Cherry Pie (34 page)

She advanced and I backed away until my shoulderblades bumped the air dryer. I smelled scotch on her breath and guessed the hip flask wasn’t her first. She bunched my top in one hand and raised her other and I flinched and squinted, waiting for a blow that never came. When I opened my eyes I saw that she hadn’t made a fist but was pointing a finger at my face, stabbing it forward, punctuating her words.

‘I have tried to like you. God help me, I even asked you to be one of my bridesmaids, but the truth is, I hate your guts.

If Alex doesn’t wake up, or if he ends up some kind of vegetable, I will fucking kill you, you understand? I don’t care if I get sent to jail, it doesn’t matter. He’s my life. Without him I have nothing. Do you understand me?’

I nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘That’s pathetic.’

‘Is there anything I can—’

‘Apart from staying the fuck out of our lives?’

‘I’m going back to Melbourne, maybe I could feed the cat or—’

‘Fuck the fucking cat!’

Chloe placed a steaming bowl of goulash on the coffee table in front of me, garnished with chopped up gherkins, paprika and sour cream. My stomach had a hollow feeling I recognised as hunger, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat. She didn’t push it, just curled up in the armchair, packed a bong, sucked it down and blew smoke up to the ceiling, then flipped through a copy of
Beat
magazine, checking out the band listings.

When Joy called her from the hospital Chloe had dropped everything and immediately flown to Sydney to escort me home. She’d apologised profusely for our fight and so had I, the whole thing seemed incredibly petty after all that had happened. Since then she’d cooked, cleaned, fielded calls from friends and the media and had refused to leave my side. She’d even conducted a screaming argument with Curtis over my intercom after she refused to let him up to interview me.

‘Hey, look.’ She pointed at the paper. ‘That band you like, Doug Mansfield and the Dust Devils. They’re playing at the Standard. We could go for a bit, maybe, get your mind off things …’

I didn’t respond, just stared at the TV.

‘Or if you don’t feel like going out I’ve got my investigation notes.’ She hefted a huge pink shoulder bag onto the table, stuffed with notebooks and loose leaf paper. ‘I’ve got a lot of information here. It doesn’t make much sense to me, but if you looked through—’

‘There’s no point. Andi’s dead.’

‘Don’t say that, you don’t—’

‘Come on, Chloe, Joy told us in Sydney. Cops finally found Andi’s car out in the boondocks, Wattle Glen train station. They traced the call she made to me and one to triple 0, to somewhere in that area. They’ve done a massive search but shit, it’s gonna be one of those deals where a bushwalker stumbles over the body. No one had her, she topped herself.’

‘I don’t—’

‘Just drop it. Even Joy’s accepted she’s gone.’

‘But her handbag, in Sydney.’

‘The Datsun was stripped. Someone must have stolen the bag and taken it up there. The computer was gone too, probably ended up in a hock shop in the Cross.’

‘The pictures from Suzy’s uncle.’

‘Joy said they weren’t Andi. The clothes, the stance, the shape of the body. Weren’t you the one who said a mother always knows?’

Chloe had another bong and changed the subject. ‘Want to see some pictures of the place in Balaclava? I’m going to sign the lease soon and the shop downstairs is still—’

‘Can’t you get it through your head? I’m not interested.’

I was getting fucking sick of her relentless attempts at cheering me up.

‘Is it because of the jelly wrestling? I said I was sorry.’

‘It’s not that. I’m finished with the PI biz.’

‘How come?’

I sighed like she was completely stupid. ‘The question isn’t why am I quitting but why did I start? The only motivation I can think of is the cops wouldn’t take me, so I tried to prove I was better than them. It’s pathetic and self centred and has led to me ruining god knows how many lives.’

‘What you gonna do instead?’

I shrugged. All I wanted to do for the rest of my life was lie around watching TV.

The phone rang and Chloe leapt up to answer it, spoke briefly and held the receiver to her ample chest. Was it just the big fluffy jumper or had she put on a winter layer?

‘It’s Trip Sibley. You wanna talk to him?’

I didn’t answer. An ad for washing powder was on the tele. A happy homemaker hanging out pristine white sheets and bouncing a rosy cheeked baby. Why hadn’t I ever wanted that shit? If I’d taken that particular path then Steve would still be alive and Alex would be fine and my mum’s life wouldn’t be in tatters.

Chloe chatted to Trip for a minute or so, then hung up.

‘He’s really sorry about what happened and he wants to come over and—’

‘If you want to root him, just root him,’ I said. ‘You don’t need me as an excuse. He’ll fuck anything that moves. Actually, I don’t think motion is even a requirement.’

Chloe tossed her platinum hair over her shoulders and put her hands on her hips. ‘Why are you being such a bitch? I know you’re traumatised but I’m only trying to be a good friend, take care of you. Do you want me here or not?’

‘Can you move a bit to the left?’ I said. ‘I can’t see the TV.’

That did it. Her eyes welled up with tears and she grabbed her smokes, keys and handbag and stormed out, slamming the door. I was alone. Good. It was easier to be by myself than to accept kindness I really didn’t deserve. Everything bad that had happened was my fault, had always been my fault. I’d deluded myself into thinking I was trying to help people, but that was a joke, I was only trying to help myself.

Those cops from Elsternwick had been right. I was a fucked-up excuse for a human being. I stared at the cask on the table. Alcoholic? Check. Nympho? Suzy had hit the nail on the head. I did want her man, even though I was supposed to be in love with his best friend. I was selfish and I was a bad person because when you thought about it that’s all evil was, complete self centredness. There was a certain satisfaction in finally figuring it out, and I washed down another Xanax with the last of the red, smoked a cigarette and crashed out.

I struggled awake later that afternoon, legs tangled in the doona, one arm flung above my head. A molten orange sun peeped under the clouds, rays slanting through the bare branches and into the window, and when I closed my eyes against the light all the bad memories returned. I opened them, whipped my head around and gazed at the TV screen. Another ad. A fluffy white dog sat in a restaurant wolfing down what looked like foie gras while a model-type made goo-goo eyes at him across the table. Christ.

I was just about to reach for the sedatives and wine when I remembered Alex’s cat, Graham. Maybe Alex’s family were feeding him, but what if they weren’t? I doubted Suzy would have alerted them and imagined the poor thing hanging around the empty flat starving and wondering what had become of his owner. The thought made me even more depressed but was enough to propel me into a sitting position then lurch off the couch into the shower.

I pulled on jeans and a bulky jumper, slammed down a coffee and drove to the 7-Eleven where I stocked up on tiny packets of fancy cat chow. Graham hadn’t exactly struck me as a no frills feline. As I wound the Futura along Beach Road, heading for Mentone, the sun dipped toward the dark denim sea and its rays didn’t so much glint off the chrome as become absorbed by the rust. Twenty minutes later I let myself in the corrugated iron gate, clanked up the metal stairs and knocked on the door, just in case, but there was no answer. I sat cross-legged on the landing, cold wood chilling my butt, pushed the cat door in and peeked through. In the sunset glow I made out the granite kitchen and straight lines of the designer sofa.

‘Graham? Puss, puss, puss?’

He wriggled out from under the couch, padded towards me and I realised I felt inordinately glad to see him. I held the flap open and he jumped through, did a little skip in order to boof his head against my knee and wound all around me, purring like a two stroke engine. I ran my palm down the lumpy knobs of his spine and he flopped onto his side then rolled onto his back, exposing his belly. I rubbed the silky fur and he clutched my hand with both paws, chewed the spongy pad beneath my thumb and kicked his back legs like a kangaroo. I pulled my hand away and he righted himself and jumped on my lap, put both paws on my chest and kneaded my jumper. He pushed his sharp little chin into my face and his wet nose dabbed my cheek and whiskers tickled the corner of my mouth. I bent to kiss the top of his head and got a whiff of toasty fur and of Alex: aftershave, hair product, tumble dried towels. Graham must have been sleeping on his bed.

My breath caught in my throat as I thought of Alex standing in the hallway at Mum’s, just before everything went to hell. He’d looked gorgeous as usual, even though he’d been wet and tired with spider web sticking to his hair. I remembered his melted chocolate eyes and his square hands and the veins that coiled up his forearms, the v of chest hair when he opened the top button of his shirt and the perpetual stubble shadowing his well-defined jaw.

Then I pictured how he’d end up if he ever regained consciousness, and an image straight out of a road safety campaign materialised in front of me. Alex strapped in a wheelchair, eyes glazed, mouth slack, one arm curled spastically against his chest. It was too much to bear. Tears spilled down my face and onto Graham’s head and guilt shredded my guts, clawing my insides into raw, bloody ribbons. I was responsible for all of it.

Alex. Andi. Steve. Mum. Sam Doyle. Even Suzy. I remembered the look on Chloe’s face after I’d treated her like dirt and it, too, ate away like acid. I lifted my head and saw the ocean through the balcony railing, blurred and blue. I felt like running across the sand, wading in, swimming out until my sodden clothes dragged me under and freezing water filled my lungs and obliterated my brain.

I sniffed. It wasn’t such a bad idea and just thinking about it dulled the pain. I weighed it up and couldn’t find any reason not to. Sure, some people might be upset for a little while, but considering my talent for fucking up the lives of everyone around me, they’d be better off in the long run if I wasn’t around. The end would totally justify the means.

A perverse excitement buzzed through my veins. Fuck it.

Nothing was stopping me. I should do it. I was gonna do it, but not here. I had to go home, leave a note asking Chloe to feed Graham and then I had to get completely fucked up so I wouldn’t chicken out. I could go to the Standard, see Doug Mansfield and the Dust Devils one last time, drink everything in sight, finally kiss that hot bass player then take the rest of the pills and catch a cab to St Kilda Beach and wade on in.

Frank Parisi’s body had washed up on the same stretch of shore and it was where all my deluded PI shit had begun. You had to admit, it had a certain symmetry.

I heard rustling and looked around. Graham had actually inserted his entire body into the plastic 7-Eleven bag, desperate for food. I shooed him out and peeled back the foil on a packet that claimed to contain smoked salmon mousse with lemon and capers and he hunched over, snuffling, not bothering to chew. I slid a ceramic tray out from underneath a spiky potted palm, opened a bottle of water and filled it for him, not that he seemed interested. He was busy licking the edges of the empty container, scraping it around the balcony.

I opened him a package of pork and fennel roulade, apparently studded with juniper berries, and stood up, feeling lighter all of a sudden, better than I had for days.

The Standard was in Fitzroy, a two storey pub of white painted brick that sat flush to the pavement in a narrow lane not far off Brunswick Street. I pushed through the door into a room of dark wood panelling, red patterned carpet and a crush of people, warmth, smoke and noise.

Heading directly for the bar I weaved past older guys who looked like they’d been bashing out twelve bar blues since the Jurassic era, and women wearing red lipstick and the sort of cool retro dresses I searched for in op shops but could never find. I wore tight jeans, a black Club X t-shirt and a fluffy white jacket that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a New York streetwalker and didn’t quite fit in with the crowd but hell, that was the story of my life.

I leaned on the bar and ordered a shot of whiskey and a glass of champagne, realising that for once I didn’t have to worry about a hangover. A hard kernel of grief remained lodged in my stomach, but anticipation of what I was about to do tamped it down and gave me a hyperactive buzz. I was gonna make the most of my last goddamn night on earth.

The band was already playing in the next room, and I tapped my foot and swayed my hips as the familiar twang of country honky tonk drifted across the bar. When the drinks arrived I slammed down the shot and a couple of old rock dinosaurs glanced over, nodding approvingly. I picked up the champagne and pushed through the crowd into the band room, a narrow space crammed with tables where families, groups and couples sat eating typical pub fare: steaks, chips, calamari.

The band members were squished onto the tiny stage and dressed mostly in checked shirts and boots. A mural on the wall behind them reminded me of a seventies Marlboro ad, depicting a couple of cowboys on horses silhouetted by the setting sun. The bearded singer, Doug Mansfield, sat on a stool out front wearing a ten gallon hat and nursing a guitar. The bass player I always flirted with, Jack, was wedged to Doug’s right.

He wore his usual outfit of black shirt and jeans, hair swept back in a vaguely fifties style, and I realised with a start that he was a dead ringer for a young Sam Doyle. Weird. He nodded in my direction and I lifted my glass in return.

As if on cue the band started playing a number I’d pretty much adopted as my own personal theme song, ‘Trouble Follows Me’, and I mouthed lyrics that seemed more relevant than ever.

I’ve been round this town too long it’s plain for all to see,
there’s always something going wrong and happening to me,
no matter what I do or say it’s grim reality,
and I don’t follow trouble, trouble follows me …