‘Go,’ she says, pushing the torch against his chest. ‘You’re going to go down like a lead balloon in there.’
‘Bloody hell – sent out on the streets. Tell Aden to keep some on ice for me.’
The restaurant hasn’t opened for business, and Rebecca feels responsible for this – responsible in general. She walks down the narrow passageway with her hand touching the wall to steady herself. The undulating floor and thick runner don’t help her disorientation, and nor do the framed pieces of poetry:
I felt my life with both my hands
To see if it was there
—
I held my spirit to the Glass
,
To prove it possibler
The introspective feel of the place does nothing to ground the last few hours in reality – everywhere she turns there are lines of poetry, snippets of wisdom and philosophical quotes. The creepy crime-scene feel of the riverbank is in some ways less unnerving.
In the kitchen the waitresses and other staff have gathered. They are sitting around with mugs of coffee and cheese-filled vol-au-vents. They speak in quiet, respectful tones, as though they’re at a wake.
Marc, the chef, is a small, wiry man with shoulder-length grey hair. He has an accent – Italian, Rebecca thinks. He’s the one exception to the lowered voices and whispered theories. He’s at the stove, tapping a wooden spoon on the edge of a boiler, emptying pots, ripping off sheets of alfoil in disgust and tossing trays of overcooked vegetables on the benches.
‘Kara!’ he barks when he sees her. ‘We save things for tomorrow night? Or now we close then too?’
Kara makes an exasperated sound and excuses herself from Rebecca.
In the dining room the set tables also taunt Rebecca. She can hardly look at them. She makes a beeline for the few that have been cleared near the cash register and counter. The two police officers are there – engaged in a conversation that sounds not unlike the gossip going on in the kitchen. Rebecca’s already spoken to them, told them what happened – the stalled car, the conversation, the ride in, the stop at the shop, the wait out the front. A sergeant or captain seems to be what’s missing – either that or police are always this disorganised and unresponsive.
Another police officer arrives. He’s too young to be a sergeant. He’s straightening his belt as he walks through the door, adjusting the angle of his cap. A rookie. He glances across at her. ‘Rebecca,’ he says with a nod, as though he knows her. ‘Dad’s on his way,’ he says to the other officers.
Aden comes in and motions for her to follow him. ‘Mum wants me to get you something warm to wear,’ he says.
They go together back down the hall, out onto the veranda and into a sunroom that’s been converted into a bedroom.
It’s a long, low-ceilinged space with bamboo blinds covering the bank of windows. There’s a stereo system in one corner, a TV, and a bong sitting unashamedly on top of it. The furniture is wicker with faded lime-coloured cushions. Books are stacked up against the walls. The sports bag from cricket is in the centre of the bed. The doona is messed up, grubby pillows with the indentations of the night still in them. Bit sordid, but also heady: his room, the smell of heated dust, cold toast and disorder.
He pulls out a drawer and looks for a jumper.
‘We’ve got more chance of something of mine fitting you than something of Mum’s.’
Rebecca stays by the door.
Midway through his search, he stops to look at her. ‘You all right?’
She shrugs. ‘Bit nervous about talking to Mr Kincaid.’
She holds up her hands to show him how they’re shaking. ‘Bit freaked out about the whole thing, actually.’
He reaches over and pushes a stack of books off an armchair and onto the floor.
‘Sit down.’
She picks her way across the room and over the books. Some of them are brand new. She can’t help herself – she has to put them in a neat pile by the chair.
The names and titles aren’t ones she recognises. Not quite her pristine Stephen King collection.
Aden has straightened, and is watching her when she looks up.
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ He hands her a black cable-knit jumper. The wool is soft. ‘It’s about the only thing that’s going to fit you.’
‘It looks expensive.’
‘Probably is.’
‘I better not smoke in it.’
‘I do.’
Rebecca pulls it on. It smells of fabric softener. She leaves the sleeves long over her hands, keeps her eyes downcast to wait out the rush of heat she’s had to her face. He’s watching her.
‘Do you want a smoke?’ Without waiting for her reply he goes to his bedside table and takes out a packet of cigarettes. He lights one after the other, drops the lighter in the open drawer, and then shuts it with his knee.
He sits on the end of his bed and hands her a smoke. He keeps his eyes on her – which she’s beginning to think is something he does: eye people unwaveringly, not afraid to really look. The trouble is he follows it up with nothing, no comment, so you’re left wondering if he likes what he sees.
‘Mrs Kincaid didn’t say why she was coming, did she?’
‘No. I thought … Actually, when we got here I thought she was having an affair with the cook or something. That’s why I didn’t want to come in.’
‘Not such a bad assumption.’
‘Is she?’
‘No. Well, I don’t think so. Anything’s possible with Marc.’
‘I don’t know why she came here,’ Rebecca says. ‘I can’t help thinking she’ll never turn up again and I’ll forever be the last person to have seen her.’
‘People don’t disappear. You won’t have been the last – if she’s had an accident or something then her body will be found, and if something else has happened, then whoever was involved is the last one to have seen her. Either way it’s not you.’
Rebecca thinks about this a moment. ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right.’ She shrugs. ‘It’s already starting to haunt me – that image of her at the gate and walking into the yard. You start to doubt yourself, like maybe she said she was walking home, or even that you’ve remembered the whole afternoon wrong … Or maybe you’re a homicidal killer and have done away with her yourself.’ She smiles.
‘We all wonder that,’ he says, then goes on to say, ‘about ourselves, not you.’
Rebecca shifts to sit more comfortably in the chair. ‘Don’t worry, I know the blood-splattered wrench gave me away.’
‘Scary thing is – say that to the coppers and you’ll probably end up in hot water.’
Rebecca draws on her cigarette. She nods.
They fall quiet. He scratches his forehead with his thumb, holds the cigarette cupped in his palm. He draws in smoke with his teeth gently together, his eyes glazed with thought. He has his mother’s olive skin, her unruly hair and high forehead, but not her eyes. His eyes are his own, so light in colour they seem vulnerable – to the sun, to interrogation.
There’s a reverse situation as she looks at him and he avoids her gaze. He rubs the ash from his cigarette into his jeans, then gets an old Coke can from by the bed for her to use as an ashtray. While down near the floor he pushes what Rebecca suspects is a condom wrapper under the bed and out of sight.
‘I think I know why Mrs Kincaid was here,’ he says. ‘I wanted to tell you before Ben Hur turned up.’
Because of his apparent discomfort, the condom wrapper, the mentioning of Mr Kincaid, Rebecca has a cold moment thinking it’s him – he’s the one having an affair with Mrs Kincaid. It must be written on her face. He looks at her and smiles.
‘No,’ he says, ‘although Nigel’s informed me the nuttier the better – never discount the mental factor for a wild time, he reckons. But it could actually amount to some kind of step-incest if I was.’ He runs his hand down over his mouth and jaw.
The penny is slow to drop. It’s dawning on her what he might mean when he speaks again. ‘Ben Kincaid is my father.’ He follows this with a wrinkled nose and a bitter expression.
‘But Kara’s …’
‘My real mum,’ he says.
‘Were they a couple before he was married?’
He shakes his head. ‘Not really. Actually about as far from a couple as you can get.’
‘So you’re … Zach’s half-brother?’
‘On paper, I guess. I like Zach – what I know of him. I think he is … he seems … okay for Kincaid’s kid.’
This time Rebecca cottons on quick and tilts her head.
‘Yeah,’ he says with a flick of ash over the top of the Coke can, ‘but who says I’m okay?’
‘Was Mrs Kincaid coming to see you?’
‘More likely coming to see Mum, I reckon. She found out about me and rang Mum earlier, said she’d wanted to talk to her.’
‘Do the police know?’
‘Mum’s not said anything yet.’
‘Why have you kept it a secret?’
‘Mum and him.’ He shrugs. ‘When I say I don’t understand women, what I mean is I don’t understand my mother.’
‘Sorry,’ Rebecca says, ‘but I have absolute top billing when it comes to confusing mothers – my mother’s favourite saying was
All women are whores, some have just got better gigs than others
. How’s that for some motherly advice?’
Aden runs a hand through his hair – he hasn’t listened. He reminds her of Zach that morning – the same distraction, the same distance from her. The day feels strangely like it’s come full circle.
‘I don’t suppose I want to get it,’ he says. ‘I think that could be more disturbing.’ He stays lost in thought a moment longer and then takes a drag of his cigarette and snaps out of it. ‘Anyway, I wanted to tell you so you didn’t get a surprise when it came out. I didn’t want you to think we’d not bothered telling you the full story.’
‘Thanks.’
They’re quiet. He’s waiting for a reaction to what he’s told her – for him the admission is big – but Rebecca can’t think of anything intelligent to say, other than some inane comment about him not looking like Mr Kincaid. She leans forward and rubs at the itchy bites on her ankles, licks her thumb and dabs one of them.
‘I heard the police say Neil Toyer isn’t your father,’ Aden says.
‘That’s right – he’s my stepdad.’ Rebecca straightens. ‘I know why they said that, though. I bet they had that look in their eye when they did – that look like
something funny is going on
. It’s like you can’t have a truck driver and a teenage girl in the same house without some kind of abuse. If that’s what they think, funny they don’t do anything about it.’ Rebecca brings up her shoulder. ‘But I’m used to it. The whole town thinks it.’
‘You don’t sound used to it.’
‘I am.’
‘Do you know who your real father is?’
‘Mum wouldn’t tell me his name. She ranged between calling him
spoilt little rich kid
and …’ Rebecca bites the inside of her cheek, ‘
Bigus Dickus
.’
Aden smiles.
Rebecca brings her fingers up to either side of her face. ‘This big, she’d tell me, as if I’d want to know, and other things I’m sure a child isn’t meant to know about their father. A few of the more respectable things she told me were that he drove a red sports car and fancied himself an actor.’
‘Why wouldn’t she tell you his name?’
‘I think she was worried I’d go off searching for him. Which I wouldn’t have. He’s in America, anyway, so …’ Rebecca blows her smoke off to the side, ‘that’s that.’
‘You might be better off not knowing him. You might find out he’s like my father – a complete and utter prick.’
‘Do you think Mr Kincaid is that? He’s just blue blood, isn’t he?’
‘There’s something in his blood, I guess you could call it blue.’ Aden shuts one eye, grimaces at a thought. ‘That’s a really off joke.’
He asks after a moment, ‘Are you only sixteen?’
‘You think I’m going to lie to the cops about it?’
‘I wish you had.’
‘What’s that mean?’
But she knows what he means.
He puts his cigarette into the Coke can and gives it a shake. ‘We better go back in before they send out a search party for you.’
‘What age would you have liked me to say?’ she asks.
‘Any age above sixteen,’ he answers.
10
One table back Zach sits and watches her. Watches her hands clasp and separate, watches her fingers rope and intertwine. She pulls the black jumper she’s wearing down past her hands, as though to stop her fingers fidgeting. Under the table she crosses and re-crosses her legs, twists her feet together when his father asks what they’d bought together at the shop, why she’d sat for an hour out the front, how she drove around unlicensed. ‘I take the back roads and park out of town,’ she says.
‘So you don’t get caught.’
Against the wall, with his arms crossed and his face angled away, is Aden Claas. Zach can now see the family resemblance. Aden’s hair is lighter than his father’s, but they have the same eyes, the same-shaped face, the same height, the same athletic way about them. Zach catches Aden looking at Rebecca, and when the questions become personal, when Zach’s father’s tone becomes harsh, his body language imposing, Aden glances at the police as if to prompt them to intervene. When they don’t, his jaw tightens and his gaze swings across to the door, where his mother is standing, leaning against the doorframe.
‘Is this protocol?’ Aden interrupts, and the police look at him as if not fully aware of what the word means. ‘Should he be allowed to question her? Isn’t this
your
job?’
‘My wife is missing,’ Zach’s father says. ‘I’ll talk to whoever I have to.’
‘Shouldn’t you be out looking?’ Aden says.
‘Get him out of here,’ Zach’s father says.
‘Ah … we can’t, Mr Kincaid,’ the constable says, ‘it’s his home.’
‘Well, I could argue that. Perhaps another time.’
His father leaves to go out again to look at the places where Zach’s mother was last seen – those spots irrefutable. Aden comes forward and speaks to Rebecca. Zach hears him tell her he’ll take her home. Aden squats beside her chair. ‘The police say you’re not allowed to drive. I’m going to take you and the car home and Nigel is going to come and pick me up. If that’s okay?’
She rubs her nose. ‘Thanks.’
Kara Claas comes over and puts her arm around Rebecca. ‘That was a bit much, wasn’t it, love?’