Free Swimming on Dry Land by Helen Blackhurst

kangaroo.’
    She is not the least bit consoled.
    Mike more or less spits at me. ‘I’ll take her back. Tell the others what happened.’
    When he starts to lead Monica away, she breaks free of him and shoots across to the corpse. She plunges to the ground and stretches out beside it, running her hands along the length of its mangy body.
    â€˜Don’t touch it!’ Mike shouts.
    But she presses her head against the animal’s open belly. He has to prise her off. Children can be pretty morbid. Mike was the worst; he was always cutting up animals to get a look at their insides.
    He leads Monica off, though she keeps pulling back. He has to carry her in the end. She’ll be a real stunner when she’s older; the same wavy auburn hair as Caroline. I’m so relieved, I actually cry; I cry in the midst of shaking laugher, no doubt owing to lack of sleep.
    Systematically, I make my way between each shaft, pulling off the caps, calling down, until the sun disappears. It feels good to be on my own, mostly; now and again I get a bit spooked at the idea of being out here with God knows what on the loose. I know exactly what we’re in for. The interviews will start. People will cook up fantastical explanations guaranteed to fuel mass panic. And I’ll have to create new tactics to calm the storm. It’s like the worst recurring dream. On top of which, it is Georgie.
    When I get back to the service station, I wait by the pumps for a while, watching the moon grow in the darkening sky. Nothing will be the same after this. There is no going back to those early days. In four years this town has developed a hunch, and grown as rough as toad skin. We all have.
    I’ll tell you what I see when I close my eyes; I see this street with its identical houses and pinched together gardens, children climbing lampposts and flying flags that turn into butterfly wings. It’s my street. I’m walking up and down, watering the houses as if they were flowers, lifting off the roofs to watch the people inside. My street. I wish Dad was alive to see what I have done.
    When I open the sitting-room door, Caroline shoots towards me, stopping mid-stride to look at Monica, who is writhing on the settee, her face wet with sweat. We both watch her until Caroline says, ‘I thought you were the doctor.’
    There is so much I could say, so much I want to say, but none of it seems relevant. And so I draw her into the next room where we can be alone. I lift her face towards mine and kiss the tears that roll down her cheeks. Then I unbutton the front of her dress. Just as my mouth reaches her breast, she pulls away.
    Mike is studying a map of the old mine, which is pinned to the kitchen wall. It must be close to dawn. He makes pencil marks where we’ve already searched. Without looking back at me, he asks, ‘Who’s Ted Hanson?’ The relief, at first, is overwhelming. I can feel the push of it all, like a giant wave, as I get ready to rush the whole thing out. I never meant to hide what happened. As I said, the timing wasn’t right.
    I drop into a chair at the kitchen table and search the map for a starting point. It’s hard to find the right road in. Mike turns around, clutching at his arm below the elbow with his other hand, his shoulders slumped in their usual position. So I begin. ‘Two years ago Ted went missing. It was a Wednesday. He turned up at the mine, left work, and then vanished somewhere between the drop-off point and the street. The men came over the next evening. He hadn’t showed and wasn’t at home. They thought he might be with me.’ I have imagined having this conversation, what I would say, how Mike would react. It wasn’t like this. We were in the bar, for a start. The whole thing was more of a sideways comment than an actual conversation: a point of interest, a snippet of information, something Mike could write about if he wanted to. Mike moulds his