31

Brigitte worked in silence all morning. She was sure her workmates knew something was wrong at home, but they left her alone.

At lunchtime, she leaned back in her chair and stretched, thinking about a cup of tea. Cam came over holding a camera box, and asked how her Easter was.

‘Ate too much chocolate.’

‘Me, too.’ He patted his paunch. ‘You going down the street for lunch?’

She shook her head. ‘Not hungry.’

‘You need to get out of the office for a bit.’ He placed the box on her desk.

‘What’s that for?’

He raised his eyebrows, but resisted saying something smart. ‘Camera needs to be repaired. Run it over to Marty’s Cameras in Bairnsdale for me?’

He must have been sick of her moping around the studio. ‘Nobody can do it in Traralgon?’

‘Nope. Only one good camera bloke knows what he’s doing round here. Instructions of what needs to be done are in the box. Take the Caprice.’

‘Really?’ She brightened and stood. It was the first time he’d let her drive one of the studio cars.

‘Take Tate, too.’

She groaned. He threw her a set of car keys. She missed, and retrieved them from the floor.

‘It’s heavy,’ she said as she picked up the box.

‘Yes. Be careful with it. And the car, too.’

‘Yes, Cam.’ She walked towards the door.

‘Hey, you OK?’

She nodded, biting the insides of her cheeks.

‘We’ve just landed a big account. Drinks after work tonight?’

‘Can’t. Have to pick up the kids.’

The smell of Tate’s deodorant filled the car. Lynx Dumb and Cocksure? Synthetic. Brigitte sneezed and ran her window down a bit.

‘Have a look in the glove box,’ she said as they pulled out of the studio car park. ‘Cam always leaves lollies in there.’

Tate had a look and found a bag of gummi bears. She turned on the radio: ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.

‘Do you think I look like him?’ Tate said. ‘Kurt Cobain. Somebody told me I looked a bit like him.’

Brigitte choked on a gummi bear. She’d spent a lot of time — and money on therapy — trying not to think about Kurt Cobain. She cut off his ragged, bittersweet voice with the only decent CD she could find.

‘What’s this?’

Was he taking the piss? She glanced at him; he wasn’t taking the piss.

‘Radiohead.’

‘The new car’s got Bluetooth.’

‘Cam would never let me drive that one.’

‘You can use Spotify in the car.’

She had no idea what he was talking about now.

The stretch of road between Traralgon and Sale was the most boring in the world. Nothing but trees and dead grass, and the occasional pâté of road kill. Locals heading in the opposite direction raised index fingers off their steering wheels in greeting, and she returned the salute. Speed was limited to between forty and sixty for much of the way due to road works. They’d been working on the roads there since Brigitte had moved to the area. Cement pipes lay next to bulldozers digging up yellow earth that looked like the clay facemask from the farmers’ market. Maybe that’s where Sunny sourced her raw materials? She yawned.

‘Did you tell Aidan about Dead in the Water?’

That woke her up. ‘No.’

‘Did you finish it?’

‘Didn’t need to. I guessed the ending.’

‘I thought it was a bit like The Postman Always Rings Twice.’

She gripped the wheel tighter.

‘You knew him, didn’t you?’

‘James M. Cain?’

He giggled and tutted. ‘Matt Elery.’

‘Long time ago.’

‘What was he like?’

‘Don’t really remember.’

They drove in silence for a few kilometres.

‘Awful about Maree Carver. I’ve never known anybody that’s died before, apart from my grandpa,’ Tate said. ‘Especially not murdered. Have you?’

She concentrated on the road.

‘How does Aidan cope?’

She thought about Aidan checking the gun, holding it to his face. ‘I don’t know, Tate.’

‘Suppose they learn to switch it off?’

She nodded, and held out her hand for more gummi bears.

‘Have you always lived around here?’ he said.

‘No, from Melbourne. You?’

‘Traralgon. Where did you learn to write?’

‘A writing and publishing degree.’

‘In the city?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wow. Do you ever write fiction?’

‘No.’ It was hard to tell if the marks on the road were powerline shadows or burn-out skids.

‘I’m writing a novel.’

‘Uh-huh.’ A gang of black-leathered motorcyclists zipped past.

‘It’s about an ornithologist married to a woman who doesn’t understand his love of birds.’

Brigitte didn’t remember asking what it was about.

‘They go down to Tasmania, and he discovers this rare bird that was thought to be extinct, which is, of course, a metaphor for their relationship.’

Of course.

‘Then when they get lost on a bush walk, they discover they have very different beliefs and values.’

There was a kelpie running around in the back of the ute tray in front of them.

‘I’m looking for somebody to read it for me.’

The kelpie tried to jump over the side. A logging truck drove up too fast behind them.

‘I’d really value your feedback.’

The truck tailgated. Brigitte gritted her teeth and stuck to the speed limit, her life flashing before her. Whose idea was it to stick ‘Public forests for public good not private profit’ bumper stickers on the studio cars?

The ute turned off and the truck overtook them. Brigitte peeled her fingernails from the steering wheel, took a deep breath, and blew the hair off her face.

‘Was that you?’ Tate wrinkled his nose as a cattle truck rattled by in the opposite direction.

A bell tinkled as they entered Marty’s Cameras. The shop smelled of dust and chemicals.

‘Can I go pick up a prescription for my mum at the chemist?’

‘You don’t have to ask, Tate. Meet you back at the car.’

A man of about sixty with ginger-and-white hair appeared from out the back. Marty? She placed the box on the countertop and explained that the repair instructions were inside.

Marty opened the box, read Cam’s note, lifted out the camera, and turned it over in his hands a couple of times. ‘No worries. Ready for ya on Monday, love.’

Out on Nicholson Street, she caught her reflection in a window, distorted, elongated. Tate was still at the pharmacy, so she stopped at the op shop. She took off her cream trench coat, which she’d paid a fortune for last winter, rolled it up, and shoved it in the donations bin.

Inside the shop, on the ladies’ rack, she found ‘gold’: a 1960s-style, sage-green woollen coat, with champagne-pink lining and fake fur trim — well, she hoped it was fake. The volunteer at the counter assured her (three times) that it had been dry-cleaned before she would try it on. Perfect fit. She fastened the buttons, double-breasted, as she walked out.

Baby clothes were half-price at Target; a Don’t Get Court shoplifting sign hung in the pharmacy window. She crossed the road and bought lunch — a salad roll and an apple-blackcurrant juice — from the café, and took it back to the car.

She tossed her ‘new’ coat onto the back seat in case she dropped crumbs on it. After only a few bites, she felt full and put the roll back in its paper bag. She twisted the top off the juice and checked her phone. No messages. She rang Ryan. He sounded chirpy enough. He’d spoken to Rosie, and she was withdrawing the intervention-order application, and talking about letting him see Georgia on the weekends.

She looked across the road. A skinny brown dog — no owner in sight — was pissing on a rubbish bin.

‘And I’ve got a call back for a Honda TVC, and an audition for a hospital staff training video.’

Brigitte oohed and aahed and sipped her juice. A couple of scruffy teenagers walked hand-in-hand along the street. The girl looked pregnant, the boy stoned. They paused to gaze into the pharmacy. Brigitte turned her head in the direction of the Court House, and clocked Aidan and fucking Carla Flanagan walking up together. She choked on her drink.

‘Are you OK?’ Ryan said.

Aidan and Flanagan stopped for a word to the teenagers before crossing the road to the café. Brigitte watched in the rear-view mirror. From her parking spot in the median strip, she saw them pull up chairs at an outside table. ‘Sorry, I’ve gotta go, Ryan. Ring you back later.’

A waiter came out and took their orders. Aidan slid sunglasses on; Flanagan took a cigarette from a pack and offered him one. Aidan stuck it in his mouth, felt his jacket pockets, and pulled out the gold lighter. He lit both their smokes and handed the lighter to Flanagan; she laughed and held onto it. She exhaled a plume of grey-blue smoke. They talked and smiled. The waiter brought their coffees. Flanagan scraped her chair closer to Aidan’s. She sipped her coffee and looked at him over the rim of the cup, listening intently to whatever he was saying. Aidan extinguished his half-finished cigarette in the ashtray. Flanagan touched his shoulder, teasing him about something. Brigitte spilled her apple-blackcurrant juice down the front of her shirt and onto the white Gip TV seat cover.

She turned on the ignition when she saw Tate step out of the pharmacy. He looked both ways and then smiled as he sauntered across the road.

‘Hurry up,’ she said as he got in. A horn blasted as she pulled out of the parking space, cutting off a car. Tate complained that he didn’t have his seatbelt on yet.