1

ALICE

Alice was barefoot beneath the late afternoon sun and knocking her heels against the sea wall when Choker rang. She looked at her phone for a long time while it rang out.

When he called again straight away, she picked up.

‘You know,’ she said conversationally, ‘I didn’t realise I still had blood on my shoes until this morning. It’s been three days, and I only noticed when I took them off to walk along the beach.’

‘It’ll wash out. Or, if you take this job, you can throw your shoes into the ocean and buy a new pair. Six pairs. Twenty. I don’t know. How much did you spend on those ones?’

‘Thirty-five dollars on sale,’ Alice said. She looked down at her white sneakers, lined up in a neat row in the sand with Cherry’s little silver sandals and Jun’s scuffed Vans. ‘And they were my favourites.’

‘You can buy almost a hundred pairs of them if you take this job.’

‘I’m at the beach,’ she told him. ‘Ask somebody else. Don’t ask Teddy, though. She’s on holiday too.’

‘It needs to be you.’

‘It really doesn’t,’ she said, and hung up.

Choker was the only person she ever did this to: ending a call with someone with a one-liner instead of a goodbye. He never minded, but he did always call back to finish the conversation.

‘I’m serious,’ she said when he did. ‘I’ve had one single day of this holiday, Choker. One.’

‘I know, I know. But it’s barely two days: out tomorrow, one night away, back by end of Friday – and if you work this one little job, you can upgrade your hotel for the whole rest of your holiday.’

‘Who says we need to upgrade?’

Alice didn’t turn to look back at the peeling, under-loved hotel they were staying in down the road. The room smelled like rat bait, the bed creaked with every movement and mould dotted the kitchenette sink. They’d woken up before six o’clock with sulphur-crested cockatoos screeching on the deck in front of a note taped to the balcony wall that said DO NOT FEED THE BIRDS. Cherry was too young to read, and she’d already made them a bowl of cornflakes. It was a sweet thing, really, so Alice and Jun couldn’t be mad. They would be even less mad if they moved to that other hotel, the one by the cleaner part of the beach, with the pool, without the cockatoos – and well out of their price range.

‘You’d be driving Valkyrie.’

Alice sucked her teeth. ‘You can’t buy my time with my family,’ she said.

‘Don’t be so cheesy. It’s a lot of money, and it’ll take you one night. Tell your boyfriend you’re on a compulsory professional development class you forgot all about.’

Alice looked over at Jun. He’d buried Cherry in the sand up to her waist, and was sculpting her a mermaid tail while she watched him, silent and serious.

‘I don’t want to tell him that. It’s such bullshit.’

‘Tell him the truth, then,’ he said. ‘Tell him you’ve got a dead body to move tomorrow.’

‘Jesus Christ, Choker, are you kidding? I said no more of that shit. It hasn’t even been a week since you said old Earl would be at that shop alone and it wouldn’t get violent.’

‘That wasn’t my fault,’ he said.

‘I had to kick his son in the teeth,’ she said.

‘Don’t tell me about your shoes again. A hundred new pairs,’ he reminded her. ‘A nicer hotel. After this, you can take a boat trip and watch the whales.’

Alice looked out over the ocean, at the spray of water that knocked against the jetty nearby. At the sun reflecting off Cherry’s silver sandals, and the great wash of sand, dense with seaweed and broken shells. Five minutes ago she had felt relaxed, briefly, feeling the sea wall underfoot. But before that she had been thinking about the fucking cockatoos screeching on her deck since half past five in the morning, and the blood on her shoes, and that sound of Earl’s son’s teeth like dice across the tiles. Maybe if she got more sleep and didn’t have to look at the shoes, she wouldn’t think about the teeth anymore.

‘Anyway, it’s not that kind of dead body,’ he said into her silence. ‘It’s the legal kind. You’ll pick up a coffin from a funeral home and transport it for burial at the deceased’s family estate.’

‘Estate?’ she said. ‘Is it the king?’

‘Yes,’ Choker said dryly. ‘It is the king, being buried in regional Victoria, where his family estate has always been. No, I’m not telling you who it is until you get there.’

‘Why are they a secret?’ Alice waved at Cherry, who was pointing at her tail. ‘Jesus, is it someone I know?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but no. You’ll understand when you get there.’

‘I don’t like secrets,’ Alice warned.

‘Good,’ Choker said. ‘If you tell no one, then the misery of keeping a secret stays with you alone. This is the kind of knowledge other people might want from you too, Alice. And I’m serious, don’t even tell Teddy about it.’

‘Of course,’ said Alice, who had no intention of keeping anything from Teddy.

He gave her a name and address for the pickup, and finished the call. She kicked her heels against the rocks a couple more times, and then went over to Jun and Cherry in the sand.

‘You’re a mermaid!’ she said to her daughter. ‘I always knew it. I’ll miss you when you go out to sea.’

‘Mama,’ Cherry whispered loudly, ‘it’s okay. Dad did it. I still have legs.’

‘I refuse to believe that tail is pretend when it looks so good,’ Alice said, and Jun preened. Then she added, ‘Remember when you said you wished you had more time with Dad?’

‘I miss Dad when he works,’ Cherry said. ‘I don’t miss you.’

Alice did a lot of internal additions to Cherry’s sentences. Today’s was: I don’t miss you because you’re there more. Which was probably true.

‘Well, maybe you would like to have a day just with him tomorrow?’

Cherry looked up at her.

‘You could go up to that lighthouse,’ Alice said. ‘Or to the trampoline place. Or buy a scooter for the skate park.’

‘A scooter!’ Cherry yelled, while Jun said, ‘I thought we were too broke for a scooter?’

‘Not after tomorrow,’ Alice told him. ‘We’ll have enough money for fifty scooters.’

He looked at her for a long beat, and she did not say anything.

‘All day?’ he asked.

She nodded.

‘Overnight?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry. But then we can upgrade our room?’

‘Or – you could just stay?’

‘It’s just a day,’ she said, ‘… and a half. I’ll be back Friday afternoon. With more money.’

‘I don’t want to buy a scooter anyway,’ he said. ‘You know I’ll just have to carry it around all day.’

‘I know,’ she said.

Cherry had been scooping up the sand from her tail and burying her mother’s feet. ‘You can’t go, Mama,’ she said. ‘You’re stuck here now. You have to stay here while me and Dad go for a walk.’

‘What if I’m washed out to sea?’

Cherry thought about it. ‘That’s okay,’ she said. ‘The whales will save you.’

On the walk back to the hotel, Alice hung back and called Teddy. There was deafening music and hollering wherever she was, and Alice had to shout. ‘How’s your holiday going?’

‘What’s a holiday?’ Teddy said.

‘Come on. You sent me that whole list of things you were going to do this week. Did you go to the movies, at least?’

‘Mate, I’m in one right now. Second one of the day.’

‘You’re kidding? What kind of asshole answers the phone in a cinema?’

‘This kind of asshole. Turns out, nobody else goes to action movies during the day. I’m here on my own. This is my new favourite office.’ Something exploded in the background, then Teddy said, ‘You’re not even the first call I got in here. Art rang and left a message. He didn’t say it, but I think it’s about a job.’

‘It better not be,’ Alice growled. ‘You’re on a break, and I’m already annoyed that Choker gave me a job.’

‘What the fuck? He’s the one who told us to take some time away. Tell him no. I’ll take the job over. You stay away with your family.’

‘It won’t be the same job. Also, I already said yes.’

‘You can’t. You’re supposed to be relaxing.’

‘I’ll relax a lot harder with three thousand dollars for one night’s work.’

Teddy whistled. ‘Well, yeah, you probably will. What are you doing?’

‘Driving a stiff to a cemetery.’

‘For three thousand dollars?’

‘I guess that’s payment for not asking who it is.’

‘Spend it on something fun. And next time, don’t answer when he calls.’

Alice pocketed her phone and caught up with Cherry and Jun. They were walking along a dusty road, trees low against the footpath and quiet, worn houses on either side. Cherry scuffed her sandals in the gravel, and Jun picked her up to stop her. Alice watched them and wondered, not for the first time, what it would have taken for her to say no to Choker instead.