The Dry (Aaron Falk #1)(33)
The friendship was still being cemented as it faced its first real test. When the pressure was applied, it came unexpectedly from the heel of Gretchen Schoner’s hot-pink shoes.
Even in Kiewarra, social hierarchies had to be observed, and Gretchen was a creature most commonly sighted tossing back her golden hair and laughing amid a crowd of followers. So Aaron and Ellie had sat open-mouthed as Luke rocked up at Centenary Park one night with his arm flung around the girl’s shoulders.
A sharp growth spurt had put Luke half a head above most of their classmates and filled out his shoulders and chest in the right ways. In the shadowy park that night, with Gretchen’s hair falling in a tousled curtain over his jacket sleeve, and a definite swagger in his step, Aaron realized for the first time how much his friend looked like a man.
Gretchen was flushed and giggling as Luke introduced them. He caught Aaron’s eye over the top of her head and gave a not-so-subtle wink. Aaron nodded, duly impressed. There were a thousand places Gretchen Schoner could be on a Saturday night, and yet she was there, by Luke’s side.
Having rarely been invited to exchange words with Gretchen in the past, Aaron had been pleasantly surprised. She was charming and unexpectedly quick-witted. She chatted easily and within moments had made him laugh. He could see easily why people flocked to be near her. She radiated an energy that begged to be basked in.
Behind Aaron, Ellie cleared her throat with a tiny noise, and he realized with a start that he’d almost forgotten she was there. Her look as he turned was one of mild disdain but not surprise, as though he and Luke had failed a test they hadn’t been expected to pass. His gaze jumped from Gretchen’s smile to Ellie’s cold expression, red flags popping up loud and bright but far too late. He glanced at Luke, expecting to see the same realization dawning. Instead, Luke was watching with curious amusement. For a tense moment, no one said anything.
Gretchen suddenly flashed the other girl a conspiratorial smile and made a spectacularly bitchy comment about one of Ellie’s former friends. There was a pregnant pause, then Ellie gave a small snort of laughter. Gretchen sealed the deal by passing around her own cigarettes. A space was made for her on the park bench, that night and every Saturday night for the next year.
“Jesus, she’s the human equivalent of bubble bath,” Ellie whispered to Aaron one evening shortly after, but she couldn’t hide the tiny smile as she spoke. They’d all been laughing at Gretchen’s story of an older boy who’d asked her out by carving words into crops and ruined his father’s whole field in the process. Now she and Luke were deep in conversation, heads so close they were nearly touching. Gretchen gave a playful laugh and cast her eyes down as Luke murmured something Aaron didn’t catch. He turned back to Ellie.
“You and I could go somewhere else if she’s annoying you,” Aaron said. “We don’t have to hang around here.”
Ellie regarded him through a veil of smoke for a moment, then shook her head. “No. She’s OK,” she said. “Bit of an airhead. But she’s harmless.”
“Fair enough.” Aaron sighed silently and took the cigarette she offered him. He turned to light it and saw Luke slip his arm around Gretchen’s shoulders and lean in for a quick kiss. As Luke sat back, he glanced over the top of Gretchen’s head in their direction. Ellie, who was examining the lit tip of her cigarette with a faraway look in her eye, didn’t react.
It was there and gone in a flash, but Aaron saw the frown flit across his friend’s face. It occurred to him that he wasn’t the only one a little put out that the girls seemed to be getting on so well.
15
Falk leaned against the rock tree, staring down at the dusty river. The Hadlers’ place and his car were down the path to his left. To his right, the hint of a forgotten trail led away from the river and deeper into the bushland. It had all but disappeared over the past twenty years, but to Falk it was a tattoo on the landscape. He had walked it a thousand times. He stood for a long time, arguing with himself. Finally, he stepped to the right. A thousand times. Once more couldn’t hurt.
It took only a few minutes to reach the end of the trail, but when Falk emerged from the trees the sky was already a deep indigo. Across a field, a family farmhouse shone gray in the twilight. Falk cut straight over the field, like he always had. His pace slowed as he got closer, until he came to a halt about twenty meters from the building. He stared at what had been his childhood home.
The porch door that used to be yellow was now an insipid shade of blue, he noted with something like indignation. It had pockmarks where the paint was peeling. He could see flashes of yellow underneath, gaping through like fatty scars. The wooden steps where he’d sat fiddling with toys and football cards now sagged with age. Underneath, a beer can nestled in the flaxen grass.
He fought the sudden urge to pick it up and find a rubbish bin. To paint the wood. Fix the steps. Instead, he stayed where he was. The windows were all unlit but one, which glowed with a television blue.
Falk felt a sharp pang of longing for what might have been. He could see his father standing at the screen door in the evenings, a tall figure framed with the glow of light from the house. Calling him to leave his games and come in. Time for dinner, Aaron. Bath, bed. In you come, son. Time to come home. His dad rarely spoke of Aaron’s mother, but when Aaron was younger he’d like to pretend he could feel her in the house. He had run his fingers over things he knew she would have touched—the kitchen taps, the bathroom fittings, the curtains—and imagined her in the same spot.