Chapter 12
By the time we’ve finished eating and Lockhart has settled the bill, it’s late afternoon.
We say our goodbyes and walk slowly back home.
Home. Still feels weird. On the way, we call into the store for some beer, soft drinks and fresh bread, cheese and ham.
I resolve to do a proper grocery shop in the morning.
Once we’re back, Sadie immediately disappears up to her room.
She was a little rude at lunch. Unlike her.
But I don’t want to make a big deal of it right now.
I grab a can of beer and settle outside on a chair by the pool.
Jules has finished his clean and in the sun’s mellow glow it’s almost possible to forget that twenty-four hours ago a corpse was floating in it.
The aquamarine water looks cool and inviting.
But I’m not ready for a swim just yet. Baby steps.
Right now, the only liquid I’m interested in is ice-cold and amber.
I take a couple of swigs and ponder on what Lockhart told me about the school’s policy on fiction. I don’t like it, but it’s too soon to start rocking the boat. Maybe once I’m more settled we can revisit exactly how ‘constructive and positive’ my students’ reading material needs to be.
I’m halfway down my second beer when Sadie returns. She’s changed into shorts and a loose vest. She pulls up a chair next to me and pops a can of Diet Coke.
‘How you feeling?’ I ask.
‘Full, tired,’ she says with a yawn.
‘You don’t want any dinner?’
‘Maybe I’ll make a sandwich later.’
There’s a pause, a silence, almost companionable. But I know Sadie. I can sense her body language. She’s gearing up to say something.
‘We didn’t go to the fairground today.’
‘No shit.’
‘We went to the cemetery.’
‘Any particular reason or just your usual teenage morbidity?’
‘Hah … actually, I wanted to look for Davey Junior’s grave.’
‘The little boy who drowned? Why?’
A long pause. Then she takes a piece of folded paper out of her shorts pocket. ‘Okay. So, yesterday I saw this old woman, and she was handing out these leaflets.’
‘When was this?’
‘When you were … you know … with the body, in the pool.’
‘Oh, right.’ I glance at the pool, which glints in the twilight, and quickly take another swig of beer.
Sadie unfolds the piece of paper and hands it to me. I stare at it. Davey Junior. Missing. If you see me, please help.
A chill snakes down my spine. Davey Junior. And there’s something about the photo that’s got me. The yellow T-shirt, shorts, cowboy hat. It looks uncannily like the little kid I spotted near the lake today.
‘Don’t you think it’s weird?’ Sadie says.
I do but I don’t want Sadie to see my unease. ‘Which bit, exactly?’
‘A woman is handing out missing leaflets for a kid that died almost thirty years ago?’
I continue to stare at the photo. ‘Well, I mean, maybe it’s not the same kid. Maybe another kid is missing?’
‘With the same name? And no one mentioned it at lunch today. Surely if a kid was missing people would be talking about it?’
‘Okay. Well, maybe the woman is disturbed or confused. I don’t know.’
There’s a pause, and then Sadie says: ‘There are no flowers on his grave. All the other graves have fresh flowers, but not his.’
‘That’s sad.’
‘I can’t believe his mum would just forget him.’
‘We don’t know the reasons people do things. Maybe she had a breakdown. Maybe she had mental health problems. Maybe—’
‘—she’s dead.’
‘Maybe,’ I say gently, and I don’t think we’re talking about Davey’s mum any more.
We stare at the pool. I drink some more beer. It burns my throat.
‘Do you ever think that’s why Mum—’
‘Sometimes.’ I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. Your mum, she had a lot of problems. We had problems. But she loved you very much.’
‘Then why didn’t she ever call or send a text or a letter or anything after she left?’
‘Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe it was just too hard. Maybe she loved you too much to mess with your life.’
Sadie nods. I see her blink a few times.
She sips her Diet Coke. I let it settle.
This wound is old. But it’s still raw. And sometimes, Sadie can’t help but pick at it.
I understand. She’s got me. But I can never replace her mum.
Your mum is the most important person in your life.
For her to leave, and for Sadie not to know why …
That’s hard. I’ve always tried to compensate.
To answer her questions. But I still can’t give her the answers she needs. I wish I could.
‘And what about your life?’ she asks now.
‘My life?’ I hold out my arms. ‘Not looking too shabby.’
‘How did your tour with Lockhart go?’
‘Well, I almost became gator feed trying to rescue a kid in the lake.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘I thought you smelt a bit rank.’
‘Thanks.’
‘What happened?’
‘Actually, it’s not that dramatic. I thought a kid had gone in the water, started to wade in, got humiliatingly dragged out by some much younger, fitter guys, only to find the kid didn’t go in the water after all.’
‘Wow. I hope his mum thanked you.’
‘She did. She invited me for cookies and lemonade.’
Sadie’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘I see. And what’s his mum like?’
‘Young,’ I emphasize. ‘Way too young for a sad old man like me.’
Sadie side-eyes me. ‘You’re not that old. You are a bit sad.’
‘Thanks.’ I swill the beer around in the can. ‘Plus, I’ve got too much going on right now to think about a relationship.’
‘Right. And you’ve had that going on for, what, ten years now?’
‘I’ve had relationships.’
‘That last longer than a month? That you brought to our house?’
‘I’ve had you to think of.’
She sighs. ‘Just don’t write it off, Dad. You’re not totally hideous. I mean, your manners suck and your jokes are terrible, but there must be some woman out there who’s desperate enough to settle.’
‘Again. Thanks.’
She yawns again and checks her watch. ‘I’m going to head up.’
‘Already?’
‘Yeah, I’m going to read, chill for a bit.’
‘Okay.’
She stands, and then, suddenly, bends and kisses me on the cheek. At fifteen, such displays of affection are rare. It’s lovely, but it also worries me a little.
‘You sure you’re all right?’
‘I can’t give my dad a kiss?’
‘You can, always, but you don’t.’
‘Just take it, Dad. Enjoy the small things.’
I watch her walk away. Sometimes, I think parenting is just a process of watching them walk away. From that very first stumbling step to the first day at pre-school. From guiding them through the doors at primary to waving goodbye as they get on the bus to secondary.
Each time, going a little further. Soon enough, they don’t want to hold your hand any more or be seen with you in public.
Bedroom doors are kept closed. Hours are spent on the phone.
You are not the focus of their life. That shifts.
Friends and, eventually, boy- or girlfriends become more important.
They have a life that you are cut off from.
Of course, there’s pride to be taken in watching your child discover their independence and navigate the world.
But each time a thread is cut, it stings a little.
And you start to realize there will come a day when you’re on your own, holding a bunch of loose, frayed threads, wondering why the house is so damn quiet and wishing you could yell at someone ‘to turn that bloody music down’.
Beer sometimes makes me maudlin. I decide to go and get another.
I pop the tab and sit back down by the pool, and then I do the thing I told myself I would definitely not do. I open the photo library on my phone and search through old albums for pictures of the three of us – me, Sadie and Nat.
Annoyingly, the photos don’t want to load.
They’re lagging and blurred. Also, there aren’t as many of us all as I remembered.
Probably because when you have a child, your focus changes.
It’s all about documenting every moment of their life.
Truth be told, we were never big photo-takers before Sadie.
We were one of those couples who snorted derisively at people documenting the minutiae of their lives on their phones.
‘Why can’t people just enjoy the moment?’
‘Do they have to view everything through a screen?’
Of course, now I wish we’d saved a few more of those memories.
Sadie was only four when Nat disappeared.
I’m not sure how much she remembers about her mum.
Living in the moment is fine. But the human mind is fallible.
It can’t capture a picture like a phone can.
Scents, feelings, it’s great on. But a clear, crisp picture of the three of us as a family, not so much.
When you don’t see people every day it’s frightening how fast you forget their faces.
Eventually, I give up on the photos and finish my beer.
I manage to sink two more before the sun finally dips below the horizon.
It’s a little more than I normally drink these days, but not as much as I used to drink most days.
Still, when I stand, I feel it. Maybe it would be a good idea to call it a night.
It’s not late – only ten fifteen – but I’m suddenly aware how easy it would be to stumble into the pool.
The thought is sobering, in more ways than one.
I wander into the kitchen and pour a glass of water, which I gulp down standing at the sink. I lock the sliding doors and press ‘down’ on the automated blinds. I’m halfway across the entrance hall, heading for the stairs, when my phone pings in my pocket. I slip it out.
Motion detected in back yard.
Shit. I press ‘open’.
Arnie the Armadillo stands on the other side of the pool. Motionless, like before. A sign around his neck. Like before. But this time the message is different:
Help.