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REMAND CENTRE

October 19th

When we still haven’t heard anything by morning, Jodie tries to reassure me. ‘It’s such a complicated case,’ she says. ‘The jury have to accept that the only people who know what happened are you and Tyler MacFarlane. And Tyler’s gone, so…’

She looks away, across to Mikael, and again I wonder, does she really believe me? She said early on, on the first day I met her, that it’s hard for a person to just disappear, no matter how vast the land.

‘There’s so much surveillance these days,’ she said. ‘So much technology.’

But she doesn’t know you. She doesn’t understand how well you know that land, either. If anyone could disappear, it would be you.

Jodie, Mikael and I are sitting in one of the special rooms where people like me can talk to their legal team. If there’s still no decision, Mum will come later, with Dad, during the afternoon visiting hours. Nick hasn’t come, but then I suppose they wouldn’t allow a prosecution witness to visit. Shame, as I’d like to ask him if he believes the things he said in court.

There are so many versions of our story now, Ty—I suppose it’s my story now—it’s hard to know what’s true,even for me. But if I can’t know, how will the jury work it out? It might simply depend on how they’re feeling on the day they decide—what happened to them that morning, what they ate for breakfast, what parts of the stories they liked best. Maybe there’s a different truth for each member of the jury. No wonder they can’t decide.

‘Do you forgive him?’ Jodie asks, looking at me carefully.

‘Should I?’

She smiles, turns back towards the window facing onto the courtyard. ‘You know that’s not for me to say.’

Do I forgive you for taking me all those years ago? And does it matter in the end if I do or I don’t? I’m not sure if my forgiveness is the burning question this time around.

‘Perhaps the real question is, would he forgive me?’

She turns back to me immediately, frowning. She didn’t expect this; she doesn’t want to hear those words. I’m sure she wants to ask what I mean, but she won’t ask me anything else right now. If my version of the events is not the truth, she can’t know that.

Will questions like that follow me into the future? Do I forgive you? Is that why I did what I did? Do you forgive me? Do we even care about forgiveness now?

Mikael pulls out a stack of newspapers, broadsheets and tabloids from his briefcase and dumps them onto the table in front of me. I flick through a few, reading the headlines.

Not enough evidence for murder!

No body, not guilty?

Gemma gets away with it!

‘We might be okay,’ Jodie says quietly. ‘Most of the evidence in the prosecution’s case is circumstantial anyway, unreliable. There’s nothing solid to tie you to this, andyou’re the only witness, so…’

‘Without a body, their case was always thin,’ Mikael concurs.

When our time is up, I stand to go back to my cell. Jodie and Mikael stand too.

‘It won’t be forever,’ Jodie says, ‘whatever happens. You’ll get out of here. Look after yourself.’ I know what her glance at my belly means: I have a lot more to look after now.

I like the walk back to my cell, across the courtyard between the blocks. Usually, I hear at least three different types of birds. Today the wattlebirds are cackling. The magpies are warbling too, but I can’t see them when I look up. And the raucous shriek of the mynahs is never far away. I still have an appreciation for the tiny wildernesses on the boundaries of places, even in this prison—the weeds in the cracks of the yard, the gums peering in from outside, the hot north wind bringing dust.

When I’m halfway across the courtyard, drops of rain start to fall. Cold rain, blown by an icy wind. The guard accompanying me pulls her collar up.

‘Spring, eh!’ she says, giving me a half-smile. ‘Who’d want to be outside in this?’

But you would.

You are.

I imagine you walking across an open space, the same wind reaching you. Can you smell the sea on it? Can you smell me? Raindrops crawl down the back of my neck. I shiver and stick out my tongue to taste them. They taste like you did when we swam for the last time in the Separates.

I imagine you back there, a good place to hide. Caves above and beneath the ground in the spring, entrancesleading deep inside the rocks—an easy place to disappear.