The Sudden Dark

Eight

I came out of the office feeling as if I'd been bled dry, as if the fluids in my body had turned to sand.

My throat was as hot as the colourless sunlight and I wanted a drink. I always wanted a drink. But I managed to distract myself again—I got into my car and loosened my tie and got out my phone. I called Jess, my eyes shut firm.

The phone whined, and I didn't know if she'd pick up, or why she'd want to. But she did, eventually.

She didn't say anything at first.

My eyes were still shut. I said, 'I thought you wouldn't pick up.'

She paused. 'Thought about it,' she said. 'But, then I wouldn't be able to tell you I can't do it today.'

'No, not that...I just need to see you anyway.'

'Max...'

'Just to talk. Nothing more. Five minutes. It'll mean nothing. But in person. Please.'

A long silence, her voice dead across the line and replaced with mute breath. Finally, she said, quietly, 'I'm supposed to pick Luke up in about half an hour. I'm alone till then...'

That was all I needed. I wrenched the car alive and away from the building. Jess' house in a few minutes flat.

She came and put a silhouette in the screen door as my feet scraped up the stone path. She opened it slowly, her face going tight, stepping back and letting me in quickly.

'Half an hour, I know,' I said to her irritated look.

'The neighbours. I don't like when you do this.'

'Do you want me to come around the back? They'll think I'm a bloody burglar.'

She let out a breath and stepped back, her eyes light and narrow, glittering like a broken shard of sunlight. She turned around, wandering somewhere across the streamline-clean living room. 'We had...not rules, but something for shit like this, don't you remember? Or do you not want to?'

'We never set guidelines, if that's what you mean. I assumed you had more sense of how to cheat on your husband.'

She turned. Her face hadn't changed.

I said, 'I just need to talk, Jess. I told you that.'

'Okay, Max. What is it you want to talk about?'

I went across the room and stood at the doorway leading to the kitchen. The countertop had the brisk smell of disinfectant, and a pair of rubber gloves floated in the sink. The dinner table was neat. The crisp photos on the fridge: Jess, Daniel, Luke in braces, a couple of happy years ago. Normal faces, all of them.

'They...I talked to her today. The first time.'

She took a step. 'The therapist?'

I nodded. 'Did she...Did they call you?'

'A couple of days ago. I figured it was about you when she said she was from a therapy center or something like that.'

'She asked you about me?'

'A bit. Just generally. The kind of person you are, what you were like in private. If you were overloaded, angry, confrontational, irrational, those kinds of things.'

She was looking at me, standing in the thorough order of her living room. The vacuum cleaner was still plugged in, laying propped at the wall. She didn't tell me what she'd told Cole, and I didn't ask.

'You're scared, aren't you, Max,' she said.

I looked at her. 'Scared? Of not getting back on the goddamn police force? The load of good they've done me. The shit I've been through. I should take this bloody suspension as a retirement party.'

I went back across the room, angering toward nowhere. Jess didn't follow. She stayed where she was, and she watched. I turned and looked back at her. She had no makeup and there was a line of sweat at the ridge of her scalp. Her hair was tied back, and I wanted like hell to put my arms around her and bury my head against her and kiss her and lay down and feel nothing with her.

Neither of us moved.

Jess said, 'What've you been doing, then?'

I sat down on one of her sofas. 'I can't tell you that. Come on, Jess.'

'Why? Cause you're worried I'll tell your doctor?'

'She's not my doctor. If anything, she's the goddamn IA's doctor.'

'I told her you were a good man when we were married, Max. I told her you weren't violent, that you didn't abuse me or anything you were in charge of. I told her you drank, but that it was manageable back then. I told her you could be an asshole at times, but that the divorce was mutual. I told her the truth, Max. That's what you came here for, isn't it?'

I stood again. I didn't want to pretend anymore. 'When can I see you?'

'Max...'

'Soon. It has to be soon. I'm going out my goddamn mind.'

'I told you. You're afraid.'

'Okay, I'm afraid. There's someone called Frank who ran a strip club at Kings Cross. He was killed by a twenty-year old ex-con who'd stolen nine thousand dollars from his older brother and ran away. The kid's girlfriend worked at the club. I don't know why any of them did any of it, or who the fuck they were to each other. And I'm bloody afraid to find out.'

Jess came closer to and looked at me. I could smell the disinfectant like perfume. 'You're working a case?'

'When can you get away next? I need you, Jess.'

She looked at me with shame moving in her eyes; they were more grey than blue, now. They were older. We were both older.

'Not until the end of the week, at least,' she said, shaking her head. 'I can't manage it with Daniel until then. Maybe after Saturday.'

'The same old place?'

She looked at me. 'Anywhere but here.'

'I'll let you know. I love you.'

She looked at the watch I'd gotten her our second anniversary—sterling silver with a leather band that I'd spent half my savings on, and that she told Daniel her parents had given her as a graduation present—and used it to tell me she had to go and pick up her son.

'You leave first,' she said. 'The back door. And don't hang around. I don't want Luke to meet you.'