Then
Lilia turns up five minutes before six, wearing her favourite jeans and holding a box of fancy chocolates – they’re supermarket fancy, but that’s still pretty fancy, because Lilia’s local supermarket is the kind with its own cheese counter.
Her mum waves at me from the driver’s seat of her red hatchback and I wave back, because it wasn’t Lilia’s mum who stole my boyfriend.
(That would be a whole other kind of weird, and likely permanently debilitating for my self-esteem.)
‘Hi,’ Lilia says, nervously. She should be nervous.
Aunty Sam hugs Lilia like she’s a soldier back from the war and not a backstabbing friend who’s been rightfully banished.
I feel betrayed until I remember that Aunty Sam doesn’t know I was railroaded into this.
She probably thinks Lilia and I have made up for real.
She might even think I’m being mature (if only she knew).
I’m hoping to whisk Lilia straight into my room so I can listen to the recording and, ideally, return to the dinner table with an excuse to explain Lilia’s imminent departure.
But there’s no opportunity for any of that: Aunty Sam drags us into the living room to ask Lilia what she’s been up to, pressing a glass of cold dry ginger ale into her hand and opening a bag of the fancy chips that only come out for guests or when Aunty Sam’s been drinking on an empty stomach.
Lilia manages to navigate the conversation without mentioning Ben, which is impressive really.
She’s taken up roller derby, which is something the two of us talked about doing together, but I don’t react.
At least, I try hard not to. Maybe my eye twitches a bit.
Possibly my lip spasms. But these things are beyond my control.
At any rate, I resist the temptation to leap to my feet, seize the dry ginger ale and throw it in her face. Progress!
In return, Lilia asks Aunty Sam what she’s been up to and I learn a few things I didn’t know because I never asked.
Like the fact that Aunty Sam broke up with her boyfriend, Robert, while I was being miserable in Europe, because he admitted to voting conservative.
I hadn’t even thought to ask what happened to him – I assumed he drifted away like most of them.
‘It was for the best,’ Aunty Sam says airily, waving her hand like she’s brushing Robert off the wind. ‘The age gap was becoming problematic.’ Robert was twenty-six to Aunty Sam’s forty-five, which would have made me dry-heave if their genders were reversed.
‘How so?’ Lilia cocks her head, and I can see her trying to catch my eye.
Aunty Sam’s worryingly much-younger boyfriends have long been a source of amusement for us.
I avoid her gaze and try not to feel guilty for being a self-obsessed arsehole who never bothers to ask Aunty Sam about her personal life.
‘He wanted kids,’ Aunty Sam says. ‘I’ve already got that.’ She looks up and smiles at me. Something turns over in my chest.
The front door bangs and Michael, Elena and Patrick come in, looking surprised to see that we have company, even though it was Elena who invited Lilia.
‘I’ll knock—’ Michael starts to say.
‘Great to see you again, Lilia,’ Elena interrupts him.
It’s crowded at the table with all of us squeezed around it, but that makes it easy not to speak.
Instead, I focus on my chickpea and kale stew, which is nicer than it sounds (wouldn’t it have to be?), as Elena talks about the latest terrible reality TV show on which she’s become hooked. The others all pretend to be too cool to have seen it, but their follow-up questions suggest otherwise.
‘I see your neighbours are selling,’ Lilia says politely to Aunty Sam, when the ethics of reality TV – and the wisdom of going bra-less on-screen – have been sufficiently chewed up as a topic.
‘Can’t be too sad about that,’ Aunty Sam says. ‘I know they were behind that noise complaint on my birthday.’
‘Michael said you were thinking of selling too,’ I jump in, spying an opportunity.
‘No, no.’ Aunty Sam glares at Michael and then me. ‘I could never leave this house.’ Then she turns to Lilia, moving the conversation on. ‘It wasn’t even eleven o’clock and we got a knock on the door from the police, can you believe it?’
After dinner, Aunty Sam sends me to the kitchen with everyone’s dishes. I don’t realise Patrick’s followed me until I turn around and he’s right there. ‘Michael said you found my luggage tag,’ he says, just as I’m wondering if the small talk is going to be awkward.
‘Yeah.’
‘Why didn’t you just ask me about it?’ Patrick asks. He seems genuinely hurt.
I can’t say in case you killed Felix, so I focus on loading dirty plates into the dishwasher. Patrick hesitates, then starts to help.
‘I should have told you,’ he says, ‘I’d been thinking about moving to Perth when I finished school.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Why do you look like I’ve ripped off my face to reveal another face that’s somehow more devilishly handsome?’ he asks.
‘You’re just so Melbourne. If I cut you, I think Fitzroy would ooze out.’
‘I miss Elena. Michael’s so busy with acting work and he’s travelling more and more, so I was thinking about it. The University of Western Australia had an open day and I thought it would be a good chance to check it out. I didn’t want to tell Michael until I was sure I wanted to move.’
‘You flew over by yourself?’
‘I’ve got some money from my terrible job at Coles.’
‘You’re only sixteen.’
‘I didn’t ask for a beer on the flight.’
For a moment, relief feels like a cool washcloth on my forehead. I never really thought it could be Patrick. Did I? Then I think about what Patrick’s saying for more than two seconds and something doesn’t feel right. ‘So, Felix just happened to die after you got here?’ I ask.
‘I know how it looks. That’s why I didn’t say anything.’
‘Where did you stay?’
Patrick pauses, and I can’t tell whether he’s crafting a lie or if this is awkward for him. ‘Elena booked a hotel room for me.’
‘She knew about you coming over?’
‘Of course.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before now?’ I wipe my hands on my jeans and push the dishwasher door closed.
‘I don’t know. Elena agreed not to say anything until I was sure I wanted to move. By the time you and I were partnering up to solve crimes, it would have been weird to come clean. It would have looked dodgy.’
‘What’s dodgy?’ Lilia asks from the doorway.
‘Your personality,’ Patrick says automatically, then, ‘Sorry. I forgot about the détente.’
‘There’s ice-cream cake on the table and it’s getting melty,’ she says, ignoring Patrick.
And that’s that.
It’s easier to eat a piece of ice-cream cake than argue the point with Aunty Sam. So I eat as fast as I can, then drag Lilia to my room, fending off Aunty Sam’s offer of tea and biscuits like an Arctic explorer facing down a polar bear.
Lilia sits on my bed and looks around. ‘Your bedroom’s the same,’ she says.
‘I’ve been freezing my arse off in Switzerland for two months. Not much time for redecorating.’
Her face turns a deep pink, which is annoyingly flattering on her.
‘How was it?’ she asks.
‘Amazing, best holiday of my life. Gutted to have left all my cool new friends behind.’ I hold out my hand. ‘Do you have the recording?’
‘Right.’ Lilia pulls out her phone, and I see that her lock screen is now a photo of her and Ben.
‘Shit. Sorry,’ she says and quickly opens the app and hands the phone over to me.
‘My lock screen’s on automatic – it cycles through my photos.
It’ll probably be some random recipe screenshot next,’ she adds while I pretend to have no idea what she’s talking about.
‘Have you already listened to it?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, I had to see if it worked.’
This pisses me off, but it also makes my life easier, because I can grab my over-ear headphones, plug them in and block out anything Lilia might care to say about the matter.
‘Heidi, I should tell you—’ Lilia starts, but I don’t listen because I press the play button. I hear dishes at first. A lot of clattering dishes. A scraping noise. Then voices, identifiable this time, if still muffled and occasionally inaudible:
Patrick: … in the bin.
Elena: Obviously, that would have been … but … shit! Sorry, this tea is hot.
Patrick: I can’t believe … we’re in this situation.
Elena: There’s no we, Patrick.
Patrick: Seriously?
Elena: Don’t give me … face.
Patrick: So what are we … tell Heidi?
At the sound of my name, I perk up and look at Lilia before remembering she has no idea what part of the recording I’m up to.
Elena: Don’t ask me. You started this.
Patrick: I bloody did not. If you’d only … I could have told you it was …
Elena: I don’t think you understand …
Patrick: But Heidi?
The conversation is drowned out when a waitress arrives at Lilia’s table and start going on about the specials. Eventually, Lilia gets rude and tells her she only wants a coffee. The waitress disappears, presumably to procure and immediately spit into her coffee.
Patrick: … and talk.
Elena: Do you think that’s going to help?
Patrick: It’s … here. I’ll … flights … go home.
Elena: Patrick, no.
Patrick: Is having your family together really worth seeing your brother in jail?
Elena: Nobody’s … jail.
Patrick: They will if the police find out what happened.
Elena: How would they?
Patrick: Murder, Elena … We’re not talking about parking tickets.
Elena: Shut up for a sec.
Patrick: I don’t think …
Elena: Don’t turn around … friend of Heidi’s is behind you.’
Patrick: Like, spying on us?
Elena: I’m sure it’s a coincidence.
Patrick: When … whisper I can’t … if it’s sarcasm.
Elena: Shhh. Talk about … (Then, in a louder voice.) What movies have you seen lately?
Patrick: Actually, I’ve been getting really into folk horror …
with a goat … the fire … mass suicide … so much blood …
wears the goat’s head as a hat. I loved it.
While, under some circumstances, I would quite like to hear Patrick’s recommendations for folk horror movies, I pull my headphones off.
‘They’re talking about films. Is there anything after this?’ I ask Lilia.
‘Unless you want to know what your sister-in-law’s brother thinks about the Batman franchise, then, yeah, I think so.’
I text myself a copy of the cleaned-up audio file, then hand Lilia’s phone back.
‘You didn’t tell me they spotted you,’ I say.
‘There wasn’t any time on the street. They ran straight into us.’ Lilia takes a big breath. ‘Also, I thought if I told you, maybe you wouldn’t let me come over.’
‘Because Elena is obviously suspicious,’ I point out. ‘She’s probably listening outside my door this minute.’ We both look at the door before Lilia jumps up to yank it open. The hallway outside is empty.
‘Why did you even want to come for dinner? It can’t be for Aunty Sam’s ice-cream cake, not when she still insists on putting in those weird Scandinavian licorice bits,’ I say.
‘I think I’m learning to like them.’
It’s so unexpected it coaxes a laugh out from me. ‘You are not.’
‘They’re an acquired taste,’ Lilia insists.
‘That’s sick. You’re sick,’ I say, but I’m still laughing and so is Lilia and it’s, you know, not terrible.
‘I miss you,’ Lilia says, ruining it.
I don’t say anything.
‘You never really gave me a chance to apologise.’
‘I don’t want to talk about this now.’
‘It might be my only chance.’
‘You say that like I’m the one who threw away our friendship,’ I say, annoyed that I feel tears forming on the inside corners of my eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m over it now. But it was a shitty thing to do.’
‘I know.’
‘And for Ben.’ I make a face.
‘I think he might be cheating on me,’ Lilia says.
I’m so shocked I just stare at her. Even a couple of days ago, I would have been laughing. Now? I feel sad. Is this personal growth? Or have Lilia and Ben also taken away my ability to feel joy at karmic justice?
‘When I was going through his phone to see if I could find those messages with Felix, I found some messages from some girl I don’t know,’ Lilia says. She’s waiting for my response, but I’m silently begging to be Leftovered out of here.
There’s a knock at the door, which is the next best thing. It’s Elena. ‘Hey,’ I say, scanning her face for any sign of suspicion.
‘Just checking if you wanted a tea or hot chocolate,’ Elena says. ‘Sam sent me.’
‘We’re good,’ I say. ‘Lilia is going home now.’