Free My Brother’s Keeper by Donna Malane

thought that was information enough. It was unusual to meet someone who didn’t want to dominate the conversation with information about themselves.
    ‘How come?’ I’m a born questioner.
    ‘Well, I’m one of the partners in a restaurant in Perth and another in Melbourne, though that’s more of a bar than a restaurant, really. And I’m a silent partner in a little place here in Parnell.’
    ‘What’s the difference between a silent and a sleeping partner?’ I asked. ‘I’ve always wondered.’
    ‘I thought you’d know all about that, being the expert on sleeping and all.’ He tilted his head in my direction and I smiled and tilted mine back at him. He wasn’t going to let the she-devil incident go easily.
    ‘So why restaurants?’
    He seemed to genuinely think about my question before delivering me an expressive shrug. ‘I’m a useless cook.’
    ‘You own restaurants because you can’t cook? Seriously?’
    ‘Well, no. The one thing you can say about me is I don’t do anything seriously. I’m constitutionally unsuited for it. I’m told that’s part of my charm.’ They were right about that. ‘But even though I’m a dreadful cook myself, I love food. Actually, I don’t so much love food as the eating of it. With other people, I mean. There’s just nothing that compares with sitting at a table with a bunch of people, eating and drinking and carousing. I love it, especially the carousing. What do you love, then?’ Innocent though the question was, it made me blush. He smiled so readily in response, maybe the question hadn’t been innocent at all.
    We talked and drank wine and crunched the ice cube splinters from our makeshift ice packs, then at three o’clock he cooked up the only dish he claimed to be able to cook: abig plate of scrambled eggs and toast. We squatted on stools either side of the benchtop island, fork in one hand and ice-packed facecloths against our sore bits in the other, while he filled me in on the family history. His father, Arthur, had been in a relationship with Karen’s mother, Norma, for ten years before he died unexpectedly of a massive heart attack. That was two years ago. Ned liked Norma. He was an adult when his father started up with her and he had no problems with their relationship at all.
    ‘They made a great couple,’ he said. Karen’s father had been killed in a car accident more than a decade earlier and Arthur’s first wife, Ned’s mother, died when he was a teenager. After his father’s death, Ned continued to stay at Norma’s when he was in Auckland. He said he hoped Norma enjoyed his company. ‘She and Dad used to have a good time together. He was good company and she missed that when he was gone. I could make her laugh,’ he said, smiling appreciatively at the memory of her. ‘She liked a good laugh.’ Having spent a few easy hours with this man I could well imagine she did enjoy his company, particularly with her man-friend dead and her only child in prison.
    ‘What about Sunny?’ I asked. ‘Did Norma see much of her after Karen went to prison?’
    He shuddered dramatically and polished off a forkful of eggs before answering. ‘It was a terrible, terrible thing Karen did. Norma never forgave her, you know. Well, who could? Even if you were her mother.’
    ‘But she did keep up the contact with Sunny?’
    ‘No. She decided it was best not to.’
    I was shocked. ‘How could that be best? She was the child’s grandmother!’
    ‘Norma didn’t like to talk about it.’ I waited while he forked some eggs onto a piece of toast. ‘I do know that the day after—’ He paused, toast forgotten. The Ponsonby clock chimed four times before he carried on. ‘You know, I keep wanting to call it the accident but of course it was no accident.’ I nodded. I’d done that too. ‘Anyway, the day after the drowning, Dad and Norma went to the house to see Sunny. Karen was taken away that day, of course. The police came round and she just confessed.