Free-Falling (13 page)

‘Are you serious?' Belinda jumped up and looked in the mirror. She shrieked. ‘Oh, my God, I can't believe this! You made me look . . .
good!
' Her hair was so short it was practically ‘boy length'. He'd given her a nice, definite chunky fringe that was slightly swept to the side of her forehead and he'd left a bit of length in front of her ears, so she had a real pixie look about her. It was the short, messy-sexy style and it really suited her petite face.

She threw her arms around him. ‘I always wanted a haircut like this, but I was never brave enough to get it done!' She turned back and forth, surveying herself in the mirror. ‘You've got some real talent in this department.'

‘Hey, I might not be bad – but not a
word
to anyone about this. If the guys hear I've been playing hairdresser for you I will
never
hear the end of it.'

The sound of her mother's voice dragged her back out of the startlingly clear memory. ‘Belinda, dinner in five, sweetheart.' She silently thanked her mum for returning her to reality, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and stood up from the bathtub, wondering as she did when she had started to cry.

Family dinners were sacred to the Heartfords. The TV was absolutely not allowed to be on, although sometimes a little light background jazz music was acceptable. Everyone had to be there
for the whole meal, despite their plans, unless they had a bloody good excuse. ‘Your friends can just wait until after dinner,' her parents had always said.

Sitting down to one of these dinners again felt wonderful. She could hardly believe that she used to complain about them. ‘
Stacey's
family never has to do this. She gets to watch
Home and Away
when she eats her dinner.' ‘Well you're not
in
Stacey's family, are you?' Now it was just so calming to sit chatting and enjoying the funky jazz tones that wove their way around them as they ate.

‘I have to say, I always thought it would be me that got knocked up first,' Becky said casually between mouthfuls.

‘Jesus, Becky!' Brett shook his head at his daughter and rolled his eyes.

Belinda slapped her sister's arm with a laugh.

‘What?' she asked innocently.

‘I'll tell you what, Becky. You get yourself knocked up and I'll be after that boyfriend – old what's-his-name of yours – with a shotgun before you can say “little Jack Horner”!' Brett prodded the air with his fork pointedly.

‘I'd like to see you try,' Becky hissed under her breath. ‘He probably wouldn't know which way to point the thing,' she added in a whisper to Belinda, who muffled her laughter in response. Luckily their mum had been talking over the top of them. It was a well-known fact within the family that Brett hated using guns. He'd grown up in inner-city Melbourne and hadn't discovered country life until he met Barbara, but it didn't stop him from pretending he was a crack shot in order to scare away potential boyfriends when needed.

‘Dear, I think you mean “Jack Robinson”. It's “before you can say
Jack Robinson
”. Getting your sayings mixed up with your nursery rhymes.' Barbara patted her husband's hand.

Becky turned her attention back to her father. ‘Don't think I didn't see you trying to intimidate Darren when he was here the other night. You should have seen him, Belle, Dad was sharpening the knife ready to carve up the roast for dinner and, as he's doing it, he gives Darren a really obvious wink – like this.' Becky demonstrated.

‘Ah, yes, I do remember Dad's old scare tactics. It totally worked on that guy I was dating in Year Ten. He flipped out when Dad used that one on him. Would
not
come near the place again.'

Brett gave a satisfied nod. ‘I should think not.'

The conversation abruptly turned back to more current matters when Belinda's youngest brother Blake piped up, eyes on his big sister's stomach, ‘So there's really
two
babies in there?' He looked quite doubtful.

‘Yep, sure is, but they're still just the size of . . . oh, I don't know, bananas maybe?' She tried to keep her voice casual and relaxed – not wanting her family to sense how extremely nervous she was about the pregnancy.

Blake stared back at her incredulously. ‘You're having banana babies?'

‘No! That's not what I said!' Belinda tried to protest but Blake was already in hysterics, picturing a couple of bananas running around on skinny little legs. He hopped down from his chair and took off outside to play with the puppy.

Brad sighed and shook his head. ‘I'll go and keep an eye on him, Mum,' he offered grandly as he slid from his chair to follow his little brother.

‘C'mon, Butt Cheeks, we're gonna teach you how to fetch!' they heard Blake yell as the two boys disappeared out the back door.

‘Did I hear right – they named the dog “Butt Cheeks”?' Belinda looked horrified.

‘'Fraid so. Really nothing I could do about it,' Barbara said with a shake of her head.

Here I was feeling guilty about not giving the poor thing a name all this time and the first thing they come up with is Butt Cheeks.

‘So I guess we've got Andy to blame for there being
two
banana babies in your belly, eh?' Becky asked, taking a sip from her drink and leaning back in her chair.

‘No, actually,' began Belinda.

Becky's mouth dropped open in shock. ‘They're not his?' she whispered, eyes widening.

‘No! That's not what I meant – of course they're his. I just mean that he's not the reason I'm having twins. Apparently the genetics of it all hasn't got anything to do with the father: it all comes from the mother's side. Speaking of which . . .' Belinda turned her attention to her mum and dad. ‘Which one of you two has twins in the family that I don't know about? Someone's gotta pay for this!'

Barbara just raised her hands in a ‘don't look at me' gesture, but Brett frowned and shuffled forward on his chair. ‘I guess I coulda passed those genes on to you there, missy Bella.'

‘There're no twins in your family,' Barbara protested.

‘Uh, that's not really accurate. I'm actually a twin meself. But I'm sure I've mentioned that before – haven't I?'

By the look on Barbara's face, Brett clearly
hadn't
mentioned it before.

Chapter 10

Evelyn

‘All right, what's that sweet son of mine done this time?'

Evelyn had spent the taxi ride over to the police station with the windows down. The warm night breeze that heralded the early days of summer had whipped against her face, doing its best to sober her up. As the taxi had pulled up out the front of the police station, she'd given herself a final shake, shuddering her shoulders as she tried to shed her giddy mood from the pub. Pretending she was young again with the kids from SkyChallenge was a far cry from collecting her son from a police station.

Violet was waiting for her by the steps that led up to the entrance, arms folded, one foot tapping rhythmically against the pavement. ‘Now that's sounding more like you, Ev. Let's go in and find out. He was a tad confusing on the phone, something about Hunters Hill High and justice for Andy.'

Violet gave a sideways glance at Evelyn when she mentioned Andy's name, as though a little nervous about bringing him up. But Evelyn didn't flinch. She just shook her head and sighed. ‘For God's sake – this has got to stop. Every week since Andrew was
. . . since he died, James has been doing one stupid thing after another, all in the apparent name of honouring his brother. It's really getting to be beyond a joke.'

They headed up the steps and into the police station where they were greeted by a fairly jaded policewoman. ‘You two here about the school break-in?'

‘He
broke in
to the school?' Evelyn looked livid.

‘Look, we haven't been able to get a lot of sense out of him so we're going to let you go in and talk to him. This is a serious matter, though. We've got broken windows plus a classroom door kicked in. He's your son, I presume?' The officer flicked her eyes over Evelyn, who nodded. ‘And I take it you're the aunt he phoned so he wouldn't have to face his mum?' She turned her tired gaze upon Violet and gave a small smirk as Violet looked guiltily back at her. ‘All right, one of you can fill out this paperwork for me and the other can go in and talk to him.' She held out the forms with one hand while looking back down at her computer screen with a bored expression on her face. She obviously wasn't fussed about who did what, as long as someone took the papers from her.

‘So do you want me to . . .?' began Violet, pointing towards the cell out the back.

‘Not a chance.' Evelyn snatched the forms and thrust them at Violet. ‘Where do I go?'

The policewoman seemed to have lost interest in the two middle-aged women standing in front of her with their dysfunctional family issues. She waved her arm behind her. ‘Head back there. Constable Tandy will let you in.'

A much younger police officer was waiting for her out the back. ‘This way, ma'am,' he said, unlocking the cell door and ushering her in, the look on his face a mixture of sympathy and embarrassment on her behalf. Evelyn wondered if he would
change after a few years in the job – turn into the cynical officer out the front.

She stepped into the police cell and perched herself on the edge of the stiff, grubby bed next to James. So what tack did she take now? The moment when she'd received the call from Violet and thought that something terrible had happened to him had almost softened her.
Almost.

‘What the hell were you thinking?' It was simply too easy for her to revert to her usual parenting methods.

‘It doesn't matter. Can we just forget about it, Mum?'

She almost choked. ‘Forget about it?' She was ready to strangle the boy. ‘I'm here at the police station, sitting next to you in a gaol cell at close to three am – and you want me to
forget
about it?'

‘You wouldn't understand.'

He was clearly more coherent than Violet and the policewoman had described him as being. He must have sobered up quite a bit over the last hour or so since phoning his aunt. Mother and son were probably as inebriated as each other at this stage.

Evelyn took a deep breath to calm herself and, keeping her voice as level as possible, said, ‘Why don't you
try
to explain it to me then, James? Because I'm certainly not understanding a thing at the moment.'

‘Fine. Me and a couple of the guys decided we needed to get back into the high school. For Andy.'

Don't explode, whatever you do, don't explode – yet.

‘And why would Andy need you to vandalise your old high school, exactly?'

‘We weren't vandalising it – that's not why we were there,' he said petulantly.

Evelyn's voice began to rise a little hysterically. ‘You smashed
windows and doors. What the fuck do you call that?' Controlling herself was going to be harder than she'd first thought.

Hearing his mum swear so blatantly seemed to take James by surprise. ‘Chillax, Mum. Jeez, I knew you wouldn't get it.'

‘Chillax? What the hell is wrong with you? What is it that I don't get? What was it that you were trying to prove tonight? Some kind of bet with your friends, who I notice aren't here locked up with you, by the way.'

‘Bros don't squeal on other bros. They got away – I didn't. I'm not gonna rat on them just cause I got caught.'

‘They're not your bros,
son
. The only “bro” you had was Andy, and he's gone. Now if you don't start making some sense, the police are going to be holding me back from throttling you.'

‘Fine. I will
try
to explain. Do you remember the regional soccer grand final, Year Twelve, against Barker College? Andy was the hero of the match, scored three of the four goals we got and in the last five minutes of the game, when it was four-to-three, he dropped from striker into goalie position when Jack got taken out with injury. Then, in the last thirty seconds, he saved a goal on a penalty shot that would have taken us to a tie – a penalty I caused by tripping one of the Barker boys' forwards right in front of the goal – and we won. I got red-carded, but Andy was named Man of the Match, right?'

‘Right.' Evelyn managed to restrain herself from asking what all this had to do with tonight and motioned for him to continue.

‘So the next day Andy's name was supposed to be engraved on the “Hunters Hill High All Stars” plaque that hung in the sports department. But he got suspended for four days for wagging and smoking – the principal was going through that zero-tolerance phase. And to really make his point, Mr Blackford decided Andy
would be stripped of his All Star status and his name never got engraved.'

‘Yes, James, I remember all of this – quite clearly, in fact. I was furious with Andrew. He almost missed the beginning of his HSC due to that suspension.'

‘Right. So, here's the bit you never knew. It wasn't Andy that they saw heading out of the school grounds with a ciggie in his hand. It was me.'

‘No, that doesn't make any sense. First of all, Andrew admitted to me that it was him, that he was trying out smoking for the first time, and he was bloody genuine about it. And if it wasn't him truanting, then where was he?'

‘He was in the library, studying. When he heard I'd been seen taking off, he messed up his hair, messed up his uniform, and went up to Principal Blackford pretending to be me. Blackford had no choice but to assume that it was Andy that was the one cutting class, seeing as I was apparently standing right there in front of him.'

‘But why did he do that? It's not like you two were getting along so great in your final years of school. I seem to remember that you were at each other's throats most of the time.'

‘I know. But Andy realised that with my record I'd probably be expelled. Once he'd done it, it was too late to do anything. Blackford would have suspended Andy anyway if he found out he'd lied to him and then we'd both be screwed. Besides, I was too much of an arsehole at the time to appreciate what he'd done.' James looked down at his feet, ashamed all of a sudden. ‘Mum, I never even thanked him for doing it – just acted like I didn't care.'

Evelyn was putting it all together. ‘You went to the school tonight to get the plaque. You were going to have Andy's name engraved on it.'

James glanced up at her. ‘Look, Mum, I know it was dumb and I know you're fuming right now, but you never saw Andy's face when he got told his name wasn't going to be on that stupid plaque. I don't even know why it meant so much to him – but it did. For some reason, lately, ever since he died, that's the face I keep seeing. This look of hurt surprise, like he just never expected them to take that away from him. He didn't realise what he was getting himself into when he took the rap for me. And, Mum, I had to do something. I needed to get that face out of my mind. It was killing me, seeing it again. I had to make it up to him.'

It took Evelyn a moment to realise she was seeing her son cry for the first time since he was about five years old. At his father's funeral, he hadn't cried. He'd acted out – but he hadn't cried. And at his brother's funeral, he just looked pale and sick – and later, drunk. But now here he was, sobbing, in the middle of a gaol cell in Hunters Hill. She put an arm around him and gathered him in close, allowing him to let it all out.

‘I miss him, Mum. I miss him so much and I just keep trying to do all these things – all of this stupid stuff that I think is going to fix it. That's going to help me to move on and get over it, and nothing does, and every night when I fall asleep I see that face and I feel this sick guilt.'

Evelyn rocked him in her arms and felt her own tears spill over for the second time that day.

‘You're lucky,' she whispered. ‘The face that I remember is much, much worse.' Once again she saw that frightened, pale face, the blank, staring eyes, the body on the floor of the convenience store, and she hugged James tighter. But he couldn't hear what she'd said over the sound of his own sobs and they cried together for a good five minutes more while Constable Tandy looked on, slightly horrified by it all.

When James had calmed down, Evelyn headed back out to speak to ‘Officer Jaded'. She decided the best approach was one hundred per cent honesty, so she told her the whole story – starting with the Year Twelve soccer grand final, including a blow-by-blow description of the day that Andy died and finishing with the explanation of what James was doing at the high school that night. By the end of the story, Evelyn, Violet and the policewoman were all in tears.

‘Right, if I pay for the damage and vouch for the fact that my son was not in his right mind tonight due to the recent loss of his twin brother, will you let me take him home with me tonight?' asked Evelyn briskly as she handed Kleenexes from her purse to the two other teary women.

Constable Tandy watched on in awe as his superior took the forms that Violet had spent the last half hour filling out and tore them up. He had never seen such compassion from his boss before.

The next day, Evelyn dragged her son out of bed bright and early. ‘Get dressed and meet me in the car. Five minutes.'

She drove him down to the high school without a word and marched him straight into the principal's office.

‘Mr Blackford, I'm sure you remember my son, James?' she stated in a very formal voice.

‘Who could forget?' said Mr Blackford in his usual smarmy way, leaning back in his chair.

‘He has something he'd like to say to you.'

‘Is that right?' Mr Blackford appeared mildly amused as he waited for James to speak.

James stared at his feet. ‘I was the one who smashed your windows last night,' he began.

‘No, not that!' Evelyn flapped her hands at her son crossly. ‘Tell him about what happened in Year Twelve, about what Andrew did for you.'

Mr Blackford glanced back and forth between them, starting to take the intrusion into his office quite a bit more seriously. ‘Wait a minute –
you
were responsible for the vandalism last night?' He looked flabbergasted as Evelyn just shushed him.

‘Yes, yes, but there's something much more important he needs to tell you.'

James couldn't help smiling at his mum. ‘Mr Blackford, it wasn't Andy you saw wagging school and smoking just before the HSC. It was actually me – he just took the rap.'

‘You think I didn't always know that? I'm not stupid, Mr McGavin. While I appreciate the trip down memory lane, I'd rather focus on last night's events. The police made out like the perpetrator was some sort of troubled mental patient and strongly advised me not to press charges. Now I find out it was you? Could someone explain to me why exactly you're not being made to take responsibility for this?'

‘Mr Blackford, the police understood that these are unique circumstances, and you'll just have to trust them on that. Besides,
I'll
pay for the damage, so can we please move on from that? We're here about something much more important. Andrew should never have been punished and so we would like his name engraved on the All Stars plaque immediately.' She raised her eyebrows expectantly.