It’s only been four days, but his face is much more tanned than it was. He has a series of faint scratches on the side of his face, as if a tree branch has swiped him. His sleeves are rolled up. He has bites on his arms. His boots are muddy. His clothes are dusty.
‘Sapphie.’
He walks past Cassie’s chair to the bed. He lowers his head and kisses my mouth. He looks from one of my hands to the other. Two fingers on my right hand are taped together so he takes the left one. I squeeze his hand tightly as he runs his fingers over my knuckles. He glances at my foot.
‘The Emergency Department?’ he says quietly. ‘What the fuck?’
‘I thought you were going to Canberra.’
He shakes his head. ‘I’ll get you home first.’
One hour and two X-rays later, a young nurse with hazel eyes and sea-green eyeliner patches the broken skin on the inside of my foot and straps it up. She insists on pushing me in a wheelchair to the patient pick-up area. ‘You’ll have plenty of opportunities to hop next week.’
When Matts’s car, filthy with mud and spattered with bugs, appears around the bend, I hold onto the arm of the chair and stand. ‘Thank you very much,’ I say to the nurse.
As I limp slowly to the kerb, Matts slams the door and strides around the car. ‘I asked you to wait.’
‘My foot is bruised, not broken. I’m fine to—’
‘Kissa,’ he mutters, holding my arm as I climb up to the seat. ‘Shut up.’ He hands me my seatbelt before shutting the door.
I’m fastening my belt when he gets behind the wheel. He glances at me. And then he jumps out of the car.
When he opens my door again, I twist in my seat and face him. ‘Matts? What’s the—’
He steps onto the running board and leans against my legs. My hair, pulled into a ponytail for the hundredth time today, sits untidily over my shoulder. He runs the strands through his fingers and smooths out the tangles. His jaw is clenched. His eyes are dark.
‘Don’t ever shut up,’ he finally says. ‘I want you to talk.’
I put my hands on his chest and feel for his heartbeat, then speak through a yawn. ‘I’m a bit tired for talking.’
He leans across me and checks my belt. ‘Horseshoe.’
It’s almost midnight. There are no other cars in the hospital laneway, but before we turn onto the side road, I glance at Matts. He pulls over and switches on the hazards. He carefully takes my hand.
‘Cassie said you drove her car.’
‘I had to.’
‘The climber had a transfusion on the track.’
‘He’s only twenty-one.’ My voice breaks.
‘You saved him.’
‘Could Mum have been saved?’
I don’t know where the words come from. I’m not sure he does either, because he stills before lifting our hands. His eyes stay on mine as he kisses the base of my thumb.
‘Not that night.’
‘She would have been scared when she saw the headlights.’
‘Not for long, Sapphie.’
I’m sitting in a car with my seatbelt done up. But when I close my eyes, for the first time in months, I don’t see an image of my mother, cheeks wet with tears and stained with mascara, staring back.
She’s wearing a royal blue dress with apple red buttons and sitting on a bench in a park in Buenos Aires. Matts and I are probably too old to be on the swings, but we’re swinging so high that our feet touch the sky. I think it’s spring or early summer because there are fresh green leaves on the deciduous trees and scented yellow flowers on the rosebushes. One of the flowers drops to the ground and Mum picks it up. The inner petals are soft and velvety; the outer petals are faded and dry.
Perfect imperfection.
‘Sapphie?’ Matts squeezes my hand and puts it back in my lap. ‘Are you ready to go?’
‘Yes.’
He puts the car into gear and pulls out. The indicator clicks when we turn onto the highway. As the car accelerates into darkness, I lean against the headrest. My eyes flutter closed.
‘Yes.’
‘Sapphie.’ I’m in the car but the engine is off and my door is open. Matts stands next to me and unclips my belt. ‘We’re at the schoolhouse.’
‘I must have gone to sleep.’ My head is filled with clouds of cotton wool. When I rest my face on his chest, he winds an arm around me and pulls me close. I yawn and close my eyes again. ‘This is nice.’ I sniff. ‘You smell of mud.’
‘You smell of hospital.’ He rubs his cheek on my head. ‘Should I carry you?’
‘Let’s stay here.’
The flyscreen door creaks on its hinges. ‘Bob!’ Ma Hargreaves calls out. ‘They’re home.’
I lift my head. Blink. ‘Still asleep.’
‘Do I carry you?’
‘No, thank you.’ When I shuffle to the edge of the seat, my hands are stiff and clumsy. My foot doesn’t want to come with me. I shift position, lose my balance and pitch forward.
Matts grasps me by the waist and hauls me back to the seat. He turns me and lifts, putting one arm under my shoulder blades and another behind my knees. ‘I’ll carry you.’
As soon as Matts steps over the threshold, Tumbleweed stalks out of the kitchen and wipes his brindle stripes against his legs.
‘Bring her through here, love,’ Ma Hargreaves says. ‘I’ll put her to bed.’
Matts sits me carefully on the end of the bed, making sure I’m steady before letting me go.
‘Ma?’ I yawn. ‘I want to have a shower, but I’m not allowed to wet my foot.’
‘Where do you keep your plastic bags?’
‘I don’t have any.’
She looks concerned for a moment. ‘Bob will work something out.’
When Pa finds a roll of bubble wrap in his van, I wind it around my foot, prop myself against the wall in the shower, soap my body and wash my hair. My cream silk pyjamas are laid out on the bed when I come out of the bathroom. I sit on the end of the bed where Matts put me earlier, and button up the short-sleeved top. Through the closed door, I hear every word.
‘Sapphie should stay with us,’ Pa says.
‘No, Bob,’ Ma says. ‘She’ll want to sleep in her own bed.’
‘She can sleep in the bed in her old bedroom.’
‘What? When Matts insists on staying and has offered to take the couch?’
‘I’m warning you, lad,’ Pa says, ‘Hugo hates that couch.’
‘I can sleep anywhere,’ Matts says.
‘It can’t be too uncomfortable,’ Ma says. ‘Or Hugo wouldn’t keep coming back.’
‘We have two spare rooms, Fiona. I can’t see why they can’t both bunk with—’
‘Come along, Bob. It’s past time we went to our own beds.’
I shout through the door, ‘Thank you for everything. Sorry to worry you and to keep you up so late. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Sleep tight, love.’
On my third attempt to push my bandaged foot through the leg of my pyjama shorts, I miss completely and my heel hits the floor.
‘Damn!’
‘Sapphie.’ Matts taps on the door. ‘Can I come in?’
I sigh. ‘Yes.’
He opens the door and glances at my shorts. He kneels in front of me and takes my hands. ‘You’re tired, kultsi. Let me do it.’
‘What does “kultsi” mean?’
‘Gold.’
‘Why would you call me that?’
‘It’s a name.’
I look at him suspiciously. ‘What type of name?’
He lifts a shoulder. ‘An endearment.’
‘Oh.’ I study our hands. ‘Kultainen means golden, doesn’t it?’
‘You remembered that?’
Tumbleweed walks through the door. ‘Did you meet my housemate?’
When Tumbleweed sits next to Matts and looks up at him adoringly, Matts scratches under his chin. ‘He likes me.’
‘He’s cross with me because I went away.’
‘He’s old, isn’t he?’
‘I found him before I left Canberra.’
When I fish for my shorts with my good foot, Matts picks them up. Without looking at me once, he eases the legs over my feet. When the shorts reach my thighs, he helps me to stand on my good leg so I can pull them up.
‘Thank you.’
He turns away. ‘Can I use the shower?’
‘There are clean towels in the rack near the sink. The toilet is outside at the end of the path.’
He rubs around the back of his neck. ‘Mrs Hargreaves showed me.’
His shirt is hanging out of his pants at one side. He grasps the fabric and pulls, freeing the rest.