The Simple Death Read Online Free Page A

cancer in the hospice at St Thomas’. He was unhappy to be there, far from his parish at Campbelltown in the city’s south-west. But the Church had started the Charity Hospice over a century ago, and still had a lot of say in the place. It was where they sent their priests when the time came. And at least, as Luke had told him last night, they understood pain management.
    â€˜The cancer quacks were always trying to save me,’ he said, referring to his time in hospital. ‘This lot here, they accept it’s all over.’ It seemed to mean a lot to him.
    Troy walked along the path by the beach, thinking about Austin and then Sam. Luke had introduced him to Sam, who’d done some boxing back home in Walgett, heard about the Sydney priest with a gym in his backyard. The two boys ended up living in the presbytery, an old two-storey place near Liverpool that was its own small community. Apart from them there’d been a few homeless men who’d come and gone, the occasional woman and kids on the run from a violent husband, and the housekeeper. Only much later had Troy realised what an unusual set-up it had been.
    Troy remembered the housekeeper. Brigita was a single mum with blonde hair that was almost white and a ten-year-old son named Tim. She was in her late twenties and didn’t have much to say, but she was easy to be with. Troy recalled good times in the kitchen, just sitting while she cooked, not saying much. She’d been attractive, sensual despite the baggy clothes she always wore.
    Sam had been caught watching her in the shower, through a hole he’d made in the wall. Troy had been interested in sex too, but Sam’s concerns were far more urgent, as though his body was running to a different timetable. The second time he’d been caught, Luke threw him out. Troy never saw him again, but he remembered him a lot better than many people he’d known since.
    He looked up at the big sky, half obscured now by the fronds of the tall palm trees along the path, and rubbed his forehead. The problem with Luke was, he wasn’t only dying of cancer. He’d been accused of abusing a boy at a youth camp many years ago. The accusation had been published yesterday, in one of the Sunday papers. For the past twenty-four hours, Troy had been confused, it was like having your father blamed for something monstrous he couldn’t possibly have done. Whenever he thought about it, the thing would just go round and round in his mind. He wondered if that was why he’d lost Austin, not trying to make an excuse but it wasn’t the sort of thing he’d usually do.
    The accusation against Luke came back into his mind and he shook his head, trying to make it go away for a while. It didn’t seem possible, not on a bright hot day like this, everything so clear and pure. Sydney could be deceptive like that.

Four
    A week earlier, hundreds of people are standing around one of the carousels in the baggage collection hall at Sydney International Airport, waiting for their bags to be churned up from below. Many have that stunned expression you can get from a thirteen-hour flight when you haven’t slept well, or you took something and slept too well. Either way, you just want to get home.
    Leila Scott watches the dog making its way across the hall. Doesn’t know much about dogs, this one might be a beagle, medium-sized mutt wearing a blue coat like a uniform, eager to please. It’s on a leash but you hardly notice because it works so well with its handler, a female customs official who keeps murmuring to the dog from one side of her mouth, with the other side ordering people to put their bags on the floor. She kneels, urges the dog on as it goes to work on the bags.
    Leila has to breathe and she has to smile. She’s tried thinking about other things, like the Gauguins in Los Angeles. Starting to drift, but important to stay focused. Her breathing seems okay, so she works on