Page 63 of Serenity Falls

‘Anyhow,’ Larry Broom says now, ‘I’d best be getting on. Feel free to wander round, but don’t go climbing on any more rides. You don’t want to get hurt.’

‘I thought nothing bad ever happened here?’

He stares at her with his blue, blue eyes. ‘This one time, years ago, a kid died on one of the rides.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Yeah. Real tragic.’

Real tragic. Like Davey Junior. Like Frankie.

Larry nods at her. ‘You take care. And keep hold of that flyer.’

‘I will.’

He turns away, resuming his task of harpooning non-existent litter. Sadie walks slowly towards the fair exit. She unfolds the flyer and frowns. Larry has scribbled on the back:

Nothing bad happens in Serenity.

Not by accident. 61322

What the hell?

She turns around ‘Hey – what’s this?’

But the fairground is empty, just one lone candy wrapper scuttling across the bleached grass. Larry Broom has gone.

18

Alert LH.

Of course, it could be a coincidence. Lockhart could be visiting Jerry for all sorts of reasons. Kids playing truant, security issues at the school.

But something irks. Something irritates like a hair caught at the back of my throat.

I continue to sit in the café, fiddling with my empty coffee cup and wishing I’d bought some cigarettes at the store yesterday, until I see Lockhart re-emerge. He isn’t wearing his happy face. He looks annoyed, angry even. He climbs back into his car, slams the door and pulls off with a petulant tyre squeal. I watch curiously. And then I rise, remembering to tuck a couple of dollars under my cup for the pleasant young man who served me, and hurry back to my car.

I don’t really intend to follow him, and I have no idea where he lives. But I find myself turning the car in the same direction. Downtown peters out behind me. I can’t see Lockhart’s car, but I continue along more streets with more beautiful houses. As I progress, I notice that the town is beginning to change. The streets are narrower, with fewer trees, the houses crammed in more tightly. They’re still nice houses. Just not as nice, or as well kept. Front yards are sun-scorched. Paintwork peels a little around windows. If there is such a thing in Serenity, this is the wrong side of town.

There’s no other traffic around, and I pull up at a street corner. I look around. I’m at the corner of Pleasant Lane and Gladness Row. Something itches at the back of my mind. Gladness Row. The street name is familiar. And then I remember. The young mum in the park yesterday. Hailey. She said they lived on the corner of Gladness Row.

Curiosity gets the better of me, and I turn down the street. Obviously, Lockhart had warned me off, but that’s exactly why I want to know more. Maybe he isn’t as trustworthy as he likes to make out. Or maybe I just hate snobbery.

The street is quiet, no one about in the heat. I reach the end, park and climb out of the car. If you’d asked me to point out where Hailey and her son lived, I think I would have guessed at this house. Sometimes, you can just tell.

It isn’t exactly in a bad state of repair. It just looks ‘lived in’. It’s a narrow, detached house with a small, screened porch. In one window upstairs I can see stickers on the glass – snowflakes and snowmen mingling with witches and bats. Early for this year or left over from last. The front yard is more mud than grass and decorated with two deflated footballs, a busted tennis racquet and an old trike, so rusty and embedded in the earth that it appears more organic than metal. A beaten-up jeep is parked on the driveway. A sticker in the back reads, Keep your distance. Sleep-deprived mom on board.

I smile. I guess something about the place strikes a chord with me, far more than all the perfect houses with their gleaming paintwork and manicured lawns. I’ve never really felt comfortable with perfection. I prefer things with battered edges, dents and chips. I like a little disorder, a little character. Perfection is intimidating. It’s cold, unforgiving. Perfection eyes you up and down and sneers – You think you’re good enough? Whereas flaws, they welcome you in – Come and join us, we’re not so bad, right?

I’m still standing there, staring, which is stupid, I realize. I have no intention of walking up to the front door. Despite what Hailey said about ‘stopping by’, calling on someone unannounced just isn’t very British. So, I’m about to be on my merry way when a voice says: ‘If you stand there much longer, you’re gonna take root.’

I turn. Hailey stands behind me. Her hair is pulled back into a loose ponytail, and she’s dressed in another long, hippy-style dress and dirty flip-flops. She’s pushing a pushchair with her son, Brandon, sprawled inside, fast asleep, dressed in the same yellow T-shirt and blue shorts, feet bare. The pushchair is too small, or maybe he’s too big for it, and his feet brush the floor. Hailey notices me looking.

‘He’s way too old for pushchairs but my jeep’s bust and he gets cranky if we walk too far, so—’ She shrugs. ‘Stops him mithering.’

I smile. ‘My daughter used to do the opposite. She hated the pushchair. Screamed blue murder every time I tried to strap her into it. Used to take us hours to get anywhere because she insisted on walking.’

Hailey laughs. ‘That’s girls. Independent, wanting to stand on their own two feet, while boys, they’re always happy if a woman will do the work for them, right?’