by Brown, Honey
‘Do the Fairbanks want something?’ Zach asks.
‘They don’t know what they want. They never have.’
Zach says simply, ‘Is it true? Are those graves secret? Were those babies abandoned at birth?’
‘Don’t even say such a thing,’ Aunt Belinda says. ‘Of course the graves aren’t secret – they’re marked with headstones, anyone can see them. And lots of babies died back then. Your grandmother was in her late thirties and early forties when she had those babies – of course there was a chance she would lose them. Those girls died of natural causes.’
‘So they were all girls.’
Aunt Belinda falls silent.
‘Why did we have to cover it up then?’ Zach’s father asks after a moment. ‘Why were we never allowed to bring anyone onto the place, and why was I was made to pick my girlfriends from outside of town? If there was nothing to hide, Belinda, why have we spent our lives hiding?’
Aunt Belinda wipes her mouth. She’s shown her true colours, and now she softens. ‘It’s not an issue, anyway. It’s not something we need dwell on. What is important is that we keep clear of those people and all that gossip. Just let them talk.’
Zach’s father says, ‘I think Dad did kill those babies. I think our mother gave up in the end, and that’s what killed her. You heard him talk; you know what he was like. He planned to get rid of every baby girl until he had a boy.’
Aunt Belinda frowns, perplexed. ‘Don’t say that, Ben. Don’t say that … Why would you say that?’ She shakes her head. ‘Why would you say that, now it’s all over? Say it back then. Say it while he was alive. Say to his face. But not now it’s too late. Why would I want to hear it now?’
‘You could have said something. There was nothing stopping you.’
Aunt Belinda is an old lady as she steps back from the doorway. ‘I suppose it’s easy for you … You have a wife, you have two sons. I suppose you can say that … It’s not so easy for me. I don’t have what you have.’ Before leaving she turns and says, ‘I hope this time you do explain to Joanne. I hope, at the very least, she is sorry.’
40
Rebecca is standing at the counter in the hospital cafeteria when Joanne Kincaid walks in. She steps up behind Rebecca and takes the last salad roll. Rebecca doesn’t know where to look. She’s speechless.
They stand side by side. The line moves forward.
Rebecca fills a bowl with hot chips. Her heart is pounding. She looks over her shoulder. Mrs Kincaid is wearing a fawn-coloured leather vest and skinny-leg jeans tucked into knee-high brown leather boots. Her skin is smooth, and there’s a manicured look to her eyebrows, a fullness to her lips. The white shirt she is wearing has a rounded collar – unbuttoned – and the sheerness, the newness of the fabric is bordering on offensive to Rebecca. Is it possible Mrs Kincaid has spent the whole time shopping for designer clothes in trendy boutiques? The heavy gold necklace she is wearing is almost too much. Rebecca turns to the front. Everyone in the cafeteria is staring at them.
Rebecca gets some sauce for her chips, and she squeezes the tomato-shaped bottle hard. She can’t help but feel betrayed. The bottle squirts crudely and a fine red spray splatters.
‘My God!’ Mrs Kincaid cries out.
Rebecca startles. She squirts sauce on the packets of biscuits on the counter – those assorted twin packs they have at hospitals.
‘Rebecca!’ Mrs Kincaid says. ‘I didn’t see you! Look at you!’ She takes hold of Rebecca’s shoulder and turns her around. ‘You look different! Oh, and … yes!’ She eyes Rebecca’s bike jacket approvingly. ‘I knew that would suit you. I told Aden he had to get black.’
The sauce has gone all over the biscuits. The next few moments are taken up trying to clean it away. Rebecca picks out the packets covered in sauce. Mrs Kincaid passes her some serviettes.
They sit at a table by the window. Mrs Kincaid places her salad roll to one side, but Rebecca has to eat her hot chips – she can’t very well let them go cold.
‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ Mrs Kincaid is already lighting up as she speaks.
‘Are you here visiting Aden?’ Rebecca asks.
‘Ben, actually,’ Mrs Kincaid says, and pulls a regretful expression. ‘He’s had to have surgery …’ She straightens the bracelet on her wrist, so that it sits parallel with the cuff of her shirt. ‘He has a detached retina. Sounds terrible, doesn’t it? I hope he doesn’t lose the sight in his eye. But I will go up and see Aden, now that you say that. That’s what I’ll do.’
Rebecca wonders if Mrs Kincaid is high. Her eyes are glassy, her pupils dilated.
‘It’s a nightmare being back,’ Mrs Kincaid says under her breath. ‘I’d made the decision to never return.’ She taps the ash from her cigarette, although no ash has yet formed on it. ‘I would always come to see Zach, though. I don’t mean that. I do wish he went to a private school in the city, boarded – I could spend time alone with him then, away from all of this. But Ben has this thing about living with what is around you, and not going off and being somebody you’re not. It’s a dig at me, you see – him saying that. He thinks I’m wasting my time trying to have a life outside Kiona. But what if Zach is creative? Kiona High is hardly going to foster that.’
‘Have you seen Zach?’
‘Yes. He’s like you – he’s older! It’s amazing the way you kids can grow up in a matter of weeks. He’s not talking to me, though.’ She taps her cigarette. She stares at it. ‘I had to beg Ben’s sister to bring him to meet me. He wouldn’t speak to me, but I got to explain. I know I was wrong not to say I was going. But at the time, it’s always …’ she waves her cigarette, ‘a simple case of getting out. Zach knows the farm can be claustrophobic.’ She takes a tissue out from the top of her bra and pinches it to her nose. ‘Rebecca, I’m sorry if I start crying. I promised myself I would not burst into tears. And I’m not going to.’ She sniffs and composes herself. ‘I guess Aden has told you everything that happened. I’m so pleased, by the way, that you and him are together. He’s a lovely boy.’
Rebecca dips a chip in some sauce. She licks her thumb. ‘Even I don’t think he’s that.’
‘And how alike are they! Ben and Aden. Don’t you think? I don’t mean to look at, although they are that too, but they’re both so … well, it has to be said – angry. Confused by their fathers and burdened by the women who brought them up. Although Ben would refuse to see any similarities at all. He refuses to see that Aden has a right to be angry.’
‘Is Zach having any time off school?’
‘I have no idea. I got the full silent treatment. Ben is giving me a more adult form of it – he’s very curt with me. I’m being chastised, see. It’s like they’ve got together on the best way to make me feel 100 per cent horrible. I suppose it will take some time …’ She straightens the diamond ring on her middle finger. ‘And you know, Kara’s not returning my phone calls. I’ve really done my dash. But surely I can’t be blamed for leading Aden astray? That boy is astray all on his own.’ She laughs. ‘Beautifully astray, of course.’ She lifts her hand to hide her smile, and there’s a cold moment for Rebecca as she watches Mrs Kincaid dry her bottom lip with a swipe of her thumb. Rebecca knows that mannerism; she’s seen that gesture before.
Mrs Kincaid leans her body in, across the table. Rebecca finds herself being drawn closer. ‘It was nice to get to know him,’ Mrs Kincaid says, in a tactician’s whisper. Rebecca is unsure if she will forgive the woman if she says what it seems she is about to. ‘I knew Aden before this, but it was nice to get to know him as Ben’s son. His love child. Did you know about Ben and Kara? Kara was Ben’s number-one choice, his childhood sweetheart. Ben told me that himself, when he came up to Charlotte’s Pass. He said it as a way to hurt me. Which it did. He was lashing out.’ She frowns and says, ‘I have this theory – tell me, Rebecca, if you think I’m right: if someone says something like that, if Ben speaks openly about her, Kara, well, it must mean he doesn’t feel that way about her any more. What do you
think?’
‘I guess.’
‘We never speak easily about the things that hurt us. I know I don’t. Kara, Ben said, is the opposite of what I am – she is warm and down-to-earth and full of common sense. So, by saying that, I believe he doesn’t feel the way he did about her.’ Mrs Kincaid breathes smoke out through her nose. ‘I don’t have any animosity towards her. I won’t let myself feel that. I know Ben has been faithful – it’s what he does, to make us all feel so unfaithful. What I tried to explain to him was … the disloyalty comes from what he’s been hiding behind all his talk.’ She flattens her hand and swipes it through the air, as though wiping away years of conversation. ‘He doesn’t see it’s like twenty years of adultery to me. He’s only being honest with me now; he’s only now being himself. I wanted Kara to have the restaurant. As soon as I knew Ben owned it, that’s what I said should happen. I was on Kara’s side. He can say what he likes, but at least I’ve been true to what I feel. I’ve never lied about that.’ She lifts her shoulder. ‘I told him he’s right – those Claas do have a certain something. Aden is easy to be around, enjoyable to spend time with, bloody gorgeous, someone a woman actually enjoys spending time with. He’s warm all right.’ She laughs again, looks off across the cafeteria. ‘In some aspects they are complete opposites. I’ve been trying to remember … but I can’t recall Ben ever being as charming as Aden is. Such charisma. Ben has it, but he chooses not to show it. Although – I will admit – since I’ve got back … this new silent thing Ben is doing …’ she smiles. ‘It would be extremely sexy if it wasn’t for the fact he hates me.’ She straightens, lifts her eyebrows, and drags on her cigarette.
Rebecca says, after a moment, ‘Do you think Zach would mind if I visited him?’
‘I don’t know my son well enough at the moment,’ Mrs Kincaid says. She holds proper eye contact for the first time. ‘I have some ground to make up with Zach.’ She puts a tissue to her nose. ‘Here I go … This is your fault, Rebecca.’ She smiles warmly through her tears. ‘Thank God you’re here – you probably hate me saying it, but I can’t imagine Kiona without you. And look at you in that jacket … How good do you look in that jacket! I picked the colour. Did I tell you? I said to Aden, for God’s sake don’t make the girl go beige before her time. While you can, Rebecca, you should wear black. There’s a window of opportunity in which to get away with hard colours, and while you’re young you should make the most of it. Or you’ll be like me – trying to pull it off when you’re too old to do it with any sort of grace.’
‘I should take these chips up. Aden and I were gunna share them.’
‘Of course. Go, go …’ She lifts her hand and shoos Rebecca.
Rebecca pushes out her chair. She stands by the table.
‘Tell Aden,’ Mrs Kincaid says, ‘that I’m back, won’t you, and tell him it’s already driving me crazy. He will love that. You can tell him I’m bursting into tears at the drop of a hat – I’m a total mess.’
‘Are you staying?’ Rebecca asks.
Mrs Kincaid smiles tearfully. The crushed tissue is tight in her hand. ‘That will be up to Ben, won’t it … ?’
Rebecca glances over her shoulder as she leaves through the cafeteria doors. Mrs Kincaid is sitting alone at the table, smoking. Her expression is thoughtful. She seems not to notice anyone around her. She blows her smoke in a steady stream towards the ceiling.
41
A brush with death makes sex special. In his stuffy room on the veranda Aden is slow and sincere. ‘Oh yeah …’ he says, as if remembering. ‘Oh yeah,’ as if relieved. He keeps his T-shirt on, but pulls it up so they’ve got skin-to-skin contact. ‘Oh yeah …’ as if with her is the only place he wants to be. Under the scabs on his back Rebecca feels the scars already forming. He’s not like her – thin red scars that fade with time; he gets those shiny white scars some people do, the ones that never fade.
He lies on his side when it’s over and lights a cigarette. It’s Monday, her first day back at school. ‘We’re tight, aren’t we,’ he says. ‘This has made us tight. Two weeks and it feels like more.’
‘Two weeks and two days,’ she corrects him.
‘We’ve got instant history. Some people probably don’t like that, but I do. It’s not a simple case of us having been out together …’
Rebecca thinks she hasn’t heard him right and sits up to hear him more clearly.
‘You’ll always be the girl in the car, the girl I slept with when I shouldn’t have, the girl I dragged into this, the girl who saved my life. A guy once said to me if the woman you’re having sex with in your head is the same woman you’re having sex with when you open your eyes, then you’ve got yourself a keeper.’ He smiles at her. ‘That’s you. I think of other girls in comparison to you, now – a couple of cute nurses at the hospital and I’ve got this checklist going on, and I realise it’s the Rebecca Toyer Criteria. They don’t measure up. You’re my yardstick. No-one’s gunna come close.’ He looks around for an ashtray. Pain flickers across his face as he reaches for it. ‘Every girl and it’s gunna be … oh well, okay, that was all right, but not quite like Rebecca …’ Her school uniform is on the floor by the side of the bed; he glances at it and shivers. ‘Nothing is gunna be like you in that school uniform … Bloody hell. I’m going to have to go pretty full-on to top it. It’s hitting your straps too early. A person’s got to build to these things.’
Rebecca eases out from under the doona.
He falls silent.
When she’s done dressing she sits on the edge of the bed. She looks down at her hands. He trails his fingers over her back.
‘Don’t touch me.’
‘Rebecca …’
‘You don’t want me to come with you any more.’
She turns and looks at him. He smiles kindly at her. ‘You’re the sort of person people love, Rebecca. Everyone’s gunna love you. You’re only going to get cooler, sexier, more beautiful. We’re always going to be tight.’
‘Why did you ask me to come if you didn’t want me to?’
‘I can’t hang around here any more.’
‘I can’t either.’
‘I’ll come back in a couple of years and we’ll have a filthy affair behind your boyfriend’s back. Luke Redman has his eye on you. That’ll be exciting – a copper springing us together. It’ll be the talk of the town. You can come and find me and break up any halfway decent thing I’ve got going on. A deal?’
‘When are you leaving?’
‘Tomorrow.’
She turns away.
‘I can’t keep putting it off.’
‘You’re not better yet.’
‘I’m only going as far as West Beach.’
‘What about Nigel?’
‘What about him? He can handle things on his own.’
She takes a breath: it’s heated dust, cold toast, cigarette smoke, sex, leather and the smell of the inside of a bike helmet. She hasn’t got a photo. It’s all going to be what’s in her head.
‘Is your mother keeping the restaurant?’
‘Yeah – yeah, she is.’
‘Did Mr Kincaid give it to her?’
‘It’s complicated.’
Rebecca doesn’t trust herself to speak any more. She licks her lips.
He says, ‘It all just happened, Rebecca. None of it was planned. Not really. No-one set out to do the sort of damage that was done. And just because in the end we all use it to our advantage, doesn’t mean we don’t care. We care. Well, I care. I care about all of what happened. I care about you. You know … sometimes we’re stuck doing these bad things, wishing we hadn’t, and wondering why if we care so much we keep on doing bad things.’
‘I could meet you somewhere in Queensland?’
‘Rebecca, think about it – if we stayed together, if we waited until you left school, worked together in the restaurant, one day got married, got a mortgage, got a job, had kids. Who wants that? Do you want that?’
‘We were going to do it differe
ntly.’
He puts his cigarette out and moves in behind her, wraps his arms around her and presses his face into her neck.
‘Don’t hate me. I’ll send you postcards.’
‘Great.’
‘I won’t forget you.’
‘You say it to all the girls.’
‘I did warn you about my track record.’
She gets up. The leather jacket is on the chair. She knows she shouldn’t but she has to ask. ‘Did you sleep with Joanne?’
‘No.’ His eye colour, though, is too light to hide the truth. ‘Just once,’ he concedes.
It’s everything not to pick up the leather jacket and throw it in his face.
‘It was a way to get to him. I wasn’t really with you at the time.’
It’s there in an instant, as quick as the images of Aden and Joanne form – a burning and heady desire to spit her regret, inflict pain on him, to see him hurt. Not save him? How fitting would it have been to let him bleed out from a stab wound in the back. Polaroid-like shots of him with Joanne build inside Rebecca’s head. Questions line up like dominoes – before he bought the jacket? After it? In the change room, while Joanne tried the jacket on? How many times? Not once, Aden doesn’t do it once. She knows him – his ‘once’ has stages, and the stages have parts, and the parts can stretch on for half the night. A weekend might count as once to Aden. Did he whisper his affection to Joanne Kincaid? She can’t imagine it. And then again … she can. It’s what he does. Different women. Different affection. Different sex. And that’s meant to make it okay. She was warned, but Rebecca’s still left astounded, cold – on so many levels.
Why didn’t Ben Kincaid stab Aden himself? In retrospect, she can’t believe the man’s control. But he was right – why give Aden the satisfaction? Even the most destructive kind of attention-seeking behaviour is best ignored.
‘I felt bad about it,’ Aden’s saying. ‘I felt like I’d cheated on you, and yet we weren’t even going out. You can ask Joanne; I felt like shit.’
