‘Sandra Whitlam speaking.’
‘Sandra, hi, it’s Karen here.’
‘Oh, hi. How are you going?’
There was a brief pause followed by a tiny noise, perhaps a laugh, down the line.
‘Yes, good question. Look, Sandra, I’m so sorry to do this to you, but Billy can’t come over this afternoon after all.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ Sandra said, suppressing a groan. Now she or Scott, or possibly both, would be on call for at least a couple of rounds of junior badminton that evening. She mentally drew up a list of potential last-minute stand-ins. ‘Is everything OK?’ she asked, a fraction late.
‘Yes. It’s just –’ The line went quiet and for a moment Sandra thought they’d been cut off. ‘He’s been a bit under the weather lately. I think it’s better if he comes straight home today. I’m sorry. I hope Danielle won’t be too disappointed.’
Sandra felt a stab of guilt.
‘No, honestly, don’t be silly. It can’t be helped if he’s not a hundred per cent. Probably wise, especially with what Danielle’s got in mind. We can rearrange.’
Another silence. Sandra glanced at the clock on the wall. Below, her to-do list fluttered against the corkboard.
‘Yes,’ Karen said finally. ‘Yes. Maybe.’
Sandra had farewell pleasantries on the tip of her tongue when she heard Karen sigh down the line. She hesitated. Show her a mother of school-age children who didn’t sigh on a daily basis, and she’d show you a woman with a nanny. Still, curiosity got the better of her.
‘Karen, is everything all right?’
There was a silence.
‘Yes.’ A long pause. ‘Is everything all right with you?’
Sandra Whitlam rolled her eyes and glanced again at the clock. If she left for town right now she could be back in time to put the washing out and ring around to find a replacement for Billy before the school run.
‘Fine, Karen. Thanks for letting me know about Billy. I hope he’s on the mend soon. Speak later.’
‘I feel guilty every single day about that phone call,’ Sandra said, refilling the coffee cups yet again like a nervous tic. ‘The way I rushed her off the phone like that. Perhaps she needed someone to talk to, and I just . . .’ She teared up before she could finish her sentence.
‘You weren’t to blame, love. How could you know what was going to happen?’ Whitlam stood and put his arms around his wife. Sandra stood a little stiffly and glanced in embarrassment at Falk as she wiped her eyes with a tissue.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just that she was such a nice person. She was one of the people who made it bearable to be here. Everyone loved her. All the school mums. Probably some of the school dads.’ She started to give a little laugh that she cut dead in her throat. ‘Oh God, no, I didn’t mean – Karen would never . . . I just meant she was popular.’
Falk nodded. ‘It’s OK, I understand. She was obviously well liked.’
‘Yes. Exactly.’
There was a silence. Falk drained his coffee and stood up. ‘It’s probably time I made a move anyway, leave you in peace.’
Whitlam swallowed the last mouthful of his own coffee. ‘Hang on, mate, I’ll take you back in a minute, but I’ve got something to show you first. You’ll like it. Come and see.’
Falk said goodbye to a still teary Sandra, and followed Whitlam through to a cosy home office. He could hear the muffled sound of a cartoon playing from somewhere down the hall. The office had a far more masculine feel than what he’d seen of the rest of the house, with furniture that was battered but well loved. Along the walls ran floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with sports books.
‘You’ve got half a library in here,’ Falk said, scanning the contents of the shelves, which ranged from cricket to harness racing, biographies to almanacs. ‘You’re obviously a fan.’
Whitlam bowed his head in mock disgrace. ‘My post-grad was in modern history, but to be honest, all my research focused on sports history. Racing, boxing, origins of match fixing, et cetera. So all the fun stuff. But I like to think I still know my way around your standard dusty and faded document.’
Falk smiled. ‘I have to admit, I hadn’t pegged you as the dusty document type,’ he said.
‘A common mistake, but I can mine those archives with the best of them. Speaking of which –’ He pulled a large envelope out of the desk drawer and handed it to Falk. ‘I thought you might find this interesting.’
Falk opened it and pulled out a photocopy of a black and white team photo. Young men from Kiewarra’s 1948 first XI cricket side had donned their best whites and lined up for the camera. Their tiny faces were washed out and fuzzy, but sure enough there, seated middle of the first row, Falk saw a familiar face. His grandfather. Falk felt a lift in his chest as he saw the name typed neatly in the team list below:Captain: Falk, J.
