Only We Know by Victoria Purman Page B

was letting himself be distracted by her because it meant he could put off dealing with his family shit, as he’d so ungratefully described it to Calla the night before.
    He’d been trying to avoid it for years, but it couldn’t be ignored any more. Sam had had ever more frequent calls from his father’s doctor and more nagging than he thought possible from his Auntie Ruth. At first, it had been general flag-waving, gentle warnings that the old man was getting on and might need some extra help. Then the calls had become more regular. Charlie had tripped over again, this time spraining his wrist. Someone had found him parked on the side of the road, disoriented. The warnings had become clearer. Charlie wasn’t coping on his own. The doctor had mentioned a place he could move into in Kingscote, the biggest town on the island. Sam figured he might even know a few of the other oldies there. The company would surely help fill the long and lonely hours, help him when he was missing Roo’s Rest. Charlie might also like an audience of like-minded old bastards when he complained about the fact that his only son had put him there against his will.
    Sam felt a thumping in his chest. Only surviving son.
    He finished filling the tank and headed to the shop, where he was greeted with a bellowing laugh. The bloke behind the register planted both palms on the counter and hooted. ‘Sam Hunter. How the hell are you?’
    Sam took in the ruddy cheeks, the thinning hair, the big burly shoulders and stuck out a hand. It took a moment before recognition kicked in. ‘Fuck me. Adrian bloody Thompson. I haven’t seen you in years. What’ve you been up to?’
    They shook firmly and then both men propped their hands on their hips, took each other in. It had been more than twenty years since they’d been opposing ruckmen on the footy field and best mates in the pub after the game.
    â€˜We’re back on the island for good now. Me and Laura and the kids.’
    â€˜Couldn’t keep away, huh?’
    â€˜Nah. We wanted the girls to grow up here and Laura scored a job at the hospital in Kingscote.’ Adrian reached his hand around to the wallet tucked in his back pocket. ‘Check this out.’ He flipped open the worn brown leather and Sam swore the bloke started to tear up. ‘Four girls. Can you believe that? Thank Christ they all look like their mother.’ Sam took Adrian’s wallet and looked at the photo politely. Four blondies, the youngest maybe two years old, smiled back at him.
    â€˜They’re gorgeous girls, mate. So, Laura’s good?’
    â€˜Still gorgeous.’
    Adrian and Laura had been together for what felt to Sam like a million years. Sam had been right there at the Penneshaw pub the very night they’d hooked up. They were all eighteen and it was a summer Saturday night. A group of kids they’d gone to school with were settling in to celebrate someone’s birthday; he couldn’t remember now whose it was. They’d all had a few beers under their belts when a group of girls walked in. The boarding-school girls. The ones who’d grown up on the island but been sent away when they turned fifteen to go to Catholic schools over in Adelaide. Sam couldn’t forget the mysterious thing that happened to those girls when they went away to school in the city. They left as the classmates you avoided when you walked past them on the street and came back as women, a major development not lost on the boys who stayed to finish high school on the island. Adrian’s attention had been captured by one girl in particular. Short, barely five feet tall, white-blonde tumbling curls and big blue eyes. She’d batted them in Adrian’s direction as she slipped her fingers into the back pockets of her denim shorts.
    Nathan, a guy who played on Sam’s team, a farm boy from the west of the island, had sidled up to Sam and Adrian with a drunken