Then
The message I don’t want to read wakes me up. I roll over to slide my phone out from under my pillow. (Please, don’t talk to me about sleep hygiene – I haven’t slept more than six hours a night since I was eight.) Don’t ask me how I know, but I know. It’s from Lilia. Of course it is.
I’m sorry about yesterday. Can we talk?
No message from Ben, although it occurs to me in a quick gut punch that the pair of them might have composed this one together.
You’re so thoughtful, worrying about her, Ben would have said to Lilia, because he’s the kind of guy who thinks that identifying good behaviour in others bestows it upon himself.
And Lilia would have said something like—
‘What do you want for breakfast?’ The question comes not from the Lilia in my head but from the very real Aunty Sam in my bedroom doorway. She’s wearing a red silk dressing-gown I once borrowed, which led her to give me a lecture about how silk is made that messed me up. (Never google this.)
I say something like, ‘Urgh.’
‘Did I wake you?’
‘No.’ I shove my phone back under my pillow.
Aunty Sam and I didn’t exactly talk it out when Ben and Lilia simultaneously dumped me.
The most she said was, ‘This too shall pass,’ then handed me a book of Sylvia Plath poetry.
I haven’t got around to reading that one, mostly because I’m not sure it’ll boost my mental health to take advice from someone who died with her head in the oven.
‘Porridge?’ I say. I’m not hungry, but it’s the easiest way to make Aunty Sam leave so I can obsess over Lilia’s message without distraction.
It works, and I’m left alone to commit Lilia’s message to memory before deleting it and blocking her number in case I’m tempted to reply.
I’ll be honest, in the days and weeks immediately after Ben and Lilia revealed that a secret game of musical chairs had taken place and I was the one left standing, I sent some unfortunate messages to them both.
The angry ones I can live with. The pleading ones? Less so.
In those early days, I thought it was Ben I missed most. Now it’s Lilia whose absence feels like a wound.
In the living room, someone is playing a song on the piano that would be perfect for the moment in a period movie where the heroine realises she’s actually in love with the penniless hottie who then turns out to have tons of money after all.
(So convenient.) I follow the sound down the hall to find Aunty Sam ladling porridge into a row of bowls.
Elena is at the table, reading the newspaper and drinking some pretty pungent ginger tea.
It’s Patrick providing the piano soundtrack.
If I’d been more awake, I might have put a dressing-gown over my pyjama shorts and the Taylor Swift t-shirt I got for my thirteenth birthday, which is now so small it exposes my outie belly button.
‘Morning,’ Elena says.
‘Nice t-shirt,’ Patrick says, swapping the piano for a bowl.
It’s too early to snark back.
Elena hands me the newspaper. ‘I’m done.’
‘Can I have the cryptic crossword?’ Patrick asks me. I hand the relevant pages over and pretend I didn’t even want to take a crack at the nine-letter word puzzle.
Having a newspaper (or most of it) to hold turns out to be a good thing.
Not because I love reading a physical newspaper the way Aunty Sam does, or even because there’s nothing like reading about conflict in the Middle East to put your own problems into perspective.
But because it gives me an excuse to ignore the other three people in the room while I wake up.
It also means I can eavesdrop without seeming to, which means I’m sitting right there when this conversation takes place.
‘Have you decided whether you’re going to sell the house?’ Aunty Sam asks Elena.
‘Probably,’ she says. ‘I can’t pay the mortgage on my own. I’m not sure I can afford to buy another place on my own either.’
‘Felix had life insurance,’ Aunty Sam says. ‘Won’t that be enough to help out?’
‘There might be a problem with that.’
‘With what?’ Aunty Sam is pouring tea.
‘With the life insurance.’
‘How so?’
The pause is long enough to make me look up from an article on the world’s ugliest dog.
‘The police think Felix’s death might have been suicide,’ Elena says. ‘Life insurance doesn’t cover suicide.’
‘What?’ Patrick and I say at the same time.
Aunty Sam, who is more restrained, only raises an eyebrow. But I see the way the tea splashes over the rim of the cup to scald her fingers.
‘It’s not decided yet,’ Elena says. ‘It might go to a coronial inquest, the police family liaison officer told me. But she told me suicide is a possibility.’
‘No way did Felix kill himself,’ Patrick says. ‘He is the least suicidal person I’ve ever met.’
‘Do you meet a lot of suicidal people?’ I ask, although I’m inclined to agree with him. I’d be less surprised to hear that Felix had murdered someone.
‘I think I drive them to it,’ Patrick says, straight-faced.
I smirk. ‘Actually, that makes perfect sense.’
‘Patrick, you may be my moronic kid brother, but I’m pretty sure even you know that suicidal people don’t exclusively wear black and listen to Boygenius,’ Elena says.
Patrick shakes his head. ‘I found their new album pretty upbeat.’
‘Anyway,’ Elena goes on, ‘depending on what the official cause of death is, I might get the money from the insurance or I might not. Either way, I can’t imagine continuing to live in the place where Felix died.’
I turn the pages of the paper loudly, feigning interest first in the horrific road accident that’s killed three people and then the fertility struggles of a local TV star, which makes me think about Mum.
Felix and I were both IVF babies, which I think is why we had such a big age gap.
I once read that siblings born ten years apart are basically only children.
‘What do you think happened to Felix?’ Patrick asks. There’s a bad moment when I think he’s asking me, but he’s looking at Elena.
‘It was an accident,’ Elena says. ‘That cliff next to the house is steep. He’d had a few drinks. He must have slipped and fallen.’
‘Do the police think someone could have pushed him?’ Patrick asks.
‘Patrick.’
‘I’m being serious.’
‘I don’t know,’ Elena says, clearly meaning shut up. ‘The police interviewed all of us who were there that night. Everyone had to make a statement. But I’m sure they can’t think anyone else was involved.’
‘What do you think happened, Patrick?’ Aunty Sam asks and my head jerks up in surprise at her tone.
‘I assumed it was an accident,’ Patrick says. ‘But it’s not exactly a stretch to imagine someone wanting to kill Felix.’ Elena’s face drops and Patrick adds quickly, ‘Sorry, bad joke.’
I’m not sure he was joking, but I turn the page to read about a new study that shows red wine causes cancer. Or maybe it cures it; I’m reading every tenth word.
‘Sorry, sis.’ Patrick’s second apology sounds sincere, although he ruins its effect by going on, ‘But has Felix ever had an accident on that cliff in the, what, three years since you moved in? Also, it’s kind of weird he’d go out there in the middle of a party in the first place.’
‘Patrick.’ Elena puts down her spoon, looking upset. ‘Can we not do this? It’s too early in the morning for your brand of … whatever this is.’
‘This is my personality,’ he says, but not as though he’s particularly offended.
I turn another page of the newspaper, taking nothing in. This is not the first time I’ve wondered if someone else might have been involved in Felix’s death. If you’d known my brother, you’d get it. But Patrick is the first person I’ve heard say it out loud.
Patrick’s suggestion isn’t so wild; Felix had always made friends easily when he was interested in doing so, but he racked up enemies just as fast when he had no appetite to be charming or when he no longer needed something from them.
Then again, accidents happen. Senseless death has never shocked me after losing my parents.
A terrible accident is how Aunty Sam described Felix’s death to me on the phone.
Then she said a series of other things, each more horrific than the last:
1. It happened on a Saturday night when Felix and Elena had friends over for booze and pizza. (That’s not the horrific part. I like pizza. I’m not a monster.)
2. During the party (can you call seven people a party?), Felix went out for some fresh air.
3. Elena got stuck in the house lift, so it took everyone a while to realise something had happened to Felix because they were so busy trying to get her out.
4. Felix was found dead at the bottom of the cliff outside their house. (Yes, they lived in a built-into-a-cliff fancy kind of a house. We’ll get there later.) He’d been banged up by the fall, but the cause of death was drowning.
There’s more – we’ll get into it.
‘What are you two going to do today?’ Aunty Sam asks Elena, changing the subject with chainsaw subtlety.
‘I have to pick up some clothes from the house. I’m running low.’ Elena’s look suggests this is right up there with scrubbing her face with a kitchen scourer as a fun way to spend the morning.
‘Heidi can go for you,’ Aunty Sam says. ‘You shouldn’t have to go there, Elena.’
‘Me?’ I say it automatically, not meaning to come off like quite such a lazy bitch. But also: me? Then I see Aunty’s Sam’s face. ‘Of course I can,’ I say quickly, backtracking faster than a rat in a maze.
‘You don’t have to do that,’ Elena says. ‘Although I’d kill for a lie-down.’
Not the words I’d be using if my husband had just died under mysterious circumstances.
‘I’ve got nothing planned,’ Aunty Sam says to Elena. ‘We can hang out and chat. I’ve taken up knitting again.’
‘Did you ever finish that jumper?’ Elena asks, and I’m reminded of the fact that these two have a whole relationship that exists when I’m not around.
‘It’s fine.’ I say it loudly in the hope of avoiding any more knitting talk. How excited is it really possible to get about wool?
‘But you’re not even old enough to drive,’ Elena says, pointing out the obvious.
‘The train goes most of the way,’ I say, which is true. ‘And I can take my bike. It’s fine.’
It really is sort of fine. I need to stay busy, so I don’t message Lilia or ride my bike past Ben’s house. Again.
Aunty Sam disappears on an unspecified errand, Elena disappears to her room and Patrick disappears briefly, only to reappear in the garage where I’m pumping up the tyres on my bike.
‘Do you want company?’ he asks.
I finish with the pump and try and fail to brush cobwebs off the bike chain without getting grease on my hands. ‘I’m pretty much done.’
‘I meant at Elena’s.’
‘Do you even have a bike?’
He pats an old Indi 500 in surprisingly good nick, leaning against a dust-covered lawnmower.
‘Is this your aunt’s?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you reckon she’d mind?’
‘Sure. I mean, no.’ I hand Patrick the pump. ‘Knock yourself out.’
‘What do you think about Felix?’ Patrick asks ten minutes later as we pull into the train station, swiping our cards and heading for the platform.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did he seem suicidal?’
‘No.’
There’s a whooshing noise and the train arrives. The nice thing about travelling on public transport outside peak hour in a city built on the assumption that everyone has a car is that we have a whole carriage to ourselves.
‘Aren’t you missing school right now to be here?’ I ask, which should have occurred to me before now.
‘It’s school holidays in Melbourne. Isn’t it here?’
‘Not until next week.’
‘So shouldn’t you be in school?’ Patrick asks.
‘Special dispensation.’ Honestly, I’m not sure if it’s because of Felix or because nobody at school expected me back from Switzerland so soon, but the principal told Aunty Sam I shouldn’t worry about coming back before the school holidays.
That means three whole weeks before I have to think about avoiding Ben and Lilia in the school canteen.
‘Do you know what you want to do after school?’
‘Psychology, I think. If I get the marks.’ Patrick cocks his head on one side to give me a look. I say, ‘What?’
‘You’ll get the marks.’
‘How would you know?’
‘Because you’re a super smart nerd.’
I hate that my cheeks go pink with pleasure at this. ‘How would you know?’ I repeat. ‘When I met you three years ago, I could barely pronounce all the names of those Greek gods in Percy Jackson. I’m still not sure I’m saying Hermes right.’
‘Hermes,’ Patrick says.
‘Hermes.’
‘Her mes.’
‘Shut up.’
‘My sister,’ he says, like there was no interruption, ‘she emails Mike and me life updates all the time. She’s constantly banging on about how you’ve got this award or won that prize. I think she’s trying to motivate me to behave better.’
‘Does it work?’
‘Not really.’ He shrugs. ‘I’m more about doing the bare minimum to get the marks I need.’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘Electrical engineering, I think.’
‘And you call me a nerd.’
‘School’s back next week, but I might stay in Perth until this whole thing is sorted out.’
‘What whole thing?’
‘Felix’s death.’ The train loudspeaker announces that the next stop is ours and we both stand up.
‘I don’t think he killed himself and I don’t want to see Elena screwed out of that life insurance money,’ he says loudly, and I look around to be sure we’re still alone.
‘Why do you think I wanted to come out to their house?’
‘To be a good brother?’ I feel stupid for imagining Patrick might have wanted to hang out with me.
‘Have we met? I want to look for clues.’
‘Clues to show you what, exactly?’
‘Either that it was an accident or that Felix was murdered.’
‘You really think someone could have murdered Felix?’
‘You did know your brother, right?’ he asks.