‘It could have been an old affair,’ she replied, but his comment had penetrated the fug of her thoughts.
‘True,’ Mark agreed. ‘But at the end of the day, you won’t know until you ask him, will you?’
29
When Alex stormed back into the lounge again, his expression was thunderous.
‘I’m sorry…’ Julia began, unsure of what else to say.
He tried a smile. It didn’t come off. ‘Not your fault.’
‘You really love her,’ she said quietly, feeling a fresh pang of pain, as though she hadn’t quite believed this could be true.
‘Yes.’ He moved across to her, holding her shoulders, watching her until she looked back up at him. She thought he was going to shake her, but instead he just said, ‘Oh, Amy, why the hell didn’t you come back?’
She swung away from him so he couldn’t see her expression. ‘It was complicated,’ she said. ‘After Dad died.’
He ignored her, his voice becoming strident. ‘I saw your mum, Amy – at the funeral. She was a wreck. She had no one.’ She felt herself flinch but if he noticed he didn’t care, his anger was leading the way now. ‘She said she thought you blamed yourself – that was why you stayed away – but how could you -’
Julia swung around, her voice rising to a shout. ‘You think it was easy for me, staying away? Do you think I was sitting someplace sipping a cocktail, painting my nails; that I couldn’t be bothered to go home? It broke me, Alex. I thought I’d been broken before that, but no – it changed every thing… So don’t you dare insinuate that you know what it was like for me…’
‘And do you know what it was like for me, Amy?’ He barked every word at her. ‘I made a promise to you. I kept it for years. I heard nothing. Your mother didn’t want to talk to me after the funeral. I was in limbo. I tried everything. I even thought you were dead. It took years, Amy, before I moved on, and it was a slow and painful decision… and now you walk back into my life, and I’m the one who has to feel guilty as all hell that I broke that promise – but where were you, Amy? Tell me that.’
His words had drained the fight from her. She sat down on his sofa and put her head in her hands. Then took them away in surprise. They were wet. She was crying.
Alex seemed drained too, and slumped next to her. He put his hand on her shoulder, and rubbed it as she sobbed.
Eventually, she whispered into the silence, ‘So, what do we do now?’
She heard Alex take a deep breath. ‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘But before anything else, there’s something I really have to tell you.’
30
She looked at the printouts he’d got from the internet. As he talked to her, he took hold of her hands, stroking them. In response her memories slowly began to unlock themselves. Long-buried images poured out like unstoppable sand, filling her head with fresh pain. His voice became distant.
She was in the darkness again, with voices overhead. She could hear them plainly, as if it were still happening. She could see them looking down at her; blurry faces with blackened eyes. Noxious breath as they leaned in, staring. She was disorientated at the suddenness of it all, but as the panic kicked in and hands came towards her she had to get away…
She suddenly jolted. She had to move, right now. She pushed the hands away, all her focus on the door.
‘AMY! AMY!’
The hands were still there. She flailed and kicked desperately until she realised she was just fighting the air.
She blinked, trying to focus.
Alex was watching her, horrified. She was so embarrassed that now her tears came in a torrent of release, and she heaved herself over to a chair and folded into it, sucking in oxygen.
She felt a glass pushed into her hand, and took sips of cool water, beginning to feel calmer.
‘Amy, Jesus…’ Alex was saying.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled.
‘It’s okay.’ He crouched near her but he didn’t touch her again.
She thought back to what he’d told her. ‘You mean it’s happening now?’
‘Yes, I’ve checked it all out. It’s almost over, I think. It’s quite high profile over there.’
And then she realised what had to be done.
‘I have to go back,’ she told him, shocked at herself as she heard her own words.
Alex turned his face away from her, towards the door, saying nothing. For some reason his silence only strengthened her resolve. ‘I have to, Al. I need to. Confronting this could be a way for me to get a grip on my life again,’ she told him fiercely. ‘It might be the only way.’
Still Alex was silent. Still he kept his face turned away.
She paused, bit her lip, then murmured, ‘I don’t know if I can do it alone.’
She kept watching the back of his head, and saw it beginning to shake. ‘This is crazy,’ he murmured, and then swung around towards her, so she could clearly see his pain and confusion. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t just -’
‘Okay.’ She got up quickly. ‘I understand.’ She shoved the water back at him and he grabbed it as it sloshed over onto his hand. ‘You’ve done enough.’
She ran into the passageway and pulled open his front door, then moved as fast as she could away from him. But she could hear him behind her, keeping pace, and he was saying her name – her real name – again and again, until it was a chant keeping time with her footsteps. Each time she heard ‘Amy’ it was as though another piece of her re-emerged, twisting and writhing.
Eventually, she couldn’t run any more. She sank down onto the road, spent.
A second later, Alex crouched down in front of her. He took a deep breath.
‘Amy, this is important to me too. So if you really want to do this…’ He paused and took a long look at the sky, drawing in a deep breath that she echoed, holding on to the air in her lungs, feeling it swelling, burning, eager to be gone.
‘… I will find a way to come with you,’ he said eventually, looking back down at her.
And he put his hand over hers.
It was as though she had been drowning for ten years, and at last there was a hand outstretched within sight.
PART TWO
MILLENNIUM
31
Australia
December 1999
Despite the dusk’s warmth, the day’s sun was almost spent. It flooded the sky with fiery colour in a last blaze of defiance as it sank towards the horizon. Except for the small motel, every turn revealed bushland, stretching on and on until it ran beyond sight.
Amy had thought such vast emptiness would make her nervous, and yet she was entranced by the fullness of this unspoiled land. They were going from east to west, taking the highway that had riven a harsh grey line in the red-brown sand, like a rogue thread within the great cloth of scrubby grass and bush that cloaked the southern reaches of Australia.
As she stood on a patch of dirt watching the sky change colour, she felt Alex’s arms envelop her, and leaned into him. He rested his chin on her head and his breath was warm in her hair. She reached her hand up to stroke his stubbled cheek, and he lightly kissed her palm. Then his arm shot out, and he held a camera in front of them, and pressed the button as she laughed.
‘You’ve just taken a photo of my tonsils,’ she said, swinging around to see that there was a carrier bag by his feet. She peered inside and groaned. ‘Not again.’ It was the third night running that their evening meal had consisted of pre-packaged pies and soggy chips. But she guessed it was harder to come by fruit and veg in these isolated, barren parts.