The light disappears as the door closes and Len crosses the room.
Shall I help?
Eve can’t answer, and he lifts the waist of her T-shirt. She raises her arms obediently, and he pulls the shirt over her head. Takes her hands and pulls her to her feet, as though he might ask her to dance. Instead, he tugs the jeans to the floor, holding her hands as she steps out of them. Formal as a valet, he offers a dressing gown, and Eve turns away from him as she inserts one arm and then the other. They both take pause, before he folds the lapels of the gown over one another and ties the belt.
Wait.
He goes out and then comes back in again. Crouching, he instructs Eve to lift her foot, and she holds his shoulder for balance as he pulls Explorer socks onto her feet. She thinks of Nate, walking ahead, his socks rolled over the ankles of his boots. He had sent a card, after Mina.
Are you sure you don’t want a shower? Len looks doubtful. Eve shakes her head, cannot imagine being wet again.
Come and have some tea.
Jordie is bent over a colouring book, his fist bunched around a green texta. A milky bowl of cereal has been pushed aside. He watches her sit, and then returns to his work. The kitchen table is edged in yellow foam, gaffer tape winding around the tubular steel legs and holding the foam in place. Prodding the foam with her finger, Eve watches the beds of her nails pinken with the pressure.
Jordie has haemophilia, says Len. We try to make sure he doesn’t bump anything, because we won’t know if he’s bleeding inside until it’s already done some damage.
Runny blood, says Jordie, matter-of-factly. And when the runny blood runs out, I get top-ups from other people.
That’s what I brought on the bus with me, wasn’t it?
Jordie shrugs. Probably, he says.
Len sets down a cup of tea in front of Eve.
That’s Mum’s, says Jordie sharply, looking at Len. The mug is decorated with a picture of a teddy bear holding a red, heart-shaped balloon. The image is scratched and faded from much use, but Eve can clearly see the letters written on the balloon.
Mum’s at work, says Len. Eve can use it, Mum wouldn’t mind.
Jordie’s face flirts with thunder and Len sighs, picking up the mug and taking it over to the bench. The tea dribbles over the side then sloshes forth in a wave to a new mug. Jordie nods.
Is there someone I should call? asks Len, as he sets the tea down again. A husband, a friend, a sister?
Lotte: the name comes immediately. But she shakes her head at Len. They haven’t spoken in months; not since it happened. Even a few months ago, when Tom told Eve that Lotte was sick, Eve had not picked up the phone. Lotte wouldn’t want to hear from her, she was sure of that.
•
It was the first truly autumnal day of the year. The wind was cool, skating across the surface of the lake, but the trees were bursts of warmth, burnished oranges and glowing reds as the leaves fell, earlier every year, distraught from the heat rather than in readiness for the cold. Tom and Eve had walked with their hands in their pockets, matching each other’s pace, moving aside to let other walkers past, or stepping around the children who were frozen in trepidation, holding soggy bread toward a flock of honking swans. They had taken to walking around the lake once a week on Sunday mornings, just as they had taken to watching DVD box sets of TV shows on Saturday and Sunday nights. Establishing routines that failed to expand into the hours of time suddenly available to them.
Lotte is going in for surgery this week.
Tom had glanced across at Eve, waiting for her reaction.
They found two small tumours in her breast in December. That’s why she came back to Australia, to have the operation.
That’s no good, said Eve. She knew she should have more to say.
I can’t believe she didn’t tell me when she arrived. She must have felt so alone. It’s the same as what Helen had. Tom’s voice cracked. She has the same gene, apparently, he said. She just found out.
It’s a mutation, said Eve. Everyone has the gene; Lotte must have the mutation.
Did you know about this?
Tom’s question was sharp. He stopped walking.
She had the test years ago, said Eve. Before she went to Chile. She’s probably known for a long time.
Why didn’t you tell me?
Eve was confused. How does she know this thing? How does Tom not?
I didn’t know. I knew she had the test. I didn’t know the result; she didn’t tell me.
They walked on in silence.
Eve willed herself to lift her hand to his arm, as though she might have any comfort to offer. But her arm stayed in her pocket.
I was thinking we could go and see her, said Tom. After the surgery she has to have chemo. It’s just the same as Helen.
There was terror in his voice. Both my daughters — she could almost hear the words that must have been echoing through his mind.
You should go, said Eve. Spend some time with her.
It wasn’t the answer he wanted. Tom refused to leave her alone, and Eve could not offer to come. How do they pass so many days and end up in the same place as the first? Every day, Eve felt like she was sitting on the bottom of the sea-floor, and it wasn’t like in a movie: she couldn’t peer up to see him swimming just above, the sun piercing through the surface, illuminating his flagging clothes. The water was dark: it stung and pushed at her eyes; her hair grabbed at her face, her open mouth. And now she is here, and he is there, and she knows that she must let him go. That if she just creeps a little bit further away, he won’t be distracted by her presence in the murky waters beneath him. He will be able to move on with his life, as he deserves to do. To concentrate on Lotte, the family he has left.
She has to leave him, because it is the only way to give him his life back. But the real sea, the actual sea, was icily hostile: it wanted no part in Eve’s plan, demonstrating only how difficult it was to sink. Yet Tom hadn’t come after her; he hadn’t followed her to the coast. In Len and Jordie’s small house, her skin prickling beneath the dressing gown, the blanket heavy on her shoulders, Eve takes hold of that thought, holding it close to her chest without examining it. Tom has not come to find her: he must be relieved that she has left. For once, she has done the right thing.
If you don’t want me to call anyone, maybe you could phone, said Len. I think you should let someone know you’re alright. That you’ve … taken a bit of a turn.
Len peers at her as he speaks, and Eve makes herself look back towards him. His bald head makes him seem older than he is: he is only thirty, or even younger. A boy, she decides, as if the years have deepened the gulf between them, removing all possibility of common ground. There are two wrinkles of skin at his neck, above the collar, as though he has spent a long time looking up at the sky.
I’ll call Lotte, Eve says eventually. She’s a friend of mine.
Len is relieved at this, nodding firmly.
That’s good. You should do that.
He takes a sip of his own tea, waiting until Eve does the same.
Can I ask why you were down on the beach? Why you were in the water?
Would he understand? But how could he? And how could she ask him to? No parent should.
I just wanted to put my toes in, Eve explains. You know, to wake me up a little. And then I went a little bit deeper and the rest of me felt colder. So I dove right under.
Cold slamming at her body, chest seizing.
I meant to come straight back and have a shower, but I just felt so tired; I was resting on the beach.
You haven’t, uh … He coughs. Bridget is better at these things than I am, he says. My wife, she’s a nurse. But I feel like I should ask: you haven’t taken anything, have you?
She sees then how it appears to him, how it would appear to anyone: lone woman, early morning beach, fully clothed.
<
br /> No, I couldn’t.
He thinks she could do such a thing. She’s not allowed to do that. She promised Mina: anything but that. Eve knows she doesn’t deserve to escape so easily; she must stay here so that she can be punished every day. It’s Tom who should be free. He didn’t deserve to be dragged down by all of this, but he refuses to step away.
No, I wouldn’t do anything like that. It was just a mistake, I wasn’t thinking. I think I just need to sleep.
She stands up, pushing the chair back.
Thanks for your help.
Len follows her into the living room, watching as she folds the blanket and puts it on the couch, picks up her wet clothes from where they lie in a pile on the floor.
I’ll get this back to you.
She tugs at the dressing gown then flees out the door, thick-socked feet catching on the doormat so that she stumbles down the steps too fast.
Wait.
As she hurries past the toilet block Len appears by her side, gently steering her back the way she came. At least let me put you in one of the cabins. They’re mostly empty, and they’ve got heating. Wait here.
He jogs back to the reception office and disappears inside, returning with a key. Lets Eve into a cabin and prises the bundle of wet clothes from her chest.
I’ll put these in the machine. There are blankets in the cupboard.
She sits on the double bed, watching him turn on the heater, the smell of dust filling the small space.
Just to take the chill off, he explains.
She’s shivering again, but she doesn’t want him to know. Plants her feet firmly on the lino floor, concentrates on the bunk beds on the far wall that reach all the way to the ceiling, their mattresses covered in blue vinyl. Like hospital furniture. Easy to clean. Only when he has left, pulling the sliding door shut behind him, does she take all four blankets from the cupboard, shaking them out before she lies down on the mattress and burrows beneath.
11
LOTTE
JANUARY 2015
Eve marches down the hallway. Lotte listens to the fly-screen door swing open and smack lightly back against the frame. She doesn’t want to be here. Eve doesn’t want her here. Her mother is no longer here. Yet she doesn’t want to leave.
The scream comes in staccato gasps, a comical siren that hurtles through the house. Children whizzing past on bicycles? Dogs fighting? Lotte tries to make sense of the noise. She comes out into the living room. Her father is hurtling towards her, across the backyard, and then he stops at the glass door. They are both pausing; they both know something has happened, that something is wrong. The universe has split, and they don’t want to step forward into it. He throws open the sliding door.
What’s going on?
Lotte is about to explain — about Eve wanting her to leave, about her diagnosis and why she’s come back. That she’s sorry, she shouldn’t be here. That she should have come back sooner, or not at all. But the scream is louder, it is more insistent, and she watches Tom’s face unfold in realisation.
Eve?
He bolts for the front door, a second slam, and it takes Lotte too long to follow. Emerging into the summer-bright day, she sees nothing but the blue campervan parked in the drive, blooming against the over-exposed sky. She has to drive away. And then Eve’s shout, from somewhere behind the shrubbery and the van.
Call an ambulance, someone call an ambulance!
Eve stands behind Tom, one hand at her mouth, drawing it close and then away. Screams. Sobs. Lotte races into the house and picks up the phone. She urges the ambulance to hurry but they don’t understand, they keep telling her to be calm, that everything is going to be alright.
Hurry, hurry, hurry!
She shouts it into the phone. She sees Mina’s grubby feet; Tom is crouching over her. Eve is pacing, her body jerking back and forth. The van must have stalled when Eve pulled the handbrake on, but Lotte carefully opens the driver’s door and pulls the key from the ignition.
Paramedics, the ambulance parked on the road. They run, one leaping across the deep gutter with a skip. They are polite; they take control.
And then the ambulance is gone, doing a harried U-turn in the street. The lights of the police car are flashing when it pulls up but there is no siren. Neighbours are in their yards, people standing close together. Two in that yard. Three in that one. Everyone is paused, their lives all momentarily in a balanced stillness; they had all been watching, relieved it was not them.
You called Emergency. The policewoman nods at the phone in Lotte’s hand.
They’ve just left, says Lotte. They’re on the way to the hospital.
A young girl, wasn’t it? Both parents are in the ambulance? And this was the vehicle?
Lotte nods. They already know everything.
Are you a neighbour?
I’m her sister.
Whose sister? asks the officer. The mother’s?
Mina’s. The little girl’s.
The officer seems to see her properly then.
I’m sorry, she says. Are you okay?
Lotte is fine; she knows this cannot really have happened.
We just need to ask you a few questions, says the officer. We’ll ask the parents later. Who was driving the van?
Lotte looks down at the key in her hand. The officer follows her gaze. A pineapple in a hand. She pictures Eve, mouth agape, that short, bursting scream. And it was Lotte who should have been backing that van out of the garage. Who should have been getting ready to leave. The one with no home, no family. Nothing to lose.
I was ... I was meant to be leaving.
You were driving?
She could confess. It will be neat, finished. A written admission, a signature. A television crime drama, over within the hour.
It was Eve, she says. Mina’s mother. The little girl’s mother.
She is always saying the wrong thing.
Lotte sees her once, to say goodbye. Mina’s body, too small for the machinery surrounding her, lies shallow beneath the blankets. She does not look as though she has died. Her cheeks are flushed pink, her face undamaged. She does not look worn down or broken, in the way Lotte’s mother had.
Mina’s hand is cool and soft, when usually it is twitchy and warm. Texta lines decorate her fingers. On the back of one hand is an ‘M’ marked out in love-heart stamps. Lotte had drawn it on after breakfast yesterday, using the pink texta with a felt tip shaped into a heart.
M for Mina? Lotte had asked. Or M for Mum?
M for Mum! Mina had replied.
Lotte kisses Mina on the forehead, something she has never done before. Until now she has always accepted hugs from Mina, arms high and tight around her neck, cheek pressed to cheek. She does this now, her cheek against Mina’s lifeless one, afraid that if she holds her too tightly she will leave a mark.
A small side gate by the cemetery gatehouse is open.
Hmmm, let’s see.
The woman in the gatehouse booth turns away and flips through a record book. Sweat trickles down Lotte’s stomach and back.
Here you go, the woman says, handing her a photocopied map, a highlighter trail showing which way to go.
Now, no flowers, unless the headstone has a built-in vase. If it doesn’t and you’d like to apply for one, you need to fill out a form. Not that it matters today — the flowers would soon be dead in this heat; it would be a waste of time.
They’re dead anyway, says Lotte, taking the map. It hadn’t even occurred to her to bring flowers; she isn’t going to tell this woman that.
I beg your pardon? The woman peers at Lotte through the ticket-box railings, channelling indignation.
Cut flowers, Lotte says. They’re dead anyway, even without the heat.
Well. The woman sniffs loudly. I was just saying.
Lotte walks along the path, thank
ful for the shade of twisted oak trees that stand at a respectful distance, their roots interrupting the concrete, knocking it into tiny cliffs. She thinks she knows where her mother’s grave is, remembers the road curving away behind the piles of clay covered in astroturf, but the map leads her elsewhere. How many people have been buried in the eight years since? In the end, she almost walks right past, her stride taking her forward even as her mind notes the familiarity. Helen Jansone. Her mother had kept her maiden name, while Lotte had been bequeathed her father’s. And now Eve and Mina, too — as if they are all part of the one family. As if Helen had never intended to stay alongside.
Hi, Mum.
And she is back in those long days of summer, her voice unconvincing, her mother not answering.
Sorry it’s been so long.
Lotte crouches down on the grass to get closer, then sits cross-legged, settling in, not wanting to seem as if she isn’t planning on staying long.
I miss you. But I’ve always missed you.
She cannot keep it up, this talking into a void. It’s strange to pretend you can talk to the dead just because you are in the vicinity of their bones. But if that’s how she feels, why had she had the urge to come? She wants to tell her mother everything — yet if Helen could hear, she would already know.
The words on the headstone mean nothing to Lotte. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen. She sits quietly for some time. Ants crawl up her legs, their pincers sending sharp rebukes into her calves.
Yesterday, Mina’s body had been cremated. The funeral director had asked about burial — there was a special part of the cemetery for children — but Tom had been appalled.
We can’t leave her so far from home, he’d said.
The funeral was horrific, Lotte tells Helen. There were too many people. People who didn’t know Mina, who just wanted to see. To see Eve. Pretending to pay respects as they gaped wide-eyed at the small coffin. Some held balloons. Mina didn’t like balloons, she was scared of them.
Lotte digs a pen out of her bag, but all she has to write on is the map the woman had given her. She prints the words carefully — she will talk to her father about getting them added to the headstone, and she knows that he will understand.
Gravity Well Page 24
