The definition of.
The crowds disperse and it’s just me now, in the courtyard outside the music school, staring up at the building in the silence, trying to wrap my head around everything that’s happened. I seem to drag heartbreak in my wake, my life filled with losses in every direction—my higher degree, Fraser, even the spark I’d felt for something new with Beau. But after tonight, thanks to Parker, for the first time I am not held back.How could I be, with her taking the lead?
She is back in my life. Music is back. In front of me now, there’s clear, open space, and the distant rumblings of the big future I was originally reaching for, before everything went wrong. Ideas are crowding into my brain—for music, for travel, for helping Parkerpull together her composition and concert, although something tells me the kids can smash that together all by themselves.
I amfloodedwith the desire to stretch and climb and conquer. To cut ties with everything that’s stopped me. I’m channelling me at twenty-two. Parker at thirteen. The reallife incarnation of the ‘I want’ song in a musical. That one that sets up the narrative trajectory for the entire show: ‘Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?’, ‘I Have Confidence’, ‘My Shot’.
The drive back to the beach feels like the start again.
Is that what life is?A series of overlapping cycles—some years long, some just days. Each ending kicking off another beginning, new directions, fresh pages.
The first thing I notice after pulling into the Pretty Beach camping ground is Beau’s caravan, still parked there, along with his black RAM. My stomach sinks at the sight. I’d hoped to creep in and pack up my campsite quickly, extract my little caravan and make an escape. I’d drive north to Queensland. Or perhaps south, down the New South Wales coastline into Victoria. Maybe I’d head for the Great Ocean Road. The freedom of being able to go anywhere for a while is intoxicating in the best possible sense of that word. I plan to spend the next few months drunk on life. Hungover from late nights stargazing, dreaming up fresh music in new places.
I take a deep breath—just one more goodbye—as I back up the Jeep, perfectly this time, and realise he is watching me from his doorway, hands in his pockets. Looking destroyed.
I shut off the engine. The door, which is always jammed, opens first go and easily. He must have fixed that during our road trip, along with the damage to the back of my caravan since he returned, I notice now.
I climb out of the car and try to heave the trailer into place, having parked slightly short. He jumps down the step and comes over, picks up the tow hitch, pulls the trailer over, and settles it on the ball. Then he tightens the socket and checks the pin, shaking it to ensure it’s all safely attached for my journey.
I push his hand off it, in the end. ‘I’m sure it’s fine.’
‘Audrey, please hear me out?’ he says, agony in his eyes. ‘Just give me five minutes before you go?’
The remorse seems real, at least. I stand there, hands on hips. Viperish myself.
‘I need you to know I didn’t write that scene. I had no idea it was even in the script. I would never have put it there.’
I cross my arms. ‘Let me guess, technically your ex-fiancée wrote it? And she is, what? Psychic, as well as brilliant and stunning?’
I could have done without the last adjective. It adds a layer of jealousy to this conversation that detracts from the power of my case.
‘I was as surprised as you were when she turned up. I didn’t know she was even involved until she walked in yesterday afternoon. I haven’t spoken to her in months.’ He’d done a convincing job of acting as if this part was at least true.
‘Beau, how does she know the entire blow-by-blow scenario from the clifftop so perfectly?’
He seems heartsick over this. ‘She didn’t hear it from me. I would protect you, and that whole experience, at any cost. I know how much that moment meant to you and how hurt you were to think I exploited it. You have to believe I would never have done this.’
But he did do it. I cannot believe the man is standing here, lying to me, when the evidence is so blatantly undeniable.
‘We are the only two people in the whole world who were there. How else has it wound up in the script?’
He’s crushed.
‘It nearly killed me when Fraser died. I almost drove myself into the grave, via the bottle, with grief. I vowed that I would never get close to someone else. Not like this. Ever again. Because it would be so easy for me to unravel.’
He steps forward, his face lined with concern, but I step away from him, holding my hands up to stop him touching me.
‘That day you spent writing music after Tathra? I spent it writing, too.’
‘You spent most of it washing your caravan,’ I counter.Washing his caravan and caressing my shoulders with sunscreen.
‘You process your thoughts in music. I do it in words. I didn’t write that scene. Not in the screenplay. But I hadn’t been able to write for so long, and finally, having been with you, Ifelt something. I had one of those once-in-a-lifetime amazing experiences with someone who was worth writing home about.’
Writing home?
‘Beau, who is at home? Lucinda?’
‘Nobody. It’s an expression. I listened to the music pouring out of your caravan and put pen to paper—just snippets of lines about you and how impressive you are, and how confused I was … Do you know how hard it is to compete with a man like Fraser?’
