On the inland road, once she was past the snarl of Sydney, Alison made good time. She stopped only to piss or to gulp a cup of something hot and caffeinated. Late afternoon gave way to twilight, gave way to country-dark night, gave way to deep early morning. Stars splashed across the sky in patterns familiar and brilliant; tracing their twinkle helped her stay alert, alive. It was closer to the depth of dark than the rise of the sun when she made it to the outskirts of town.
She glanced at the dash clock: 2:23 a.m. Its neon green illuminated how tired she was. It was probably too late to go to Sal’s. Alison felt uneasy enough, imagining Gil was somewhere around, looking out for her. She hadn’t heard a word from him for too long. Did he know her car? Would he be waiting in the dark when she pulled in? She didn’t know, in this moment between night and light, how much danger she was in, or how to avoid it. Except that she did know how to avoid it. There was one obvious way. Alison didn’t want to do it, but she knew that it was the safest option. She sighed heavily, turned left, not right, at the main roundabout, and swung a second left, into that familiar wide-guttered street she’d played in as a kid.
Billy’s place was easy to break into. The two of them had been slipping a ruler between the windowpanes and jimmying the lock since they were six and wanted to raid his grandmother’s Kingston biscuit stash while she was working reception at Dr. Munroe’s. She pulled up at the curb, tried to figure out if he was home—probably it would have made more sense to swing by the cop shop and see if he was the one on the overnight, but if he wasn’t there, the last thing she wanted was to set tongues wagging that she’d been on the hunt for Billy Meaker at 2 a.m. No coming back from that.
Alison sat in the car for a long time. Billy’s car wasn’t there, but that didn’t mean shit. If he’d had a few at the Imperial, chances were that he’d left it behind and walked back. Did she break in, or was it better to knock? She didn’t know. She knew only that she couldn’t stay in the car forever. She cracked the door, swung her legs out, and stretched a bit, the drive still throttling her every muscle. Standing up, she looked carefully around. There was no movement anywhere, no sounds.
Alison covered the space between the car and the house quickly. Tried not to be indecisive. Rummaged in her bag for her purse, pulled out an unimportant card, slid it between the window frames, found the latch, forced it open. Quietly raised the window on its rope sash, slung a leg over, ducked her head under, pulled herself through, and then, without any grace whatsoever, made a misstep and tumbled loudly to the floor. Shit.
“Who’s there? This is a police officer’s house, mate, and it’s occupied—no matter what you might have heard about these parts after the fire—so if you’re thinking of looting you best turn around quick smart. I’m armed.” Billy’s hunting rifle appeared in the doorway as Alison tried to scramble to her feet.
“It’s me, Billy.”
He stuck his head into view. Alison could see the surprise on his face. “Al? I could have killed you.”
“Your car’s not here; I didn’t think you were home.” Figured a half-truth was better than a lie.
“Left it at the pub. What are you doing here?” He was cold, his tone, his face, his eyes.
“I needed a place to sleep and I thought you were at the station or something.” She crossed her arms over her chest defensively.
Billy moved over to where Alison was standing, looked into her eyes for longer than she’d have liked, and shook his head slowly. “You’re not telling me the truth.” He walked out of the room and, paying proper attention for the first time since she’d tumbled in, her eyes now adjusted, Alison clocked that she was in the lounge room. Let her gaze settle on the carpet next to the couch. She swallowed, tried to level her heartbeat, and followed Billy down the hall, into the kitchen.
He was pacing.
“Why are you really here?”
“Because I need a place to stay tonight.”
“That’s not the whole story, though, is it?”
“Look, forget it, I’ll go to my place.”
“Your place?” He was still pacing. “You didn’t go to Sal’s, and I don’t think that’s because you were worried about waking her up, because you’ve demonstrated your selfishness plenty in the last couple of weeks. But you didn’t go home either, which means—”
“I’m going there now.” Alison turned to leave the room, but his hand caught her arm.
“No. You didn’t go to Sal’s and you didn’t go home. You came here. To my place. I don’t think you came here because you wanted to see me. I think you came here because you’re scared of something.” He searched her face again; Alison tried to stay inscrutable. “You’re scared of him. Michael Gilbert Watson. You know something. You know something that’s made you scared.”
“Billy, I’m just tired, all right? I got back into town real late and I didn’t want to wake Sal and I drove by here and I didn’t see your car, so I figured, why not?”
“Stop lying to me. How can I help you if you won’t let me?” He pounded his open palm against the countertop. Alison flinched, visibly.
“I don’t want to owe you anything, OK?” Alison raised her voice without realizing it. “I need to feel like I’m safe for one bloody night, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Al, come on. Let me in. You need something, I’ll find a way to help.”
Alison thought he was trying too hard again. She needed to change the subject. “Were you gonna ask me to formal?”
“What?”
“In senior. Formal? Were you gonna ask me?”
“Who bloody told you?”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s true?”
“Yeah. But then I came to my senses.” He was loosening up a little, the muscles in his jaw visibly slackening.
“Nicole asked you first.” A look of surprise that Alison knew this too.
“Sure, she did, and she was a nice girl, so I thought, why risk something that’s not so sure?”
“Yeah, sounds right. Sure thing is what I heard.” Alison had gone to the formal alone, or “stag,” as she and Patrick had joked at the time. She’d made a big deal about how she didn’t care, but the boy she’d been crushing on since she was twelve—Sam Chambers—hadn’t even looked at her twice the whole night. In the days leading up to it, Alison had imagined him coming up to her and asking her to dance or offering her a beer at Stacy’s after-party, and then casually slinging an arm over her shoulders. Sam Chambers took Chloe Barnett to formal. She wore a long hot-pink dress with a low-cut front and no-cut back, and as Alison had nursed a warm VB while she kept lookout for Pat and Steve Jenkins, she saw the two of them disappear into the bush out back of Stacy’s. The memory no longer hurt her, but once again it was right there in the front of her mind. She wanted to feel like it didn’t matter.
Rolling his eyes, Billy sighed before he replied, warily, clearly not sure where Alison was going. “I was a teenage boy. What does it matter why I went with her? Why are we even talking about this?”
“I do it every time, you know. Pick wrong. Pick the worst option. Pick the guy who isn’t interested, or isn’t kind, or cheats, or, hell, even beats me. Gil—Gil was a particularly dumb one.”
“What are you talking about?”
“About him. About Michael Gilbert Watson.”
“You and Simone’s ex?”
“I left him because he was cheating on me, and I guess maybe that was Simone. I don’t know.”
“Jesus, Ally, why didn’t you say anything?” Billy looked uncomfortable.
“When I left Cairns, I left him behind and I hoped I’d never have to see him again. I didn’t tell him where I was going or why. I just left. I didn’t leave because he hit me. I left because he cheated. How pathetic.”
“He hit you too?” Little pulses of his jaw where the teeth gritted together.
“Yeah. Punched me in the stomach mostly, choked me a couple of times. Forced me to have sex.” She kept her voice flat, like she was reciting a shopping list.
“Raped you.” Billy’s jaw was clenched tight now, and he was barely able to form the sounds and push the words through the slit of his mouth.
“Yeah. The shit you hear men do to women, he did it all. I don’t know how it got like that. I don’t know how I let it.” Alison knew she was being vague, that she was minimizing it, but she didn’t want it to be everything about her. She didn’t want Billy to see her that way. “But then, one day, I found out he was cheating, and I snapped. Kicked him out, told him we were done. I was ready for him to push back, to try and keep me, but he laughed in my face. He said I was a stupid slut and he didn’t need me anymore. He’d found a better fuck. I remember, that’s exactly what he said to me. It somehow stung more than a slap across the face. When you’re in it, you tell yourself the violence is part of the passion. Like, he loves me so much, he can’t control it. So when he didn’t even care enough—ugh, that’s not the right word, but maybe it is, that’s what I thought at the time—to even get a little bit physical, it hurt my ego, it hurt my pride, and I couldn’t even see how insane that was. And then, I dunno, not even a week later, Mum and Dad had the accident. I came home. Got away to where he didn’t know how to find me. Or maybe he’d decided to hurt her instead.”
Billy walked over to the cupboard, pulled out a bottle of whiskey, poured two generous measures, and handed Alison a heavy cut-crystal glass without saying a word. They both sipped for a while, not talking.
“Say something.” She couldn’t bear his silence anymore.
“I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry that happened. I’m angry you never told me, especially now, with what’s happened.” He looked at her, and the way his face was set seemed softer somehow.
“There’s a weight to telling people. To admitting that someone did that to you. Took your person for themselves and treated it like garbage. Like property. Like some throwaway thing. It feels like you’re diminished. It feels like people you care about will look at you and see something lesser. Something not worthy or lovable. Something used, something damaged. Something you desperately don’t want to be.”
“But I’m not, I’m not just a person. I’m police, for starters; we see this stuff all the time. It’s never the victim’s fault. It’s never about you being less . . . or whatever you feel.”
“Doesn’t matter how many times you say that, Billy. It’s never going to change how I feel. I don’t like the way people look at me when they know. I don’t like the way you’re looking at me now. And when I found out Gil was Michael, I guess I panicked, and I wanted to get away from here; I wanted to try and right whatever wrongs I was responsible for or whatever . . . I was . . . I don’t fucking know, OK?”
“You shouldn’t be ashamed of what he did.” He came close, put his warm, comforting hands on her cold, slumped shoulders.
“I’m not. I’m not bloody ashamed. I don’t want to be pitied.”
“Is this why you pushed me away? You’re afraid of being in a relationship?” He had beautiful eyes, and his hands made her feel safe where he touched her. Alison was aware of her guard falling, her resolve weakening. She shook her head, tried to snap out of it.
“I pushed you away because I don’t want to be in a relationship with you.”
She studied Billy’s face. His eyes were narrowed now, a little wet around the edges, and he had fixed his mouth with that same forced neutral line he’d always used when they were up to something and he was lying to his parents about it. He stared at her hard. She didn’t look away. He kissed her. It felt urgent and wrong and stupid and like everything she’d ever hated and wanted at the same time. She kissed him back.
“So that’s it? You never want to even give it a go?” He spoke as though nothing had interrupted their conversation. Moved his hands as he talked. Found the inside of her waistband; she felt the ripple of her skin as he ran his hand inside it, then lifted her up onto the kitchen counter.
“I’m sorry, Bill, I really am. I wish I felt that way about you, but I just don’t.” She kissed him again, and this time she put her hand in his pants, felt how strained this situation was.
He kissed her with what felt like hard edges, his tongue searching for promises she couldn’t make. “You might, though, when you’ve got through all this.”
She wondered what he meant by “all this.” The abuse, her parents’ death, the fire, Simone? She almost wanted to laugh. “You aren’t serious about me, Bill. You think I’m someone I’m not. Someone who needs to be fixed, who can be fixed.”
He looked away, spoke softly, almost too low for Alison to hear what came next.
“I don’t know if I can be friends with you, Al. I’ve had these feelings for you for too long.” But he didn’t stop touching her, so she didn’t stop touching him either.
“Is it really more important to be with me than to be friends with me?” She let him pull her shorts off, let him push into her.
“You can’t ask me to just let it go like that. It’s not fair.” They were looking into each other’s eyes.
“Nothing in life is fair. You think it’s fair that Simone died in a fire two states away from where she lived because her violent boyfriend was chasing her, or whatever the fucking truth is?” Talking now, about this, about anything, seemed wasted. Like they wouldn’t remember it later anyway. Would have to start the conversation over.
“I wish I could kill him.” Billy’s anger spilled out everywhere, the set of his face, the way he was standing, how he held on to the anchors of her arms, her shoulders, left impressions where his fingers gripped, trying to let out the energy that was raging inside him. It should have scared her. Should have made her shrink away. But instead, it calmed her, and Alison moved with him, tried to reach out to him. Arched her back and held on to his hands, fingers laced. There was no intimacy this time. It was just for the physical need of it. And maybe, an attempt at manufacturing something more. Trying to re-create what had happened before. She did want to know if it was something between them, or just something she did because she could.
It went on until he pushed her away. Muttered without looking at her: “I can’t do this. You should stay; there’s sheets in the linen closet and a bed in Tracy’s old room. I’m going to sleep.”
He walked out. Left her sitting naked from the waist down on the kitchen counter. She heard him slam his bedroom door. Alison looked at her phone: 3:12 a.m. Morning was only a few hours away. If Gil was out there somewhere, it couldn’t be long now before he found her.
Alison became aware that she was clenching her fists so tightly her fingernails cut into her palms. She tried to loosen up. Took another sip of the whiskey. Closed her eyes in the hot bulb-lit kitchen. Jumped down and found her shorts. Caught her reflection in the big windows, one-way mirrors in the early-morning dark. Her hair a mess and her clothes rumpled from hours of driving and the disruption of the sex.
She tried to see past herself into the night out there, into the space between the houses where he might be. Her own face gaped at her from the dull glass. The edges ill-defined. The eyes sunken and weary, the mouth set in a line. A certain flatness to her complexion. Like the dead. The thought popped into her head before she could stop it, and then Simone’s face swam in front of her, the poses from the pictures turning her into some kind of prop, and then she was Alison, and bruises bloomed across her stomach, her lower back, her thighs, bruises that had once been on Alison’s body, a body with Simone’s face.