A chocolate moustache lines her top lip and either she knows about it, considers it hilarious, or she doesn’t know. Or maybe she wants me to see how she’s no less handsome for this new virility. The Lunacy Café was her choice, so close to where she lives. Lunchtime it’s crowded with Brunswick people: as I enter a young woman in full kawaii cosplay throws me a sour look from this side of the drinks fridge, one to make me shut the door against the cold, which I do, then move to Beth’s table and she shows me her dimples and smiles that wide brown smile. ‘Hiya, toots.’ It holds nothing of the awkwardness of this morning and it’s a reminder of how not-Marnie she is, the thought of whom brings on a pang of guilt which I force down with a more powerful, somehow more acceptable, sense of shame—my father plans to kill someone. I consider telling Beth exactly half of that, not sure I want to in such a crowded spot. Even as I sit there’s someone’s arse in my face, shimmying past.
