I pushed open his gate and saw the light was on in his house. Out on the deck, I found Dan Macmillan quietly rolling a joint.
He didn’t seem surprised as I came up the stairs. I took the freshly rolled joint from behind my ear and put it down on the table next to his.
‘You want to share?’ I asked.
‘Sure,’ he said.
I put a new bottle of red wine on the table too.
‘You come bearing gifts,’ he said.
‘You’re not down there tonight,’ I said.
‘I was told to take a night off. I was offered longer, but I said a night would do.’
He indicated the other deckchair. ‘Have a seat.’
I sat and gazed away from the bridge and down the channel at the water and the hills and the stars, the moon hurrying away from cavernous clouds.
Dan went into the house and came back with two glasses.
‘It’s good here,’ I said. He offered me the joint but I told him to go ahead.
He lit up and took a long drag. ‘Paradise,’ he said.
‘Why are we letting paradise get invaded?’ I asked.
There was a long silence.
‘Because we’re little people,’ he said slowly. ‘And we can’t stop it.’
‘Are you sure we’re little people?’ I asked.
‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘Even if some of us do have connections.’
I thought about that for a while.
‘I don’t want to be little,’ I said.
‘I never thought I’d be anything else,’ he said.
‘That can’t be true. You were a paratrooper.’
‘Littlest people of all, in a way. They train us to be legends, but at the end of the day, we’re fodder,’ he said.
‘What did you want when you were a kid, Dan?’
‘I wanted a motorbike,’ he said. ‘I wanted a horse, actually. Watched a fair few cowboy and injun movies as a kid. And later I wanted a motorbike and leathers and a long road ahead. Had a bike for a while. Sold it eventually. Didn’t come home enough to ride it. What did you want to be?’
‘I was going to be an actress. But then there was this girl, Melissa, who was so good in year twelve that I realised I would never have what it took. I wasn’t wild enough somehow. Couldn’t let go the way she did.’
‘So you decided to save the world instead.’
‘And now I’m breaking the law.’
‘You and me both. Bonnie and Clyde up on our hill while some poor bastard is down there feeding the crabs. I wonder what the penalty is? Not reporting a death … to say nothing of covering up a workplace accident. They’d throw the book at me.’
‘What if it leaks?’ he said. ‘If the media get hold of it? Am I the fall guy? I guess I’m the fall guy. I was right there. That’s my crew. But what proof will they have? I’m sure they’ll find another somebody to be worker number one hundred and seventy-seven if need be.’
‘I’m so sorry, Dan, and I know saying sorry doesn’t do anything. I’m numb about this. I’m still in shock, I think.’
‘Rock and a hard place, you and me both,’ he said. ‘I feel like I should be raging.’
‘Me too,’ I said. ‘I feel like I should have raged this morning.’
‘Just our word against—what? The Communist Party of China? Can’t see that going well.’
We were both silent again. There were crickets somewhere close by making cricket love with their wings.
‘I didn’t mean to take it out on you this morning,’ he said. ‘Well, I did, but you’re not the right target.’
‘I deserved it. I didn’t come here to do this. I’m not an apologist.’
‘Surely you must have known it was going to go this way.
How did he do it, your brother? Appeal to your sense of family?’
I took a deep breath. ‘Duty,’ I said.
‘Ah, that’s the one. Duty and family. Bolted on, those two.’
‘Goes in deep, this place,’ I said.
‘That it does.’
‘I like to forget, when I’m away, but it’s always a magnet. Luckily my family is the repellent, otherwise I might never leave again.’
I passed the joint back to him. He took it from me carefully.
Alarm! Alarm! my body was saying. You’re attracted to him.
Who cares? my brain responded. He doesn’t need to know. He’ll never know. Except you walked over. Clearly not a work thing. A social thing.
‘I didn’t mean to interrupt your evening,’ I said. ‘Well, I did. But I was going a bit stir crazy up there.’
‘Really,’ he said. ‘What does stir crazy look like to Astrid Coleman?’
‘I was talking to myself. Got to thinking about beef, weirdly.’
‘Beef?’
‘Yeah, I’d tangled up world peace with giving up meat …’
‘No bolognaise,’ said Dan.
‘That was exactly where I got to.’ I laughed. ‘You understand my misery.’
‘I don’t do misery anymore.’
‘How do you avoid it?’
‘I avoid miserable people,’ he said.
‘You can do that?’
‘Unless they walk onto my deck.’
‘I will hold back all misery until I return home.’
‘Control at last.’
I smiled. And he smiled.
‘Really, I’ve interrupted you,’ I said.
‘Yep, so you better stay and make it worthwhile,’ he said. ‘Seriously. I didn’t think I could just walk over, so it’s good you did.’
‘Why not?’ I asked.
‘Because you’re kind of the boss. And you’re intimidating. Charming but intimidating.’
‘Can I not be? Here? On my deck or yours, can we forget that? Can we just be … two people?’
We’d lived through something, Dan and I. There was a man’s body in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and we had no idea who had loved him, who would miss him, but there would be people. And we were complicit.
‘What do people call you?’ he asked. ‘Do you have a nickname?’
‘Ace,’ I said.
‘Ace,’ he repeated.
‘What do they call you?’
‘Mac. Nothing very original.’
He went in and brought me out a blanket. I took it and spread it over my legs. I hadn’t realised I was getting cold. I breathed in, and then I let a long breath out. I felt like I hadn’t breathed out that deeply in weeks. Maybe not since I’d arrived.
‘I’ve been going to see my dad late at night,’ I said. ‘He’s in care and the staff have got used to my visits. No-one in my family knows I go. It’s this private thing just for me and him. It’s me making up for years I can’t make up for. He’s rarely asleep and, if he is, I sit with him and watch him breathe. If he’s awake, I read to him. Shakespeare or John Donne. Some nights I lie down next to him and share my earbuds and we listen to Tchaikovsky or Chopin or Rachmaninoff—his favourites. There’s something so surreal about it. The nursing home with its long hallways and dried flower arrangements. Dad and I sharing monologues and sonnets from four hundred years ago. He had a stroke, you see. He can’t really talk any more. It’s all Shakespeare, but it makes sense. Eventually I get sleepy. Sometimes he nods off. Sometimes we doze off together. Sometimes when I wake I have no idea how old I am. Time seems to go backwards and forwards.’
I stopped. I had no idea what had made me say all that, but it was done now.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ Dan said, his voice easy in the quiet that had fallen between us.
‘I’m not so sure about that.’
‘Me either, but when we’re on this deck, it’s going to be okay.’
‘Okay,’ I said.
And the aurora went on like a green disco behind us.