What Matters Most

By Dianne Maguire

Confronting, amusing and compelling, this is a story about choices and how they shape who we become.

There is good love and bad love. Good sex and bad sex. And sometimes it's hard to know the difference.

Paediatrician and mother Mia Sandhurst is scraping to keep her marriage together after her husband of 25 years breaks her heart. Finally facing reality, Mia embarks on a series of outlandish new behaviours to make startling discoveries about herself, love and life.

But the lies and betrayal Mia endures are nothing compared to those of her 15 year old patient, Rachel Hooper.

Set on the magical coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula, WHAT MATTERS MOST is a story of love, family, misplaced loyalty and how our choices shape who we are.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Apr 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781460705490

Dianne Maguire

Dianne Maguire is a social worker turned novelist with over 20 years’ experience in child welfare and protection. She has won the Pauline Walsh Prize in the Eastwood/Hills Regional Annual Literary Awards and in 2010 she co-wrote a collection of non-fiction short stories, ‘It’s About Time’, for children’s charity ‘Time for Kids’. Her articles have been published in state and national newspapers and magazines. Although Dianne lives in Adelaide with her husband Jerome, she does most of her writing on the Fleurieu Peninsula.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

If she hadn’t been little more than a child, then possibly none of this would have happened. But the truth is, she was only a child — in mind, if not in body. And even though some would later say that she could have stopped it if she had wanted it to stop, such a view does not heed the perilously fine line that exists between the choices we make and what fate has in store for us.

Jack Carmichael passionately believed that, despite what fate deals us, and regardless of our age, it is up to each of us to draw on the capabilities we are given, plus some, to produce the grit and determination it takes to turn bad luck into good. Day after day Jack earned his living by ministering to the broken bodies and the crushed souls of those pulled from crumpled cars, burning buildings or other catastrophic happenings. Helping others in crisis was his bread and butter. He had heard, smelled, seen and done things most of us could not conjure up even in our most vivid imaginings. Even so, he remained persistently stoic in the view that although each of us needs help sometimes, we must all be the masters of our own destiny — in life and in love.

Jack woke that day with no idea that his destiny would have taken a new direction by the time he returned to his bed.

When the 000 call came through it was close to midnight. The house where it happened seemed to shrink into the shadows and would have been invisible if it hadn’t been for the glow from the front windows, and the LED tube flashing its light along the length of the gutter. The moment Jack cut the engine and jumped from the ambulance he felt his hackles rise.

‘You’d think they would have turned the bloody music down,’ he said to his partner, grabbing his med kit before they moved hurriedly across the freshly mown lawn. Neither of them voiced the disquiet they each felt at the distinct lack of a human presence. A black and white border collie limped arthritically towards them and sniffed their legs as they ran up the steps and strode across the timber deck to push through the front door and hurry along a bare, timber passage.

Inside, the tight knot of party-goers who hugged the bathroom door like ghoulish groupies at a concert, wordlessly turned their horrified faces towards him. ‘Someone cut the music. It’s only respectful,’ Jack said, pushing through.

There she lay. Her small shape sprawled across the unforgiving bathroom tiles. For a moment he was struck speechless. It wasn’t the grim silence that he knew from experience heralded death and now filled the small space to drown out the persistent thump of the music outside. It wasn’t even the fact that she was still little more than a child. It was because it was Rachel Hooper lying close to death at his feet and she was the last person on this earth Jack would have expected to find in such a state.

He and his partner both knew there was no time to spare. While Jack speedily and expertly administered life-saving fluids, his partner fetched a stretcher, and within moments the stunned party-goers, most from the small town of Ackland Point or the coastal hamlet of Ackland Bay, had gathered on the front lawn to watch as Jack and his partner loaded Rachel onto a gurney and into the ambulance for their journey to the Children’s Hospital in the city, 80 kilometres away.

In the back of the ambulance Jack leaned across the white blanket covering her and stretched up to adjust the flow of the drip. Finally, his steel-capped boots planted either side of the paramedic chair like small boats, the familiar onerous sense of responsibility gripped him as the ambulance lurched into motion. The hospital was 45 minutes away. With his hand covering hers, he gazed through the window where the silver moon played across the dark sea, the shadowy coastline of the Fleurieu Peninsula slipping past them like an old silent movie, the deep and unforgiving Southern Ocean invisibly present beyond. The vehicle gathered speed and the siren broke into its warning shrieks. Scarlet and blue flashed across black skies like missiles. And Jack Carmichael’s sense of responsibility was boosted by the surge of adrenaline he always felt at this time.

He glanced at the monitor, its beeps and flickering screen confirming what he already knew. The same blue and scarlet that lit the skies melded inside the ambulance to form a cadaverous shade of purple. With unshakable hope and determination Jack squeezed her hand and watched this morbid facsimile of death’s hue slide unfettered over her dark hair, her wan face and across the blanket.

From the time she was born, Jack had seen Rachel grow into a bright teen, a warrior on her horse, and the star player on the local girls’ soccer team of which he was the proud and diligent coach. In the street, on the beach or at the local footy games, Rachel would never fail to stop for a chat with Jack and his wife, Sharon — despite the view of some that she was withdrawn, even stuck up. He was grateful Sharon was not sitting here now. If she had been, she would be beside herself with concern, poking at his arm and hissing in his ear, If Rachel Hooper dies, Jack Carmichael, I will throw your skin to the ants.

Rachel was Sharon’s favourite student, not that Sharon would ever say that in so many words. A consistent A-grader, way above average intelligence, and with the courage to confront any bully no matter the size, is how Sharon describes Rachel. But she also talks about the girl’s dark side. A tight, festering nub of turmoil, is what Sharon says in her dramatic moments. It rankled him that, on occasion, his wife seemed to care more for her students than for him, but he understood what she meant when she talked about the deep knot of something inside Rachel that made her quiet some days and sullen on others, that set her apart from her peers in an indefinable way. One day that girl is going to confront her demons and then everyone will know about it, Sharon said to him, more than once.

‘Perhaps that day has come,’ Jack murmured with his jaw clenched, suddenly blinded by headlights from behind. ‘Get back, Tim. Not too close, mate,’ he said, squinting and waving as though warding off flies. Rachel’s older brother, Tim, had been the one who had first discovered her during the party, unconscious in her own vomit and piss on the bathroom floor. From the moment Jack arrived at the scene, Tim had been like a third arm at his side, muttering over and over that it was his fault. That he had let his little sister down.

Peering at Rachel’s expressionless face, listening for her infrequent and shallow breaths, Jack thought back on the countless discussions he and Sharon had shared over the years. In spite of the Hoopers seeming to be like any normal family, Sharon was of a mind to question their home life based purely on gossip that was more than 40 years old and that stemmed from a world away on the opposite side of the Peninsula. Jack, on the other hand, was not one to take any type of gossip seriously. In his opinion, Rachel’s father Peter provided well for his family and Jack had seen no evidence to the contrary. The air of mystery created by Peter’s introversion was not unlike that of many locals — people who spoke little and kept their secrets and desires close to their chests. But unlike many, Peter was a hard worker who ploughed on regardless of the global market trends and falling prices that were screwing most cattle farmers into the ground.

And he knew Annie, Peter’s wife, almost as well as he knew Sharon, because more than a lifetime ago Annie had been his very first love. Jack was certain beyond doubt that Annie, a fiery redhead who had matured into the epitome of Mother Earth, would rather pierce her eye with a needle than allow anyone but the best of men to father her children and to share in their care. Hence, Jack confidently adhered to the view that Annie and Peter were good parents to their children — Tim, Rachel and Ben — and that Sharon would be better off brooding over more needy causes, such as the numerous kids in town who frequently fronted up at school dirty, or those to whom she regularly handed out food or lunch money because their parents had no idea how to look after them, or worse, simply did not care. He wondered as he had wondered many times before, whether his wife’s fussing was a consequence of their childlessness.

Jack snorted softly and turned back to his patient. Support and monitor: that’s all he could do until they got her to the hospital. They would arrive at the Children’s in 15 minutes. It would then be up to the doctors. He tucked his hands under his thighs and watched pinpricks of rain land soundlessly on the windows before glancing further into the darkness to see the headlights of Tim’s big black ute now at a sensible distance behind.

Time seemed to stand still, but the kilometres whizzed by. Knowing there was nothing more he could do, Jack closed his eyes and focussed on the regular blips of the cardio-monitor. Forced a few deep intakes of breath. Felt his muscles relax, his mind let go.

It was the heart monitor’s frantic squeals that jolted him back to reality. ‘Jeez, Rachel.’ He flicked off his seatbelt and in a single movement charged the defibrillator with one hand and ripped her blanket off with the other. Without hesitating, he sliced her shirt open, then her tiny bra, and within seconds had secured the adhesive pad that would shock her heart back into rhythm.

‘Stand clear,’ ordered the faceless voice from the defibrillation machine. ‘Deliver shock,’ it said in the same monotone.

Jack slammed the button with a thud. Rachel jerked like a rag doll.

‘Shock delivered. Start CPR,’ the voice intoned.

Jack’s gloved hands compressed Rachel’s sternum. For what seemed an eternity he pushed on the outside and counted rhythmically on the inside. But there was no change.

‘Stand clear,’ the defib machine eventually warned again.

Jack hit the button a second time. ‘C’mon, Rachel. Don’t die on me now.’

Rachel spasmed again, her still face at odds with the violent jerk of her body. ‘Shock delivered. Commence CPR,’ the voice repeated.

Again, Jack’s flattened palms took up their work, his face straining with concentration, his breathing laboured. Again, there was no response.

He refused to give up. His mind raced for elusive answers. Then he found a pulse … faint at first, but with every passing second the life-giving beat in her neck became more visible.

And at last, from the faceless voice, the words he had been waiting for: ‘No shock advised.’

‘Good girl,’ he muttered taking a long deep breath. He straightened his shoulders, fully aware that she was not out of the woods yet. But she was breathing on her own. She was young. And she was fit. They were all good signs.

It seemed an eternity before they cruised past the neon Ambulance Entrance sign and into the driveway of the monolithic structure that was the Children’s Hospital. The sirens faded and died to create an eerie void in the grey dawn. Jack ripped the latex gloves from his hands, leaving them where they fell, and pondered Rachel’s expressionless face, her motionless body. He rested his fingers lightly on her clammy cheek for the briefest moment. Flicking the catches open under her gurney he stretched and splayed open the rear doors.

‘How is she?’ Tim gasped, jumping in and peering down at the paraphernalia hanging off his sister. ‘Jeezus, Jack. She looks worse. What the hell happened?’

CHAPTER TWO

Mia Sandhurst blinked hard with the effort it took to keep her eyes open as she lay back on the vinyl couch of her cramped office and dialled his number yet again. It would be around 3.00pm in Singapore. She couldn’t think of any reason why he would not answer this time.. She had been ringing him every hour on the hour since her shift had started nine hours ago. Giving into belligerent weariness, she lifted her red runners, crossed her ankles and, with a deep sigh, lay her feet on the coffee table. Having her feet off the ground felt like manna from heaven — even if it was only for a moment. She closed her eyes as though to block the frustration of his phone ringing out yet again and fought the sense of weightlessness that comes just before sleep.

Gritting her teeth, she jabbed the end call button with more force than intended, then tossed her mobile onto the coffee table, watching it skim the light timber surface and drop with a clunk to the tiled floor. ‘For chrissake, when are you going to answer your phone, Eric,’ she spat, lowering her feet and leaning her head between her hands, wishing she had taken more notice of his schedule for this trip. She knew he and his colleagues were somewhere in Singapore trying to finalise an important multinational funding deal. He’d been away on similar projects countless times, but never before had he so persistently ignored her calls.

Fatigue and frustration combined to create visions in her mind of Eric horribly injured in a traffic accident or desperately ill with an exotic disease — or worse, gasping and writhing on a king-sized bed in a five-star Singaporean hotel, sharing bodily fluids with another woman. The vision of his facial expression, the echo of the words he invariably shouted at the moment of climax, the thought he may be enjoying this sacrosanct experience with someone other than her, rattled her heart and her confidence for just a moment, until common sense reminded her she had no rational reason to mistrust him. At the exact same moment as this thought came the triage nurse’s voice from her pager: ‘Mia. We need you in the treatment area.’

Mia grabbed up her mobile and shoved it deep into the pocket of her blue scrubs before making her way speedily down the cream and blue-tiled corridor that ran between her office and the Emergency ward. By the time she had reached the treatment area, all thoughts of anything other than her next patient had left her.

His height made Jack Carmichael easy to spot amid the organised chaos of the Emergency room. Mia knew Jack superficially, due to the numerous times he had transported patients from the Fleurieu. Some of her colleagues, medical and non-medical, female and male, paid Jack more mind than could be considered usual because of his legendary status in football. To Mia, whose only interest in the sport was avoiding the mind-numbing postmortems saturating the media, any iconic status Jack Carmichael had earned 20 years ago was secondary to his skills as a paramedic and his dedication to his patients. At his side, a tall guy in his twenties paced the floor, raking his fingers through his russet hair with an air of frustrated helplessness. She immediately thought of her own son, Adam, who was about the same age, and her heart lurched. Already at work on the patient was an Emergency RN, Chester, whose fine-boned frame would have made him seem vulnerable, and dwarfed beside the others, if it hadn’t been for the palpable confidence and efficacy with which he carried on caring for the young patient stretched out on the gurney.

Jack watched Mia as she walked towards him, his demeanour impatient, his brow stern and furrowed. ‘This is Rachel Hooper, 15, acute alcohol toxicity,’ he offered, his tone reflecting bitter disappointment.

Mia glanced at the portable cardio-monitor which had been bundled up and left on the gurney at the teen’s feet, checked her pupils and slipped her pencil torch back into her top pocket.

‘She had vomited at the scene before we arrived.’ Jack continued. ‘Went into cardiac arrest 15 minutes ago. Responded on the second attempt at defib. I intubated her en route. Um … and I found this in the pocket of her jeans,’ he concluded in a tone that convinced Mia if Rachel had been conscious Jack would have been dealing her a sound and vociferous reprimand. She watched him withdraw from the pocket of his green uniform a pink pill encased in a tiny plastic bag. ‘Looks like ecstasy,’ he said, placing it in Mia’s open palm.

Tim pushed past Jack and stared at the packet as though it was crawling with maggots. ‘Bullshit. Rachel would never do drugs.’

‘This is Tim, Rachel’s older brother,’ Jack said to Mia. He turned back to Tim and stood at his full height. ‘Sorry, mate, but it looks as though she did. That would explain the cardiac arrest.’

‘This is crap … absolute bullshit,’ Tim said resuming his pacing and hair raking.

‘We need a full tox screen, thanks Chester.’ Mia handed the pill to the RN. ‘And can we get an ECG over here stat, please? Let’s get her sugar up, pronto. And pump her stomach. She spoke a little louder and turned momentarily towards Tim. ‘I know this is frustrating for you, Tim,’ she said trawling her fingers assiduously through Rachel’s dark hair and surveying her praying mantis-like limbs for injury, ‘… but we will be more certain about what your sister has taken once we run some tests.’ She snapped the latex gloves off and dropped them into the bin. ‘Are you absolutely certain she has never taken alcohol or drugs before?’

Tim stopped pacing and threw both hands on top of his head, his striking face contorted by anguish and confusion. ‘No, never … she’s a really sensible kid,’ he said.

‘Okay. Try not to worry until we can be more certain.’ She turned back to her patient.

‘Let’s wait outside,’ Jack said, steering Tim towards the waiting area.

Tim pulled his arm from Jack’s grasp. ‘Bullshit. I’m not leaving her.’

‘Let us do our job, Tim. I’ll let you know what’s happening as soon as I can,’ Mia said, pulling the beige, pleated curtain around for privacy as Chester and a porter transferred Rachel onto a hospital bed.

When her family arrived, Rachel’s condition was stable, but she was still in a coma.

Mia left the treatment room for the waiting area to see Jack in discussion with a short, round woman wearing a brown coat and woollen cap from which locks of red hair fading to grey seemed to be struggling for an escape. Her chin jutted as though she was fighting for her life, and even from a distance Mia could see her blue eyes bulging with anger. Beside her, a dungareed man of medium stature, with the stoop that comes from back neglect, listened with no show of emotion or facial expression, his hands clasped behind his back. Tim, morosely silent but actively listening, held the hand of a boy aged about seven whose round face, topped with a mop of dark hair like his sister’s, moved silently and intently from his mother to Jack as they each spoke.

‘Mr and Mrs Hooper, I’m Dr Sandhurst.’ Mia stepped up and extended her hand first to Peter, who shook it flaccidly and flicked dark, seemingly bottomless eyes towards her for a brief moment.

‘I’m Annie,’ the woman said with a stiff smile and a perfunctory shake of Mia’s hand. ‘And this is Ben, our youngest.’

‘Hello, Ben.’ Mia shook his hand to elicit a wry grin before leading the way towards a room in the treatment area. Jack bid his farewells in a way that made it clear to Mia that he and the family knew each other well.

The moment they entered the small interview room and sat on the trio of mustard vinyl chairs facing the narrow desk, Annie let forth as though she had held back for long enough.

‘This cannot be true, Dr Sandhurst. It is not like Rachel,’ she said, absently watching Ben climb onto Tim’s knee. ‘Yes … she can be unpredictable … Yes, she’s stubborn about simple things like refusing to have a shower … But to her credit she has never followed the crowd and she would never ever drink alcohol … and as for taking drugs, well it’s just ludicrous to even entertain the idea.’ Her blue eyes shone more than would be natural and she swallowed with difficulty.

Gently closing the door, Mia knew she was about to make a highly provocative suggestion, but she was experienced enough to know the reality — a harsh new reality that had to be faced sooner or later by the family. ‘I gather Rachel was on her own in the lounge room for quite a while, once her friend Cassie had gone to bed and before Tim found her in the bathroom,’ she said sitting on the swivel chair behind the desk. ‘It makes me wonder if she deliberately took the alcohol and drugs with the intention of harming herself.’

Annie sprang from her seat like a giant cork. ‘That’s insulting and ridiculous. How dare you even suggest …’ She promptly sat again as though pushing away any semblance of thought about the words she was about to utter.

Mia cast a glance at Peter’s persistently bland expression, now intently aimed at the mottled blue carpet. Then at Tim, who muttered something about bullshit.

‘No, it’s quite feasible actually,’ Mia persisted, one eyebrow arching. ‘Rachel would not be the first troubled teen to overdose on alcohol or drugs because she is overwhelmed by problems. And she wouldn’t be the last. Hopefully, one of our psychologists will get her to talk about it.’

Annie Hooper’s eyes widened. ‘I’d prefer the shrinks left her alone. They cause more harm than good in my opinion.’

Over the following minutes Mia tried to make allowances for the parents’ rigid denial of the possibility that their daughter was deeply troubled. Shock and even the will to protect family dignity may have been factors, but these people stubbornly refused to relent, despite her most determined efforts at convincing them that much care was needed because their daughter could be in grave danger of making a repeat attempt on her life.

‘Mm, it’s all a bit of a mystery,’ Mia said, finally giving up. ‘But we shall know more when Rachel regains consciousness. The good news is that there doesn’t seem to have been any damage done to her heart muscle.’ She stood and a spontaneous sigh escaped her. ‘You can see Rachel very briefly, then I suggest you go home and get some sleep. That way you’ll be fresh for her tomorrow.’

Silently standing in a row along the side of her gurney, they each peered down as though viewing a corpse prior to interment. A sob escaped Annie’s lips and she immediately grabbed Rachel’s hand, as though to regain her composure.

‘She seems so tiny,’ Annie said, casting a desperate glance at Peter who sank his craggy hands deep into the pockets of his dungarees.

‘Can we go now?’ Ben‘s saucer eyes never left Rachel’s face as he spoke.

Following Mia’s repeated reassurances that the hospital would contact them the moment anything changed in Rachel’s condition, the family eventually shuffled out through the sliding doors of the Emergency section. Tim led the way into the grey dawn with Ben asleep in his arms and Peter and Annie ambled behind them, deep in whispered conversation.

Mia pulled her pen from the top pocket of her scrubs and signed a stack of files Gus had pushed in front of her. ‘I’m off home,’ she said, handing the files back. ‘I’ve given Rachel Hooper a light sedative. Once she’s out of the woods, we’ll arrange for her to be admitted for further cardiac testing and a psych consult.’

Her footfall echoed along the empty corridor. Knowing the futility of it, she nevertheless fished her mobile from her pocket and confirmed she had not missed any calls. Shadowy faces presented themselves as though to haunt and heckle while her feet raced for her office and, ultimately, home, and her mind struggled to dismiss her lingering doubts. His smile when they first met was so beautiful she had been momentarily stunned into awkward silence. On their wedding day, his eyes — which still, today, held the same tones as brandy — had seemed to reach down and caress her very soul as they exchanged their vows. Adam’s birth had only brought them closer: two people, both orphaned in their teens, had finally become a family. With eye-watering clarity she remembered their shared pain at not being able to conceive another child. Years of fortnights stretching like the Sahara Desert between ovulation and menstruation … requiring hope anew every time her period came, which it inevitably did. Then there were their arguments, usually springing from trivia like an ugly grim reaper, always heartfelt and defiant and loaded with words they would both later regret — and inevitably they made up in the best of ways. But it was the regard each of them held for the other that sustained her now. Countless discussions with the theme ‘What if …?’ as they pondered the possibility that they could each quite feasibly meet someone else … so that ‘they’ would exist no longer.

‘That will never happen,’ Eric would say, his smile reaching his eyes. ‘There is not another woman on this Earth with an arse that could rival yours.’

She would persist for she knew that even though he did not articulate his fears, he lived them. She knew this because his questions — ostensibly subtle, but to her screamingly open — about a particular colleague or a specific event, would sometimes hold just a whiff of insecurity. She knew the thought of losing each other was always on both their minds. So when he made light of the topic she would tell him, ‘People change. Things happen. Just promise me, Eric, that if the day comes when you cannot love me anymore, you will at least still be able to respect me and that we can remain friends.’ She would go on and tell him, free of shame, that she could not imagine existing without him. His eyes would soften then, for an instant. And he would say, ‘Okay. Okay. I promise. But it will never happen!’

Unlocking her office door she immediately made her way to sit behind her desk, in front of her computer. She opened her inbox and scrolled through the countless messages. He had not emailed her. But there was an email, with attachments, from Adam which turned out to be images of his weekend on the Gold Coast with friends from Brisbane University where he was in his final year of studying veterinary science. There was no written message as such, just three kisses and three hugs. She smiled as she quickly typed a response, kissed her fingers and pressed them to the screen as she hit ‘send’.

Sighing, she rose from behind her desk and turned to remove her black trench coat and leather shoulder bag from the long, narrow cloak cupboard. She checked her watch. Almost 4.00am. It was definitely time for her to be at home. She would figure out what to do about Eric’s apparent disappearance after a good sleep. Perhaps she would phone his assistant in the morning, she thought, pulling her office door closed behind her.

She had taken only a few weary steps along the corridor towards the car park, when she was confronted by Chester, who half-walked, half-ran towards her, his broad smile noticeably absent.

‘Mia … it’s Rachel Hooper,’ he said, uncharacteristically short of breath. ‘You need to see this.’

CHAPTER THREE

Black skies slowly lightened to pre-dawn silver, with long luminescent stretches of scarlet pink heralding rain. Taking comfort from the 4x4’s low grumble, like a blissfully content tomcat, Tim Hooper glanced into the rearview mirror. Only the grey-black landscape of roadside eucalypts and pastureland stared back. Even though he had followed Peter, Annie and Ben in the four-wheel drive as they had left the hospital car park, he had overtaken them at the first opportunity, so it was not surprising that they were nowhere to be seen. Indeed, he was more than confident they would still be travelling at half his speed and that the distance between them would therefore be widening exponentially with every minute that passed.

It suited Tim to be the first home and to have as much time alone as possible before they arrived. His parents annoyed the hell out of him at the best of times, but never more than tonight. Besides, there was a lot to think about. His hands tightened on the steering wheel at the image of Rachel just after her cardiac arrest, at the memory of the alien pink pill encased in the dealer’s bag that Jack said he had pulled from his little sister’s pocket.

Grateful he had made the conscious decision earlier in the night to pace his intake of beers, Tim lightly lifted his foot off the accelerator, aware that the roos, undeterred by roadside fences, would currently be loping and feeding in hordes across the countryside. That was all he needed right now — to plough into a giant red when he was less than a bee’s dick away from finally being able to afford a roo bar for the ute.

When he had first bought the ute, brand shining new, just over a year ago, he was going out with Tanya Craddock. Tonight had been all about celebrating her 21st. So, even now, he was still coming to terms with the surprise announcement she’d become engaged to the nuggety dude with more gum than teeth who had been hanging off the end of her hand, like some sort of permanent growth, all night and who no one had laid eyes on before now, including her parents. He recalled arriving at the party, her perfume when she had stretched up to kiss his cheek murmuring ‘Hi, Tim,’ and peering at him from under her long eyelashes. And how, in that moment, the scent of her had taken him back to the time when, after going out for a few weeks, she had finally given him the flick.

Tim turned onto the dirt track that was a short-cut to home and slammed his foot down on the accelerator, sending his tyres spinning and mud and rubble flying. How much worse could it get for a bloke than being shafted by his girl for the biggest drop-kick in town? he thought, righting the wheel without panic, the ute sliding on the track again as gracefully as a gazelle. Shanksie had turned up at the party tonight already half-tanked and then, after the surprise announcement, had been blatantly intent on being seen as comrade-in-arms with Tim by loudly heckling and criticising Tanya’s new fiancé — all the while continuing to refer to Tim publicly and privately as ‘faggot’.

It pissed Tim off that Shanksie knew his Achilles heel, and that he used the information against him whenever the opportunity presented itself. But what really hurt was that it was Tanya who had handed Shanksie the ammunition. Shanksie, who from as far back as he could remember had always set himself up in competition against Tim, when Tim believed there was no competition to be had. Whether it be smashing down his sandcastles or spilling paint on his drawings at kindy, kneeing him during footy matches at school or making him the butt of crude jokes at teen parties, Shanksie had always been out to rival and intimidate Tim. And now, Shanksie knew the most devastating of truths, uttered from Tanya’s own lips. Tanya, who he had trusted for months with his heart. The lips that Tim had kissed with tender, deeply genuine caring. He realised now, but only in hindsight, that Tanya’s feelings for him had been strictly confined to carnality. She was constantly hot for sex. Writhing and moaning she would beg him for it. But for Tim, the cruel truth of the matter was that even though he was up for it, he was never up for it. The familiar mantra — the dirge that plagued him, the secret that made him a freak and much less of a man than any of his footy mates, regardless of how good he, or they, were on the field — claimed his thoughts to drown out the sweet purr of his motor and play over and over in his mind … 23 and still a virgin … 23 and still a virgin …

Despite Shanksie’s uncanny ability to get under his skin this way, Tim knew he wasn’t homosexual. When he was alone, he had no problems doing the deed. In fact, he was bloody good at it — several times a day if the urge took him. And it was always women he would fantasise about, never blokes.

The best answer Tim could come up with from his research on the net was that it was either a rare disease he had, which was equal to a fate worse than death because it meant a visit to a doctor to be properly diagnosed, or he lacked confidence, which did not seem right either. His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel as once again in his mind he faced his demons. But, if Dr Sandhurst’s vociferous warnings were to be heeded, his demons were nothing compared to those being harboured by his little sister.

The memory of her tone as she spat venom about their family during the trip to the party earlier that evening brought unfathomable sadness. The way she had crossed her arms and had stared out at the darkness from the passenger seat beside him, hinted at trouble he had not perceived at the time. ‘Mum’s a loser for staying with him,’ she had hissed at one stage of the conversation. ‘If she wasn’t so bloody fat she could have any guy she wanted.’

‘It’s not that simple, Rach,’ Tim had told her, taking little notice, because Rachel was always cutting crook at their mother for one reason or another.

‘Well, if I were her, I would make it easy. He is insanely disgusting. I don’t know how she can bear to even be near him.’ There was a beat of silence, then, before she continued: ‘If she only knew that when she’s not around, he slaps Ben across the head. She would go totally mental. One day I’m going to tell her, but I know it’ll be like unleashing the gates of Hades. I don’t get why he has to go psycho at everything,’ she said. ‘He’s weird … telling us it’s for our own good.’ She snorted softly and turned to him. ‘He’s worse to you than any of us. I don’t know how you’ve put up with him all your life.’ She turned to him and he felt her look boring into his mind for a response.

‘The older I get, the bigger I get and the easier it becomes,’ Tim had replied. They had both fallen silent then and had remained that way for the rest of the drive to the party.

Tim noticed as he turned off the bitumen into their property’s driveway that the timber rails either side were only just visible through the bare tangle of apple and pear trees, which in a couple of months would be budding with blossom and another couple of months following that, would feature tiny fruit hidden within a velvety green blanket of foliage. The ute slooshed through the old pothole that had been there for as long as Tim could remember and clunked over the sleeper bridge where he slowed almost to a