I was away at school when it happened but Mum had told me about the cake show on the phone. The rest I’d overheard Kevin telling his mother at the funeral, whispering it to her in dull monotone, while she twisted her diamond rings on her wrinkly fingers. But he told the events like they were just things that happened on the day; he didn’t see their connection, how they linked together in a deadly chain or how he was the crucial fatal link.
I had to blame someone; the question was, who? The person who sent the stupid flyer about the cake show? The brainless cow for getting caught in the fence? Or Mum for wanting to bake a cake for the stupid show in the first place?
The truth is she wasn’t that great at baking. You know how some people choose something they really want to do and for some weird reason they are crap at it but keep on doing it anyway?
I tried to tell her. Many a time I’d be shaking my head in disapproval, chewing away at some fancy cake she had made. She always made me taste them because she ‘appreciated my honesty’.
‘Just tell me straight, Sunny (wiping hands anxiously on apron). Is it any good?’
But when it comes to blame – Kevin takes the cake. He shouldn’t have made her take that flimsy little Datsun. He shouldn’t have had his head stuck inside some old bomb. He should have gone with her. If he had, she would be alive.
Simple.
I told him so, too, right after the funeral, and that was the start of the cold war.
The bus glided to halt, hissing like an elephant beetle, and the door jerked open. Through the smeared window, I saw a pensioner throw a bottle into a wheelie bin. Kelly’s Crossing Waste was printed on the bin. Someone had spray-painted of space underneath in large white letters. My thoughts exactly.
I stared at the little shopfronts with their faded signs hanging from the awnings. ‘Shopping mall’ was not a phrase the Kelly’s Crossing dwellers would have in their vocabulary. If it wasn’t for the bitumen, the main street – a few struggling shops, a community hall, a pub – could have come straight out of some old cowboy movie. I half expected some drunks to burst through the doors of the pub and start rolling around in the dust.
I saw Kevin’s white Toyota parked on the other side of the narrow street. Lead sinkers attached themselves to my heart. I was back.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
The woman across the aisle glanced my way. Had I said that out loud?
‘Welcome to Kelly’s Crossing,’ the bus driver droned over the intercom. He sounded kind of depressed and I had a strange urge to laugh. I dragged my stuff from the overhead locker and shuffled off with the woman and her friend, who both looked like backpackers.
A few adventurous tourists came through Kelly’s Crossing to experience the quaintness of a rural sugar town or to access the nearby hinterland with its rugged rainforest and beautiful swimming holes, but apart from that, this place was a blip and unless you really made an effort to turn off the highway and cross the bridge over Constant Creek, you wouldn’t even know it was there.
Even though I’d been here many times, as a kid, to visit Grandma, each time I returned I still felt like a bit of a tourist. When your mum and stepfather up stumps and move to a new place, and you’ve spent most of the two years they’ve lived there at boarding school, you have a permanent feeling of being temporary.
By the time I stepped onto the pavement, Kevin was standing under the general store sign, holding his hat across his stomach. Embracing the farmer role, he wore a faded-blue chequered shirt and, despite the damp heat of summer, jeans and heavy work boots.
He’d lost some weight and his face looked gaunt – is that the word they use for someone tormented with guilt? He was tanned but somehow this didn’t give him a healthy glow. His skin seemed to absorb the bright country light and turn it into shadow.
Seeing him again was like going into a time machine, as if not a minute had passed since the funeral. The whole wretched term of boarding school vanished into some sort of black hole. I swallowed back the massive lump that was ascending my throat and threatening to choke me.
Kevin raised his hand, then walked over and grabbed my red suitcase from the driver. As Kevin wheeled it over to me my whole face ached with the effort of trying not to show any emotion. I wasn’t even sure what would come out: anger or despair. I imagined from Kevin’s pulsating jaw that he was undergoing a similar challenge.
‘Welcome home, Sunny,’ he said, going in for a hug.
I stood still with my arms hanging down and he came toward me in a waft of shaving cream. He had cut himself and a glob of blood had congealed in the corner crease between his upper and lower lip. Kevin patted me on the back and my rib cage vibrated like a hollow drum. I tried to relax but the best I could do was not resist.
As he squeezed me, my eyes drifted to the doorway of the fish and chip shop where Leanne, the owner, stood. She was an old acquaintance of Mum’s; they’d gone
