Inspiration strikes and she says to Lou, ‘I might just whip up a batch of chocolate muffins to take next door. If everyone is sick, it will be appreciated.’
‘You can never leave well enough alone,’ he says.
‘Yes, but… I won’t be long.’ She gets up from her chair and picks up the empty ice cream bowls to take to the kitchen.
‘They won’t want muffins if they’re not well,’ says Lou as she leaves the room, ‘leave them alone.’
‘It won’t take more than a few minutes,’ she sings, determined not to let his admonishments stop her, and she continues to the kitchen. ‘Something is definitely not well over there… Something is very unwell,’ she says as she takes out her muffin tray and finds the chocolate chips.
It takes no time at all to mix up the muffins, and Gladys slides the filled tray into the oven, anticipating the delicious smell of chocolate that will soon be floating through the house.
‘How about that crime series? There’s one on now,’ Lou says when she returns to the living room.
‘Yes, good idea,’ she agrees, knowing he’s being kind. It’s an episode she’s seen already but it doesn’t matter as she’s unable to concentrate as she waits for the timer on her phone to go off. She’s never felt like this before – well, once, when Rebecca was in Europe. She remembers waking one morning and wondering which country Rebecca was in as the tour was moving to a different place almost every day. She felt terribly uneasy about her niece, and after waiting until she could no longer stand it, she called her sister, Emmaline. ‘I’m worried about Rebecca,’ she said.
‘Well, you must have a sixth sense,’ Emmaline replied. ‘I’ve just had a call. Their bus crashed on the way up the mountains and she’s hurt her wrist. They don’t think it’s broken but she’s having an X-ray just in case.’
Rebecca was fine but Gladys had been right about something not being well. She feels the same way about Katherine now, even though she’s certainly not as close to her neighbour as she is to her niece.
She watches the timer on her phone, willing the minutes to pass. In the episode, someone shoots someone else, startling Gladys, who hasn’t been concentrating.
‘Why are we watching this violence?’ she asks Lou.
‘It’s a good story and you like it, you always say you like it,’ says Lou, and Gladys checks her phone again. She knows he only suggested the series for her but if he’s enjoying it and managing to stay awake, she supposes that’s a good thing.
Picking up her phone, she checks the timer again, and then, with one eye on the television, she looks at the news site she likes to read. The top story is about a man in America being sentenced for killing his wife and children. Gladys remembers the man on television months ago when his family went missing, crying and begging for help in finding them. He claimed to have no idea where they were, but it was all an elaborate lie. Gladys had known not to trust him as soon as she saw him. He had shifty eyes and he cried too much.
A small shiver runs through Gladys. How well does she know John really? Not very well. She’s never had more than a casual chat with him. She reviews the facts she has. This morning John screeched off and then returned, and he isn’t at work. The blinds are closed, the house silent. The children are home and one of them put a sign in the window asking for help. Katherine wouldn’t let her in. It all adds up.
Gladys does not want to be one of those neighbours who claims that they didn’t think anything was going on when something dreadful happens in their street, does not want to be one of those people on television who claims they are shocked and horrified. She knows something is going on – she knows it.
The timer on her phone goes off and Gladys leaps up, relieved that her excuse for going over again is ready. Katherine might think she’s interfering – or she might be eternally grateful that Gladys wouldn’t leave well enough alone. Either way, she is taking the muffins over.
As she pulls the tray out of the oven, the man that the police are searching for crosses her mind. The red hat is just a red hat and it’s hard to tell anything other than the colour from the CCTV footage, but for some reason she knows that on the front is a Nike logo in raised stitching in the same red. Gladys puts the muffin tray on top of the stove and takes a deep breath. She’s seen that cap before. She saw it yesterday.
‘There must be hundreds of those caps,’ she mutters. It must be just a coincidence. It has to be.
15
There is too much blood. It turns my stomach. It’s dribbling out of her mouth and onto the towel George got for her and dripping onto her T-shirt, and truthfully, I’ve never liked the sight of blood. Especially not my own. It’s interesting watching the kids and how protective they are of her. Sophie is mostly afraid, but George wavers between being afraid and furious with me. Now he is watching me, his green eyes narrow and focused on my face. If looks could kill…
I have no idea why they thought I wouldn’t catch them trying to send a note to… well, there’s no one who would see something like that, and it wasn’t in the window long enough anyway. But still, they tried. You have to give them credit for trying, and I had to do what I had to do.
I didn’t think I had hit her that hard, but the gun was in my hand and it gave the blow some extra impact. My hand is hurting now. I rub my fist slowly, keeping the gun trained on the three of them.
I have so much to say, so many things to tell her. ‘Do you want to hear a story about when my father died?’ I ask.
‘I know that story,’ she says but the words are a little garbled because her mouth is filled with blood.
‘What?’
She spits some blood into the towel and I check myself for feelings of guilt or remorse but I am pretty sure I feel nothing. The ability to shut down my feelings about other people is probably something I inherited from my father. In the end the only person he really cared about was himself.
My father got worse and worse as the months went by after he lost his job. A lot of the time I came home from school and found him asleep on the sofa. But sometimes I came home and he would be awake and he would ask about my day. When he asked me what I had learned at school, I always told him, ‘Nothing.’
Usually, he let it go, but once his anger flared up out of nowhere and he leapt off the sofa and grabbed my shirt, pulling me towards him. ‘Now you listen to me, son, because I know what a harsh world it can be,’ he said. I was fifteen and tired of his shit so even though his hands were twisted in my school shirt, his breath too close to avoid, I rolled my eyes and sighed loudly. He twisted harder, his nails scratching my skin. ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you?’ he spat and then he delivered a hard slap to my cheek. It wasn’t the first time he hit me. He liked hitting me. Sometimes it was hard enough to leave a slight bruise, but it was never hard enough to make me see him as anything other than pathetic. I wonder now if I had shown fear, real fear, if he would have felt better about himself. Their fear, the fear that I can see in the way they watch me, in the way they keep trying to move further back into the sofa, squashing the soft fabric cushions, lets me know I’m the one in control. Things have gotten messy but I still have control.
The blood has stopped seeping from her mouth now. I can see her moving her tongue around the inside, checking for a broken tooth. There is a cut on the side of her cheek that’s oozing a little and I squelch a desire to tell her to get some ice for it. I used to want to take care of her.
‘Do you know that when my father died, I waited two days before calling the police?’
Her brown eyes widen in horror. ‘No, you never told me that.’
‘Well, I did.’
‘I’m so—’
‘Please don’t tell me you’re sorry for me. I am so tired of hearing the word “sorry” from you.’
16
Katherine
Her twins are very different children and Katherine often thinks about who they’ll be when they grow up. George is quiet and thoughtful. He sticks to the rules and a
lways has done. He walked after Sophie did, but he never had any of the bruises and bumps she ended up with. Sophie rushes at life, leaping first and thinking and looking later. It’s why she’s already getting into trouble at school while George would never dream of disobeying his teachers or breaking a rule.
‘Why would you have taken the dolls to school if you knew that they were not allowed?’ she asked her last night.
‘How come marbles are allowed but not my dollies? Marbles are boring,’ was her petulant reply.
Katherine didn’t quite know how to answer that. Sophie was right. Rules can be very arbitrary. But she needs to learn to take her time, to think things through, and this is what Katherine has been trying to teach her – to try and anticipate the consequences of her actions. She knows she is failing at this but it has never really mattered as much as it does today.
The blood is only seeping a little now and she thinks it could have been much worse. George has taken the blame for Sophie but her impulsive daughter could have really been hurt.
Think, think, think, she instructs herself. Is it possible that this is the worst he will do to them? Will he leave now or at least let them leave?
When the bell rings and Sophie leaps off the sofa to run to the door, she doesn’t even have time to open her mouth before he goes after her, spitting, ‘Don’t you dare move,’ at her as he leaves the room.
Katherine sits, her body hot and cold, with her arm around George. She hears Sophie shout, ‘Ow!’ and then there is silence. When he returns, he is holding her in one arm, his hand covering her mouth as she struggles and kicks. Because he doesn’t have enough of a hold on her, he drops her and then, in a fury at losing control, he shoves her down onto the floor where she bursts into noisy tears.
‘Stop!’ shrieks Katherine. But he is already right next to her, the gun in his hand touching her temple.
‘Shut up, shut up, all of you. You need to shut up. And you better not have said anything to him.’
Katherine looks at him, bewildered. ‘Who?’
‘The delivery guy from this morning. He really wants you to take that computer,’ he says. ‘Shut up, Sophie, or I swear to God…’
‘Please, Sophie… please, sweetheart,’ she begs her daughter, ‘just be quiet, okay? It’s okay, Mum’s here, Mum’s—’
‘Oh my God, you never shut up. Why do you never shut up?’ he asks as though the pain of hearing her speak is actually physical. He pulls at his hair and rubs his chin, frustration in the movement.
‘Sophie,’ says Katherine, the word a warning. She needs her to stop.
Sophie closes her mouth and Katherine can see her biting down on her lip to keep quiet. She climbs back onto the sofa, rubbing her arm where she landed on the carpet. Katherine pulls her children close to her, holding tight. Their bodies are damp with sweat as is her own. The air conditioner cannot blow away their terror.
‘Now listen to me,’ he begins, menace in every word, ‘if anyone tries anything stupid like that again, this is what’s going to happen.’ He picks up Sophie’s stuffed monkey that has fallen on the floor and shoves the gun into his waistband, and then they watch as he pulls at the stuffed toy, grunting with the effort of it until the head rips off nearly completely. It’s a display of power, a show for himself, an ugly demonstration of what he’s capable of.
I don’t know this person. Perhaps I have never known him.
‘Oh, my baby,’ wails Sophie and it is the utter despair in her young child’s voice that forces Katherine off the sofa, her body standing without any thought, just a need to show him that he cannot keep doing these things to them. And as she moves, she is aware that the gun is not in his hand but in the waistband of his pants and she has just this moment to try and get it from him if she is quick enough.
Make a noise. Make some noise.
She shouts as she moves, hoping to distract him enough so that she can go for the gun.
‘How could you? How could you? It’s her favourite toy. That’s awful, you’re awful. What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you?’
As she gets to him, he looks up and she lunges – not for the toy as he first thinks but for the gun.
Her hand goes around his waist and he shouts, ‘Hey!’ and drops the monkey, then he grabs her arms and pushes her away.
She falls backwards and he looms over her. She starts to stand up and he grabs her hand.
‘Just what do you think you’re going to do here?’ he hisses and he bends her wrist backwards, forcing her to sink to her knees as he bends it further and further back. The pain shoots through her hand and arm and she cannot even voice it. He keeps bending it, pleasure on his face at the agony he is causing and then there is a pop sound, a crack, and he lets go. She drops onto the floor and lies there for a moment. Her body is a mass of tingling nerve endings, the pain forcing her breath from her lungs. There is a buzzing sound in her head; a hot flush of pain covers her body in sweat. But she needs to get up. She needs to get up and sit next to her children. She cannot believe they’ve had to see something like this, that they are witness to such a thing. But she knows she needs to get up because even though she has not succeeded in getting the gun, she still needs to find a way to save them. The scissors are still between the seat cushions, but if she tries to do anything and he stops her, what might he do with the scissors?
Get up, Katherine. Get up!
She moves awkwardly, cradling her wrist as she wriggles up onto her feet and then sits down next to George and Sophie. Both children have been stunned into silence. They are staring at him, their mouths open.
‘See what happens?’ he says casually and then he goes to stand by the window. ‘It’s hot in here. Why haven’t you got this air conditioner fixed?’
‘I should have, I know.’ Katherine takes a deep breath and tries to calm herself, to slow her beating heart.
He pushes open the window and hot air from outside rushes in so he closes it again.
‘Can I get Mum an ice pack?’ George asks quietly.
‘What?’ he says.
‘When I fell down and hurt my knee, Mum put an ice pack on it and it felt better. Can I get one from the kitchen for her?’ A carefully asked question, uncertainty in every word.
‘It’s okay, George,’ she says. The air in the room feels thicker, heavier and harder to breathe in and out. Pain in her wrist ricochets around her whole body as she trembles in an effort to stay upright when all she wants to do is lie down.
‘Can I?’ George repeats, determined to do this one thing. George is a thinker, a planner, and as she watches him, she understands that her son is the key to the children being saved. She cannot see how she can make it out of this alive but if she can figure something out and somehow communicate it to George, then that is all that matters.
‘Fine, whatever,’ he says, bored with anyone else’s pain.
George darts from the room and returns quickly with a soft ice pack that he drapes over her swelling wrist and hand with delicate care.
‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ she says and he nods.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ he says.
‘It’s not your fault, baby,’ she replies as tears begin to course down his cheeks.
‘But it is,’ says George.
‘No, George,’ he says, his voice soft, almost kind, but his teeth are clenched, his top lip curled, ‘it’s not your fault. In fact, if it’s anyone’s fault at all, it’s hers. She’s the one to blame for everything that’s happened here today. Blame her, blame Mumma.’
17
Logan
Logan
It’s the most innocuous-looking police station Logan has ever seen. It reminds him of the foyer of an office building, with its white melamine counter and some fake leather benches against a light blue wall, a vibrant potted plant in the corner. Everything about it tells whoever walks in that this is not a threatening place. There are no drunks asleep on the couches and no jittery junkies waiting for their ride home, just an empty space a
nd one policewoman standing behind the counter, looking at a computer, engaged in what Logan thinks may actually be a game of Solitaire. It’s a suburban police station in a suburb where cats go missing and sometimes parties run past midnight and the neighbours can’t get to sleep on time. The only smell is of a pine-scented disinfectant mixed with a sweet fragrance from the flowers blooming in pots outside the door.
Logan wonders if the police who work here have ever seen anything scarier than a domestic disturbance over who parked over whose driveway. But then he thinks about the woman in the nice house in the nice street quite close to here. There is something scary going on over there. He knows that sometimes the nicest houses belonging to people with the widest smiles conceal the worst horrors. He met some people in prison who had all the manners of the private-school-educated, who were sharp and clever, and who were in prison for murder and rape.
He shivers a little as he walks inside, as much from the cranked-up air conditioning as from an old learned fear about the nature of police stations and their life-changing sinister magic. Six years ago, he walked into one a worried man with a bandaged hand and was driven away a charged criminal, and his life will never be the same. He loiters in the front for a minute without approaching the counter, fighting the urge to turn and just run. I didn’t leave any prints. No one knows.
The woman in the big house is not his problem, she really isn’t. His fear over having to deal with the police tells him to just leave it alone – but instinct will not let go. The woman in the big house is in trouble and he knows it. Why would the kid have mentioned a gun? What made him or her say ‘ow’ and who is the man who told him to go away? He feels like he’s playing one of those detective games, piecing together clues, but this is not a game. Even if he could dismiss the woman, he can’t dismiss the kids. Maybe if one of the neighbours in his suburb or one of his teachers had noticed something off about him – had spotted a bruise or two, had clicked that his loner behaviour was not normal and stepped in – he would have grown up an entirely different human being. Someone has to look out for the kids.
The Family Across the Street Page 12
