Cooper Bartholomew Is Dead

  I nod.

  ‘Your father was working at the legal centre . . . it must have been twenty years ago . . . he didn’t have anything to do with the case personally, but Tessa went into his office, saw one of his partners. She was thinking of getting a divorce. Her husband had been booked for drink driving. He’d lost his licence and his job. She was in a terrible state, apparently.’

  ‘Did you know he killed himself?’

  ‘Yes. It was horribly sad. He jumped, didn’t he?’

  ‘I didn’t even know, Mum! Sebastian only told me today. I had no idea. Nobody told me.’

  ‘Oh, darling, I’m so sorry,’ Mum puts her hand on my cheek. ‘I thought you knew.’

  I’m quiet for a moment as I let everything sink in. Cooper had told me that his father drank a lot, but he never mentioned that his parents’ relationship had been in trouble. He must have known that his father jumped off Bradley’s Edge, but perhaps he didn’t know much about the state of their marriage. After all, it had all been over by the time he was born. Tessa may have decided not to tell him.

  In any case, it stings to think he kept any secrets from me.

  And yet in a way I understand. He probably felt protective of his father. Maybe he was even slightly ashamed that there had been a suicide in the family.

  ‘That’s why you didn’t want me to go out with him?’ I sit up on my elbow and look at her. ‘Because you thought he might be like his father?’

  ‘Maybe. I suppose so.’ She sighed. ‘It was wrong of me to judge Cooper. It was wrong of me to say anything. I’ve just dealt with so many dysfunctional families, Libby, and . . . it’s hard. Complicated. I just wanted to protect you from any ugliness.’

  ‘Cooper wasn’t like that,’ I say angrily. ‘He wasn’t ugly. He would never have—’

  ‘Shhh,’ she interrupts. ‘I know, Libby. I know. I was just being an overprotective mother. Cooper was lovely. I know that.’

  We don’t talk for a while, and Mum rolls onto her back. Eventually I hear her breathing slow down, get deeper and more regular.

  ‘I wonder why Richard killed himself,’ I whisper. ‘Maybe he was sad because Tessa didn’t love him anymore. Maybe he just couldn’t handle the thought of life without her.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mum says sleepily. ‘I can’t imagine how someone like that feels. It’s such a messy and horrible situation. But let’s not talk about it now, not at this time of night.’ She kisses my forehead and rolls onto her side. ‘Goodnight, darling.’

  As I try to get to sleep, the sense that I’ve forgotten something returns. There’s still something, some half-memory lingering frustratingly on the edge of my awareness. I lie in my mother’s bed and listen to her gentle breathing, and it isn’t until I’m almost asleep myself that it comes to me.

  My eyes snap open.

  Claire. On the beach the night of the party. She’d said something to Cooper about Tessa. I’d never found out what it was. Had never thought it mattered.

  Now I’m not so sure and suddenly I know I have to speak to her. I have to find out exactly what she told Cooper. If Cooper did kill himself, then I’m going to find out why. I don’t believe for a moment that he was depressed – something bad must have happened. Something so awful he decided life wasn’t worth living anymore – and maybe Claire knows what it was.

  Just before I drift off, Sebastian’s panicked face flashes into my mind. He’d been so determined to prevent me from talking to Claire, so scared when he thought it might be too late. I wonder what it is that he doesn’t want me to know.

  52

  CLAiRE

  Claire wakes up with a feeling of dread. She can’t think of a good reason to get out of bed, even though she know it’s late.

  She has got through the drugs Sebastian gave her at the funeral alarmingly quickly. What should have lasted several weekends is now almost gone. She has never before taken so much, for so many days in a row, but she’s stressed and upset. The drugs smooth out the rough edges, make her sadness and anxiety easier to bear.

  She sits up, rubs her eyes, pushes her hair back. Her room is a mess. Clothes are scattered everywhere, surfaces are coated in dust. She sighs. ‘Shit.’

  ‘Shit what?’ Bree asks, walking into her room.

  ‘Just shit,’ Claire says. ‘Shit everything.’

  ‘Okay. Everything’s shit. Fine. Are you going in to work tonight? You’d better. Rod will be really pissed off if you don’t turn up. I think he might even sack you.’ Bree sounds bitchy and sanctimonious, and Claire wonders when she got so uptight. She’s already dressed in a black skirt and white shirt, hair pulled back from her face. She looks annoyingly energetic and wholesome. She looks around Claire’s room, taking in the mess of clothes and shoes covering the floor.

  ‘He can’t sack me,’ Claire says. ‘I’m grieving. I could sue him if he did that. Unfair dismissal or something.’

  ‘Right. Sure.’ Bree goes to leave, but stops in the doorway. ‘Hey, you know what? I’m sad too, Claire. We all are. But you have to get on with life. You can’t use Cooper’s death as an excuse to get all messy. And, the thing is, he wasn’t even . . .’ Her voice fades.

  ‘What? He wasn’t even what?’

  Bree shakes her head. ‘Forget it.’

  ‘He wasn’t even my boyfriend anymore? Is that what you were going to say?’ Claire’s voice is immediately high-pitched with outrage. She’s not even sure whether she has any right to anger. But it’s easier to attack than defend, and she feels so revolting and so strung out it seems the easiest option. ‘That’s just fucked, Bree. Insensitive and cruel. And I thought you were my friend.’

  Bree rolls her eyes and looks at Claire with something uncomfortably close to disdain.

  ‘See you later,’ she says. ‘I’m going in to do lunch. What’ll I tell Rod about tonight?’

  ‘Tell him I’ll be back next week.’

  ‘Fine. Just don’t hold me responsible if he doesn’t want you back.’

  When Bree has gone, Claire pulls the covers up, tries to sleep the misery away, but it’s too late. She’s wide awake, far too on edge and jittery to go back to sleep. Her head aches and her belly cramps. The sheets feel rough and scratchy against her skin, her mattress too hard, the doona too heavy. She’s breathless and sweaty. When she kicks the doona off and spreads her limbs over the top of it she grows cold and starts shivering. She gets up, goes to the kitchen and makes herself a mug of strong Nescafe. She stirs in loads of sugar and milk, stands against the bench and sips on the hot, sweet concoction.

  There’s a knock on the door. She’s not expecting anybody and the last thing she wants to do is make conversation, so she ignores it and goes to the bathroom. She checks her reflection in the mirror. She looks like crap. She needs to shower, do something with her hair, put some make-up on. She’s about to pull her top off when the knocking starts again. There’s a chance it could be Sebastian, so she goes to the living room and peeks through the security hole. She nearly faints with shock when she sees who’s there: Libby fucking Lawson.

  ‘Claire?’ Libby calls through the door. ‘Is that you? Claire?’

  There’s no way she can pretend not to be there. The floor squeaks and Libby would have seen her shadow. She opens the door reluctantly, leaving the security chain on. She peers out through the gap.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I want to talk.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Cooper.’

  ‘Well, I don’t,’ Claire counters. ‘Not to you, anyway.’

  Libby looks uncomfortable, steps away uncertainly. She looks as though she’s about to give up and leave, but then she steps forward, speaks in a rush.

  ‘Could you just let me in for a minute? Please? I won’t stay too long. It’s just . . . I’ve been wondering about Cooper. I wanted to know what you thought. About the whole suicide thing. And I wondered if you knew anything, if you have an opinio
n at all.’

  ‘An opinion?’ Claire’s heart pounds in her chest. Her stomach clenches tight with anxiety or nausea or both, and for a moment she feels like she might either vomit or shit herself. She is suddenly wet with sweat, sheets of damp coating her forehead and chest. ‘It’s insane. Totally dumb. That’s my opinion. People shouldn’t kill themselves.’

  ‘Yeah. It is insane, I agree,’ Libby says. ‘It’s really awkward talking to you like this, Claire. Could I just come in for a minute? It won’t take long.’

  Claire doesn’t answer.

  ‘Please?’

  Claire slides the chain off, opens the door and turns away, then slumps onto the sofa. Libby follows her inside and sits on the sofa opposite.

  ‘I was wondering,’ she starts, then clears her throat. ‘I was wondering if you could tell me what you were talking about at the beach party. The thing about Tessa?’

  ‘Tessa?’ Claire stares at her hands, picks at a fingernail.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Libby says. ‘It was something you told Cooper. He was a bit upset, I think. You told him the night of the beach party, before Atticus drove you home. You must remember?’

  ‘I don’t remember a thing from that night. I was drunk. But don’t worry, whatever it was I’m sure it’s not relevant. Not worth remembering. I was probably making stuff up.’ Claire laughs nervously.

  Libby is silent for a moment. She stares at her hands, which are clasped in her lap. Then she leans forward, looks at Claire imploringly.

  ‘Please, Claire. Please try to remember. I don’t think it was made up at all. And it might be . . . it might give us some idea why.’ She sighs. ‘Please help me.’

  Claire reaches for the packet of cigarettes on the coffee table, but notices how furiously her hands are shaking and changes her mind. Bloody Libby – what a hide to think she can come here and expect Claire’s help.

  ‘Why the fuck should I help you?’

  Libby looks startled. ‘Why shouldn’t you?’

  ‘You always thought you were better than me,’ Claire says. The words fall out of her mouth without her permission, a kind of reflex, like throwing up after drinking too much vodka. She can’t make them stop. ‘Even when we were friends, you always thought you were just so much better.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘At school. Even when we were supposed to be friends.’ She laughs bitterly. ‘Unbelievable as that seems now.’

  ‘I never thought I was better than anyone. I was too busy feeling like an idiot most of the time.’

  ‘No. You thought I was an idiot. You bloody well said so.’

  ‘You have no idea what I thought back then, and you don’t know what I think now.’

  ‘I do know what you thought, actually. I know exactly what you thought of me. I heard you. In Year 8. I heard what you said about me.’

  ‘Yeah, well, if you want to dredge all that up again, then maybe I had a reason to say bad things about you. You copied everything I did. I joined the concert band and you went and bought a clarinet. I joined the debating team and you tried to follow. You wouldn’t let me do anything on my own. You wouldn’t let me be good at anything.’ Libby shakes her head and looks at Claire with disbelief.

  ‘I just wanted to be with you. I thought we were friends.’

  ‘We were!’

  ‘Some kind of friend you turned out to be. Don’t you remember? I heard you talking to those wankers in the debating group. You told them not to let me in the team because I’d only let them down. You called me a moron.’

  ‘I didn’t call you a moron. I wasn’t that mean,’ Libby says, but her cheeks go bright red and she blinks. She stares off to the side as if she’s trying to think.

  ‘Yes, you did.’ Claire remembers it as clearly as the day it happened. She shrugs – she doesn’t want Libby to think she cares too much, that she ever cared too much. ‘Anyway. Whatever. I didn’t bother turning up for the tryout and I stopped hanging out with you, so you got your way in the end.’

  ‘I didn’t get my way. That wasn’t what I wanted . . .’ Libby says, but her voice is small and unconvincing.

  ‘Yes, it was. That was exactly what you wanted. You wanted me to hear everything. You knew I was there the whole time. You were trying to hurt me. You didn’t want to be friends anymore and you made sure I knew it.’

  53

  LiBBy

  Claire’s accusation leaves me feeling slightly fragmented, as if nothing is solid or reliable. I’d like to be able to blame everything that happened in Year 8 on Claire, but I can’t. As I sit there and think about it, mentally inhabiting my former self, I start to wonder. Did I really set out to hurt Claire deliberately? Did I really mean to end our friendship in such a cowardly way? I don’t remember my motives, nor can I remember the actual conversation Claire overheard, but I remember her tears, her outrage. Our last fight.

  I was desperate to impress the people on the debating team, she’s right about that. And if I’m honest with myself I have to admit that I was fed up with Claire. She was so pretty and popular and good at sport. Everybody noticed her. I was desperate to find my own niche in life, my own way to stand out.

  And finally I understand for the first time what I really wanted back then, what I really felt. When Claire stopped talking to me I was glad. I was free. When our friendship broke up I was relieved.

  Shame makes my face burn.

  ‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘God, I can’t actually believe I’m saying this. I honestly haven’t ever thought of it this way before. But I think you’re right. I think I did want you to hear.’

  ‘I knew it.’

  ‘I know it’s not much of an excuse, Claire, but I was pretty jealous.’

  ‘Jealous? Of what?’

  ‘You. You were so popular and shiny. I always felt . . . I don’t know . . . so dull in comparison.’

  Claire’s not exactly shiny right now. In fact she looks terrible. Her skin is pale and pasty, her hair tangled, her eyes red. She looks unhealthy. Unhappy. It’s shocking to see her like this.

  She tugs a cigarette from the packet in front of her, her hands shaking. She smirks, puts the cigarette in her mouth, lights up and draws back. Then she blows a thin line of smoke right at my face. Slowly.

  ‘Bitch,’ she says.

  I roll my eyes. ‘Could you at least turn the other way? Blow it over there?’

  She shrugs. ‘You were saying?’

  ‘I was saying that, yes, okay, it was deliberate. I was jealous.’

  She picks something from her lip, blinks. ‘You hurt me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Claire,’ I say, and I genuinely mean it. ‘Honestly, I’m really sorry.’

  ‘It was a shit thing to do.’

  ‘It was totally shit, I agree.’

  ‘Totally.’

  There’s a long silence. I avoid her gaze, but when I sneak a glance she is staring off to the side, gnawing at her fingernails. Then she looks at me, an intense frown on her face.

  ‘So. Anyway,’ she says. ‘I think I’ve decided to forgive you.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘No, I mean I have.’

  ‘Oh. Well, good,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she says imperiously. ‘You can’t help being imperfect. I should probably give you a second chance.’

  ‘That’s very big of you.’

  ‘I know.’ Her frown clears and she smiles, and it’s a smile that’s so strangely familiar it makes my heart break a little. ‘So I guess that’s a truce then,’ she says.

  54

  CLAiRE

  Claire thinks they’re safely off the topic of Cooper on the beach, but Libby doesn’t let it go.

  ‘Now that that’s out of the way,’ she says, ‘do you think you can help me out?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Just tell me what you said to Cooper at the beach. I don’t believe you can’t remember, Claire. I really don’t.’

  Claire sits there for a moment, thinking. She could get an
gry, could really lose her temper with Libby. But she can’t be bothered. She is lying, and for once the requisite outrage is hard to muster. And she can’t see that it would actually hurt to tell. Whatever happened between Leonard and Tessa is ancient history now. If Libby thinks it’s going to explain what happened to Cooper, she’s in for a massive disappointment.

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ she says, getting up. ‘I just need a drink. You want one?’

  ‘Now?’ Libby makes a face. ‘It’s only midday.’

  ‘It’s five o’clock somewhere in the world.’

  Claire goes to the kitchen and pours herself a drink. When she takes it back to the lounge room she notices Libby staring at her glass.

  ‘You don’t need to look at me like that,’ she says.

  ‘I was just thinking that it looks quite tempting.’

  ‘Yeah? You want? I’ll make you one.’

  ‘I’m driving. Otherwise I would.’

  Claire sits back down and tells Libby what she saw on the video. Tessa’s flirtatious demeanour, the loving look, the kiss. She explains how she’d assumed the person holding the recorder must have been Cooper’s dad, and what a spin-out it was when she realised it was Leonard.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Libby frowns. ‘I mean, are you sure they weren’t just mucking around?’

  ‘No way. It was blatantly sexual. It was definitely serious.’

  ‘What did Sebastian say?’

  ‘He chucked a bit of a fit, actually. He kicked me out. He wouldn’t talk about it. Actually, he made me swear not to tell anyone.’ She takes a gulp of her drink. ‘And here I am.’

  ‘But did Cooper know about it? Did anyone tell him?’

  Claire feels a hot flush of shame. Truth is, she doesn’t know. She has no idea what she said to Cooper the night he died. No idea what happened.

  ‘Maybe. We might have when he came over to Sebastian’s. We were pretty wasted. We all said a lot of stuff.’ She shrugs. ‘But I swear, Libby, most of that night is a complete blank to me. I’m not lying. Seb and me, well, we totally overindulged. I don’t know what we said. I can’t even remember getting home.’