The Dark Part of Me (28 page)

‘Are you alright, Rosie?’ Mrs Greenwood came up behind me. ‘I kept telling Scott to tell you but—’

‘I’m fine.’ I stared at a patch of grass over her shoulder.

‘Course it wasn’t planned, but they get along so well. And the nice thing is they’ve decided to get married. Before the baby, mind. It’s the proper thing to do,
don’t you think? Only a small do. Just the rellies and a few close friends. Bill’s going to set up a marquee here in the backyard.’

Nice. After rooting me and Trish and probably a million other bitches behind her back, the bastard was fucking hitching her. I almost felt sorry for her, but then she was welcome to him.

After that I don’t remember thinking, just doing. I had this overwhelming need to see Hollie. She’d been right about Scott all along. It was beautifully clear to me
now.

I accelerated hard up the hill and parked on the side of the road. There were no cop cars but that didn’t mean they weren’t up there. After all, Danny was armed and dangerous, a
convicted murderer on the loose, a threat to happy, burban lives. Expecting Hollie to be in her bedroom or Mrs Bailey’s, I went in the side, through the parlour and up the stairs. I heard
footsteps from the darkened hall and looked up to see Mr Bailey leaning over the balustrade. It was ages since I’d seen him and, as he came towards me out of the shadows and down the stairs,
I panicked.

‘Rosemary, what are you doing here?’ He was wearing a dark suit and a silver tie. His face was ashen and his hair, too, newly greying at the temples.

‘Nothing,’ I stammered. ‘I just came to see Hollie.’

‘She’s not here,’ he said, sharply. He stopped, halfway down the staircase, and, as if needing the support, gripped the banister. I noticed how he still wore his wedding ring.
‘She’s gone for a walk.’

His eyes skimmed over me but it was like he was seeing something else, some memory from the past. I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible, but I had to say something.

‘Is she alright?’ I asked.

He glared at me. ‘Why wouldn’t she be?’

‘It’s just that with Danny and everything.’ I was retreating down the staircase one step at a time.

‘The police have everything under control,’ he said, smoothing a hand down his tie. ‘And we are doing all we can to assist them.’ I couldn’t tell if it was an act
or if he was genuine. Since I could remember, he’d been cold, humourless and distant, but there was something crumbling about him, like he was just holding onto reality. He cleared his
throat. ‘Perhaps it would be best if you stayed away from the house, at least for the time being. I’ll tell Hollie you came by.’ He smiled, icily. Nodding, I turned and strode
back through the house, knowing exactly where Hollie would be.

The night was deep and still, the finest slither of a moon in the sky. The police could have been lurking anywhere so I kept alert as my legs carried me up the track. Around me, the bush was
oddly silent. I tried my hardest to be quiet but every tread seemed to echo around the mountainside. About halfway to the cave, I spotted a distinct beam from a flashlight slicing through the trees
less than a hundred metres up the hill. Someone was heading in my direction. I ducked behind a bush and waited, my scalp shrinking with fear. Every few seconds, the light-beam swept across the
track. From the heaviness of the footsteps, I could tell it was a man and, as he came closer, I saw that he was wearing dark combat trousers and a black T-shirt. I tried to get a glimpse of his
face but I couldn’t get a clear view through the bush without being seen. I squeezed my eyes shut and crouched tighter, but whoever it was had back-tracked and was heading east, away from me.
I pelted, light as a fairy, to the cave.

Breathless, I sank to my knees and crawled in through the overhanging vines. It was dark, my eyes straining to adjust, but there was a weak, flickering light coming from the deepest corner of
the cave. A giant shadow shifted back and forth across the ceiling and I became aware of little, soft cries and whimpers, echoing around the walls. A nervous dread skittered through me. I edged to
my left, my shoulder knocking against the crumbly wall. The dank smell of old dirt and limestone filled my nostrils. I crawled in further, crouching behind the egg rock to get a better view.

Hollie was lying down, her hair spilling across the earth. Stark white against the red soil. Around her throat a high, stiff collar of French lace from which her long thin neck, whiter still,
strained. Her chin jutted up towards the roof, her cheekbones pinched and flushed. A film of dust coated her lips and her eyes were closed, lids fluttering.

Danny lay naked on top of her, running his blackened fingers through her hair, fucking her. Mud from his skin dirtied the stiff, white peaks of her skirt. With a gentle sigh, Hollie’s back
arched against the ground and she wrapped her long, skinny legs around his torso. Diffused light, coming from a small gas lamp in the corner, hung in a golden cloud around them. They looked like
delicate, exotic creatures from another world but my insides rioted with revulsion and horror and there was a bitter, metallic taste in my mouth.

Danny thrust into her, his shoulder tense and flared, and Hollie sighed. If they’d looked up they would have seen me but they were too engrossed in each other. I felt like bits of me were
fading away, becoming invisible. I stayed a few moments longer, wretched and trembling but unable to pull myself away. Danny was falling, his lips sinking onto Hollie’s mouth. I blinked and
retreated.

It was only when I was outside, the silence of the bush pressing in on me, that the tears came hot and fast, and I fled, not caring if the cops caught me, back down the mountainside.

I got in my car and drove, as if by driving I could clear my head of what I had just seen. But there was no denying the truth of it and, as the cool night air whipped in around
me, it sledged me hard – a whole, secret world they’d kept from me. I wondered how long it had been going on and why Hollie hadn’t told me. Crossing the Captain Cook bridge, I got
onto the freeway. For over an hour, the road unfurled black and empty in front of me and I followed it, numb and blind and unthinking.

Somehow, I ended up at Main Beach. I parked under a buggy fluoro and went down to the beach. The grains squeaked between my toes and my hair flapped in the breeze. I inhaled deeply, the air
fresh and salty with the whiff of fish and chips. I fell to my knees in the sand, lulled by the vast plain of ink-black water, stretching out in front of me. A middle-aged couple walked past in the
shallows splashing each other, their laughter hitting my ears in windy bursts. They were heading south, towards Surfers’. Not far off, the golden city of high-rises clung to the edge of the
beach, shimmering in its own dreamy halo. I watched until the couple became tiny specks against the nightscape and then I pelted into the surf, my thighs thrusting through the still-warm water,
diving over the foamy crests.

Lying back, I surrendered to the rips and currents, my limbs hither-thither, seaweed tentacles squirming beneath me. I had no one now. All Hollie and Danny needed was each other: two snakes
eating each other to death in the dirt, locked in an endless embrace. The night sky rocked above me and I let the waves enfold me, filling my mouth, my nose, my eyes. A huge wave picked me up and
carried me up to its crest, then dragged me headlong under the water. I let the undercurrents take me as I tumbled and rolled and floundered, my knees grazing on the rough sand below. If this was
the end, I was happy enough to be taken.

With an indifferent heave, the sea spat me out and I was dumped hard and spluttering on the shore. I lay breathless, the wet grains catching on my face, coating my arms. A dog came up and
sniffed at my crotch. I sat up and shooed it away, then tramped back up the dunes to my car, the sea in my ears, the tang of salt on my tongue.

When I got home, the love-birds were snuggled on the plasticated couch, watching
The Sound of Music
. Randy’s head was wrapped turban-style in bandages and his right eye was a
nasty shade of eggplant. Mum shot me a ‘where do you think you’ve been’ look, but didn’t say anything. I sat on the poof and watched the rest of it with them, my brain
jam-packed with the vision of Hollie in the cave, all white with muddy streaks.

I woke to Mum in the Chamber singing the song where Julie Andrews tells Christopher Plummer she must have done something good despite her wicked childhood and her miserable
youth. I got up and went to work. After all the craziness, it was a relief to be back flicking doilies in the air-con. We had hardly any customers, just a few oldies from the gerry home across the
road. BrisVegas was like a ghost town, like the whole burban lot of them had racked off to the beach to escape the psycho heat. Forty-three max today, it’d said on the radio.

Trish was on my shift but we hadn’t spoken since the night of the phone call. The first couple of hours, we avoided each other: she hung out back smoking joints; I stayed behind the
counter, serving the odd customer. Hollie kept ringing my mobile but I put it on silent. I’d had sixteen missed calls from her already that morning. I felt bad not answering, but I
didn’t know what to say to her. I knew I had to speak to her, to tell her what I’d seen, but I felt vague and trembly and I’d lost my appetite. I told myself I would call her
later, after my shift, once I’d got things straight in my head. I went back to the old flick and peel, staring up at the box. The first day of the third Test had been on all morning but there
was a break for the midday news. The news-girl came on, her fake-tanned face filling the screen like a giant orange:

‘Police are still searching for a twenty-three-year-old white male who, dressed to look like an indigenous aborigine, attacked a man with a spear last Sunday morning at Arena nightclub in
Fortitude Valley.’

A prison mug shot of Danny, looking thin and gaunt.

‘As the hunt continues in bushland near his home in the western suburbs, police are still refusing to comment on possible motives for the attack. But a spokesperson for the aboriginal
community has expressed outrage, calling it a calculated act of race crime against their people.’

‘That loon with the spear still on the rampage?’ Trish was standing beside me, sucking the devil out of a joint. I nodded, hoping that Danny was safe in the cave and not roaming
about the place.

‘You know where he is, don’t you?’

‘No.’ In my paranoia, I imagined her as Scott’s secret informer.

Out of nowhere, Uncle Slob appeared. He stood glowering behind Trish who spliffed on oblivious.

‘Is he in the bush?’

‘Behind you,’ I whispered.

Trish turned around. Slob shot forwards, snatching the joint out of her hand.

‘Out the back, now!’ he ordered, giving her a sharp shove, adding to me, ‘Keep an eye on things out here.’

But I couldn’t help spying on them through the crack between the swing doors. Trish stood in the corner of the dingy back office while Slob paced up and down. I wondered if she would
snitch on me for being in on the skimming. After what she’d done with Scott, I didn’t put it past her.

‘I should have known you’d go bad,’ Slob snarled, showering Trish’s face with spit, ‘just like your scumbag father.’

Trish’s dad had run off with another woman when Slob’s sister was pregnant with Trish. Although she’d never met her dad, Slob was forever saying how he’d grill his balls
if he set eyes on him again.

‘Ever since you started here, profits have been going down and yet we’ve never been busier. I couldn’t work it out.’ He took out a hanky and wiped the sweat off his
forehead.

Trish had her hands on her hips, looking bored and tapping her right foot to some imaginary techno beat. Slob pumped his meaty arms.

‘And then, when the scotch kept going missing, I knew it was you.’ He struck at his chest with a fist. ‘The wife thought I was troppo. But I knew any daughter of that lousy
prick had to turn out rotten.’ He paused to let the full force of his insult sink in. ‘So, what’ve you done with it, Trisha?’ His face was so red I thought he was going to
have a coronary. ‘Where’s all the cash? It must be about two grand by now, hey?’ He grabbed her chin in his pudgy fingers and shook it. Trish jerked back from him. I didn’t
know Trish had nicked that much, I’d only scored a couple of hundred.

Trish smiled. ‘I’ve spent it.’

Slob raised his fist, like he was going to punch her in the face, but forced it down, his arm rigid with unspent fury. ‘You’ve got till tomorrow morning to pay it back, all of it, or
else I’m calling the cops.’ His chest was heaving. ‘After tomorrow, I never want to see you lousy piece of shit again. Now get out of here!’

Trish sashayed out of the office, winking at me as she went past. I raced back behind the counter, relieved she hadn’t dumped me in it. Slob blustered out, red-faced and swearing.

‘Get the fuck outta my sight!’ he roared at Trish, oblivious to the blue-rinse biddies drinking tea in the corner.

Trish calmly took off her apron and chucked it in the bin. ‘You coming, Rosebud?’ she shouted to me as she stepped out into the hazy, mid-afternoon sunshine.