Please Don't Leave Me Here by Tania Chandler Page B

Finn?’ Brigitte looks around, and then rushes to the front of the ferry. He’s not there. Ryan scoops up Phoebe, grabs Georgia’s hand, checks the back.
    â€˜Is he there?’ Brigitte yells.
    Ryan shakes his head. She calls Finn’s name.
    There’s only one car on board, so the view of the vehicle section is clear, and he’s not there. And he’s not playing on the rails or the steel stairs leading to the ferry operator’s compartment. There’s nowhere else he could be hiding. He’s not here. This can’t be happening. Brigitte turns around and around. Everything rushes past and blurs, but slows down at the same time — the glow of the public phone box on the island, the lights of Paynesville on the other side, moonlight on the water. She remembers doing something like this before, and quickly pushes away the memory.
    â€˜It’s OK, love, your boy’s here.’ An old man with a red face is holding Finn’s hand. ‘He was sittin’ right up the front.’
    How could she have not seen him there? She snatches him from the man, lifts him, and hugs him as tightly as she can. Her back twists. Ryan takes Finn as Brigitte collapses onto the wooden bench seat.
    â€˜Please don’t tell Sam about this.’ She puts her head between her knees and takes short, shallow breaths.
    â€˜Nothing happened.’
    â€˜Yes, it did.’
    Ryan bends to rub her back and Finn says, ‘Sorry, Mummy. Sorry, Mummy …’
    â€˜It’s OK,’ Ryan says.
    â€˜No, it’s not.’ She leans towards Ryan and lowers her voice so Finn can’t hear. ‘I slept with him — Aidan.’

8
    The cigarette-smoking man waves and coughs as Brigitte keys in the security code.
    Papa’s sitting in the Chesterfield, stroking Tiger and arguing with the talkback host on his transistor radio.
    â€˜Brigi.’ He grins — brown teeth, several missing — when he sees her in the doorway. ‘Ya look bloody awful.’ He pushes the cat off his lap and turns down the radio. ‘You all right?’
    â€˜Just tired.’ She smiles thinly, kisses him, and takes a chair by the window.
    â€˜Where’s the twins?’
    â€˜Kinder.’
    â€˜They go to school now?’
    â€˜No.’ She speaks louder, ‘Kindergarten.’
    They sit in silence for a while.
    Papa clears his throat. ‘Detective bloke was in here a coupla days ago.’
    â€˜What?’ She looks at him and frowns.
    He looks at his hands, clenches them together, his bony knuckles and ropey veins popping out. ‘Tall — some eyetalian name.’
    â€˜Not Serra?’
    â€˜Yeah.’
    Her back hurts, but she sits up straighter and leans forward.
    â€˜Didn’t look real eyetie. Askin’ questions bout some low-life music bloke got killed same time you had …’ he looks up and swallows, his Adams apple stretching the thin, wrinkly skin across his throat, ‘… the accident. Don’t remember that, do ya?’
    She shakes her head slowly.
    â€˜Was in the papers, on telly. You were home with me and Nana when it happened. She had to go to hospital with her heart attack, remember?’
    He knows she doesn’t remember.
    â€˜Bloody bastard got what he deserved anyway.’ Papa’s getting agitated, tapping his fingertips together. Maybe he hasn’t been taking his pills. ‘Detective said some other bloke reckons you were with him that night. But he’s lyin’, right? Cause you were with me and Nana, right?’
    â€˜Right.’ Brigitte nods and looks out the window at the Pelaco sign.
    Petula pokes her head in the doorway. ‘Coming on the bus trip this afternoon, Eddie?’
    â€˜No thanks, love.’ He dismisses her with a wave of his hand and looks at Brigitte. ‘What’d she say?’
    â€˜Are you going on the bus trip?’
    â€˜Won’t bloody leave me alone. Bus