Deep Wate - Sarah Epstein Page 0,16

You’re so used to the city noise.’

I manage a hollow smile.

Silence isn’t the problem. There’s plenty of noise going on inside my head.

* * *

Outside it’s one of those overcast days where the light barely changes, making it difficult to pinpoint exactly what time it is. My phone tells me it’s almost ten o’clock, but some of the shops on Railway Parade are only just opening. Saturday mornings in The Shallows used to be bustling with weekenders, and at least one tourist coach would have pulled up alongside Eliza Park by now. Maybe Tom’s right – the media coverage about January’s freak storm has done as much damage as the storm itself. And the closure of Cutler Bend now only leaves one route in and out of town, which certainly isn’t helping.

It’s not a huge place, The Shallows. It takes about an hour to walk from one end of town to the other, east to west, north to south, or a twenty-minute bike ride if you keep a steady pace, not the aimless meandering we did as kids. Tom and his grandparents live in a pocket of weatherboard cottages on the westernmost end, out by the graveyard, while the Weavers’ place is in the valley on the eastern outskirts. The rest of us are dotted much closer to the main street of town, with the reservoir nestled in the national park to the south. The Shallows is home to around four thousand people, which felt like a lot when I was a kid, but my Sydney high school’s student population is a third of that number, all crammed into the same bustling campus. No wonder I feel like I can breathe whenever I visit The Shallows.

I cross the street near the Criterion Hotel and continue towards the post office a few doors down. As I pass the laneway beside the pub, a hacking cough snags my attention. A few metres in, Ivy Weaver is leaning against the brick wall, a spray-painted graffiti tag sprouting from behind her like mangled wings.

She has one arm locked across her chest, the other working like a lever, bringing a cigarette to her lips and dropping it back to her side. She smokes quickly, agitated, as though she has somewhere pressing to be.

Our eyes connect long enough that I feel compelled to slow down and acknowledge her. She is, after all, Henry’s mother.

‘Hello,’ I say, coming to a stop. ‘How are you, Mrs Weaver?’ I’ve never been able to address her as Ivy like everybody else.

She stares blankly at the brick wall opposite. ‘I’m nobody’s wife.’

I’m not sure how to respond. Should I call her Ms Weaver? Miss? Technically she’s still Mrs, even though her ex-husband has married again.

Ivy straightens, narrowing her eyes and assessing me. She’s always done this, ever since my mum used to mind her two boys after school when we were younger. A year or so after Ivy’s husband left, when she still had a job at the local supermarket, Henry and Mason would walk to the IGA after school and sit around outside for hours until Ivy finished her shift. I know my mum didn’t like it – I overheard her telling Dad it wasn’t any place for kids and she thought Ivy might be struggling – so she offered to walk them back to the motel with me on the days Ivy had to work. Ivy knew us well enough through the Nolans and Uncle Bernie to accept Mum’s suggestion – a casual arrangement, nothing fancy. Henry and Mason could hang out and have a snack, do their homework and watch TV out of the weather.

While Ivy was grateful for the help, she also seemed wary about the close bond I was forming with Henry. He was like the little brother I’d always wanted, and even after Ivy was laid off from her job and the child-minding fizzled out, I felt attached to Henry and begged my mum to keep inviting him over. Mason was more independent and not particularly interested in hanging out with a girl two years younger. Henry, on the other hand, was delighted about the time I could spend with him, as though he was starved for company at home.

I looked out for him at school. Dad and I took him fishing at Shallow Reservoir and he’d explore the bush behind the motel with me, Sabeen and Raf. He’d come with me to Shallow Vintage Wares to get book recommendations from Tom, and we’d always