One Long Thread

by Belinda Jeffrey

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I might not know what happened since that last time I saw her, but I do know Sally. She’s always been like that.’ I didn’t elaborate but I could sense Barry understood what I meant. ‘Even when we were younger, she was like that.’

  Barry nodded, absently.

  ‘I don’t think she let anyone know much about her.’

  ‘I liked her, Ruby. I liked her a lot.’

  I know it’s possible to have two halves of one thing fighting for equal space, and that’s how I felt hearing Barry say that. Right there beside me was, perhaps, the only living example of a Romeo left in the modern world. But he liked Sally.

  I began to tell him things about us. About her. Just silly things, things that came to me as we travelled and I talked. I told him about stealing her ribbons and the time she saved up her pocket money to buy the old lady who lived next door to us a cordless phone so she didn’t have to get up to answer it all the time. It was only second-hand but, still, that’s what Sally had done. And I told him how I’d sewed her that dress so she could go to Mathew Grayson’s formal. And how they’d had sex in the parking lot and it hadn’t meant that much to her. I told him everything I could think of. I didn’t censor anything about her and, on balance, I was thinking how much of Sally was wound up in her extremes. And that was who she was.

  I finished and felt like a balloon floating high that had been pricked. Flat and heavy and unsure of everything. Except it felt good to share her with someone. The real Sally. Not someone I pretended she was for Mum’s sake or Dad’s sake. Or someone I stitched together for Becky and my friends.

  Barry sat with what I’d said for a while. And then he began to talk.

  ‘I don’t know what we were to each other, really. She was the first girl. You know. My first. And it came out of nowhere. Sometimes I don’t know what part of it really happened and what part didn’t.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ I said. Barry had brought the car to a stop and I’d only just noticed we weren’t moving. He swivelled in his seat and looked at me.

  ‘I won’t lie to you,’ he said. ‘When I saw you walk off that plane,’ he shook his head and smiled.

  My heart melted. ‘I can’t believe no one told you we are identical.’ I laughed.

  ‘It’s something she’d do,’ he smiled.

  ‘I know.’ I was still laughing.

  ‘You do look exactly like her,’ he said. ‘But when I listen to you talk, you’re . . .’ he paused. ‘Well, you’re not her.’

  ‘She was the most brazen person I knew,’ I said. ‘She had guts, she’d walk up to anyone, do anything.’

  ‘I haven’t felt this comfortable talking to anyone in a long time,’ Barry said.

  His face flushed and he turned back to face the steering wheel and, despite my bad intentions, I said, ‘I know she really liked you, Barry. She told me.’

  He was quiet with that. We were parked outside the hospital and Barry reached for the door handle. He went to open the door and then stopped, bringing his hand away and turning, again, to face me. ‘I feel responsible for what happened, Ruby. I think she left because of me. There were things I could have said and done differently.’

  ‘You can’t blame yourself,’ I said, thinking I could say the same thing.

  ‘No. You don’t understand. I mean. All the time, she was . . . well,’ he says, deflated. ‘I’m hopeless with words.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I think she wanted to leave but needed a reason to stay. I should have stood up for her, you know.’ He was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were going white. ‘She needed to know someone would always stick by her no matter what. And, instead, I said that if she needed to leave then that was all right. I gave her my car and the caravan.’

  ‘Is that how the police found you, then?’

  ‘They were still registered in my name.’

  There was one part of this entire conversation we were both avoiding. And we knew it.

  ‘People of your mum’s showed up at work,’ Barry said. ‘A car full of these guys in suits got out and came into the office asking for me directly. They grilled me about Sally and what I knew. Jeez,’ he said. ‘That was a few weeks after she’d left. All I knew was that she’d gone. I didn’t know where.’

  ‘So what do you think happened?’

  ‘I have all these horrible thoughts,’ Barry said, ‘about what might have been happening and I had no one to talk to about it. Growing up I had this habit of making up stories to fill in things I didn’t know. I began to think of stories about her. Some of them I didn’t want hanging in my head.’ He stopped and breathed deeply. ‘Bloody hell. You must think I’m a complete moron,’ he said, running a hand through his hair.

  ‘No. Really. You couldn’t be further from the truth.’ He didn’t look convinced. It was hot in the car and I wound down the window for some air. And then I worried it might break us out of that cocoon into the real world and I didn’t want that. I wasn’t ready to get out of the car and face what was inside.

  ‘She was coming back to you,’ I said, not knowing if it were true at all.

  ‘We’d better go, Sally,’ Barry said, not registering the slip.

  I think of Sally, sitting behind the wheel of the car, taking a quick glance in the rear-view mirror to see that the caravan is still following behind, before leaning forward to turn up the music. The window is down and her hair blows around her, free and unrestrained. The music runs through her veins and she’s singing at the top of her voice. Keeping one hand on the wheel, she uses her left hand to fumble on the passenger seat for the packet of cigarettes and she manages to open the pack and take out the last smoke and put it in her mouth. She catches sight of the speedo but doesn’t register the excessive speed because, as she flicks the lighter, the small erupting flame almost catches her hair alight. ‘Shit’, she says, taking her finger off the lighter switch. The flame disappears and she laughs again, shaking her head to catch the wind full on, blowing her hair back from her face. She lights the cigarette easily this time, throwing the lighter on the floor on the passenger seat side. She holds the cigarette in between her fingers, both hands on the wheel, pushing her back against the seat to stretch her muscles.

  But this image I have could all be a lie. We’ll never know. The only thing anyone knows for certain is that she was driving Barry’s old car, his old caravan on the back, coming back from whatever faraway place she had been to, heading towards Darwin. On a lonely stretch of road, she lost control of the car, swerved off the road and crashed head-on into a tree. When she was found, she still had a pulse, but it didn’t take long for the doctors in the hospital to realise she would never regain consciousness.

  Her heart pumped a cocktail of drugs through her body to keep her blood at the right pH level and her lungs expanding and contracting. But nothing could repair the damage to her brain. Or take away the stain of blood that burst and flooded inside her head, robbing her of any chance of making it out alive.

  I followed Barry closely as we walked through the main doors of the hospital, down the corridor that smelt like disinfectant and false hope. We waited at the elevator and I pressed the ‘up’ button too many times. We watched the lights flick from one number to another, one floor to another, until it stopped, doors opened and we walked out.

  I don’t know if it was my imagination or not but I felt Barry press close to me as we neared the group of people waiting at her door. Our shoulders touched, our fingers brushed each other’s as we moved to let an elderly couple pass us by.

  I couldn’t see Mum at first, among the group of about ten people or so. They stood beside the door, holding hands. Their heads bent down, nodding in agreement with Brother Daniel who led them in prayer. I stopped well before them, felt my feet cling to the floor like glue. I could deal with Sally, w
ith Barry, with what had happened, but Mum and the Aberdeen were a force I felt too small to negotiate alone.

  Barry noticed my hesitation and stopped soon after me, and turned back. Dad should have been here with me. I don’t know what Barry was thinking or what he thought of me or my family. We hadn’t discussed Mum at all. But he knew something of what the Aberdeen were like.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, holding his hand out towards me. I wanted to believe him. Absolutely. I reached out and took his hand. And I saw Mum look up from the group.

  As Barry and I approached the Aberdeen group and my mother, Barry dropped my hand. Mum stepped forward and hugged me to her. Her arms felt stiff and angular and desperate. She ran her hands over my hair and held me like I was a child and cried.

  Brother Daniel stood behind her, resting a hand on her head, and asked me to pray with my mother. Trapped, I felt no option but to close my eyes. I didn’t hear their words, only my own heart thumping hard. Eventually I pushed away, through the crowd, towards Sally’s door. Before opening it I looked though the window to see her blanketed body flat on the bed, connected to cords and cables, surrounded by machines.

  I turned to look for Barry but I couldn’t see him through the crowd. ‘I want to go in by myself,’ I said to Mum. I felt her inhale sharply, although she said nothing. As I stepped into the doorway I felt her behind me, ignoring what I’d just asked her. ‘By myself,’ I said again.

  I watched her face dissolve into fresh tears. She shook her head and tilted her chin towards me. ‘Well,’ she said. But I was determined.

  I crossed the floor to Sally’s bed and took her hand, sitting down on the chair that was angled towards her. I don’t know what I expected, but part of me hoped I would find they had gotten it all wrong. That, once I saw her, it would be all right. I squeezed her hand, but there was no response. Her body felt warm but empty. I could not feel her at all. Her eyes were closed, her mouth slightly open. She looked like she was asleep. Just asleep. And could wake up any moment.

  I had been looking at her face, holding her hand. Avoiding that other part of her altogether. And I thought about that image I had of her in her car, coming home with her music playing, her cigarette lit. Stretching her back and gripping the steering wheel, aware of the pressure low in her stomach. She felt the restless flutters of her baby, testing its legs or arms. The feeling spread a glow around her body. She put one hand on her stomach, took a drag, caught an image of what it might be like to hold him. She fantasised about striking it rich and having everything they’d ever need so they could stay free and independent from the world. But the feeling melted and the taste of the cigarette soured in her mouth and the music hurt her ears and she was tired of driving. Her body slumped back in the seat and she watched the road. Endlessly stretching on before her. She remembered a time when she thought Barry would be the one and how she had no idea how to hold on to that. She hoped he’d take her back.

  Then there was only the impact of the car around the tree.

  I looked down from Sally’s face to that small bump rounded under the blankets, level with my eyes. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I whispered.

  I could hear my mother on the outside of her door. Her sobs and the low-voiced reassurance of Brother Daniel. ‘What did I do wrong?’ she said, over and over.

  ‘Everything is God’s will,’ responded Brother Daniel.

  I could feel the tension around me, like a nylon thread stretched tight. It was wrapped around us, caught in our limbs, Sally and mine, pulling in opposite directions, cutting our skin. It was as though she had climbed the Faraway Tree and disappeared through the clouds into some other land. Only it had taken her away. Without me.

  ‘Wake up,’ I whispered. ‘Please wake up and come back. Or take me with you.’

  15.

  I watched Barry drive off from the hospital and I didn’t know what to do. I felt completely numb and drained. I couldn’t face going inside again to where Mum and the Aberdeen hovered outside Sally’s room. So I called Dad.

  ‘You should be here,’ I yelled at him. ‘You could still come, you know.’

  ‘Your mother—’

  ‘But she’s your daughter, too!’

  There was no response.

  ‘What do you want, Dad? What is going to happen to her?’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ he paused and cleared his throat. ‘There’s just no point prolonging . . . I mean . . . the baby is too young and there are all those drugs pumping through—’

  ‘Please, Dad,’ my voice wavered. ‘I want you here with me.’

  ‘If you want to come back home right now, that’s fine, Button. You can do whatever you need to do. I love you,’ he added before hanging up. But I wanted to hear him say he loved Sally. I wanted him to fight Mum for her. I suddenly felt so guilty for having Dad when Sally didn’t. It wasn’t fair. It was crazy, this whole situation was wrong. I waited outside the hospital, sitting on the small garden wall until Mum was ready to go home.

  In the backseat of a car driven by someone from the Aberdeen, I sat beside Mum wearing a plastic smile, nodding and agreeing with whatever was said. Mum took my hand, squeezed it tightly and held it to her chest. I wanted to reach out to her somehow, but I didn’t know what to say. I don’t think she was aware of me. I mean, she knew I was there – and in some way was glad of it – but it felt like there was no room for me or my feelings. She was just glad I was there for her.

  I left the Aberdeen, seated around Mum’s couch, took my suitcase downstairs into the sewing room and shut the door. I closed my eyes against the white space, still as I’d remembered it from my last visit. There was no mattress on the floor – I guess there was no time for Mum to get my room ready – so I sat on the chair at her sewing machine. I ran my hands over the frame of the machine, my fingers making silent circles around the wheel. The house breathed loss and emptiness already. I felt secrets wedged in between the bricks. On the floor above my head one man’s steady footsteps walked from the lounge down the passage to the bathroom. I followed his movement with my eyes. At that moment I wished I had been in that car with Sally. And we were dying together on that bed in the hospital.

  I took out my mobile phone and scrolled through the names in my contacts list. I wanted so desperately to talk to someone but every name felt wrong. I was too angry with Dad and I wanted something more than any of my friends could provide. Becky would want the drama of it all and I would still be left, aching with the need for someone to understand.

  I lay down on the concrete floor and the shock of cold creeping up my spine almost hurt and the pain felt good and as real as I felt. Pressure built up in my chest, my heart actually hurt. I put my palms across my heart for comfort. But it wasn’t enough.

  I flipped my phone open again and dialled Barry’s number, the one he’d given Dad before I’d arrived.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Barry. It’s me, Ruby. I’m sorry—’

  He cut me off. ‘I’m so glad you called.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘I wanted to see how you were.’

  ‘I know it’s a lot to ask. But. Would you come and get me? I can’t stand being here by myself.’ I was sure I had become someone else. In my normal life I would never have talked to a boy like this. Only, it didn’t feel like that with Barry.

  ‘Um.’

  ‘But if it’s too much trouble, really, it’s fine.’

  ‘No, it’s not that. It’s just—’

  I could hear the voices of other people in the background. Barry hesitated, listening to something they were saying.

  ‘You’re busy. It’s okay. I—’

  ‘No, I’ll be over soon. I’m with friends. But you can join us.’

  ‘As long as it’s okay with you. Thanks.’

  I trod up the back stairs and in through the kitchen do
or, the glass door sliding noisily along the ball bearings. I didn’t think it would be fair to slip out without telling Mum, but I suddenly feared she would hold on to me and not let me go.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I began. ‘But I just have to go for a walk. I can’t sleep.’

  Mum looked up from the group and I could see she was wrestling with herself.

  ‘Barry is going to come with me.’

  ‘I think you should stay with your mother,’ Brother Daniel said.

  My heart ached again. I knew if I stayed any longer I would start crying and they would descend on me and the thought of that was overwhelming.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

  I took a pen from the bench and scribbled my mobile phone number on a shopping list held to the fridge with a magnet advertising pet food. If they really wanted to get in touch with me they would find a phone. I left quickly before my mother found her strength and demanded my obedience.

  ‘This is Boof,’ Barry said, introducing me. ‘And Cassie.’

  I took a seat on the couch beside Barry, as he sat down. The room was quiet. Boof and Cassie stared at me unashamedly.

  ‘It must be a shock,’ I said, glancing at Barry.

  Boof shook his head and blew air out through his mouth, slowly. The pair of them looked mismatched. Boof was skinny and smallish while Cassie was large and full. She sat, shoulders back and legs slightly parted, stomach out. She was heavily pregnant. That thought made me swallow and look down. My fringe fell across my eyes and I tugged at my shirt.

  There were a few empty beer bottles on the coffee table and a splattering of playing cards, discarded hands and a small pack, upturned.

  ‘You play five hundred?’ Boof said and I shook my head.

  ‘That’s too bad. We could have played partners,’ he added, smiling.