The Family Across the Street by Nicole Trope

15 December, 2.30 p.m.

Margo lifts her son, Joseph, from his cot after his afternoon nap. His back is damp despite the air conditioning in the house. Outside the cicadas wail in the unrelenting heat. The temperature has reached the high of thirty-nine degrees predicted by the weatherman this morning, and Margo hopes that the cool change he also promised will be along soon.

‘You’re a hot baby, aren’t you?’ She smiles at her five-month-old son, and he gurgles in reply. ‘Welcome to your first Australian heatwave – the first of many, I’m sure.’ She smooths his damp brown curls with a soft brush and wipes his face with a cloth as she holds him.

As she lays Joseph down on his change table, she hears a crack outside, a burst of sound, and the loud noise startles him, his little mouth opening, blue eyes creasing as he gets ready to cry.

‘Oh no, baby, it’s nothing to worry about. It’s just a car backfiring or a tree branch falling. Don’t cry, little man.’ She speaks in a low, soothing tone and his face relaxes. Scott thinks he’s too sensitive to noise because Margo insists on the house being virtually silent while he sleeps, but Scott is at work all day and doesn’t have to get up at night, and Margo knows that Joseph sleeps better when it’s quiet.

The sound was close; she hopes it’s not a branch from one of the big brush box trees on the street outside. A few months ago, during a storm, one fell onto a car parked outside a house down the street, shattering the windscreen and denting the bonnet. At least there was no one inside the car at the time. After the storm all the neighbours came out to watch the branch being removed and the car towed away. It was the most exciting thing to happen on the street all year.

Joseph smiles up at her.

‘Now then,’ she says, as she changes his nappy, ‘what are we going to do this afternoon? Shall we go for a walk around the park? We can look at the ducks. “Quack, quack,” says the duck.’

She lifts him up and lets him look in the mirror, something that he loves to do. ‘Who’s that little boy? Is it Joseph? Is that Joseph in the mirror?’ She smiles at their matching pale blue eyes.

And then two more bursts of sharp sound fly through the air, startling Margo, who jumps a little.

Joseph starts to wail.

She carries him over to the window. Tall trees that line the road obscure the other houses, but Margo has a good view of the usually quiet street.

She wouldn’t tell anyone this, but to her, the noises sounded like gunfire, a burst of thick sound that pierced the air. Not that she’s heard gunfire anywhere except on television and in movies, but she cannot imagine what else it could be.

She experiences a moment of panic, suddenly aware of how isolated she is in her new house. She goes to find her mobile phone to call Scott at work.

Returning to the window, she waits for him to answer, clicking her tongue when she gets his message bank. Heat rises off the asphalt. A white van is parked outside Katherine’s house across the street. Margo looks a little to the side and sees the old busybody Gladys standing on the pavement, staring at Katherine’s house, her phone to her ear.

Margo watches as a police car pulls to a lazy stop outside the house. She and Scott have lived here for nine months now and she’s never even seen a police car cruise past on the way to somewhere else. She stands frozen at the window, watching a drama unfold right across the street from her.

Gladys says something Margo can’t hear, her hands gesturing frantically at Katherine’s house as the police slowly climb out of the car, and then there is nothing slow about them. They start running, a policewoman talking into the radio attached to her shoulder.

‘Oh my goodness,’ Margo says, holding her son close, her hands trembling as she remembers the sound of a slammed car door this morning, a hoarse shout and then John’s car screeching out of the neighbours’ driveway at 6 a.m. She remembers thinking, That must have been some argument.

She was going to mention it to Scott, ask him what the couple might have argued about. John and Scott enjoy a beer on a Sunday afternoon sometimes, though she and Katherine have never really had much to say to each other. Margo thought that might have something to do with their different stages of life. Katherine’s twins are five years old and the baby stage is far behind for her while Margo still feels like such an amateur.

But when Scott finished his shower this morning, Joseph needed a nappy change and she hadn’t had the chance to speak to him. I’ll ask him tonight, she remembers thinking.

And then she went about her day, thinking no more about it. Couples argue, husbands leave in a huff and everything is resolved that evening.

But the police don’t get called for just an argument.

Margo bites her lip. She plants a soft kiss on her son’s cheek and wonders exactly why the police have been called.

‘Nosy old Gladys will know what’s going on,’ she says to her son. She goes to her front door and opens it, a blast of heat enveloping her cool body.

‘What’s happening, Gladys?’ she calls, feeling like she’s the nosy one now but dying to know.

‘Oh, Margo,’ says Gladys when she sees her, ‘go back inside, go back. He has a gun. Go inside.’

‘What?’ Margo asks, believing she’s misheard the older woman.

Gladys waves her arms. ‘Get back inside, Margo,’ she shouts. ‘It’s Katherine, it was… Didn’t you hear? It was gunshots… Please go back, take the baby away.’

Margo opens her mouth to reply, but then Joseph moves in her arms and fear makes her clutch her son tight. Stepping back, she slams and locks the front door, and then she takes Joseph to her bedroom, locking that door behind her as well. She sits down in front of her bed, out of sight of the window, and holds her phone, dialling Scott again and again though she keeps getting his voicemail.

It doesn’t seem long before the air is filled with sirens, drowning out the cicadas and every other sound. Margo waits on the floor with her son, her heartbeat drumming in her ear. Scott is not picking up but she keeps hitting his name on her screen, overwhelmed with the urge to tell him she loves him.

‘It’s fine, baby, it’s fine,’ she murmurs to Joseph, who is lying on his back beside her, trying to get his feet into his mouth. ‘It’s fine,’ she repeats as she waits for her suburb to return to the peaceful place she has grown to love, though she knows, somehow, that it will never be the same again.