Killarney, p.24
Killarney, page 24
‘No, you don’t. You’ve never had one day in your entire rarefied life that’s been one-tenth as hard as mine.’
‘I had a son once.’
A light of curiosity came on in Tina’s eyes. ‘What happened to him?’
‘Died. Eight months old.’ The old sadness rose up, radiating through her body. ‘I checked on him and—’ She shook her head.
‘It’s not the same, you know. You can’t compare losing an eight-month-old baby to losing a twelve-year-old. It’s apples and oranges.’ Tina’s eyes were like fire. The flame growing brighter and brighter.
‘I don’t really understand,’ said Dana, aware of Tina’s mounting rage and desperate to keep her talking. ‘If you weren’t at work, then where were you on the night Johnny Buckley died?’
‘It’s not my fault he ran onto the road like an absolute fucking lunatic.’ Tina was clearly getting more distressed. ‘But let’s face it, if anyone finds out, that’s it for me. Once they realise I was high, that I had the tiniest bit of meth in my system, I’ll be back in jail.’ She stared down at Dana with unnatural intensity. ‘There’s no way I’m going to be separated from Angus again. Ever.’
‘If what you say is true,’ Dana said, thinking quickly, ‘that Johnny ran onto the road without warning, then it was obviously an accident.’
‘If there’s even the tiniest chance that I’ll be charged with murder, that’s what will happen. They’ll say it was intentional. That I mowed him down because I had some weird agenda – drug related probably. Because there’s nothing that makes you more of a pariah than having drug charges in your criminal history.’ She took a breath. ‘Truth is, I’m unlucky,’ Tina said, repeating Susan’s words from earlier in the year. ‘Always have been. Anyone else in the world would have ridden the bike that night and nothing would have happened, but with me, some poor bloke stumbles out onto the road and ends up dead. Born under a bad star. Been like that all my life.’
A movement behind a eucalypt caught Dana’s eye and she glimpsed Angus’s face, shocked and white, before he darted back behind the tree. From his expression, he’d heard everything his mother had said.
She strained to hear for the police sirens, but there was nothing. Where were they?
‘I know you think I’m crazy, that I’ve lost my mind,’ said Tina. ‘But I haven’t. It’s just that lately I’ve been watching you with Angus, picking him up, driving him around in Mum’s car. I saw how happy you all are without me in his life. It’s like being stabbed in the heart. Over and over until there’s nothing left. I know if I go back inside, Mum will have finally managed to replace me with the daughter she always wanted.’ Tina was pleading now. ‘That’s why I need you to do something for me.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I need you to promise that the only people who will know about this whole hit-and-run incident are you and me.’
Dana had a flashback to Susan’s advice about meeting a hurricane head-on. ‘I’m sorry, Tina. There’s no way I can lie for you.’
What happened next played out in slow motion. Her legs lifted from the blow and her body followed. She was in shock and felt no pain, although a part of her knew that was what would follow. Instinctively she threw out an arm, grasping the wooden sleeper that ran along the bottom side of the bridge with one hand. She swung in space momentarily and looked down. Using all her strength she grabbed on with her other hand. The wooden paling was splintered and rough under her fingers. And then she felt it, heavily winded by the blow to her solar plexus, each breath was fire. The water roared below her and confusion seeped through her brain as she tried to figure out what was happening. An image of Jayden flashed through her mind. The wounds on his body from the fall. This scenario has played out before. Tina luring Jayden to the top of the waterfall, and pushing him off, just like she’d pushed Dana. His body weaving its way downstream in the weeks before he was found.
With her life flashing before her, Dana couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been. Tina was right. She was the dumb one. She’d followed Tina to the top of the waterfall like a lamb to the slaughter. In the ominous silence Dana tried to imagine what Tina was doing and pictured her sitting on the bridge, staring over the valley. A statue.
The sound of sirens wailed in the distance, becoming louder and louder. With a surge of adrenaline Dana tried to pull herself up. If she waited any longer she’d lose her grip.
Tina came closer. She flicked a glance down at Dana then ground down hard on her fingers with the heel of her shoe.
Dana cried out, red-hot pain shooting through her hand.
‘Mum!’ Angus was suddenly beside them, yanking Tina away by the shoulders and screaming at her. ‘Stop it!’
The pain in Dana’s hands was unbearable. She pictured Oscar. Holding his warm body again. The thought was irresistible, the need to be close to him, so intense it was visceral.
All she had to do was let go.
Dana felt herself starting to drift and knew it was over. Knew she couldn’t hold on any longer.
So much for my guardian angel.
Angus was reaching down. She looked up towards his hand, then at the water below. It was hopeless. She didn’t have the strength. She had a vision of herself falling through space. Down an endless vortex. Lost forever.
She let go.
When she looked up again Angus was holding onto one of her hands. He was surprisingly strong, his sinewy arms gripping hers.
‘Mum, help me! Mum!’ The outrage in his voice unmistakable. In the next second, both Tina and Angus were dragging Dana upwards until the solidity of the bridge was beneath her.
When she opened her eyes Tina’s hands were in fists by her sides. Her face was like stone as she stared out to the horizon. She’s going to jump. The thought passed through Dana’s mind, but she was too weak to do anything. She tilted her head in Tina’s direction. ‘Your mum,’ she whispered to Angus.
He turned to her and started screaming. ‘Don’t you think you’ve already done enough, Mum? Nan’s about to die and now you’re going to make me watch you jump off a cliff?’
‘There’s no point anymore!’ she shot back.
She watched on as Angus cried out, sprinting over to his mother and reaching for her hand. He led her back to the rock ledge where he pushed her into a seated position.
The next thing Dana saw was Ryan’s face in front of her, close enough to see the flecks in his brown eyes. He took her injured hand, splaying her bleeding fingers as he checked for broken bones then helped her into a seated position. His face was full of concern. ‘Looks like you got lucky this time.’
Over by a hoop pine two of his officers were standing over Tina. ‘I’ve got to get over there and oversee the arrest. I’ll be back soon,’ said Ryan.
Dana sat on the bridge, numb with shock. An officer cordoned off the crime scene with tape, turning back a group of hikers on their way to the lookout. A policewoman was talking to Tina: ‘Place your right hand behind your back.’ There was a scuffle and one of them snapped a pair of hand cuffs onto her wrists.
‘Mum,’ Angus yelled out as they were about to go. ‘Did you kill Jayden too?’
Tina stared at the ground, unable to meet his eyes.
‘If you don’t tell me the truth, I’m never talking to you again.’
Dana couldn’t believe how calm he was being, as though he was growing up before her eyes.
Tina broke down. ‘I didn’t want to, but he was going to tell the police. I couldn’t bear to be parted from you. You’ve got to believe me—’
She was still pleading with Angus as she was being led away, her face a mask of agony and defeat.
Dana had no idea how she was going to break the news to Susan. Dana’s phone started to ring in her pocket. Her hands were shaking as she attempted to pick it up. ‘Hello?’
‘Dana Gibson?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was unsteady.
‘Dr Halliday from Toowoomba Base Hospital.’
Dana remembered the voice. The kind woman who’d sat on the bed and told Susan she had cancer.
‘I’m sorry to tell you this, but Susan’s passed away.’ The doctor waited a few beats, then continued. ‘She’d just had her medication and looked very peaceful when the nurse found her. I don’t think she suffered.’
‘Thanks for letting me know,’ Dana said mechanically.
‘We’ll be in touch about the official formalities, but for now it would be helpful if you could inform her children and any other family members.’
A tear slid down Dana’s cheek as she hung up the phone. How had such a lovely woman, who’d been a beacon of light in Dana’s dark times, been fated to such misfortune? She tucked her legs into her chest and wrapped her arms around them, staring out across the valley in the golden light of the late afternoon. She thought about the pain and anguish Susan would have felt once she realised Tina had been responsible for the deaths of two people. The living nightmare of knowing her only daughter would spend the rest of her life in jail.
Epilogue
Dana brought her cup of tea out onto Susan’s verandah and sank into the sofa. She sipped the steaming liquid as a pair of white butterflies flitted in and out of the rose bush to the sounds of birds chirruping in the trees. The leaves on the camphor laurels in the park had turned a deep maroon and once again everything was changing.
In the dog park across the road Ryan jogged up and down the bike path with an Irish terrier puppy behind him. The dog’s ears were pinned back and its tail wagged as it bounded back and forth.
Angus came through the door in a Bart Simpson t-shirt and collapsed onto the couch beside her.
‘No fair,’ he said, gesturing across to Ryan in the park opposite. ‘How come he got to have one of Arthur’s puppies?’
‘He’s a grown man. He can do what he wants.’ Dana gazed over at Angus as he bent down to tie his laces. His fringe was getting long and she’d need to take him for a haircut now that it was school holidays again. ‘Is that what you really want? A dog?’ She pictured it chewing on the furniture. Digging up Susan’s beloved garden.
‘That’s what I’ve always wanted. Ever since I was six.’
‘We’ll have to see then. I’ll just have to figure out how I could make it work. And whether I could take time off to make sure I’m at home while it’s a puppy.’
Ryan flung a tennis ball across the park and the dog bolted after it. Once it had the ball in its mouth the pup dropped it and started sniffing the ground.
Angus slathered sunscreen on his arms. ‘So, is he your boyfriend now?’
‘I guess you could call him that.’
‘Are you in love?’ he asked in his usual blunt manner.
‘I am.’ She was surprised at how clear her feelings were, after years of ambivalence with her ex-husband. This was how it was supposed to feel. A rush of warmth on an otherwise dull day.
‘Dana and Ryan sitting in a tree. K.I.S.S.I.N.G.’
‘Okay, Angus. That’s enough.’ She couldn’t help but smile.
He glanced at his watch. ‘Oh, crap, I told Michael I’d be at the courts by two.’
‘It’s just a casual game, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, but he beat me in nearly every game last week and this time I’m playing to win.’
He stood up to grab his racquet and his head almost touched the hanging basket. She couldn’t believe how tall he was getting. She felt a sudden surge of emotion as she realised there were only a few more years until he was a man.
‘Have you put sunscreen on your face too? We don’t want you getting any more freckles.’
He swiped a stripe of white across his nose then jogged down the stairs.
‘Angus,’ she called as he reached the front gate. ‘The paperwork came through today.’ She’d wanted to tell him while they were eating his favourite dinner – chicken fettuccine – but she couldn’t wait any longer.
His nose wrinkled in confusion.
‘The judge signed off on the guardianship order, so it’s all organised. I’ll be looking after you until you’re eighteen.’
‘Good-o.’ He bounced back and forth on the balls of his feet then opened the gate. He paused. ‘And I still get the house when I’m twenty-five?’
‘Yes, Susan left it all to you. Her final wish was that you always knew how much she loved you.’ Now she paused. ‘And how much your mother and I love you as well.’
For a split-second pain flickered in his eyes. ‘I’ll be back in time for dinner,’ he said with a smile. He sprinted along the fence line, a blur of skinny legs and hair flying in the breeze as he disappeared down the street.
Dana remained on the verandah a while longer, listening to the rustle of the grass, the long sigh of the wind in the trees. As she closed her eyes, she heard the whisper of the angel on her shoulder.
The promise of only good things to come
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book wouldn’t have been possible without the help and support of so many wonderful people:
Thank you to my publisher, Aviva Tuffield, for your insight and wisdom and bringing my books into the world. A huge thanks to my talented editor, Jacqueline Blanchard, who worked tirelessly and patiently on the editing for Killarney. Also to Lucy Czerwinski, Daniel Seed and the staff at UQP for your hard work and skill.
Thank you to Benjamin Paz at Curtis Brown. Your support and enthusiasm for my books has been wonderful – I’ve been incredibly lucky to have you as my agent.
Thanks again to my incredible writers’ group, the Dead Darlings Society – Deanna Antoniolli, Mary Chan, Dan Fallon, Karen Hollands, Kaja Holzheimer, Nicky Peelgrane, Isabel Prior, Fiona Reilly, Fiona Robertson, Paul Thomas and Warren Ward – who’ve been on this writing journey with me for over a decade; where did that time go? Thank you for teaching me so much and for sharing the ride.
A special thanks to my family: my parents, Barry and Frances Mottram; my brothers, Brent and Sam; and Natalie, Amity and Rainey and Baz Macintosh for all your support. Thank you also to the longtime friends I neglected to mention the first time around – Fae Ballingal and Anna Hollindale.
A huge thank you to all the readers of Crows Nest who embraced the story and the character of Dana Gibson, and those of you who got in touch.
Thank you to the talented Caroline Lee for your excellent narration of my audiobooks.
Thank you to the community of Killarney and the surrounding areas of Warwick and Queen Mary Falls for proving a stunning backdrop to my novel and for providing such happy memories. All characters and events in this book are fictitious with some creative licence taken with place names and settings.
Special thanks to my kind and generous work colleagues in Systems and Practice Review. Thanks for being such wonderful people to work with and for being so supportive of my writing.
To Fiona Robertson, thanks from the bottom of my heart for being such a kind friend and provider of excellent writing critique.
And last, but not least, a big thank you to Alex, Emily and Jack, my light and loves. None of this would be possible without you.
First published 2024 by University of Queensland Press
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Copyright © Nikki Mottram 2024
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Author photograph by Syd Owen
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ISBN 978 0 7022 6581 5 (pbk)
ISBN 978 0 7022 6735 2 (epdf)
ISBN 978 0 7022 6736 9 (epub)
Nikki Mottram, Killarney
