“I’m sorry,” I said, simply because I didn’t know what else to say. I’d never even been invited on the trip. She’d made this huge, unspoken gesture for me and this was how I’d been treating her? Shame sat hot in my stomach. My knee was feeling the hardness of the dirt. The murmur of the crowd was growing; they were starting to think it was the longest proposal they’d ever seen. Proposing is the opposite of sex in terms of desired durations: the faster the better.
“It’s too late for sorry,” Juliette said. “You thought I did it.”
“I didn’t—”
“Even for a second. Even that it crossed your mind. That’s enough.” She sniffed. “Humor me. Why would I have done it?”
Now, it is a great virtue to understand when a question is rhetorical. This is a virtue, I’ve learned, that I do not possess.
I should have left it.
I definitely should not have listened to Simone’s voice in my head: As if you aren’t a little grateful . . . It’s fallen right in your lap.
“You might have wanted to help me . . .” You’re willing me to stop, but unfortunately, I do not. It sounds just as stupid now as it did then. “. . . write the book.”
She looked at me like I was a waiter who’d gotten her order wrong. “You think that’s motive for murder?”
I don’t know why my mouth was still moving. I winced as I said it. “And he gave me that bad review.”
“That is some really outdated sexist shit, Ern. Not all women kill just because their boyfriend’s pride gets a little dented.” Now she was laughing. “I murdered Henry McTavish because you got a bad review. Wow. You really do think this is your story.”
“Please, Juliette.” I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I was nervous. My tongue has a mind of its own. Please. Just let me start again.”
I pulled the box from my pocket, opened it and held up the ring.
The crowd cheered.
Chapter 20
She said no.
Chapter 21
It’s a little more complicated than that.
In terms of dud proposals, accusing your girlfriend of murder partway through has got to be an all-time clanger. I said before that only an idiot would accuse Juliette of being the murderer. This idiot, as it turns out.
“I’m going home,” she said. I was still on one knee, the ring in the air. My hamstrings were straining; I hadn’t planned on being down for this long. Tip for anyone proposing: do some squats first.
“What? Now? You can’t just leave.”
“It’s not a school excursion. I can do what I like.”
“But the train—”
“I’ll get a motel tonight, fly home tomorrow.”
“Please.”
“It’s not a no no. It’s just a not now.”
“Not now,” I echoed. “When?”
“You’ve got a lot of things to figure out between here and Adelaide. And I’m not talking about a murder. Once you know whose story this is. That’s when. But now”—she grabbed my hand and pulled me up—“let’s save ourselves some embarrassment. Everyone’s watching. We should give ’em a show.”
She kissed me, and there were whoops and hollers and camera flashes and her lips were cold and dry and pressed against mine flatly as if we were posing for the paparazzi. She even put her hips into it, kicking a heel into the air.
Writing this out now—that kiss frozen in time thanks to both these words and the photo Lisa Fulton emailed me before she . . . well, we’ll get to that—I am once again considering Juliette’s question: whose story is this?
It’s no spoiler to tell you that I’m writing this all down because the guilty have been discovered and dealt with. This leads to the cardinal rule I keep sticking to so doggedly, that because this is in first person, I have survived the events of the story. But just because I’m writing it doesn’t mean the story’s mine, or that it’s over. I could write this sentence, for example, just as someone kicks in the door to my Adelaide hotel room and puts a bullet in my brain. It’s not the writing that tells the story, it’s the reading.
Words on a page aren’t a legacy until they’re read.
So what if I’m writing this down and the story is still going?
I was subjected to a carnival of backslapping on my search for a drink, only to find an oasis in Jasper Murdoch, holding a glass of champagne out to me like those hooks that catch fighter jets on aircraft carriers. If he thought it was strange that I was toasting on my own, he was too polite to say it.
“I think we’re sharing congratulations,” he said as I necked the glass and plonked myself down at his table. He misread my dejection and refilled my glass. “Mate, I get it. I remember when I proposed to Harriet. Felt like I’d run a marathon.”
“Doesn’t get any easier the second time around,” I said.
“Oh.” He hadn’t known about my previous marriage, which also meant my last book was on his bedside table, unopened. He blushed slightly, then offered, “Surely easier than divorce.”
I raised my glass sarcastically. The champagne was going straight to my head. “Cheers to small achievements, I suppose. You’re better at romance than I am. I saw the petals by your door the other night. That was your room, right, next to Wyatt? Smooth moves.”
“Except it gave Wyatt the sniffles.” Jasper laughed. “That’s all Harriet anyway.” He put on her Irish lilt. “Brighten the space.”
I examined him. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Not take it all so seriously.”
Jasper sighed. “Is this still about Henry?”
“If I said it wasn’t, would you believe me?”
He tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Writers are normally better liars than you are.”
“I’m quickly learning.”
“Bad reviews are part of being a writer. We all get them. I got one once, wrote to the reviewer. Then I married her.”
“No way! Harriet?”
“Yeah, she was an arts journo, way back.” He nodded. “Look, there’s no secret to it. Do you write this stuff for people to read, for people to enjoy or to have your name in lights? That’s all it comes down to.”
I’d been emboldened by my chat with Majors to try a psychological profile of my own. This train was jostling with egos and blurbs and legacies, and Jasper seemed too nonchalant about being known among it all. Harriet clearly disagreed. But maybe it wasn’t humility. Maybe it was necessity. I remembered Wyatt, whom I’d barely seen crack a smile this whole trip, wanting a celebratory drink with him, and this bolstered my confidence in my deduction.
“That’s easy for someone to say who doesn’t have their name on their covers,” I said.