February 15th
Terrified that you’ve disappeared, or that I only imagined you, I pull on cargo pants and boots, and head back to Banksia Drive. Out the car window on the way, I see galahs in eucalypts, and the Swan River glinting like a fish. It is too beautiful out there for me to fade away in a hotel room alone.
This time, I park at the end of the street. From here, I can see that the curtains on number 31 are still closed. I wind my window down and smell sweet frangipani flowers. After an hour or so, the front door opens to let in a small, tabby-coloured cat. You’d never let a cat in anywhere, so it must have been her, that woman. I think of her skinny legs and wonder whether she shaved them for when you got out, what else she did to prepare for your arrival…My phone beeps.
Miss you darling. How’s it going?
Mum would pick now, wouldn’t she? There is no kiss after her message this time. She’s hurt I haven’t contacted her more often, worried I’ve forgotten her. It’s a jolt to remember Greece, and the lies I’ve told.
Everything is fine. I’m going on a smaller island expedition soon, so I won’t be in contact much unfortunately. It’s great here. Thanks for encouraging me to come.
She replies immediately:
Proud of you darling. Keep in touch. X
And there it is, the x. The endorsement. I imagine her hovering beside her phone, waiting for me to type the next bit too. So, I do.
Thanks Mum x
Transaction complete. She’s put the phone back in her handbag now, satisfied. Her daughter is as she should be. I sigh and rest my head against the window frame, my temples throbbing.
I tried to articulate this to Rhiannon—how I must be grateful for everything Mum has done for me, even grateful for her pride; grateful that she is somehow responsible for all that is good inside me. How it’s either that, or Mum withholds her love entirely. There are so many different conditions for love, and loving someone might be the most complicated thing there is—always a transaction of some sort. You’re not all that different from Mum. You thought you were making me into what you wanted me to be. You wanted me to be grateful too.
I glance up, put my phone down on the seat. The front door of 31 Banksia Drive is open again, and now you’re standing on the threshold, looking out, a cigarette in your fingertips. You haven’t given that up, I see. Slowly, you bring it to your mouth and suck its glowing poison inside you. You could be looking at the desert from the veranda of your den, watching the horizon for change. I run my eyes over you: you’re wearing a well-worn blue shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal your bare arms, scruffy stonewashed jeans, sunglasses perched on your head. You look so ordinary. At least you’ve trimmed your beard and washed your hair. After flicking the butt into an empty pot plant, youreach back into the doorway and grab a small backpack, shut the door behind you, and you’re on the move.
I slink down in the seat as you pass by on the other side of the road. I feel like a crocodile, my eyes above the water, holding my breath. This is the closest I’ve been to you for over ten years and I’m not sure how to take you in. It would only need a slight turn of your head for you to see me. And why don’t you expect me to be here, Ty? Did you think I’d forget so easily?
You’re walking faster today, your shoulders pulled back. Your eyes are still blue as jays’ wings; but you look so thin, as if there is no muscle left on your body. What happened behind those bars for you to end up so gaunt?
At the end of the road, you turn right, and, after a few minutes, I start the car and follow. I think of the woman you’ve left in the house, of her lips on your neck, her hand on your hipbone. You’ve left her behind.
Again, you get on a bus and, again, I follow it down the highway, but in the other direction this time, towards the city. After about twenty minutes, you get off outside a tired-looking shopping centre. It’s harder to keep my eyes on you amid the traffic and pedestrians. No one else pays you the slightest bit of attention. It’s easy, isn’t it, to pass unnoticed, to be a wolf among sheep? I know that feeling of walking along a busy road carrying something dark inside: a secret no one else sees. Watching you weave through the crowd, I almost swerve into a cyclist. I curse and pull myself together, then park the car carefully in a side street. I put on some dark-red lip-gloss and shake my short hair out so that it spikes at the ends like a manga character. I pull my sunglasses down from the top of my head and jam them against my eyes.
A chat. One conversation. It’s not much to ask for.
I’ve come all this way, after all.
I put the small knife inside my cargo pants pocket, just in case. By the time I walk back to the main road, I’m worried I’ve lost you. My first thought is that you’ve cottoned onto me and now you’re waiting, somewhere further along the street in a doorway, ready to confront me first. I walk faster, my eyes darting everywhere. When I get to an intersection, I stop. On the corner to the left is a police station. Possible? The sign at the entrance is a list of services and when my eyes snag on the wordsCommunity Corrections Centre, I remember the victim-notification letter. You’re meant to check in as a condition of your parole. And here you are, doing it.
A fresh, new start. A fresh, new you.
I haven’t given you the benefit of the doubt.
I wait with my back pressed against the wall of a newsagent, opposite the police station, my sunglasses firmly down. Soon enough, I see I’m right. You come out the door and stand on the steps, looking at the road for a moment, before you turn and walk. I move fast to follow. Almost immediately, you take the first entrance into a park. I should run across the road and tap you on the shoulder. But I hang back. Not yet. What is wrong with me? This is what I came here for, isn’t it?
I walk along the edge of the park, peering in. Soon, I lose sight of you, and I panic again. Now I have another thought: maybe you didn’t go to the police station to check in, but rather, to tell them about me. You’ve known I’ve been watching you; now I’ll be accused of stalking. I glance behind me—no police cars following.
What are you doing in a park?
I’m tense as I go through the gates, sweating, but I pull my hoodie over my head anyway. I weave between the flowerbeds, past a pond and a big grassy area surrounded by tall trees. There you are, only a couple of metres away on a park bench.
Even with your darker, longer hair, I recognise the back of your head. I take a step to the side so I can see your cheek too, your scar. I haven’t forgotten your story about that scar, or when you told it to me—on one calm, warm evening on the veranda of the den. It happened after your dad died, and you were running from men who were trying to catch you, wild boy that you were. They used a net on you, as if they were catching an animal, and it slammed down over your face. Once caught, you were punished, one of the many times you were hit as a child.
I take another small step, angling myself to see better. Now I can see your eyes behind the sunglasses, your lips moving. You’re talking to someone? I’ve been so focused on you I hadn’t noticed the second person on the bench. When I move my gaze from you to see who it is, I go very, very still. You’re talking to a girl. A teenager. With long dark hair, wearing a school uniform. She must be about sixteen. She looks like me, how I used to look when you took me.
I turn around, looking for someone to tell.
Why are you doing this? Does she realise who you are?