Eighteen of Twenty

The party for Karl Jenkins's twenty-eighth birthday was the first he had ever hosted. It was held in the backyard of the house he rented in Red Hill, a low-set weatherboard on a sloping block with a timber deck across the back and a side gate that dragged on its latch. The idea had not been his. Jamie Greyson had put it to him on a walk along Moggill Creek in the winter, and had kept putting it to him until Karl agreed, on the condition that Jamie would be there.

Karl invited twenty people. Most were from Stafford, among them Constable Dean Harlow, his first Queensland partner, and Sergeant Lorraine Pike. Kellie Tanner came because Jamie had asked her to. Eighteen of the twenty arrived. The cider came in plastic cups, a borrowed pair of speakers on the deck crackled whenever the bass came in, and the boards still held the warmth of the late spring afternoon well after dark.

The first absence was explained before the party began. Constable Tim Brereton had come down with influenza and sent a run of apologetic text messages through the afternoon, promising to make it up to Karl. The second was not explained at all.

Jamie had grown harder to reach in the weeks before the party. Calls went unanswered, plans were cancelled at short notice, and when he did appear he watched the doors of whatever room he was in and started at sounds no one else noticed. He had nonetheless told Karl he would come. He did not arrive, and he did not ring or send a message.

Karl rang him twice during the evening. Both calls went to voicemail. Kellie Tanner tried once from her own phone and reached the same message. She told Karl she had not been able to raise Jamie for most of the week either.

Karl hosted correctly. He thanked people for coming, kept the cups filled, and stood near the deck steps where he could see the side gate. Each time it scraped open he looked up, and each time it was someone else, carrying a bottle and a greeting and a smile that faltered when they saw him look past them. The guests noticed. Several offered him reasons for Jamie in the kitchen: that something must have come up, that Jamie had probably lost track of the day. Karl accepted each explanation without arguing with it.

At midnight Dean Harlow carried out a chocolate mud cake from the supermarket bakery, iced stiffly and lit with candles from the same aisle. The yard sang. One of the Stafford constables laughed too loudly and for too long afterwards, and the people standing nearest him let it run out on its own. Karl cut the cake and handed it round.

The last guests left a little after one. Karl collected the plastic cups from the deck and the lawn, wrapped what was left of the cake, and checked his phone once more before he went to bed. There was nothing on it from Jamie.