‘What does that mean?’ asks George.
‘It means he’d pooped in his pants, just like a baby,’ I say.
‘Don’t…’ she begins.
‘You know what the trouble with you is?’ I ask and then I answer my own question because I know the answer. ‘It’s that you think you have any control of this situation at all, Katherine, and you don’t, you really don’t.’
‘I know I don’t have control,’ she says. ‘You’re the one with the gun.’
‘I am,’ I agree.
I freaked out when I saw my father on his bed, where the sheets were crumpled and stale-smelling before his death, because he never thought to wash them. I don’t say this aloud but I did. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him and slapped his face and shouted, ‘Dad, Dad, wake up, Dad.’ I checked for a pulse. We’d been taught how to do that when we had a lifesaving class at school and I checked, holding my breath, hoping for something, anything, but his skin was cold and his eyes were glassy, his face grey. I knew he was dead. I would like to say I felt his spirit in the room, that there was a cold draught and I knew it was him saying goodbye or any of that other rubbish people say when someone they love dies. But I didn’t.
I sat on his bed, the smell not bothering me anymore, and cried for a long time. I think I was crying because there was no hope left. Before he killed himself, I’d had moments of believing that something would change one day, and he’d get himself together. Once, when we happened to watch a programme on addiction together, he said quietly, his voice slurring, ‘That’s probably me.’
‘You could get help,’ I said. ‘Those people got help.’ My heart fluttered at the possibility of things being different.
‘I may just do that,’ he agreed, but then he opened another beer.
His death meant that my life would only get worse. I understood that. Like every kid of divorced parents, I had been hoping that he would man up and get better and then somehow, she would take him back and we would get to be a family again. It’s ridiculous for a fifteen-year-old to think that way, but I’m pretty sure that most kids hold on to that small sliver of hope.
His death meant all hope was lost. It might have been hours that I sat there but then my tears stopped and I felt, as strongly as I would a punch to the stomach, a shutting down of part of me, a closing over. He wasn’t worth my tears or my time and all he had ever done was let me down. I went through his wallet, took what little cash he had and left. I started walking and I just kept walking. I wanted to call my mother. I knew that I should call her and the police but I didn’t do any of that. I bought myself dinner and I waited. It was spring and it was still cool in the evenings but I slept on a park bench that night, curling up small.
I shake my head as I think about this. ‘I felt like I had no one to turn to when he died,’ I say, ‘that’s why I waited.’
When I returned the next day, the smell had seeped out of his bedroom and into the flat and I knew I couldn’t wait any longer so I called the police. Once they arrived the whole thing was set into motion and by that night I was back with my mother, back in the last place I wanted to be, because it was all her fault and he’d said as much.
He left a note. I never told anyone but he did.
Dear son,
* * *
Sorry about this. I know you don’t want to hear anything I have to say anymore so I’ll leave you with one last thought. Don’t trust women. They’ll make you the happiest man in the world and then they’ll break you into pieces so you can’t imagine living through another day. Don’t ever trust them.
* * *
Dad
I should have listened to him on that one, and I did for a while. But then I met the woman I thought would be the love of my life, and I fell so hard and so fast that I didn’t stop to think about what would happen when she was tired of me.
And so here I am in this room. As I look at this woman, I realise that I hate her with such a visceral force it’s a wonder I haven’t killed her already.
‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore,’ I say, and I go back to looking out of the window, at the green grass in the perfect garden that doesn’t tell the whole story of who she is and what she’s done.
20
Katherine
When the bell rings again her heart lifts a little because it’s possible – because anything is possible – that someone has come to help.
‘This shit never stops,’ he complains.
He’s getting tired and she can see that. They all are, but he’s been holding that gun for hours now, hurting them all by degrees for hours now. George’s face still has his handprint vividly visible on his cheek. Sophie keeps rubbing her head where Katherine is sure he must have pulled out some hair. And the throb from what she is certain is a broken wrist is an agony that she feels right throughout her body.
When she first saw the gun, she hadn’t imagined that he would use it, because it felt impossible.
But now she knows that it’s not impossible. She believed that if he wanted to kill her or the children, he would have done it already, but perhaps his intention is to make them suffer for as long as possible, knowing that watching George and Sophie suffer is hurting her more than any bullet might.
She is trying to formulate a plan, any plan beyond the simple thought of throwing her own body at him, attempting to stab him with the scissors, forcing him to shoot her and hoping that the children get away before he has a chance to fire the gun again. She cannot guarantee that they will get away or that they will know to run, and she cannot think of how to indicate to them that this is what they should do.
‘I think it’s Gladys at the door,’ she says now, grasping at straws. ‘She’ll be concerned because I didn’t invite her in. You should let George talk to her – he can tell her we’re sick, I’m sick. I already told her that… I think I did, but maybe… She makes things for us. Maybe she’s brought over a cake.’
‘Yoo-hoo,’ Gladys calls, ‘just dropping off some of my famous chocolate chip muffins.’
Katherine shrugs her shoulders as if to say, ‘I told you so,’ but she doesn’t say anything else. If she pushes, he will refuse to let George open the door, but if George can open the door to Gladys, then maybe, just maybe…
He rubs his head, forcing his hair to stand up. He looks suddenly younger, less threatening, and she can see that he is losing focus now. It’s not easy to kill someone, even though it looks easy enough in the movies and on television, but he’s intelligent enough to realise that the taking of a life is a permanent thing. He lost his father too young and has suffered for it. He knows what death means for those left behind.
‘If you don’t let George talk to her, she’ll just keep returning,’ she says.
‘Fine,’ he says, ‘go tell the old bat that everyone in the house is sick. And I swear to God, George, that if you say one other thing, if you so much as even sigh, I will rip your sister’s head off the same way I ripped that stupid stuffed toy.’
George glances at her, his eyes wide, disbelieving. No one has ever spoken to him like this. He cannot understand what to do with these terrible threats of violence. And she senses that even though it would be easy enough for George to tell Gladys to call the police, now is not the time. She is not strong enough to fight him off if he goes for Sophie. The pain is making her weak.
The risk is too great. She gives her head an imperceptible shake. He blinks and she knows that means he understands. It’s a wonder to her, even through the fear and the pain and the simmering anger that is underneath it all, that she is able to speak to her child like this, that he understands. She closes her eyes and sends up a small prayer that she will get to see him grow up and become the extraordinary man she knows he will be.
George gets off the sofa and goes to the front door.
She hears him open it, struggling with the lock that is at shoulder height for him. She listens to the murmur of voices, Gladys and George, and she can hear her son’s hesi
tancy. He is considering what to do. Just tell her we’re sick, my darling. Now is not the time. Just tell her we’re sick.
‘Why’s he taking so long?’ he asks, and then he gets up and goes to the front door and she hears something but cannot make out any words. She assumes he’s warning George to keep his mouth shut. Adrenalin floods her body, fear for her little boy drowning out her own physical pain. Don’t hurt him, don’t hurt him. Her muscles tense as she gets ready to run to the front door if she hears anything except the soft murmur of voices.
She turns to look at Sophie, who is subdued, watching her game rather than playing it. They are alone with access to the outside world.
‘Give me the iPad, sweetheart,’ she whispers, her eyes darting to the doorway, but her daughter is slow to respond.
Even though movement is agony she begins to reach for the iPad, hoping that she can access her email before he comes back into the room. But seconds later he returns with George, and she hurriedly shoves the iPad back at Sophie, who instantly finds her game again. Katherine feels the throbbing in her hand increase with the beating of her heart.
He is holding her son by one arm, almost dragging him. George is trying to carry a plate filled with chocolate muffins, and the care behind the gift makes Katherine want to cry. Gladys is probably worried that Katherine is angry with her because she was so abrupt this morning. She silently blesses the older woman who is dealing with so much herself, but who is still working to maintain neighbourly bonds.
‘Look, chocolate chip muffins,’ he says, grabbing the plate from George and shoving him back on the sofa. ‘Eat one,’ he commands and both children look at her.
‘Go on,’ she says, ‘you must be hungry.’
Usually when Gladys gives them a plate of muffins, she warms them up for the children, melting the chocolate and filling the house with the sweet cakey smell so she can almost pretend she baked them herself. The twins adore Gladys’s muffins, but now they reluctantly take one each. Sophie pinches off a small bite and puts it in her mouth.
‘What about you?’ he asks Katherine. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’
‘No,’ she says weakly, and she lifts her hand a little, still wrapped in the ice pack that is now warm, hoping to reach some part of him that can feel something for her. He hasn’t looked at her wrist, at her really, and she convinces herself that this is because he doesn’t want to see how much pain he has caused her. Perhaps if she can get him to acknowledge it, he will come to his senses and realise what he’s doing.
But instead, he stands up and grabs a muffin from the plate, charging towards her. ‘Open up,’ he says, almost jovial.
She shakes her head. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Ah well,’ he sneers, ‘too bad,’ and he grabs her head while still holding the gun. With the other hand he shoves the muffin into her mouth, crumbling it and filling her mouth until she can’t breathe, even as she tries to chew.
She struggles, kicking her legs out at him.
‘Stop it!’ shouts George.
‘Mumma,’ cries Sophie, and they both begin hitting him with their small fists.
He starts laughing at their futile attempts and then he does let go, throwing the remains of the muffin at her as she chokes and coughs and spits out as much as she can. And then as she leans back against the sofa, her chest heaving, eyes watering as she struggles to breathe, George says, ‘I’m going to kill you.’ Her son’s voice is filled with an eerie menace, the sweet tones of childhood gone. He is a man in this moment, an angry man.
‘Not if I kill you first,’ he replies and then he grabs a muffin and shoves it into his own mouth. ‘Not if I kill you first,’ he repeats as he chews with his mouth open and swallows quickly.
And Katherine realises that she’s been asking herself the wrong question. She has been asking how someone who once loved her can hurt her this much, how he can watch all of them suffer and feel nothing, but what she should be thinking about is all this deep, vicious anger he is filled with. All this violence that he has been hiding from her. There is something that she doesn’t know, something that could provide a clue as to why he is doing this, and if she can just find out what it is, what has triggered him, then perhaps she can find a way out. There are things she does not know, things she hasn’t understood about him. She just needs to keep him talking.
‘You need to finish your story,’ she says quietly.
‘Yes,’ he agrees, ‘yes, I do.’ He looks at her, his green eyes meeting hers. ‘I wonder…’ he says.
‘You wonder,’ she prompts.
‘How it ends.’
21
Logan
Thirty minutes ago
Logan rubs his face, feeling the stubbly growth that appears through the day. In the mirror he can see bags under his blue eyes, and his lips look cracked and dry. He doesn’t want to call Debbie again because he knows that she would tell him if there were any updates on Maddy. He is worn down by the day, by the early-morning delivery that went wrong, by his attempts to help when he should have just left things alone, but mostly by his fear and worry over his sister.
He cannot lose her. She is essentially the only family he has.
And now he has to worry about the police looking for him and what that might mean if they decide to take him in and question him. He’s exhausted by the heat, by everything. He needs to get to Melbourne and be with his sister; that’s all he wants right now.
He only has three more deliveries and then he’s finished, and that can’t happen soon enough.
‘Just bring them back here and I’ll do it,’ Mack said when he called again, worry in his voice over the fact that Logan is still working.
‘It’s fine. All the earlier flights are booked out.’
‘Don’t they keep some seats aside for compassionate reasons or something like that?’
‘Debbie’s looking into it, but even if I get there now, I can’t see her because she’s in a bad way. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll finish up and then go home.’
‘Whatever works, Logan, and if you need to talk to someone, I’m here.’
‘Thanks, mate.’
Driving, the act of watching the road, of checking street signs and of glancing at the GPS, allows his mind to run through his past. He lists those he once called friends and those he only regarded as acquaintances and even those who he may have threatened or who have threatened him. The person texting him may or may not be connected to what happened to Maddy. It may or may not be Patrick. There are some who he knows are in prison, some who he’s heard have been released. Nick keeps returning as a possibility but Logan knows he was serving his sentence somewhere in Sydney, although he had a girlfriend who lived in Melbourne. Logan brakes at a red traffic light. ‘Shit,’ he mutters. Nick had a girlfriend who lived in Melbourne. Are they still together?
As he turns a corner, he allows a nightmarish scenario to play out: Nick being released and moving to Melbourne, bent on revenge. You’re overthinking, he tells himself. The sender of the text must be Patrick.
Needing to distract himself, he turns on the radio to listen to the news, wondering if what happened to Maddy is something that could make it to the radio. A song about a broken heart irritates him and he switches stations listening to the weather report for a moment before switching stations again. He knows how hot it is. The news comes on and he turns it up.
‘Police are asking for help in locating the partner of a woman badly beaten in Melbourne two days ago. They are asking the public for help in finding Patrick Anderson. It has now been confirmed that Anderson left Melbourne two days ago, bound for Sydney.’
Logan pulls over the van, his heart racing. He touches his hand to his chest. He’s too young for a heart attack but there is a pain down one arm that makes him think it’s possible. He cracks his neck one way and then the other, wanting to climb out of his own body.
You’re next.
He turns the news up louder, trying to concentrate even as he cracks his kn
uckles, twisting his fingers for the relief of the pop.
‘Is he treating you okay?’ he once asked his sister.
‘Yes, big brother, he’s fine – a little clingy but fine. He has some issues, but don’t we all? I told him that you’re watching him. I mean, it was a joke but he’s scared of you.’
‘Good. I don’t like him. He’s using you.’
‘But I like him and he knows how you feel about him. You made that clear last month when we visited you. He’s trying to get a job. He can be so sweet. You don’t get it. He tries to tidy the apartment and cook for me. It’s not his fault that finding work is this hard. He’s not good with authority, but then neither are you.’
‘And if he doesn’t get his act together? Then what?’
‘Then it may be time for me to move on.’
If Patrick Anderson hurt Maddy and now he’s here, Logan knows there’s only one reason for that. He doesn’t need to think about who sent the text anymore. He knows.
He curls his hands into fists, reading the word ‘HATE’ on one hand and ‘PAIN’ on the other. ‘Come find me,’ he mutters, fear being replaced with fury warming up his body. He relishes the man coming to find him. It would obviously be self-defence, and that’s allowed – isn’t it? He shouldn’t be thinking like this. That’s the thinking of a man he never wants to be again. But he cannot help the images flickering across his mind, a silent movie of violence.
He wonders when Patrick will show up, if he’ll accost him at work or out in the street. And then, as he imagines meeting the man in the street, sees how that would play out, he realises… Patrick knows where Logan and Debbie live. He winds down the window because he can’t seem to catch his breath. He knows where we live. He knows where we live. He scratches at his chest, where itchy sweat covers his skin. Fury is replaced by panic and for a moment he has no idea what to do.
The Family Across the Street Page 14
