Catch (35 page)

Home.
 
She hadn't even thought about going back there.
 
The tedious matter of finding another room mate loomed ahead.
 
What to tell prospective tenants?
 
"Actually, the last girl hung herself right in this very room.
 
Not superstitious or concerned about ghosts, are you?"
 
She'd have to ensure a thorough energy cleanse had been completed.

A shiver played down her spine; the afternoon sun still hung reasonably high in the sky, but the huge trees on the property cast forlorn shadows over the area she occupied.
 
Matt would be home soon.
 
What to do about him?
 
She'd never felt so alone and betrayed in her life - Gina gone, Matt effectively taken away, and Azzie run off.
 
Could anything else go wrong?

Sighing, Tamsen picked herself up off the log and trudged back toward the house.
 
The sunshine cutting through the tall trees highlighted the small turret window forming part of Matt's bedroom on the third floor.
 
A shadow caught her eye passing across the window.
 
It could only be Marguerite.
 

Struck by another bolt of fury, Tamsen struggled to prevent herself tearing up there and cutting the smug bitch's throat.
 
No more, she and Azzie were on their way as soon as she’d caught him.
 
Spending another night under the same roof as such a conniving piece of work repulsed her.

Tamsen stopped dead in her tracks.
 
There in front of her - and how she hadn't noticed it on the way down she wasn't sure - was a yellow box.
 
A Timms trap, she knew, from her days of petitioning councils to abolish gin traps.
 
The most humane available - if killing anything could be considered humane.
 

Shuddering, she remembered Matt mentioning trapping around the property for possums.
 
A few were devouring the new seedling trees.

At least the action was quick.
 
A sharp pin through the underside of the animal's head.
 
Death, pretty much instantaneous.
 
Nothing like the frantic chewing she knew went on with poor creatures trapped by the leg in gin traps.
 

And this one had been disturbed, she noticed - it was sitting on a slight angle.

A startled cry of pain broke the quiet stillness of the afternoon.
 
A few moments passed before Tamsen realized the sound had come from her.
 
For the second time in just over a week she found herself viewing the body of a dear, departed friend.

No mistaking the prostrate form of Azriel.
 
She knew every white mark and speckle on his coat.
 

Tamsen collapsed to the ground, anguish and tears coming in a deluge.
 
For the last couple of days she'd somehow been sitting in the calm eye of an emotional cyclone.
 
The winds of grief, visiting again, blew strong and she buried her face in the familiar fur, the familiar scent of Azriel.
 
Trying to lock him in place in her heart.

And she wept.
 
Wept for herself.
 
Wept for Gina.
 
Wept for Matt.
 
Wept for Azriel.
 
For all their losses.
 

For the injustice of it all.

"What do you mean, she's not here?"
 
Matt was losing patience with his mother.
 
He'd come looking for Tamsen, but she and her bloody cat were nowhere to be seen while Marguerite was making even less sense than usual.
 
"And what the hell were you doing in my bedroom going through Tamsen's things?"

"I wasn't going through her things, Matthew."
 
The revulsion on his mother's face could well have been hiding remorse at being caught snooping.
 
It brought home how little he really knew of the woman.
 

"Cut the bullshit, Mother.
 
What's going on here?"

"Not a thing, Matthew.
 
I was returning some of Tamsen's clothing from the laundry.
 
She's packing up and going home, and I didn't want her to leave it behind, that's all.

"Read, you've made her life here a living hell when I've not been around."

"I'm insulted, Matty.
 
I have done no such thing."

"Where is she then?"

"Outside, looking for that mangy animal she brought with her."

"How the hell did the cat get out?"
 

"I chased the parasite-ridden creature out.
 
It was sitting on the dining room table."
 
Marguerite pulled a face.
 
"Disgusting."

Matt felt the blood drain from his face. "Jesus, Mother.
 
If she loses that cat..."

"The cat's the least of your worries, Matthew.
 
That girl is the real problem, and the sooner she's out of your house the better."

"The sooner you're out of my house the better."
 
He hung his suit jacket on the rimu hanger in his walk in closet.
 
"And you can start by removing yourself from my room.
 
I'm going to get changed and then look for Tamsen."

"You don't need to go very far.
 
I'm here."
 
Tamsen walked into the room, cradling Azriel like a baby to the breast.
 

"Oh, fuck!"
 
All Matt could see was blood seeping into her pale blue shirt.
 
"Is he okay, babe?"
 
He was certain the cat was not, but felt obliged to ask.

"Does he look fucking okay to you, dickhead?"
 

No escaping the venom in the attack.
 
This was not good, he thought.

"There's no use for foul language and abuse, young lady."
 
Marguerite couldn't keep quiet.

Matt was tempted to clobber her with one of the spare coat hangers in the wardrobe.
 
"Would you stay out of this please, Mother?"

"Would you stay out of this please, Mother
?
"
 
Tamsen swung her head from side to side like some deranged five-year-old.
 
"The woman won't stay out of anything, Matt - haven't you worked that out yet?"

Tamsen pushed the bloody body in front of Marguerite's face.
 
"Look what you've
done!"
 

As Tamsen moved closer Marguerite backed away, attempting to keep a civilized distance between them.
 
It was like watching some sort of absurd line dance, Matt thought.
 

Tamsen snarled, "If you hadn't chased him out of the house this wouldn't have happened."
 

The insane and bloody line dance continued.
 
They were moving into the bathroom, and short of climbing in the shower and closing the door Marguerite would soon be trapped.

"Matty!
 
Do something!"

Tamsen turned on Matt, a deranged look in her eye - the one he'd expected when she found Gina, but which had been surprisingly absent.
 
"That's it, Matthew - Mommy's calling.
 
You dance to her tune because she holds the purse strings.
 
Don't you, Matty
?"

What the hell was she on about now?
 
The situation had gotten way out of control.
 
What to do?
 

He tried stalling for time. "Mother, get the fuck out of my room.
 
Now!"

Not another word passed his mother's lips as she slid, snake-like, around the tiled walls of the bathroom and made a hasty exit.
 
That left him and Tamsen.
 
The unhinged look hadn't left her and he wondered if maybe he'd sent the wrong person out.

"Tams..."
 
He spoke quietly in what he hoped was a reassuring tone.
 
He'd not seen her this close to the edge before and was terrified of what she might do next.
 
"Come and sit down with me." He held his hand out - tentatively, as you would trying to make the acquaintance of a vicious dog.
 

She stood gazing at him, as if she didn't recognize where she was or who she was looking at.
 
He'd seen the look before, when she sat gazing at Gina's body in the bedroom.
 
She seemed to be someplace else.
 

Her voice came to him in a monotone, as if from another planet.
 
"I have to put Azzie in his box and we've got to go home.
 
We can't stay here anymore."

He sat down on the velvet sofa under the turret window and patted the space next to him.
 
Encouraging her away from the bathroom doorway.
 
"Come sit with me, Tams.
 
Bring Azzie too.
 
We need to talk."

Almost in a dream, she walked and sat next to him.
 
Ceaselessly her hand caressed the fur on the cat's back, an unconscious movement he'd witnessed hundreds of times.
 
The simple gesture brought home to him Tamsen's loss.

Despite himself, he began to cry.

Something beautiful had broken today.
 
Been irreparably destroyed.
 
Not just the maimed animal Tamsen rocked in her arms - he had a sense of something larger at work in the cosmos, something dark and evil infiltrating his life.
 
With no idea how to fight it, or what to do, he let the tears flow.

"I want to go home, Matt."
 
Tamsen took great pains laying Azriel out in the cat cage.
 
It was the least she could do.
 
Visions of Gina's body leaving the apartment in that vile blue body bag came rushing back into her mind.

"I really don't think it's a good idea for you to be by yourself, Tams."

"Then you come and stay at my place.
 
But I'm not staying another night here with your mother."
 
Too exhausted to argue, she just wanted to get the hell out of this house.

Matt followed her out to the kitchen.
 
She busied herself collecting all the vitamins and minerals she'd stashed in his pantry.

The look on his face told her there was more chance of Marguerite inviting her to stay in the family home in Sydney than there was of Matt staying the night at her place.

"You're still not over Gina dying in the apartment, are you?"

She watched him blush and then stammer.
 
"Well..."

"Christ, Matt.
 
For a Catholic you've got a real hang- up about death."

"That's not a great combination of words, you know."
 
He sounded really uncomfortable.
 
"Especially under the circumstances." He leaned against the kitchen bench and she had a sudden memory of the two of them, naked on that very spot. It seemed such a long time ago. "It's not so much my faith that's the problem - it's the way my mother indoctrinated it. I worked that much out when we were at the Cathedral." He shifted uncomfortably, "I know I have issued with mother, but if you'd just stay."

Her gut told her he wouldn't be coming, but her head held out anyway.
 
"You won't talk me out of it, Matt.
 
I wouldn't spend another night under the same roof as your mother if you paid me.
 
And you should know she thinks I'm after your money anyway.
 
Not that it appears you actually have any!"

"What do you mean?"
 
He started fiddling with the espresso machine.
 
"Can't we have a coffee and talk about this?"

"I'm not discussing it, Matt.
 
I'm going home.
 
Your mother's practically packed my cases, so if you’d just get your keys we can go."

"I'm not going anywhere until I've had a cup of coffee." He had a thunderous look on his face.
 
"What has my mother been saying to you?"

"Nothing worth talking about."

"Tamsen!
 
Stop avoiding the question and answer me." He added, almost as an afterthought, "Pass me a cup, would you?"

She turned on him, frustration and anger taking hold. She was tired of it all - him, his mother, the arguing, everything.
 
"Sure."
 

The emerald green cup, complete with blue trim, left her hand and sailed straight over his right shoulder, hurtling missile-style through the glass window beyond.
 
Shards of glass rained on the outdoor table, the cup skipping over its surface like a stone on a pond.

"Your fucking mother deliberately chased my cat outside.
 
There was meat in that trap.
 
She wasn't hunting frigging possums!
 
The woman hates me.
 
Wants me off the scene so you can get back with darling Angie.
 
Well, newsflash - she's won.
 
It's over!
 
Take me home."

Matt's voice rumbled, low and controlled.
 
"You could have just passed the cup."

She threw another one for good measure, taking out another pane of glass.

He seemed unfazed by her aggression.
 
She found that more infuriating.
 
"I won't let her chase you out of my home, Tamsen."

"There won't be much of it left, Matt, if you don't get me out of here.
 
Besides, it's not your fucking home anyway!
 
Is it,
Matty
?"