The Family Men by Catherine Harris Page A

have the same hair colour anymore.
    She’d stay at his place, imagined he’d insist – of course you will, I wouldn’t have it any other way – wondered what his house was like, if it even was a house, and whether it would be big enough for the two of them long-term or if they’d have to move. Maybe to a complex with a cabana and a pool? Splashing her toes in the cool clear water, her body baking beneath a sun-bleached sky, the two of them discussing what they’d do together that weekend, where they’d explore. She was well into that daydream, picturing herself in a one-piece bathing suit, painted fingernails, her hair pulled back, the long strands fixed with her pearl slide, very Gwen Stefani, when a short stocky guy tapped her on the shoulder.
    She jumped, let out a startled gasp.
    â€œYou Greta’s friend?”
    She nodded.
    â€œThis way.” He turned and started walking before she’d fully processed that this was him, the contact, the one she had been waiting for, in that half second allowing him to gain an extra leg so that she then had to run a little to catch up.
    So much for “pleased to meet you”.
    *
    As with all of his dreams, he isn’t sure how this one starts. The girl sits on the floor. She is sweating, hands tied behind her back, moisture glistening on her brow as she inhales deliberately through her nose, the tape across her mouth making it difficult for her to breathe. He takes a cloth and wipes her forehead just as the perspiration gathers into a drop, trickling into her right eye, forcing her to close it in a slow wink. Her chest rises and falls quickly as he leans towards her, her body pressing itself further against the wall as though she can push right through it and escape if she tries hard enough. He wants to tell her not to worry. To relax. That he isn’t there to hurt her. It will be over soon enough. Stroking her hair, clearing the damp strands that have fallen across her blood-drained face. He imagines the relief of it. His voice a low consolation in the empty room. As though words can soften the exposed brickwork, can cushion the cold uncarpeted concrete beneath his feet. But his voice won’t come. Only the familiar fury, a crashing muteness on the tip of his tongue. Will it never stop? Coughing, so Freudian, saying, “It’s the dust.” The only words he can speak. So oblique. Say what you fucking mean . And then he slaps her. Hard. Out of the blue. Her eyes wide with the shock of it. The red mark on her cheek blazing brightly, a brilliant rose, then slowly, slowly fading.
    Like most men he knows, he isn’t one to cry – can’t remember the last time he did – but it is something akin to tears making his eyes blink and his throat constrict as though there is a giant fist pressed in it. This relentless anguish. His mind playing tricks on him again. How else to explain it? The dreams and hallucinations. Because he has to admit it looks self-serving, saying he saw her, like he’s making the whole thing up so that he can keep talking about it. And it had all happened so quickly. Harry knows it makes no sense. He can’t remember the last time he ran into one of his mates down the street. But he is sure it was her. He is. Or, he had been sure. At the time. Hadn’t he?
    In the car on the way back from the airport, Matt struggles to take him seriously. “What did you see? What happened? Where? When? How exactly? You think it means something because she ran in front of the car? A million girls cross the street every day. Anything could happen. It’s not a sign, some cosmic conspiracy. Are you sure you weren’t pissed?” Kate giggles in the back as Matt lambasts him from the passenger seat. A familiar pattern. The older brother chastising the younger. “Why do you have to be such a dick?” Harry disappearing into himself, he is so accustomed to it, watching the scene at one