Chapter 1

You make it better than I remember

The autumn was golden and everyone was caught up in this cacophony; the ruby days of semi-adulthood. No one saw the number, the signs, the fortune slip. No one asked the magic eight ball or read the forecasts, because that was not the motto. We’ll play it by ear. Let’s try it this way this time. They started. And they started. And they started.

No one asked the questions, and no one knew.

It was only later that they could look back and acknowledge the fissures, blooming into their lives. They were young. Fundamentally good. Chronically naïve. No one asked the questions, and no one knew.

Audrey painted her toenails red in the morning, and she and Nick had sex on the lawn chairs in the back yard while the sun spilled out of the sky. She went to visit her mother in the afternoon. Sylvie was a spectre, silently edgy. She stood by the kitchen sink and smoked, her beautiful features puckered, and Audrey sat in the armchair and folded her hands.

“Je vais faire du thé. T’en veux?"

“Non, maman. Sit down and relax for a moment, hein?” They sat in silence. Audrey laid a hand over her mother’s and in the sunny house they sat. Audrey with her red toenails and Sylvie with her disengaged brain.

“How’s your brother?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen much of him lately.”

“Why not?”

“Je sais pas. I’ve been busy. I called him on Thursday. He’d been to school.”

Sylvie stubbed her cigarette out and looked out past her daughter, at the wall behind her, before she made eye contact. She was distracted. Audrey could see it but knew she was incapable of fixing it; her mother was a small ship in the wide ocean, unreachable and unnavigable.

“Your sister calls me every second night. She has news. Isobel’s reading already, did you know that? You come here sometimes and you do not talk to me. How’s Nick? Bien. Et la travail? Oui maman, c’est pas mal. What do you tell me? Rien. What do I do with that?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” She took her hand away and shifted. “Have you been taking your medicines?”

“Yes. Of course I take the medicines.” Sylvie shook her head. “You are patronising me. Ne soit pas condescendant avec moi.”

“I’m not. I just wanted to make sure.”

“You just wanted to make sure, why don’t you make sure your brother is okay? Why don’t you talk more with everyone?” Audrey stood up and sighed.

“Oh, maman. I don’t want to sit here and listen to this.”

“C’est bien le problème; tu n’écoute jamais!”

“Yes, you’re right.” She picked up her handbag. “I’m going to go now.” She kissed her mother on the cheek and inhaled talcum powder, tobacco and cosmetics.

“I love you. See you later.”

When Audrey had left home at eighteen, she’d imagined herself to be undoing the invisible umbilical cord, cutting off the circulation. Somehow she would never see her parents, sister or brother again. The release was unimaginable; her heart out of her pocket and back in her chest, pumping blood again. And somehow, five years later, she was still no further from them. Her older sister was the most removed; she had grown into a moderate suburban success story, with her husband and children and Ford Explorer. Émilie was the one who phoned with news, sent letters and emails with photos. Every wife and every mother.

Her younger brother had escaped when he could, living in a low-rent flat where he could read and take photographs, and bring girls home as he pleased. He attended school occasionally. Audrey brought him frozen meals once in a while. Their mother thought he was responsibly passing his VCE. And what of their mother? Sylvie lived alone now, in the house she’d lived in since Audrey and Bertie had still been at home. It was too big for her but she would not move out.

Sylvie, Émilie, Audrey and Bertie. Nobody would say it, but their father had died three years ago and the relief leaked from every pore of the edifice.

~~~

Katy and Adam went out in the evening, to see a movie. They walked out halfway through.

“Let’s pretend we’re rich,” said Adam, so they went to the bar at the Hyatt and fantasised about being guests there. They paid an exorbitant amount for two cocktails and sat, feeling conspicuously underdressed, watching other people.

“The bartender is hot. Don’t look.” She turned around.

“He looks like he has a heroin addiction, Adam.”

“Oh, he does not. Just because he’s thin.”

“Just because his head looks like it’s been steamrolled.”

He kicked her under the table and finished his drink.

“I’m up for another!” he sang. “I’m off to see my substance abuser about a screaming orgasm.” Katy watched his departing back and felt suddenly, desperately alone, and wanted to trail after him and hold him. She looked at his head, the close-cut hair, and his posture, easy, careless. She looked back down at the table.

They left and walked to the Fitzroy Gardens, and sat on the grass in the dark. It was warm.
“Probably we’ll be raped or murdered, sitting here.”

“Probably.” Katy lay back. “I want to go away in winter.”

“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You, me, Audrey, Nick, Amie. Let’s go to the hills or something.”

“Okay, Kate. Let’s do it.” He lay back next to her and exhaled. He could not see the stars. It was Saturday night, and they were friends.

“What’s going on with you and Jarrod? I thought you were supposed to see him tonight.”

“Yeah. You know. It’s not really working out,” she said detachedly. She was quiet tonight. She’d been quiet on Wednesday when they went out after work. And last weekend. And the weekend before that. Adam rolled over to face her.

“You’ve only been going out with him five minutes.”

“Six weeks.”

“So give him the flick.”

“I don’t know. I like him. A lot, sometimes. It’s just that, when we get close, it’s like something snaps, and we both just…retreat.” She shook her head. “It’s boring. Did you really think that bartender was hot?”

“He was gorgeous.”

“He looked like Pete fucking Doherty!” They cackled on their backs, legs in the air like beetles, as summer melted into autumn.

~~~

Audrey and Nick lay on the couch after dinner with the pedestal fans spinning.

“How was your mum today?” he asked.

“Twitchy,” she answered after a pause. She turned to him and touched the neck of his t-shirt. Her voice was quiet. “I’m scared I’m going to be like her.”

He looked at her small face, inches from his own. She was often inexpressive, but now her lips were pushed forward in an anxious pout, her eyebrows drawn together slightly, considering the potential. He longed to smooth the knot there on her forehead.

He kissed her mouth.

“You won’t be.”

~~~

On Sunday, everyone went to Nick and Audrey’s house for drinks.

The boys went to the local park and kicked a football in the afternoon, and the girls sat in the backyard talking about jobs, lovers, mothers and such until they arrived home.

“How was it?” Katy asked.

“Well, I won,” Adam answered, pinching her glass of champagne and taking a gulp, “because obviously I’m the best.”

“And so modest,” Amie snorted.

“He co-captained the footy team in year twelve, remember?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Only ever did it for the footy spanks, though,” Adam grinned, and his voice was a wicked chime. The five of them in the little garden. It was not dark yet. It was still March, and their world was still in a state of equilibrium, or thereabouts.

Later, Nick and Amie made coffee inside and laughed. He served cake.
“Ah fuck, it’s fallen apart. I’ll have that one.” The next piece fell apart too.

“You silly wanker.”

“Well, it’s your cake.”

Adam was sprawled on the banana lounge, lolling on his back.

“So what’s new?” he asked, tucking his hands behind his head. “Spencer?”

“Nothing,” Audrey answered, yawning and leaning back in her chair.

“Well, you’re no fun. Baby of the week, then?”

“Um. I got one on Thursday called China Kaylee. C-H-Y-N-N-A-H.”

“It’s heartbreaking,” Adam said, and turned to face Katy. “What about you, Kate? How’s that steamy love life? Progress with Mister Jarrod since last night?” Katy shook her head, and folded her napkin into a triangle. Her hair fell across her face.

“I don’t think,” she started, shaking her head again, and the sentence ended. The dog barked next door, and a train jangled along the nearby overpass.

“Katy was saying last night that we should all go away for a weekend in winter,” Adam said to Audrey, to fill the aberrant silence.

“Yeah? Where to?”

“I don’t know. I just want to go somewhere. Let’s go to Fall’s Creek. I’m going to learn to ski.”

Audrey looked at her, but Katy was running her fingernail along the creases of the folded serviette.

~~~

Adam was just over the legal limit. Katy drove him home. She pulled up outside his flat and he leaned over the console.

“Kiss me, Kate!” he said exuberantly, and she laughed and kissed his cheek. “Wanna stay over?” She looked at him; she thought about what would be at home—her sister sleeping in the front room with the dog, the little soundless house in its ugly suburb, her empty room and empty bed and silent phone. She thought about this, and about Jarrod—

“Yeah, alright.”

Adam fell asleep almost immediately, throat to the gods, and Katy watched him for awhile. She flicked on the lounge room television and muted it, and drank a beer from Adam’s fridge, and went back to bed.

~~~

On Monday morning, the phone rang, just as Audrey was running out the door.

“It’s just me.”

“Hi, Katy. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I just wanted to say thanks for last night. It was lovely. We hardly ever get together like that lately.”

“No worries. It was easy.” Audrey was holding her handbag and car keys. “Listen, you left your jacket here last night. Do you want me to drop it around tonight?”

“It’s okay. I can pick it up if you’re at home.”

“Yeah, I’ll be home by six.”

“See you then. And thanks again.”

“You’re welcome. See you.”

Audrey slid into the car beside Nick and handed him the keys.

“Katy seems better. She’s been out of sorts, but she just called and she was fine.”

“Yeah, she was in a weird mood last night. I thought something must have happened with that guy. You know.”

“Jarrod.” Audrey pulled her seatbelt on. “I don’t know. She wasn’t herself, but she seemed better on the phone just then.”

~~~

On Monday, Katy did not go to work. She got into her car, switched off her mobile phone, and drove to the Dandenong Ranges. She drove to Silvan, to the reservoir.

She walked around, looked at the dam. It was autumn and the trees were beautiful, but the grass was yellowed from the hot summer.

She got back into her car and drove down into the bottom car park, where the buses went, and parked, leaving the motor running. She took a yellow rag from the car boot and stuffed it into the exhaust pipe, and she rolled up her window.

She put on some music, and turned it off after awhile, and in the silence she slept.

The car was old. It didn’t have a catalytic converter.

At ten p.m., Audrey and Nick were watching television. She got up to get another glass of wine, and saw Katy’s jacket draped over the back of a chair.

“Katy never came to get her jacket.” Nick looked up as she sat back down beside him.

“I’ve got a night shift tomorrow. I’ll drop it round on my way to work.”

There were details that the attending police officers saw. For instance, the yellow rag. Yellow is the colour of optimism; of newly-hatched chickens, of sunlight and stars in children’s pictures. It is synonymous with buoyancy, not with the damp, smothery smell of death. And the hands clasped in her lap, as though she were waiting for a bus, not waiting for death to tip its hat. The bus driver who wept with his face in his hands as he gave his statement. He was driving a seniors’ group to the reservoir for a barbeque. He had unloaded them all, and their belongings, and was walking back to his bus when he saw the rag in the exhaust pipe, and saw the girl’s limp head from behind. How he ran, how he wrenched at the locked doors and beat on the windows with balled fists, and yelled through the glass pane on the driver’s side window. But she was already gone; her face had already changed. He phoned the police and sank down onto the gravel by the car door, and clumsily made the sign of the cross.

These were details that Mr. and Mrs. Shields could not have known, and would never know. The awfulness of their daughter’s death would only be amplified by such particulars.

Tuesday evening, Mrs. Shields hunched on the verandah and tried to recall every detail of Katy. She was determined that she should see her daughter one last time, that she should know everything about how it happened. She would find the policemen, find the person who found Katy, and have them tell her everything.

But Bob Shields hunched by her and said—equally determinedly—that it was useless; the knowledge of such facts achieved no purpose. Don’t go and see her, he said, she doesn’t look the same. She’s not our baby.

Diane sobbed. She is, she sobbed, she is.

Wednesday morning, Adam was sitting at Audrey and Nick’s kitchen table. It was a light morning. Summer was stretching itself out upon these tragic days.

Audrey had arrived at work and sat down at her desk, and her manager had come in immediately.

“I need to talk to you about the Bennetts. Mum took off last night and left the kids with grandpa for the third time this month.” Audrey stared at the woman with blind eyes. “He’s a convicted paedophile,” Vanessa said, monotone, but she looked more closely at Audrey. “What’s wrong?”

“My best friend died,” Audrey said.

“Jesus, are you all right? Go home. We can cover you.” Even her forehead was concerned. “I’m so sorry. Go home and look after yourself.”

“Thanks,” Audrey had said, and picked up her handbag, and left.

Nick wasn’t working until six that evening, and when Audrey arrived home he was sitting in the kitchen with Adam.

Adam was red-eyed. He shivered and shuddered and once or twice he gagged.

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” he said brokenly. Nick got up and made them all some tea. “We all saw her on Sunday night. She stayed over at my place, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t realise.”

“None of us did, mate,” Nick said.

“Yeah, but you’d fucken’ think somebody—she changed, somebody should have noticed. There were probably all these warning signs and we just ignored them.” Audrey felt a hand take hers. Nick. She realised she’d been holding her breath and exhaled quickly. She’d thought she was going to say something reassuring, but she just gasped.

“Her poor parents.” They would never get over it.

Adam covered his face and let out an animal noise. Audrey instinctively reached out and touched his arm, but he drew back.

“Jesus, Audrey. Why aren’t you crying? This is sad! Didn’t she know what she was doing?” he yelled wretchedly. “She’s—so—selfish!” He would not let Audrey hold him; he leaned against the bench with one hand over his face and sobbed.

This was half the tragedy; the grief that wound itself quietly, ceaselessly, into the fabric of their lives. Nobody would remember all the funny things Katy had ever said, or the happy times, for months at least: they would be too wound up in the horror of it all. Even to her parents and closest friends, she had become a dark blur. She was not recognisable as theirs any longer.

Audrey and Nick stood close at the wake. He was himself, talking to friends with an arm around her. Un vrai gentilhomme, her mother always said. Audrey knew he was overcome. She had seen him standing torturously, with his hands in his pockets outside the church, but he had been the one to hold her as the montage of Katy played. They didn’t really talk about it, but she knew he was still shocked.

And Audrey? Standing next to him in black, she felt the devastation leaking in. The sensation was draining from her hands, and she felt slow-moving and enervated.

“Are you alright?” he asked when they were alone.

“Yes,” she said, standing before him. He watched her watching all the people and touched her shoulder.

~~~

When an elderly person dies, nobody is shocked. They may be surprised, but only momentarily. The old man was eighty-four. He’d had a good life. His children and grandchildren may weep, but they are encouraged by the good memories, long days spent with footballs and cricket bats, tea and biscuits after school, the phrases—“As useless as a hip pocket on a singlet”, somebody will say, and everyone will laugh and remember when granddad used to say that.

When a twenty-three year old woman—girl—dies, the ramifications are enormous. Katy weighed her body and waded out and when she sank, her body left ripples that pulsated all the way to the shore. Her parents and sister and extended family, her poor grandparents. All their friends, some of them remembered Katy as a naked and exultant two-year-old, streaking through the sprinkler; some of them barely knew her. Her own friends, namely Adam, Audrey, Nick and Amie, but also friends at uni, colleagues at the café where she waited tables, the regular customers who asked after her. Jarrod, the boy she had been seeing. The bus driver who found her, and his wife; the paramedics and attending police officers. They all felt the change in current when she dropped out of the earth.

The elderly man’s grandchildren might eulogise him: “He left big shoes to fill.”

Katy left a mass of unoccupied space that could not be filled by anyone.

In these weeks, they all danced around the void, the black hole. Would it threaten to suck somebody else in?