Deep Wate - Sarah Epstein Page 0,53

wife saw to that. She’s somehow got him convinced Henry isn’t his biological son. Wayne called me after the police got in touch with him about Henry disappearing and he told me he doesn’t want to get involved.’

She lets loose a few swearwords to describe her ex-husband. The realisation sinks in that all those birthday cards to Henry were from Mason. I feel a tug of regret at how I spoke to Mason in the post office, but it’s also difficult reconciling such a thoughtful gesture with the image of Mason pushing Henry into the reservoir.

And it reveals another issue: did Henry really head to Sydney in search of a father who wants nothing to do with him? It seems doubtful that he made contact with Wayne at all.

‘See yourself out,’ Ivy says coldly, reassigning her anger at Wayne to me. She jerks her head at the front door, still open, and walks away.

I take one last scan of Henry’s room, then pause near the kitchen doorway as Ivy shuffles slowly to the table in the corner. If the kitchen was spotless three months ago, it certainly isn’t now. Dirty dishes are stacked high on the draining board, congealed food suggesting they’ve been there for some time. Crumbs and dirt have accumulated along the skirting boards, random food items spread out across the workable surfaces like nobody can be bothered putting anything away.

There’s no sign of a glass cabinet or any collectable plates.

Ivy half-turns her head in my direction as she lowers herself into a chair. ‘You still here?’

‘Sorry.’ I duck my head and take a few more steps towards the front door before pausing. I open my mouth and it just slips out. ‘Why do you hate me so much?’

Ivy reaches for her cigarettes and lighter, taking time to place one between her chapped lips and get it lit. Only once she’s taken a long drag does she answer. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I think you do,’ I say, wondering how I’m finding the spine to do this. It’s been a long time coming. Maybe it’s because of the way she stole Henry’s twenty dollars just now. It’s riled me up. ‘I’ve racked my brain and I can’t figure out why you resent me so much.’

She gives me one of her half-lidded stares. I’m tempted to turn away but I hold my ground and she surprises me by softening her expression and tilting her chin.

‘How old are you?’ she says. She slides a white ceramic ashtray across the tabletop towards her. The Criterion Hotel logo is printed on the side.

‘Sixteen.’

‘My parents died when I was seventeen,’ she says. ‘I hadn’t learned a single thing from my mother. I didn’t know how to wash clothes or cook meals. I couldn’t drive or run a household. My older brother expected me to step in and take over our mother’s role before she was even cold in her grave.’

I swallow and hold eye contact. I don’t know where this is going but it’s the most Ivy Weaver has ever spoken to me.

‘Mark spent all the savings our parents had put away. Pissed it all up the wall. I couldn’t finish high school because I had to get a job. Mark was never home, and my friends stopped calling me because we had nothing in common anymore. My boyfriend told me to stop being such a miserable cow all the time.’ She taps her cigarette over the ashtray and returns it to her lips. ‘When I told him I was pregnant, he gave me a black eye. Three weeks later my brother buggered off to Bali and never came back. I gave birth alone. Brought that baby home alone. Raised him for six months alone until my deadbeat boyfriend came crawling back on my nineteenth birthday.’

I do a quick calculation and realise this means Ivy isn’t even forty yet. She easily looks a decade older.

‘So I’ll tell you something,’ she says, pointing her cigarette at me. ‘Once upon a time, before all of this—’ she gestures vaguely around her, ‘—this house, this life … I was you.’ She slides her gaze away from me to an empty corner of the room, staring at it mournfully as though there’s something missing. When she finally speaks, her words have lost their edge. ‘And it’s hard not to feel resentful about that.’

* * *

I return to my bike, still trying to process Ivy’s words, when I notice headlights a little further down the road.