Twenty-four
BRISBANE, 1981
I hadn’t seen Ed in nearly a week, and after Andrew left with the children I thought I should go and check on him. His father was away for a few days, and it wasn’t like Ed not to visit me every day.
My leg had started aching again when the weather began to cool down for the autumn, and I felt a twinge on the way down the stairs. I decided to first walk up to the top of Paddington to the post office to get some blood flowing.
When I got there I found a letter in the box from Mr. Inglis, which was a matter for great excitement, and so I forgot all about Ed.
Mr. Inglis is the son of the Mr. Inglis I met when Mr. Barlow offered to publish Autumn Leaves. They are both gone now, Mr. Barlow and old Mr. Inglis, but young Mr. Inglis, who seems very like his father, is now running the publishing house, he said. That’s how many years I’ve been on the planet. The executives have changed generations.
I did meet old Mr. Inglis once, although he wasn’t old then. He was a tall, slim fellow with a good head for figures, that last being something Mr. Barlow told me about him when he met me to tell me they would publish the book. I haven’t met the younger Mr. Inglis. His letter is very polite. I don’t know if he inherited his father’s head for figures but he said something about royalty payments and a bank account. I hadn’t realized that Autumn Leaves was still earning money for anyone.
I had told Mr. Barlow everything, and he told me he would take my secret to his grave. I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone about Autumn Leaves, he said. He would do that for me. He would look after everything. He was very kind.
The only thing Mr. Barlow asked of me was that I write the next book, the book I told him I might write—the sequel, as he called it.
As far as I know, Mr. Barlow kept his promise as he is now in his grave and there has been no scandal. Sometimes, in some small part of myself, I wish he had blabbed, or someone had. I wish there had been a scandal, especially now. It would make my writing task easier. Perhaps it would ease Helen’s burden too.
The letter says young Mr. Inglis is keen to see the manuscript and to meet me in person. He looks forward to publishing the “long-awaited sequel” to Autumn Leaves. He’s read the chapter I sent and he’s very excited to see what became of that “poor mother of the lost baby.”
I suppose my life has been a sequel of sorts.
Action–reaction: the first rule of physics.
Action–reaction: the first rule of life.
The next morning, I telephoned Ed’s house and no one answered, which was not unusual. But by afternoon, I still hadn’t heard from him or seen him and it was late and it’s bin day tomorrow and he always takes my bin out the night before. I managed the bin myself, not wanting to bother Andrew Shaw when he rushed in to pick up the children, although it nearly carried me off down the driveway in its wake, heading for the car belonging to my terrible uphill neighbors, a Volvo they park all over the street and not in their own driveway, something about not wanting to run over the children. If they didn’t want to run over the children, then they should look where they were going rather than park all over the street.
Proud I’d stopped the bin in its tracks, I walked across the road to Ed’s house.
I knocked on the door. I noticed the front veranda was swept, work boots neatly under the eaves as if Ed was about to go to work at any given moment, which I knew was impossible.
No one answered the door after a few minutes and I could hear no voices within.
I called out.
No answer.
I went around the back and found the door open.
Inside, the little kitchen looked as if no one had ever used it. The cups and saucers were in a display cabinet above the bench. They were lined with dust but not as much dust as I might have expected. Someone had used them, or taken them down and dusted them.
Light came in through a curtain on the right. It was worn thin but looked clean.
I called Ed’s name again and I thought I heard a noise like a throat clearing.
I walked down the hallway. I didn’t even know which room was Ed’s. The first door on the left was closed. I listened but heard nothing. I knocked on the next door. I heard the noise again, like someone trying to talk underwater, so I opened the door.
Ed was not in the bed. He was on the floor, with sheets wrapped around his legs and torso. He was wearing striped pajamas and I could see his ankles, blue, and his manly hair through the open fly of the trousers. His face was a terrible color, blue-gray, more gray than blue, and his eyes were glassy. I could smell the metallic smell of sickness in the room.
“Maddie,” he said, although he didn’t quite get the word out.
I sat down on the floor beside him, felt his forehead, which was hot. “Don’t talk,” I said. “You’re sick. I’m going to telephone the doctor and get you some water to clear your throat.”
Having gone to Ed without thinking, I hoped my leg would not fail me now as I attempted to get up from the floor.
He only nodded and closed his eyes.
Then I saw, shoved under the bed, the handkerchiefs, a half dozen of them, covered in blood.
I advised my legs to stand me up quick smart and run me to the telephone to call for the ambulance. They did not let me down.