Page 31 of The Sirens

30

LUCY

SATURDAY, 16 FEbrUARY 2019

Lucy closes the diary, unable to read any more.

Melody left a couple of hours ago, promising to return the next day.

‘You will eat something, won’t you?’ she’d said, placing her hand on Lucy’s knee. ‘I don’t like the look of that fridge. What’s in there – one egg and half a carton of milk?’

Lucy had laughed, which had somehow made the tears fall. Melody had drawn her into a tight hug, and Lucy had let herself be cradled, breathing in the other woman’s clean and comforting scent.

Melody had drawn back, fixing her dark eyes on Lucy’s.

‘She’s all right, wherever she is. I know it.’

The house had been eerily still after she left, and Lucy found she longed for the tumult of the storm. It had kept her inside, ensured that there was nothing she could do to find Jess. Now, she felt restless, useless. She opened the windows, hoping the fresh air would calm her, inhaling the smell of rain-washed eucalyptus. Myna birds chirped, a currawong trilled.

It reminded her of a rainstorm – years ago – that had broken a months-long dry period in Dawes Plain. It had drummed so loudly on the corrugated roof that Lucy had worried it would buckle, that their house would be washed away.

She’d watched it come down in shimmering waves out of her window. Her father had dressed in waterproofs to check on the sheep and she was anxiously waiting for his return. For ages and ages, he didn’t come, and fear bubbled inside her.

Then she saw him, a dark figure in the shifting light, almost a stranger in his long coat and peaked hat. She’d waved, but he hadn’t seen her as he trudged towards the house, head bent forward against the downpour.

But then he’d taken off his hat and tilted his face up to the sky, letting the rain thunder over him. There’d been something about the stance of his body – the slope of his shoulders, the outstretched fingers of his hands – that even as a child, Lucy had recognised as longing.

Whatever had happened before – whether or not her parents were telling the truth about how their eldest daughter came into their lives – they had given up everything for Jess. To keep her safe.

Now, the journal heavy in her hands, thoughts of Jess and Hennessey clouding her mind, Lucy knows that she can put it off no longer.

They were in an intimate relationship , the police had said.

But Jess had been just sixteen when it began. A child. He’d groomed her. She has to talk to her parents, find out what they know.

She has to tell them Jess is missing.

The phone rings and rings, so that Lucy begins to hope they’re not home, that the conversation can be avoided for a little longer.

But then her mother answers. ‘Martin residence.’

Lucy’s eyes burn. She can almost see her mother standing in the kitchen, her greying hair piled on top of her head, weathered hands chopping vegetables, her wedding ring resting in the ceramic dish shaped like a shell. She’d be humming a song – The Beatles or The Kinks, maybe. Every so often, she’d reach for her favourite wine glass, the one with the frosted stencil reading Mum that Lucy bought her one birthday. Outside, the fields would be vast and pink in the dusk. The scene is so vivid that Lucy almost feels as if she might reach out and touch it.

And yet it feels exactly that – a scene. For almost forty years, her parents have played at being other people. And for her whole life, Lucy has been the only one who didn’t know. The only one in the dark.

‘Mum,’ Lucy says now, and the word is a desperate plea, as if somehow her mother can change the past, edit it to remove the gaps, the lies.

‘Goose, is that you?’ And then, when there’s only silence: ‘Lucy, sweetheart, what’s wrong?’

‘It’s Jess. She’s gone.’ The last word comes out strangled, partially formed, as if her mouth cannot bear to utter it.

‘Gone? Gone where? I don’t understand.’

Lucy takes a breath, trying to slow her heart. She has to tell the truth. Her parents’ idea of her – the easy daughter, with the good grades and ambition – is a mask she must take off.

‘Mum, I lied when we spoke on the phone the other day. I’m not at uni. I’m at Cliff House. In Comber Bay. But Jess is gone.’

A sharp intake of breath, then silence.

‘Sorry – you said Cliff House ? You’re at Cliff House?’

‘Yes.’

‘What has Jess told you?’

‘No, you don’t understand – Jess hasn’t told me anything. I haven’t even spoken to her, she’s not here. I got here a few days ago and the house was empty. Her car’s here, and her phone … and now the police have been here. Looking for someone called Cameron Hennessey.’

Another intake of breath.

‘Mum, do you know who Cameron Hennessey is?’

‘Dear God, I hoped I’d never have to hear that name again. Lucy – look. There are some things your father and I need to tell you. But I think it’s best if we do it in person—’

‘I already know everything, Mum. I’ve been reading Jess’s diary. I know that Jess is Baby Hope.’

‘Lucy. Don’t read any more of that diary, please. I’m going to call your father now and we’re going to get in the car and drive down there. We’ll be there the day after tomorrow – sooner if we can. All right?’

‘All right.’

‘And Lucy? Luce?’ ‘Yes?’

‘I love you. Both of you. Please, remember that.’

Lucy knows it’s true. She is loved, and so is Jess. Their parents left everything behind to protect her.

But they also lied.

Don’t read any more of that diary.

What else are they hiding?