by H P Tune
“You might not need to unpack if you’re tired. Just grab a shirt, and there’s a toothbrush and all that kind of stuff in the bathroom.”
“Perfect.”
“Did you think of anything else?” Mia stood in front of Juliet, who was still on the edge of the bed, gaping at everything.
“No…nothing. There’s nothing more I could possibly need.”
“Okay. So your pain meds are easy to get?”
Juliet nodded.
“In that case, I’ll leave you to it. Just remember, I’m right down the hall. Just knock and wake me or give me a sharp jab.”
“Hey,” Juliet said, using one hand on the mattress to push herself to stand. “I’m completely overwhelmed, thank you.” She stiffly leant forward and lightly pecked Mia’s cheek. Mia just smiled, tucking her loose brown hair behind her ears. “Completely overwhelmed,” Juliet repeated.
Running her thumb over Juliet’s upper arm, Mia said, “I hope you sleep well.”
Juliet looked like it took a moment for her to register the touch. After a prolonged moment, she smiled. “You too. Good night.”
“Good night, Juliet.” Mia slowly pulled the door closed until the latch clicked.
CHAPTER 9
Waking to the sound of dishes clanking, Juliet rolled from her back to her side and tried to clear her sleep-filled vision to check the time. It took her a few attempts, the digits slowly coming into focus. It was almost ten. She had slept undisturbed throughout the night.
She lay there for a few minutes, eventually working herself into a sitting position and drawing the covers back as her feet hit the carpet. She was even stiffer that morning, but the pain was still the same, jabbing at her side and catching her with the slightest of twisted movements.
Taking her time in the shower, she seized the opportunity to sit on the edge of the tub and shave her legs and armpits. Winter didn’t bring out the best in her self-maintenance. It was too easy to don the multiple layers and forget about what was underneath. The mirror didn’t lie, though, revealing her face’s blue bruises that were purple in the centre and yellowed towards the edge. She turned away, not wanting to see her reflection.
Back in the bedroom, she pulled the sheets and duvet up, returning the colourful throw cushions to the centre. Dressing carefully, Juliet pulled on a pair of yoga pants from the top of her pack, though they could probably do with a wash. She chose one of Mia’s shirts, a V-neck striped Tommy Hilfiger tee that was a little too big and hung off one of her shoulders. It exposed the faded grey bra strap underneath. The heat was high enough that she didn’t need another layer for the moment. Taking a water bottle from the fridge, she broke the seal and opened the door to the hallway.
She followed the corridor until it opened up into the living area. She could make out Mia’s deliberately low and soft voice emanating from the kitchen. Juliet was almost at the breakfast bar when she heard the distinct sound of a male voice, and she self-consciously untucked damp hair from her ears and smoothed it across her forehead and eyebrow.
“Good morning,” she said softly, and both Mia and the tall, middle-aged man turned to face her.
“Oh, hi, good morning,” Mia said, watching Juliet gingerly slide onto a stool and place both hands on the bench before she exhaled. “How did you sleep?”
“Well, thank you.” One of her eyes widened, a request for an introduction.
“This,” Mia said, leaning back against the sink, “is Doctor Swinn. I thought it might be good to get you checked out, see how everything is healing.”
“Lucas, actually,” he said. “Lucas is fine.”
“Umm, sure,” Juliet said softly. “Sorry, you do house calls?”
“Sure do. I do three half days a week at the hospital, and then the rest of the time, I’m out doing visits. I’ve done the odd callout here over the years.”
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting. Mia, you could have woken me.”
“Oh no, not at all,” Doctor Swinn—Lucas—said. “Sounds as if you needed your rest, and I did get a very nice cup of tea.”
Juliet shrugged, sharing a glance with Mia before her gaze fell back to the bench. She was uncomfortable at the attention. Mia cleared her throat and said, “I’ll make you a coffee and then leave you to it.”
“It’s all right,” Juliet said. “You can stay.”
“Good,” Lucas said quickly, turning to Mia. “I’ll show you how to change these dressings. I’m assuming there’s a few stitches under there.”
Juliet nodded.
“And did they tell you it’s a week or ten days before you need them out?”
“Ah, a week, I think. I was a bit dazed, but yeah, I’m pretty sure a week.”
“All right.” He crouched and reached into an open backpack; it almost looked like a camera bag crossed with a first-aid kit. With gloves on, he stepped up to Juliet and slowly peeled off the half-stuck dressings. “Did they give you antibiotics?”
Juliet shook her head. “No, should they have?”
His forehead burrowed, and Mia stilled by the percolator, one hand holding a white mug. “Mmm,” he said, “not necessarily. They’re a little red, but not too bad. I’ll leave some topical antiseptic; just put it on each day.” He waved at Mia to come closer. “See this?” he instructed, fingertip at the edge of a small line of stitches on Juliet’s forehead.
“What am I looking at?” Mia asked, and Juliet tried to breathe slowly, struggling with the awareness of two bodies crowded just inches from her face.
“You can just make out the line where the cut is. See how it looks a little red and irritated? You’re looking for a white discharge. That’s what we don’t want. So, if you notice even a couple of speckles of a white paste, your job is to call me straight away.”
“Yep, got it,” Mia said.
Juliet tracked her, watching as she crossed back around to the kitchen and poured her a coffee.
“Changing the coverings is easy.” Lucas spoke in a matter-of-fact tone as he went about dressing the wound. “Just peel them off, leave the wound exposed for a few minutes so that it dries out, and then just cut these to size, although these pre-cut ones should be pretty right. Just a few dabs of this red antiseptic will do the trick—careful of your clothes. Think you can handle that, Mia?”
“Don’t get it on clothing, okay?”
Juliet smirked. “What can go wrong, right?”
“Exactly. It’s hardly surgery.” Lucas placed the pads of two fingers over her cheekbone and palpated it lightly as he bantered with them. “All right, so how’s the pain level? That mandible wasn’t fractured?”
“No, just bruised.”
“And the eye socket?”
“Same.” Juliet’s head drew back slightly as he went about tugging her lower eyelid down to glimpse at the surface of her eye. “Ow.”
“When was the assault?” he asked.
“A couple of days ago. Boxing Day.”
“Ah. The swelling should start going down tomorrow. You might actually get to see out of that eye.”
“That would be good.” Mia leaned across the counter and kept Juliet’s coffee between her hands, watching intently.
“Mia said you have a couple of fractured ribs?”
Juliet nodded. “Yeah, on the right side. A couple at the front were broken and I think one at the back. Others were just bruised.”
“I fractured one playing rugby league when I was at med school—worst injury I ever had.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t exactly tickle.”
“Make sure you take your prescribed pain meds. Don’t wait until you’re in agony before you take them.”
Juliet gave a guilty nod. Taking care of herself wasn’t one of her strong points. She did this with her life too, waited until it all fell apart before she started fixing things. Who needs to be proactive, right?
Lucas wrapped a stethoscope around his neck and moved around behind her. She felt her shirt being slowly drawn up. She knew from having inspecte
d herself in the mirror that her back looked like a kaleidoscope of colour, but that her abdomen were not quite as bad.
“Now I want you to rest all right?” he said strongly. “No lifting or twisting, just plenty of time lying on a bed or a lounge.” Juliet felt the base of his palm pressing against various areas and heard him murmur something unintelligible whenever Juliet’s body guarded against his pressure. “Breathe in and out,” he said. He repeated the same pattern standing in front of Juliet. “Still sounds clear.”
“Yeah, I can breathe fine.”
“No blood in your urine or stools?” She shook her head. “You haven’t felt lightheaded? Heart palpitations?”
“Nope.”
Checking her blood pressure, he finally lowered his instruments back to his bag and peeled his gloves off. “Everything looks okay, but you need to take some time to rest. Don’t push yourself. You need to heal.”
Juliet nodded.
“Was there anything else mentioned when you were discharged?”
“Oh, I did have discharge papers if you needed them. Sorry, I forgot about that. They mentioned something about my liver too, a small tear or laceration. They weren’t worried, though.”
“Even more reason to take it particularly easy. Any stomach pain or cramping, give me a call. And I’ll cast my eyes over that letter when I’m back in a few days to take those stitches out.”
“Thank you.” Juliet adjusted the shirt she was wearing to fall back over her hips and indicated to Mia to slide the coffee across. “Thanks,” she whispered.
“You’re more than welcome,” Lucas said warmly, looking up from where he crouched on the floor and packed his bag. “I’ll see you again in a few days, say Tuesday or Wednesday. I’ll have my receptionist call you with a time, okay?”
Mia left the room with Lucas. By the time she padded back into the kitchen, Juliet had made her way to standing in front of the open fridge, taking out one item at a time and placing it on the bench.
“Can I get it for you?” Mia asked.
Juliet shook her head. “Nah, I’m gonna have some of this fruit and yogurt. Is that okay?”
“Oh don’t ask, just go for it. It’s probably the last day for the fruit, so we should definitely eat it. I’ll go to the supermarket tomorrow or the next day.”
Juliet finished preparing her breakfast and followed Mia into the lounge room, settling slowly into the soft sofa. Mia turned on the television, leaning back with her slipper-clad feet on the coffee table.
“Hey thanks for organising the doctor this morning,” Juliet said. “I hadn’t even given that a thought.”
“No problem. I just phoned and was sussing out what days he was doing home visits this week. Made me feel better to have you checked out, even if you didn’t really need it.”
“Well it’s one thing ticked off the list. Pity there’s a few more to sort. The idea of phoning my bank is about as appealing as stabbing myself in the eyeballs. Or make that an eyeball. I can’t wait for this swelling to go down.”
Mia laughed, sliding her elbow up on the back of the sofa, hand supporting her head. “You cancelled your cards, didn’t you?”
Juliet nodded. She had been given the relevant number at the hospital and had managed to get it done quite easily. She suspected that having them replaced wouldn’t be quite so simple.
“So there’s no huge rush,” Mia said. “I think today should just be relaxing for you.”
“I’m not sure I’ve got the strength to do anything but that.” Juliet spooned yogurt into her mouth, pushing the hard pieces of melon she found to the side of the plate. Despite the long sleep, Juliet still felt incredibly tired and run-down. In just a couple of weeks, she had lost her strong, fit, and energetic appearance, and she couldn’t imagine what Mia thought. The same yoga pants Juliet had worn in the airport were now loose around her waist and thighs; the fabric pooled under the heels of her feet now, sitting lower on her hips than they had back then.
“Pretty uncomfortable today, huh?”
“Yeah, kind of. Everything hurts, and all the time. I could cope with the ribs if everything else didn’t ache too—my legs, arms, face. Even my neck and shoulders are annoying me this morning. Guess I tensed up when I was trying to get away.”
“Ack, you poor thing. Drugs…The answer is always drugs.” She offered Juliet a smile. “Do you remember much about it?”
“The mugging?”
“Yeah. You didn’t really say much on the phone.”
Juliet grimaced. “I was knocked out at the end, but he had my bag then, so he just took off, I guess. Fuckwit.”
“So you were just walking home?”
“Yeah, I had just left the bar we were at. The young guys that lived in my block had kicked on. I’m not sure where they went, but I stayed and finished my drink and then just wandered out, I didn’t even think about it. Where the bar is, there’s a cab stand kind of up along the road and down a side street. Or if I kept walking, I would have hit my apartment in ten or fifteen. It really wasn’t far. I suppose I should have had someone walk me to a cab, but I don’t know. Why would I?”
“Exactly,” Mia said. “And it’s not something I’ve done heaps, walked through a city alone or from a club, but I figure that’s kind of what you do? Why would you even think twice about it?”
“I know, and my first thought when he put a hand around my mouth was that it was one of the guys I was drinking with. They were trying to get me to go out dancing. I just figured one of them had spotted me and was messing with me. Stupid, hey?”
With an emphatic shake of her head, Mia stretched her hand out into the space between them to emphasise the no. “How is that stupid?”
“I probably wouldn’t have even gotten hurt if I had just given him my bag.”
“Agh, twenty-twenty hindsight. Surely you were just acting on instincts? How do you think in the middle of that?”
“He landed with his knees on me,” Juliet said, caught in the flash of memory. “On my stomach.”
Head bowed slightly, she focussed on the bowl in her hands resting on her lap. It was the first time since it had happened that she had thought through the attack step by step. She had been remembering bits and pieces, even waking herself up when she dreamt of parts. But trying to piece it together in order was hard. It was confronting, and she found herself struggling for air, just like she had that night.
“Shit.” That one word, which came out of Mia more like an exhaled breath than anything else, lingered in the heavy silence between them.
Juliet scoffed. “Yeah, shit. It didn’t hurt, but I couldn’t breathe. It was like one of those drowning dreams, where you can’t get to the surface or you’re stuck under waves. I don’t know if you’ve ever had that one.”
“I’ve had it a few times,” Mia said. “It’s an awful feeling, not being able to get air in. But this wasn’t a dream. You didn’t get to wake up.”
“I thought it would be better when he got off my chest. It seemed to take ages. He was trying to get my bag. I don’t know why he didn’t just threaten me. I would have given the bag to him. That’s what I’ve been taught about travelling—they always say just give it, it’s not worth it. But then again, I don’t know. I can’t remember if he was yelling at me in Flemish.”
Drawing in a slow, shallow breath, Juliet said, “Anyway, he tugged until my bag broke. I thought he was going to rip my fucking neck off, he was pulling so hard.”
“Weren’t there people around?”
Juliet shrugged. “Mustn’t have been. I mean, people came. There was this lovely couple who called the paramedics. But I blacked out. The next thing I knew was this guy was leaning over me, trying to get me to stay still, and a woman was on the phone.”
“You’re lucky they found you.”
“I know. I really was. And they were wonderful. Once they figured out that I spoke English, they talked to me and then told the paramedics and even the driver at least five times that I only understood Engl
ish.”
Mia rubbed at the sleeve of her shirt that Juliet wore and slowly repositioned her weight. “Scary, hey?”
Forcing a smile, Juliet nodded but then shrugged. She just felt ambivalent for the moment, as if nothing could elicit positive or negative emotions. “You don’t really know me, but the idea that I’m even here with barely a protest, that I got on a plane that you booked…” She dropped her voice low. “That’s scary.”
The admission lingered in the air.
“With some rest, and letting your body heal, you’ll feel better.”
“I hope so.”
“I know you will. This place is pretty amazing. I’m sure it has healing properties in the water or something.”
“Healing properties? You know I’ve been on a Buddhist retreat in Cambodia, spent some time in India learning about Hindu religious practices? I even once learnt the death and dying rituals of the Greenlandic Inuit.”
Juliet watched a careful giggle surfacing.
“Well, this place,” Mia said, “as in this house, has absolutely no traditional religious or…dying beliefs. Unless you count the odd crucifix that you might find shoved in a cupboard. And apparently, some previous owners have their ashes scattered in one of the far paddocks. But you want healing? Take all the yoga and meditation you like, but how awesome would it be to go for a horse ride and not see a single person? Or even stare at the fireplace for hours without interruption? Seriously, that’s healing.”
“Who needs the four noble truths when you have a fireplace!” Juliet teased.
Mia gave her a perplexed look. “Are you taking the piss, and I have no idea?”
“Oh, how very British of you to say that,” Juliet teased her. “No, Mia, I’m just messing with you.” Juliet dropped a hand to push lightly against Mia’s knee before her hand fell back to the sofa fabric between them.
“Well,” Mia said, grinning, “it’s hard to tell when you can’t laugh.” Standing up, Mia collected the remote controls from below the television, holding them out to Juliet. “There’s quite the movie collection, what’s your veg out genre? A revolting romantic comedy? Violent thriller? Lesbian sex romp?”
