CHAPTER 6

My thumb is the first to let me down. It's done so many exercises it should look like Elle MacPherson—but after three weeks of workouts it still can't tell the difference between 'bend as tight as you can' and standing up straight.

'Twenty-five degrees,' Mr Osman says, and studies the new X-rays.

Twenty-five degrees is what the therapist said the first time she measured it.

'The bone's healed well,' Mr Osman says now, 'unfortunately ...'

Unfortunately the joint in the middle of the thumb—the one that wasn't supposed to be damaged—is affected too. Stuffed, though that's not the word he uses.

'You'll have arthritis in it, of course. If the pain gets too bad we'll operate and freeze it into a better position. In the meantime the OT can make you a splint.'

He hesitates. Arthritis, operations—hasn't he run out of bad news yet? 'It's an unusual break; I've never seen one just like it. Were you holding anything in your hand?

A trophy.

If he says something funny I'll kick him with my fat plaster foot. But he thinks about it and nods. He's satisfied.

I'm seventeen. I refuse to think about arthritis. I'll worry about that if I manage to get old.

The splint looks obscene. I think it's only my dirty mind, but Jenny gets the giggles when she sees it. Even Dad hides a smile.

'Only use this to do the exercises,' Julie said when she gave it to me. 'Don't wear it all the time.'

I think I'll be able to restrain myself.

Caroline hasn't been to see me again. I ring her occasionally, but it's always a bad time. She's about to go out, or have dinner, or has a friend over.

Hayden's another reason I've got to be better soon. I want to know what he feels about me and what I feel about him. And I don't know how I'm going to find out if we're never alone.

But tonight the kids are in bed, Mum and Dad watching TV in the lounge. Hayden's sitting on the family room floor by my chair; I remember the feel of his hair when he cried in the hospital, and I stroke it again now. Does he remember his head on my breast?

He lifts his arm across my knee and rests his head against it. 'I'm not hurting you?'

'My knees are okay.'

Why do I think about sex now, when my body's trapped and undesirable?

Very lightly, he strokes the inside of my knee, and I have a sudden flash of memory—the last thing I want to think about right now—of Hayden putting his hand on my leg as we drove, and my laughing and returning it to the wheel, then crossing my legs away from him, for emphasis. The right knee crossed over the left, the right foot against the door. Seconds before we saw the white car.

So that's why my right foot was smashed worse than the left. I'd wondered about that.

Two hands on the wheel didn't help anyway. I should have left his hand where it was.

How could Luke quit uni after doing two whole years? How can he bear not knowing where his life's going now? Just drifting, letting things happen; working in Mum's nursery could hardly be a long-term ambition.

'Sometimes it's not such a bad way to go,' he says, 'seeing where life takes you.'

'But how can you plan anything?' Because that's one of the worst things about the way I'm living now—not knowing for sure exactly how soon I'll be back to normal and able to organise my life again.

'Sometimes it's good to go without plans.'

'So you don't have to change them when things go wrong?'

'That's a bit negative! More like the difference in philosophy behind karate and Tai Chi.'

'You've lost me.'

'Karate's goal-directed—if it's an opponent, you hit them; if it's a brick or a plank or whatever, you break it, right?'

'That's the general idea!'

'Tai Chi is more inner-directed; it can be used as a martial art but it's based on Taoism . . . if you think of life as a river, no matter how huge a boulder is, the river flows around it—might have to change course a bit, but it still gets where it's going—and the rock gradually gets worn away.'

'Doesn't sound like much of an adrenalin rush!' Which is the best part of karate, even something as artificial as brick-chopping—part of your mind knows that it's impossible to smash that brick with your bare hand, and the rest of you knows that you can, and you concentrate, visualise—and let loose and do it, do the impossible . . .

He's grinning. 'So what are you breaking now?'

'My plaster,' I admit—does he read everyone's mind, or just mine? 'You still haven't told me why you left uni.'

He shrugs. 'Business studies was bad enough, but when I got into the advertising stream I really started to hate it. Every assignment was worse; in the end I could barely force myself to do them—it was all completely alien to the way I think. Why should I want to manipulate people's minds to buy what I want?'

'So why'd you do it in the first place?'

'I thought it would be something my dad and I could share—he's totally wrapped up in his work. Pretty mature, eh? I was going to live with him, get to know him . . . maybe I even wanted to be like him, strange as it sounds.'

'Not that strange—he's pretty successful.'

'He's paid a price for it! Which is okay for him, it's his choice—but it's not mine. I figure there has to be something more important than money and power, prestige and all that; eventually I realised that it was my life and I'd have to work out what to do with it myself. It didn't exactly improve my relationship with my dad, but I guess that's the price I have to pay.'

I'm not sure about his 'life as a river' theory, but at least he's open and honest—no bull! When he's talking about something serious his eyes go dark—then suddenly he's teasing again and they go back to that deep, brilliant blue.

FLD. Foot Liberation Day.

I follow Mr Osman out to a back room, with shelves of instruments. The power saw is the one that grabs my eye. It must be the reason the floor's linoleum—bloodstains are a nightmare on carpet.

The ferocious saw whirrs and whines, slicing the plaster but—miraculously—not me. My right leg looks like a plant that's been growing under a rock, skinny, white and wrinkled.

It feels light and free.

I've brought my right sneaker in a bag; I put it on and parade up and down the hall—I'm walking, I'm normal!—while Mr Osman watches, frowning.

'I'll write you a referral for physio,' he says. Jeans! With the fat foot gone I can wear what I like—the bottom half, anyway. Maybe I'm even glad that they're the old pair, the ones that weren't cut off in Casualty. I feel more like me in well-worn denim.

When my foot touches the floor in the morning it feels as if some idiot's come along and hammered spikes up through the floorboards. Looks like it'll take a while to get used to not having the plaster. I still walk like a baby, legs straddled wide across an invisible nappy, arms out for balance.

'Come in three times a week,' physio Brian says, grunting with the effort of trying to yank my ankle into the shape he wants. When he's exhausted he lends me a wooden rocking board so I can practise at home. Just a few minutes, he says, three times a day.

Bend, stretch, pull it up, point it down, swivel in circles. Looks so easy when Brian's foot does it.

Coming home from physio I'm tired. That's my excuse anyway. I miss the doorway to the kitchen; hit my shoulder, scrape my thumb. Sticking out like a sore thumb. Such a stupid expression; such a stupid-looking thumb. Weak, red and stiff; wouldn't be so bad except when you think of it being like that forever. Or worse.

But compared to the other things . . .

I offer my thumb up as a sacrifice, a bargain with God or whoever makes the rules: I won't complain about my thumb, if you heal my ankles and my neck.

Jenny on the phone, 'What's that tapping?'

It's the ankle-rocking board. My parents are always complaining about how long Jenny and I talk—at least now I'm doing something useful at the same time.

'I knew you'd be happy once you got some exercises!' But you don't know what happy is till you can't do something normal and you learn to do it again. This morning Sally was curled up on my armchair—so I sat on the couch. Even better, a while later I managed to get off it!

And now the ultimate test. The seat where you really like to be normal; move the frame and try . . .

I can use the toilet!

Luke's got a tray of unhappy baby betonies for Mum to inspect and—with a bit of luck—nurse back to health in her 'hospital' behind the carport. Its benches are overflowing with cuttings and seedlings again, now that she trusts me not to fall off my chair and die the instant she gets her fingers into a tub of compost. Luke comes in to say hi when he's deposited the patients, and we're talking—actually I'm listening, and he's offering me morsels of his day: the guy who jumped to conclusions at the sight of Luke's long hair and wanted to know when to transplant marijuana seedlings; the lady who brought her cat in to help choose the right catnip—when Bronwyn comes in with Hayden.

A pang of guilt at not hearing him knock. It seems strange they haven't met before; I want them to like each other. Bronny leans against my shoulder, twining a foot around the leg of my chair, and we watch as they talk; they're both standing and their presence seems to fill the room—Hayden taller and restless, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he says something about doing surveying next year; Luke responding with his direct gaze and quiet intensity, the expression on his face harder to read.

'He's okay,' Hayden decides when Luke's gone, 'but—no offence to your mum—isn't that a bit of a dead-end job?'

'Not if it gives him time to work out what he really wants to do; he figures if he keeps an open mind the right thing will just turn up.'

'I don't know. He'd have been better off to finish his course and get a proper job even if he wasn't crazy about it; seems stupid to waste two years at uni and have nothing to show for it.'

It's ten in the morning. I've been reading for half an hour—as in understanding and remembering, not my usual brain-dead staring.

A break, a coffee with Mum, thumb exercises; ankle exercises; pick up the book again. Ten minutes this time, then my brain goes walkabout.

The afternoon's normal—as in back to brain-dead.

But it worked this morning. I've got to try. I've missed six weeks of school already—forty minutes a day is not enough. Mr Sandberg's last visit: 'You might have to think about doing Year 12 over two years.' Push that out of my head and go on reading. Try having the radio on . . . follow the music instead of the writing. Try earplugs . . . instant mini amplifiers for the ringing in my ears.

Ignore it; concentrate; what's happened to your willpower? You've got to go on reading.

I can't see. My neck's doing its gnawed-by-a-crocodile imitation, and everything's gone black. If I sit very still I won't fall off the chair . . . I just wanted to sit here and read! Is that so much to ask? I'm not giving in!

I have to. It's that or black out.

I call Mum to help me take off my frame and go to bed.

But I tried—I really tried. I used every ounce of willpower. What am I supposed to do now?

Jenny and Costa are going out together. It's official—not that there seems to have been any doubt in Jenny's mind since the first time she spoke to him. What's amazing is that it became official after she took him clothes shopping. The door of a dress shop acts as a sort of catalytic converter on Jen—instant whirlwind. Any guy who could stand outside the changing room for long enough for her to try on the entire size twelve stock in the shop would have to be either in a coma or in love.

'Oh, he didn't mind.'

'He read War and Peace while he waited?'

'Very funny. He actually chose this shirt. Anyway, you have to meet him now—it feels too weird having a boyfriend that you haven't even met!'

'What am I, the boyfriend monitor?'

'My dad's already applied for that. No, come on, why don't you call Hayden and we'll all go for coffee.'

'How about we wait till I'm not wearing a set of monkey bars around my neck?'

'How about you stop being such a wimp? You still look like Anna, you know—a normal person with a metal brace. It doesn't turn you into a freak.'

'You're a bully, Jen! Okay. Hayden's got a tournament this weekend . . . next Saturday. I promise.'

Sunday morning I wake up ready to try something. Mum hardly has to lift at all any more to get me out of bed, so . . . roll to the side, push with my right arm . . . I'm sitting up! Dance, sing, throw a party. Better yet, call Bronwyn; tell her how to help me with the frame.

'You are getting better!' she shouts.

Did she ever doubt it? Did she think I'd be locked in a metal brace, lifted up and down, all my life?

It's just a broken bone, I tell her. A broken bone in your neck is scarier than a broken leg, but it heals exactly the same way. In a couple of months I'll be good as new.

Bronwyn's not listening. She's screaming through the house to wake Mum and Dad, 'Anna sat up by herself!'

'How was the tournament?'

'Okay.' I guess he didn't win. 'Do you want to come over?'

'I've got a heap of homework ...'

'... Mum's made a chocolate orange cake ...'

'I don't feel like doing it anyway. See you in a minute.'

'To see me or the chocolate cake?'

'Don't make me choose!'

But he's had his cake now and I still haven't heard about the tournament. (And here I am, under house arrest and getting desperate for news of the outside world!)

'Who did you fight first?'

'David Someone, tall guy from Melbourne.'

'I remember him. You should have beaten him, didn't you?'

'Yeah. Got warned on contact.'

'Must have been a strict judge—you never get warnings! I hardly ever seem to make it through a tournament without one.'

'Well, I made up for it this time.'

'What did you do, kill someone?'

'I could have. The guy I fought in the next round was named Trevor. I had this flash about how I'd feel if it was Trevor Jones—I knocked him down on the first point and I went on hitting him . . . I'm quitting karate.'

'But you're good, Hayden—you're bound to get on the state team this year—you can't quit just because you stuffed up once!'

'Listen, I'm telling you I totally lost it. You be a macho karate dickhead if you want—I've had enough!'

The back door slams; he's gone.

'What's a macho karate dickhead?' asks Matt.

'Never mind.'

'Is Hayden still your boyfriend?'

'Mind your own business, Bronwyn.'

'How could he say that?' I ask Jenny.

She's trying hard not to laugh—not completely successfully. 'Maybe because you treat karate like the world's answer to religion, education and social life, all rolled up into one. But I'm sure he didn't mean it—just forget it. Kiss and make up.'

'I wish he would!'

But Hayden's not the first guy to quit a martial art because of me, so when Luke comes to see Mum the next day I ask him what he thinks.

'He's not quitting because of you—it's his own anger he's afraid of.'

'But he's angry because I got hurt.'

'It's still his anger. He's got to face it some time.'

Mum's coming in from the washing line, but there's one more thing I've got to ask—'Do you think I'm a macho karate dickhead?'

'You really expect me to answer that?' Then the teasing evaporates; his eyes darken into their serious expression and he puts his hand on my arm as he adds, 'The guy cares about you, Anna—and he's hurting. You'll have to sort it out, one way or another.'

He comes back to see me before he leaves. 'Have you done it yet?'

'Right! I just jogged there and back!'

'And the telephone's out of order?'

'Go away.'

The problem is, Luke's right. Hayden was really hurting, and I didn't try very hard to understand. I shut myself in Mum and Dad's bedroom and dial. He was just going to call me; he's sorry he said what he did.

'Are you really quitting?'

'Don't start!'

'I just wondered.'

'I don't know.'

I think we're still together.