The Husband’s Secret

panic.

good friday

chapter forty-three
    ‘Juice!’ demanded Jacob.
    ‘What do you want, sweetie?’ whispered Lauren.
    Juice , thought Rachel. He wants a juice. Are you deaf ?
    It was only just light, and Rachel, Rob and Lauren were standing in a shivery little circle at Wattle Valley Park, rubbing their hands together and stamping their feet, while Jacob slithered in and out between their legs. He was rugged up in a parka that Rachel suspected was too small for him, his arms sticking straight out like a snowman.
    As expected, Lauren was wearing her trench coat, although her ponytail didn’t look quite as perfect as normal – there were a few strands escaping from her hairband – and she looked tired. She was carrying a single red rose, which Rachel thought was a silly choice. It was like those roses in long plastic cylinders that young men gave to their girlfriends on Valentine’s Day.
    Rachel herself was carrying a small posy of sweet peas she’d picked from her own backyard, tied up with a piece of green velvet ribbon like Janie used to wear when she was very little.
    ‘Do you leave the flowers where she was found? At the bottom of the slide?’ Marla had once asked.
    ‘Yes, Marla, I leave them there to be trampled by hundreds of little feet,’ Rachel had said.
    ‘Oh, yes, good point,’ Marla had said, not at all offended.
    It wasn’t even the same slide. All the clunky old metal equipment had been replaced by fancy space-age-looking stuff, just like the park near Rachel’s house where she took Jacob, and the ground had a rubbery surface that gave an astronaut-like bounce to your step.
    ‘Juice!’ said Jacob again.
    ‘I don’t understand, sweetie.’ Lauren flipped her ponytail back over one shoulder. ‘You want me to loosen your jacket?’
    For heaven’s sake. Rachel sighed. It wasn’t like she ever really felt Janie’s presence when she came here. She couldn’t imagine her here, couldn’t conceive how she had come to be here. None of Janie’s friends had ever known her to come to this particular park. It was a boy, obviously, who had brought her here. A boy called Connor Whitby. He probably wanted sex and Janie said no. She should have had sex with him. That was Rachel’s fault, for going on about it so much, as if losing her virginity was this momentous event. Dying was far more momentous. She should have said to her, ‘Have sex with whoever you want, Janie. Just stay safe.’
    Ed had never wanted to come to the park where she was found. ‘What’s the bloody point of that?’ he said. ‘Too bloody late to go there now, isn’t it? She’s not bloody there, is she?’
    You’re bloody right, Ed.
    But Rachel felt like she owed it to Janie to turn up each year with her posy of flowers, to apologise for not being there, to be there now, to imagine her last few moments, to honour the last place she’d been alive, the last place where she’d breathed. If only Rachel could have been there to see her for those last precious minutes, to drink in the sight ofthose ridiculously long skinny legs and arms, the awkward, angular beauty of her face. It was a silly thought, because if Rachel had been there, then she would have been busy saving her life, but still, she longed to have been there, even if she wasn’t able to change the outcome.
    Maybe Ed had been right. It was pointless to come here each year like this. It felt particularly pointless this year with Rob and Lauren and Jacob standing around like people waiting for something to happen, the entertainment to start.
    ‘Juice!’ said Jacob.
    ‘I’m sorry, sweetie, I just don’t understand,’ said Lauren.
    ‘He wants a juice,’ said Rob so gruffly that Rachel almost felt sorry for Lauren. Rob sounded just like Ed when he got grumpy. The Crowley men were such grumps. ‘We don’t have any, mate. Here. We’ve got your water bottle. Have some water.’
    ‘We don’t drink juice, Jakey,’ said Lauren. ‘It’s bad for your teeth.’
    Jacob held his water bottle with fat little hands, tipped back his head and drank thirstily, giving Rachel a look that said, We won’t tell her about all the juice I drink at your place .
    Lauren tightened the belt of her trench coat and turned to Rachel. ‘Do you normally say anything? Or, um –’
    ‘No, I just think of her,’ said Rachel in a flat, shut-the-hell-up voice. She certainly wasn’t going to let her feelings loose in front of Lauren. ‘We can go in a moment. It’s very nippy.