Page 30 of 59 Minutes

MRS DABB

‘Bunny doesn’t have a dad.’ The words sound like they’re coming from underwater, from someone else’s submerged mouth and not her own. She grips the glossy newel post at the bottom of this family’s staircase but her hand grows slick and slips off.

Jasmine shuffles her weight from foot to foot, looking down at the plush carpet. ‘I know … like … that she doesn’t, like, live with her dad but—’

‘She doesn’t have a dad.’ The words are sharper, more true.

‘Why doesn’t Jasmine’s friend have a dad?’ the little boy calls down from the top of the stairs, before being shushed by his mother.

‘Her biological father has absolutely nothing to do with her and she doesn’t even … She’s never met him and there’s no way she ever could have.’

‘Is he dead?’ says the boy.

‘Rudy!’ Daphne shouts then. ‘Go and sort your things out like I told you!’

‘He’s as good as dead.’

‘It wasn’t actually him,’ Jasmine says, still looking at her feet the whole time. ‘Not her … biological father. But I think it was one of his relatives who gave her the phone. It was outside school, a few weeks ago and—’

‘Oh no,’ Daphne mutters. ‘You silly, silly girls.’

‘Which relatives? She doesn’t … which bloody relatives?’ She is submerged again, drowning. This is not possible. It cannot be possible.

‘Whoever it was had an old truck, that’s all I know.

They called her over to them but I didn’t see who was inside ’cos it was a little bit away from me and I was talking to Sacha and I wasn’t really looking.

But Bunny wouldn’t talk about it at all afterwards, honestly, she wouldn’t.

’ Jasmine looks at her mother now, who massages one temple.

‘Honestly, Mum, I tried to get her to open up but—’

‘Never mind that, Jasmine,’ her mum says, sharp and serious now. ‘What’s the number for this phone? We know you have it.’

‘I don’t know, my phone’s upstairs.’ She’s close to tears but her mum has clearly run out of patience.

‘Well bloody go and get it then, Jazzy, we don’t have time for this shit today!’ A gasp comes from upstairs. ‘And you go to your bloody room, Rudy!’

Jasmine runs up the stairs now, sliding in her socks. A sob slipping out as she goes.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Daphne says, reaching out a hand but letting it fall. ‘I really didn’t know.’

‘But this can’t be true, she can’t …’

‘Is he …’ Daphne pauses. ‘Is he a bad egg?’

‘A bad egg?’ It comes out in a maniacal barking laugh.

‘That bad?’

‘Much worse than you can possibly imagine. I’ve spent the last thirteen years making sure he has nothing to do with her, that he doesn’t even—’

Jasmine appears on the stairs, the phone held out in front of her like a holy tablet.

‘Call her!’

Jasmine looks between the two women.

‘Just try,’ Daphne says, ‘just in case.’

Still standing on the bottom step of the luxuriously carpeted stairs, Jasmine presses a few buttons and then holds the phone to her ear. Everyone waits but she shakes her head almost instantly.

‘Write the number down for her mum and then we really need to get sorted.’ Daphne is speaking to Jasmine but the implication is clear. Time is up, you need to leave.

Jasmine trots down the hall to a little bureau table where a notepad sits next to a vintage-looking phone, an old-fashioned pen and a fancy scent diffuser.

She copies the number carefully from her phone and tears off the sheet.

At the top of the paper is the family’s name and address in gold lettering.

Jasmine avoids everyone’s eyes as she hands it over.

‘Good luck,’ Daphne says, pulling open the front door.