Not Bad People

by Brandy Scott

  The fireworks. He thought she was talking about the fireworks.

  ‘But you didn’t bring that plane down. Look, I had a quiet word with Arthur. Pete was flying at a completely different height. And he was a good pilot. He wouldn’t have flown into a bunch of fireworks.’

  ‘But what if someone let something else off? Their own stuff? Thought it was safe, because we’d got approval?’

  ‘Yeah, there were a few unauthorised displays. Arthur’s going to have a word. But again, fireworks wouldn’t have hurt the plane.’

  ‘But what if it was something bigger? A sky lantern or something?’

  ‘A what?’

  She gripped the edge of the matting. ‘Like we had at our wedding. You know, the paper balloons, with the candles inside them.’

  ‘But those lanterns are illegal now. You can’t buy them. No one would even have them.’

  Aimee’s heart stopped. ‘They might,’ she whispered. ‘There were some here. In the cupboard. Left over.’

  Nick sat up. ‘What, you think Shelley or Byron got into them? Aimee, come on now. You’re just making up scenarios.’

  ‘But —’

  ‘Neither of them would be that bloody stupid. We’ve raised them better than that. They know the risks.’

  ‘But what if —’

  ‘You know what I’m worried about?’ Nick ran his hands through his hair — a warning sign that his patience was fading. His wedding ring shone in the darkness. ‘I’m worried about you. What’s going on in your head. This all sounds a bit familiar.’

  Aimee scrambled to sit up as well. ‘It’s not in my head,’ she said, but quietly, because she didn’t want to admit to being that bloody stupid.

  Nick sighed, and more beer fumes puffed out from him. ‘You didn’t cause the accident,’ he said, but this time it sounded admonishing, rather than reassuring. ‘Look, I know you’ve stopped taking your medication. I think you need to start again.’

  ‘How —’ Melinda. It could only be Melinda. Nick never really spoke to Lou, and besides, she wouldn’t be that much of a bitch.

  ‘It doesn’t matter how I know. What matters is we get you sorted.’

  But it didn’t sound like a ‘we’ type of statement. It sounded like a ‘you’ type of statement. You get yourself sorted. Aimee hugged her knees into her chest. ‘You know from Melinda,’ she said. ‘The same way she knows we might remortgage.’

  ‘Oh for fuck’s — yeah, if I run into her, I talk to her, okay? You know that. No different than I’d talk to anyone. She and I are friends, you and her are friends. Best friends, remember?’

  Not any more. Aimee held herself tighter. The universe might be big and vast and powerful, but at the end of the day, you were all alone in it. No matter who you married, no matter how much you tried to build a safe and happy life for yourself. You could never truly ward off disaster.

  ‘Aimee, what are you not saying?’

  Where to start. Where were you the night after you checked me into hospital? How do you know where the plates in Melinda’s house are kept? She turned towards him, and — ‘Oh my God, what have you done to your face?’

  ‘It’s nothing. I slipped on the pub steps. Someone spilled a drink.’

  ‘But — Nick, you’re bleeding.’

  ‘I said it’s nothing. Just leave it.’ He pushed her hand away. ‘Look, it’s late. I’m going to bed.’ He started crawling towards the edge of the trampoline.

  Aimee put her hand out to steady herself. ‘Aren’t you hungry? Don’t you want something to eat?’

  ‘I ate at the pub.’ And he disappeared into the dark.

  Lou slid out into the warm night, moving quietly so as not to wake Tansy. She held her breath as she pushed open the rusty garage door, but the only sound she could hear was their voices. Are you sure, Louise? I don’t think you really know, do you? You’re just trying to pin it on my son.

  ‘I do know,’ Lou whispered into the dark. ‘I am sure.’ But here she was, on her knees, digging through ancient copies of the Woman’s Weekly, searching desperately for confirmation. Because the statistics didn’t feel very much in her favour. A chromosome disorder. A lip-biting coincidence. We know you’ve slept with other men.

  Lou tried not to think about snakes and spiders as she gingerly pulled books and magazines from the pile. They’d tried to gaslight her, read out a list of names. But Lou had been insistent. Her diaries were right at the bottom, where she’d spotted them in their clear-out. Lou reached for the most recent. She’d never really hoped for much for her life. Just the chance to escape it. But right now, she wished more than anything that she’d got her dates right.

  The moon was bright as Lou carried the fabric-covered notebook over to their nice new outdoor table. The cheap lock gave easily as she pulled it apart. You’ve not exactly discriminated. How could you possibly know who the father is? She flicked through pages dotted with initials, until she found an entry with PK circled at the top. Then another. And another. And then, gloriously, two weeks later, page after page marked with tiny red stars.

  Lou looked up at the dark country sky and thanked a God she didn’t believe in. She knew. She knew. It wasn’t Bob Farrier, who dropped off the firewood, and it wasn’t Larry the butcher’s apprentice, now Larry the butcher. Or Andrew Simons, or Cooper Murphy. And it wasn’t Peter Kasprowicz, even though she’d managed to convince herself, for one long horrible moment, that her mother was right and Lou was, finally, being punished.

  CHAPTER 26

  The flowers just kept coming. Every morning saw a funeral pyre of lilies and white roses covering the front step. Some people rang the doorbell and quickly dropped them off in person, but most just quietly laid them on the mat, bland condolence cards tucked among the gypsophila. Thinking of you. Please know you’re in our hearts. Cameron was tempted to leave them there in the hope his stepfather would trip over them, but Pete rarely went outside.

  The food was starting to slow down, though. The women from the church still came, with their cottage pies and banana bread, but there were fewer neighbourly casseroles, fewer blokes from the aero club clutching an awkward six-pack, ‘just come to see how you’re going, mate’. Cameron swore as he carried in that morning’s offerings. There was a time limit on people’s sympathy, he knew, but for God’s sake, you’d think it would last longer than a week.

  Cameron’s own grief was still glowing, a hot coal of anger that kept him awake at night. Pete might not notice the lack of visitors, might be content to spend his days pacing the house, counting footsteps, memorising the positions of light switches, but Cameron wanted answers. For Lincoln’s sake. Few tragedies occurred without human error, Cameron knew. Even when it seemed there was nothing to blame for your loss except a malfunctioning GPS or a mutating cell, someone, somewhere would be culpable. If only for making things worse.

  One woman still came though, nearly every day. The dark-haired woman from the hospital. Aimee. Constantly creeping down their driveway with a biscuit tin, jumping up from their sofa if Cameron arrived home before she’d left. She was the only one who wanted to talk about the accident, what happened. Cameron sometimes hid in the hallway, hoping Pete would let something slip.

  She’s just an old friend, his stepdad insisted. I haven’t really spoken to her for years. But Cameron knew there was more. Old friends didn’t park across the street and sit staring at your house. They didn’t drive slowly past, taking note of other cars, checking who was inside.

  Cameron knew he should be grateful Pete had company, that someone was around to help, but he wasn’t particularly interested in the old man’s wellbeing. Hadn’t been since Pete had left his mum to die alone, surrounded by machines. Wondering where her family was. Why her husband didn’t answer the hospital’s frantic calls. She’d never have known, the nurses said. She had very little cognisance at the end. But that was bullshit too. You’d know you’d been abandoned. You’d sense it.

  Someone had left a tub of bougainvillea, no card,
no name. Cameron lugged it down the driveway and settled it next to the letterbox. He waved at Mrs Verratti in her four-wheel drive on the other side of the street. And when she started and fumbled for her keys, he was ready. He let her make her way down the street, then hopped in his stepfather’s trusty Corolla and followed her out of town.

  The visitors had stopped coming. Oh, Julia’s old friends still turned up, and those who had to be there: nurses, occupational therapists. Tradesmen fitting new handrails everywhere, making his sightlessness seem more permanent with every hole they drilled. And the aero club members still phoned, one a night; Pete suspected a roster. But he could hear the distance in their voices. Things had changed.

  ‘They’re not sure what to say,’ Aimee suggested, but Pete knew it was more than that. There’d be divided loyalties, now he’d pointed a finger at one of their own. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Aimee said, ‘you lost your son. They want to know the truth as much as you do.’ But Pete knew he’d broken the code. You didn’t do the dirty on your mates, especially when it wasn’t true.

  Pete fumbled in his wardrobe for a pair of trousers, now conveniently hung from light to dark so he could tell what he was putting on. They’d know it was bullshit as well, the people he’d been flying with for years; they all knew those planes inside and out. They weren’t so crass as to call him out on his lies while he was grieving, but they’d be wondering why he’d done it. What he had to hide.

  Pete patted along the wardrobe floor for his shoes. He didn’t care if people avoided him. He didn’t care if they hated him, if he was left alone for the rest of his life, if the doorbell never rang again — he probably deserved that. But he did care about implicating someone else in his mistakes. Pete shoved his feet into a pair of sneakers. He might feel dead inside, be numb to the core, but he wasn’t a complete arsehole.

  It had been a moment of weakness, that was all. A bad judgement call. But at least he could set this one right. Pete fumbled around the bedside table for his phone, now set to voice command, and instructed it to ring Cameron. His son wasn’t keen on his company either, but he was nosy enough to want to keep an eye on him.

  ‘Cam,’ he said, as the phone went to voicemail. ‘Can you come back to the house, mate, soon as you can? I need a favour. I need you to take me somewhere.’

  ‘I made a mistake.’

  Pete kept his hands in his lap, where they shook slightly. Nerve damage, the doctors said, but the truth was accidents aged you. The physical trauma, as much as the emotional pain. The body could only withstand so much shock.

  ‘What sort of mistake, Peter?’ Arthur’s voice was kind, too kind.

  ‘About the accident. It wasn’t the plane. There was nothing wrong with the plane. The engine was running fine.’

  ‘Then why . . .?’ A heavy wheeze from Arthur’s barrel chest. ‘Are you saying you remembered wrong?’

  Pete grabbed the generous interpretation the policeman was offering him. ‘Yes. Yes, I remembered wrong.’

  ‘So what have you remembered that’s right, then?’

  There was no offer of coffee this time, with or without biscuits. Pete swallowed, the noise loud in the concrete interview room. ‘If I tell you, can you keep the other stuff back?’

  ‘Your concerns about the maintenance? The condition of the plane?’

  ‘I don’t have any doubts about the condition of the plane. The plane was fine. I was confused.’ Pete could feel Cameron’s silent stare from the back of the interview room. He’d insisted on coming in, gripped his dad’s elbow as though daring him to refuse.

  ‘Well, that’ll be a great relief to Smithy. He resigned, you know. Even before you’d said anything.’

  Pete ducked his head in shame.

  ‘But it won’t make much of a difference to the investigation. The ATSB will still inspect the plane. That’s their job.’

  ‘I know. But if you could amend what I said, about the engine seizing. Make it clear I was mistaken.’

  ‘I’ll make a note.’ The scratch of pen on paper. ‘They’ve probably got you on some heavy painkillers.’

  ‘They do, yes.’ Pete shot the policeman what he hoped was a grateful look.

  ‘But, Peter,’ Arthur’s voice moved closer towards him, and the desk moved forward as well, knocking Pete’s chest, setting off a flash of fire all the way down his right side. ‘If it wasn’t the plane, people are going to wonder what happened. They’re going to look at the lab reports’ — a meaningful pause — ‘and consider what was and wasn’t in your system.’

  ‘I know about the alcohol,’ Cameron called from his corner. ‘Don’t censor yourself on my behalf.’

  ‘I’m not talking to you,’ bellowed Arthur. He lowered his voice. ‘You know what I’m saying, don’t you?’

  Pete nodded as he gripped the desk, his trembling hands setting off a little earthquake that travelled down the table legs. ‘I can’t have them saying that, Arthur. I can’t have them saying I deliberately . . .’ His throat caught. ‘They’re probably already thinking it though, aren’t they? Aren’t they?’

  ‘Do you want to tell me,’ Arthur said softly, ‘what really happened up there? Do you want to tell me why the plane came down?’

  ‘I made a mistake.’ Pete lowered his head, ashamed. ‘I got distracted by the fireworks, disorientated, and I cocked up the navigation. I saw a bright light at the far end of the river and thought it was a star. I thought it meant we were higher than we were.’

  ‘And you flew into the hill.’

  ‘I pulled the nose down. Deliberately lost altitude. A stupid, stupid mistake. By the time I realised what was happening, by the time I could see we were headed into terrain, it was too late to pull up.’ He crumpled the tissue that was placed in his hand. ‘I killed him, Arthur, not on purpose, but I might as well have. The accident was entirely my fault.’

  CHAPTER 27

  The red floaty top was extremely flattering. Not just because it was expensive, although it was a bit, or because it was American, shipped through a fantastic new service that redirected your shopping from a false address in the US. Aimee tugged on a pair of her old jeans, which — miraculously — actually did up. The top looked great, even the jeans looked passable, because she was another two kilograms down. It was true, the medication had been making her eat more. It had taken a while, but now it was truly out of her system she was finally starting to look like herself again.

  She was beginning to feel more like herself too. The fact that the big parcels didn’t fit in their rural letterbox — an old milk can Shelley had converted for a school project; the road was full of them — meant she had to pick them up in town. Which gave her an excuse to check in with Sharna, find out what was happening. Aimee felt okay, as long as she knew what was happening.

  ‘Bye,’ she called towards bedrooms where the children no doubt sat in the dark on a glorious day staring at screens and not caring whether she was there or not. ‘I’ll be home in a couple of hours!’

  No answer. But she hadn’t expected one.

  ‘Bye, Oscar,’ she said to the resentful cat curled up on the front step where he’d been banished until his bowels started behaving. ‘Bye, Lucinda.’ The labrador at least lumbered over and shoved a wet nose into her hand, licked off a probably toxic dose of Wild Peony moisturiser.

  ‘You off again?’ Nick was rolling a barrel into the sun to dry, ready for the next vintage. It was important, Aimee knew, that the barrels were kept in top condition, that nothing happened to the expensive, imported oak. When she’d first learned how much they cost she’d nearly choked. And if one turned, got infected, if there was the slightest hint of taint, it was all over. ‘Nick takes better care of those barrels than he does of me,’ she used to say to the girls. Joking, obviously. Although here he was running his hand lovingly along the curved wood, and he hadn’t even looked up at her.

  ‘There’s a music rehearsal at the retirement home,’ she said. ‘We’re practising for the festival closing ceremo
ny.’

  Nick didn’t argue, and Aimee felt guilty. ‘I’ll give you a hand moving them back in when I’m home,’ she promised. ‘Help you get them up on the racks. I can be back by three.’

  Nick lumbered to his feet. ‘I’m not going to put them back in the stables,’ he announced. ‘I’m going to try them under the house instead.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘So I can clean this place out, get a proper look at it empty.’ There was a familiar set of plans poking out the back of his jeans.

  ‘I thought we wanted to keep things as they were for a bit. Wait for the right moment.’

  ‘You wanted to keep things as they were. I wanted to give this a try.’

  ‘But I’m not ready.’

  ‘Aimee, you’re never going to be ready.’ Nick turned the barrel carefully onto its side. ‘And I want to get started. I’ve arranged for Tommo to come give me a hand, shift everything before we need to get this next lot off the vine.’

  ‘But the money —’

  ‘I’ve done the numbers. It’ll work. If we’re careful.’

  Aimee squinted at her husband. He’d never ignored her wishes before. Anything you want, Aimee, was his usual mantra. Whatever you need. ‘But you know how I feel about this,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, I do.’ He ran his hands through his hair. ‘Question is, do you care how I feel about it?’

  Dozens of people, every day, that she’d have to feed and water and be responsible for. All those toddlers she’d have to keep away from fertiliser sprays, all those pregnant women she’d have to make sure didn’t accidentally order anything with raw egg. All those disasters, just waiting to happen. Maybe she just wouldn’t play. Force him to hire someone else, see what that did to his precious numbers. ‘I won’t come back early then. If you don’t need me.’