On the drive back to Sydney after an edgy night in the motel, Sheila was silent, apart from a few times when she criticised my driving.
The silence and the criticism got to me and I broached what I thought was on her mind.
'You must see that Cummings knew what would happen when he stepped out into the light holding a shotgun. Who wouldn't prefer a quick exit like that to muddling through to the end? Incontinent and doped to the eyeballs with morphine? I would, so would you.'
'Fuck you. How would you know what he was thinking? You don't have a clue what I'm thinking.'
I dropped her at her place in Balmain and she went with scarcely a word. I didn't hear from her for a few days after that and then only to be told that she was going to Melbourne again. She didn't leave a contact number. I phoned and emailed Casey, to see how he was doing and to find out what had happened-what Cummings had told him about the mercenaries and the intelligence service and what Milton-Smith had said about all that and Patrick before Sheila and I arrived. I wanted the full story. I never got a reply. I guessed there wasn't going to be an update of Diggers for Hire.
I stopped mourning Patrick; I hadn't really known him.
I got on with the usual things-gym, reading, the pub, Megan and Hank and taking care of my still beating heart. Sheila sent me a text from Melbourne where the film was shooting and I went down to see her but it wasn't a success. She was totally immersed in her role and didn't have any emotion to spare. We quarrelled, and she admitted that she couldn't get the nastiness and the violence she'd been involved in with me out of her head. Couldn't look at me without thinking of Patrick and Cummings and Milton-Smith and lies and blood.
I'll have to wait for the film to come out to see whether it all helped her acting. I expect she'll be good, but, as ever, it'll all depend on the script.