45

In the morning, he was gone again. But he’d be back — he’d left his clothes drying on the line, and his gym bag next to the bed. When Brigitte moved the bag, a black notebook fell from the front pocket.

She glanced over her shoulder, and opened it.

17 March

Might not be sick after all. Not physically, anyway. Found this website called Beyond Blue. They have these forums. They say keeping a journal is supposed to help, write things down, thoughts and feelings. Dear Diary, stupid, but here goes.

Should be at the pub drinking green beer instead of doing this. Took the kids across earlier for dinner. They’re in bed now and I feel bad about getting angry with them over nagging for lemonade. Brigitte’s in Melbourne because her brother tried to top himself, and her pop died.

Physical: Heart palpitations, odd aches and pains, shakes, coldness/numbness usually in my arms. Hard to believe it’s crazy mental and there’s not something physically wrong. My heart, a brain tumour, or maybe lung cancer?

Emotional: Scared, angry, always on edge, on guard, a constant uneasiness that some disaster is about to occur. Sometimes I feel weird in a way that’s hard to describe exactly: detached, like watching from outside my body. Last week I was thinking about everything while driving and didn’t notice I was going in the wrong direction.

The nightmares and the flashbacks are the worst. I see the victims I couldn’t help when I was in Homicide. I see Drew Borchardt crawling across the floor of Laurie Hunt’s kitchen, blood pouring from the gaping gunshot wounds to his face. He reaches out a hand. Blood runs down it. He keeps crawling towards me, begging for help, but I can’t move. I’m helpless. More blood runs like little rivers along the joins of the tiles. And then they take off Hunt’s balaclava. The bullets hit at a very odd angle. It looked like a partial decapitation. Should have only fired once. Not ready to talk about that. This is what I signed up for. I should be able to deal with it.

Sometimes the flashbacks are not flashbacks. I can’t explain, but they are real. Hallucinations? This has happened before (after Laurie Hunt), but not for a long time. I saw Brigitte’s face on Maree Carver’s body in the water. And when I looked a second time, it was Phoebe’s face.

21 March

I no longer sleep like a normal person. I wake constantly and can’t breathe, can’t get air into my lungs, like there’s a weight on my chest. I feel frightened when I can’t stand it when the house is totally dark. I lie awake listening to every sound and wonder what it is. I have this compulsion to get up and make sure no one has broken in, and the house is secured and the kids and Brigitte are safe.

I got a good security system installed, but still don’t feel safe. The alarm went off in the middle of the night. Brigitte or one of the kids set it off somehow. Maybe it was a dream (or hallucination), but I swear I saw an intruder running out of the house.

I know I should see a shrink, but I can’t — they’d medicate me, or make me do something stupid like hypnotherapy. They Police would take away my gun and badge. Goodbye career (what’s left of it). Can’t do my job properly, but don’t know how to do anything else. Can’t even find who killed my own dog.

Brigitte suspects a link between Zippy and the Carver file. I can’t look her in the eye, but more because she lied to me: told me straight up that nothing happened with that slimy prick Matt Elery in Melbourne.

Drinking too much. And smoking. When she smells it on my breath, Brigitte says nothing, just does that thing where she twists up her mouth and nose. It used to remind me of Samantha in Bewitched. Now it’s just annoying and condescending.

These Beyond Blue forums also discuss exposure therapy (something about revisiting the bad memories. Facing your fears, which would be pretty hard because I’m afraid of everything these days. I am weak, hopeless).

Good Friday

Made love with Brigitte last night. Felt like things were back to normal, but I know she was just pretending. Probably thinking of Elery.

I can’t explain it, but I need to find a way back home. Not home as in place, but how we were before Laurie Hunt. I’m scared we’ve come too far from there.

Can’t stop thinking about getting my gun, or the gun in the safe. There, I said it. This journal had better be helping. Would never do it, of course. Cowardly. Selfish. To those who would discover. To the kids. To Brigitte. I still love her even though I know she doesn’t love me anymore. Who would?

Sometimes I feel so sad I want to cry to let it all out. Other times I’m so angry I think I could hurt Brigitte. I’ve dreamed of hurting her. I am terrified that I will hurt her, or our beautiful kids. I need to protect them, but I’m worried they’re in more danger if I’m around. Whatever I do is wrong.

If only there could be no choice: just an incident, an accident. And it would all be over. A coward’s thoughts. I am a COWARD.

Exercise used to make me feel better. I go to the gym, and I run and run, but now I CAN’T GET AWAY FROM IT. Whatever the fuck IT is.

Williams thinks I’m losing it. I made the mistake of sharing with him my hunch about mistaken identity in the Carver file. Now he says I’m not to be involved in any way with that investigation. I don’t trust him and

‘What’s that?’ Ella burst into the room.

‘Nothing.’ Brigitte snapped the notebook shut.

She’d known something was wrong. She must have. How long? Laurie Hunt? Aidan had seemed to get better for a while after that. Since they’d moved here? Maree Carver? Matt Elery? It was hard to remember the beginning. Beginnings are sudden but amorphous — shifty; you don’t recognise them at the time, can only see them blurred in unreliable hindsight. She’d been busy with the kids, work, and her own problems. She’d let it slide.

Even Carla knew — that’s why she’d told her that story about her ex, but Brigitte had been too self-absorbed to take any notice. Too obsessed with Matt’s stupid book at the time. Why didn’t she have any gears between conclusion-jumping and denial? She’d learnt at a young age — from the master — that denial was an easy pill to swallow. The long-term side effects, not so simple. Your father just has a cold. Chin up, Brigitte, you have to be strong, people are watching. Put the bottles in a bag before you throw them in the bin, so the neighbours don’t see. I’m not crying, I’ve just got something in my eye.

She saw eight-year-old Brigitte standing against the wall in the kitchen of the old pink house in Brunswick, looking at Joan, drunk, slumped over the laminex table. She didn’t want to wake her, in case she lashed out and hurt her, or vomited everywhere and she’d have to clean it up and keep it a secret. But what if her mother died and she hadn’t done anything to help? She was scared; her legs were shaking and she needed to pee. Ryan was in his room, crying. She wanted their dad back. It was all up to her to take responsibility for something that was way beyond her control.

When eight-year-old Brigitte had finally summoned enough courage to move off the wall and approach her mother at the table, Joan had sat up, reached for her brandy, swore as she’d spilt it, and then licked it off her hand.

Brigitte pushed away the childhood memory, present issues suddenly far more pressing.

‘You got something in your eye, Mummy?’ Ella said.

Brigitte shook her head, put the notebook away, and pretended to straighten things in a drawer.