There Is More Light Than Dark

Chapter Sixty Five

Sunday April 10

I'd planned never to tell Avery exactly what had happened.

Mason had told me just to do it then forget about it, and I tried.

But I'm not as strong as Mason, that's probably why he started to come to me when Mumma died, and so we didn't even make it back to Barwon Heads that night to stay in the holiday house before I almost let on to her who it was that we'd hit.

I felt like I was back in those kid's situations where when the words run out the only thing left is your instinct. My instinct was to make her feel better and I thought that if I told her who we'd hit she'd at least feel better about it.

But somewhere around where the Otways thinned out and the hills started to show, shadowy and smoothe in the darkness, I asked her if she'd ever seen my dad since the party at Christmas that went pear-shaped, as usual. She sort of stiffened and went all weird.

I should have just told her it was because I knew she'd been and seen him. That I'd smelt him on her. That bit just couldn't come out. But I could tell that ever since I'd smelt his aftershave on her that she was different – she stopped asking about him or about my stupid nightmares.

She knew I was smart – but could never imagine that I knew that, just by being with him that once recently - for whatever reason - she would know why I hated the bastard and why I never would want to go near him.

There was a dead silence of at least a minute before she spoke. I could hear her lips and mouth all dry and caked with spit from her crying, her tiredness and, maybe, her fear.

'Why the hell would I have seen him since Christmas?' It was a low growl of a voice, quiet to suit the time of day but sharp enough to tell me what I had assumed was real.

I shrugged and played it straight.

'I don't know – just that we are going to his house and I sort of was just thinking when was the last time we'd seen him?'

We'd seen him.

'Well, I haven't.' There wasn't even enough emotion left in her to warrant an exclamation mark.

But I could feel her looking across at me, even in the dark. I could feel that it wasn't a normal look. Not of love, or questioning or even of suspicion.

If I didn't know any better I might say it was a look of comparison.

Or of a weird unfamiliaraity.

And all that just by feeling the cold burning on my left cheek as I negotiated the last of the real corners just outside of Modewarre.

I actually didn't know what to say. I'd never really stopped to let the red fugue lift long enough to consider what she might have been doing there. When I thought of Georgina and me, I automatically thought she was playing some sort of game. I should have known she was better than that.

Better than me.

But she'd already started her metamorphosing and I, the more stern phase of searching for what my mother had given me. Of what she had forever promised me.

And what her illness had taken away.

I looked across at the farms that littered the road past Torquay and almost ran the car right into a pole right then and there.

Avery never did tell me what she was doing there – none of that mattered any more; to either of us.

But in a few weeks from now when she would suggest that maybe we could both go and see him – started up with that crazy idea of therapy for me again – she saw in my face that it couldn't happen. And within a few seconds, with no words but a changing of her face, I knew she understood what had happened on that night.

As we passed the spot where it all happened the sky was showing just the feintest glimmer of dawn. The clouds were the most subtle pink under the instruction of the sun that was about to rise and cast its light on everything we had done. It was the first sun of the rest of our days and it would never feel as warm to either of us as it had before.

The funny part was as we headed towards that bend where Mason had mapped everything out for me that I didn't think of the hitting part; I could only think of her neck and that perfect scent she always wore until then and how she was moaning and getting close just like I needed her to as we approached that spot.

And how she had to close her eyes and then look at me as if to say 'don't stop' before we slammed into him and for that moment the whole world was just perfect; more perfect than he could have ever made it or even imagined it.

And I had won.

And that was maybe the last time I would ever be truly in love.