Australia
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The night before I travelled home, Sioux asked me if I’d confirmed the taxi to pick me up and take me to the airport in the morning. ‘No. I’d better check,’ I said. He watched as I dialled the cab company. The call was very confusing to me. They were too quick to say that
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All I wanted to do was lie in the thick late-afternoon light and watch the spider in the corner of the ceiling, and listen to the cars passing outside the window, and drift in and out of sleep. But of course I couldn’t. Not while Melissa was there, threatening to talk about every little thing
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I try to change the subject. I talk to her about the beach – a place she likes to be. She once told me she’d like to die on the beach, in the sun, as people walk by. No one would really be sure if she were dead, or just sunbaking, she said. I told
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No matter how many ways he tried to look at it it had been an awkward moment. They hadn’t exchanged phone numbers. The boy had said there was no need, that he was usually at the same club. Most nights he was there. ‘In that room downstairs?’ ‘Sometimes in that room.’ ‘I don’t even know
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‘My mother’s coming,’ said Yvonne. ‘Be careful what you say. She’s very perceptive.’ Ben nodded. Mrs Morelli walked in. ‘Hello Ben,’ she said. She lit a cigarette with the large flip-top lighter on the mantelpiece. She clamped the cigarette in her mouth, looked in the mirror, and fixed her hair. Ben watched her discreetly
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