It felt endless, the driving back and forth to the hospital. Like the back-and-forthing of the ferries across the Harbour, the endless trips Sarah had used to fill herself: but without the soothing wash of water, or the comfort of invisibility. There was a bubbling happening beneath Sarah’s skin. Something rash-like, ready to break out and spread across her flesh. At the hospital, she stared ahead, making herself absent while pale-skinned nurses wiped at Kari’s mouth, measured her pulse, waited. Sarah was like Kari – saying nothing, keeping her mouth shut. Driving back to the house each day, she stared at the back of Mal’s head, listened to him sucking his teeth. Wanted to ride like him, ride hard enough and rough enough to have sweat like tears all running down her body, to at least feel something, to at least get near it. Sometimes she could find a solid edge of hate inside her belly – she had to look hard, probing for it, coaxing up memories or wishes: but mostly, even the anger had gone. She was limp, feeling nothing, nothing at all.
After four days, it felt like for ever. Waiting and staring over Kari’s head and drinking sickly coffee and driving to and from and to and from. Sleeping-waking-eating-driving-hospital-eating-hospital-driving-eating-sleeping-waking. It was stupid, all very stupid and Zan hadn’t phoned, not even once.
After four days of waiting for something to happen and four days of nurses saying, no it could take weeks and four days of waiting for Zan to phone and thinking maybe she’d phoned while they were all at the hospital, how about that for an idea, Sarah woke up on the floor next to her bed. She had no memory of having fallen from the skinny single bed onto the floor, and no aches or bruises. Her body still felt sleepy though, desiring softness, and there was a chiming sound in her ears. Loud and high, belllike. She sat up, rubbing her legs. The dinging sound didn’t stop. Ringing. Doorbell. She counted eight dings of the bell before she wrapped the fluffy blue dressing gown about herself and scuffled downstairs, holding tight to the stair-rail.
The back door banged shut. ‘Was that the door, darl? I’ve been tidying up the garden since dawn. Absolute state. At least yer up now anyway.’ Ruth was all rush, gloves and gardening fork in her hand.
Sarah leaned against the wall, her arms folded cross herself. The doorbell rang again.
‘Hold these willya, love? Ta.’ Ruth shoved the dirt-covered gloves and fork into Sarah’s hands and pushed past her to the door. Even as she put her hand to the handle, the bell rang again. ‘Oh ruddy hell, talk about impatient.’
Light swooped into the hall as she pulled the door open. Sarah squinted out into the sun, trying to look through the brightness, but it made her eyes swim and all she could see were bright shapes dancing in front of her eyes.
‘Jack Fir, ya lovely old bugger, fancy meetin you here, ay?’ Ruth’s voice was loud and warm, bouncing about like the sun.
There was a raspy mumbling from the doorway. Sarah shifted closer to the door, trying to peer out. He was a hunched-up shadow on the porch. His voice was loud, but the words all slurred together. ‘Fffprot some flouhs for her.’ Even with the sun in her eyes and the shape of Ruth in front of him and the distance of half the hallway between them, Sarah could see the spit flying from his mouth.
‘Ah Jack, yer the biggest sweetheart this side of the black stump.’ Ruth’s voice was still warm, but something like surprise was in it. She took a handful of flowers from Jack’s hand. ‘Bless ya, darl.’
The door clicked shut behind her and Ruth leant against the wall. Her shoulders moving up and down and a gentle sobbing falling from her mouth. Her face crumpled in on itself, became small and creased up like Jack’s face, and the sobbing for a moment grew loud. Sarah looked at her feet, then at the wall, then went into the kitchen. Opened the fridge door, pulled out orange juice and drank from the bottle. Grinding her feet into the cool lino. The sobbing in the hall settled and Ruth followed her into the kitchen. She had three marigolds in her hand.
‘He brought her flowers from her own bloody garden. He’s a bloody character and a half I swear. Still the flamin same too.’ Ruth filled a Vegemite glass with water and put the marigolds in it. ‘They built a residential hostel up the road, but he still wanders about all over the ruddy shop – drops in here, the school, visits the nuns, gawd knows who else. They just let him get on with it. No-one minds really.’ Her face still looked slightly crumpled. ‘Well then. Anyway,’ she smoothed her skin down and smiled at Sarah, ‘are you gunna get yerself dressed so we can getta move on out there? We’ll take the marigolds, I reckon. Why not? Brighten that ward up.’
‘I’m still really tired, Mum. I didn’t sleep very well at all. I might go back to bed for a bit. Get a bus out a bit later. Yer gunna be there all day anyway, aren’t ya?’ Thinking: ring, telephone, ring.
‘Oh. Well. Fine. Yes, well, whatever you want to do darl. Of course. Areya all right? Yer not sick?’
‘I’m fine. Just tired, I need a bit more sleep.’
‘It’s not good to go back to sleep when you’ve woken up, ya know that doncha?’
‘Oh, bloody hell, Mum, I’m tired.’ There was no need, no need at all, to speak like that, so sharp, she didn’t know why she did, it just came out, it always came out like that. She made her voice softer, warm like Ruth’s: ‘I’m waiting for a phone call, okay? I’ll be out by lunchtime.’
Ruth slipped her hand into Sarah’s. Smiled. ‘You could take my car. Save ya gettin the bus.’
Sarah pulled her hand back to herself. Wondering how people did it, how they managed to drive cars and not be terrified of killing someone. Wrapped her arms about her waist. ‘I’d rather get the bus.’
She shuffled back up the stairs and into the cold bed. Left her dressing gown on and listened to the sound of the doors slamming and the Holden starting and the engine revving then fading into silence. She lay on her back looking at the snake-getting-the-dog crack in the ceiling. Ring, Zan, ring. The silence stretched. The sun was warm on her eyes and her arms. The heat through the glass of the window making a burning spot on the back of her hand and making a whitehotyellow stripe across her pack lying on the other bed with clothes tumbling out of it like guts. She let her breathing come soft and slow and easy. The sun warmed her face, melted her skin, made everything slow and soft. Her eyes closed, her mouth went loose, she could feel her jaw dropping open, her tongue slipping heavy behind her teeth.
Then, the swirling of colours and voices. In the dream, Kari was a child again, but walking free, jumping free. She had a baby, a very small one – small as a hand and without a name – which she gave to Sarah to hold and protect and name. And Sarah named it Zan. In the moment before the phone rang, pulling awakeness from her, dream-Sarah realised she’d lost the baby: just put it down somewhere with her coat and a bottle of Coke. The funny thing was, dream-Sarah wasn’t worried for the baby, or even that Kari would be angry – only scared that Kari would cry and all her make-up would run. The phone cut in quickly, and Sarah was jarred awake in a sudden rush. She tripped over herself running downstairs, trying to remember where the phone was. Her mouth was sticky and her body still heavy, but even in the tumble of dozey waking, finding the phone in the hall and getting her hand to it, she managed to think Zan Zan Zan.
‘Hi.’ She was breathless and loud, her voice in the over-brightness of no-I-have-not-been-sleeping. Blood thumped up-down, all around her body: sounding loud, sounding like it echoed in the hallway. There was no sound for a moment from the phone. She waited for the silver of Zan’s voice to float through.
A jagged breath. A small croak. A shudder of half a word. ‘Darl.’ Then silence again, shaking breaths slicing out from the phone. ‘Oh, Sarah. I’m sorry, darl.’
‘Mum? Where are you?’ Although she knew of course, exactly where she was and who she was and what she was doing and why she was calling.
‘She went just a few moments ago, oh God, Sarah, just after we arrived.’
The hall seemed huge suddenly, the ceiling stretching way above Sarah’s head, even the phone soared up, grew large in her hand. ‘She can’t, how could she? They said days more, even weeks. How could she?’ Her voice tiny and thin, but her body still and safe, wrapped up with everything seeming far far away.
‘I know, love, it just, she just went very quickly, no-one expected, oh, Sarah,’ there was a creak of tears, ‘it was very peaceful, very quick. She just stopped breathing. She’d been coughing up all through the night.’
Sarah floated above herself, watching, feeling nothing. ‘I’ll get dressed.’
‘The keys to the Austin are in the third drawer in the kitchen. Ya won’t have time to get a bus.’
‘I can’t drive, Mum, I thought you knew that.’
A quiet little ‘oh’ from Ruth, then: ‘Fine. Get a taxi. The number’s in the book. They said they wouldn’t touch her until you get here.’
‘How nice of her to wait.’ But the words were so quiet that they didn’t even come out of Sarah’s mouth.
She sat in the back of the taxi, watching the meter, slipping from side to side as the car screeched around the bends. She hadn’t ever paid for a taxi, not since Zan. Bloody expensive, the meter ticking over like mad. Watching and counting and the bald-headed taxi-driver being careful with her feelings, saying nothing but trying to get her there fast. All she’d said was ‘it’s an emergency, ya have to get me to the Stuart Hospital, quickly.’ Poor bloke drove like he could save someone’s life. No point in telling him it was too late, had been too late years ago. Had always been too frigging late. She shoved ten dollars into his hand and said keep the change even though she could see the meter came to thirteen dollars and fifteen cents, but he said, thanks love, good luck as if she’d given him a massive great bloody tip and then she was out of the car and running across the car-park, puffing hard.
She was still puffing when she crashed through the doors in the Diana Ward. Ruth was standing in front of the window, looking out. She didn’t turn around. ‘Yer father’s out on the lawn. They’re gunna take her soon. I wanted you to be here.’
‘Thanks.’ It seemed to be expected, so she said it, not looking at the bed, looking only at the window.
‘I’m gunna go outside for a bit, let ya say good-bye. I’ve already said it.’ Ruth turned, reached for Sarah’s hands and squeezed them, almost roughly, then pushed through the doors.
The gurgling was still coming from the bed at the end of the ward and the pipe was still lined up next to Kari’s bed. Her hands were folded on her chest, like in all the pictures of dead people, and the fingers were a pale blue. Sarah touched the cheek. Cool and thin. They’d closed her eyes and taken the tubes from her nose. Say good-bye. Nothing. It was like starting the conversation at some poxy party, not knowing what to say or how to say it. She had nothing to say. Feel something. You must feel something. She stroked her hand down Kari’s arm, feeling the coldness, feeling the bone beneath the skin. Wanting to feel, at least something. At least anger, at least hate. But it was gone and there was nothing in its place, except maybe a mild nagging, a picking at her intestines. I won’t tell.
The doors thumped behind her and she felt Ruth’s hand around her waist. ‘It was peaceful, love. Dignified.’
‘Closest she got to dignity in her fucking life then.’
‘I don’t think so, Sarah. I don’t think that’s true.’ Ruth still had her arm about Sarah’s waist and her thumb was making small circles, pressing into Sarah’s back. ‘Yer father’s gone to the car. He’s had enough.’
The circles were pressing harder in Sarah’s skin, annoying. ‘Enough of what for god’s sake?’
‘He’s cut up, darlin, he always has been. Ya know he adored her.’
‘At least he adored one of us, then.’
The circling thumb stopped. ‘He adored you both.’
‘Oh fer god’s sake. For fuck’s bloody sake.’
‘Anyway. He’s in the car. Doyer want to wait for them to cover her and take her through? Have ya said yer farewells?’
‘She’s dead, she can’t hear me. What’s gunna happen then?’
‘When?’
‘Now. Next. About Dad. Ya have to do something, Mum.’
‘I don’t know what you mean, darlin.’
‘Bullshit, Mum, don’t give me that.’
‘No.’ Ruth looked down at her hands, took a deep sigh inside herself, then looked back to Sarah. ‘You know he doesn’t, not any more, I mean, he doesn’t hit me, is that what you mean?’ She said hit in a whisper.
For fuck’s sake. ‘I mean she’s dead. He killed her. What are ya gunna do?’ There. It was out, and it hung suspended and heavy as a gong.
‘No darl. No.’ Almost a whisper. ‘That’s not right. Ya know it’s not. She fell.’
‘Oh, Mum, please. He threw her. I heard, I heard everything, remember, I was there.’
‘No, darlin. I was there. She fell down those stairs. She ran at him and – you know this, I know you know this, I can’t believe you don’t – he moved. God knows why, but she flew so fast, it happened fast, and she fell. Right down the stairs and so fast. She just fell. You know that.’
‘I don’t. It’s not true.’
Ruth turned Sarah around, so that they were face to face, their breath almost touching. ‘Sarah, it should never have happened, I’m not sayin it should have, I’m not sayin it’s okay. But he didn’t throw her. Believe me. I can’t believe ya thought I was lyin all this time.’
A breeze slipped in through the open window and a branch of the tree creaked. The light through the leaves made the room look green and sickly. Everything, everything, everything. Everything seemed to be shifting about, Sarah held on to the wall, but it all kept moving.