Her nose wrinkles.
“Yeah, these losers are about as bright as they are classy.”
“And they let you into their Facebook group?”
“They let in a clone of Xavier McColl’s account,” I say, unable to keep the note of pride from my voice. “It got deleted twenty minutes later, but not before I saved everything I could get my hands on.”
For the first time since she walked in, Betty looks at me with something like respect. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
“Hundred percent.”
Betty goes quiet, and as the seconds stretch between us, she starts to look angry. No, she starts looking like that monster in the Goya painting that’s biting the guy’s head off.
“Ada?” she says in a voice like outer space.
“Yeah?”
“Did you know Thrasher beat up Rhys? The year after you left school?”
My throat goes tight. “No.”
“He was at the corner pub. Thrasher picked a fight, broke his nose, then he and his mates dragged Rhys outside, and Thrasher pissed on him.”
My whole body turns to ice. “Jesus…”
“Fuck him,” Betty mutters. “Fuck him and fuck that farm. Send me everything you’ve got. All of it.”
“Shit.Wow. Okay. I will.”
She stands. “Gotta go. Talk soon.”
Betty grips the handle of her pram and pushes it toward the door like it’s a war chariot.
“Thanks!” I shout after her like a twat.
“Don’t thank me yet.” She looks over her shoulder at me. “My baby’s Jackson Rhys. We call him JR. But you probably already guessed it was something like that.”
My throat closes into a pinhole as I watch Rhys’s sister leave the pub. I feel like I’ve just gone ten rounds with McGregor at his meanest. I still want booze, but even I know a drink won’t fix the state I’m in. I grab my phone and book a ride to Mission Bay. The app tells me the car is less than a minute away. I shove my phone and my manila folder into my tote bag, pop two Nicabates and tell Cece I’m going shopping, then head outside alone.
13
Ada
If there’s one thing I always loved about New Zealand, it was the water. It’s pristine even at the urban beaches. I pace the sand, my insides twisting like live snakes, but no matter how fast I walk, I can’t get the energy out of my body. I feel dirty. As disgusting as the day Jenny Wallis sealed her fate as the worst of my enemies.
“Jake,” I tell myself. “I’ll call Jake.”
But he got back from South Africa at 5 am, and he’s probably still sleeping off his jet lag. Besides, what would I say that wouldn’t sound nuts?
Suddenly, I can’t fucking stand my own skin. I tear my shorts and top off and wade into the freezing water. The cold sucks the air from my body, but I welcome it. This time, it feels like it’s making me stronger. I swim for the horizon as fast as I can, the salt stinging my eyes and nose. I’m not sure how long I do it for, but when I turn, I can barely see the beach. It doesn’t matter. Just like it doesn’t matter if anyone steals my shorts or my phone. I can get a new phone. What I can’t get is peace from the fear pumping through me like battery acid.
That’s the feeling I’ve been battling since Betty told me her baby’sname. I’m still angry, I’m still grieving, and I still want justice, but mostly I’m terrified because I understand way too much about what led Rhys to where he went. I look up at the periwinkle sky and admit it to myself:
I’m in a bad place, and I have been for a long time.
I spent my teens and twenties climbing the orchestral ladder, playing twelve hours a day, getting all the success a classical musician could. Then I turned thirty and found myself sitting alone atop a meaningless empire. On the outside, I was the queen of glittery ashes and on the inside, the same old weird, woggy, Autistic-as-balls Ada.
I thought I spent a million hours practising the flute as a kid, because I was good at it, but I was lying to myself. I just wanted Mummy and Daddy to love me.
