There Is More Light Than Dark

Chapter Five

Saturday April 9

I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a guilt as we hauled that heavy body into the boot of Avery's car. And not just any guilt, this was a deep, cleaving kind of guilt that even then I knew would be with me forever. I'd look at her every now and then as if to ask is this something she still wanted to do; to be involved in. And she'd glance at me for a split second, enough to acknowledge and say 'Yes', at least. She was strong, I already knew that, and I was not as if that was just because I loved her - I felt everything she did and everything she offered was pristine or perfect, although most of the time that was actually the case I guess. In fact, when I think back over the whole story, maybe that was exactly how I let all of these things happen and didn't explore the ramifications so well. In any case, it was as if it was the only choice we had and she was in it 100 percent.

Maybe she convinced me now when I think back.

It didn't mean she wasn't sick a few times. I worried about that whole DNA side of things if her vomit was ever found - if the body was ever found, that is – and they might implicate her in all of this. And after all that was the last thing we wanted.

As I dug, she sort of sat there and stared up into the big sky moving slowly above the canopy of eucalypts and tea tree. Avery Prosser just lay there right next to the person who had just had their life taken and she thought about a lot of things I guess as my shovel formed a kind of grating syncopated beat. Sometimes she was silent, other times she hummed to herself, likely to distract her from what I was doing and what had just happened. She cried for a bit, almost slept for a while and then, when I climbed out of the hole to drag the blankets full of body and all of the stuff that had already seeped out into the hole, she stood up quick as a flash and grabbed the other end. This angel, this perfect little piece of humanity that could have just walked off and had no part of any of it, just stood up and helped finish part of a job that we both needed to be done; and work.

Because now it was both of us who were complicit and guilty. Both of us would be hoping no one came out this far into the bush, off the track, for any reason. That no one saw anything near Barwon Heads where for probably 30 minutes we mucked around and moved the car, pushed and rolled and heaved this bloke into the boot. That's a lot of time to be occupied with your heart pounding where we might have missed something or someone coming near.

Both of us would carry that night. The memory, the feeling. Both would look back and wonder if we did it right – I mean if just owning up would have been better. But, as it was, that was what we did.

It's funny but of the two of us I wondered if she'd be able to handle it.

I was so wrong and then again so right.