‘Yes. I’m sorry …’
‘Don’t worry, you have things to deal with.’
‘My life is stuffed,’ I said, half laughing. ‘I’m so sorry there hasn’t been enough room for this. Us, I mean. It’s pretty hopeless, isn’t it?’
‘No, it’s not hopeless.’ Matt lifted his arms and wrapped them around my shoulders. ‘I’m still hopeful.’ He smiled and hugged me tight and suddenly his warm lips were on mine and all I could think about was how surprisingly soft they were. He pulled me against his body and I wanted to stay like that forever, with our lips together, our breath merging, my skin on fire.
Leanne’s shout cut through the still night and he pulled away.
‘I’ve been wanting to kiss you again,’ he said.
‘Me too. I mean, I’ve wanted to kiss you, obviously, not myself.’
He laughed and got into the van and I watched him drive away, feeling distinctly as though gravity had lost some of its effect. He wasn’t going to dump me; just friends don’t say goodbye like that. I closed my eyes and committed kiss number two to long-term memory.
I found the aspirin Leanne was looking for and retreated to my bedroom. From there I heard Leanne and Kevin making after-punch-up-in-the-street noises: Leanne’s voice soft as, I imagined, she reassured Kevin, guided him to the couch, made him a coffee, searched through the drawers for ointment – maybe wet bits of cloth to dab at his face – while she looked wistfully yet reproachfully into his eyes.
She gently knocked on my door around ten, when her Florence Nightingale work was done.
‘Sunny?’
‘Yep.’
‘Can I come in?’ She was already through the door, the hall light slicing through the darkness of my room and into my eyes. I sat up, squinting at her.
‘Are you alright?’ she said, standing beside my bed.
‘Yes, fine.’ I was fine, kind of scarily calm and controlled.
‘He’s pretty upset.’
‘Don’t you mean drunk?’ I said.
‘Come on, Sunny. It wasn’t all his fault.’
‘Really?’ I was conscious of the flatness of my voice, the disinterested tone. ‘Did someone force-feed him a carton of beer?’
Leanne lowered herself onto the edge of the bed. ‘Of course not.’
‘It’s humiliating,’ I said under my breath.
‘It must have been hard, with all your friends there.’
‘They’re not my friends.’
Leanne frowned at me. ‘But I thought—’
‘I need to go to sleep.’
‘Sorry, I just … I’ll leave you.’ She got up and turned to go.
‘Everyone thinks Kevin killed Dylan, don’t they?’ I said as she reached the door.
Leanne took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Not everyone.’
‘But, let me guess,’ I said, ‘Gary’s blaming Kevin for Dylan’s disappearance. That’s what started it all off.’
She came back toward the bed. ‘Apparently Gary stormed in and accused Kevin in front of everyone at the bar.’
‘What do you think?’
Leanne cleared her throat. ‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’
‘That’s a cop-out and you know it.’
‘Sunny, would I be here if I thought that Kevin was involved in this? You know what I think. Kevin is my friend. It’s about trust.’
I crossed my arms and looked down at my knees, draped with the pink swirly flowers of the bedspread.
‘It’s not true, Sunny,’ she added. ‘Whatever you’ve heard.’
My silence was damning.
‘Surely you can’t think …’
‘The police took the guns.’
‘I know. But they didn’t lock him up, did they?’ She reached down and patted my leg. ‘Don’t worry, everything will be okay. I’ll pray for you both and pray they find that boy soon, then all this will go away.’
‘Praying isn’t going to make this go away.’ I pushed my hair away from my eyes in frustration. ‘They won’t find Dylan alive. He’s dead, alright. He’s dead.’
Leanne stared at me. ‘What do you mean?’ She grasped my arm. ‘What are you talking about?’
I had to backtrack, and fast. ‘I mean,’ I paused, ‘he must be dead, mustn’t he?’
‘You don’t know that,’ she said. ‘Kids run away all the time.’
‘I’ve asked Kevin about it, but he doesn’t say anything. It’s like he’s trying to hide something.’
Leanne shook her head. ‘They’re going to find that boy alive and well and then Gary Koslovski can take his accusations and—’ Her voice began to wobble and she stopped for a breath. ‘Don’t listen to town gossip, Sunny. You have to have faith. Now, I’d better get back to him. He took quite a punch to the head.’
Leanne left me then and went back to nurse Kevin. I lay in bed for a while. My body was wrung out, but my brain wouldn’t shut down as I tried to make sense of everything. There was a fierce debate going on inside me. One side was sure Kevin was innocent and cited examples of the man my mother loved. The other side was suspicious and cynical, certain that somehow, some way, Kevin had done it. Why else did Dylan keep coming to me? And Mum? Appearing as if to tell me some dark message from the grave.
If only Mum were there … then none of this would have happened. The holes wouldn’t have lined up. Kevin wouldn’t have gone on the hunting trip because he knew how Mum felt about the Koslovskis. Maybe then Dylan wouldn’t have gone either and maybe he’d be alive too.
After an hour or so of this manic cycle in my head, it seemed as though sleep would never come so I went out to the front veranda. It was cooler outside and I drifted to the love seat, swinging it absent-mindedly back and forth. Mum’s chair stood empty and pale in the moonlight. I would have given my soul for her to be there right then, sitting opposite me, with a cup of tea in her hands; I had taken for granted having someone to share things with, and to unload to, and there was great loneliness in the thought that I might never have that again.
‘If only you could talk,’ I said.
The chair declined to comment.
‘How could you leave me with this mess, Mum?’
Silence.
Mervie trotted out and jumped into Mum’s chair.
