Pushing off the sand, I burst through the other side of a wave. My skin is tight and zinging. I haven’t tasted gritty, salty water in months. I stretch one hand out in front and ride with the energy of the ocean. Over and over, the ocean sucks me back and spits me out until I’m breathless and happy.
Sloshing out of the water, I dry off, pull my dress back on and sit facing the water, drawing my knees to my chest. Micah would love it here. If he ever gets a royal pardon, he could walk free from prison. And if that happens, I will bring him to my beach. And we’ll swim. The thought of it is thrilling. So thrilling that I don’t notice someone jogging across the sand until he’s almost upon me, sending a fine spray of sand across my towel with his feet.
‘Bel?’
It takes me a second to place him, because he used to have a buzz cut but now his bronze hair falls over his forehead. And Marcella was right. He’s taller. And looks older. Surely it hasn’t been that long?
‘Eli?’
‘You didn’t recognise me,’ he says with a smile.
‘Well, the hair …’
‘Oh, yeah, that.’ He flicks a hand self-consciously through it.
But we both know it’s more than that. For one thing, he’s not wearing glasses. And he’s been swimming. Which is evidently not a habit he picked up recently, because he’s no longer ghostly white. He’s golden. And shirtless, towel flung casually over his shoulder, showing off the definition his new hobby has won him.
‘So it’s, uh … been a while,’ he says, looking away.
‘Yeah, I was just trying to figure that out. How long it’s been.’
I fumble nervously with my fingers. But then I remind myself it’s just Eli, the boy I used to peg water bombs at cars with. Even if he no longer looks like a teenage boy.
‘Over six months,’ he says. ‘Hard to believe I haven’t been home in so long.’
‘It feels like you haven’t been home in forever,’ I say quietly.
‘Yeah, I was posting stuff on Instagram, but …’
‘I’m still not on it.’
‘Right.’
‘The online world has enough dirt on me without social media.’
‘I get it.’ He grins. He’s one of the few people who actually do. ‘Anyway, you heading?’ He extends a hand to help me up, and I take it.
‘So you swim now?’
‘Uh-huh.’ He smiles and almost looks shy about it. ‘I started on exchange, cause I was living in a fishing village. I sent mum and dad photos to prove I wasn’t a total hermit.’
‘Nothing wrong with hermits. Hey, race you to the top.’
‘You’re on.’
I sprint up the stairs two at a time. His feet thud softly against the sand behind me, but to my surprise he overtakes me halfway up. As I hit the landing, he’s waiting there, doubled over laughing.
‘There really is a first time for everything,’ I say, panting.
‘You don’t have to be so shocked.’ He grins. ‘I grew a bit in the sun.’
He walks me to the back fence of Dad’s house, and we hover there a moment. I kind of don’t want him to leave. An empty house gives me the chills.
‘Hey, if you’re free, you should come over Saturday,’ he says, kicking at a clump of grass growing out of the gap in the fence. ‘Mum and Dad want me to cook up some Thai, so if –’
‘Thai?’
‘Yeah. I learnt how to cook, like traditional style, while I was there.’
‘Wait, what?’ My heart thumps irregularly.
‘I was in Thailand. I told you the last time I saw you.’
I tell myself to calm down. He had mentioned Thailand before he left, back when it didn’t mean anything.
‘I spent the first three months at Shrewsbury. It’s an international exchange school in Bangkok. Then the last three months, I got to stay with a family in a fishing village near Phuket. It’s the most amazing bit of coast – it blew my mind! Was the toughest six months of my life, though. I had to learn the language and everything. Anyway, the invitation’s open. I can cook up a mean Tom Yum Goong.’
But all I can think is Thailand. Bangkok.
‘Thanks, I’ll … yeah.’ I swallow hard. ‘I’d love to come.’
‘All right, cool. Guess I’ll see you Saturday then.’
And as he walks away, I’m a statue. Watching those feet that have stepped on Thai soil.
Thai soil. That’s what sparked the idea. Suddenly, an empty house doesn’t seem such a bad thing.
What if I went to Thailand? Eli’s done it and he’s my age.
I sit in my room, free from scrutiny, and search Visiting Bang Kwang Central Prison.
There are two days of the week when you can walk inside the prison gates and sit down opposite a prisoner. I could actually meet Micah. You can only visit for an hour a day, maybe less, but Bang Kwang is a taxi ride from Bangkok. It’s possible. Micah said his mum can’t afford to visit him, but with Dad’s help, I could afford to. And I want to give him a visitor more than anything.
The rumble of the garage door announces Dad’s arrival. My stomach lurches. I’ve been glued to my phone for hours, and feel I know everything there is to know about prison visits in Thailand. When the clang of his keys hits the marble hall stand, I push back my chair, glancing at myself in the mirror. My long hair is still wavy and damp, leaving dark dribbles down my pink dress.
‘Annabelle?’
I’m at the landing before he sees me.
‘Annabelle.’ Dad’s tired face breaks into a smile.
I meet him halfway down the stairs and he hugs me, still clutching the day’s paper in one hand. I’m hit with the smell of his breath mints, and the realisation that he still gets his daily dose of misery from actual newspapers.
‘Good to have you home, sweetheart. Already been for a swim, I see.’ He holds me at arm’s length. ‘But I hope you brought some evening clothes. Our reservation’s in an hour. I would have been home sooner, but I couldn’t get a flight out of Canberra before five.’
‘Did you get your annual leave?’
‘All two weeks of it. Even Parliament goes quiet over Christmas.’
Dad releases me, studies my face a second before his eyes slide to the portrait of my mother, keeper of the stairwell, at the top of the landing. He sees it too, the likeness. It’s not something I can do much about, but I can feel him measuring. Can the living ever compete with the perfect dead?
He loosens the top button of his shirt, clears his throat and, for a second, his eyes look misty. Or maybe I’m imagining it.
‘So,’ he says. ‘There haven’t been too many changes since you were here last.’
Nothing ever changes here except the pictures, and even they only rotate.
‘I did have to repair the fridge, though. She’s been going strong for twenty years, it was only fair to get her a new motor.’
‘Was it worth fixing?’
He hesitates. ‘I’ll forgive you for that because you’ve only known a throw-away society. But there was a time when things were built to last.’
He looks at Mum again and it hits me in the guts. The fridge is twenty years old. It was theirs until it was his.
‘I’ll tell you a change I have noticed,’ I say, to pedal out of the hole I just tore in him.
‘What’s that?’ He continues up the stairs.
‘Eli.’
‘Oh, Elijah. I hear he’s back now.’
‘Did you know he went to Thailand?’ I jog up the stairs after Dad. ‘On exchange. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Maybe that’s something I could do in my gap year.’
Dad spins around at the top of the staircase and I almost smack into him. ‘What, go on exchange?’
‘No, go to Thailand.’
‘Oh. Travelling.’ He grimaces. ‘The world’s not exactly in the best mental health at the moment.’
His resistance is palpable, but I won’t be shut down. ‘Has it ever been?’
‘We live in different times,’ he says
. ‘Amoral times.’
I sigh inwardly. I want to tell him to go read some Shakespeare. The world was way worse back in those days.
‘Anyway, why this talk of travel when you just got home? Plenty of time for that later.’
Plenty of time for me. Maybe not for Micah. But as usual with Dad, what I want doesn’t matter much.
He heads into his room and dumps the paper on his king-sized bed, then disappears inside his walk-in-robe.
I hear him sigh like the weight of the country’s political problems are his alone. Which they kind of are.
‘Want to know what I find interesting?’ he calls from the depths of his robe.
No.
‘What?’
‘So many kids finish school desperate to help out in developing countries, when there are a million pertinent issues in our own country. People can be just as helpful where they are. You don’t have to go globe-trotting to contribute. Take what’s happening in the Balducci murder trial. You must have been watching it on the news. It happened only a suburb from St Margaret’s. As always, the sentencing system is a joke. They’re about to strike a plea bargain with the husband.’ There’s a bitter edge to his words. ‘Which means our justice system is sending a message that you can bludgeon your wife and, so long as you fess up and say that you didn’t know what you were doing, you’ll get your sentence slashed.’
I sag against the doorway. He weaves it in so seamlessly. Don’t travel, Bel. Don’t do what you want. Stay here. Come work with me and we’ll institute real change for victims of crime.
The usual pile of rocks builds up inside me, like it does whenever I hear about the murder trials Dad’s following. It’s different for him. He hasn’t donned a wig and gown for more than fifteen years, but he’s still a lawyer at heart. Lawyers practise the law and politicians shape it, he tells me. Either way, though, it’s the law. And the law is the link between life before Mum’s murder and the life that came after.
Except my father doesn’t have a life anymore; he only exists. The guy who took my mother’s life took my father’s with it.
Nan said to me once that Dad’s smiles cost him now. And since Nan passed away, I’ve realised she was right. Where my friends’ fathers developed laugh lines over the years, my dad only grew frown lines.
He has one mission now, and one only: unleashing the dogs on criminals.
Dad’s BMW glides to a stop alongside Quay Lime, in the heart of Avalon. Mario’s waiting out front, hair flecked with a bit more grey than the last time I saw him. Clean shaven, in an Armani suit and bow tie, he steps forward, opening Dad’s door.
‘Good evening, Mr Anderson.’
‘Pleasure to be back, Mario. How’s business?’
‘Can’t complain, can’t complain, my friend.’ Mario walks around to my side, opens the door.
I can smell his familiar cologne as he extends a hand to help me out.
‘And, Annabelle, this must be a homecoming.’ He winks, and the twinkle in his eye is contagious.
Quay Lime feels more like home than Dad’s house. Every birthday memory, every holiday, every milestone has been spent at this place. I’ll be devastated if it ever shuts down.
‘I’ll get the concierge to park the beast.’ Mario nods at a young guy in a suit and rests a hand on Dad’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. He can drive. Failing that, I have insurance. Come. I’ve reserved your favourite table by the window.’
We’re ushered in, and Mario beckons to one of the wait staff. She glides over with water and wine glasses.
‘These are my best customers, you take good care of them.’ He nods at us, and heads back to the restaurant front. A couple of metres away, a jazz band starts up as Dad orders for us.
When the waitress leaves, Dad clears his throat. ‘Well … I have some news,’ he says, pouring water into our glasses.
‘Oh no. Please don’t tell me I’m getting a step-mother,’ I joke. It’s hardly a risk with Dad.
He laughs. ‘Sadly, that’s not it. Apparently, women don’t flock to widowers who keep their noses in books. And I’d have to make time to date someone other than my daughter.’
‘Phew.’ I exaggerate wiping the back of my hand across my brow. ‘Well, please don’t ever learn how to do that.’
The corner of his mouth turns up in amusement. ‘Would it bother you so much if I did?’
I think about it for a moment.
‘At least wait till I’ve moved out. You couldn’t handle three women in the house at once. Unless you were planning to start a new family in Canberra?’
He waves a hand through the air. ‘Enough. No new families. I struggle enough with the one I’ve got.’
Right.
He has one almost-grown kid. Who has never done drugs, slept around, developed an eating disorder or taken to base jumping.
Our waitress returns, showing Dad the label on a bottle of wine. Dad nods. She uncorks it and pours him a glass. She goes to fill mine, but Dad’s hand shoots out.
‘She’s too young,’ he says.
She apologises, leaving the bottle on the table before heading back to the kitchen.
‘So, you haven’t heard my news. You know how the party’s pushing for tougher sentencing laws? Well, that Balducci murder trial I was telling you about, the defendant’s entering his plea next week.’
He shuffles forward in his seat like it’s a gripping courtroom drama.
Talk about easing me in. I thought I’d get a break from murder trials at least on my first night back. How stupid of me.
‘I think we’re this close to a breakthrough.’ He pinches his thumb and forefinger in the air. ‘The bill’s already through the Lower House, and if Balducci gets the minimum five-year sentence, I reckon that’ll garner enough outrage to tip the odds in our favour.’
‘But he bludgeoned his wife. How could he only get five years?’
‘It’s our old friend Diminished Responsibility, Annabelle. Surprise, surprise, he’s pulling the tough childhood card. Couple that with a plea bargain for co-operating with the investigation … I’m betting he gets the minimum.’ Dad sips from his wine glass. ‘How soft are we as a nation, to wear that? We’ve all drawn a short straw in life, but we don’t all go around killing people. If the Balducci case turns out to be a cock-up, that’ll mean more pressure on the Senate to revise minimum jail terms for the most serious offences.’
‘Like?’
‘Murder, manslaughter, aggravated sexual assault, terror and drug trafficking.’
I feel the colour drain from my face as I gulp down some water. Drug trafficking. That’s what Tash thinks Micah did.
‘Basically, it covers all the biggies.’
I’m silent as I process the collision of my two worlds.
‘Sweetheart, if the amendments to the legislation get through, those offences will carry minimum mandatory non-parole jail terms of twenty-five years. Better yet …’ He leans forward. ‘Murder will carry a mandatory life sentence.’
His nostrils flare as he says it, and I can see the hunger for it burning in his eyes.
My mother’s death will not have been in vain. So why don’t I feel anything?
‘Well, that’s … good, Dad.’
‘Good? You could be a little more enthusiastic, Annabelle. This is only the pinnacle of my life’s work. The culmination of fifteen years of lobbying.’
Fifteen years he’s been fighting. Every single day, he has thrown himself into the cause. It’s meant that he hasn’t been around for me much. But I guess he could have just sat in a corner and collapsed into his grief. My mother was the love of his life. He never replaced her. Instead Dad has made something out of his devastation.
This is a memorial to Mum.
The trouble is, it doesn’t change our past. It doesn’t change the fact that I lost my mum to death and my dad to politics. The victory is hollow for me.
When I look back over at Dad, his eyes are watery.
‘I did this for you too, you know,
’ he says quietly. ‘A better world for you.’
That’s when I know I can never tell him about Micah.
29/11
Shit, Bel. I’m really sorry about your mum.
There’s a lot in your letter, but I’m going to start with your picture. It makes me happy to see what you look like. You’re really pretty, Bel.
That beach you live at, I’d be out there every day, hey. Why aren’t you out there swimming instead of writing? I like that you’re not, but what made you write to me?
I’ve got nowhere to hang your picture, but I put it in my pocket after I showed it to the boys. They said to say thanks for your parcel. You should of seen them when we opened it. Like seagulls to chips. We always need towels and soap. And the food you sent – there’s nothing we don’t like. It’s hard to get good food at the prison shop. They’ve mostly got noodles, no meat and only scrappy fruit. So Leo cooked us up a feast on his camp stove. I gave Boxer the beef jerky. He carries it round with him and eats it a bit at a time.
Father Ramone came for a visit the other day and we got to go to a special building in the yard for chapel. He doesn’t talk about his leg any more – the one that’s gone. And we almost forget cause he got a new one made up that he gets round on. Bit wonky, but he’s still walking. Every visit he brings us all something, like a pack of rice crackers. Probably sounds a small thing to you, but we look forward to his visits all month.
Have you ever read the bible, Bel? I never touched one in my life till I got here. Father Ramone was talking about miracles. About these guys Peter and Simon. They’re in the lock up and the bible says God’s going to cause a quake, shake those walls to dust, and set his people free. And sometimes I pray he’ll do the same for us. Ask and it will be given to you. That’s what it says. No harm asking, hey?
That Saint Jude you sent – I’ve tucked him up in my pillow. And I’m going to ask him every night for freedom. Even if I don’t really believe in miracles. Hard to believe in miracles here.
About your ugly truths game. First, Bel, you gotta get yourself some better games, hey. This one’s depressing as hell. I’m glad you told me about your mum but. Must have sucked growing up without her. I’m sorry that happened.
Inside the Tiger Page 5
