Not Bad People

by Brandy Scott

  She had no idea who’d come up with the inscriptions. Lou had wanted nothing to do with it. Bland words about being a loving husband and father, a devoted mother and wife. She ran her hands across the stone, noting shamefully that theirs were the only graves without offerings. Even the knocked-over jam jars and dirty stuffed animals showed that someone cared.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Lou, checking first that there was no one around to hear her shamefaced apology. ‘I still don’t really understand why you did what you did, and I still don’t actually think you were right, but I’m sorry for my part in things. I’m sorry if I didn’t give you much of a chance. And I’m sorry I didn’t try to make things up with you, for Tansy’s sake.’

  This was the bit where she was supposed to tell them how much they’d have loved their granddaughter, how proud they’d be, but Lou didn’t say it because she didn’t think it was true.

  ‘I’m trying to do everything differently from you. And that might sound rude, but I don’t want Tansy to turn out like me. I don’t want her to break me, like I think I might have you. And I’m sorry if that’s how it felt.’

  She had surprisingly little to say. It was more a gesture, turning up here. An acknowledgement that she’d behaved badly as well. Her mother had had fifteen stitches, Lou knew. Not that she’d ever spared a thought for her perineum.

  ‘Anyway, I’m declaring a truce. I’m not going to say bad things about you any more. I’m going to make more of an effort here in Hensley, for Tansy’s sake. I’ll even bring her up here, with her baby, if we’re able to. Explain that you were better people than I realised.

  ‘I wish you’d have told me, Mum,’ Lou said suddenly. ‘I’d have seen things differently. It would have helped. I would have felt less alone.’ She lay one hand on the warm stone. ‘I wish you’d felt that you could tell me.’

  There was a family she vaguely knew entering the churchyard, the little girl clutching a bunch of bright-purple pansies. Lou pushed herself back up on her feet, dusted the loose grass off. She didn’t need the town thinking she was going soft. ‘I’ll be off then. But I’ll come back. And . . . thank you. For the stuff you did do. It was probably more than I realised, I can see that now.’

  She stepped carefully around the ground that housed her parents as she headed back towards the path. There was a fresh hole next to the gate, raw and waiting. Lou paused, made it look like she was fiddling with her bag. ‘I owe you an apology as well,’ she quietly told the air, the body still to come. ‘We couldn’t have known, but I’m sorry anyway.’

  Then she quickly walked on, before anyone could see.

  Melinda entered her password on the bank’s website and watched the little coloured disc spin.

  Why am I even doing this? she asked herself as she waited for the computer to decide whether to let her in. Aimee was clearly still a loose cannon; she probably wouldn’t make it through the weekend without confessing to someone. Probably her bloody investigator friend. Why should she pay Lou to keep quiet when the whole town was going to find out anyway?

  And Melinda might need this money, if everything did come to light. She opened her savings account. There was bound to be a fine, at least. Legal fees, maybe. Really, she should be keeping a war chest, she rationalised as she typed in the numbers: all those zeros. This was an irresponsible act. She owned a company. She had staff. She might be adopting a baby. She had commitments.

  Lou’s bank details were still on file from when she’d briefly sold for LoveLocked. In more than a decade, she’d never upgraded her bank account, never shopped around for a better deal. Never needed to. But that wasn’t Melinda’s fault. She wasn’t responsible for what her brother had or hadn’t done, if he’d screwed Lou over. Or if her father had. More likely her father. Melinda could hear her dad laughing as he told her about the money he’d given Mat to bugger off. Start again somewhere new with a clean slate. Because he’d caused too much trouble here. She’d thought he just meant the gambling; clearly not.

  The bank needed secondary authorisation, ‘for a transaction of this size’. Melinda rested her head in her hands and waited for the phone to ring. She’d heard her father bully people before, had sat silent as he recounted his victories over their weekly Sunday lunch. Roast lamb with a side helping of amused contempt; laughing stories of how he’d worn the other party down with threats and legalese as he passed the potatoes. Had Lou been subjected to something like that? She’d have tried to fight her corner, Melinda was sure of it. And she would have lost. She pictured the two of them skirting each other at social gatherings. Recalled her father’s low opinion of Lou. Trouble. Saw Lou’s annoyance as Melinda sent off yet another cheque to Matthew.

  So much, under her nose, for so long. And she’d had no idea.

  Melinda looked around her perfect, sterile flat. Why had she really come back? Because she was trying to impress her dad? You idolise him. Did she think if she was living here, waving certificates under his nose like a skinny twelve-year-old, he’d be forced to acknowledge her success? To pat her on the head? Or did she come back because it was comfortable? Big fish in a small pond. Easier to stand out here than compete with a thousand other beautiful, successful woman in London or New York or Melbourne.

  Or had she returned to Hensley for Nick? Stop trying to steal him back. No. She hadn’t. But it had been nice, knowing he was watching. Seeing him compare. That had been comfortable too.

  The woman on the end of the line was cheerful. Was this a genuine transaction? Could Melinda please answer a couple of security questions? She reeled off the name of her childhood pet, her mother’s maiden name. This was madness, all of it. But it somehow also seemed right. She might not be directly responsible for anyone else’s mess, but she felt culpable, all the same. For causing Aimee so much distress. For not recognising Lou’s. But more than anything, she felt tired.

  ‘We’re going to send a four-digit number to your phone. If you could please enter it when prompted.’

  The inquiry started on Monday. Melinda no longer had the energy to try to shut Aimee down, to battle Lou, to control who knew what or said what to whom. Her phone pinged. At least it would be over, soon enough.

  CHAPTER 36

  ‘I’ll leave you to sort this one out,’ Arthur said to Pete. ‘But Cameron, I’m warning you. I don’t want to hear your name so much as come up in conversation.’ The policeman paused to catch his breath. ‘Understand me?’

  ‘I was only —’

  ‘Understand me?’

  ‘Sir.’

  Arthur’s heavy footsteps retreated down the dirt path, leaving Pete alone with Cameron in the clearing. He could kill me, Pete thought, listening to his son move around the riverbank, little branches snapping under his feet. Push my face in the water, hold me down. Say I slipped. He thought of yelling out to Arthur, asking him to wait, to drive him safely home. But he didn’t want Cameron to know he was afraid.

  The river gurgled gently next to them, the mud making small kissing sounds where the water touched the sides. The current could be strong down here, but it wasn’t particularly deep. Pete kicked off his shoes and walked blindly forward.

  ‘What the hell?’

  The bank was further away than he’d realised. Pete stumbled slightly as he miscalculated the slope, gripping the mud with his toes so he wouldn’t fall flat on his face. But then he was in. He kept walking, the water rising greedily up past his ankles, his calves. It was cooler than he’d expected, but it still had the soft, silty feeling he remembered from when they used to bring the boys down here.

  ‘Pete!’

  Pete’s trousers grew heavy, slowing him down. The water reached his thighs before there was a panicked splash behind him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ A hand circled his good arm.

  ‘You want me gone, I’m making myself gone.’ Pete took another step forward.

  The grip tightened. ‘Don’t be bloody stupid.’

  ‘What’s left to live for? My wife’s dead, my y
oungest is dead, and my eldest is turning into a sociopath.’

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘You try to intimidate people. Mess with their heads. You’ve been doing it for years. Me. Suzanne. Now Aimee.’

  ‘We were only going camping.’

  ‘I know exactly what you were doing. You’ve done it before. Suzanne was too scared to drive to work.’

  ‘Well, maybe she should have thought twice about —’

  ‘Enough!’ Pete twisted and slipped free, strode deeper. The water rose to his waist, but he wasn’t frightened. Well, not much. He knew this river. Something brushed past his leg, then returned; Pete carefully nudged it away. ‘You don’t know the full story.’

  ‘I know we weren’t there that night, because of her. Because you were with her. I know you cheated on Mum, when she was dying.’

  Cameron’s voice was a couple of metres away; he’d never been very comfortable in the river. Had always been frightened of what might lie beneath. Pete paused, the water cold around his chest. He must be a fair way out now — the current was stronger, the mud slippery. He turned, careful not to lose his footing. He didn’t want to die. He just wanted to make a point.

  ‘You’re right, I wasn’t there,’ he said. ‘And I can’t change that. It’s my biggest regret. But I didn’t cheat on your mother. She knew where I was and who I was with. She knew what was going on.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ called Cameron. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It was her idea.’ Julia had turned to him, when it became clear the chemo wasn’t working. I want you to get married again, she’d said. You need to find someone else, for the boys. So they have someone when I’m gone. ‘She wanted you to have a mother.’

  ‘She would have wanted you to wait.’

  ‘She was sick for three years. She knew Suzanne. She liked her. It made her happy, to think we wouldn’t be alone.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear this.’

  ‘But you have to. You have to get over it now. It’s turning you into something you don’t want to be.’ Pete took another small step into the busier water, remembering that afternoon. He’d left his phone in the car. The smallest thing. Their daily visit with Julia had been depressing; he’d taken the boys to McDonald’s for a treat, then left them alone for a few hours. Cameron was old enough to hold the fort. Pete and Suzanne had gone to see a movie. Something light, to take his mind off things. The irony. Pete stood in the swirl of the river, his mind faithfully replaying the scenes. They’d sat chastely next to each other, not even holding hands. Julia had chosen Suzanne: A nice Christian woman. Pete didn’t even particularly fancy her, but it made his wife happy to think they were spending time together. And Pete wanted Julia to be happy.

  ‘You’re just trying to justify what you did. You’re telling yourself stories, to make yourself feel better.’

  They’d gone for Chinese after; not much fine dining in Meadowcroft. Talked about work. He hadn’t even noticed he’d forgotten the phone. It was a nice night; Pete decided to walk rather than drive Suzanne home. All in all, he’d probably been gone four hours. Maybe five. It wasn’t till he was back in his own driveway that he saw all the messages. He’d walked into the house and found the children hysterical.

  ‘You abandoned her.’

  ‘I couldn’t be there twenty-four hours a day. No one could.’

  ‘You left her alone to die!’

  ‘Well, then so did you!’ Words Pete had vowed never to say flew across the water, like perfectly shaped skipping stones. ‘You were fifteen. You could have called your grandparents. You could have gone to the neighbours, explained the situation.’

  ‘You can’t expect –– I was a child!’

  ‘I didn’t expect it! Just like you couldn’t expect me to live at the hospital.’ Pete was shaking now. ‘You know why you’re so angry? Why you need to hate me? Because deep down, you know there were things you could have done as well.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  There was a shallow splash, then another, Cameron’s anger clearly winning out over his fear. Pete turned and tried to stride away, to get a bit closer to the safety of the bank. But his foot caught on a log resting on the bottom, and with barely a sound he slipped under.

  For a moment, he was tempted to let the man drown.

  Cameron watched Pete’s hands dance above the thick greenbrown of the river and thought of his mother, her thin arms attached to so many machines. Saw his head bob briefly above the paint-shiny surface, and imagined her struggling for breath, fighting to hold on until one of them got there. But none of them had got there.

  Cameron pushed his way through the water to where his stepfather had gone down.

  He’d always hated the river, the way you couldn’t see the bottom. The way it felt like drowning, even if you weren’t. He felt wildly around in the dense water, grasping and failing. There wasn’t so much as a bubble. Cameron took a deep breath and forced his head under. He worked his arms around. Nothing. Cameron pushed his eyes open; there was about a foot of grainy visibility. He couldn’t even see his own hands searching in front of him.

  He popped to the surface. Swore. Took another breath, and pushed himself down. Ignored the slimy rub of fish against his feet. Rose again. Down again. On the fourth dive, he connected with something solid. Cameron manoeuvred himself underneath Pete and willed them both to the top.

  And now there were two of them, stuck out here in the middle of the river. Pete was breathing — coughing and spluttering, spitting up brackish fluid, but his lungs were definitely working.

  Cameron felt for a bottom that wasn’t there any more. ‘Can you swim?’ he asked, but Pete couldn’t stop hacking long enough to speak. Cameron waited, then wrapped one arm round the top of his stepfather’s chest, trying to avoid his busted ribs. ‘Lie down,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll tow you in.’ He set off in a clumsy backstroke, using his free arm to pull them slowly towards the shore.

  ‘No rush,’ Pete wheezed. ‘Take your time.’

  Like you did. Cameron tried to drown the thought as he frogged his legs, letting the river help, carrying them downstream but closer to the bank. He’d been fifteen. The same age as Byron. He could have phoned his grandparents; both sets lived less than an hour away. He could have gone to the neighbours, begged a lift. But none of that had occurred to him until afterwards. He’d been too petrified to do anything except sit at the little table in their stifling kitchen, trying to distract Lincoln and waiting for the man he still called Dad.

  They were heading too far down the river; if they went much further, they’d hit the river traffic. Speedboats. Jet skis. Cameron kicked harder, connecting with skin and bone. Pete’s head was sinking. Cameron used his spare hand to prop his chin up and concentrated on using just his legs. Tried to stay calm. Again.

  They’d sat all afternoon at the yellow formica table, playing endless crappy card games. The phone ringing and ringing. When the sun went down they’d sat in the dark, too unsure to even turn the lights on. The hospital must have called half a dozen times. We need to speak to your father. He needs to call us back, as soon as he can. Do you have another number for him? It’s just some rubbish about insurance, Cameron kept telling his brother, while watching frantically for headlights. His heart thumped in relief with every car that turned down their road. But it was never Pete’s. Eventually the phone stopped ringing, and Cameron had known.

  There was a distant engine whine and Cameron panicked. He wasn’t a strong enough swimmer to do battle with river traffic. He flailed and both their heads went under. Pete almost slipped out of his arms as Cameron tried to right them both. And then a sickening crunch, on the back of his head. A branch. But a branch from a tree, a tree growing on the bank. Cameron grabbed it gratefully.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, as he carefully inched his way along, pulling them to safety. The water was shallow enough now, he could stand and drag his stepdad the last few metres. Cameron pulled Pete up onto the bank and collapsed beside him. They lay, c
hests heaving, deep and grateful breath the only sound.

  ‘Thank God,’ Pete said finally.

  Cameron didn’t want to ask, but . . . ‘You okay?’

  ‘Just. You?’

  Cameron let the anger come, now they were both safe. ‘What the fuck were you playing at?’

  Pete laughed, and more water came up. ‘Had to get you to listen to me somehow,’ he said, when the spluttering stopped.

  ‘It’s not okay,’ said Cameron, furious. ‘You could have bloody drowned us both.’

  ‘Neither is what you’re doing with Aimee,’ said Pete. ‘Knock it on the head.’

  ‘I wasn’t —’ But he’d thought about it. Not interfering with the boy, obviously, but disappearing with him for a bit. Just to warn her off. Driving over into New South Wales, convincing Byron they were having an adventure. But then the kid had said, when they were smoking, ‘My mum’s not well.’ And Cameron had been right back there, at the glossy yellow table in the darkening kitchen.

  Cameron peeled off his wet shirt. Byron would be a year younger than Lincoln, roughly. Except Byron was alive and well, while Cameron had missed his brother growing up. Had never had the chance to take him camping. Cameron stared down at Pete’s balding head, tried to hate his stepfather for depriving him of those final years, but the familiar flame of anger wasn’t there.

  ‘Where’s the car?’ asked Pete. He’d propped himself up, was looking uselessly in the wrong direction.

  Cameron stood. The river had taken them a fair way from the campsite. ‘A couple of kilometres, I reckon.’ Pete was shivering. ‘There are sleeping bags in the tent. I’ll go and grab them.’

  Pete crawled over onto his knees, then stumbled awkwardly onto his feet. ‘I’ll come with you. Don’t trust you to come back for me.’

  ‘Your call.’ But his stepfather was still unsteady. Cameron looped an arm under his good shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll go slow.’

  CHAPTER 37