21

Six days later I threw up outside Woolworths, wiped puke from the side of my mouth, rubbed my hand on my jeans, unlocked my bike. It was 4 pm – the kids had been in Aftercare for just thirty minutes. I was supposed to be at work, of course, but yeah … Spewing inside Woolies, I’d avoided that, and I’d managed to do it close to the wall, a frothy puddle nobody would step in. I opened the family bag of Fruit Chews, unwrapped one, put it in my mouth, chewed. Sweetness.

I was eager to get home, get the car, drive to the school, get the kids, ask them, finally ask them, just fucking ask them. No, I wasn’t eager, I was full of dread.

Hey, kids, were you abused by Zac?

He’d been missing for nearly a week. Post-confrontation, he’d gone back to Josh’s, burst into tears, admitted that some of the things I’d said were true, but not all of them. His mother – he would never lie about her dying. Why would he make that up? She’d burnt to death in Hyderabad along with many others. Why …? Josh had hugged him – his hugs were the best – consoled him. Then Zac had gone out and not returned, leaving his boxes behind.

I’d called the Brunswick Police Station, told the woman who’d answered we were worried for Zac’s safety. I didn’t want his death on my hands but wouldn’t put it past him, the selfish fuck.

‘So, you’ve given me his name,’ the woman said. ‘And his age … although there seems to be some dispute over that. And you don’t know anything else about him –’

‘I thought I did,’ I said. ‘He’s deleted all his social media accounts, his phone’s ringing out, he’s a compulsive –’

‘Right, hang on.’ She clacked what sounded like a keyboard. ‘We do have someone by that name on our system from … from last year. He called us about … an incident, it seems.’

‘Yeah, my suicide.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Yeah, sorry, nothing.’

‘Did he specifically mention self-harming?’

‘Not really, no. It was more stuff like, “Don’t worry, you’ll never see me again, there’s no way back for me …”’

‘OK,’ she said.

And since then, since then …

At least Mel and I were back on speaking terms. ‘I’ve never thought you were a bore on drugs,’ she’d said. ‘Chris, I love hanging out with you. You know, Zac said a similar thing to me, that you always bitch about me behind my back.’

‘I wouldn’t do that, Mel. He’s a manipulative fucker.’