The Near Miss by Fran Cusworth Read Free Book Online

into a blistering Melbourne summer.
    â€˜My name’s Romy.’ She pressed her hands to her eyes and walked out the back door to where the sun was setting and fruit bats wheeled through the branches of a giant fig tree. He followed, and offered her a clean hanky. She took it.
    â€˜I just . . . wish I’d been able to say goodbye.’
    â€˜You’re living in London?’
    â€˜Streatham,’ she said. He nodded, having never heard of it. Should he run and get her a seat? But then he would have to leave her.
    â€˜Are you going back?’ He couldn’t believe the greed of his own question; too desperate to hear the answer to mess around with niceties like what a loss, so sorry to hear, pillars of the community.
    â€˜Yes. I was an actress there. I’m part of a show, so I have to go back.’
    A double knife to the heart. First she was going back, and second she was an actress, something so incredibly glamorous and interesting that her geographical placement on the other side of the planet was a mere pebble of an obstacle when compared to this. He had held up a drink with a straw for her to sip from, through her tears, and wondered how illegal it would be to kidnapher and physically stop her from leaving the country.
    But in the end, it wasn’t necessary. Heartbroken by her parents’ death, Romy was easily convinced she was in love with Eddy. A wise elder in her life might have advised her to return to London and her show; suggested that this was not a time to make big decisions, or to abandon a hard-won career break. But there was no such person left in Romy’s life, and, although Eddy felt a vague sense of guilt about pressing Romy to stay in Melbourne, it was outweighed by his greedy love, and his overwhelming desire to care for her.
    Romy moved in with him in Melbourne and found waitressing work. For a few years, the two of them were happy. Her grief about losing her parents was so solid at first, that it was almost a third member of the household, but he grew used to it. In his heart, he knew this grief was his ally. She was a creature he had captured while broken; an exotic bird with a damaged wing, who he had tenderly nursed back to health. Romy’s sexual infidelity with the yoga instructor had shaken him, but he thought of it now as a momentary glitch. A fluttering of those once-damaged wings, a stretching of them. It didn’t occur to him that those wings might have healed, that that bird might be beating her chest against the bars of her cage.
    No, no. Romy had always needed him, all their relationship, and he had always looked after her. That would never change.

Chapter 4
    The doorbell rang, and Melody ran down the stairs. ‘Van.’
    She held her friend for a moment, inhaling his scent of smoke and sweat and metal. He followed her back up and through her doorway, and let a small backpack slide to the ground. He wore a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt under a sleeveless leather vest, and black fisherman pants, his thin ankles bare. In Birkenstocks, small silver rings gleamed on his toes, and a tattoo marked the top of his right foot.
    â€˜Some supplies.’ He dropped a shopping bag on the table. She rifled through tofu, bok choy, a packet of the chocolate teddy biscuits that Skipper loved.
    â€˜Thanks so much for finding me this flat.’
    â€˜It’s cool.’
    â€˜Thought you had a job this week?’ she said.
    He shrugged. ‘Put it off.’
    â€˜Uh-huh.’
    Melody had once had a twin, Esme, and Van had been Esme’s boyfriend during high school, until her death from a heart infection contracted after getting a tattoo. Melody had known Van as a skinny weird kid, then as an art school student, briefly as a fashion designer, then as a photographer, then he had seemed to create a niche as a stylist, then there was that bit where he imported things from overseas, things that were never really explained. She suspected drugs, but