The End of Cuthbert Close

by Cassie Hamer

  Alex paused and swallowed hard.

  Get a grip. It’s just a guinea pig.

  Gently, she carried Henny across the road, down the side of their house and into the backyard to a shady spot under the jacaranda tree. There, she laid her down and started digging a small hole, letting the boys each have a go until there was a Henny-sized space in the soil.

  ‘I think that’s deep enough,’ sighed Alex. ‘Let’s cover her up.’

  The boys didn’t move.

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to say something?’ With his free hand, Noah clutched at his groin, which was what he always did when he was scared, nervous or just bored.

  Jasper nodded furiously. ‘Like a prayer, or a speech. You have to, or she won’t go to heaven, right?’

  ‘All right.’ Alex smoothed down her skirt. ‘We are gathered here today, to mourn the passing of our dearly beloved guinea pig, Henrietta Jane O’Rourke. She was so kind and loving, and so, so furry. She never bit, or clawed anyone, and she was the best guinea pig we could have asked for.’ Alex bowed her head. ‘Boys? Anything to add?’

  Jasper cleared his throat. ‘God. Please let Henrietta into guinea pig heaven because she doesn’t eat much, and her poo is tiny.’

  Noah made the sign of the cross and clasped his hands together. ‘Amen.’

  ‘Lovely words, boys. Now, you cover her with the dirt, while I just duck inside to the toilet. Mummy’s not feeling so well.’

  As Alex took one last look at Henrietta’s stiff little body, another wash of bile filled her mouth and she half-walked, half-ran into the house, fumbling with the keys in her haste to get inside to the bathroom.

  In front of the mirror, she gripped the sides of the basin until the nausea subsided again. What the hell was going on? A virus? She had been feeling even more exhausted than usual lately and her tummy had been funny for the past couple of days. Alex sat on the toilet seat to think. She’d had this queasy, pit-of-the-stomach feeling before. A bit like having a hangover, but it couldn’t be that. Sunday and Monday were her alcohol-free days. Her tired mind ticked over. Think. Think.

  She snapped her fingers. Six years ago, when she fell pregnant with the twins. That’s when she felt like this. Shocking all-day sickness for the first twenty weeks.

  Oh goodness. Morning sickness.

  She couldn’t be, could she?

  No, no, she couldn’t. Her obstetrician had stated categorically that she would never ever be able to fall pregnant naturally. Conceiving the boys had taken ten rounds of IVF and a substantial wad of savings that could have gone towards the mortgage. Not that she begrudged the cost. Not entirely. She was thrilled to have the twins and had come to accept that they would be her one and only experience of birth. After that, contraception seemed a waste of time, and besides she and James were always too tired to make love.

  So when? How? When did we last …

  Ah! She had it. There had been that one occasion, after her big win in the Cormack matter, where Beth had taken the twins for the evening and Alex celebrated by taking James for a spontaneous night at a five-star hotel in the city.

  That was it! Their dirty weekend away.

  Alex looked around the bathroom before leaping to her feet to run upstairs to their bedroom. There were some old pregnancy testing sticks somewhere in her bedside drawer. She’d bought dozens of them when she fell pregnant with the boys to keep checking it was real, and she’d never got around to throwing them all out.

  She held up the packet and turned it over. Six months past the expiry date.

  Whatever. At this point, a slightly inaccurate result would be more useful than none at all. She went into the ensuite and sat down. Took the stick out, did a wee, and waited.

  She tapped the packet and listened. The boys weren’t even talking, let alone fighting, which was usually what happened when they were left alone for two minutes.

  Pulling out her phone, Alex set the timer and started scrolling through work emails. At the three-minute mark, her phone buzzed and her stomach clenched. Fingers trembling, she picked up the stick and inhaled.

  Only one pink line. Not pregnant after all. What a relief!

  Must be a stomach bug, then.

  Alex exhaled and put down the stick. It certainly wasn’t the right time for them to bring another little O’Rourke into the world. Actually, there would probably never be another right time. Alex had sold all the baby gear on eBay in expectation that it would never be needed again. They had neither the time nor the money for any more IVF cycles. The remaining embryos had been donated to science. Her job was far too demanding for her to squeeze a baby into the mix and the mortgage meant she couldn’t afford to stop work. Thank goodness for the single line.

  She stood in front of the mirror and squinted. Gosh, she looked tired and haggard. Dark shadows underscored the redness of her eyes and the crow’s-feet at the corners seemed at least a half-centimetre deeper. Alex picked up the pregnancy test that she’d left sitting near the tap.

  Thank goodness it’s negative! Imagine how much older I’d look with all those night wakings for a baby.

  She stopped, still holding the stick between her fingers.

  What the fuck …

  She brought the stick closer to her eyes, so close it was almost blurry. Oh god, now she probably needed reading glasses. Slowly, the test came into focus. The first pink line was there, strong and vibrant as it had been when she first did the test. But now it had a little friend, almost like a shadow next to it. Faint, but unmistakably there.

  Alex blinked, thinking maybe it was simply a case of seeing double, which occasionally happened when she was exceptionally tired.

  But no matter how many times she opened and closed her eyes that second pink line wouldn’t go away.

  Alex closed her eyes, clutched the stick to her chest and let the thump of her heart pulse through it, as if channelling the little being within her.

  Voices filtered in from outside. ‘Give me the spade!’

  ‘Mum gave it to me.’

  ‘No, she didn’t.’

  ‘Get back away from me or I’ll hit you over the head with it.’

  Alex opened her eyes.

  They’re about to hurt each other. Run! Stop them!

  But she didn’t run, like she normally would have. Instead, she walked slowly to the window and looked down onto the garden. The boys had the spade between them in a tug of war. Back and forth it went. Only one of them had to let go and it would send the other sprawling.

  Can I put a baby into the midst of that?

  Alex’s gaze shifted. There was a flash of movement from the garden next door. It was Cara, dragging an easel out into the backyard with her daughter, Poppy, in tow. Painting was something they often did in the afternoons – Cara said it was when the light was best. Alex watched them set up, Cara clipping the paper into place and pointing out a rainbow lorikeet while her eight-year-old daughter set out the brushes and paints.

  Oh, to be the kind of mother who did art and craft with her child, and actually enjoyed it!

  Last week, after a particularly difficult afternoon of frantic work calls and emails, Jasper had asked her what she actually did that was so important she couldn’t stop for a quick game of soccer with them.

  ‘Well, I help people, I suppose,’ she’d said, momentarily lifting her head from the laptop to look into his deep brown eyes.

  ‘But help them do what?’ Jasper insisted.

  ‘Well, you know, when people own a business, sometimes it’s really popular and they get enough money to buy someone else’s business.’

  He nodded in understanding and Alex went on.

  ‘But that other person might want to keep their own business, so then they have to go to court and a judge works it out.’

  ‘So a court is where you do the fighting?’ Jasper squinted. ‘Like a boxing ring?’

  ‘More like a conversation fight, and a judge who decides the winner.’

  ‘They should just have an a
rm wrestle. That’s what Noah and me do when there’s a toy we both want. What a silly job,’ he said, cocking his head and smiling at her with pity.

  Alex bit her lip. It was her silly job that paid for the roof over his head, the clothes on his back and the food in his belly. In fact her job was so silly it brought in three times the money that James did as a chiropractor, and until that changed, she was stuck with it, and possibly a baby on top.

  A baby. How the hell would she manage that?

  Alex blinked and blinked again to try to get rid of the tears forming in her eyes. She wiped them away and the movement must have caught Cara’s eye, because she looked up and waved.

  Alex waved back and cleared her throat.

  From her own backyard came another piercing shriek. She looked down. Poor Noah was splayed across Henrietta’s grave, and Jasper stood over him with the spade.

  ‘I’m lying on a dead thing.’ Noah’s eyes were scrunched shut and Jasper prodded at him with the spade.

  ‘You’ve-got-dead-guinea-pig-germs. You’ve-got-dead-guinea-pig-germs.’

  Alex leant against the window sill and closed her eyes.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Cara smoothed down her paint smock. Seeing Alex hadn’t exactly helped her nerves; if anything, they’d redoubled. Her poor neighbour. So pale and ghostly. Cara almost regretted waving. Alex looked so startled, though it was not surprising given the noise coming from the O’Rourkes’ yard. The twins certainly had a lot of energy. Cara didn’t know how Alex did it, on top of such a demanding job. Maybe she would invite her over later for a cup of nokcha, once all the children were in bed. They could both do with a calming green tea.

  Cara turned her attention back to her daughter. ‘Now, Pops, remember that Mr Parry will be here in a minute for the inspection so we may not get time to finish.’

  Could her daughter hear the slight quiver in her voice? Cara hoped not.

  ‘Okay, Mum. Have you made the kkulppang?’

  ‘Oh, of course.’

  Their landlord, Mr Parry, had made no secret of his love of the deliciously sticky honey donuts, filled with a tart yuzu curd that her mother dismissed as being ‘no good’ because it wasn’t the traditional red bean paste. But Mr Parry said the little sweets reminded him of the sweet pumpkin scones made by his wife, Norma, who’d passed on a few years earlier. She used to serve them with cream and a tart ginger jam, he said. Just to be a bit different, you know.

  Cara did know.

  ‘Okay, sweetie,’ she said. ‘What’s it going to be this afternoon? The frangipanis or the gardenias?’

  Poppy screwed up her face. ‘What about bottlebrush?’

  ‘Oh, good choice. Sketch first or paint?’

  ‘Sketch, I think.’ Poppy hopped up from the stool and relocated herself closer to the bottlebrush tree. Cara watched her daughter, her cherubic-haired child sitting among the late summer blooms of their back garden. It was as if the flowers had inhaled the late February sun so as to blast out one final, glorious burst of colour and perfume. The bougainvillea had climbed around the shed like a red velvet curtain while the crisp white of the gardenia bushes fringed one corner of the garden like a bride about to make her entrance. In the other corner the frangipani tree dripped sunshine and tropical fragrance.

  Perhaps the pipes inside the house were a little noisy and a few broken tiles made the bathroom floor a bit of a tap dance, but the garden more than compensated for the flaws of the run-down old house. For Cara and Poppy, Cuthbert Close was their stability and sanctuary. It was the only home Poppy had ever known, and Cara intended to keep it that way, especially now she was at school. Hopefully, Mr Parry would agree.

  From the back garden, she heard the doorbell ring.

  ‘That’ll be him, Pops.’ Cara got to her feet, swallowed the knot of nerves in her throat, and dusted off the knees of her capri pants. ‘I’ll bring him out here for afternoon tea.’ She kissed her daughter on the head where the afternoon sunlight glinted off her curls.

  Halfway down the side passage, she stopped. Through the slats of the gate, she could see the man at the front door wasn’t the rotund, white-haired old fellow she remembered. This man was much younger and slimmer, with dark brown hair and his hands thrust into his suit pants.

  Cara opened the gate and the man took his hands out of his pockets.

  ‘Hello, can I help you?’ said Cara.

  ‘Yes, I’m looking for Cara Pope.’

  ‘Oh, that’s me.’

  The man looked her up and down. ‘You’re Cara Pope?’ His forehead crinkled, doubtful, and Cara registered a flick of annoyance. He wasn’t the first to imagine Cara Pope as a blue-eyed, blonde Aussie.

  She smiled and nodded. She’d given up explaining that Pope was her married name. It opened too many doors that she didn’t have the energy to walk through.

  ‘I’m sorry, forgive me, I was … Well, never mind,’ the man stammered. ‘I’m here for the house inspection. I’m Will Parry. Steven’s son.’

  Mr Parry had mentioned his children. Three of them. Two sons and a daughter, if Cara remembered correctly. All grown up and at least two of them with children of their own. Certainly, Will had his father’s twinkly hazel eyes, but clearly not his grace or manners.

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’ She shook his hand. ‘We were expecting your father today. Is he well?’

  Will’s face clouded and his forehead creased. He dropped his eyes. ‘Look, no, he’s not … Look, there’s no easy way to say this … He died … two months ago.’

  ‘Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry.’ Her knees weakened as old feelings began to stir. Grief. Fear. Sadness. All the things she’d tried so hard to leave behind. ‘He was such a sweet man.’ Her voice cracked.

  ‘It was a heart attack.’ Will cleared his throat. ‘Very quick in the end. He’d rung me to say he wasn’t feeling well, and I went around straight away to see him but he was gone.’

  ‘That’s awful. Truly, I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘Why? It’s not your fault,’ said Will, then softened. ‘He didn’t suffer, which is the main thing. Not a bad way to go, really, when you think about it. I hope I’m as lucky.’

  Will gave a tight smile and Cara curled her fingers into a fist. Lucky? Death? Never. ‘Still, it must have come as an awful shock. To pass, just like that, without any chance to even say goodbye. He seemed so … robust.’

  Will rubbed near his temple. ‘Look, I’m sure you’re probably busy so if you wouldn’t mind, I’ll just take a quick look around and get on my way. He’d written this appointment down in his diary, just your name and Cuthbert Close, no phone number that I could find or I would have called you.’

  Cara stood back from the gate. She would deal with her feelings later. Have a good cry in bed. ‘Oh, please, come through.’ She gestured towards the back garden.

  Will didn’t move. ‘Is there something wrong with the front door?’ He inclined his head towards it.

  ‘Oh, no. It’s just that Mr Parry, your dad, was only really ever interested in the garden, so I just automatically assumed.’ She stopped. ‘But, of course, you want to see the house.’ She passed Will, close enough to smell his aftershave, woody and musky, and opened the door. ‘Come in.’ He followed her down the hall of the narrow cottage and into the kitchen. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she called over her shoulder. ‘I made some special Korean sweets as well. They were your dad’s favourite.’

  ‘Thanks, but no,’ said Will. ‘I’m on a bit of a schedule.’

  ‘Oh, okay then,’ said Cara. ‘I’ll leave you to have a look through.’

  He headed towards the bedrooms. ‘I won’t be long.’

  She knew he wouldn’t. The cottage was a tiny two-bedder with a cramped bathroom and a lean-to out the back that housed the kitchen. But from the beginning, Pete had seen the potential – a second storey with master and ensuite, and a back extension to make an open-plan living space that led into the garden. They’d even talked, informally, with Mr Parry abo
ut buying the place, but that was before Pete started coughing. By the time they found themselves in an oncologist’s office, peering into a lightbox with Pete’s lungs splayed before them like butterfly wings, the idea of buying the cottage had been completely forgotten. Cancer? How? He’d never smoked, not really, maybe tried one or two cigarettes as a teenager. Just bad luck, the doctor had said, shaking his head. I’m so sorry. Into the light, Cara and Pete had squinted at the white shadow, haunting his lungs like a tiny ghost.

  From the kitchen doorway, Mr Parry’s son cleared his throat. ‘Ah, thank you for letting me look through. Seems like everything’s in order.’

  ‘Of course, it’s no trouble at all.’

  ‘I’ll be off then.’ He made a move towards the hallway.

  ‘Oh, are you sure you won’t stay for a cup of tea? Please, there’s so much food.’ She gestured to the platter of sweets.

  Will raised an eyebrow.

  ‘He usually took some home as well,’ Cara confessed.

  ‘Mum! Where are the cakes? I’m starving.’ Poppy’s voice was high and insistent, and from the kitchen window, Cara could see her standing in the garden, hands on hips.

  ‘That’s my daughter. The ravenous Poppy.’ Cara turned back to Will. ‘Please come and have afternoon tea with us, or she’ll eat most of the plate.’

  ‘And then won’t eat any of her dinner.’

  ‘Oh, yes, exactly. Do you have children?’ Cara collected the tray and headed towards the back door.

  ‘No. Just nieces and nephews.’ Will stopped by the table. ‘Do you need these teaspoons? And the milk?’

  Cara stopped. In a bid to perfect the arrangement of the tray, she’d had to remove a few items which she’d then forgotten to find a place for. ‘Yes, thank you.’

  Her daughter was at the back door. ‘Where’s Mr Parry?’ she demanded.

  ‘Poppy,’ her mother admonished. ‘Where are your manners? This is Mr Parry – it’s his son. Please make him welcome.’

  The little girl bowed her head. ‘I’m sorry. Hello, Mr Parry, my name is Poppy. It’s nice to meet you.’ She thrust out her hand and Will took it awkwardly.