Too Close to Home Read Free Page A

clothes and women, while Paolo had cooked, the heat from the oven permeating the house.
    Matt had taken Ella down to the river, wanting an escape. As they cut through the blackberry bushes, taking the steep path two steps at a time, he’d heard Freya following with Ella’s swimmers.
    â€˜She can go nude,’ Matt had told her, but Freya had insisted she would get burnt, and Ella had watched them, her head turning from one to the other as they bickered, until eventually she had held up her hands, taking the swimmers.
    The water was cool and clean, trickling gently over banks and small islets covered in tufts of spinifex. The low branches of willows dipped down, leaves trailing in the river like long wet strands of hair, and there was no sound, other than the slow flow of river over sand.
    He had submerged himself completely, rising to splash Ella, who squealed and screamed.
    â€˜Don’t do that,’ she said, and he grabbed her legs and pulled her under.
    â€˜Try to get her to swim,’ Freya called out from where she was sitting in the shade of a desert oak, and he shook his head at Ella, winking as he told her to ignore her mother.
    â€˜Come in,’ he suggested to Freya, but she already had her head in a book.
    The river was shallow and he and Ella walked down to a bridge at the bend, their voices echoing back from the rise of scrub on either side.
    â€˜Pretend you’re Batman,’ she said to him, ‘and I’m Catwoman, and we have a fight and I beat you.’
    He bent down and seized her round the waist, hauling her up on his shoulders.
    â€˜I’m a cat and I eat bats.’ Her squeal was high pitched as she pummelled his shoulders.
    He slipped on the rocks, only just regaining his balance before they both fell, and he looked back, anxious that Freya had seen.
    When they returned to where she was waiting, Ella lay down next to her mother, her body sleek and pale, her head resting in her lap. He bent down to kiss her, but she only clung to Freya and pulled away. This was how it seemed to be these days, their closeness leaving him adrift.
    â€˜Anna’s in a foul mood,’ he said, and he nodded his head in the direction of the house.
    â€˜It’s getting older, not getting any work, all of that.’ Freya scratched a circle in the sand with a twig, tickling Ella’s spine with her other hand.
    Anna did better than most actors they knew. She made at least one film or television program a year, and now that she had met Paolo, she certainly didn’t have any financial worries.
    He kicked his feet in the cool of the water, watching the spray. ‘At least she does what she wants to do.’ He uttered the words softly and Freya didn’t respond.
    â€˜Why won’t she get any work?’ Ella asked.
    â€˜She will get work,’ Freya explained. ‘But she’s worried that women often get less when they get older.’
    â€˜That’s not very fair,’ Ella said, and Freya told her that no, it wasn’t.
    That night they played cards. Katrina, Paolo’s daughter, stayed in her room watching television and Ella was asleep, leaving the four of them sitting out on the verandah, the night warm and clear, the stars a confetti of silver across the soft darkness.
    They had drunk a few bottles of wine, and they were all slightly heavy from the alcohol. Paolo rolled a joint and held it up to examine its shape in the light. Matt dealt, wishing he wasn’t sitting opposite Paolo,who played meticulously, counting the trumps, barely restraining his anger when he lost, and insisted on analysing the play at the end of each hand. Matt, on the other hand, had trouble even remembering what the bids had been.
    â€˜You know,’ Anna said, as she examined her cards absent-mindedly, ‘I wouldn’t mind living here.’
    Freya drew back on the joint, grinning as she did so. ‘You barely manage to make it here a couple of times in the