Moonlight Sonata by Eileen Merriman

Author:Eileen Merriman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780143773467
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2013-04-07T16:00:00+00:00

And now it’s late, so late, and it’s just Molly and her twin left on the front balcony.

Joe tilts his wrist. ‘Look, it’s New Year’s Eve.’

Molly blinks at his watch. The short hand is on the twelve, the long hand on the one.

‘The witching hour,’ he says. ‘Do you want to go for a walk?’

‘I think I’m too drunk,’ she says, tipping her head back against the chair. ‘Sorry.’ In the distance, she hears a car backfiring. Every sound seems magnified here, resonating about the echo chamber of Tern Bay.

Wicked wicked wicked.

‘Come on,’ Joe says, touching the back of her neck. ‘How often do you get to go for a walk with me?’

Molly focuses on him. ‘Richard wants to leave tomorrow,’ she says.

Joe’s arm falls away, but his eyes remain on hers. ‘And are you?’

She shakes her head, but Joe doesn’t look away. The words rush out, as though he can’t keep them inside any longer. ‘Two years was too bloody long, Lolly.’

Molly can hardly stand to look at him anymore. She rises to her feet, ignoring the spinning in her head.

‘Fuck, Joe, I was trying to — I was trying to make a new start, OK? We both were.’

‘And has it worked?’ Joe is right behind her, following down the steps and across the front lawn. So much for not going for a walk.

‘In some ways yes, and other ways no.’ She sticks to the grass verge, her feet still city-soft. As kids, they’d go all summer without shoes. ‘I don’t think Noah’s forgiven me for taking him away from his girlfriend. Although she’s come to visit a couple of times, which is something.’

‘Long-distance relationships don’t last forever,’ Joe says, and she feels a plunging sensation in her gut.

‘What are you saying?’ The moon has washed the bay in shades of grey. She feels as if she has been transported back into one of the black-and-white photographs her grandparents stuck so carefully into their albums.

‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘I’m not saying anything.’ He speeds up ahead of her. Molly’s got half a mind to turn around and head back to the house, but then she’d have to go to bed, to Richard, and it’s the last thing she feels like doing. So she trails behind her twin, trying to breathe past the sandpaper sensation in her throat.

When they reach the beach, they stand with their feet in the water, listening to the metallic rasp of sea on shells.

‘So, tell me,’ Joe says, ‘has the move to Australia worked for you and Richard?’

Molly chews her bottom lip. ‘No,’ she says, after three more waves, ‘I don’t believe it has. But he wants — he wants us to go to Paris. For a, I don’t know, second honeymoon.’

‘And what do you want?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘Why should you care anyway? You’ve always hated him.’

His voice cool, Joe says, ‘I don’t hate him,’ but she knows he’s lying.

‘What about you?’ Molly asks after a short silence. ‘What’s on the horizon for you this year?’ As soon as the words are out, she feels a mixture of hope and dread.

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