Excerpt of Breath by Tim Winton
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Breath
WE COME SWEEPING up the tree-lined boulevard
with siren and lights and when the GPS urges us to make the next
left we take it so fast that all the gear slams and sways inside the
vehicle. I don’t say a thing. Down the dark suburban street I can
see the house lit like a cruise ship.
Got it, she says before I can point it out.
Feel free to slow down.
Making you nervous, Bruce?
Something like that, I murmur.
But the fact is I feel brilliant. This is when I feel good, when the
nerve-ends are singing, the gut tight with anticipation. It’s been a
long, slow shift and there’s never been any love lost between Jodie
and me. At handover I walked up on a conversation I wasn’t supposed
to hear. But that was hours ago. Now I’m alert and tingly
with dread. Bring it on.
At the call address Jodie kills the siren and wheels around to
reverse up the steep drive. She’s amped, I guess, and a bit puffed
up with a sense of her own competence. Not a bad kid, just green.
She doesn’t know it but I’ve got daughters her age.
When she hits the handbrake and calls in our arrival at the job I
jump out and rip the side door back to grab the resus kit. Beneath
the porch steps on the dewy grass is a middle-aged bloke hugging
himself in silence and I can see in a moment that although he’s
probably done his collarbone he’s not our man. So I leave him to
Jodie and go on up to announce myself in the open doorway.
In the living room two teenage girls hunch at opposite ends of
a leather couch.
Upstairs? I ask.
One of them points without even lifting her head, and already
I know that this job’s become a pack and carry. Usually they see
the uniform and light up with hope, but neither of them gives me
as much as a glance.
The bedroom in question isn’t hard to find. A little mat of vomit
in the hall. Splinters of wood. I step over the broken-down door and
see the mother at the bed where the boy is laid out, and as I quietly
introduce myself I take it all in. The room smells of pot and urine
and disinfectant and it’s clear that she’s cut him down and dressed
him and tidied everything up.
I slip in beside her and do the business but the kid’s been gone
a while. He looks about seventeen. There are ligature marks on his
neck and older bruises around them. Even while I’m going through
the motions she strokes the boy’s dark, curly hair. A nice-looking
kid. She’s washed him. He smells of Pears soap and freshly laundered
clothes. I ask for her name and for her son’s, and she tells me that
she’s June and the boy’s name is Aaron.
I’m sorry, June, I murmur, but he’s passed away.
I know that.
You found him a while ago. Before you called.
She says nothing.
June, I’m not the police.
They’re already on their way.
Can I open the wardrobe? I ask as Jodie steps into the
doorway.
I’d prefer that you didn’t, says June.
Okay. But you know that the police will.
Do they have to?
The mother looks at me properly for the first time. She’s a handsome
woman in her forties with short, dark hair and arty pendant
earrings, and I can imagine that an hour ago, when her lipstick and
her life were still intact, she’d have been erect and confident, even
a little haughty.
It’s their job, June.
You seem to have made some kind of . . . assumption.
June, I say, glancing up at Jodie. Let’s just say I’ve seen a few
things in my time. Honestly, I couldn’t begin to tell you.
Then you’ll tell me how this happened, why he’s done this to
himself.
Excerpted from Breath by Tim Winton. Copyright © 2008 by Tim Winton. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
