Page 40 of The Sirens

39

JESS

TUESDAY, 12 FEbrUARY 2019

Sweat sheens Cameron’s forehead, his unshaven chin quivers. Jess feels a pulse of revulsion. Had she really let this man touch her, hold her?

‘I’m only going to say this once,’ she says, keeping her voice low and fierce. ‘And so you’d better listen. The police are going to look for you, if they aren’t already. Maybe your wife will lie for you, invent a family emergency, an illness – if you’re lucky, which you have been until now. But the police will come.’

She lets the possibility of what might happen next sink in: a criminal investigation. A trial.

‘You can’t stay here. Once they know we have a history, this is the first place they’ll look. And if they do charge you, they’ll want me to talk. They’ll twist things, you know they will. I don’t want that to happen. For things to be … misconstrued.’ She pauses for impact. ‘I’m going to hide you,’ she continues, once she sees the fear written on his face. ‘Until everyone comes to their senses and realises this is all a big misunderstanding, like you said. I’ve got a friend with a boat; I’ll call him. He’ll help us lie low for a bit. But he won’t be able to pick us up from the marina; people will see.’ She takes a deep breath, as if the idea is just coming to her now. ‘I’ve got a plan. Another place we can meet him. A secret place. But for this to work, you’re going to have to do everything I say. OK?’ He nods, then reaches towards her, catching her hand between his own. She resists the urge to flinch at the dampness of his skin on hers.

‘Thank God,’ he whispers, closing his eyes, fingers tightening on hers. ‘I knew you’d believe me, Jessie. I knew that I didn’t imagine what we had.’

She says nothing. There’s a clawing sensation inside her chest. In, out.

He brings her hand to his mouth, kisses it. ‘Thank you,’ he says.

Jess drives down Malua Street, gravel crunching under her tyres. She checks her rear-view mirror to make sure that Cameron has kept his headlights off as instructed. It’s getting lighter now, the sky gold and pink through the canopy of trees.

As they drive past Melody’s, she fights the urge to pull over and jump out of the car, to knock on her friend’s door and tell her everything. To ask for help. Instead, she keeps driving.

She’s relieved to see that the beach is empty. She’d worried that a surfer would be out early, or that Ryan Smith would be sitting on his usual bench by the memorial. But it’s early enough that she’s safe.

After five minutes of driving, they turn down a dirt track leading into the national park. It is, she calculates, within walking distance of Cliff House.

She pulls under a low swoop of gums, a spot not easily seen from the road. The sort of place someone from out of town would think to hide their car. Of course, someone from out of town might not notice the depression in the grass, the smooth logs gathered in a circle. This is a picnic spot, one that locals love. Someone will come here, eventually. Someone will see. She needs someone to see; to think that Cameron has tried to cover his tracks in coming to her house, the house of a potential witness in the case against him. That he planned to hurt her all along – this woman with the power to destroy him.

She rolls down her window. ‘Leave the keys in the ignition,’ she says. Cameron hesitates, half in and half out of his car. ‘Remember what we agreed.’

He sighs, then slams the door behind him. He walks towards the passenger door of her car and gets inside. This close, the smell of his sweat is sour and she leaves the window down as she drives, letting the morning air inside.

They do not speak.

Her pulse quickens as they pass the beach and she sees what she hadn’t noticed before: the black comma of a surfer cutting through the waves. But with any luck, the car is too far away for him to notice.

Once they’re parked outside Cliff House, Jess gives Cameron a list of things to pack. ‘Water,’ she says. ‘As many bottles of it as you can fill. There are some energy bars in the cupboard – bring those, too. Any medication you need. We might have a while to wait for the boat. My friend says he can’t come right away.’

Cameron nods.

‘What about my phone,’ he says, fingers twisting at his wedding ring. ‘Should I turn it off?’

Fuck.

‘Yes, good thinking. But bring it – I don’t want anyone finding it at my place,’ she says quickly, getting out of the car. ‘Hang on. I’ll be back.’

* * *

‘Hey.’ Melody’s eyes widen as she opens the front door. ‘You’re up early – is everything OK?’

Her friend is dressed for work, her hair tied up with a colourful bandana, a denim apron around her waist. Jess checks her watch: it’s almost 6 a.m. She’s got to make this quick.

‘All fine,’ she says, forcing a smile. She can feel that it doesn’t reach her eyes. ‘Look, can I ask a favour? I need to go away for a few days – would you mind feeding Dora, from tomorrow? She’s sorted for today.’

Melody’s eyebrows lift.

‘Of course not. Is something wrong? Where are you going?’

‘Nope, all good,’ she says. ‘Just need to escape for a bit, you know? A bit of a breather before the show.’

She knows that it doesn’t make sense. Where would she escape to? Comber Bay is where people come to get away, after all.

But Melody nods slowly.

‘OK, hon. Whatever you need. Do you have a spare set?’ ‘What?’

‘Of keys.’

Damn. She hasn’t been thinking straight; she’s left her keys on the hook next to the front door.

‘Forgot – sorry, been running around. Packing. I’ll just leave the door unlocked. No one’s going to steal a few paintings, are they?’

‘Course not, love.’

‘Thanks,’ Jess says, turning to go. But Melody lingers in the doorway.

‘Were you out late? Thought I saw headlights, just before sunrise.’

‘Oh.’ Jess’s mind races. ‘Just, you know, couldn’t sleep. Thought a bit of a drive would help.’

‘OK,’ Melody says, her eyes searching Jess’s face. ‘Well, you’ll let me know, won’t you? If you need anything else.’

‘Will do.’

Before Melody can reply, Jess sprints back up the road, the heat of her friend’s eyes on her back.

The stairs are even worse than she remembers.

The sandstone is slippery with lichen and spray, and the rope is frayed and thin against her palm. Below, the rocks loom up at them like jagged teeth. The sea seethes.

‘Fuck,’ Cameron grunts behind her. Looking back at him, she sees that his cheeks are pink, his chest heaving. The morning is cool but already wet patches have formed at his armpits.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Yep.’ He blows his cheeks out, and she sees the effort he’s making not to look down. ‘Just – my wedding ring’s gone. I must have dropped it. I fiddle with it sometimes – stupid habit, Nicola’s always telling me not to—’

He chokes down a sob. ‘We’ve got to keep going.’

‘Yeah,’ he says, puffing out the words. ‘But what if they find it? It’s engraved; they’ll know I was here.’

Good , she thinks.

‘They won’t look,’ she reassures him. ‘Not here. Hardly anyone knows about these stairs.’

‘OK,’ he says, but it sounds forced, like he doesn’t quite believe her.

She turns to look back at him again, then smiles. ‘I got you. OK?’

Her heart thuds as she approaches the sea, the lip of rock that curves around the cliff to the cave. Twenty years have passed and yet it is unchanged. The morning shimmers in the rockpools, and she imagines the creatures lurking beneath. Starfish, crabs, the furling tentacles of a blue-ringed octopus. She presses a hand to her abdomen and remembers the weight of her child inside, those final precious moments they shared together before the cut of the motor through the air, the hospital. The woman with the narrow features, the faceless horror of her words. Foster care.

‘Are we almost there?’

She’s stopped and Cameron has caught up with her, panting, his breath hot on the back of her neck.

‘A few more steps,’ she says. This is the hard part, she remembers. There is a narrow gap between the rocks and the ledge that leads to the cave. They are still high up, the sea metres below. A wave hits, the spray soaking through the leg of her trousers. Her skin tingles.

‘Just do what I do,’ she calls, yelling over the noise of the surf.

She leans forward, her hands scrabbling for a hold on the ledge. The rock is slippery and sharp with barnacles. She clenches her jaw as she pulls herself forward, over and above the lick of the sea.

‘OK …’ She kneels on the other side, wincing at the rocks

digging into her knees. ‘Give me the backpack, then I’ll help you up.’

Cameron’s eyes dart nervously to the waves frothing below.

‘Is it safe?’

‘It’s safer than a police station.’

He hands her the backpack, and she tests the weight of it in her hands, hoping he’s packed everything. She puts the backpack on and reaches out her hand.

When his palm is in hers, she thinks: I could let go. I could let the sea take him now, pull him to his death.

But she doesn’t. Instead, she pulls him up, so that they are both kneeling on the ledge, soaked and breathing hard.

* * *

The cave is smaller than in her memory, dark and wet as a mouth. Tears burn in her eyes at the familiar smells of brine and seaweed. Below, the tide whispers. Hush , it says, hush. Like a mother’s lullaby.

It feels wrong to bring Cameron into this space; a female space, with its scent of iron and milk. She has him crawl in ahead of her, and even in the dark she feels his body tense, smells the fear on him, acrid and male.

She can see the phone in his back pocket, the oblong shape of it. Her heart thuds as she reaches, easing it out as gently as she can manage.

‘Fuck,’ he says, and she pauses, frozen. The phone is in her hand, halfway to her own pocket.

‘What?’

He has stopped moving, stopped crawling forward.

‘Just – cut my hand on a rock.’

When they stop, huddled under the cave’s daggered roof, she hears him scrabble for it, turning out his pockets, opening the zipper of his backpack. He swears again, his voice rising in pitch.

‘What’s the matter now?’

‘My phone. Jesus Christ. My phone is gone. I must have dropped that, too.’ He has found the torch and turns it on, yellow light slicing across his face.

‘Where did you last have it?’ she asks, angling herself away from him so that he cannot see the bulge in the pocket of her jeans.

‘I don’t know. It was in my pocket. Fucking hell – the ring’s bad enough, but my phone …’

‘I’ll go back and look for it.’

She crawls toward the light, where seafoam licks at the entrance. When she reaches the cave’s lip, she pulls the phone from her pocket and switches it on.

The background image is his family: Nicola and the two children. They both have their mother’s red hair, but the girl has Cameron’s green eyes. She waits until the reception bars appear, and then, after a few seconds, throws it into the sea.

‘Sorry,’ she calls back. ‘I can’t find it.’

She crawls back to Cameron, who looks frightened and sickly under the glare of the torch. She looks up at the cave’s roof, at the glistening teats of rock. She feels held close, safe. ‘Now what?’ Cameron breathes, the words souring the air.

‘Now we wait.’