Only We Know (20 page)

He leant forward. ‘Yes, I did want to shield you from seeing what I see when I'm doing my job. What's wrong with that? Road accidents are blood and broken bones and death and hosing someone's brains off the road. If shielding you from that makes me an arsehole, then yes. I'm an arsehole. Why would you
want
to know about any of that?'

Calla pulled herself upright, crossed her arms. Sam wanted to kick himself. He'd said too much. He'd gone too far. Some hero he was.

‘Fuck. I'm sorry,' he said, reaching for her hand. ‘I shouldn't have said that.'

She pulled her hands away and met his eyes. ‘Have you really done that? The … the brains thing?'

Sam nodded, rubbed the back of his neck.

‘God. That's so horrible.' Calla's eyes glimmered with tears.

‘There's a reason most of us don't talk about it, Calla. And that's because it's fucking awful.'

Calla leant in closer, reached for his hands. When his fingers met hers, she gripped tight. ‘You're a fuckwit, you know that?'

‘Professional hero to fuckwit. That's a fall from grace.'

‘Don't you think I could have helped you if you'd told me about what really happened? I heard you that night, pacing the floor. I saw the light on. Heard the kettle boil. You didn't sleep, did you?'

He'd tried not to wake her. Had tried to sleep but the adrenaline buzz wouldn't settle. Sleep never came easily to Sam after an accident like that. The hiding, the ignoring, and the burying so deep down that no one could know what he was holding in, even him: that all came loose in the dark. Inside his head was a jumble of dead teenagers, burnt kids, body parts. No one could know how much he'd seen and tried to unsee.

‘Sam?' He'd been looking directly into Calla's eyes but she'd become indistinct, far away. Her auburn hair was a red smudge at the back of his vision, her green eyes a smear. And now, as she came back into focus, he could see those eyes were soft and troubled.

There was a scrape of chair leg against the floor. They broke the look when Ben said, ‘Am I interrupting?'

‘Nothing that can't wait,' Sam said.

‘No, nothing,' Calla said.

Ben flipped his chair backwards and sat down, crossing his arms on its back. ‘So what did you want to ask me? What's the big mystery?'

‘It's my mystery, actually,' Calla admitted, squaring her shoulders. ‘I need to ask you about someone.'

‘Go on, then,' Ben said. ‘But I have to warn you. I'll need a DNA test before I admit to anything.'

‘Funny,' Sam said. ‘We're not here about mystery kids, I promise. A couple of days ago we were in that craft shop around the corner and I bought a painting.'

‘Look out.' Ben laughed. ‘Those old ladies will fleece you.'

‘I'll tell them you said that,' Sam said with a laugh.

‘It's a portrait,' Calla said. ‘In oil. A beautiful portrait, actually.'

‘Yeah …?' Ben looked from Sam to Calla, sounding as confused as he looked. ‘What, you want my opinion on it?'

‘The portrait. It's Charlie,' Calla said.

‘Right, Uncle Charlie. Yeah, I know who he is. No mystery there. Look, is the Spanish Inquisition gunna go on much longer? Should I get us some more beers?'

Sam was about to speak but Calla beat him to it. ‘It was painted by an artist called J. Maloney.'

Ben looked at Sam. ‘You sure she's not a cop? This feels like
CSI: Kangaroo Island
.'

‘Mate, cut a long story short, J. Maloney is her brother. Calla's been looking for him for two years.'

‘Hell,' Ben said, stroking his chin. ‘Two years?'

Calla straightened, and Sam could see that, beneath the move, her confidence was faltering. He knew better than anyone that it was hard to talk about family secrets, about the blurry and often unfathomable reasons families splinter and fall apart. She'd told him nothing about why she and her brother hadn't spoken in so long. He figured if she wanted him to know she would tell him. But her own words came back to him:
I could have helped you if you'd told me what really happened
.

She took a deep breath. ‘Yeah. It's a long time.'

‘Bloody hell,' Ben said. ‘This isn't a bad place to hide, you know, if you want to fall off the map. We do get people coming over on the boat because they want to run away from the world and whatever's troubling them. We get all kinds.'

‘That's why I'm here. To find Jem,' Calla said.

‘We went to Roo's Rest to talk to the old man about who painted him,' Sam said.

‘And Charlie told us that he was here at the pub and a young bloke took his photo.'

Calla reached into her handbag for her phone. She found the image and held it in front of Ben. ‘Do you know this face? That's Jem. Have you seen him here in the pub?'

Ben laughed, slapped a hand on the table. ‘You're kidding. This J. Maloney and this Jem … they're Jeremy?'

‘What?' Sam said.

‘What?' Calla said.

They looked at each other, then back at Ben.

‘Are you serious?' Ben said with a huge grin. ‘He's really your brother?'

‘Yes. He's my little brother.' Calla closed her purse. ‘It's a long story.'

‘It just got shorter, sweetheart. I know Jeremy. He's my brother-in-law.'

CHAPTER

24

Fate should be winning the lottery or getting the perfect job or finding the man of your dreams when you weren't even looking.

Fate should not involve vomiting and losing your glasses and car accidents and men with hero complexes.

Fate was throwing Calla for a loop and she didn't know what to do. What was it about this damn island? She'd felt slightly off kilter since the moment she'd landed. Hell, since the minute she'd stepped foot on the boat back at Cape Jervis. And now the swirling, nauseating, pitching and rolling stomach was back. She wished she hadn't slurped down that glass of beer quite so quickly. It sat like a gurgling pool in her stomach and she hoped it would stay there.

Calla had to hear the words again. Had to know Ben wasn't joking. She didn't know him but had already worked out that it was his style. Ben the Joking Barman. Ben her … brother's brother-in-law?

‘What did you say, Ben?'

‘He's your what?' Sam asked at the same time.

Ben reached for Sam's glass and helped himself to a sip of beer. ‘Well, they're not married, much to mum's disgust, but he's with Jessie. He's the father of her baby, Sam. You remember she had a baby, don't you?'

‘Yeah, of course,' Sam said. Someone had sent him a photo of the new mum and her squinting baby but he didn't remember the bloke in the photo, if he was in it at all.

‘A baby?' Calla murmured, still not believing what she'd heard. Oh shit. The brother she'd thought might be dead, homeless, poor, destitute, mentally ill — or a combination of most of those things — had, all this time, been living on the island creating what sounded like a very nice life, thank you very much. And she'd been worried about
him
? Something boiled up inside her and overflowed. Right at that minute, her need to find Jem had become a burning determination. She had to find him so she could slap him, the little shit. She'd spent two good years of her life worrying herself ill about him, only to find out he sounded perfectly happy. He'd found a partner and they had a baby. A life. A future.

And what did she have? She'd lived with the guilt about what had happened to her brother and that wretched emotion had cast dark clouds over everything in her life. It had ruined her judgement about who she thought she was and what her own life could be like. Her foundations had shifted from under her; she had felt unsteady and dislodged from her life and, after that rupture, she'd grown reckless and had sought solace for the hurt in the wrong place, with the wrong man. By choosing to give her love to someone who could never really love her back, she'd only created more heartbreak for herself, not less.

Calla closed her eyes against the feeling that the world was closing in around her. Images spinning, her heart pounding, Josh breaking up with her, the car accident, the pain behind her eyes and the desperate, recurring wish that the past two years had never happened.

She felt Sam's hand on hers, squeezing her fingers, and she took in a deep breath.

‘You got an address for Jessie, Ben?'

Ben stood, patted Sam on the shoulder. ‘They're down at the fishing shack at Hidden Bay. I know you've been away a long time, mate, but don't tell me you need directions.'

Calla dropped her head into her hands. She needed to get out of there. She needed some fresh air and time to think. She stood. Then Sam did too, rounded the table. He reached for her, took her elbow. ‘You don't look good.' There was concern in his low voice, and she quivered at the affection she could hear in it. She needed to walk. Needed to reconsider her plans about her bloody brother.

‘I need some air,' she said, fighting the constriction in her chest and the squeeze on her lungs. She pulled her bag onto her shoulder.

Sam looked into her eyes. ‘Let me talk to Ben and I'll meet you outside. Okay?'

He didn't let go of her arm until she replied.

‘Okay.'

CHAPTER

25

Calla stood on the cliff top, the old pub at her back, and stared out into the darkening afternoon sky. The horizon was slowly disappearing into the fading violets and greys of twilight, and low, full clouds hid the mainland in the distance. In between, the dark ocean was white capped and choppy. She pulled her coat close around her but it wasn't enough to ward off the chill wind: it threatened to snap-freeze her heart. Or something did.

Across the water, over the hills, was home, and Calla wished she could click her heels together like Dorothy and magically be back there. More than ever, she wanted the predictability and comfort of her own precious house. Her life, recently so complicated and heartbreaking, had to get back to boring as quickly as possible. She'd thought sorting out her issues with Jem would simplify things and set her up for a new chapter in her life. But on the way, it turned out, were tremors, these little earthquakes, that could so easily knock you off your feet and shake the foundations of everything you thought you were.

Jem was on the island. He was alive and had clearly worked very hard to keep away from her for two years, to avoid sharing anything of his happiness with his family. What she'd just learnt made the search for him more confusing, not less.

Would he want to see her? Was he too ashamed? Was he still hurt? Did he still blame her and Rosie for their parents' actions? Some things had felt broken beyond repair, and this relationship might be one of them — too poisoned by the fallout from her family's secret pain.

Calla was beginning to think her fool's errand had only made a fool out of her.

She tried to see the waves and the peace of the view, but the only thing swimming before her eyes was the last fight. Awful and ugly words had been exchanged. Vows had been made; bitter, harsh accusations that had haunted Calla in the two years since. Things that couldn't be unsaid or unheard. Things she wished she'd never said, had regretted every day since …

It had been a fracture as painful and as sudden as a bone breaking. On the day their father died, after lingering bitterly with cancer for months, their mother's secret had finally been revealed in his will. She'd never told them anything about it, had never had the chance for questions or explanations, so they had no way of preparing for their father's brutal revelation.

It was a secret as old as Jem.

Their mother's secret
was
Jem.

While the funeral people murmured over Frank Maloney's body, Calla and Rose went looking for his paperwork. Tucked in a kitchen drawer, stuffed under unpaid bills, old paper bags and rubber bands and broken pens and pegs, were his title deed and his birth and marriage certificates — and his will.

In it he laid out his final retribution: Jem was to receive nothing, because someone else was Jem's father. Their father had bequeathed his estate — a rundown house, that was all — to his two girls, Calla and Rose.

The words had blurred before Calla's eyes. And everything suddenly, sickeningly, made sense. Frank had railed against having a third child and everyone in the family knew it. Jem's arrival became another tool he used in his verbal warfare with their mother. It made him an angrier man, not a better father with more love to share. Once Jem was born, he retreated into his anger and his bitterness and the fights in the family became worse. Their father must have known about him all along. Their mother must have had a dark-haired lover, at least one, and Jem must have looked just like him. He'd always been the odd one out. Their mother, Rose and Calla were redheads. Their father was blond before he'd turned grey in his forties. Jem was the black sheep.

The only son.

The gypsy.

The evidence of guilt.

The blameless kid who'd been blamed and shamed by their father since he was born.

As soon as Calla had seen the words, she knew she had to tell Jem the truth. She'd called him over to their father's house, quivering with fear and a new grief that had nothing to do with their father's death. When he arrived, looking pale and nervous, jittery and dragging on a cigarette, she felt sick all over again. They'd gone outside to the garden and when they were sitting down on the broken bench under the tall gum tree by the back shed, she'd handed him the will. It had been spring and the new leaves on the trees filtered the light and the perfume of jasmine was too happy for what was going on.

Jem read the words silently. He didn't say a word. He stood, stubbed out his cigarette under his foot and began to walk away.

‘Jem. Where are you going?' Calla reached for him and grabbed his arm.