Too Close to Home Read Free Page B

year, and when you do you never leave the verandah.’
    Anna didn’t look at her. ‘That’s because I’ve always been busy.’ She folded her cards and put them on the table. ‘But now that looks set to change – well, who knows?’
    After they won the first couple of hands, Matt said that he might go for a walk and then hit the hay, but Paolo insisted that he stay.
    â€˜Someone has to reach 500,’ he said.
    Freya, who’d also become bored with the game, began hinting as to what was in her hand.
    â€˜You can’t do that.’ Paolo glared, Freya’s thump on her chest to indicate hearts too audacious to ignore.
    â€˜I shouldn’t have,’ Freya apologised, attempting to be serious, and then giggling with embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry. Let’s not count it. We can just play again, or say you won.’
    Anna looked confused. ‘What do you mean?’
    â€˜She let you know what to put down.’ Paolo stared straight at her. ‘Don’t try to tell me you didn’t see.’
    Anna’s innocence was convincing. ‘I didn’t,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t even looking at her. I knew that card would win.’
    Paolo stood up. ‘The actor.’ His disgust was evident. ‘We’re going to have a performance.’
    Anna rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, for crying out loud. I’m not performing.’
    Matt yawned.
    Freya said she was going to bed, hauling Matt up with her. ‘We both are.’
    When they were in their room, her eyes widened as she asked him whether she had been truly terrible doing that, the dope making her momentarily paranoid. And then she shook her head in disbelief. ‘It was just a game of cards.’
    â€˜For Paolo, there is no such thing as Just a Game of Cards.’ Moving in close to her, he brushed the fine sweep of her hair back from her face, tracing her pale mouth with the tip of his finger.
    She smiled.
    The irritation of the day dissolved, because this was what happened when you were with someone for years, he thought. You could swoop, swinging from emptiness to completion in a matter of minutes. The trick was in trusting that there would be a turning when you were down low.
    The next morning, Matt said that he wanted to leave early. ‘Let’s get home,’ he whispered. Ella was still asleep in the corner of the room, her body curled in a small perfect ball beneath the sheet. The house was quiet.
    Barely awake herself, Freya looked at him. ‘We have to wait until lunchtime.’
    She lifted back the curtain with a finger, revealing the harshness of the bright sunlight. It was hot already. She kicked back the sheet, and waved at a fly thatbuzzed idly around her face. He saw her nude body, delicately white, familiar, and he kissed her gently on the shoulder.
    She turned to face him, her eyes cool in the morning light.
    â€˜We’ll wake Ella,’ she whispered, but she turned, quietly, to where he was, her mouth warm on his.
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    Later, when they were driving through the hot sprawl of outer suburbs, he told her that he didn’t want to do that again.
    â€˜What?’ she asked, searching through the glove box for a new CD to listen to.
    Have one of those weekends. Just sitting around. Drinking, eating, bickering. He tried to explain, but he knew how his words sounded.
    She looked annoyed. ‘You’re never happy. Couldn’t you just enjoy it?’
    She was right. He often seemed dissatisfied. He contemplates her accusation, vaguely disturbed by the truth of it, as he takes the last of their things from the car, putting them just inside their front gate. As he turns to shut the boot, he hears someone call out his name.
    â€˜Matt.’ The greeting is hesitant, and then when it is repeated, more certain. ‘Matt Johnson.’
    He looks up the hill, but the only person he can see is there on the other side of the road. A tall man, dark-skinned,