Read Online The Near Miss by Fran Cusworth - Free Book Online Page B

police . . .’
    â€˜I thought you were worried about getting the police involved.’ Eddy hadn’t asked why this was so. Drugs, rape, murder, general hoondom, it went without saying just to look at the man. If Romy wanted to try new things, she had certainly found something new.
    â€˜I was. But you know what? I think it’s more important we get your girlfriend back.’ Melody narrowed her eyes. ‘Van’s a big boy.’
    Eddy kicked some leaves into a pile, fear stabbing his heart. He dialed again, but the phone had been switched off.
    â€˜Is your little boy asleep?’
    Melody shook her head. ‘Not yet. Will you come back in? It’s nice by the fire.’ She touched his arm lightly and walked inside the open front door, raising her hand again as if she hadplanted a line on him with her touch, and was now reeling him in.
    Eddy cast one more despairing look into the darkness, but the line on his arm tugged him authoritatively. He reluctantly went back inside.

    Years later Melody would wonder what might have happened had Romy and Eddy gone tidily home to their lives. The dinner party probably would have ended with them all saying goodbye at the earliest polite point. Some lives might not have ended in the way they did. Others might not have begun at all. Certainly she would not have bothered seeing Grace again, outside kindergarten. Even if Eddy had left for home after Romy left with Van, things might have been different. But he did not. He let himself be led back inside in front of the fire, and once there he began to weep. Horrible, cough-like sobs, water spraying from his face. Grace and Melody exchanged looks of alarm. Somehow the brittle shell of the whole night cracked and peeled off, and beneath it was a gentler world, with more of their real selves in it. They sat very late by the funny little woodburner with its clover-leaf wrought-iron door, roasting toast and then lighting clove cigarettes on glowing embers. Eddy had his first ever cigarette and coughed violently, and it sounded like he might start crying again, until Tom poured him a straight scotch and he laughed bitterly instead. Grace told them stories about her sadistic boss and did an imitation to show how like an ape she was, and she was actually quite funny. Tom told a story about having to take Lotte into a board meeting at work where he gave a presentation with her winding around his legs until she interrupted his PowerPoint display by tipping lemonade into the $2000 projector. Melody told them about Tuntable Falls, about the enchanted blue-moon parties and the all-night dancing, the strange and marvelous faces and hair sculptures and clothes concocted of leaves and vines and curtain scraps. About the mad people who had eaten too many magic mushrooms, and the ultramarine lobsters in the TuntableCreek, and the teenagers fleeing their greying, wrinkly, rainbow-clad parents for Sydney as soon as they were old enough, to become merchant bankers and real estate brokers, and to run internet startups.
    Finally they were all talked out and dawn birds chattered outside. They stared into the dying fire. Romy and Van had not returned. The children slept on the floor, a blanket tossed over them, facing each other with lips pursed as if they shared secrets with each even, sleeping breath.
    Eddy looked at his watch. ‘Well,’ he said, and climbed to his feet. ‘I should go.’
    â€˜Maybe you’ll find her at home.’ Melody cupped Skipper’s cheek in her hand.
    â€˜Maybe. Can I give you a lift?’ he said.
    â€˜There’s sleeping bags, you can crash here.’ Tom spoke sleepily. Melody slipped under the blankets which covered Skip, and laid her head behind his on the pillow. Grace rested sleepily on Tom’s shoulder, but hastily opened her eyes and climbed to her feet. ‘Bye! Thanks for coming! It’s been so great. Really. So much better than I . . .’
    Tom clapped Eddy on