Behind

by Nicole Trope

  ‘Sir,’ I say.

  ‘Yes,’ he answers, not ‘How are you?’ or ‘What’s going on?’ or ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I need you to get me a lawyer,’ I say.

  He sighs, a deep, heavy, disappointed sigh. ‘Even the lunatics didn’t want you.’

  I chuckle because it’s funny, he’s funny. ‘That’s right and now they’re sending me to prison so I need a lawyer so I can get bail.’

  ‘How will you get bail?’

  ‘I imagine,’ I say slowly, ‘that you will offer up the house as surety.’

  ‘I’m not…’ he begins.

  ‘I may get bail anyway. They’ll get me a lawyer from legal aid and I will get it anyway. I may get it anyway… Dad.’ I hear him catch his breath. I’m not supposed to call him Dad like we’re a normal father and son.

  He’s quiet. If he was younger, he would know that this is bullshit and that if I can’t afford bail, I will simply be remanded in custody until I am tried. But he’s getting on in age so he’s not completely sure. He knows the world has changed, so he is aware that he no longer knows everything about everything. He is only sixty-five but he looks older than that. He is thin with disappointment and weighed down by those who have betrayed him.

  I have enjoyed watching him become less and less sure of himself over the years, and I can imagine a time when he will be completely dependent on me, completely helpless. That will be justice of a sort, I suppose, but I’m not sure it will be enough and I’m also not sure how long I will get sent to prison for. I want to be there when he understands who is the strongest, who is the most powerful. I want to be there. I have to be.

  I know, as I listen to him breathe on the other end of the phone, that he’s worried that he will refuse me and I will somehow still make it out of prison and he will be the first person I come looking for.

  When I was twenty-five, I spent a year in prison on a minor assault charge. Someone took my parking space at the shopping centre. I had gone to stock up on groceries and alcohol for myself and my father. He had handed me $200 and smacked me across the head. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself. How can you have no money and still live with me at your age?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I whispered. I was still his dancing monkey then.

  But someone took my parking space. It was a woman, a large, overweight woman, who stuck her middle finger up at me when I pushed down on my car horn to let her know she’d taken something that wasn’t hers. So I smashed my car into hers, once, twice, three times, and then, as she screamed and swore, I got out of my car and gave her a little slap across the face. She was a big woman and she barely even moved but I got charged anyway. Assault and destruction of property. My father got me a good lawyer who alluded to an absent mother and I was given one year. It was a tough year. I thought I was a real bad boy until I spent a year in prison and I learned what the real world can be like, what truly bad people can be like. I spent a lot of my year in prison covered in bruises until I beat the absolute shit out of someone and then learned to keep my head down. And when I got out, I hit my father back for the very first time.

  I caught a taxi home from the prison, and when he opened the front door, he looked me up and down and shook his head. ‘Loser,’ he said. I didn’t even have time to visualise the bucket of water. The black sludge overwhelmed me and I punched him in the nose. He stumbled backwards, blood going everywhere, creating a huge mess.

  I was in shock. I should have turned around and run, just left and never come back. I often think that it was a sliding doors moment in my life. If I had turned and left, I might be an entirely different person now. I would be a man with a past, yes, but maybe I would also be a man with a job and a wife and a life.

  Instead I just stood there, rooted to the spot, bewildered at myself. I had done what I was never allowed to do. I had fought back.

  He grabbed me by the shirt, hauled me into the house and then he beat me until I could barely move. But I think he understood I was capable of hitting back, even though I was the one who landed up covered in bruises. I don’t know why it took me until I was twenty-five to do it. I don’t know why it took a year in prison. I don’t know and I have a feeling that even though I understand, logically, why I feel powerless against him most of the time, I will never fully understand it enough to make any difference to my life. I will always, in some ways, be his dancing monkey. The only ones who don’t have to dance are the ones who ran away. They should have taken me with them. They should not have left me here with him to spin and twirl as he played his harmonica. It doesn’t matter how old I get; I have a feeling I will always be seven years old, trying not to cry.

  But I grow more capable of hitting back each year.

  I am strong, stronger, strongest now. That’s just a fact. I may feel seven years old when he talks to me but I can see him for the round-shouldered, weak old man he is.

  ‘Fine, I’ll call a lawyer,’ he says and he hangs up.

  You have to love the legal system. They give you chance after chance after chance, certain that few people actually mean to really hurt anyone. The lawyer my father got for me was very good. I knew he would be. He was all shiny suit, slick hair and eloquent streams of words about how my mother left and my father is retired and can take care of me and how I’ll be confined to the house and see a psychiatrist and blah, blah. According to my lawyer, I am no threat to anyone, not even myself. According to my lawyer, I will be in therapy every day while I await trial so I can figure out how to be a better person. According to my lawyer, my father will make sure I maintain all conditions of my bail and will dedicate himself to taking care of me.

  So, they gave me bail. They gave me bail three weeks ago.

  My father waited for me to be released and he drove me home.

  ‘You have to stop this crap,’ he said. ‘You’re forty-one and you should be ashamed of yourself. You need to stop blaming everyone else for your dysfunctional behaviour and get yourself a proper life.’ And when we got home, he locked the front door and told me to go to my room.

  He did try to keep me at home.

  He really did.

  29

  Rachel

  When she opens her eyes, she is on the sofa with Ben and the two constables peering worriedly down at her.

  ‘You fainted,’ says Ben.

  ‘Oh, how embarrassing,’ she says and she struggles to sit up.

  ‘Now I think you just lie there for a bit, ma’am,’ says one of the constables, the one that is older than his partner and has a shock of black hair to match his beard and kind, dark eyes. She nods and rests her head back on a cushion that Ben has wedged under her head.

  ‘Um, look,’ says Ben to the officers, ‘it’s obviously been a shock and you may not know this but her mother is currently in the Lady Grey Hospice, so I think it would be best if you spoke to her another time.’

  Rachel wants to tell him to stop speaking for her but instead she closes her eyes. She needs him to speak for her. She needs time to get her thoughts together, to get the lies straight. She knows that her husband has no idea what to think.

  He’s dead. A week ago, or two weeks ago, they think. How is that possible? The dolls only stopped three days ago. When did they start?

  She opens her eyes and looks at the constables, one of whom is writing in his notebook and the other sifting through his wallet. ‘Let me give you a card,’ he says to Ben.

  ‘How did he die?’ she asks.

  ‘Um…’ says the overweight one, ‘maybe that’s best discussed another time. If you could give the station a call tomorrow and maybe come in for an interview with one of our detectives, that would be most appreciated.’

  ‘I will, call I mean, but how did he die? Why won’t you tell me?’ she asks again, determined.

  ‘It was very violent,’ says the constable with black hair.

  ‘What happened?’ asks Ben.

  The constables look at one another and she can see that each of them is hoping the
other will tell her what happened. How bad could it be?

  ‘Just tell me,’ she sighs, her heart hammering.

  ‘He was beaten to death.’

  ‘Oh.’ She covers her mouth with her hand, nausea rising inside her. Lying back against the pillow, she closes her eyes again. She cannot deal with this right now, cannot think about what he would look like or who would have done that to him. She finds herself feeling surprisingly sad at how his life has ended, despite everything he did and how he treated his family. She has not seen him for more than twenty-eight years and she was terrified, absolutely terrified, that he had found her, but he was still a human being.

  ‘Please call tomorrow,’ she hears one of the constables say.

  ‘I’ll make sure she does,’ replies Ben and then she hears them leave the room. She waits until the door closes and Ben turns the lock and then she sits up, trying to compose her thoughts.

  Her husband comes back into the living room, his lips set to a thin line. He is not just angry but furious, she can see.

  ‘You lied…’ he begins as her mobile phone trills.

  She looks at the screen; it’s the hospice.

  ‘Yes?’ she answers without thinking.

  ‘It’s time to come now, Rachel,’ says Sam gently. ‘Bring your husband if you can but it’s time.’

  ‘Okay,’ she whispers, ‘okay.’ She stands up. ‘I have to go, Ben. Sam says it’s time and I have to go.’

  ‘Rachel, we need to—’

  ‘I need to go, Ben!’ she shouts. ‘My mother is dying and I need to be with her. Everything else can wait.’ She waves her phone at him and for a moment thinks she might actually throw it at him. It’s time, it’s nearly over, and while she had anticipated grief and despair, what she had not anticipated is this anger that has suddenly consumed her. She is so angry, angry. It’s not fair, not fair.

  Ben holds up his hands. ‘Okay… I’m sorry… Do you want me to come with you, to come and be there? I can call my mother to come over and sit with Beth. She can be here in half an hour.’

  ‘Yes, yes please,’ she says, looking at him. ‘Call your mother and meet me there.’ The anger fizzles out, the grief and despair rearing up, ugly and confronting. It’s time.

  In her car she is too stunned to even cry. How can this be it? She has been waiting for it, has been expecting it, and yet it is completely surreal. How can this be it?

  When she pulls into the parking lot, she is unsure of how she got there. She knows there are three traffic lights between her house and the hospice and yet she cannot remember stopping at any of them. She has not felt the pothole that has irritated her every day for the last two weeks as her car has bumped over it. She knows that she always turns left at the large white house with the balustrade balconies and yet she cannot remember seeing it. She has no idea how she got here.

  The parking lot is half full of cars. She notices Elizabeth’s BMW parked there and wonders, sadly, if she has been called in for Luke.

  In the lobby she sees Elizabeth standing with her husband, whom she has only met once, and a young woman she knows is their daughter. Their faces are white, their eyes red. On Elizabeth’s face she can read the heartbreak of loss and she feels tears on her cheek. She doesn’t have time to stop and speak to them and yet she cannot simply walk by.

  She takes a step towards them and Elizabeth looks up. ‘Oh, Rachel, he’s gone, my little boy is gone.’

  Rachel nods her head as her tears dampen her shirt. ‘I’m so… I’m so sorry, Elizabeth. I’m so sorry. He was the most beautiful soul… He was…’ She steps forward and puts her arms around Elizabeth, feeling the weight of the older woman sag in her arms. ‘It’s too soon,’ Elizabeth says, her voice muffled against Rachel’s shirt. Rachel strokes her back. What can she say?

  Sam comes into the lobby. ‘Rachel, love, you need to come, you need to come now.’

  ‘Oh, Rachel, I’m so sorry, I had no idea,’ Elizabeth says, letting go of her.

  Rachel gives her shoulder a squeeze and nods at her. She follows Sam. In the bedroom, Veronica is barely breathing. Rachel sits down by her bed, takes her hand, and quite suddenly her mother’s breaths stop. ‘Mum!’ shouts Rachel, and Sam peers at Veronica, who abruptly starts breathing once more.

  ‘Don’t do that, Mum,’ she whispers. ‘Don’t do that.’

  Sam comes to stand next to her. ‘Do you want me to stay or leave?’ he asks.

  ‘Can you stay, just until Ben gets here? Can you stay?’ She cannot be alone here at the end. She has no idea what to do or say. She cannot bear for her mother to go. She cannot be alone.

  Sam doesn’t answer. He pulls a chair away from the wall and sits down next to her. ‘I’m here, Rachel, but don’t think about that, just let her know, let her know everything you want her to know.’

  Rachel closes her eyes and rests her head on her mother’s hand. Should she tell her that he’s dead, that someone beat him to death, that someone used the same violence on him that he used on Veronica for her whole married life? She wonders if it would give her comfort to know this, but as quickly as she thinks about it, Rachel dismisses the idea. Her mother looks peaceful, despite her laboured breathing, despite her life slipping away. Her mouth is relaxed and her pale skin is smooth and unlined.

  ‘Tell her everything you want her to know,’ Sam said, and Rachel thinks about what she would want her mother to know, about the words she wants her to take with her as she leaves the world. She doesn’t want her to think about the times that she suffered, all those years that she lived in fear. She wants her mother to know that she was a gift of a human being, a gift to the world and to Rachel.

  ‘I want you to know, Mum,’ she begins, ‘that you were the most wonderful mother and grandmother. You did everything for me, you lived your whole life for me, and I’m so grateful. I’m so grateful for everything you did for me. I’m going to miss you, Mum. You have no idea how much. And Beth’s going to miss you. She’s going to miss baking cookies with you and reading stories with you. I’m going to miss talking to you every day. I’m going to miss the way you describe the books you’re reading and the sound of your laugh. I’m going to miss the times when we got the giggles over something only we remembered. Ben’s going to miss you too. He always said you were the best kind of mother-in-law. We’re all going to miss you, Mum, so, so much, but I understand if you need to leave now. I understand and I love you.’

  Her mother moans quietly.

  ‘Do you think she’s in pain?’ she asks Sam.

  ‘She may be, love. I’m going to raise the level of morphine some more, but this will… You understand it may…’

  ‘I understand,’ she says, looking down at her beautiful mother. ‘I understand.’

  Sam stands up and adjusts the drip going into her mother’s hand. The skin around the needle’s entrance is bruised black and she wishes she could take it away and soothe the hurt there.

  She and Sam sit silently while she holds her mother’s hand. Rachel is unaware of the time passing but at some point, she realises that it is her husband who is sitting next to her and not Sam. It is after one in the morning when she hears a rattle from her mother and then, finally, complete silence. Ben, who has been resting his hand on her knee, leaps up and goes to call Sam, who is just outside.

  ‘She’s gone,’ he says after checking Veronica over. ‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart. She’s gone.’

  Rachel is too numb to cry anymore. She nods slowly, feels her husband’s arms around her shoulders. ‘Can you give me some time with her?’ she asks and he nods and then it is just her and her mother.

  She feels a slight chill, a small movement of air, and without thinking too much she accepts her mother’s goodbye.

  ‘I’ll never forget you, Mum, not ever.’

  It feels like hours later, years later, when they finally return home after she has done everything she needed to do to get her mother’s body transferred to the funeral home Veronica herself chose, despite Rachel not
wanting to discuss it at all.

  She accepts a silent hug from Ben’s mother, who quickly leaves, promising to return in the morning.

  She stands in the hallway, listening to Audrey’s footsteps in the silence of their suburb. She knows that if they were still in their flat, all the neighbours would know by now. Nothing was ever a secret – even things that happened in the middle of the night. And she can imagine that Mrs Andino would have already left a honey cake outside their front door, despite the late hour, so that they would have something sweet to help with their grief. But there is no one here now. No one except Ben and Rachel and a sleeping Beth. The profound loneliness of her mother’s loss wraps itself around her in the cold stillness of the house.

  She trudges up the stairs, needing to see her child, to see the little girl who carries her mother’s genes and who will never forget her grandmother either.

  She opens the door quietly, inhaling the strawberry smell that is Beth, and she tiptoes over to the bed.

  Her empty bed.

  Empty except for a doll.

  A small troll doll.

  As she stares down at the empty bed, her veins fill with ice, her heart misses a beat.

  In the half light of Beth’s room, the doll appears to be laughing at her.

  She cannot bring herself to pick it up, cannot force herself to move. And inside her, a scream rises up. It fills her whole body. It is all the fear and worry and sadness of the past few weeks and months. The scream is all she is. She opens her mouth and she screams and screams. She cannot seem to stop.

  30

  Ben

  Her screams travel down the stairs, where he is standing in the kitchen staring at the kettle, waiting for it to boil. The sound shocks him, and at first he assumes it’s a scream of anguish, a howl at the world over the loss of her mother. But then, moments later, he realises that Rachel wouldn’t make such a sound when Beth was near.