Radiant Heat by Sarah-Jane Collins

Author:Sarah-Jane Collins [Collins, Sarah-Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-23T00:00:00+00:00

20.

It was dark out there, and the light didn’t work, so it was difficult to make out the shape of a person in the shadows. But Alison could see immediately that it was a woman. She saw Luca’s whole body relax.

“Christine. Shit. Why are you knocking? You woke up the girls.” As she spoke Luca stepped back, enough to let his wife through the door. Alison shrank into the wall as Christine pushed past her.

“Left my keys and my bloody phone in the office like an idiot. Alison, good to see you again.” The words didn’t match the tone, or the look Christine shot Alison as she moved into the hall and up the stairs toward her crying daughters. Luca pushed the door shut, made sure it was dead bolted.

“Give us a minute, Ally, I’ll be back soon.” He bounded up the stairs behind his wife, leaving Alison alone in the hallway. The glass in the door looked out on a quiet street. She could see the soft outlines of the lights, the cars parked at the curb, the trees swaying in the slight summer breeze. She retreated to the kitchen, went back to nursing her cuts. Upstairs she could hear the lullabies, and then the hushed argument of the house’s adult residents enticed her back out into the hallway. These old Sydney terrace houses didn’t allow for much privacy.

“Ah, come on, you’re the one who woke the girls. Don’t be a fucking stick-in-the-mud. She’s my friend. She needs a place to crash. Be a little more generous.” Luca’s tone was placating.

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“You fucking know. Don’t make me the problem when you’re the one inviting a strange woman to stay at our house on a Wednesday like it’s no big thing.”

“Don’t be such a killjoy, Christine. Strange woman? She was at our wedding. She needs my help.”

“Alison is a person you have trouble saying no to.”

“Come off it.”

“You can’t bear for her to think you’re not cool. But, Luca, my love, you’re not cool. You’re a dad. You make puns. You are a middle-class, middle-of-the-road guy. You drink Corona with lime like it’s fancy. It’s not fancy.”

“I know that. I don’t care about that.”

“You do.” Alison heard her laugh. “You looked actually wounded when I accused you of being middle-class just then.”

“Corona is off-limits, OK? You’ve gone too far.” His voice was playful now, light and sweet. In the dim hallway light Alison could see their shadows dance softly on the double-height cream plaster. They moved closer together, the lines around them merging in the middle. She heard the smack of lips on skin. “I also have trouble saying no to you.”

“That’s entirely appropriate. I’m your wife.” She spoke now with begrudging warmth. On the wall their heads had become one giant bauble, engulfing their individuality. Alison strained to hear their murmurs now. Felt on her brow the uncomfortable sweat of eavesdropping and decided to retreat into the kitchen, heard the creak of the stairs, but no one came down.

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