“Gertie,” Aunty Bec tries, a bit more gently, from the other end of the table. “I think what Vinka is—”
“Rebecca,”GG says sharply. “I’m not a child and I’m not senile.”
This is more awkward than the time my computer science teacher typed in the wrong URL and our whole class learned what a foot fetish is. I look at Dylan, who is cheerfully eating toast and watching like this isThe Real Housewives of Dunsborough.
“Does anyone feel like dessert?” Aunty Vinka asks too loudly.
“Is there any?” Shippy looks hopeful. “I could murder a crumble.”
“It’s not a restaurant, mate,” Dad says.
“I just meant—”
“There’s ice cream and I think I saw some chocolate sauce.”
There’s a round of “Yes, please” from everyone, including GG, who seems keen to bounce back from the awkwardness. It might take more than a bowl of ice cream, in my opinion, but what do I know? (Sure, I know who’s about to die, but still.)
When I go to collect my ice cream, Aunty Bec and Aunty Vinka are talking quietly: a classic sign they might be worth eavesdropping on.
“…usually like that,” Aunty Bec says.
“You don’t know her like we do.” Aunty Vinka pulls open a cupboard door and takes out a bottle of chocolate sauce, the kind that goes pleasingly hard when you put it on ice cream. “This is pure chemicals, you know.”
“Jealousy is a curse.”
“I’m telling you: Try vegan ice cream just once and you’ll never go back.”
Aunty Bec ignores that lie. “Do we push the meds thing?”
“Dad said she always dragged her feet. He used to put them into her food sometimes.”
“Like, crushed up the way you would for a cat?”
“It’s a liquid. But he was probably joking.”
They finally spot me and hand over a bowl of ice cream, which I take, along withThe Murder of Roger Ackroyd,up to my creepy-arse room while the grown-ups argue about whether to play the 1986 or 1991 version of Trivial Pursuit. Have I mentioned my creepy room? The entire house is a bit of a horror show at night, all wood paneling and mirrors with a perpetual film of dust, but only my room has an entire glass-fronted cabinet filled with eerie, faceless china figurines that definitely plot my demise the moment the light goes out. Possibly I need to stop watching horror movies. The figurines are a GG addition to the house, and, no, I don’t know why she doesn’t keep them in her own bedroom except that, presumably, they also horrifyher.
I read until exhaustion turns all ther’s in my book inton’s, then lie in bed listening to the adults finish their game (pretty sure Aunty Vinka won because Dad seemspissed) over the distant rumble of thunder. The storm that’s been promised for hours finally seems to have arrived. Footsteps go up the stairs and doors are opened and closed. Only when the house is quiet and dark do I realize what’s keeping me awake: I need to pee.
“Don’t eventhinkabout moving around when I’m gone,” I whisper to the figurines as I pass. They don’t answer, which, on balance, is a good thing.
The nearest bathroom is one floor up, one of many quirks in Grandad’s questionable design skills, but when I get near the top of the stairs, a strip of orange light from under GG’s bedroom door—and whispered voices—tell me she’s still awake. I can’t recognize the other voice, but they sound like they’re arguing, which I guess means I’m going to the downstairs bathroom. (I could have saved some time solving the crime if I’d stayed to eavesdrop, as I’ll eventually discover, but nobody’s perfect.)
Apparently nobody in this house is asleep, because downstairs not only do I see the flare and fade of someone smoking in the part of the garden visible through the living room window (whosmokes?), but I can hear the kettle boiling in the kitchen.
The bathroom mirror shows me the beginnings of a whitehead right between my eyes. I poke it a little in the hope it might make a satisfying mess on the mirror, but it just throbs beneath my fingertips and turns an angry red. Great.
The smoker is gone by the time I head upstairs, which is probably a good thing because the thunder has been joined by crackles of distant lightning, and surely rain can’t be far behind. Two steps into my bedroom, I stop. Something is wrong and the room has rearranged itself in my absence. I must be tired, because it takes me an embarrassingly long time to realize I’m standing in Dad’s bedroom, which adjoins my own. I start to apologize, then stop when I see his bed is empty.
Back in my own room I get into bed and finally fall asleep, listening to the rumble of the approaching storm. I wish I could say that the next thing I know I’m awoken by a scream—it would be more dramatic—but the truth is, nobody finds the body right away. We’ll get there, though.
4
The scream is coming fromthe top floor of the house (told you we were getting there).
Aunty Bec, poised with a pan of scrambled eggs in one hand and a plate in the other, is the first to decide she’s not imagining it. “What was that?”
There’s the drumbeat of running feet and then Aunty Vinka arrives in the kitchen with her bathrobe flying open like it’s a pair of wings trying to launch her into the air.
