Please Don't Leave Me Here Read Free Page A

‘Another one?’
    She goes up to the bar, and spills beer down the front of her shirt on the way back.
    â€˜You know, it’s really fucking hard being married to a cop.’ She puts the beers on the table, and sits down.
    â€˜Try being an actor married to a project manager.’
    â€˜Always thinking that today might be the day he won’t come home, waiting for the call.’
    â€˜That would be pretty fucked.’
    â€˜Like when we were little — waiting for Dad to come home. Joan carrying on about her bad feelings , telling us all those horror truck-crash stories. That’s where all the anxiety about being left alone comes from.’ She shifts in her chair, but can’t get comfortable.
    He nods. ‘Mum had depression, you know.’
    â€˜No shit.’
    â€˜You ever feel depressed?’
    â€˜No.’ A lie. ‘You?’
    â€˜Not really.’
    She sighs. ‘Whatever happened to fun, Ryan?’
    â€˜Don’t ask me.’
    â€˜Cheers.’ She clinks her glass to his, and they drink.
    â€˜Your back sore?’
    She shakes her head.
    â€˜Should go back to the quack.’
    â€˜I’m fine.’
    They drink up and order one more.
    â€˜Brigitte Campbell, has anybody ever told you that you drink like a man?’
    â€˜You know, I think somebody did tell me that once.’ She laughs and looks out the window at the deserted street. ‘A long time ago.’
    Ryan takes a big drink, and his round, lineless face clouds over. He swallows and clears his throat. ‘I saw the police are reopening that old case.’ He weaves his fingers together on the table, and clenches them. ‘Sam say anything about it?’
    â€˜Says it’s a waste of time. No new evidence.’ She scrapes back her chair and goes to the bathroom.
    The pub’s very up-market these days: organic handwash, polished stones in a bowl, a jar of fragrance sticks. Her cheeks are red, so she splashes cold water on her face. There’s a reflection in the corner of the mirror. She turns. Nobody there. Shit. She’s starting to lose it — she shouldn’t be drinking. She dries her hands quickly on a paper towel, afraid to look back in the mirror.
    She trips up the step. Deep breaths. OK. OK.
    â€˜You OK?’ Ryan says as she sits back at their table.
    â€˜Yep.’
    They’re too drunk to drive, so they leave their cars in Clifton Hill and catch a taxi to pick up the kids — just in time.
    â€˜Ryan Weaver, you are a bad influence.’
    â€˜You are.’
    They rush into kinder — Brigitte to the three-year-olds’ room, and Ryan to his daughter, Georgia, in the room for four-year-olds — sucking on Tic Tacs in a lame attempt to cover up their beer breaths.

4
    Brigitte yawns as she parks on the side street in the shadow of the brown-brick building. The twins are nodding off in their child restraints.
    â€˜Come on, sleepy heads.’ She unbuckles them, lifts them out of the station wagon, and reaches for the box of fruit on the passenger seat.
    â€˜Can we go home? Papa smells,’ Phoebe says.
    Brigitte tells her to stop it; she’s not in the mood.
    The cigarette-smoking man with one leg — Brigitte can’t remember his name — waves at them from the bench seat on the porch. He’s always out the front of the home, cigarette drooping in the corner of his mouth, whether it’s 40 degrees or hailing. Brigitte balances the box of fruit on her hip and opens the childproof gate at the front. Oranges fall off the top, and roll down the street and onto the road. The twins squeal with laughter as a van juices one under its tyres.
    â€˜Good morning,’ she says cheerfully, through gritted teeth, to the cigarette-smoking man. She keys in the security code, and the sliding-glass doors open.
    She signs the visitors’ book in the foyer. The manager’s office door is open, so she sticks her head in to