All the way back to the Boolaroo house, sitting in the back of the long black funeral car, Sarah floated outside herself. Ruth had stopped shaking and sat in the car humming one of the funeral tunes. Mick Newton’s wife turned up at the house with a plate of Lamingtons and too much blue eyeshadow. Kissed Ruth on the cheek, said, ‘ohh such a shame, love, such a bloody shame, what can I do?’ and shook Mal’s hand. Ruth said no, really, just sit down, and started laying things on the cloth-covered table. By the time the grey minister, the two sergeants, the constable and the blue-suited woman arrived, the table was covered with plates of small sandwiches and little cakes. Mal handed all the blokes beer and asked the two ladies and the minister if they wanted sherry.
Sarah sat in a tight ball in the living room, watching them swell and talk and crack open cans and drop crumbs on the floor. The swelling thing was back inside her, snaking around and up – she could feel it if she let herself, if she could find how to, how to let it snake its way up and out and too bad if no-one could pick up the pieces. Mal slapped his uniformed mates on the back and they slapped him and Sarah watched: waiting for Mal to burst out into anger. He didn’t though – Mal kept himself numb like Sarah.
The backslapping chat and tinkle of glass stopped for a moment when the doorbell rang. Everyone looked around with a trace of almost-guilt. Mal nodded his head at Ruth and she scuttled to the door, handing her sherry glass to Sarah.
‘Oh, gawd, flip-a-dip Jack, how do ya do it? Whenever there’s a spread on, you manage to find yer way there, ya old bugger.’
Ruth’s voice zoomed into the living room, cutting right through the cakes. ‘Come on in love, that’s the way.’
Jack followed her in, a slightly battered waratah flower in his hand.
‘Is that for me love? Yer an angel.’
Mick Newton wiped the beer from his moustache and grinned at Mal. ‘Bloody Jack Fir ay? Sniffs out food from a mile off I reckon – he turned up at Noreen’s bloody PTA meeting a coupla weeks ago – didn’t he love? Great White Scrounger of the North.’ His teeth showed – slightly pointed and brown – when he tipped his head back and let a roar of a laugh fall out.
‘Come on in, Jack, I’ll get ya some sangas lovey.’ Smiles and soothing sounds from Ruth, as she pushed Jack into the corner near the table. He sat quietly, almost invisible.
Sarah, curled up in the big chair in the corner of the living room, could see through to the kitchen. Invisible herself, she could see the hunched solitary shape, pushing sandwiches into his mouth. In all the talk, drifting and dabbling about her, no-one mentioned Kari. The voices talked about: weather, saddles, fencing, land prices, golf, the new commissioner of police (‘total friggin bludger, bumsucked his way up’), the day Sam Wright got nabbed speeding out of hours in his police car, the difficulties of baking a perfect sponge, the difficulties of funerals-weddings-christenings, the difficulties of yearlings – until Sarah wanted to stand up, become visible, and scream in all their bloody faces – but no-one mentioned Kari.
The shiny young constable was turning pink around the edges and his voice was becoming louder. He put his arm around Mal’s shoulders and waved his beer glass about the room. ‘This bloke – here – Mal bloody Sweet, this is the best bloke, the best bloody bloke ya could ever, ever, meet. This bloke has given his bloody all and ya can’t ask for more than that. He is a bloody good bloke and I’d like you all to change yer glasses – to charge yer glasses – for a toast. C’mon ya bastards, on yer feet. To a bloody good bloke.’
Sarah stayed tucked small and neat in the chair while the glasses clinked and the voices repeated ‘bloody good bloke’, like a bit of magic.
‘Hey, whass this, c’mon – on yer feet, this is a toast. That means everyone.’ He was staring right at her, right at Sarah; somehow he had seen through her invisibleness. She felt too stiff to shrug or smile politely as he grabbed at her hands. Even the no stuck in her throat. She could still see Jack in the kitchen – cramming cakes into himself – and as she stood, his mouth and eyes opened wide. A hacking sound fell out of him and his body shuddered, his arms waving about like wings. The hacking, coughing, scherracking sound again, and his face tightening up. Sarah’s own mouth opened and the words were a dry croak: ‘Jack. Get Jack.’
Everything got very noisy then – Ruth running into the kitchen, yelling, ‘carn, Jack, spit it up mate,’ and slapping him on the back, while Mick Newton called encouragement and the constable muttered, ‘bloody good bloke’, into his glass. Sarah felt slow as mud, wading through the wide opening into the kitchen. She felt hands shoving at her back, heard Mal in her ear: ‘Move it mate, he’s chokin.’
It was Mal who picked Jack up and laid him over his knee, thwacking and thwacking Jack’s frail back.
‘Don’t hurt him, Mal, he’s only tiny.’ Ruth rubbed at the place where Mal hit. ‘Stand him up, it’s not workin.’
Mal didn’t argue, didn’t even sneer, he just turned Jack up, and stood him on his feet. There were words coming out with the cracking chest; breaking sounds: Hriim sho-hing. Sarah stood big and useless and lifeless, watching while Ruth shusshed and rubbed soothed and said, ‘it’ll be all right, love,’ and Mal stuck his hand right down into Jack’s throat.
‘Flamin bastard bit me.’ Mal pulled his hand out, speckled with blood. There was a circle of bodies now, standing, watching like a footie game: ‘carn Mal, you can do it, get in there.’ Again, Mal’s hand in, then out with teeth marks and red flecks.
Jack’s face was deep purple and his breath in little jagged gasps. Ruth rubbed his back, whispering, ‘c’mon love, c’mon,’ and Mick Newton ran to the phone to call the ambulance and Sarah stayed frozen, her hands heavy lumps by her side. When Mick came back from the phone, Jack’s back wasn’t shaking any more and his eyes were still. Ruth shook him again and nothing fell from him: no breath, no piece of cake. Mal yelled in his face, told him not to be such a stubborn bloody bastard and swung his hand way up high and whacked Jack on the back so bloody hard it could have knocked his teeth to Timbuktu. Nothing changed, so Mal rubbed his back instead saying, ‘Poor bastard, poor bloody bastard’, really soft. Mal’s face went all soft, too, and he rubbed and rubbed, as if Jack were a prize mare.
Sarah could feel her mouth opening and closing, like she was trying to get something out, some words or a sound. Even her throat was moving, but nothing falling out. The ambulance siren blared up, blaring louder and louder, getting closer and closer, and then another sound, a shcerrack hack ha sound, the sound of Jack Fir’s cough, the sound of his voice breaking free, his throat waking up, his mouth opening up and letting the great ball of spit and bread and cake fall out, out across the room, out across the floor, flying in a perfect arc and landing on Mick Newton’s shoe. Jack coughed again, wiped his throat, looked at the table and reached for another cake. The siren screeched closer.
And then, the siren coming closer and closer, right outside the door, and Jack looking pleased with himself and Ruth saying, ya lousy bugger, Jack, but kissing him on the cheek like she never ever did before, and then, and then, and then:
and then another siren sound, loud and wailing, round and high, falling, falling out from Sarah’s mouth, out across the floor, and spilling onto everyone’s shoes. She could see herself, just for a moment, mouth open and face wet, tears falling and falling. Her face turning into sponge with all the wetness of it, melting and flooding over them all. She could see her arms wrapping about herself, holding herself in. Then her arms unwrapping, letting go of herself, letting herself fall out.
In the loud high cries falling out from way deep in herself, Sarah could see patterns, odd pictures swirling about with the sobs and sounds. Kari and Ruth and Zan and Mal all twisting in a dark mix and Sarah, sitting on the edge, feeling nothing except the fierce lovehate for them all, wanting them to notice her, love her, see her. Protect her.
And then she couldn’t see anymore, because she was inside her skin and the scream was hers and the tears were hers and the inside falling out was hers, all the pieces bursting out fresh and wet and clean like new fruit. All hers, she could feel it. And if no-one ever picked all the pieces up, she was there, alive, inside her skin. Touching home.