‘They’re just stories, love,’ Jon was saying.
Sam had inched the rear window down to listen, but their voices were muffled and he had to strain to make out the words. The sound of the fire was soothing as it popped and crackled and, even in the chill, Sam had to sit up to stop his eyes from sliding shut. Dettie was perched on the picnic table beside Jon, gazing into the flames.
‘What kind of person would find that amusing?’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Who would even want to think such things?’
He chuckled and picked at the hole in his jeans. ‘It’s not real, love,’ he said. ‘That’s the point. They’re fantasy. Zombies and crazy old women. Ghosts and murder. There’s no harm in them. Just scary yarns to tell at night. To give you a thrill. To make life a bit more exciting.’
‘To warp your mind.’ She shuddered.
Jon stoked the fire with a sizzling branch. ‘Well, they’re not everyone’s cup of tea,’ he said, watching the leaves ignite. His face yellowed and, as he let go, the branch curled into the metal drum.
They sat quietly for a few minutes, and Sam watched the smoke fleeing the illumination of the fire. Occasionally, Dettie would jerk around, wide-eyed, to check the surrounding bushes; whenever she did, Jon would steal quick glances at her, dipping his head. He drew a deep, long breath and blew it out.
‘It’s a pity we can’t find that handkerchief,’ he said.
Dettie stiffened. She bent to lift a long stick from the ground. ‘Well, if the girl hadn’t been running riot the whole trip…’ She stiffened, her neck straight, her chin dipped.
He sat motionless. ‘Yes, it’s definitely strange,’ he said, slowly. ‘Just losing it like that. After treasuring it for so long.’
Dettie pushed one end of the stick she was holding into the dirt. It was a broken tree limb, and it reminded Sam of a baseball bat as she rolled it in her hands. ‘Children are reckless,’ she said. ‘No sense of what’s important.’
Jon didn’t say anything for a moment. He just watched her from the corner of his eyes. When he did speak it was too soft for Sam to make out anything except the word kids.
‘Me?’ Dettie’s voice squeaked. ‘No. No, Ted and I never did. No time for them really. What with us always on the move. Travelling. And Ted’s work. And my—’
She broke off. She went back to grinding her stick into the earth. She hummed. ‘And then the way Ted’s death came up on us.’ She was smiling, but the flickering across her face darkened her eyes. ‘Quite a surprise.’
Sam tried to read the expression in her voice. She was saying it again—that Ted was dead. He couldn’t tell if she believed it, or it was just something she’d gotten used to saying. He wondered, briefly, if the difference mattered.
On the back seat, Katie was rustling under one of Jon’s flannel shirts.
‘But it was no big issue in the end. It just meant I was always there to help out Joanne—Donald and Joanne—with the kids,’ Dettie said. ‘Babysit for them. Drop the kids at school. Pick them up. Do some dinners and housework. Even helping Joanne through that sorry business with Sammy’s voice.’ She looked over at the car and Sam had to duck. ‘She and Donald were going through a rough patch at the time. As you would, of course. All that stress and worry. And afterwards. With work. But I was there. To help. Helping. As best I could, anyway.’ She let out a long, slow breath. ‘It almost feels like they’re mine,’ she said. ‘Sometimes.’
She withdrew a crumpled packet of cigarettes from her sleeve and offered it to Jon. They each lit one and she crushed the empty packet and threw it in the fire. They both sat smoking silently, and as he waited, Sam felt himself start to drift off to sleep. A warm quiet slipped over his mind and he had to keep shaking himself awake.
Jon was turning the cigarette in his fingers, watching it smoulder. He seemed to be thinking something over, nodding to himself. Finally, he cleared his throat.
‘Here, love—I want to ask,’ he began, slowly.
Dettie straightened herself to face him.
He took a long drag of smoke and let it drift casually from his mouth. ‘The little ones. Their mother—Joanne?’ He picked at the hole in his pants. ‘So she—? She does know they’re going to Perth?’ His head was shaking very slightly. His eyes remained locked on the fire. ‘She knows where they are, doesn’t she?’
Dettie choked, clutching her neck, and coughed. She tried to swallow down her hacking. When she’d finished her face was drawn. ‘Why—what makes you say that?’ she wheezed.
Jon eased forward with his elbows on his knees. He didn’t look at her as he inhaled. ‘The children’s clothes,’ he said, and gestured to the car. ‘They haven’t got much else to put on. Just a couple of shirts and things. Not even pyjamas. No luggage.’
‘Well, we were—it was a great shock. A hurry,’ she stammered. ‘Their father. Donald. Their father’s very sick.’ She coughed again. ‘In Perth. My brother. Which we’re—is why we’re going—and—’ She was lifting the stick and tapping it on the ground. She took a breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘are you accusing me of something?’
‘No. No. Course not. Just—just curious,’ Jon said. ‘Just curious.’ He ran a hand through his beard. ‘One of those funny little oddities, you know? Gets you thinking.’ He gave a quick smile that slid from his face as though it were melting. ‘Besides, I mean, it’s none of my business, right?’
‘Exactly,’ Dettie snapped, brushing the ash from her lap. ‘I mean, not that there’s anything—’ Now she wasn’t blinking. ‘I mean, it’s fine,’ she said. ‘The children. Their mother. Everything’s fine.’
‘Oh, I know.’ Jon still hadn’t turned to face her. ‘Of course it is. Silly of me, really.’
She was nodding, more to herself than to him. ‘Everybody’s fine.’
There was a moment of silence.
‘Except their father,’ Jon said. And when Dettie didn’t respond, he added: ‘Because he’s sick.’
‘Oh, yes. Yes,’ she said. ‘Except for him.’
Gradually, Jon looked towards the car, and after a moment, Sam realised that Jon was nodding straight at him, through the window, a vacant expression on his face. Holding his stare, Jon drew a small, clockwise circle on his chest.
Sorry.
The window fogged beneath Sam’s chin where his stoma was breathing on the glass. His fingers remained hooked over the edge of the door, fingernails picking at the rubber seal. He wasn’t sure what to sign back. He wasn’t even sure how to. He returned the nod, feeling a strange mix of fear and reassurance. Jon knew. He was worried about Dettie too. Worried for them. But just as he was wondering why Jon would need to apologise, he saw Dettie.
She had turned in place, watching Jon’s face, trying to read his expression. Had she seen? Had she seen him signing? She straightened, following his line of sight, peering over at the car. Squinting through the smoke. Sam ducked out of sight. The ghostly puff of condensation on the window above him shone white against the black sky.
After a minute he inched his way back up. Dettie and Jon were still beside one another. Still silent. Neither looking at the other. Each taking slow drags from their cigarettes. Finally, Jon stretched out his arms and crushed the last of his butt on the edge of the table.
‘Well, Dettie,’ he said, standing up, ‘I’m knackered. Fancy I might run off to the little boy’s room, then turn in for the night.’ He pointed into the bushes.
Dettie stared at him, her jaw hanging slack. A flicker from the campfire suddenly gnarled her face. From the angle of the light it almost looked like a sneer.
‘You—you called me Dettie,’ she said. Her voice was colder than it had been. Not angry, but somehow disappointed. ‘Isn’t that funny?’ But it didn’t sound like she found it funny at all. She sighed a laugh. ‘You don’t usually call me Dettie,’ she said. ‘Usually you call me—’ She hiccoughed, and a vague, gaunt expression hung on her face.
Jon didn’t appear to be listening, and nodded, shooting her a half-hearted smile. Excusing himself, he pushed through the branches and out of sight. Sam watched the leaves rustle back into place behind him. When the orange throb of the fire glistened over them, the bushes seemed to ripple.
Dettie stood, momentarily unsteady on her feet. She lifted the stick and began lurching towards the car. Sam huddled down even further, slipping the blanket over his arms, shutting his eyes, and trying to will the muscles in his shoulders to go slack. He didn’t dare even sneak open one eyelid, but he could hear her—the scrape of her feet, the drag of the stick, the snuffling and huffs of her heavy breathing. A current ran through his body. He could feel every fibre of the blanket against his neck, could smell the faint vinegar tang of potato chips from an empty packet on the floor. His own heartbeat thundered behind his ears.
Swaying slightly, Dettie began muttering hoarsely to herself, but even this close, straining to listen, Sam couldn’t discern what she was saying. It seemed to be a long, unbroken stream of words. Eventually she shuffled away, still murmuring, back over to the table. She stood awhile, her eyebrows twitching, her lips moving rhythmically. Staring into the glow. Unblinking. There were tiny holes in the metal drum, and Sam could see the red coals burning within, could imagine them surging white. His head felt heavy, so he laid it back on the seat, peering through the window with one eye open.
Sam lay for a moment, feeling his eyelids dipping shut. He could hear Katie’s breath, and as it mingled with the lightheadedness of sleep, he recalled again the girl behind the curtain. It was almost her raspy breath that he was hearing again—the way it had started to fade that last night she was in hospital. Before she had disappeared, been moved to wherever she went. He could almost see her glazed expression as her chest rose and fell. So gently. So heavily. Nearly still. Her eyelids half open. Dry and rubbery. Her thin hand limp as the doctor placed it back on the mattress. She’d gotten better, they’d told him. And as he gave in to the sensation of sleep he accepted, in a detached way, finally and completely, what he already knew.
They had lied.
She was dead.
An unsettling calm washed over him.
Dettie dropped her cigarette butt and rolled the heavy stick around in her hands. She squeezed it tightly and let it go, shaking her head from time to time as though a shudder ran through her whole body. Eventually she moved off again, taking the stick with her, and followed Jon into the shadows. The fire snapped and hissed, and just before he surrendered, he thought he heard a sheep bleating wearily from a nearby field.