Sweet Damage

by Rebecca James

  ‘I’m sorry, Anna,’ Fiona says. ‘So sorry.’

  ‘Shhhh. Don’t be silly. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.’

  ‘All of this wouldn’t have happened if not for me.’

  ‘No. Be quiet. Please. Just rest.’

  ‘I abandoned you,’ she says. ‘When Benjamin died. I left you here all alone.’

  ‘It’s okay. It’s understandable. I would have left too.’

  ‘No you wouldn’t,’ Fiona says, closing her eyes for such a long while that Anna grows afraid, leans over her, whispers her name.

  Fiona grimaces, opens her eyes, and Anna squeezes her hand gratefully, wills the ambulance to hurry.

  ‘I’ve been a coward,’ Fiona says. ‘I couldn’t handle your sadness. It was so messy and I couldn’t help you. I couldn’t do anything. So I ran away.’

  ‘It’s okay, Fiona,’ Anna says, crying openly now. ‘It’s okay. It’s not your fault.’

  ‘I only wanted to help,’ Fiona says, closing her eyes again, her voice growing weaker. ‘From the moment I first met you I just wanted to help. Be a good friend. But then I did the worst thing possible. I left you. Just when you needed me. I abandoned you.’

  82

  THERE’S A LONG SILENCE IN THE ROOM AS WE ALL WAIT FOR THE ambulance and the police to arrive. Lilla eventually stops resisting us and slumps against the wall, her head down.

  Marcus sits there wide-eyed and pale. His face is covered by a thin sheet of sweat. He stares at Fiona, as if he can will her to be okay with the power of his eyes, as if he’s afraid she’ll die if he doesn’t watch her for a second.

  Suddenly Lilla lifts her head, stares at Anna. I squeeze her arm tighter in warning, but she ignores me, takes a deep breath.

  ‘I had every right to go to that funeral,’ she says.

  Anna and Marcus both seem to sigh and grow tense at the same time. Nobody wants to listen to any more of Lilla’s shit. Anna lifts a blank face and gazes at Lilla with cold eyes.

  ‘Every right,’ Lilla repeats.

  ‘Okay,’ Anna says. ‘Whatever you say.’

  ‘But don’t you want to know why?’ Lilla says. ‘Don’t you want to know why I had the right?’

  ‘I’m not particularly interested in what you have to say anymore,’ Anna says. ‘You can tell the police.’

  Lilla smiles at this, shakes her head as though Anna is an amusing child. ‘Oh, but you would be interested. If you knew. You’d be very interested indeed.’

  Anna turns away, gives her attention to Fiona.

  I can feel Lilla’s mounting irritation. She’s always hated being ignored. She sits up straighter, and I hold her arm more firmly. She feels poised and tight, ready for battle, like a gun cocked and ready to fire.

  ‘He was my father too,’ she says.

  Anna looks up sharply. ‘What?’

  ‘Stephen London was my father,’ Lilla says, her voice triumphant, spiteful.

  Anna gasps as if she’s been hit. The colour drains from her face.

  ‘There. See? You know it’s true. I can tell by the look on your face. That’s why he was paying off my mother,’ Lilla laughs. Her tone of voice becomes conversational, friendly even. ‘And if you think it’s a shock for you, imagine what it’s been like for me. My whole life. Not knowing who my father was until my mum saw his picture in the paper after he died and lost her shit. But it was too late to do anything about it by then. Nineteen years too late.’

  I wait for Anna to deny it, to tell Lilla she’s a liar, but she doesn’t say a word.

  ‘Mum told me everything,’ Lilla continues. ‘And what a surprise. After all that time, all those years of living in a shitty home unit, I find out that my father was rich. But not just rich, not just comfortably rich, mega rich, filthy rich. And then to make things worse I find out that he has another daughter. A daughter he actually loves.’

  Anna shakes her head.

  ‘So,’ Lilla continues, and she lifts her head to look around the room deliberately. ‘You got the big house. The private schools. The nice clothes. I got a lousy two hundred bucks a month. Shut-up money, basically. Hardly fair was it? And if you think I was neglected on a material level, on an emotional level things were even worse. I have to say Anna that your dear daddy was slightly negligent in his duties. I never spoke to the man, never met him. Not once in nineteen years. I didn’t receive a single phone call or a letter. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. You got everything, Anna. As far as Daddy was concerned it would have been better if I didn’t even exist.’

  It’s impossible to fathom. Insane. And yet Anna’s making no attempt to argue, no attempt to defend her father.

  ‘But I wonder,’ Lilla continues. ‘I wonder what he would think now. If he could see you. He wouldn’t be all that proud, would he? Pregnant at eighteen. Letting your baby drown. Living here like some kind of hermit. Too scared to go out.’

  ‘Lilla, please.’

  ‘He’d probably think he’d wasted all his attention on the wrong one. All that money and time and effort and look at you. A useless waste of space. A non-contributing member of society. A freak.’

  Anna starts to cry.

  ‘You couldn’t even look after your own son. Couldn’t even keep him safe.’

  ‘Lilla,’ I say, low and angry. I pull her arm back tight against the wall, resisting a second urge to really hurt her, to smash her arm, break her bones. ‘Stop it. Now. I’m warning you.’

  ‘But it’s true, though, Tim,’ she says. ‘Anna is so useless she can’t even manage to lock the wheels of a pram, stop her baby rolling into Manly Dam.’

  Anna’s head snaps up. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘You heard me. I said your—’

  ‘No,’ Anna says, and there’s a fury and determination in her voice that makes us all pay attention. ‘Not that. About Benjamin. The pram. Exactly what did you say? Repeat it.’

  ‘Why should I? I can’t even remember what I said,’ Lilla says, and I can hear the fear in her voice. ‘And anyway that’s not the point.’

  ‘She said you didn’t lock the wheels of the pram and that it rolled into Manly Dam,’ Marcus says, turning to stare at Lilla with an expression of intense hatred. ‘That’s exactly what she said.’

  Lilla’s eyes remain fixed on Anna’s.

  We hear the sirens then, screeching up the street towards us. But neither Lilla nor Anna move or react. They watch each other; the air between them thick with hostility and something even bigger, some emotion more fundamental than hatred, something so ugly it makes my skin crawl.

  83

  THEY SPEND HOURS AT THE POLICE STATION. EXPLAINING THINGS OVER AND over. Making official statements. Going over the long, involved story. Anna tells them everything. Marcus leaves for the hospital just after midnight to see Fiona and Anna receives a text an hour later.

  Fiona has lost a lot of blood. She is in intensive care, but the wounds will heal.

  84

  WE HEAD STRAIGHT UPSTAIRS WHEN WE EVENTUALLY GET BACK TO the house. Dawn is breaking. We don’t talk and we move slowly, like old people. I hold Anna’s hand, walk close to her, but she feels distant and removed. She holds my hand limply and stares straight ahead, her expression blank. I just want to take her to bed and hold her, get her to see me again. Bring her back from whatever internal hell she has retreated to.

  But Anna doesn’t go to my room or hers. Instead she heads to Lilla’s room. When she gets there she goes to Lilla’s bed, lifts the pillows and blankets as if searching for something.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Looking.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘I don’t really know,’ she says.

  She goes to the desk and rummages through the drawers. Then she goes to the wardrobe and opens one of the wide timber doors. Something makes her cry out and take a step back. I step up closer to take a look. On the inside of the door is an elaborate photo collage, and at first I don’t see anything shocking about it. But when I get close enough I see
that they are Anna’s photos. Anna’s family. Pictures of what must be her parents. Fairview. Snapshots of the three of them on holiday, at the beach. The bizarre thing is that Anna has been cut out of each picture. Wholly in some cases, just her face in others. The effect is surreal. Chilling.

  ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ And I reach out to take her hand, but she ignores me, and turns around as if to take in the entire room. She pauses, then walks quickly to the bookshelves on the far side of the room. There’s something broken on the top shelf. Shattered pieces of red ceramic stand out starkly against the white surface. Anna collects the broken pieces and holds the shards in both hands as if trying to put them back together.

  ‘Anna,’ I say, approaching. ‘Careful. You’ll cut yourself.’

  But she shakes her head and moves away from me. A sob escapes her lips as slowly, deliberately, she opens her hands and lets the pieces clatter to the floor.

  85

  SHE GOES UPSTAIRS WITH TIM AND THEY CLIMB FULLY CLOTHED ONTO HIS bed. They lie spooned together, Tim behind her, his arm wrapped around her.

  ‘Anna?’ Tim starts. ‘Do you think—’

  ‘Shhh,’ she cuts him off, takes his hand. ‘Please, Tim, let’s not talk. Not now. I can’t. I just can’t. Go to sleep. We can talk later.’

  ‘Okay. Sure.’ He kisses the back of her head, squeezes her tighter. Soon she can hear the slow in and out of his breath, the regular rhythm that indicates sleep.

  She moves carefully out from beneath his arm and tiptoes from the room.

  86

  WHEN I WAKE UP THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BED IS EMPTY. I HAVE a good idea where Anna is but I go downstairs first and put the kettle on for coffee. I make two mugs and take them back upstairs to the attic.

  Anna’s sitting cross-legged on the timber floor. Benjamin’s blanket is on her lap. She looks up and sees me, smiles tiredly.

  ‘Hey,’ I stop in the doorway, hold up a mug. ‘You need some coffee?’

  She nods and I go and sit beside her, hand her a cup.

  Her eyes are red-rimmed and bloodshot as if she’s been crying. Her hair is loose and messy around her face. I push a strand of hair from her eyes, tuck it behind her ear.

  ‘You okay?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Did you get any sleep?’

  ‘Nope.’ She sips her coffee, sighs. ‘I think it’s time I put Benjamin’s things away,’ she says quietly. ‘In fact I think it’s time I left Fairview altogether.’

  I nod as if I think it’s a smart idea but the truth is I don’t know if this is a good or a bad thing. I don’t know whether it means she’s feeling better or worse. I don’t know what it means for me. For us. I don’t even know if she still wants there to be an us.

  ‘We need to talk,’ she says.

  ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Can we go for a walk?’

  ‘A walk?’

  ‘You know that bench seat above Fairlight Pool? The one that looks out over the harbour? I used to love going there when I was sad or if I just wanted to think. We could go there now.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘But how . . . what about—’

  ‘I don’t care. I’ve had enough of this,’ she says, her voice full of weary determination. ‘I don’t care if I panic. I just need to get out of here.’

  I take her hand and squeeze. ‘Let’s go then.’

  *

  We don’t do much talking on our way there. Anna starts having a full-on panic attack almost as soon as we cross the road. She starts breathing too fast, almost hyperventilating. Her skin goes pale and sweat breaks out on her forehead. Her whole body trembles. If I didn’t know it was panic I’d assume she was having some kind of seizure.

  ‘I’m okay,’ she insists, tightening her grip on my hand. ‘Just keep walking.’

  But we don’t make it far before she has to sit down on the grass. She pulls her legs up and rests her head on her knees. I sit beside her and put my arm around her. I have no idea what to do or how to help and when I talk – thinking the sound of my voice might be soothing – she tells me to shut up. So I just sit there and wait and hope that my presence is at least some comfort. Eventually her breathing slows down. She unclenches her fists, lifts her head.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘I’ve been better.’

  ‘Want to go back?’

  ‘No.’

  I help her up and we make our way to the bench seat. We walk slowly, Anna taking small careful steps and breathing heavily, as though the effort is physical rather than mental. It’s still early but there are a few people out: early-morning joggers, people in work clothes making their way down to the ferry, to their jobs in the city. People smile as they pass, and I know that we must make a curious-looking couple. Both of us scruffy and unkempt, Anna struggling and breathless, leaning against me as though she can barely walk without my help.

  We reach the bench seat and sit side by side, our thighs pressed close.

  ‘You made it.’

  She flashes a wobbly smile. ‘Only just.’

  ‘Still. I think it’s awesome, Anna. You did it.’

  She nods and stares out towards the harbour. Her face is preoccupied and despite the beauty of what she’s looking at I know she isn’t really seeing any of it. She’s thinking about last night. About Lilla. Her father. The whole miserable story.

  ‘So you think it’s definitely true?’ I say. As much as I’d like to avoid the whole topic – talk about the weather, or the colour of the water, anything but what happened last night – I know there’s no hope of that. ‘What Lilla said?’

  She takes a deep, shaky breath. ‘The payment Fiona mentioned, the one my father paid in secret, that pretty much confirmed it for me. And in a way it makes a lot of sense. The way my parents were together. Mum’s anger . . .’

  ‘So she’s really your father’s child, your sister?’

  ‘Half-sister,’ she says. ‘I guess so . . . probably.’

  We’re both silent for a minute, both caught up in our own thoughts.

  ‘So why? Why didn’t she just come and talk to you? Why did she have to do all that crazy stuff?’

  ‘You’re asking me?’ she says. ‘I might be biologically related to her but you know her best.’

  ‘I thought I knew her,’ I say. ‘But I was wrong. I mean, she’s always been obsessed with material stuff. With having a better life. I knew that about her. But I didn’t know she could be so malicious. When she saw how much you had, the big house and all that money, it must have made her mad with envy. It’s sad when you think about it.’ I shake my head. ‘Sad and unbelievable.’

  ‘But it’s not only that, Tim.’ Anna hesitates, falters, rubs her eyes. She looks suddenly exhausted and overwhelmed. She takes a breath. ‘That’s not the only thing I wanted to talk about. There’s something else. Something worse.’

  The look on her face and the tone of her voice – the idea that there could even be something worse – fills me with a sick sense of dread.

  ‘What?’ I ask reluctantly.

  ‘Do you remember what Lilla said about Benjamin? She was very specific. She mentioned Manly Dam. She mentioned the lock on the pram. Remember?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I frown.

  ‘And remember how I told you I was always sure I’d locked the pram? How I wondered if someone else, one of those kids maybe, had accidentally unlocked it or knocked it down the ramp?’

  I feel a rush of blood to my head – it’s a feeling I’ve become far too familiar with lately – and somehow I know that what Anna’s about to say is going to be something I don’t want to hear or face.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I didn’t tell Lilla that he drowned at Manly Dam. And I didn’t tell her that I left the pram unlocked. I didn’t even mention a pram. I told her Benjamin drowned. That’s all she knew.’

  ‘Marcus?’

  She shakes her head. ‘There’s no way. When Benjamin died Marcus made me this promise. And he w
as deadly serious – you know what he’s like. He swore that he’d never tell anyone what happened. He didn’t want me to worry about it, about what people thought or said behind my back,’ she shrugs. ‘I didn’t ask him to do that, I didn’t even particularly care what anyone thought at that stage. But I know he didn’t tell her. He didn’t even tell her that he was Benjamin’s father. Marcus is the most private, secretive person I know. He would never have told a soul.’

  ‘The newspapers?’ I say. ‘Maybe she read about it?’

  ‘It wasn’t in the papers. And there was an inquest but it was closed. She couldn’t have known.’

  ‘So? I’m not sure I . . . ?’ I stop. Suddenly I know what she’s saying. I get the whole thing. And it’s as if the ground has suddenly opened in a massive chasm beneath me. I can’t bear to look down – the fear of falling is too great, and I’m dizzy and terrified with shock – but I know I have to. I have to step up to the precipice and gaze straight down into the black below. ‘Fuck. Anna. You think she—’

  She nods urgently, as if to stop me talking, as if she can’t bear the words to be said aloud. She bites her lip, stares straight ahead. I watch the tears run down her face while she tries to gather herself. Eventually she closes her eyes, takes a deep shaky breath. ‘I would say I can’t be one-hundred per cent sure, that it’s just a possibility, but I am and it’s not,’ she says. ‘She was there. She did it. I saw the truth in her face. She knew I knew.’

  ‘Jesus, Anna.’ I breathe out heavily. ‘Jesus. Did you tell the police?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says quietly. ‘Last night. I don’t know what they can do, but they know the truth, they know everything. It’s up to them now.’

  I have to remind myself not to apologise. I have this persistent but illogical feeling of guilt as if the whole thing is my fault. I let Lilla into Fairview. I asked Anna if she could move in. Lilla was my friend.