Chapter Forty-Four
CHAPTER
44
The hand holding mine is large and cool. Familiar. Comforting.
‘Kj?reste.’
My eyes must be shut because everything is black. I’m lying on the grass and there’s a buzzing in my head. Kit is sitting on my left. Aiden, a hand on my arm, is on my right.
A scuffle. Lucas is sobbing. A curse from Angelo. Jeremiah’s voice. ‘Get them in the cars.’
A second siren. A third.
‘What’s going on?’ My tongue is dry like cotton wool.
‘You’ve cracked your head.’ Aiden’s voice is shaky. ‘The ambulance is here.’
The light is too bright when I open my eyes so I close them again. What time is it? Wasn’t the sun going down? ‘Grandpa.’
‘I’ll let the nursing home know you’ve been held up,’ Aiden says.
Kit lifts my hand, sandwiches it between his. ‘Don’t move.’
***
Kit called me ‘Kj?reste’ when I was lying on the grass at the saddlery, but he didn’t repeat it at the hospital or on the drive back to Summerfield. I’m lying on my sofa because I refused to rest in bed.
‘How’s it going?’ Shelley asks.
‘Did I go to sleep?’ I yawn and sit. ‘How come you’re here?’
‘Kit didn’t want to tell Gordon what’d happened over the phone. He left strict instructions that you stay where you are.’
‘I bumped my head and saw stars; I’m okay.’
‘You have an X-ray and an MRI to prove it. I heard you tell Kit.’
‘Where is Rory?’
‘With Kit. He said he’d keep Keith Urban company outside the nursing home.’
‘This is kind of you, Shelley, but I don’t need a babysitter.’
‘I’ve been given the early shift.’ She grins. ‘Kit has his bag in the spare room for the later one.’
‘There’s no bed in the spare room.’
‘He said he didn’t care.’
Does he care? When he takes over from Shelley twenty minutes later, he sits in Grandpa’s old armchair and watches as I eat a toasted sandwich. Afterwards he gives me grudging permission to shower and change. Besides a quirk to his lip as he glances at my pyjamas, printed with colourful horseshoes, he reverts to deadly serious.
‘Kit?’ As I perch on the edge of the sofa, he snaps the case of his iPad shut. ‘Do you want me to tell you what happened?’
‘It can wait.’
‘You weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow. You were meant to go to Wollongong.’
‘You said you were sorting something out. You said you were sorry.’ He mutters something under his breath. ‘I was concerned.’
‘You’ve cross-examined Aiden, haven’t you?’
‘He told me what he knew.’
‘It wasn’t the full story. That’s why I have to explain.’ When I sit straighter, my head thumps. I gingerly feel for the bump. ‘Ow.’
Kit mutters a curse as he crouches by the sofa. ‘How is your arm?’
I touch it tentatively. ‘It’s only bruised.’ I rub my hip. ‘This is bruised too.’
Giving me yet another critical look, he sits on the far side of the sofa.
‘Aiden would’ve told you that someone broke into my house.’
‘Two times. And the shed.’
‘If you’d found out, I was worried you wouldn’t choose Summerfield for the documentary. Even after you had, you already thought I was trouble and …’
He frowns. ‘You threatened a man with a sword.’
‘At least I was armed. Who told you that anyway?’
‘The police officer.’
‘It wasn’t a real sword.’
He briefly closes his eyes, but when he opens them again they’re even more difficult to read than they were. Concern? Annoyance? Maybe I didn’t do as well with the steri-strips as I’d thought— the line over his right eye has faded but I think it will scar. His left eye …
‘Your eye isn’t bloodshot any more. That’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Mackenzie …’ He couldn’t be sitting any further away on the sofa, but when I turn sideways he picks up my feet and puts them on his lap. My heart rate goes up.
‘Why meet Merewether and Galo on your own?’ His voice is gruff.
‘The evidence was only circumstantial, so Jeremiah wouldn’t have been able to arrest them or question them like I did. I suspected Lucas knew something, but if Angelo had been given the chance to calm him down, he wouldn’t have panicked. We wouldn’t have found out what we did.’
‘Aiden didn’t know Angelo would be there. When Aiden heard you argue with him, he called the police and drove to the saddlery.’
‘If I’d told Aiden everything …’ I look down at my hands, link them together. ‘You’re thinking I’m complicated, aren’t you? Is that why you came?’
‘You said if I found out before you could explain, you were sorry. It made no sense.’
‘You assumed the worst.’
‘With reason.’
When I lift my feet, ready to spring from the sofa, he grasps my ankles and settles them on his lap again. I do my best to ignore the tingling that spreads from my ankles to my knees to my thighs. I bunch my hands, clear my throat.
‘Dad found out about the hazardous waste after I sank in the mud—you’ll already know that from Aiden. From what Lucas said, Dad might’ve been tempted to take the money he was offered and forget what he’d seen.’ This time when I tug my feet free, he lets me go and I bend my knees. ‘You’ll still use his film for the documentary, won’t you?’ The words rush out. ‘Grandpa would be upset if—’
‘It’s our documentary,’ Kit says quietly.
‘Angelo told me if I asked questions about hazardous waste, it would come out that Dad was involved. I had to protect Dad’s reputation, and by extension Grandpa’s. I had to find out the truth.’
‘You should have gone to the police.’
‘I had Aiden’s help. He recorded everything.’
‘He had no idea what was going to happen. He was kilometres away when it did.’
‘Even if the police can’t use the recording, Jeremiah said they’ll have Lucas’s confession. Angelo still works in mining. If he was linked to what happened with the waste, his career would be threatened just like Lucas’s would be. That’s why he offered cash to recover the film.’
‘Anything could have happened. The police—’
‘Angelo and Lucas wouldn’t have said what they did if they weren’t angry with each other. They would have had lawyers. I know how these things work.’
With a giant sigh, he shifts towards me. ‘You saw Galo the week before last?’
‘When we were at Caves Beach, I wanted to tell you about the allegations Galo had made about Dad, but maybe it was good that I didn’t.’ I aim for a smile, but he doesn’t smile back. ‘Feeling guilty about not telling you forced me to talk to Grandpa about Angelo. I had no idea that Angelo, Lucas and Dad had been so close. Once I knew that, I became even more suspicious of Galo’s motives, particularly as I didn’t believe Dad would have anything to do with the illegal dumping of waste. I was with Dad that day. I saw how shaken he was. He must have assumed Lucas would know something. That’s why he arranged to meet him—to find out what was going on.’
‘You always believed that your father died in an accident.’ He shuffles closer, takes my hand and turns it over. He traces lines on my palm, circles the callus between my second and third fingers. He brings my hand to his mouth and kisses a scar. ‘Dyrebar …’
‘What does that mean?’
‘The way you loved your father, how you love your grandfather. It’s precious.’
‘The way Dad died …’ My voice wobbles. ‘I haven’t had time to … to …’ A tsunami of sadness works its way through my body. Tears stream down my face. Gulps and hiccups. My chest aches. My head pounds. ‘I wish we’d known.’
Kit hauls me onto his lap, mops up my tears, rubs my back, says incomprehensible words.
‘I knew Dad wouldn’t leave me.’
He strokes my hair. ‘No.’
Another flood of tears. ‘He shouldn’t have been on that road, and neither should Lucas. Grandpa shouldn’t have had the weight of so much grief.’
I’m still gulping and sobbing when Kit scoops me up and carries me to my room. He sits me on the bed and strokes across my shoulders. He combs through my hair and tidies it.
‘Should I braid it?’
Sniffing and hiccupping, I tuck my legs under my bottom. ‘Please.’
Wary of the bump on my head, he divides my hair into sections and braids. His fingers skim my neck, behind my ear, the sensitive skin at my nape. And when he’s done, he plaits all the way down my back. Still behind me, he rests his hands on the tops of my arms and presses his cheek against mine.
‘Sleep well.’
I flick my plait to the front as I turn and face him. ‘Sov godt.’
‘Yes, Mackenzie.’ For the first time tonight, there’s a smile in his voice.
‘I hope you didn’t tell Grandpa what had happened.’
When he closes the curtains, only light from the hallway filters in. ‘I told him you’d fallen in the shed and that you’d explain tomorrow.’
‘Thank you.’ Careful of the bump on my head, I lie down on the bed. ‘Frances said I have to talk to Grandpa about what he wants after …’
‘It can wait.’
‘Kit?’
He sits on the edge of the bed, pulls down my pyjama top and smooths it over my hips. ‘What?’ he whispers.
‘You’ll be checking up on me all night, won’t you, in case I’m concussed, even though that’s unlikely? And, as there’s room in my bed, it wouldn’t make sense not to sleep here. In fact, it’d be irrational. You wouldn’t want to risk irrational behaviour, would you?’
His eyes narrow but, after showering and brushing his teeth, he comes back. His shorts are black. His T-shirt is white and damp because his hair drips on his shoulders. Facing the door, I lie on my side on the very edge of the bed. Kit, smelling of soap and shampoo, lies on the other side.
‘Mackenzie?’
‘Yes.’ My voice squeaks.
‘Do you have a headache?’
I’m tempted to say no, but he has a sixth sense about these things. ‘Only in an “I’ve bumped my head” way, not in a “I have a brain bleed” way.’
‘Det er ikke morsomt.’
‘What?’
‘That isn’t funny.’ He sits to pull the blanket over my shoulders. ‘Can I get you a painkiller?’
‘No, thank you.’ I count to three before, careful of my hip, rolling on my side to face him. He’s on his back, studiously considering the ceiling. ‘Are you worried about having a nightmare?’
‘You know what to expect.’ His voice is gruff.
‘I’ll take care of you.’
He turns his head. ‘You usually sleep on your back.’
‘It might hurt my head.’
‘Sleeping like that will hurt your hip.’ He shuffles closer. ‘Come here.’
The last time I had my head on his chest, it was bare. I preferred that, but …
‘This is nice too.’
‘What?’
‘I wish I could think aloud in another language like you do.’
His arms tighten and, when he presses his mouth against my forehead, I feel his smile. ‘Good night, Mary Mackenzie Henry.’
***
When the nightmare wakes him, I sit by his side and rub his back and whisper meaningless words until, on his hands and knees, he finally stops digging for his mother. And in the same way he did when I cried for my father, I offer tissues for his nose and wipe the tears from his cheeks. Angling my head so the bruise doesn’t hurt, I lie on my back and he folds himself into my arms.
By the time I wake, hints of dawn slip through the blind. Kit, breath warm on my breasts and hair soft against my chin, is fast asleep. He feels responsible for me, his family and the rest of the universe. He’s clever and passionate and kind.
‘Sweet dreams, Aragorn Kit Thorsen.’
Kookaburras laugh in the gums by the bridge. Parrots squabble in the wattle outside the window. Now it’s September, the mornings are brighter. In Norway it’ll be autumn and the leaves will be turning. I find the kink in the hair at the nape of Kit’s neck, trace around his ear and stroke across his shoulders.