It’s past the darkest hour and moving towards dawn when you pull up on the street and get out of the car. A cold front came through in the early hours and the clouds hang heavily overhead, misting the night. The first few drops of rain spit on your face as you stand there, still, looking up into the sky.
After being with Chen, you can breathe.
You know what Finn will think. You’ve been out virtually all night with a man. There can only be one explanation. You hope to make it inside before Jarrah wakes up and possibly comes to the same conclusion. Before Jarrah has new questions to add to the litany of unasked, unanswered ones crowding your lives.
Nothing happened, you remind yourself. If Finn accuses you of anything – if he dares – you have that to hurl back at him. Nothing happened with Chen. Nothing.
Well, that’s not quite true.
You’d paused in ranting about Finn, about his arrest, about the disaster your lives have become, when Chen changed the subject.
‘I never met Toby,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me about him? Was he like Jarrah?’
The question floored you. No one asked that. Once Toby was gone, no one dared ask you to remember.
‘No, nothing like Jarrah. Toby was like … curious. Had to know how things worked. It was like he had a grown-up brain in a kid’s body, with a kid’s vocabulary, and all he wanted to do was grab the world. You couldn’t stay angry with him though, even when he was bad. People just loved him.’
Chen smiled. ‘More like you or his dad? You’re both interested in how things work.’
You’d never thought of Finn and you in that way before. ‘I don’t know. Neither of us ever had that much energy.’
‘Who did he look like?’
‘He had eyes like mine. Hair from Finn’s side. But didn’t look much like either of us. Or his brother.’
‘Would you be OK to show me a photo?’
You dug out your phone and handed it over. ‘Scroll back and you’ll see him.’
He was quiet, stopping to look, scrolling again. You moved next to him and looked over his shoulder, but one photo that closely framed Toby’s grin was too much. You walked away.
‘Sorry.’ Chen put the phone down.
‘Don’t be. I like that you want to see him.’
He looked up at you, his face soft. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’
You’d told it several times. To the police, to Meredith, to people who knew, to the family. You’d learned it the way you’d learn a story or a speech, so that you could say it without reliving those moments, so it wouldn’t destroy you.
You steadied yourself and opened your mouth. But what came out was a child’s whimper.
‘I don’t know.’
And you started to sob. ‘One minute he was reading on the floor and the next minute he was gone and I don’t know how he got out there, there was no way for him to get into the pool, the gate was shut when I looked and so I went back inside and looked in there.’
Chen took hold of you and wrapped you close and let you cry. When your weeping came to an end you stayed in his arms a little longer. In truth, you wanted him to lead you into the bedroom. You yearned for the comfort of skin contact with another human. He wanted it too, you were pretty sure. But instead he got you tissues, refilled your wine, sat down so you were a little way apart.
‘Where do you think Toby is now?’
You rolled your eyes. ‘Nowhere. You know that.’
‘Is that what you feel?’
‘It doesn’t matter what I feel.’
He leaned back. ‘I was really close to my grandfather. When he died, I wasn’t so sure any more. I felt his presence sometimes. Especially in his room.’
‘There’s no evidence …’
He shrugged. ‘There are some interesting studies under way showing continued awareness after brain death.’
You stared at the ground for a long time before you could say it. ‘I’ve been in the pool. I felt him there.’
Chen didn’t seem to find the notion of your haunted pool ridiculous, but speaking it aloud was unsettling. You realised how late it was. You’d barely make it home by dawn.
Now, standing outside the house, you’re relieved things went no further. Staying out the entire night after Finn’s arrest is inflammatory enough, never mind actual infidelity.
The light is just beginning to shift from black to blue, the first cackle of early kookaburras drifts down the street. You slip your shoes off, sling your handbag over your shoulder, pad softly across the lawn, picking up dew on the soles of your feet. Climb the three steps. Cross to the pool gate.
The timer is all out of whack and the pool light gleams. Way back, Finn installed a soft green underwater light to look more natural than the previous cold blue illumination, and he set the timer so it came on in the evenings. It was subtle and beautiful, and all winter you were looking forward to night swims in summer. Now the water flickers moodily and you want nothing more than to push open the gate, step inside, drop to your knees and reach in for him.
You hold still. Soon the day will start. Soon you’ll have to face Finn and find out what this all means.
Before that, you want one more thing for yourself.
You ease the catch up, inch the gate open, step through, close it with an imperceptible click. You move, one barefoot step at a time, towards the pool, to a spot where you think Finn won’t be able to see you if he wakes and looks outside.
You kneel, bring your face close to the water and gently push your fingertips past the surface resistance, feeling the coolness reach the webbing where your fingers join your palm.
You mouth: ‘Toby.’
In response, a soft but unmistakable volley of metallic clicks. Not in the pool, but out there somewhere, in the garden or the street. You jerk your hand out of the water and come back onto your heels. Push your hair from your eyes and look through the fence, trying to find the source of that sound. It comes again. It takes your brain another few seconds to understand what you’re hearing. A camera shutter.
You push yourself to your feet, run to the gate, ease it open and hurry softly along the verandah into the house. You risk one more glance before you open the door and this time think you see the glint of a lens out on the street. You duck inside and slide the door shut behind you. Stand still, heart hammering, as if hunted.
‘You’re home.’
You physically jump at the sound of his voice from the lounge. ‘Fuck, Finn. Why don’t you have a light on?’
‘Why didn’t you turn one on?’
You take a shuddering breath. ‘There’s someone out there taking photos.’
‘Did they see you?’
‘They took a fucking picture of me!’
‘I think it’s the press. A journalist phoned last night.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘Nothing.’
Silence falls between you. Is he going to ask where you’ve been? You get in first. ‘So what happened at the station?’
He spreads his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘They want to test some new laws about pool fencing, Malcolm says. He doesn’t think it will go anywhere. He says not to worry.’
You snort. ‘And Malcolm is?’
‘The solicitor Edmund organised.’
‘What now?’
‘I’m on bail. There’ll be some kind of hearing, I think.’
You need to know more, but you’re exhausted. Birdsong rings out in the garden, piercing the quiet, letting the day in. It’s nearly light; you can see him slumped on the lounge, smell the pizza boxes still sitting there.
You heft your bag and head to the kitchen. The night falls away behind you, into the same place as the circumstances of Toby’s death, the place that can’t be approached. Let Finn think what he likes. He has more to lose by asking than you do.