Please Don't Leave Me Here (8 page)

She drinks her cup of tea quickly back in Papa's room.

‘Anyway.' He yawns. ‘Did ya see those fat people, Brigi, on — what do ya call it —
Big Loser?
'

‘No.'

‘Can't understand how people can get that fat.' He sucks his teeth, sounding like the suction device at the dentist. Brigitte grinds hers.

‘OK, Papa, It's time for me to go.' She picks up her bag and stands.

‘So soon?'

***

Brigitte sits on the love seat watching, from behind dark sunglasses, Finn and Phoebe playing on the newly mown grass.

She starts at the scrape of the bungalow door opening, and her eyes are drawn to his bare feet, faded jeans, and white T-shirt with
Captain America
emblazoned across the front in blue lettering. It's warm in the sun, but she shivers. A black tattoo peeks from under his left sleeve: some sort of foreign script, maybe Gaelic.

‘Hi.' He smiles his crooked smile, squints, and shades his eyes with his hand. So fucking smug. He goes back inside for a minute and comes back with a pair of sunglasses.

‘What are you doing here?' she says without looking at him.

‘I live here, remember?'

‘Why aren't you at work?'

‘On night shift.'

‘Sam'll be home soon.' She glances at the back door.

He walks over and sits next to her — too close. The love seat creaks as he stretches out his long legs. So it is true, what they say about big feet.

‘Nice day,' he says.

‘What happened to the grass?'

‘Mowed it.'

‘Nobody asked you to.'

‘Don't mind.'

‘Why the hell were you talking to my grandfather?' She feels the blood rush to her face.

‘Funny coincidence, huh?' He laughs. ‘Eddie's a nice bloke.'

‘Just answer the question.'

‘His old house was in the vicinity of an unsolved murder. Might have remembered hearing something.'

‘His memory's not so good.'

‘Oh, he remembered.' He turns his body and looks at her. His knee brushes hers. ‘It was the same time your grandmother had her heart attack.'

‘I lived there, too. Why haven't you questioned me?'

‘What would be the point of that? I know you don't remember.'

Good point.
‘So this has nothing to do with me?'

‘Not everything's about you.'

She doesn't want to talk to him anymore, and wishes he would just go away — crawl into a hole somewhere and never come back. And that his leg touching hers wasn't causing such a warm, prickly sensation. She should move over, but doesn't.

‘Are the scars from the car accident?'

She pulls a section of hair across the one on her forehead and doesn't answer.

‘And your knee?'

She stares straight ahead and crosses her legs, ignoring a primal urge to part them.

‘What's wrong?' he says.

She pushes her sunglasses higher up on her nose.

‘Thought you liked me.'

‘Not much of a detective. No wonder you're on the cold cases.'

He clears his throat. ‘You wanted it as much as I did.'

‘Wrong again.'

‘Why did you tell me you were separated from your husband?'

‘I did not say that.' She sits up straight and glowers.

‘Yes you did, at Manny's party.'

She chews a fingernail.

‘That's what you wanted me to think.'

‘I was drunk, OK. And upset — if you really have to know.' The skin around her fingernail starts to bleed; she hides her hand under her leg.

‘And that makes it OK?'

‘I don't want to talk about it.'

‘I do,' he says. They turn and look directly at each other, but she can't see his eyes hidden behind the shades.

‘If you don't stop, I'll tell Sam I want you to move out.' Why doesn't she move over?

‘Sam wants to keep me closer.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘Friends, enemies.'

‘I'll tell him you're harassing me.' She springs up, a flood of pain ripping through her body. ‘Finn, Phoebe inside now.'

‘No,' Phoebe says. ‘We want to play with Aidan.'

Aidan shrugs.

‘Fine. Whatever.' She slams the door behind her so hard that one of the pot plants falls off the windowsill and smashes on the ground.

9

The bouquet of flowers droops on the console. ‘Thirty-seven degrees in the city,' the radio announcer says. ‘Unusual for November —' Sam cuts him off with a Foo Fighters CD. They're stuck in traffic on Sydney Road, with the air conditioner not working. Sam drums his fingers on the steering wheel; the lights change, but the car in front doesn't move.

‘Come on.' He beeps the horn. The car in front moves, and the driver gives him the finger. ‘Fuck you, too,' he says under his breath.

It's been nearly six months since they've been to visit Sam's parents in Coburg; he couldn't put it off any longer. Brigitte feels sweat trickling down between her breasts, soaking her dress. The twins are red-faced, quiet, zonked out from the heat. She passes water bottles to them.

While she's turning:
Pop!
Brigitte screams, the twins scream. Sam slams on the brakes, and Brigitte's bad knee smashes into the dashboard.

‘Brigitte!' Sam yells at her. ‘What the fuck?' Cars behind start beeping.

The tube of hand cream on the dashboard has expanded and exploded because of the heat. The inside of the windscreen is coated with a white film. Brigitte and Sam are spattered — especially Sam.

Sam instinctively turns on the windscreen wipers. Stupid. He wipes it out of his eyes and off the windscreen with the back of his hand, and pulls over. The twins are crying.

‘All I wanted to do was visit my fucking parents. Why does everything have to turn into a fucking disaster with you?'

‘What? I didn't do anything.'

‘Why was that fucking cream even in the car?'

‘Stop it Sam, you're upsetting the twins.'

‘Why can't you do anything right? Can't even lock the fucking cat's window?'

She opens her mouth, but can't speak.

‘And I heard what you did at Manny's party.'

It's forty-plus degrees in the car, but she freezes.

‘Got drunk, embarrassed yourself? Manny had to help you out in the lift?' His face is red, a vein pulsing in his temple. ‘Now half the force knows my wife's an alcoholic. You're just like your fucking mother.'

‘And you're just like your father.'

He slaps her face. She holds a hand to her cheek — it stings, and tears prickle her eyes. She tickles the roof of her mouth with her tongue, but it doesn't work this time.

Sam keeps yelling at her: ‘You were a fucking mess when I met you and still are now ...'

She dissociates — focuses on Dave Grohl singing ‘Long Road to Ruin' — and calmly lets Sam's words roll over her for a while. Her silence makes him angrier.

Enough.
She shakes her head. Enough years should have passed for her not to need him anymore. She takes a deep breath, unlocks her door, gets out, and walks along the street, rubbing hand cream into her arms.

Sam opens the driver's side door, steps out, and leans against the roof. ‘Get back in the vehicle.' It's his policeman's voice, his stupid bully's voice. He still has cream on his face. The twins are hysterical. Brigitte's a few shop-fronts away, so he yells, ‘I told you to get back in the fucking vehicle.'

‘No!' She keeps walking. Then she looks over her shoulder at the twins, and stops.

Sam slams his door shut, strides after her, and tries to drag her back by an arm, but she fights him. He picks her up like a child, carries her and shoves her into the passenger seat, pushes her arms and legs in, hurts her. Drivers are slowing down for a look, but no cars stop; nobody wants to get involved in such things.

The car rocks as he hurls himself into the driver's seat. He clenches and unclenches his fists, and takes some deep breaths. She leans into the back seat and strokes the twins' legs until they're calm. Then she turns to Sam and says very quietly, controlling her voice
,
‘I'm not a mess, Sam. I'm not an alcoholic. I'm not like my mother.' And, even quieter, ‘And don't you
ever
do that to me again.'

She reaches across and stops the CD. God, she hates the Foo Fighters. They sit quietly — just the twins whimpering — for a long time.

‘Anything to get out of visiting Maggie and Doug.' He runs a finger through the cream on the windscreen.

It doesn't get a smile.

‘I'm sorry, Brig.' He leans across, takes her face in his hands, and kisses her. ‘Sorry. I didn't mean it.' He's greasy, and smells of lavender. She pulls away, and hands him some tissues from the glove box.

‘Sorry. Lot of pressure at work at the moment.' He wipes his face and rests it against her chest.

She instinctively lifts a hand to stroke his hair, but stops herself.

‘And I don't know why you don't want to sleep with me anymore,' he says.

10

Brigitte finds one of Kitty's old toys squashed under the doormat while she's sweeping the back porch. She picks it up and puts it in her pocket. Maybe it's time to get a new kitten. She leans the broom against the side of the house, walks across, and knocks on the bungalow door. A pair of new-looking running shoes is lined up side by side on the step.

Aidan lets her in, buttoning his shirt. He's listening to ABC radio — the same station she has on in the kitchen. Aromas of wet hair, citrus cologne, toast, and coffee fill the room. She looks around. A cup and plate are drying on the draining rack next to the sink, and the single bed has been neatly made. He has arranged some framed photos on the dressing table: a black-and-white of a pretty woman with fair skin and a turned-up nose, her arms wrapped around a young-Robert De Niro lookalike; a tall, gangly boy, about fifteen, in swimming shorts standing between two older girls with long dark hair in front of a pool; and one of the girls, grown up, holding a baby.

Aidan turns down the radio and asks what's wrong.

‘Can I borrow some bread?'

He tilts his head at the chest freezer, and she walks towards it. The bookshelves are filled with books — she didn't pick him as a reader — and as far as she can see, none with shiny titles embossed on the spines. She opens the freezer and leans in, aware of him watching her.

‘I was wondering when you'd come to visit,' he says. ‘Want a coffee?'

‘No.'

‘Go on, just stay for a coffee.'

‘OK.' She closes the freezer lid, turns, and he's right in front of her. He puts his arms around her, and she pushes him away. What did she expect: a civil conversation, a mutual agreement to leave each other alone? Stupid.

When he tries again, she steps back and swings the loaf of frozen bread at his head, and hits him.

Shocked by the force of it, he lifts a hand to his cheek — it's going to leave a decent bruise. She thinks about what Sam did to her and sucks in her breath: sorry, really sorry, she shouldn't have done that. She ignores her immediate reaction to want to touch her hand to his face.

He takes a few steps backwards. Angry or hurt? ‘I know what you did, Brigitte.' A drop of water from his hair rolls down the side of his face, onto his collar. ‘I know where you worked. I know what you were.'

She steps towards the doorway, but he stands in her way, blocking it. A pair of boxing gloves hangs on the hook next to the window. He puts his arms on either side of the door frame, trapping her. ‘I know everything about you.'

He's making it up; he's going to do something to her, hurt her. She sidesteps, looks around him to the safety of the house, but Sam's already left for work.

‘I know what Sam did.' He leans down, close to her face, ‘And I know who Matt Elery is.'

She fiddles with the cuff of her shirt. ‘I don't know anybody called Matt …'

‘Elery. Apparently, he's a crime-thriller writer.'

‘Sure you don't mean James Ellroy?'
Too smart, not funny
.

‘He remembers you.'

She looks away — at his book on the bedside table,
In Cold Blood
— and then back, directly into his eyes. ‘I have no idea what you're talking about.'

‘How many other men have you fucked over, Brigitte? How about Eric Tucker? Does that name ring something?'