Everything Changes by Stephanie Johnson

Author:Stephanie Johnson [Johnson, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780143775546
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2013-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

I’M IN AIDAN’S ROOM LOOKING at what used to be Aidan. Why here and why now? I almost say it aloud, and thank Christ I don’t because Col is weeping and saying over and over again, ‘The poor man, the poor, poor man,’ and I can’t stand it.

Long last she goes out into the passageway where she is engulfed by light, a pearly glare from high cloud beyond the glass wall. I open the window above the bed for some fresh air, bend to examine the pattern of pills on the bedside table and manage to avert my gaze from the white mask on the pillow until Col gets back with a sheet.

Cover him up, Col.

Hurry.

And she does, with the white sheet, and the face is supplanted by the face of the only other dead man I’ve ever seen — a bloke on a building site years ago, during my apprenticeship, who fell four floors to land not far from where I was working. The impact made the ground quake under my feet and the corpse’s surprised expression was forever seared into my brain. A roofer, in the days before safety harnesses. I didn’t know him.

Different when it’s someone you knew — or did I know Aidan? Can’t recall exchanging more than a few words with him. The famous writer came to the retreat to make the ultimate retreat.

‘Bloody hell.’

‘What?’ Col’s upturned face is solemn and teary.

‘He came here to do this. He planned it all along.’

Infinitesimally Col shakes her head. She breaks her gaze to turn around and point at one of the pills, peach-coloured and oval. ‘Amitriptyline.’

‘How do you know that?’

She points — the labelled bottle is lying on its side. The other pills are all colours, like sweets.

‘That’s Sevredol, a type of morphine.’ I mean the green pills. ‘Mum had them towards the end.’

‘The poor, poor man,’ Col says, yet again.

‘Poor, poor us.’ My sympathy ebbs a little. ‘Why did he choose us?’

Col goes to pick up the tablets.

‘Don’t touch anything! This is a crime scene.’

‘Crime scene? But you can see he …’ She means the pills. ‘He made a mistake with his medication.’

‘Or someone else did.’ Why hasn’t it occurred to her? She’s the writer after all, the one with the imagination. Supposedly. You didn’t need much of an imagination to see how crook the Yank was. Or is he Australian? Was.

Col is staring at the figure under the white sheet and her mouth is forming a small O and she’s going a funny colour. I get an arm around her just in time to take her weight as her knees sag. She’s groping for the chair.

‘No, Col. Shouldn’t touch anything. Probably shouldn’t’ve even covered him up.’

‘But who would want to hurt Aidan? It’s only the six of us here.’

I’m thinking about the storm during the night, the drinking to celebrate Muzza’s return, and how our senses would have been muffled and dulled. How I wouldn’t have been able to hear an intruder or a struggle from the living quarters at the far end of the building.

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