THEN
We break into Ben’s dad’s surgery. Except it’s not really a break-in because we have a key. It’s more like Entering Without Breaking. Not illegal (not until we get into those medical files, anyway), but also not … great.
We didn’t get here easily. Ben didn’t go for it right away and neither did I.
It was up to Lilia and Patrick to wear us down: Patrick, because he was obsessed with disproving the idea that Felix was suicidal and Lilia, because, well, I think she really believed this might make me forgive her.
Honestly, there is a moment when she makes a joke about synchronising watches and I forget what she’s done long enough to laugh.
The surgery is in a suburban home that was converted into an office.
Signs of its former life remain: stained glass in the front door panels and a spiral staircase to an upstairs storage area that once must have been an extremely cute attic room.
Ben and I used to go there sometimes to … You know what? Never mind.
It’s Monday evening, the day the surgery closes early, and the sun is still up, because coming after dark would feel so much dodgier.
Patrick turns up wearing black shorts and a black t-shirt, which I think is a bit much.
We already agreed to arrive separately to avoid suspicion: he’s supposedly ‘at the movies’ and I’m ‘hanging out with friends’.
Who these friends are and where they materialised from Aunty Sam didn’t ask, which saved me the trouble of lying, so we were both happy.
Happy-ish, anyway. Happy adjacent? Okay, I was still miserable and a mess, but at least I was pleased to be spared one more lie.
‘How much cat burgling did you plan to do in Perth?’ I ask.
Patrick looks down at his outfit. ‘These are my normal clothes.’
‘You look like you play bass in a garage band.’ He doesn’t say anything, but I see what he’s not saying. ‘You do, don’t you – you play in a terrible garage band! How have you kept this from me? Please tell me there’s a YouTube channel I can visit? Is there a fan club I can join?’
Patrick is spared when Ben and Lilia arrive.
‘What’s with the black?’ Ben asks Patrick. Ben is wearing jeans and the same green t-shirt he wore when I dragged him to a horror film and he spilled an entire cup of Coke at the first jumpscare. I wonder if he also remembers our dating history every time he opens his wardrobe.
‘For stealth,’ Patrick deadpans.
Lilia laughs, which is annoying because she’s only doing it to ingratiate herself with me or whatever this is all about. She’s wearing the My Neighbour Totoro badge I bought for her birthday last year, pinned on the collar of her shirt, which is shameless pandering.
‘They’re just normal clothes, Ben,’ I say, looking away when Patrick smiles.
Inside, Ben gets out the vacuum cleaner and Lilia busies herself with spray bottles so easily I can tell she’s done this before.
Ben never invited me to help him clean and I try not to wonder if she ever came here while she and Ben were sneaking around.
If I let myself get bogged down in the details, I’ll become one of those people with photos, newspaper clippings and red string connecting them all on my bedroom wall.
I’m only fifteen; there’s still time, I think, not to let this one awful thing become my whole personality.
Once I’ve stopped obsessing (for now) long enough to head for the rows of files behind the reception desk, it doesn’t take long to find Felix’s file, which I split in half, handing one stack of paper to Patrick.
I read about Felix’s undescended testicle as a child (which I never knew about) and his broken arm at the age of fifteen (which I did).
There’s a mention of a referral to a child psychologist around the time Mum started to get sick but no further details.
Patrick is reading aloud about Felix’s brush with German measles when we all hear, over the hum of the vacuum cleaner in the front room, the jingle of keys and the sound of the front door being unlocked.
I act first and think second, grabbing Patrick by the hand to haul both him and my brother’s medical records under the reception desk.
‘Who is it?’ he whispers, which is such a ridiculous question I don’t even bother to insult him.
‘Dad!’ Ben bleats, so clearly terrified that I wonder how he ever lied to me about not being in love with my best friend for any amount of time.
‘Dr Bryan,’ Lilia says, way more smoothly than I would have expected (so I can kinda see how she might have lied to me, depressingly). ‘I hope you don’t mind I’m helping Ben out today.’
Dr Bryan, who was always so nice to me and cooked my favourite vegetarian lasagne every time I stayed for dinner, booms back: ‘Always a pleasure, never a chore, Lilia. You too, Ben. Just pretend I’m not here, I forgot to grab some files I need to take home.’
Patrick’s hand grips my upper arm and I know what those four fingers digging into my skin are intended to convey, because if Dr Bryan comes into the filing area, he’d have to be senile or blind or drunk not to see us.
My panicked mind starts cycling through possible explanations. We’re cleaning too! We fell asleep here! You’re hallucinating!
‘Hold on,’ Lilia says calmly, ‘I’ve just mopped in there. If you give me the names I can grab the files out for you – I’ve got a system for the wet floors.’
‘Okay,’ Dr Bryan says, sounding like this is only a bit weird when it’s actually quite weird.
He gives Lilia three names and then she’s scooting across the (dry) floor in front of us, standing on a pair of towels she’s procured from places unknown and moving her legs like she’s on ice-skates.
You’ve simply got to respect her commitment to the part.
Patrick and I stay mushed together under the desk. We’re so cramped my head is resting on his shoulder. I can smell my own shampoo, which means he’s been using it in the shower – something I can choose to get mad about later, if we get out of here.
Lilia is making small talk with Dr Bryan about an upcoming family dinner as she looks for the files. It’s a bleak reminder that I’ve been popped out and replaced, the way you might change a spark plug on a car or a washer in a dodgy tap.
‘I saw Samantha at the shops today,’ Dr Bryan says. I can’t tell who he’s talking to until Ben replies.
‘Heidi’s Aunt Sam?’
‘Yep.’
Patrick’s fingers tighten on my arm again.
‘Oh.’ Ben’s voice sounds high and nervous to me, but maybe that’s because I know I’m curled up mere metres away and Ben’s dad doesn’t.
‘She said Heidi is really struggling.’
No. Please, no. Why do bad things happen to (mostly) good people? I clean my room when Aunty Sam asks me. I wash out milk bottles before they go in the recycling. I once gave twenty dollars to a street busker who wasn’t very good after I accidentally made full eye contact with her.
‘Ah,’ Ben says, making a noise like he’s being strangled. The thought cheers me up.
‘Maybe you could go and see her sometime. She might need a friend.’
How is it possible to both love and hate someone at the same time? Ben’s dad is being a sweetheart, but also – please shut up, dude.
‘Sure,’ Ben says, clearly wanting this conversation to end.
‘It would be a real shame if you two didn’t find a way to be friends because you’re no longer a couple.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Lilia understands, don’t you, love?’
‘Sure,’ Lilia says brightly, as she finally hands over the files she’s been looking for. ‘Here you go, Dr Bryan.’
‘You need to tell Heidi about Europe anyway and it’s better that she hears it from you than sees it on Snapchat,’ Dr Bryan says. (I sense but do not hear Ben groan.) ‘Or however it is you kids communicate these days.’
Now I’m gripping Patrick and he’s covering his mouth like he’s holding back a laugh or a scream. I don’t hear anything more until the front door bangs closed.
‘Jesus,’ Patrick says, rolling out from under the desk and straight into the chair. ‘Shit! Ow!’
I squirm out after him, smoothing down my hair and laying Felix’s file back down on the desk.
Nobody speaks. Then Lilia says, ‘We were going to tell you.’
‘Uh huh,’ I say, eyes on the page.
‘I’m not even sure it will happen.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘It’s just that I got a bunch of flight credits from Switzerland so … it seemed silly not to use them.’
‘Totally,’ I say, in a voice borrowed from someone else, as I focus on pretending to read through my dead brother’s medical records and not cry over the fact that my ex–best friend and ex-boyfriend are clearly planning to recreate the overseas adventure she and I were supposed to be on right now.
If they wind up in my Swiss village and everyone there spontaneously decides it’s fine to speak English to the foreign tourists, I may never recover.
Ben leans over the reception desk. ‘Maybe we should talk about this later?’ he says to me.
‘Maybe when we’re not committing an actual crime?’ Patrick suggests. ‘Now, come on, Heidi, let’s get to the good stuff.’
The good stuff turns out to be underwhelming.
There’s no mention of depression or suicidal tendencies, which is good news for Elena’s life insurance claim, but otherwise not particularly helpful.
The closest we get to anything near a revelation is a note that Felix was having trouble sleeping six months earlier and had been prescribed some sleeping tablets.
‘If he’d taken the sleeping tablets the night he died, he might have been groggy and slipped on the path,’ Patrick says.
‘But why would he take sleeping tablets before a party?’ I ask.
‘Because he … nope, that’s a good point.’ Patrick doesn’t look happy about it.
‘Plus, if he did, that would have shown up in the autopsy,’ I say.
‘Are we sure it didn’t?’
‘The police would have told us.’
‘Would they?’ Patrick sounds sceptical.
‘Not us, but they would have told Elena and Aunty Sam. I think Aunty Sam would have mentioned it to me.’ Probably. Maybe. Possibly.
‘Fair play.’