Murfey's Law Read online

  Eyes fixed firmly on the floor, Lori padded slowly into the bathroom, stopping in front of the basin to grip its cool ceramic edge for support.

  ‘Ready?’ She asked herself.

  Three more long deep breaths and Lori lifted her chin to stare straight at her reflection in the old tarnished mirror.

  ‘Argh!’ She immediately lowered her head again and grabbed a towel from the rail. With a little blind fumbling she managed to tuck one side of the fluffy pink fabric over the top of the mirror’s frame.

  On top of the laundry basket, in her flowery pink wash-bag, Lori located the pain-killers.

  A glass of water in one hand, two little white tablets in the other, she sloped back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed beside Bob who was swaddled in the covers fast asleep, his little feet twitching, probably dreaming of seaweed.

  Lori knocked back the pills with the water, and leant forward setting the glass down onto the window ledge. As she stood up to re-tie her loose and lopsided hair, she looked out over the glassy flat sea.

  Directly ahead, about two-hundred metres straight out into the bay from the rocks at the bottom of the garden, a dark figure appeared to be sat on the surface of the water. Inside her chest Lori could feel her heart hammering almost painfully on her ribs, her pulse quickened and her ears filled with the whooshing sound of blood coursing through her veins.

  ‘Wait!’ Lori’s voice cracked and she slapped her palms on the window despite knowing it was futile.

  She needed to hurry.

  Multi-tasking, Lori tore off her vest and underwear, flinging them onto the bed at the same time as wrenching the little cabinet drawer, where she kept her bikinis, off its runners, sending it crashing to the floor.

  Bob jumped up from his cocoon letting out an instinctive Woof! His sleepy head turned sideways in query.

  On her hands and knees scrabbling for a matching set Lori blinked hard as the tears filling her eyes made it almost impossible to see what she was doing. Her heart, pounding faster and harder, felt as though it had worked its way up into her throat.

  Ah hah! Lori grabbed at a black halter neck top and bottoms and took off down the stairs two steps at a time. Bob followed closely at her heels.

  In the room behind the shop she clambered into the stretchy fabric and wrestled with the locks on the back door.

  It took merely seconds to race through the garden and down onto the rock platform but when Lori tried calling out, her voice, hoarse from the hangover, hardly made a whisper.

  He’d never hear her. He was too far away.

  Woof!

  Woof!

  Woof! Woof! By her side, Bob barked so loudly that his front paws lifted off the ground with each effort.

  Way out on the eerily calm water, the figure turned around.

  Despite the distance, and the glare of the cloudless sky, Lori could make out Zeb’s face. He was looking straight at her. Sat on his surf board, he held up the earthenware jar and gestured his head toward a second, empty board beside him.

  With her heart now in her mouth Lori briefly nodded back before diving cleanly into the virtually motionless water below.

  As the sea enveloped her in its cool embrace Lori felt the emotions of this morning, of the last fortnight and even the last eighteen years explode inside her. Under the surface, where no one could hear, she let out a piercing scream. Every muscle in her body contracted then released as she thrashed wildly in silent detonation. When she finally came up for air, great heaving sobs wracked her entire body.

  As she swam, each stroke of her arms drew out another emotion, dragged from somewhere deep within. With every breath her lungs stung and, not that you could see them, tears flooded her face. By the time she had almost reached Zeb she was so physically and emotionally drained she could barely keep her head above water.

  Seeing the despair in her face Zeb rested the jar carefully on the second board and slid gently off his own, gliding across to where Lori was treading water. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into him, tight against his body, his right hand held firmly onto the nape of her neck whilst the other waved gently back and forth, keeping them afloat.

  Lori clung to him as though her life depended on it and pressed her fingers into his strong muscular back, sinking her face into his shoulder.

  Locked together like this, silent but for Lori’s weeping, they drifted gently, hanging there motionless in each other's arms until eventually she spoke.

  ‘I’m s..s..sorry,’ Lori stuttered, her breath not yet returned to normal.

  Zeb’s fingers slid up her neck and into her hair, gently pulling her face away from him so he could look her in the eyes. He shook his head. ‘Lorikeet, don’t. You are not to blame for last night.’

  ‘But no one made me drink. That was my stupid decision.’

  ‘Fucking hell Lori, that does NOT give a man the right to try and...’

  ‘No! Please don’t say it,’ Lori interrupted, dropping her eyes and fixing her stare on the water below his chin. Her chest heaved against his and tears began to resurface.

  ‘Ok, ok, shh.’ Zeb cradled her against him again until she stopped shaking.

  ‘Zeb?’ Lori breathed into his neck when she could speak again.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Did you... umm...was it you who...’ Lori scrunched her eyes tight in embarrassment. The way he held her right now, felt so intimate. Last night he’d seen her at her most vulnerable and he’d tended to her needs, made her safe. Yet he despised her, and she certainly didn’t like him. How was it then, where she was in this precise moment, that it felt so right?

  ‘All part of the service,’ he chuckled, pulling her face back round so he could see her again.

  His smile, for the first time since she’d met him, actually appeared to be genuine, and not one of mockery. Lori peeled her finger tips off of his back and brought her hand up to ever so gently touch his face. The cut on his cheek looked well on the way to fading and the bruising around his eye had changed colour, in its last stage.

  Zeb mirrored Lori’s movements and cupped her chin with his hand, delicately placing his thumb under her cut and swollen lip.

  ‘Better?’ He asked.

  ‘Better.’ Lori nodded, her heart had returned to her chest and the tears had stopped flowing.

  Zeb grinned and leant in to Lori’s ear, whispering, ‘Good, because there’s a shark behind you.’

  Noise and movement attracted sharks. This was something Lori had learnt from the in-flight entertainment barely two weeks ago. Nevertheless she still let out an ear shattering scream as she dragged herself up and out of Zeb’s grasp climbing on to his back and clamping her legs around his waist like a vice.

  ‘Ha Ha Ha!’ Zeb shook with mirth and pulled on Lori’s arms bringing her back to the front, her legs remained knotted around him. ‘I’m joking! I’m joking!’

  ‘Bastard, you shouldn’t joke about that.’ Lori pressed down on his shoulders using the full weight of her body to try and push him under.

  But he was too strong. Kicking his legs underneath him he grabbed Lori around her waist and picked her cleanly up out of the water, throwing her backwards.

  ‘Wait, look.’ Before she could launch a return attack Zeb pointed to something breaking the surface just beyond where the boards bobbed up and down.

  Dolphins!

  Helping Lori onto the first board Zeb carefully guided the other over to her so she could grab the earthenware jar. Although he assured her it was water tight she didn’t fancy having to free dive ten metres or more searching for it and so she clung it to her chest as he hauled himself up on to the second board.

  ‘They’re amazing.’ Lori watched on in wonder.

  ‘They’re something else aren’t they?’ Zeb pulled Lori’s board over to him.

  ‘How many are there?’

  ‘Well, right now I’d say forty, but they’re part of a resident pod here in the bay. At the last count, which the guys on the tour bo
ats from Fisherman’s Bay do, there were eighty in total. There have been dolphins here as long as I can remember.’ Little creases appeared in Zeb’s forehead as he frowned

  ‘What’s up?’ Lori queried.

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ he half smiled.

  ‘Doesn’t look like nothing, I think after my spectacular airing of emotions you could try opening up. You never know, you might like it.’ She splashed a little water playfully at his face.

  Zeb wiped it away with his hands and gripped the back of his neck as though something pained him.

  ‘It’s nothing, really Lori. Just remembering how my dad used to take Jonah and I out here in the boat when we were kids that’s all. Like I said, it’s nothing.’

  ‘Your parents are both gone right?’ Lori pressed on, unable to help herself.

  The expression on his face told her she’d pushed a little too far. Zeb’s voice was stern, ‘Please. Drop it. Today is about you… and Jack.’

  Lori looked down at the jar between her knees. ‘You’re right…I guess.’

  He laughed, ‘I know I’m right. What I don’t understand though is why you hold your father in such contempt.’

  ‘See now, that IS funny,’ Lori sneered.

  ‘Tell me why then. I'd like to understand your side, I only know ‘Murfey’s Beach Jack'.’ he patted the top of the jar.

  ‘Well, ‘Murfey’s Beach Jack’ was probably very similar to Mr Jack James, husband to Robin, father to Lorikeet.’ Lori looked at Zeb expecting him to laugh, ‘Yes, Lorikeet is actually on my birth certificate.’

  ‘Hey, I love the name, I think your parents chose perfectly, I mean who am I to tease?’ Zeb smiled.

  ‘Yes, but your parents didn’t name you after a bloody parrot did they?’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  Lori continued, ‘Anyway, Jack was a good father, he worked hard, he provided for us. He and Mum hadn’t planned on having me but they raised me well. I never wanted for anything.’

  ‘But then he left?’ Zeb spoke softly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? I thought…’

  ‘Yes I know, everyone ‘thinks’,’ Lori sighed. ‘That’s why people presume I’m over-reacting, like I’m a spoilt child still pissed off that my parents’ marriage broke down.’

  ‘So what really happened?’ Zeb was genuinely interested.

  ‘Before I came along Mum and Jack lived and loved through the Seventies, they partied pretty hard.’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘Yes, anything they could lay their hands on back then. Mum more so than Jack though.’

  ‘And this carried on after you were born?’ Zeb looked horrified.

  ‘Oh god no! No not at all. They both quit the minute Mum found out she was pregnant with me. Trouble is the effects of what she’d taken didn't show up until much later. I was about eleven when signs that something was seriously wrong emerged.’ Lori took a deep breath and kicked her feet a little in the water.

  ‘You ok?’ Zeb placed his hand on her knee.

  Lori nodded. ‘About a month before Christmas I came home from school to find she had packed two bags, one each for her and I. Jack was still at work and Mum just said we had to leave right away. We couldn't wait for him. She told me we were moving far away, to a place where she'd lived when she was a little girl, because the food here in Australia was contaminated. She’d emptied the fridge and the entire pantry into two big bin bags and had put them outside on the kerb ready for the garbage collection. It was insane I know, but I think she really believed it. She convinced me that it wasn’t safe to stay, and I was so frightened of how she was behaving that I believed her.’

  ‘A psychotic episode?’ Zeb look shocked. ‘How the hell did she get out of the airport?’

  ‘Well, it was only the early stages of her illness. From the outside, she looked normal. It was really only Jack and I that saw her erratic behaviour at that point. And that’s what I never understood.’ Lori kicked the water again.

  ‘He didn’t come after you?’

  ‘No. He didn’t come after her, and he didn’t come after me. He just let her go. Let her take me to England . Between her episodes, when she was lucid, she’d call him, beg him to get in contact with me. I think she knew she was losing control and couldn’t take care of me any longer.’ Lori looked at Zeb. His face seemed twisted with disbelief.

  ‘So you had to take care of yourself,’ he stated.

  ‘Yes, and I took care of Mum. Nearly twelve years of varying degrees of psychosis. Sometimes she took the drugs the doctors prescribed her, sometimes she didn’t.’

  Zeb looked uncomfortable, his hand twitched on her knee. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘Well you wouldn't, I can't imagine he would have told anyone. He was probably glad to be rid of her. I just thought, expected even, that he'd come and get me one day. I loved Mum desperately of course, but it wasn't easy. I got by for as long as I could.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then when I found her lining her meds up on the floor and smashing them into fine powder with one of my high heeled shoes because the government had apparently put microscopic tracking devices in them, I realised I couldn't look after her any more. I phoned the Doctor on the eve of my twenty-third birthday and he drew up the committal papers for me to sign the next morning.’

  ‘So she’s still there? Is that why you need to get back?’

  ‘No.’ Lori dipped her hands in the water then wiped her face with them. Without a single cloud for cover the sun was blazing down, making her skin hot to the touch. ‘Mum stayed in the Maudsley for nearly two years, took her meds every day and persuaded the Doctors she was better. The day they released her she bought a day tripper ticket for the London Underground. She rode it all day long and then at five o’clock in the middle of rush hour she jumped off a platform full of commuters. They said she died instantly.’

  ‘Fucking hell! That is, just, umm I actually don’t know what to say.’ Zeb ran his fingers through the short brown fuzz of his hair.

  ‘It’s ok, really, you don’t have to say anything Zeb. She died five years ago but I lost her when I was eleven. The same day I lost my father.’

  The dolphins were long gone. Maybe they had sensed the significance of the task Lori now needed to carry out and had left her and Zeb to their privacy. Out there on their boards, it was almost silent. Not a breath of air and, strangely, not a seagull passed by. The sea was so flat and the sound of the gentle waves lapping on the beach didn’t reach where they were. Lori unscrewed the lid of the jar.

  Woof!

  Woof! Woof!

  They both whipped their heads around just in time to see Bob launch himself off of the rock platform where he’d been sat observing them the whole time.

  ‘He’s a better swimmer than me, that’s clear.’ Lori laughed as she watched him powering through the blue-green sea towards them.

  Zeb chuckled and patted the water, calling out encouragement, ‘Come on mate, come on! You can do it.’

  When Bob had reached them, Zeb gripped him under his belly and heaved him up on to his board. His tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth and he panted hard. Before he sat down he shook the water from his fur nearly dislodging Zeb from his seat.

  ‘Woah!’ Zeb fought to keep them upright.

  Once Bob was settled and sat still on the board, Lori leant across and patted him affectionately. Zeb’s hand closed over the top of Lori’s and he gently threaded his fingers with hers. ‘Ready?’ He asked.

  ‘I am now.’ Lori smiled, looking at Bob.

  Releasing her hand Zeb wrapped his arms around Bob and sat in silence as Lori carefully sprinkled the contents of the jar into the water.

  The three of them waited and watched as the current gently carried Jack away.

  Back on the rock platform, exhausted and hungry Lori handed Zeb his second board. He slid it into the carry case with the other and zipped it up.

  ‘Do you want to come in for umm… some lunch?’
Lori asked him, unsure of what the time actually was. It was the least she could do to repay him for everything he’d done.

  Zeb stood up and lifted the strap of the huge bag over his shoulder. They were barely inches apart. A smiled played on his lips and he wiped Lori’s dripping wet ponytail off of her shoulder. ‘I would love to, and I mean really love to Lori, but I need to get to sleep, and well, I just don’t think I should come in. Not today.’

  Before Lori had time to realise how her innocent offer of lunch had come out totally wrong, Zeb had already disappeared up the path that ran between the shop and number twenty-five.

  ‘Oh crap.’ Lori rolled her eyes. If she sprinted, she could probably make it up through the garden and out the bushes, cutting him off. She could explain that she had absolutely not been insinuating they do anything other than share some bread and cheese.

  Wait though…Lori replayed his response to her offer through her mind. As she repeated his words silently to herself, she felt her face burn.

  ‘Oh holy crap.’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Four bunches of flowers, an enormous basket of fruit and veg, two bottles of wine, and a beautiful box of chocolate truffles.’

  ‘And don't forget the string of gourmet sausages,’ Jenny chipped in.

  ‘Who'd have thought there would be all this home-made industry going on around here?’ Lori was both shocked and touched that so many people had dropped by to bring gifts and offer their condolences whilst she'd been out with Zeb this morning.

  ‘Murfey's Beach has all sorts of hidden secrets,’ Jenny said as she put the last bunch of flowers onto the windowsill. Two saucepans, a milk jug and a schooner glass now adorned the kitchen, Jack of course had no need for vases. The sweet scent of Larkspur and Delphinium filled the air.

  ‘Really?’ Lori scoffed. ‘You mean like how what happened to me last night stayed a secret for all of umm... eight hours?’

  ‘That's different. When Jonah came by with this for you,’ Jenny waved the purse-sized capsicum spray in Lori's direction, ‘it obviously required some explaining.’