The Washup, page 12
‘I’ve got to go.’ Eve went to run but Sandra grabbed her wrist.
‘Where?’
‘Let me go.’ She twisted but Sandra held on. ‘Look over there.’ She was whining now. ‘That guy there? That’s Murray. I’ve got to talk to him.’
‘Are you going to shout at him?’
‘No,’ Eve lied. ‘Let me go.’
Sandra tightened her grip. ‘You don’t want to do this now, Evie.’ She lowered her voice. ‘You know what Donna’s like. She’s got the biggest mouth in the world. You start chasing people through carparks and you’ll never live it down. Come on, I’m taking you home.’
‘No.’ Eve looked up, but Murray was gone. He wasn’t in the bus line. He wasn’t inside the terminal or heading across the carpark to the IGA. He hadn’t gone next door into Peppers, the restaurant overlooking the marina. ‘Fuck, Sandra.’ Eve felt the blood surge in her veins. She was angry. ‘I needed to talk to him.’
‘You’ll have to do it later.’ Sandra led her to one of the hire cars.
The drive to Eve’s house was less than five minutes and she spent it hanging out the window. ‘Why would he be on the island?’
‘Maybe his mum lives here?’
‘No way. If his mum lived here, I’d know about it.’
‘Well, then, I don’t know.’ Sandra pulled into Eve’s street. ‘Maybe he’s gone to the pub?’
‘What?’ Eve pulled her head back into the car and glared at her friend. ‘The pub? His business kills two people two days ago and you’re telling me he’s probably at the pub?’
‘Alright.’ Sandra turned the car into Eve’s driveway. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why he would be over here.’
‘The pub.’ Eve was still mad as she climbed the steps into her house. She stepped onto the verandah and found the screen door open. Peanut was on the kitchen bench beside a Tupperware container full of what looked to be cake. The fur around her mouth was matted and sticky.
‘That looks like love cake,’ Sandra said from the doorway.
‘Go away.’ Eve stormed over and slapped the bench. Peanut didn’t move and Eve saw red. ‘I said go away.’ She swung at the animal. She wanted to scare her but instead brought her hand down on Peanut’s rump. The possum went airborne off the bench, landed heavily on the floor and dashed out the door into the garden.
‘Whoa.’ Sandra watched the ferns tremble with Peanut’s escape.
‘Shit.’ Eve put her hands to her head. ‘Normally she moves. I didn’t think I’d hit her. I didn’t want to hurt her.’ She sat down on a stool. ‘I just …’ She couldn’t get the words out. Matt’s face flashed into her mind, mean and sneering. And Murray, giving his interview to the cameras, pretending to care that her sister and her friend were dead. And Shane – the memory of him touching his face in the mirror, telling her a bite mark was no big deal. She closed her eyes and saw Shane turn from the mirror and look at her. His eyes grew large. Fine hairs sprouted from his face and cake appeared around his mouth. ‘Gah.’ Eve opened her eyes. She tipped her head back and roared at the ceiling.
‘It’s okay.’ Sandra walked over and put a hand on Eve’s shoulder. ‘Possums have short memories. And I’m the last person who’s going to judge you. I hate them.’ She picked up the container. ‘This is definitely love cake. I thought Louise only made this at Christmas.’ Pieces of it were scattered on the bench and Sandra scraped a pile into her hand. ‘Look, it’s full of cashews. It’s a Sri Lankan cake and Louise reckons this recipe has been in her family for five generations.’ She dumped the crumbs in the sink and picked up a square of cake from the container, looked at it from several angles. ‘Do you think it matters that this one has a bite mark?’ When Eve didn’t respond she crammed it into her mouth. ‘I think I’d eat this even if it fell in the toilet. But how did Peanut get in, did Louise leave the door open?’
Eve was only half listening. She had her elbows on the bench, staring at its fake stone pattern and thinking about Murray. ‘Louise didn’t leave it open. Peanut knows how to open that door.’
‘What?’
Why is he here? she thought. ‘She probably let in a whole family of snakes.’
Sandra looked at the floor with concern, but not enough to stop her chewing. ‘Maybe you should start locking your door, then. Hopefully Peanut hasn’t learned how to use keys yet.’
Eve remained lost in thought.
‘Eve?’
‘What?’ She raised her head.
‘I said hopefully Peanut hasn’t learned how to use keys?’
‘Oh, I don’t know where my keys are.’
‘Right.’ Sandra sat down on a stool. ‘You’re not hearing anything I’m saying. If Murray’s really bothering you that much, we can get back in the car and go look for him.’
A pause while Eve set her eyes on the golden cane outside the kitchen window. She drummed her fingers on the bench. ‘I think Matt killed Tilly and Jack,’ she said, and Sandra put down her second piece of love cake.
‘What?’
‘Yeah.’ Eve stood up. ‘He lied about who made the switch from Aiden to Jack, he was cagey with the cops, and now Aiden’s nowhere to be found. He’s afraid of Matt. Has to be. He’s gone into hiding.’
‘That’s pretty hectic,’ Sandra said. ‘Sounds like something out of a movie. And what, you think it’s because of what Maureen said about Jack and Tilly having a thing?’
‘Yeah. You should have seen Tilly at Cactus Jack’s on Friday night. She was like a whole other person. It was all Matt. Had to be. He got in her head.’ Her phone rang in her bag. ‘I swear to God,’ she said and reached down to grab it. ‘I’m going to put that thing on flight mode.’ Then she looked at the screen and her hand began to shake. ‘Fuck, it’s him.’
Sandra gasped. ‘No way.’ She watched it ring in Eve’s hand. ‘You going to answer it?’
‘And say what? “I know it was you”? He’s been leaving these voicemails about wanting to help with Tilly’s funeral but he’s full of shit. He’s a control freak and he’s trying to play some kind of twisted game.’
Sandra was off the stool and pacing. ‘It just seems so extreme that he would murder two people out of jealousy.’
‘So, he’s a monster.’ The phone was still ringing. ‘Monsters are everywhere, and they almost never make sense.’ The phone went silent. Eve balled up her fists and let out a frustrated grunt. ‘I know he did it. The cops are wrong.’
‘Wait.’ Sandra stopped walking. ‘What do you mean the cops are wrong? Have you spoken to them?’
The image of Shane’s bruised face flashed into Eve’s mind. ‘Yeah.’
‘Okay. What did they say?’
‘They said it was an accident.’ Eve spat the word out, almost choked on it.
‘That’s what CASA said?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right.’ Sandra brought her hands together and raised them slowly to touch the end of her nose. ‘So, the official body that deals with aviation safety and crashes said nobody tampered with the equipment.’
‘That seems to be the official line, yeah.’
‘The official line that has been, like, confirmed by the experts.’
‘Yeah, alright, Sandra,’ Eve huffed. ‘I see what you’re doing here, and I can tell you they’re wrong. They haven’t spoken to Matt properly. They haven’t gone through his phone. I tried to give them Jack’s phone and they wouldn’t take it.’
‘You’ve got Jack’s phone?’
Eve pulled out the phone with the orange case. It was dead. ‘I think I’ve got a charger somewhere here that will fit.’ She went to the cupboard under the TV and pulled out a charging cable while Sandra watched with a raised eyebrow.
‘Where did you get that?’
‘I found it in the NQ Skydive office. It was under the reception desk.’ Eve plugged it in, and the charging symbol flashed on the screen. Then the password screen appeared. She tried a couple of swipe combinations, but the phone remained locked. ‘I can’t get into it.’
‘Why do you want to get into it?’
‘It could have something of value on it. Who knows, Matt could have texted him a bunch of death threats.’
Sandra looked at Eve for a long time. Then she went into Eve’s bedroom. ‘We’re doing the forts walk,’ she called out.
‘What? No, I don’t—’
‘No argument.’ She came back with a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, throwing them at Eve’s chest. ‘And go get your sneakers.’
‘No, Sandra, I’ve got to get into this phone.’
The argument lasted for ten minutes or so. Sandra didn’t call her crazy, but it was implied. Eve had lost it. She was delusional. She needed sleep. And a shower. And physical activity.
They did the forts walk roughly once a week. Even in summer when many of the other locals gave it away. Because they were tough, fearless women unafraid of a little sweat and possible heat exhaustion.
‘You really should have had a shower,’ Sandra said on the drive over the Arcadia hill. ‘You fully smell like balls.’
‘Whatever, Sandra.’ Eve sulked in the passenger seat. ‘I’ve got my sneakers on so just be happy with that, hey?’
The forts walk was a bushwalk. Before it had been a walk, it had been a World War II lookout complex. The Australian army, worried the Japanese would try to invade parts of northern Australia, had rounded up barges and other ocean transport and sent soldiers and trucks to the top of the Horseshoe Bay hill to cut a road to the highest part. It found three peaks with 360-degree views of the ocean and plonked a fort building on top of each one. For all the work that went into these structures, the army never did get to see any Japanese ships. The island, however, got its number-one tourist attraction. For the history buffs there were plenty of war- and gun-related structures and ruins to salivate over. For the nature lovers, the National Parks had planted signs along the way pointing out all the snakes that could kill them. And for everyone else there were the koalas. Because koalas loved that part of the island. They were everywhere. On any given day you were almost guaranteed to see at least one koala. In the wild. For free.
It was an easy walk for Eve and Sandra. At least half of it was flat and they could get up and back in an hour.
‘I don’t understand the thing about Murray,’ Sandra said as she pulled into the carpark at the beginning of the track. ‘Why would he care about Matt’s love life?’
‘I don’t know, Sandra,’ Eve snapped. ‘That’s a question I could have asked him at the ferry terminal, but you dragged me away.’
‘Alright!’ Sandra got out of the car and put her hands up. ‘Next time I’ll let you run screaming through the carpark. I won’t stop you, won’t try to help you, and you can spend the next five years pretending nobody’s whispering about you behind your back.’
Eve got out of the car and pulled at her shorts where the sweat had glued them to her thighs. ‘I’m not crazy, you know. It’s not a crazy idea.’
‘Okay.’ Sandra kicked at the gravel and stretched her hamstrings. ‘You can stand on top of the highest fort and scream that at the ocean.’
Ahead of them a pair of what sounded like Spanish speakers tried to make sense of a National Parks sign. ‘With all the tourists?’
‘Yeah,’ she laughed. ‘We’ll tell them it’s part of the experience. Like throwing coins into a wishing well. We’ll say it was a ritual in World War II, that the soldiers posted here screamed at the ocean three times a day to ward off the Japanese. You know they’ll believe it.’
The morning was hot and still. The lower section of the walk was flat, but the dense bush blocked the breeze from the ocean. As they approached the first ascent, they found another group of tourists gathered under a tree just off the path. A large koala sat wedged between the trunk and a perilously thin branch of a short kapok tree. It had the rust-coloured chest markings of a male. Ten or twelve people had gathered beneath it, all with their phones and cameras out as the animal yawned and scratched its ear with a hind paw. It took a moment to look at its audience with its notoriously bad eyes, then yawned again and tucked its head into its chest. The crowd moved in en masse, taking pictures and videos.
‘Hey, boy,’ said a man who had pushed his way to the front of the pack. His phone was centimetres from the koala’s face. ‘Look over here. Smile.’
‘Fucking hell,’ Sandra said as they came to the group. ‘How many trees do you reckon that koala has to choose from on this island? Couple of hundred thousand? And he decides to sleep in this one. Right next to the path not even two metres off the ground where everyone can stick a camera in his face. Or, I don’t know, eat him? It’s no wonder these idiots are endangered.’
‘Come on,’ the man said and held his phone closer to the koala. ‘Look up.’ When the koala didn’t comply, he moved to touch it.
‘Hey,’ Sandra said, and the group turned to look at her. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Do you know koalas carry chlamydia?’
Hushed murmuring.
‘It’s true,’ she went on. ‘Look it up. They have chlamydia. AIDS, too.’
Several of the women gasped.
‘Yeah.’ Sandra folded her arms and put a serious look on her face. ‘There’s my good deed for the day. Call it a public health warning.’
‘Why do you always have to do that?’ Eve said as they walked away.
‘Do what, tell the truth?’ Sandra grinned. ‘I don’t know if you can catch chlamydia and AIDS off koalas. I’m not a scientist.’ She chuckled. ‘The look on their faces though.’
Eve was beginning to feel better. The exercise and fresh air had made her less jumpy. She picked up the pace and Sandra followed her lead. They reached the top of the walk, the fort with the most striking view, in around twenty minutes. After climbing the ladder-like stairs to the top of the building they found another group of tourists gathered on the flat roof. They all had their phones and cameras out, clutching them hard in the stiff breeze. Eve accepted several requests to play photographer, herding teenagers into family photos with the ocean as the backdrop. On their way back to the car Eve and Sandra came across another group standing around yet another koala in a low tree. ‘Don’t touch it,’ Sandra called out as they passed. ‘It might have chlamydia and AIDS.’
Small cries went up and suddenly the koala had more space.
Eve was laughing when Sandra came to a sudden stop. Her shoes skidded on the gravel. ‘Shit.’ She looked around in a panic and then ducked behind a tree.
‘What?’
‘It’s Bruce.’ Sandra had her shoulder pressed into the trunk. ‘He’s coming this way.’
It took a second for Eve to recognise him. The lycra was a shock. Normally he wore linen. And linen suited him. For a neat little man in his fifties, it was forgiving. It made him look distinguished, academic, even. Lycra left nothing to the imagination. Bruce was fit but he was also old, Eve thought. Too old for that outfit.
‘Why are you hiding from him and why is he wearing that outfit?’
‘He’s taken up cycling,’ Sandra hissed. ‘I didn’t know he’d taken up walking, too. I can’t talk to him, Eve – listen.’ Her eyes were pleading. ‘Promise you won’t judge me.’
‘Why?’
‘Just promise.’ She was desperate.
‘Alright, I won’t judge you.’
‘A couple of weeks ago I slept with him.’
‘No.’ Eve gasped. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I was bored, probably.’
‘Was it the lycra?’ Eve laughed. It felt good to laugh. ‘Did he woo you with the lycra?’
‘No. Shut up.’
‘He’s so weird, Sandra. All that fertility shit he’s got at the hardware store? Nobody buys it.’
‘He reckons he’s expanding.’
‘Into what, crystals?’
‘Funny.’ Sandra shook her head. ‘He’s been getting all these trucks full of equipment over from town.’ She was trying to disappear into the tree. ‘The thing is, I spent the night at his place, and afterwards I called him a bunch of times, but he never called me back.’
‘Oh shit,’ Eve said slowly. ‘Do you like him?’
‘No.’
‘How many times did you call him?’
‘Is he still coming?’
Bruce was walking at a brisk pace, wiping the sweat off his face with a handkerchief. ‘Yeah.’
‘He’s going to see me, isn’t he?’
Eve glanced up the path. The rocks and shrubs on either side made it narrow. There was no way for him to pass them without almost brushing up against Sandra’s tree. ‘Yeah. You’re gonna have to say hi.’
‘Oh god.’ Sandra shook her hands at the wrist. She stepped out onto the path just as Bruce approached them. ‘Hi, Bruce,’ she said, and her face was pained. ‘How are you?’
Bruce looked surprised to see her, then recovered himself and smiled. ‘Oh, hello, Sandra. Getting some exercise?’ Before she could answer he saw Eve and his face fell. ‘I’m so sorry about Tilly,’ he said. ‘It’s so tragic.’ He put a hand on his heart and began to tear up. ‘And Jack had so much promise. It’s a terrible loss to the island.’ His eyes were huge now and he was looking at Eve like nothing was more important than her pain. ‘I know exactly how you feel, Eve. I lost my father last year and that was –’ he reached out and squeezed her shoulder ‘– the most awful thing that has ever happened to me.’ He took a moment to breathe and then said, ‘But I want you to know that you’ll be okay in the end.’
Eve felt the tears coming. She fought them back. Here was her first ‘everything’s going to be okay’ and she was crying.
‘You’re stronger than you think,’ he said and looked deep into her eyes.
Eve nodded and gulped in air to keep the tears down.
‘And if you need anything, anything at all,’ he went on, ‘you know where to find me.’
Sandra stepped up and put an arm around Eve’s shoulders, stuck her hip out. ‘You’re looking kind of sweaty there, Bruce,’ she said, and Eve could hear the disdain. ‘We do this walk all the time and I’ve never seen you here before.’
