.
He leaned forward, and a curl of dark hair fell down his forehead. “So what’s happening with the Thom situation, Kate?”
I took his fork and sliced off a small piece of the cake, bringing it to my mouth. “Thom?”
He smiled. “You were having some issues.”
“Right. Well, we still are, I suppose.”
He took another slice of cake from the same fork. “So where are you going to go with it?”
“I’m thinking about ending things.” As I said it, I knew it was true. I was still angry with Thom. That night at his house had been so special but something had changed. I needed a break at the very least, although I couldn’t imagine things ever going back to how they were.
