After the Darkness

by Brown, Honey

  ‘What did you hear?’

  ‘It sounded like … two men planning something.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘It would have been a Monday. Then I saw you in the car park on the Tuesday afternoon, and I wanted —’

  ‘Do you remember what time you got the call?’

  She thought a moment. ‘It was around lunch time. I remember listening to it during lunch, and wondering if I should ring to check if you were all right. I even tracked down Steven in class and asked if you were back yet. When he said he’d just spoken to you on the phone, I realised I was being melodramatic.’

  ‘Did you say you deleted it?’

  ‘When I saw you were alive and well.’ She smiled. ‘I would have felt really bad if something had happened to you and I’d got the call and done nothing about it. Anyway, I was down this way, and thought I’d drop in, say hi, and mention it. There was definitely something strange about it.’

  ‘Two men?’

  ‘Yes. Discussing something about who would leave the house, to go and get a car … ? It wasn’t what they were saying, more the tone of it.’ She shivered. ‘It was creepy. I even got some of the other staff to listen to it. Linda from the office thought maybe I should ring the police. It was after talking to her I went to find Steven.’

  ‘Do you remember anything else about it?’

  ‘One of them sounded a bit American.’

  18

  When my father was alive, Mum often withheld news from him. Don’t tell your father, she would say. He doesn’t need to know. Something as simple as a party invitation would be secreted away. My mother would decide they’d go, as a couple, and then slide the invite under bills and out of sight. She wouldn’t tell my father. Moments before the event she’d bundle him into the shower and inform him that they were going out. I know why she did this. He was an intense man. If she showed him the invitation and spoke to him about it, he’d get wound up – there’d be someone going to the party he didn’t like, or the night wouldn’t suit him, or he’d ring the people and want to do something to help, offer our barbecue, see if they needed an extra pair of hands setting up. My mother wanted to avoid all this fuss. She preferred things to run smoothly.

  When Bruce arrived home that afternoon I didn’t tell him straightaway about the phone call. My only explanation for this was that I was trying to work out how best not to cause a fuss. Bruce had picked up the children from school. It was something he liked to do. He enjoyed watching them come out across the school grounds. It was a chance for him to get a look at their friends, and see for himself if they were happy and fitting in. He liked the drive home with them, listening in on their conversations. Once at home they went off in separate directions and didn’t communicate as freely.

  Bruce came into the bedroom and sat on the window seat. The white concrete dust in his hair made him look like a 9/11 survivor. He seemed to contain within him those same shattered emotions. We didn’t talk.

  After a while, he pushed to his feet and went out into the backyard. I followed.

  He stepped up onto the tandem trailer and began unloading the rocks he’d collected from the Cove Street site. They were for his orchard dry-stone wall. He pitched the stones onto the grass, not caring where they landed. I sat in the fold-out chair beside the incinerator.

  ‘I have to tell you something,’ I began. ‘I’m worried about how you’re going to take it …’

  ‘It’s not up to you how I take it,’ Bruce said, without breaking from his task. ‘It’s not up to you how I deal with things.’ The bitterness in his voice was disproportionate to the moment.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  He stopped shifting rocks. ‘I ran into Robert today. He told me he had some catering thing to organise and asked for the name of the chef we’re friends with at the Four Seasons Inn …’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I said I didn’t know who he was talking about.’ Bruce picked up a rock and hurled it onto the messy pile. The stone clipped and chipped the others. ‘He sure clammed up quick after that. I don’t want Jem’s husband looking at me like that, Trudy. Who the hell was he talking about?’

  ‘He’s a chef at the restaurant and a tenant, that’s all.’

  ‘So why did Robert look like he’d just stepped in dog shit?’

  ‘There was a bit of a misunderstanding – you know what the girls are like. At the lunch date they were being silly, teasing me about how they thought Finn liked me … Jem’s probably said something to Robert and he’s panicked. But it’s nothing.’

  ‘He’s a new tenant?’

  ‘Yes, he’s only been leasing with us a month.’

  ‘Since we got back? And you’ve made friends with him? Tell me, Trudy, how is it you actually manage that? I can’t say I’m up to making new best buddies at the moment, but you seem to be.’

  ‘Bruce, please don’t be angry —’

  ‘So you are friends with him?’

  The tilted and lowered way Bruce looked at me sent a different type of fear than what I’d felt earlier that day fluttering through my chest – lighter, higher in my body. Fear of hurting my husband. He was right: a friendship made in the wake of what we’d been through was a loaded situation. His posture was wary and alert. He reminded me of an untamed animal, warning me to back up quick.

  ‘Not really a friendship,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing.’

  Bruce pitched more stones off the trailer. The breeze pushed his hair to one side. His shirt was pressed flat to his torso.

  ‘We can’t be angry with one another. See what’s happening?’ I said, getting to my feet.

  ‘Who exactly is he?’ he demanded.

  ‘It’s not me,’ I explained. ‘I’ve told him to stop dropping in.’

  Bruce’s gaze filled with bewilderment. ‘How often does he drop in?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How often?’

  ‘It’s been … every day.’

  ‘What?’

  I moved closer to the trailer, thought better of it, and stepped back again. Bruce backed away from me also, putting himself on the far side of the trailer, the pile of rocks between us. ‘I would never have thought either of us would want to hurt the other after what happened,’ he said. There was a rock near his boot. He kicked it to the end of the trailer. ‘I’m really trying to hold it together, Trudy.’ He tapped his thumb against his chest. ‘In here. It’s not easy. If you’re going off behind my back because you’re angry there are things about that day I won’t talk about – I’m only not telling you because I can’t.’ He pressed his hand into his chest. ‘In here I can’t. And in here.’ He tapped his fingers forcefully against the side of his head. ‘I can’t …’ He wrapped his hands around his throat and squeezed. ‘I can’t physically say it. Is that really what I have to do for you to show me some support?’

  I felt small. My skin shrunk closer to my bones. ‘I’ve been supporting you.’

  ‘The last thing I need is to find out you’re spending time with someone else. What do you think that says to me – you choose now to hide something from me?’

  ‘Bruce …’

  He picked up a stone and hurled into the distance. ‘Why would you do this? All I want is you, all I need to get through this is you, and you choose someone else?’

  ‘I haven’t chosen anyone else.’

  He pitched a heavy rock into the grass. ‘You really have no idea, do you? I have to believe you have no idea, because if you know, and this is what you do … What if I’d gone off and found some secret female friend to get me through this? How would you feel about that? I’m frightened of what will happen if you tell me there’s more … Friends don’t visit every day.’

  ‘I think he saw I was vulnerable. I don’t think he’s a very good person, actually. I let it go on too long, but only because I haven’t been —’

  Bruce shied as though to dodge my words. ‘No, stop right there. Let what go on too long? Is he just a fucking friend or not
?’

  My hands were at my hips, but not in a defiant sway; my fingers rubbed together and twisted either side of me.

  ‘You know what,’ Bruce sneered, ‘don’t tell me. I don’t want to hear it. Leave me alone.’

  ‘I wasn’t paying enough attention to notice how he felt about me.’

  ‘Careful,’ Bruce said between his teeth.

  ‘I don’t know how to explain it. Other than I don’t feel anything for him.’

  ‘Have you kissed him?’

  I shook my head, but it was slow, one of those shakes that actually confirms.

  ‘You have?’

  ‘He kissed me.’

  ‘Get away from me!’ Bruce screamed suddenly. He stepped down from the trailer. I backed up quickly. He narrowed his eyes at my reaction. ‘You think I’m going to hurt you? Is that what you think? Let me make something really clear – I don’t want to hurt you! I could never hurt you!’

  ‘Please don’t be upset.’

  ‘All that makes sense any more is that I have you and the children – that’s it for me! I can’t see other people, I can’t hear what they say, I can’t see outside my fucking head! I feel nothing! Not one thing! Nothing hurts. Nothing gets in.’ He took a broken breath. ‘Except you.’ The rocks tripped him up as he matched each of my steps towards him with a step in retreat. ‘And you’ve been seeing someone else … ?’

  ‘I haven’t,’ I cried.

  ‘How many times have you kissed him?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Answer me!’

  ‘I never wanted to.’

  ‘How many times?’

  ‘Twice.’

  Bruce turned and walked away.

  ‘Bruce!’

  As he left I heard him say, ‘Sometimes it’s like we weren’t in the same house that day.’

  It was after dinner and dark when he came in. The children were in their bedrooms. They knew we were fighting and had made themselves scarce. I went through the house and found Bruce lying on the couch in the lounge room. I knelt beside him.

  ‘You don’t have to talk to me,’ he said. His body was stretched out and his voice was clean and sure. ‘You’ve got your own things to deal with, and your own way of dealing with them. It’s not your fault. I don’t think either one of us has any say over what happens to us now. I was wrong to think there was a way to get on top of this. What he did to us … it drags us around. I have no clue whatsoever where it’s going to take me. It’s out of my control.’

  ‘I feel the same. I find myself doing things and I don’t know why I’m doing them.’

  ‘Have you slept with him?’

  ‘I promise you I haven’t.’

  ‘Have you told him what happened to us?’

  ‘I would never, Bruce.’

  ‘Are you in love with him?’

  ‘Of course not. All I think about is you. Darling … you don’t have to tell me. You don’t have to say it. I know that’s why you didn’t want to go to the police. I know that’s why you were pleased I burnt the clothes. And I know that’s why you rang my mother before I got there. I understand you don’t want it to come out. I don’t know that’s the right thing for you, but I understand it. Bruce …’ It wasn’t my place to cry, so I clamped my teeth down on the urge. ‘I’m so sorry he hurt you.’

  He said after a moment, ‘At work one of the guys was pulling a chain off the back of his truck, and the sound reminded me of the chain block in the workshop. Things keep coming back to me. I’ll be talking to someone and suddenly I’m back there. It’s like I can’t join in any more, with conversations or anything. People laugh and I don’t know how they manage it. I look at them … and I don’t know how they laugh. Everywhere I turn there’s something that reminds me. Why did we go so blindly in there?’

  ‘Will knowing more make you feel better?’

  I posed this question genuinely, and I was quiet, waiting for his response.

  ‘What else will? We can’t live like this. We’re treading water. What happens when we can’t tread water any more?’

  My hands and nose were cold in the still air of the bedroom. My limbs were heavy with the gravity of what I’d just told my husband. He was crouched beside the bed while I was sitting on it.

  ‘It seems likely Guy Grant is the other voice,’ I said. ‘She said it sounded like he had an American accent.’

  ‘Of course it’s him. When did Sue see you?’

  ‘Today.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

  ‘I was going to. We fought … I don’t know. I didn’t want you to get angry. I can’t … I can’t stand thinking about any of it. I’m frightened of what will happen if it becomes real. I can’t help thinking it’s going to be like the cabinet – once we lift it, it’ll get so much worse.’

  ‘They must have realised their mistake. Worked out they were accidentally on the phone to someone. Where’s your phone?’

  ‘The broken one? It’s in the study.’

  ‘Go and get it.’

  When I gave the phone to Bruce he twisted it until it cracked apart and began to sort through the phone’s internal bits and pieces.

  ‘The sim card isn’t here. You didn’t take it out?’

  ‘Positive. The phone was crushed. I couldn’t work out how to open it. I got my calls diverted to the spare phone.’

  The lamp was shining on the broken phone. Bruce looked on the floor for any dropped components.

  ‘Why didn’t we think of this? Guy Grant has your sim card. He has all your contacts, all your details …’ Bruce spread out the phone parts for another look. ‘He’ll know it was Sue Murdoch he was on the phone to. We should probably ring her. When did she say she deleted the recording? The police will be able to retrieve it. We’re going to have his voice … Trudy, we’re going to have his voice. You’ve got to talk to Sue and tell her. She can come with us to the police station.’

  ‘Will they be able to retrieve it if it was deleted?’

  ‘If they can’t retrieve a recorded message, what the hell can they do?’

  I got to my feet. ‘I’ll ring her.’

  Bruce walked towards the wardrobe. He ran his hand through his hair, brushing out the concrete dust. ‘I’ll get changed. We’ll do this tonight.’

  ‘If he has my sim card,’ I said, pausing, ‘he’d have my phone calendar.’

  Bruce stopped. ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘I couldn’t work out how he would have known I’d be there, but … I think I saw him at the Four Seasons Inn three weeks ago, when I was there with the girls. He was sitting in the lobby. He looked right at me.’

  ‘Guy Grant was at the Four Seasons Inn in Delaney?’

  ‘He was looking at something on his phone. What if it was our pictures? He’d have photos of our children. He knows our address, where the children go to school …’

  Bruce came across and took me by the arm. ‘Tell me everything that’s happened from the minute we got back.’

  19

  We sat side by side on the window seat. I went through each thing in detail – the first day at the office, the interview, Finn’s attachment to me, the lunch at the restaurant and seeing Guy in the lobby, Finn in the lobby, the dark car parked on the street, Finn getting a print-out of the list of patrons. A pattern began to develop. Each time I mentioned Guy, I mentioned Finn. Bruce was quiet, but his breathing grew audible and his body language spoke loudly. I touched his knee. He rested his hand on mine, but his fingers were cold and rigid.

  ‘I know it sounds like I’m talking about Finn a lot.’

  ‘He was there the first day you went into the office? And he works at the place you saw Guy Grant, and he’s moved into one our townhouses?’

  ‘Finn’s not involved.’

  ‘Had you ever seen him before he came into the office?’

  ‘No, but the appointment had been made before our weekend away. It was booked before we left.’

  ‘In your calendar, in your phone, along with
your lunch date with the girls?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If Guy Grant knew you’d be there that day at the restaurant, it also means he knew you were scheduled to meet a new tenant at the office.’ Bruce paused. ‘Did you have down that you were meeting a new tenant called Finn?’

  ‘The appointment was with a woman called Bridget. I was meeting with her.’

  ‘Who’s Bridget?’

  ‘She came with Finn. He took the lease out in his name, though.’

  ‘So she’s living at Tyler Street too?’

  ‘Well, no. She’s gone. It’s just Finn there.’

  Bruce moved along the seat, putting distance between us.

  ‘Listen to the things you’re saying, Trudy – you just told me that the person you arranged to meet at the office didn’t take the lease. Instead, this Finn walked in and took over the interview and the lease, and is now living in our townhouse, pursuing you, ringing you every day, spending every day with you, working at the place you saw Guy Grant …’

  ‘Yes, but —’

  Bruce got to his feet. His hands were clenched. ‘Who is he? Where did he come from?’

  ‘I’ve got all his details. I’ve got a copy of his driver’s license. He saw I was distressed and thought he could take advantage of it.’

  ‘Think,’ Bruce demanded. ‘Think hard about what you’ve said to him and what you’ve told him about us. Consider, Trudy, that this is the biggest thing in Guy Grant’s life. We could expose him for who he really is. Don’t you think he’s going to put some resources and money into containing that?’ Bruce slowed his voice and spelt it out for me. ‘Could he have paid Finn to come to Delaney, get a job here, move into one of our houses, get close to us, and watch us? Think about everything that’s happened and tell me if that is at all possible. And think quickly, because I’m starting to think that’s exactly what’s happened.’

  ‘Okay, okay, I’ll think, but please sit down.’