Bluebottle by Belinda Castles

Author:Belinda Castles [Belinda Castles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2018-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

BOXING DAY

Jack’s muddy shirt sucked at his chest and he held it away from him, revolted, as he opened the downstairs doors. His breathing was still hard. The messy grey water had surged over the fallen rocks as his weight bent the branches of the shrubs on the cliff. There was no time to be scared until afterwards, until he was pulling Phoebe back, his fingers prodding her stomach, the sea foaming below.

Her plump dejected figure lingered on the lawn; he couldn’t look at her. A couple of damp beach towels hung on a hook in the laundry behind the den; he grabbed them and went back out to her. She didn’t turn at the sound of the sliding door. A gap between fronts cast the beach and sea in strange colours, the wet orange sand a deeper shade than usual, like the dirt out at Broken Hill. The water was a murky pale green. Rain spread in a slick across his face.

Lou’s face, down at the shops, as she held up that necklace. See? Proof.

He felt as though he were being forced to run in the dark, plunging forwards without any idea of what was around him, under him. He grasped hold of a habit: think the worst thing. Take it, throw it out to sea.

He approached Phoebe’s hunched back, his bare feet sliding in the mud, could see how bad she felt and wanted to show her that he forgave her, that as bad as it felt, he knew that something so scary couldn’t come from anything she had meant to do. He wasn’t quite ready yet though; he needed to think through this other thing first.

Let’s say it’s true, he thought, this disgusting notion that Charlie had something to do with Monica never coming home, that he was, as Lou said, weird about girls. Just for a minute he would try to see it. Memories of Charlie leaning over Louisa’s friends, flirting with waitresses, were stored safely in his brain, as many as he could possibly require, ready for vivid recall. What had Mum been saying to Don about him? And talking to Monica out on the lawn. How many times? Plenty of times. As she left for school, as she came home from hockey matches on weekends with her long socks and her brutal-looking stick.

No one would ever go near her, would they, if she had that stick with her? It gave her a fierceness, backed by heavy wood, designed to be wielded. He hoped she had had it, at the same time as he knew it made no difference now what he hoped, that there was something skewed about his logic, wanting now to give her a weapon when that moment had already passed and what was done was already done.

Phoebe seemed to be standing at an odd angle, the beach rising up to meet her. It was on him, the feeling, faster than ever, no time to sort out his breathing, have a word with himself, focus on the horizon.

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