“Yes. That’s my personal hell. Do you understand? In all these years, never once did you have to make it yours.”
Eddie’s shoulders shook. He tried and failed to lift the kettle. Ben lifted it for him and carried it to the table where he poured the water into their mugs. He didn’t want the coffee; it would keep him awake that night when all he wanted was indefinite sleep. But he would drink it if that was what was required of him, if that was the communion his father wanted.
All of them sat. Eddie sat last. His head looked too heavy for his neck to bear, and it fell forward, his chin nearing his chest.
“What is it, then, Eddie?” Ann Kerne asked her husband.
“I told the cop,” he said. “I could’ve tossed him from the property, but I didn’t do that. I wanted…I don’t know what I wanted. Benesek, I told him everything I knew.”
The restless night that followed thus had a twofold source: the coffee he’d drunk and the knowledge he’d gained. For if his conversation with Eddie Kerne had at least gone some way towards burying some of the excruciating past between them, that same conversation had resurrected another part of it. For the remainder of the day and into the night, he’d had to look at that part squarely. He’d had to wonder about it. Neither was an activity in which he particularly wished to engage.
Set against the rest of his life, one night should have been insignificant. A party with his mates, and that was all. A gathering he wouldn’t even have gone to had he not just two days earlier had the courage to break off with Dellen Nankervis yet another time. He was thus morose, his life a thing that he believed was in tatters. “You want cheering up,” was his mates’ recommendation. “That wanker Parsons is having a party. Everyone’s invited, so come with us. Get your mind off the bloody cow for once.”
That had proved impossible, for Dellen had been there: in a crimson sundress and spiky sandals, smooth of leg and tan of shoulder, blonde hair soft and long and thick, eyes like bluebells. Seventeen years old and with the heart of a siren, she’d come alone but she hadn’t remained so. For she was dressed like a flame, and like a flame she drew them. His mates were not among them, for they knew the trap Dellen Nankervis presented: how she baited it, how she sprang it, and, in the end, what she did with her prey. So they kept their distance, but the others didn’t. Ben watched until he could bear no more.
Palm curved round a glass and he drank it. Pill pressed into his hand and he took it. Spliff placed between his fingers and he smoked it. The miracle was that he hadn’t died from everything he’d ingested that night. What he had done was welcome the ministrations of any girl willing to vanish into a darkened corner with him. He knew there had been three; there may have been more. It hadn’t mattered. What counted was only that Dellen see.
Take your fucking hands off my sister had brought a sudden end to the game. Jamie Parsons was the hot-voiced speaker, acting the part of outraged brother?not to mention gap-year brother, wealthy brother, traveling-the-earth-to-the-hot-spots-of-surfing-and-making-sure-everyone-knew-about-it brother?discovering a lowlife nonce with his fingers in his sister’s knickers and his sister shoved up against the wall with one leg lifted and loving it, loving it, which Ben had foolishly, loudly, and in the presence of everyone in hearing distance declared to be his real crime once Jamie Parsons had separated them.
He’d been summarily and with no delicacy tossed out, and his mates had followed, and as far as he had ever known or dared to ask, Dellen had remained behind.
“Christ, that bloody wanker needs sorting,” they all agreed, up to their eyeballs with drink, with drugs, and with resentment towards Jamie Parsons.