The Last Love Note(6)

‘It’s a bit of a story . . .’ I begin. It always is. And I’m starting to feel claustrophobic in all this fleece. Anyone would, surely, with an impending visit from the bomb squad, so I secure the hem of my T-shirt with one hand and whip the Oodie over my head with the other. It catches on the pencil in my hair, so I spin to face the garden briefly while I free it with two hands, in case the T-shirt rides up, which it does.

By the time I turn back to face Hugh, shaking out the mess of curls that fall over my shoulders like I wanted them to earlier, he has made himself comfortable, leaning his six-foot-two frame against the iron verandah railing. The paperwork is pressed to his chest by casually crossed arms, while he settles in for the details. I note that his blue eyes have dulled to that deep grey, the way they always do when he’s exhausted. Also noteworthy is the loosened tie, top shirt button undone, and thick, dark hair recently raked through, possibly in frustration, likely about me. I bet he’s been tweaking our departmental project plan, lightening my load by taking on more of the stakeholder engagement himself. And I suspect I’m about to push my ever-patient boss beyond what has historically been a very high threshold for my wild excuses.

‘Are you going to tell me this story, Kate? Or am I waiting for an interpretive dance?’

‘Is that the cops?’ Justin calls from the lounge room, not having mastered my art of breaking things delicately. Momentary surprise flashes across Hugh’s face at the sound of his voice. My own expression mimics Charlie’s when I catch him in the biscuit tin before dinner, even though Cam is the real culprit here, surely, for dying on me, leaving loose ends.

Salt stings my eyes at the rare, uncharitable thought about my husband. Never speak ill of the dead, Kate. It’s another impossible standard to which widows are held while they slip and falter across the unstable ice of grief, hoping it will hold.

‘Are you in trouble?’ Hugh asks. The muscles in his jaw have tightened, and I’m sorry I’ve worried him. There have been very few personal crises over the last four years that Hugh hasn’t shown up for. That said, this is the first to involve the authorities.

‘It’s not how it sounds.’ I step through the doorway and out into the cold shock of crisp winter air. ‘It’s not the cops, exactly . . .’

I know that chin tilt. Blue-grey eyes bore into mine, wanting the truth.

‘Technically, it’s the bomb squad,’ Justin clarifies, eavesdropping through the hall.

I need to manage this unfolding situation. So I opt for the same matter-of-fact tone I use in our Monday meetings, when I update Hugh on the progress of our philanthropic pipeline over a latte and a double-shot long black in the cafe near our campus office.

‘Look, we’re just waiting on a small team of military experts from the explosive ordnance cell in Defence. Charlie found a vintage grenade in Cam’s study. I’m sure it’s fine, but everyone has totally lost their minds.’ Would you like sugar with that, Hugh? How was your run this morning?

‘Who’s that inside?’ he asks, as if he’s missed the central thesis of my story. We have a bomb! Have my emergencies become so predictable that the most noteworthy aspect of this is the strange man inside my house?

‘That’s Justin.’ Why am I blushing? ‘He’s taking care of my explosive.’

The police hadn’t told me exactly what to do with it; I doubt the Queanbeyan station gets many calls from local mothers on this topic. They just said to keep it away from kids, which is obviously Lesson A in Grenade Ownership 101 – a subject I appear to have very much bombed.

Hugh dumps the manila folders in my arms. The tired grey leaves his eyes almost instantly, replaced by steel blue. It’s the colour I notice sometimes during difficult negotiations at work, when the stakes are high and he’s entirely switched on. Those eyes sweep over my face now, checking I’m serious, just as a patrol car flashing red and blue lights drives purposefully up our street and pulls in at a jaunty angle on my nature strip, as if to reinforce my story. Why must I always have an audience when things get so decidedly out of control? This audience, in particular.

Hugh steps towards me, and I freak out about Grace and place my hand flat across his chest, blocking his entry. He shuts his eyes for a second, as if summoning patience from a deity, then looks into my upturned face.

‘Am I an accessory after the fact?’ he asks, deadpan. Here is a person who’s become clinically desensitised through repeated exposure to myriad crises over the course of our whole professional relationship. ‘This is a false alarm, Kate. Isn’t it?’

‘Oh, I’m not worried about the grenade.’ Cam’s got this. Or he did have it, years ago.

I lean in so close I pick up the echo of this morning’s cologne on Hugh’s neck. ‘Grace is here,’ I admit, in a whisper.

And there’s that familiar catch in his breath.





3





Constable Wentworth seems very green, both in experience and skin tone. So green, I wonder if this is his first ever call-out, and whether he needs a bucket. I glance into the house and notice that Justin has moved the ‘crime scene’ from the lounge room into the kitchen area out the back, where there’s more room.

‘The team from explosive ordnance is about five minutes away,’ the young constable advises, looking over his shoulder for backup from his partner, who is forensically scouring my weed-ridden yard. ‘The important thing is not to panic.’