Page 66 of Begin Again Again

“That sounds alright.”

She shook her head. “I’m kind of sugar-coating it. We were really cliquey. Co-dependent, you know? Unless we were pissed or bitching about people who lived in our suburb, we didn’t really have much to talk about.”

“That sounds less fun.”

“Try being sober at the same time.”

“I can imagine.”

Byron wanted to sit and talk to Beth, but not somewhere Sal could reappear and say more awkward shit. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

“In the dark? At night? In an industrial estate?”

He shrugged.

“Normally I’d say, ‘You’re crazy’, but you can defend me from attackers, right?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Okay, then.” Beth slipped her hand into his. “Lead the way, Kevin Costner.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

They slipped out of the smoker’s area, through the club and out of the throbbing warehouse. The bass faded away and they walked the estate in cool and quiet darkness, their shoes clicking on the concrete. Unseen crickets chirped from equally unseen trees—or could they nest in buildings? Byron walked slowly, savouring the night and the feel of Beth beside him. They’d soon left the concrete jungle, turning down a quiet street and into suburbia. The quality of the footpath plummeted as they passed one-story houses and clusters of units. Toyota four-wheel drives sat beside kids’ bikes on patchy lawns with peeling fences.

“This looks like home,” Beth said.

“Yeah, a bit.” He coughed. “Actually, I grew up in Kew. That’s a bit more…”

“Upmarket?” Beth smiled. “Sounds nice.”

Byron didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure what to do and the walk wasn’t making it clearer. Eventually, he’d have to call an Uber and get in, with or without Beth. They turned a corner and he saw a small, moonlit park. It wasn’t much—a slide, a set of swings and a climbing frame. The park where he’d grown up had a rock-climbing wall and three sandpits for feral cats to shit in.

“Oh, hell yeah!” Beth ducked from under his arm and ran to an elephant chair on a spring. “Angus loves these things.”

“Angus?”

“My friend Lara’s son.” She moved to the rusty swing set. It had two seats. One was flat, the other looked like rubber underpants. For babies, Byron guessed. Beth brushed the flat seat clean. “The swings were always my favourite thing. What was yours?”

The rock-climbing wall.“Want me to push you?”

She touched her hemline. “I’m not dressed for it.”

“Sit down.”

“But—”

“You know you want to.”

“Hmmm, fine. But because I choose to.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Horoscopes.”

She sat on the flat seat, arranging herself with adorable self-consciousness.

“What are you smiling at?” she asked.

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