Five Parts Dead (10 page)

Okay. Not the answer I feared. It's a get-out-of-jail-free card, for now. And I owe Mel. Big time.

‘You sure you're okay, Dan? You were really out of it before.'

I lift my head from my knees and peer at her. ‘It's a nightmare, Pip. One that won't go away. It sort of hollows me out, again and again. And I…I can't forget it but I don't know if I'm strong enough to talk about it. I just…don't know. It totally freaked me out that you knew I lied. How did you know?'

Pip flops back into the long grass. ‘I knew you'd forgotten. I was on the verandah at the party. We were talking and then I went to get food. I was coming back out the front door and I saw what they did to you. I know you didn't want to go. They forced you. They could have killed you. I completely understand why it haunts you.'

I feel like I've been dropped in a scalding hot spa.

‘When did you…I thought there was no one out the front then. What exactly did you see?'

U: STANDING INTO DANGER

With the backpackers' music blaring across the paddocks as Pip and I talk, it's all too easy to step back into memories of the night I've tried to forget…

The uncool crowd arrive earliest at parties. The God-botherers. The nerds. The non-drinkers. Those with particularly anxious parents or curfews or both. First in. Always the first to leave.

Mel and I were in the moderately-anxious-parents group, dropped off a smidge after nine. Mel couldn't delay them any longer but, after a virtuoso debating performance, she'd negotiated a later than usual wind-up time. Mum and Dad were due to collect us at one o'clock.

I didn't even make it to eleven-thirty.

The gamers were milling in a greasy knot beside the chips and drinks table, lost without their cable connections. The stoners were huddled behind the barbecue, hoping the smoke would mask the odour of their weed. Nick Laziridis and his Year 11 buddies were doing bombs into the pool and trying to coax girls to join them. No chance.

Those whose mates hadn't turned up yet did the tumbleweed thing, rolling from one cluster to another, looking for a groove to slip into or someone who hadn't heard their best party jokes.

Mel's mates were on the back verandah, gossiping, shrieking and sipping fluoro cocktails some scientist was mixing inside. As for me, Boris had planted a beer in my hand the minute I turned up. I sipped it, reluctant to drink it.

‘Keep up, man!' That was Carlo, urging us all into team drunkenness. He was kidding himself; Boris could drink a six-pack without even getting wobbly on his feet.

One sip and I took my chance to wander off and watch for a while.

I'd never have admitted it to Mel but I was actually waiting for someone. Sarah Hansen. Aaron's sister, Bianca, was on a scholarship at Swanston Girls' College and had spread the word about the end-of-year party. Sarah was one of Bianca's mates.

I'd had a crush on Sarah since we met at an inter-school cross-country run last year. Number of intelligible words spoken to her since then? Exactly seven. There was the super-suave ‘Gidday' in the cinema foyer, the piss-weak ‘Hi Sarah' at a careers seminar and the gut-wrenching, ultra-clumsy opening line at a party: ‘So, are you still running?' Her response to that one is branded into my brain—a withering glare that indicated she didn't recall cross-country running, let alone meeting me. Then one of her friends brayed an answer for her: ‘She's running now.' The pack of them screeched with laughter and glided away, leaving me crimson with humiliation.

But I was willing to risk the same fate once again, for a glimmer of encouragement from those hypnotic blue eyes.

There was no sign of any SGC girls. They were all way too cool to turn up early.

I wandered through the house. There were kids already flopped on couches. A couple nodded hello. A few gave me dirty looks as if questioning why I'd scored an invite in Year 10. I wondered what Mum and Dad would say if we asked to host a party. Fair chance the phrase ‘no way' would feature in their answer.

Aaron beckoned me over to the corner of the lounge. I shook my head, nodded ‘catch you later' and kept moving. He had Lucy Hyphen-Something on his lap and was unlikely to be doing much chatting.

Moving outside, I perched myself on the front verandah, dangling my legs over the edge. As I picked at the label on the sweating beer bottle, I dreamed of what I might say to Sarah.

‘Hey Dan. Can I join you?' Pip squatted beside me before I could answer.

‘Hi Pip. Sure.'

She swung under the railing to sit beside me. ‘Not in the party mood?'

‘Nah. Just chilling. I'm still wiped out from cramming for that Economics exam. I just feel like kicking back for a bit. How about you?'

‘Same,' she said, smiling. ‘Mel and her gang are all pumped about the triathlon on Australia Day. It's not really my thing.'

‘You're not going along too?' I raised my arms in mock horror. ‘Surely there's some sand crab that's endangered by the triathletes' feet?'

Whack! A solid right hook to the shoulder. ‘You wouldn't be mocking me, would you, Daniel?'

‘Ow! No. Maybe a little. But seriously, Philippa, you've done some good stuff this year, with your petition and everything…'

She was about to reply when a stretch limo purred up, spilling SGC girls onto the driveway. We watched as they preened like herons and I tried to spot Sarah.

They were all lean, tanned and blonde, their outfits variations on a theme. Button shirts, wide belts, short shorts, expensive-looking strappy sandals. Sure enough, there was Sarah, her hair up in a fashionably messy pile that wisped down way too casually to be natural.

‘Clones,' Pip whispered, breaking my trance. ‘Look, they're all the same.'

I had to agree. It was like the Barbie aisle in a toy store. And I wanted one.

We gawked at them as they swarmed into the house. Sarah didn't even glance my way. None of them did. I sipped gloomily at the beer. Brilliant. Sarah was here and I had no idea how to speak to her. Not one clue. First sighting and she erased everything in my head.

Pip sighed and stood up. ‘I'm going to get something to eat. Want anything?'

‘Yeah, that'd be good. Some chips would go down well—for us non-triathletes, anyway.'

Pip's eyes sparkled as she disappeared into the house…

I lie back onto the grass, turning to face Pip. ‘So were you gone long?'

Pip frowns. ‘A little while. I got talking to someone. When I came back outside they were wrestling you into the car—Phan had your legs and Boris was just about strangling you. You didn't look like you wanted to go, no way. But Aaron took off before I could do anything.'

We lie there, the creek chattering below us, ‘what ifs' swarming around us. I think back to the hospital, to Mel and Pip visiting me the day before the police came to take my statement.

‘Why didn't you say something before now? Like, tell me you knew. I might have…maybe I'd have told the police a different story. Told them they forced me to go.'

‘They were your best mates, Dan. I couldn't be certain whether it was abduction or some stupid game. And I wasn't sure you'd…want me to interfere.' She lowers her voice. ‘I didn't say anything to you afterwards because…I didn't want to know if what happened was partly my fault. I mean, I did nothing. I knew Aaron had been drinking and I…I still did absolutely nothing.' She sits up and hugs her knees, silhouetted against the starry sky.

‘Hey. What could you have done? It had happened. Our fates were sealed from the minute…Aaron turned the key.'

‘Maybe I could have called the police. I didn't know where you were going but I could have described the car. Reported it as stolen or something—not that I knew he'd taken it without asking Travis. Maybe I could have stopped him before, before…I felt so useless standing there watching you go.' She's sobbing now. ‘I've been over it…in my head…so many times. You know, asking if there's anything…I could have done differently.'

I push myself up. Put an arm around her. ‘Me too. Many, many times.' I falter, emotions and loyalties colliding inside me. ‘You saw I didn't want to go. I really didn't want to be in the car. But, you know, it was actually fun, at first. I remember laughing. All of us were. Then I had this feeling in my gut, like it was all going to go horribly wrong. But by the time I had the balls to tell him to stop, it was…too late. It was over.'

I pause, trying to blink away my tears.

‘It's not as if the police would have believed me, anyway. It was my best mates.' I look down at the dusty ground. ‘If I told the cops that I didn't want to get in the car they'd think it was total bullshit. Just me trying to look better than I really am. Besides, what sort of friend would I be if I tipped a bucket on them after they were dead? If I said I told them not to drive but they forced me to go? I couldn't do it. Just couldn't. It was hard enough facing their parents, knowing what really went on that night.

‘As it is, I reckon their parents hate me. Hate me because I survived and their sons didn't. Well, Phan sort of did. But I'm the walking talking face of that accident. The reminder. Everyone looks at me like I'm a ghost, like I shouldn't be here, and…maybe…'

Grief wedges in my throat. I shake my head, willing myself not to cry. Failing. We sit there for ages.

When the tears subside I feel utterly drained…but better. As if some of the poison inside me has washed away.

I look at Pip's face, puffy with tears, eyeliner streaking her cheeks. It's as if she's removed her armour, let me see the vulnerable Pip within. When she speaks, there's a warning in her voice I haven't heard before.

‘So, Sarah Hansen. Don't you dare tell me you still like her.'

I sniff, embarrassed. ‘Is there anything you don't know about me? You're unbelievable! The answer is, no. No way! How was her form? When the reporters did their death-knocks, chasing kids who were at the party, who was the “witness” that went on TV? Who said Aaron wouldn't steal a car unless there was extreme peer pressure? What a cow! I feel so stupid!'

Pip lets me marinate in my poor taste for a few minutes, then stands, offers me her arm and helps me to my feet. ‘Come on, Stupid. Let's go see where this party is up to.'

I follow her, each step heavy with the knowledge that there's more to tell.

QD: I'M GOING AHEAD

I wake slowly, grass tickling my cheek, and stretch out in my swag. Propping myself on an elbow, I survey the aftermath of the backpacker party. There are bodies scattered about, some in sleeping bags, some on the trampled ground near the ashes of the bonfire.

Pip is in her swag beside me and I watch her sleeping, a smile sliding across my face. It changes nothing that she knows the guys forced me into the car that night. And it changes everything.

The minibus door opens and Mel steps out, dishevelled and unsteady. The bus windows are fogged but through the doorway I spot a body still submerged in sleep. Hiroshi. Nice one, Mel. Inside my head I hear her chirpy reply,
Thanks, bro
.

Breakfast happens mid-morning. We sit hunched on logs, looking like extras from a sci-fi set, as the billy boils. Hoodies drawn like blinds against the sun, we blink, squint and nod greetings, reluctant to breach the peace. It's as if everyone has to hit a designated caffeine level before muted conversation merges with the whirring of flies around the campsite.

Toshi and Chika hail me with hands finned above their heads and arses wiggling like sharks' tails. I shake my head in mock horror that they could have misunderstood the cause of my injury—and then I mime a kangaroo leaping at me and biting my leg. Alarmed, they check the nearby paddocks for carnivorous roos. Pip calms them by pointing my way and twirling a finger beside her head. I wink and they laugh themselves silly. Turns out bullshitting is an international sport.