The Game You Played (8 page)

Thursday morning

LUKE INSISTED ON STAYING HOME WITH me today. He didn’t dress for work.

I didn’t want him here. I needed time alone to think.

He brushed his teeth at the sink as I finished my shower. Tucking a towel around myself, I walked from the shower and kissed him on the cheek. “No, you need to go. I’m okay. I’ll call you if anything else happens.”

Looking at my reflection in the mirror, he shook his head then bent to rinse out the toothpaste. “I’m not going.” He dabbed his mouth with a towel. “Phoebe, you really worried me when I found you like that in Tommy’s room.”

“It was just a dream.”

“I know, but this whole thing with the letters is really getting to you.”

“Yeah, it is, and I didn’t sleep well. But I’ll have a long nap today. I’ll be fine.”

“Look, I’m staying. I’m getting another alarm system. The one we have never worked properly.”

“Okay,” I said softly, and I hugged him from behind. Luke had his mind made up, and I knew I couldn’t change it. We caught sight of each other again in the mirror. We smiled, but the smiles seemed
obligatory
. Did Luke see what I did? Sometimes, we were like strangers, just going through the motions of being a married couple. Were all couples like this? You realised that the person that had lit up your life was also the one throwing shadows on all your other possibilities.

I hated it when those thoughts slipped in. He was my husband, and he’d been my rock. I needed to remember that.

Luke stayed until the time was late enough for the hardware store to open, then he headed out. He’d insisted that he was going to buy an alarm system.

Alone in the house, I felt a shift inside myself, a recalibration.

Something important happened in my dream last night. What was it?

My head was so, so hazy. I had to remember.

I sat myself down on the edge of the sofa.

Yesterday, after Trent Gilroy left our house, I’d had the words to the second letter hanging in my mind like a dark cloud. Trent had spoken of different possibilities—of a random person wanting attention, of a grudge against Luke, of a stupid prank. It wasn’t any of those things. The letters were for me. Only for me. The person, whoever they were, knew me. Those words, they were intended to wound. In the two years that I’d had Tommy, I’d never felt like a
good mother
. Sometimes, I hadn’t even wanted to
be
a mother. I used to see the mothers in the street and at my mothers’ group (with their doting voices and their full schedules of mother/baby activities) and think that Tommy would rather be with any one of those mothers than me. He’d run off and never look back.

Someone, somehow, knew all of that about me.

And if this person was someone who knew me, then I knew
them
.

Surely, some part of me must already know who they were.

I’d barely spoken to Bernice since I was sixteen. But Nan spoke about me to Bernice’s mother all the time. Just like Mrs Wick spoke about Bernice to Nan and Nan passed that information onto me. Bernice could know more about me than anyone, besides Luke and Nan.

But I needed some proof. And I had none.

But the dreams—the dreams were sending me clues.

The night before last, Tommy had taken me all the way back to the exact place he’d gone missing. And the wizard man had given me a moth (injured).

There was a thread running through everything. I just had to grab hold of the end and unspool it.

Last night I’d taken the sleeping tablets. I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t do that again, but the letters had changed everything. My dreams might show me what my conscious mind could not. Beforehand, I’d hidden the deadlock key to make sure I couldn’t get out of the house. In case I wandered.

In my dream, Tommy visited his bedroom, and he’d wanted to play trains. He always used to ask me to play trains with him, but I rarely did. Last night, while we were playing, he was laughing, excited. Then, somehow, the old homeless wizard man had found his way up into Tommy’s room. He’d handed me an object—an eyeball.

An eyeball.

I sat up straight on the sofa. That was what I’d forgotten. The eyeball. It had looked around wildly in the palm of my hand. Startled, I’d dropped it. It’d rolled away, disappearing through the floorboards. Tommy had run from the room then, and I’d desperately chased after him.

Why had the dream given me
that
? I wanted a clue—a real clue.

When I’d woken from the dream, I’d been in Luke’s arms, at the top of the stairs. He’d looked at me like I was a strange thing, and he’d spoken about taking me to see Dr Moran. I’d lied that I’d seen her recently. I hadn’t. I’d done my best to reassure him, to make love to him like a wife would. I didn’t want him to call her.

I felt jittery. Exhausted and jittery at the same time.

Grabbing my jacket from the hall cupboard, I decided to head out. I’d go down to the café and check the noticeboard. Just in case.

Luke had made me promise to leave all that to the police. But I couldn’t wait. I’d had six months of waiting and leaving things to the police.

I stood before the hallstand mirror, running my fingers through my hair.

My eyes came to rest upon the notebook that we kept on the stand for messages.
I should start taking a notebook with me everywhere. Train myself to notice everything and everyone. And take notes.

When the phone pealed out from the hallstand, it seemed like the sound was clanging around inside my head. It was Nan. Wanting me to come and help her dust the house. Her
frozen shoulder
was preventing her from lifting her arms above her head.

I wanted to tell her no. But if I did, she’d bring it up in conversations for the next month. And dusting wouldn’t take long. I’d told her I’d be straight down.

Slipping the notebook and a pen into my pocket, I headed out the door.

The fog was so thick this morning, I couldn’t see the water at the end of the street.

I didn’t even notice Bernice Wick in her front garden—deadheading the roses that her mother seemed to have decided she was never going to prune—until I was just a short distance away. Giving me a guarded look, Bernice rose heavily to her feet and plodded inside. In the dark hallway of number 27, she turned her head and watched me walk past.

With a glance back at her, I walked on into Nan’s house.
I’m watching you, too, Bernice.

Nan was batting at the dust on her shelves with a cloth, her thin body swaying unsteadily.

It was so like Nan to be up first thing in the morning doing her housework. But I didn’t know why she bothered. It wasn’t as though she ever had a full day of activities planned. After getting up at six and cleaning, she’d spend the rest of the day in her armchair, watching TV and doing puzzles.

“I need to get at the dirt on top of the picture rails and the bookshelves,” she said in a stressed tone, as though it were a matter of critical urgency.

“Sure. What happened to your long-handled duster?”

“Broke it trying to get a damned spider web out of the fireplace.”

The fireplace, clogged with soot and leaves, hadn’t been used in decades. Nan used a small bar heater and a blanket for warmth during winter.

“Do you still have the duster?”

“Yes, it’s in the broom cupboard.”

“I’ll see if I can fix it. There used to be lots of spare handles out in the shed.” I started towards the hall that led to the courtyard.

“No, Phoebe,” she called after me. “Don’t worry yourself. I thought you were tall enough to reach with the cloth, that’s all.”

I stopped in the hallway. “I’m not six feet tall, Nan.”

She hurried after me as I continued out to the courtyard, grabbing my elbow. “Don’t worry about it, I told you. None of them would fit.”

Twisting around, I shrugged at her. “I’ll use some electrical tape or something.”

“I’ve lost the key to the shed anyway.”

Sighing, I returned down the hall and picked up a stool from the kitchen.

Nan seated herself in her armchair, casting stony looks at me while I cleaned the dust from the picture rails from the stool.

“Bernice hasn’t been well,” she said finally. “Intestinal trouble. Bit of pain and bringing up her food.”

Her intestines are probably in knots from thinking sour thoughts all the time. Maybe even from sending me terrible letters.
“Nan, too many details.”

“Why don’t you go see her? You two used to be friends.”

“Not really, Nan. We were never good friends. And we haven’t talked for ages.”

“You could make an effort.”

“I don’t have a reason to make an effort.”

She sank back into silence. The entire house sank into silence. I suddenly wanted to be away from here. Away from the musty quiet and old memories tightly locked away in rooms and photo boxes and bric-a-brac.

I turned around to Nan. “All done. Is there anything else?”

“No, that’s all. I might do my crosswords now. And I won’t want any banging around.”

So, my cleaning your house is just me banging around?

I hesitated, wanting to tell her about the letters, but her mention of Bernice had put me on edge. Better not to mention them yet, in case she told Mrs Wick. “Okay, then I’ll head home.”

She just nodded her head without looking up, already engaged in her puzzle.

But I wasn’t going home. I was going straight to the café to check the noticeboard and keep watch.

Outside Nan’s house, Bernice Wick walked past, heading in the direction of the harbour.

Thursday morning

I HAD A FOLDER OF PHOTOS of Phoebe that she knew nothing about.

I kept the folder at the office, locked in a bottom drawer: all the pictures I took of her when we were growing up, at parties we went to, at trips we went on.

I’d dropped in at the office just after buying the home alarm system. Rob had called me about an issue with a client’s sale. The buyer had pulled out of the sale, and the client was screaming bloody murder. It was Rob’s sale, but I had a couple of possible alternative buyers on file—I just needed to look them up.

With the client now somewhat sedated by the thought of new buyers and a possible better price (Rob had undervalued the property) I’d headed into my office for a breather.

Not knowing why, I pulled out the photos from the bottom drawer and started flipping through them.

Maybe this folder represented my fantasy world. A lifetime of memories of Phoebe in a fictional life where she had always been mine and mine only.

Photos of Phoebe at Bondi Beach. Photos of Phoebe in nightclubs. Photos of Phoebe that she’d sent me when she backpacked China. I didn’t keep the photos in which any of her dates or boyfriends had been in the frame. Because that would have destroyed the illusion.

I grinned at the picture of Phoebe at Pria’s baby’s first birthday party. Pria had only been twenty when she became pregnant with Jessie. The father of Jessie had run off to New Zealand before Jessie was even born. In the photo, Phoebe was balancing baby Jessie on her knees, but she looked damned awkward.

Phoebe was always awkward with small children, even years later, when we had Tommy. She didn’t seem to quite know how to play with him. Neither did I, for that matter, but those things were supposed to come instinctively to women. Weren’t they? I admit that I was too focused on my business, on securing the deal and making the sale. On ensuring that my family was going to have the good life. Often, I was too tired at night to sit on the floor and play mindless games with toy cars and plastic dinosaurs.

I pictured Phoebe in Tommy’s room last night playing trains with him in her sleep. I didn’t know which was more surprising: the fact that my wife was sleepwalking or the fact that she was playing toddler games with Tommy with an actual smile on her face.

At the time I married Phoebe, I thought I had everything in place. It wasn’t perfect, but all the pieces were there. What I didn’t understand about Phoebe was that she was a moving target. I never had her
in place
.

Everything about the harbour and this street reminded me of Phoebe. I first moved to this street when I was eight. My grandfather on my mother’s side of the family had been ill, and my parents moved in to help care for him.

As soon as my parents had stopped the car outside the terrace house that was to become my home, I’d torn away and gone exploring.

Sass and Phoebe had been together in Sass’s front yard, hammering together a billycart made of old pieces of wood. Sass was a cute blonde with an upturned nose. Phoebe, with her ponytail and serious eyes, wasn’t beautiful yet, but something about her when she squinted up at me grabbed hold of me.

The two of them had been making the billycart all wrong.

I’d taken the hammer from Phoebe and tried to help them.

Phoebe stood up and pushed me, telling me that I just thought they were doing it wrong because they were girls and I was a boy. But that wasn’t true. I could see that the wheels weren’t going to turn properly on their axles. But Phoebe couldn’t admit that. And then Sass stood beside Phoebe and told me to get lost.

I came back the next day with a new tactic—a can of red paint and paintbrush I’d stolen from my dad’s shed. The girls didn’t let me paint the billycart though. They grabbed the paint and did the job themselves. The thing actually rolled along just fine, in the end. It was just that the way I’d seen them putting it together didn’t make sense to me.

I was on the outer of Sass and Phoebe for the first month. I’d turn up and hang around until they pushed me out. Eventually, they let me in.

About a year after that, Pria and Kate got free passes into the group. Because they were girls. And because they had money. Their families were rich. That meant tickets to the movies and buying stashes of food at the local cafés. Bernice got in by stealth. She just appeared whenever we were out in the street doing stuff. No one invited her. She barely spoke, which is probably what saved her.

Life went on like that for years. They were the best years.

Until I turned twelve and realised that my friends were five females. (Yes, so I’d already known that, but those five females hadn’t been rapidly morphing into women before. And I hadn’t rapidly been becoming a hormone-infused male.)

I wasn’t proud that I’d tried kissing all of them at various times. It was Phoebe I wanted—it was always Phoebe—but if I couldn’t have her, then one of the others would have to do. I got rejected by all of them, except Bernice, but after I kissed her I decided I didn’t want to go in for round two. Trying to kiss the girls put me on the outer of the group again. I was Georgie Porgie.

With each year that passed, the girls made less sense to me. Just like the day when I watched Sass and Phoebe put the billycart together. The teenage Sass, Phoebe, Kate, and Pria were interested in boys that were not me. Even though I was the one that was there and available.

Things changed around the time I turned sixteen. I had a growth spurt that made me sprout taller than any of the girls. I grew stubble, and my voice deepened, and my legs developed a new swagger.

The girls started looking at me differently. They acted differently towards me. I became their collective boyfriend. One that they practiced with.

Sass and I were a thing for a while. The whole thing fizzled after two months—mostly because I didn’t want to be what Sass wanted me to be. She wanted some kind of brooding, romantic figure. Then it was Pria—Pria and I hooked up at a party, drunk on bourbon. Six weeks later, she had a late period and two blue lines on a pregnancy test. A month after that, it was all over. A miscarriage. We were off the hook, both of us so relieved and ecstatic we were in tears. She didn’t want much to do with me after that—too scared of another pregnancy. The next cab off the rank was Kate, when I was eighteen. We lasted a whole year, even living together. Kate was starting to get her first gigs as a model then. She made doubly sure that no pregnancy bump was going to distort her figure. Things went sour when she found a photo of Phoebe in my wallet and asked me straight out if I would be with Phoebe if I could. I’d taken too long to answer, and she’d guessed the answer for herself.

After that, the girls all took off to university. Not me. I stayed here, kicking around in a few dead-end jobs. My parents bailed me out of a few holes here and there.

Then I saw her again. Phoebe. I was at a mate’s house. There was a group of us. Drinking. Thinking about women. Cursing about women. Bragging about women. The usual.

An Australian movie started on the TV. At the beginning, there was a scene of a girl out on a lake with her boyfriend, in a rowboat. The boat overturned when the man stood, and the girl fell in the water, drowning, caught up in reeds beneath the water. The girl was Phoebe. Watching her drown provoked a visceral reaction in me.

I called her up that night. She said she was mostly doing commercials and getting bit parts in movies here and there. She was seeing some actor slash musician guy, but her focus was on her studies. She was going to leave for London once her study at the Australian Film Institute finished.

I needed a plan.

First I borrowed a sizable amount of money from my parents and conjured up a small real estate business. I cleaned myself up, stopped drinking, and got myself a decent wardrobe of clothes. I took on a friend as a business partner—Rob—who’d been working as a junior real estate agent at the time. With his basic knowledge and my bravado, we faked having a wealth of expertise. We were hungry, and we worked harder and longer than anyone else. I packed money away like a squirrel packing nuts in its cheeks.

Eighteen months later, Phoebe had made the move to London. She said she was happy. She’d met a new man—another actor—aptly named Flynn. She and Flynn were doing stage performances together. They were dirt poor and sharing a tiny flat, but I could hear the undercurrent of excitement in her voice. They’d already been to France and Germany together. Life for her had become an adventure. I wasn’t part of that adventure.

I hated Flynn instantly.

After that, I’d look up the performances that she told me Flynn would be in, and I’d call her when I knew he wouldn’t be around. I wanted her all to myself.

Then came the day she didn’t sound the same. I was too stupid at first to know that she was holding back the tears. Flynn had scored a small movie role in Ireland, and he was away on set. He’d called her and told her that he loved her but he needed some space. He’d asked if she wanted to explore an open relationship. He’d told her his feelings for her wouldn’t change.

I knew what that meant. It was guy code for
I want you, but I want other girls too. But I’m probably not going to be able to handle seeing you with another man. So how about I leave you dangling on a string while you let me see other girls? In return, I promise not to leave you.

I knew because I’d had the same thoughts myself, the year I was with Kate. Not that I’d actually gone ahead with verbalising the prospect of an open relationship to her. I didn’t know if I’d really want to do it.

I caught a flight to London the next day.

Being in the real estate game had taught me one thing—to move on an opportunity the instant it presented itself.

On the pretext of me
being a friend
to Phoebe and needing her to show me around London, we dined out at night and caught art shows during the day. I went to every show she did. I bunked in with her, sleeping on the floor. Until the night I took Phoebe to a bar and bought her every cocktail known to mankind.

Flynn had called her at the start of that night, to apologise, saying he was flying back from Ireland especially to see her. He was coming tomorrow. She’d dissolved into tears, but I didn’t give her time to think too long about him.

When Phoebe and I had returned to the apartment, I’d pretended to take a call on her apartment phone from a strange woman looking for Flynn, calling the phone from my mobile. I told Phoebe the woman had called herself Flynn’s girlfriend.

Phoebe and I woke up in bed together the next morning.

When Flynn came to the door in the morning, it was me who answered it. I told him to
fuck off
, in those exact words.

I left Rob managing the real estate business for the next three months. I wasn’t going to allow Flynn to weasel his way back in. I’d have risked everything not to let that happen. Even my business. Now, it was Phoebe and I who were doing Europe together, not Phoebe and Flynn.

That guy would have hurt her over and over again.

By the time Phoebe realised she was pregnant, she was already two and a half months in. She was terrified, but from my point of view, things couldn’t have worked out better.

We married in England in the spring, in a little stone church in the countryside. My parents, Sass, Kate, and Pria flew over for the ceremony. I offered to pay for Phoebe’s grandmother, but she said she’d only be persuaded to fly to the ends of the earth for a funeral.