Not Bad People

by Brandy Scott

  ‘Gross,’ agreed Lou, as she got comfortable against the rough brick wall. ‘You need a cushion?’

  The scrubby garden looked almost pretty in the fading light. Lou and Tansy had bought a picnic table to go with their new barbecue, strung tiny lights through the trees that came on with the dusk. ‘Solar,’ the salesman had said. ‘Commercial grade. Bit more expensive, but they’ll last for years.’ The little lights made the garden look like something out of a magazine, like somewhere life happened. Next weekend, thought Lou, we’ll invite everyone over, cook some sausages. Although whether anyone would want to come was another story. Maybe it would be easier to have Tansy’s mates around instead.

  ‘Who are your friends these days?’ she asked. ‘I haven’t seen Zarah for a while.’

  Tansy shrugged. ‘Don’t have much to say to her.’

  ‘Does she know you’re pregnant?’

  Tansy shook her head.

  ‘Have you told any of your friends?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Lou shuffled closer. ‘Have you told the baby’s father?’

  Tansy didn’t answer, just stared into her ginger tea.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Lou. ‘It doesn’t matter who he is, it really doesn’t. I’m not going to get upset. But you do have to tell me. It’s important, especially now.’

  ‘Do you think maybe he passed something on to the baby?’

  ‘Not like a disease, no. But there might be something hereditary, in his genes, that we need to know about.’

  ‘So this might not be my fault.’

  ‘Tansy, if there’s something wrong with this baby, it’s no one’s fault.’

  ‘I think it might be, though.’ Tansy twisted her mug round in her hands. ‘I was drinking, when I went out. Heaps. Cider mainly, but we also nicked your brandy, and I drank most of that.’ Her voice got even quieter. ‘I was hoping it might . . . fix things.’

  Lou put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders, for what felt like the hundredth time that day. She’d held her more in the last week than she had in the past year. Two years. Who’d have thought?

  ‘And I smoked a couple of joints. And sniffed some glue. Only once, but — what if that made the genes change? Mutate or something?’ Tansy’s voice rose and carried on the still night air.

  ‘That’s not how genes work. Nothing you’ve done could have caused this.’ Lou had spent the final weeks of her own pregnancy worrying about her former fondness for Southern Comfort, had cried with relief when the disturbingly purple Tansy was pronounced ‘absolutely perfect’. ‘But I imagine the doctor will have questions for him.’

  Tansy fiddled with her tea bag.

  ‘And we’re going to need to speak to him about money. Well, his parents. You heard what the doctor said. This baby might need a lot of extra care, and it’s only fair they contribute.’ Lou squeezed her daughter. ‘You need to be brave and tell him.’

  ‘I can’t talk to him though.’

  ‘Tansy, you have to. I’ll come with you if you want.’

  ‘No, I mean I can’t talk to him at all.’ Tansy looked up from her tea, eyes miserable. ‘I can’t say anything to him, because he’s dead.’

  Melinda leaned back against the sofa with the top button of her shorts undone and tried not to feel disloyal.

  It wasn’t as though they were doing anything. They were only talking. But oh, the talking. She’d forgotten how easy Nick was to confide in. She rolled to one side, crushing a nacho into her mohair throw, and didn’t care. They were surrounded by food — delivery pizza, hot chips, more junk than Melinda had eaten in a decade, all scattered across the floor with no placemats, sticky bottle rings tattooing the blonde wood. If she was going to raise a baby, she’d have to learn to live with mess. Melinda rubbed her beer-bloated belly contentedly. Maybe she should take a photo and send it to Claudia Lang.

  ‘You could kick out the baker downstairs,’ said Nick. He sat among the crumbs and cushions next to her, legs outstretched. ‘He’s not local, so no one will care, and his cannoncini are rubbish. Then you’d have some decent space to store your boxes, rather than piling them up like a death trap.’

  He was still worried about her hurting herself, even though he was the one with a goose egg on his forehead. Melinda gazed out her open balcony doors, blinking away unexpected tears. Not like her to get emotional. And a bit embarrassing, as Australia’s third most inspiring female, as voted by Women’s Weekly readers, to get sniffly because a man had gone all protective on her. She was supposed to be beyond that. But it was just so nice to be looked after, for a change. Someone had taken the time to drive over and rearrange her shelves because they cared what happened to her. Someone thought she was worth caring about. Melinda escaped to the bathroom so she could have a proper sob. This was why she never watched rom-coms — they reminded her of what she was missing. What everyone else had. A husband to sit on the floor and eat crap with, a partner to give you advice when you needed it. It was so bloody ordinary, and yet it felt like visiting a foreign country, one she’d never had a passport for.

  Although she had, once. Nick had been hers first. And she’d given him away.

  ‘Well that was stupid,’ she muttered at the mirror. ‘Didn’t think that one through, did you?’

  The face that stared sadly back at her was just starting to line. She’d be thirty-nine at the end of the year. Almost forty. Past the point where you could fool yourself that your love life might still be about to take off. This was her life; borrowing someone else’s husband for an evening, and drunkenly pretending it meant something.

  ‘It wouldn’t have worked anyway,’ Melinda reminded her mirror-self. She’d wanted to do things, and he hadn’t. She’d had ambition, and he didn’t. She probably wouldn’t have even started LoveLocked if she’d stayed there with Nick.

  And it wasn’t really about him. Melinda carefully patted concealer under her eyes as she tried to convince herself. There was nothing special about Nick. He could be any guy. It was just the sheer male closeness that was making her a bit weepy, because she was lonely.

  ‘Can I tell you something?’ Nick asked, as she walked hesitantly back into the living room.

  ‘Sure.’ She stayed behind the couch so he couldn’t see her red eyes, and so she couldn’t accidentally grab hold of him.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said.

  Melinda clutched the back of the couch instead.

  ‘Just to yabber with. This has been really nice.’ He was a bit drunk, she could tell; he was bobbing his head around like a newborn calf, as he always did when he’d had a few. ‘I can’t really talk to Aimee any more,’ he said. ‘Even without the anxiety. We don’t really understand each other at the moment.’

  ‘Nick, I don’t think we should be having this conversation.’

  ‘Oh I don’t mean anything like that. I love her. She’s my wife. But when it comes to the vineyard, the business, we’re not on the same page.’

  Melinda could talk business. Business was safe. She sat down among the congealing remains of their feast, but with a moat of cushions between them. ‘The cellar door?’

  ‘She won’t even talk about it. Won’t look at the plans I’ve had drawn up, nothing. She treats it like this big joke, but it’s important, Mel. It’s the only way we’re going to stop being just another hobby winery, the only way people’ll take us seriously. And I can’t do it on my own.’

  ‘Have you put a business plan together?’

  ‘Of course.’ He looked vaguely insulted. ‘We’d have to borrow a bit, but it works out.’

  ‘Are the banks going to lend to you?’ They’d had a tough year, Melinda knew.

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. I’d kind of thought —’

  ‘You thought you’d ask me.’

  ‘Actually no. I thought we’d do some crowdfunding.’

  Melinda leaned over her cushion barrier. ‘Do you have the plans? On your phone?’

  There was an easy silence as she flicked through the archit
ect’s drawings — tasteful, clever, expanding the old stables but keeping an authentic feel — and his preliminary costings.

  ‘This is really —’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And the new labels —’

  ‘Neat, eh? I’ve taken the shapes from Grandad’s war medals. I thought we could display them in the cellar door.’

  ‘Which might make you eligible for some government money, a local history grant.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘You could even do a proper museum up.’ There were whole albums of photos that Nick’s grandfather had taken in the war, Melinda knew, as well as uniforms, letters. ‘I bet there’s no end of old guys around here who’d lend you their stuff, who’d love to see it exhibited. And then you’ve got an instant drawcard for tourists, and you’d totally pull in the baby boomers. They’re the ones going on wine tours anyway.’

  ‘I knew you’d get it.’

  ‘This is really cool.’ Melinda flicked through the plans again. ‘So why doesn’t Aimee want to do it?’

  He shrugged. ‘There’s a new reason every day. Time, stress, money.’

  It would be so easy, to gently character-assassinate her friend. Point out the money they’d spent on Aimee’s healthcare over the years, the hours she found to put into community activities outside the vineyard. Melinda didn’t even need to say anything. She could just sit there agreeing with Nick, enthusing over his project. Being the one who got it. ‘I’m sure she’ll come round,’ she said.

  He shook his head. ‘She doesn’t want to do anything new. Says she likes everything the way it is. But I want more.’

  ‘That must be difficult.’

  ‘You’d have been up for it though, wouldn’t you, Mel?’ He leaned over and grabbed her wrist. ‘I wouldn’t have had to convince you. You’d have already lined up the shareholders.’ He laughed, a little bitterly. ‘Shame I didn’t wait a bit longer for you to come back.’

  ‘But you didn’t, and now you have a wife who adores you, and two gorgeous children and the world’s most expensive cat.’ Melinda shook herself free and started stacking plates decisively. ‘Everything’s worked out exactly as it was supposed to.’

  ‘You forgot the dog,’ Nick said, watching her with a funny look on his face.

  Drunk. He was drunk. They both were. ‘Come on, soldier,’ she said, nudging him. ‘Time to go home.’

  But he was staring over her shoulder. ‘Who’s the tie belong to?’

  ‘Oh that.’ Melinda had forgotten it was still out. She wound it around her fist, the shiny fabric padding her hand like a boxing glove.

  ‘You’re seeing someone.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Is it serious?’

  ‘Mmmm.’

  That look again. ‘Lucky guy.’

  Melinda examined the little misspelled label promising ‘100 per cent hand-stiched’ silk. This wasn’t at all what she’d imagined it would feel like, finally flaunting a partner in front of Nick. Watching the regret move across his face as he realised he’d made a mistake.

  ‘I’ll let myself out.’

  And Melinda was left standing in the middle of her living room, clutching her fake boyfriend’s fake Prada tie, while the man she’d said she didn’t want, whom she’d told to marry someone else but didn’t expect to bloody well go off and do it, walked slowly backwards to the door. She didn’t need a mirror to know her face would look exactly the same as his.

  ‘Oh, Tansy,’ Lou said sadly. ‘I didn’t even think you knew him. You haven’t seen each other since you were toddlers.’

  ‘We met at a party,’ Tansy said, between sobs. ‘Well, a couple of parties. But it only happened once.’

  ‘It only takes one time,’ said Lou, her mother’s words slipping out her mouth before she could stop them. ‘Sorry. Not helpful.’ She searched her scrambled brain for something to say. ‘Did you like him? I mean, were you . . . close?’

  ‘I didn’t even really know him.’ Tansy was gulping now. ‘Oh God, that sounds so bad.’

  ‘No it doesn’t,’ said Lou, stroking her back. Because who was she to judge?

  ‘But he seemed really nice, you know? He’s not one of those guys who hassles you to send dodgy pics or anything. He’s really respectful.’

  Lou winced. ‘So when was this?’

  ‘Angela’s birthday.’ More tears. ‘It just kind of happened.’

  All that worrying about her daughter roaming the streets, about inappropriate friends and older guys, and Tansy gets pregnant at the local GP’s house. Lou leaned her head back against the rough brickwork.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Tansy. ‘I’ve made a big mess of things, haven’t I?’

  ‘No more than the rest of us,’ said Lou, her heart breaking for her daughter.

  ‘But we don’t have to tell them do we? Lincoln’s parents? It’ll only make things worse for them.’

  Lou had told the boy’s parents, seventeen years ago. And yes, it had only made things worse.

  ‘We could just not say anything. Keep it a secret. Make something up. Please?’

  Lou had made something up, in the end. A French backpacker, in the days before email and mobile phones. A summer romance. A man no one could question, a story no one could disprove.

  ‘We don’t need their money. We’ll be fine.’

  Lou had taken the money, in the end. Let them buy her silence. Do you really want this to go to court? For everyone you’ve slept with to be made public? Because you don’t really know whose baby this is, do you? You’re just going after the family you think is wealthiest.

  But she’d known.

  At least, she thought she’d known.

  A small icy doubt slid down into Lou’s stomach. Chromosomes. Extra genetic material. Oh God. She reached over and grabbed Tansy’s shoulder. ‘Are you sure? Absolutely sure? That this baby is Lincoln’s?’

  Tansy twisted away. ‘I told you.’

  You’ve got no idea. You’ve slept with everyone in town, and now you’re trying to pin it on my son.

  ‘He was the only one!’

  Lou had screamed the same words at her parents. She’d been lying. She was still lying. And now, as her mother had promised, it looked like her chickens might be coming home to roost.

  The stars seemed very far away, much further than usual. Aimee lay on the trampoline beneath the vast southern sky and tried to feel insignificant. In the grand scheme of things, she reminded herself, my little thoughts and actions don’t even register. Cicadas hummed their agreement from the trees. When you consider the size of the universe, one of her counsellors used to say, we’re really not that important. Look at the order, look at the science. Do you really think you have the power to disrupt it? Are you actually telling me you can control the cosmos, just by checking?

  Jeff had been her favourite counsellor. Not a proper psychologist or psychiatrist, just a trainee who ran the group sessions, he was the one person who could make her laugh at herself. Yes, it was probably unlikely that she’d poisoned a group of senior citizens by leaving a container of biryani out overnight. (Although reheated rice was the perfect vehicle for bacteria.) Yes, it was slightly ridiculous to take notes when she watched the evening news, just in case there was an accident she might have been involved in.

  Yes, there was a small chance she hadn’t set fire to a light aircraft, even though she’d let off a lantern with an open flame in a residential area on the same night the plane crashed with an experienced pilot at the helm in an unexplained accident the police were treating as suspicious, barely ten minutes from her house.

  But only a very small chance.

  A shooting star fizzed across the sky, and Aimee’s heart gave a thump. Once upon a time she’d have taken that as a sign, that what she was thinking was true. But she was better now. Wasn’t she? Yes, she told herself firmly, as a plane — a real, unexploded, safe-in-the-sky plane — blinked red and white above her, and she ignored that sign as well. Much better.

  ‘
Mind if I join you?’

  The trampoline rolled beneath her as Nick climbed onto the mat. A wave of beer fumes followed him.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘The pub.’

  ‘What about the kids?’

  ‘Claire’s. She promised fish and chips and a sleepover in a tent. They thought it sounded cool.’

  Nick’s sister was a forty-five-year-old orthodontist; the kids didn’t think anything she did was cool. He’d got rid of them so they could talk. Aimee held onto the thick edge of the matting, body as tense as the springs supporting her.

  ‘So what happened?’ he asked.

  ‘Oscar had another episode, all over the kitchen. I really think we should take him back to the vet, maybe get a second opinion.’

  ‘Aimee —’

  She had to be honest with him. He was her husband. He wasn’t going to tar and feather her. He’d promised to love and protect her. And who knew, it might even make things better. ‘I’m a bit worried,’ she said finally, stating the obvious.

  Nick reached over and took her hand, his skin warm against the cool webbing. ‘What about?’ he asked, squeezing gently, and she remembered all the reasons why she chose him.

  ‘I think I might be responsible for Pete Kasprowicz’s accident.’

  Aimee felt rather than saw him nod.

  ‘We should never have let them off,’ she said miserably, staring at the little pinpricks of light above, lights that weren’t exploding into balls of flame and killing innocent children. ‘I should have known better.’

  ‘I thought that might be it. I wondered if you were blaming yourself.’

  A wave of relief washed over Aimee. ‘You did? How?’

  ‘Aims, I live here. You’ve been a wreck since New Year’s Eve. You’ve rearranged the pantry three times.’

  ‘Don’t joke.’ She pulled her hand away. ‘I’m serious. There’s a very good chance I caused that boy’s death.’

  ‘That’s not possible.’

  She opened her mouth to tell him just how possible it was, but he kept talking.

  ‘Look, I was worried as well, if I’m honest. I didn’t think it was a brilliant idea, but I didn’t say anything. I knew you were trying to do something nice for everyone. But I had my eye on my pager the whole time. I thought they were going to burn the bloody riverfront down, rain or no rain. And instead — well, the only small consolation is that the fuel from the crash didn’t set the bush alight. Can you imagine?’