Afterlife of Alanna Miller

by Carlton, Demelza

  The moment the car doors closed, he was off. "She has the most incredible mouth. What I'd give to have those long legs wrapped around me..."

  I jerked to a halt at the traffic lights. "She gave you a blowjob in the galley and you were interrupted before you could bang her on the bench." He spluttered, but no words came out. "I'm right, aren't I? Normal people use the toilets for privacy."

  "But there's no excitement in that. The thrill of being caught just heightens the...the..."

  "Thrill?" I finished. "Here's something. No orgies until after the concerts. I'm not saying no fooling around, but if you're even one minute late, I'll slice your percentage of the take in half for the show."

  "You can't do that! These shows will pay the last instalment for my private resort up north! You can't mess with my retirement plan," he protested. "All that stuff's set out in signed contracts!"

  "Want to bet?" I asked grimly. "The only signed contract says what the band gets. Up until now, we've agreed to split that evenly. Piss me off one more time and I'll do it, I swear."

  "All right." A lengthy pause was followed by, "All the concerts? We have two shows in Perth. You mean I can't let off a little steam in between the two?"

  I swallowed. Sexually frustrated Jason was almost as hard to deal with as oversexed Jason. "As long as you're on time for the second show, I don't care what you do after the first. But if you turn up looking wasted, I will insist on a drug test. You play somewhat sober or not at all."

  He cheered like a little boy, then dropped his voice. "You know, I wouldn't need all the other women to satisfy me if I had you. Just you. I wouldn't even look at another girl if I had you."

  "Good thing for all the other women that you don't, then, isn't it? Imagine how disappointed they'd all be if you settled for some dull doctor," I responded, tuning out of the conversation as I had to run the gauntlet of merging in Perth without getting flattened. Why would Perth drivers never learn how to merge two lanes of traffic?

  TWENTY-TWO

  When I'd finally managed to extricate myself from Jason's hotel room so I could settle down with a quiet dinner at home, my attention strayed from the inane TV cooking show to Nathan's haunting emails. I flipped through them until I found an early one I hadn't read yet:

  I have nightmares about ambulances now and I've found myself freezing when I hear a siren. That's because the trip in an ambulance to take Caitlin to hospital really was a nightmare. I hadn't slept in weeks – I'd had sleeping pills with me, but I gave them all to Caitlin. That was the problem that night – I'd given her sleeping pills to knock her out, not knowing how badly injured she was. Add hypothermia and getting shot – both of us, not just her – and I'd made so many stupid decisions that night that it's a wonder she survived it.

  And me, drifting in and out of consciousness, staring at her as her face turned into yours and back to her own deathly pale one. That's not just in the dreams – that's what I saw the day it happened. Not sleeping does that to you. Hallucinations and stuff. But maybe it was just my mind making up pictures that weren't as bad as the reality.

  She'd lost so much blood it wasn't hard to see a corpse instead of the living, breathing girl I desperately wanted to survive. I was useless. Pressing a wad of gauze to my own gunshot wound, unable to help her.

  It's the first time I realised you were right. Bombing out in first year and having to take a year longer to do my degree, going to pieces when you went missing instead of taking my exams, dropping out when you died because I couldn’t face a cadaver after seeing yours in the morgue after the autopsy...I wanted to go back, but the first whiff of formalin as I walked past the dissection labs and I was done. If I'd finished my degree when you were supposed to, I'd have been an intern doctor by the time I met Caitlin. I'd have been qualified to help her, not nearly kill her. Now I'll be a security guard for the rest of my life because I'll never be able to go back to uni.

  But that was just the start of my fuck-ups. I should've finished my degree. I should've saved you from them. I should've smashed the window of my own car and dragged Caitlin out of there before they could hurt her. I should've saved her sooner or never left her side. It's not like I slept at all.

  And the most colossal fuck-up of all was realising that I loved her – the girl I'd nearly killed and I'd had to watch bleeding out on the street as she took the bullet that was meant for me. I was supposed to be saving her life and instead she nearly died saving my worthless hide. I should've died then and there. She didn't need me. Strongest woman I've ever met – yes, even stronger than you were, and that's saying something. But she survived when you didn't, so she had to be.

  I failed her as much as I did you. Maybe that's why you're always accusing me in my dreams. I know I deserve it. I deserved to die for the things I did. The others did and it felt good to shoot them. I never thought I'd be able to kill someone, but when it's about saving someone you love or vengeance for someone you've lost, all that goes to hell and you pull the trigger and just enjoy it. I should feel like a murderer, but I'm not sure the men I killed were even human any more. Oh, they might've looked it, but in their heads, they were worse than animals. What they did to you. What they did to Caitlin. And maybe they turned me into some sort of animal, too.

  I hope I'm never in an ambulance again. I think I'd go raving mad, imagining I'm in there with you and Caitlin and utterly useless. It's probably better just to put me down like some rabid dog. Do they really foam at the mouth? I mean, the list of symptoms say they do, but I've never seen a recorded case in Australia. Maybe I'm the first.

  Shit, I'm rambling. If anyone reads this, they'd cart me off to the funny farm right away. Probably for the best. I wonder if they have straightjackets still? Just as long as they don't take me in an ambulance.

  God, I think I am crazy. Can't sleep and ambulances scare me. Maybe some more sleeping pills will help. They can't make the mess in my head any worse.

  The day after tomorrow, I resolved. I'd use my day off to go and see him. If he needed my help, after all he did for me, I couldn't deny him. And if he didn't...at least I'd know he was okay.

  TWENTY-THREE

  "Doctor to 207! Doctor to 207!" The carrying call echoed down the ward as my pager purred on my hip.

  I set my steaming coffee down with a sigh and headed to answer the summons. An intern doctor's job never ends.

  Three patients and my second marriage proposal for the day later, I batted the soap dispenser to disinfect my hands so I could finish my coffee. Hopefully, before I fell asleep on my feet.

  I waved the water off and wiped my hands, tossing the paper towel in the bin as I passed. I snatched up my mug, striding as fast as I could to the handover room, where I might be able to grab two minutes to drink my coffee.

  My hopes for peace shattered when I saw I shared the room with the next shift of nurses. They huddled around the recorded handover, narrated by this shift's nurse manager. A few glanced up at me as I entered, but they were intent on the dull story of the day.

  Welcome to a general surgery ward, I thought as I carefully sipped my coffee in the faint hope that it was still hot.

  "...206 suffers from dementia, if found wandering the ward, please escort her back to her room. Mr Foster, the amputee in 208, is diabetic and not permitted additional sugar, doctor's orders. He's tried to bribe two orderlies to buy him chocolate from the gift shop. Room 210 is only seventeen; motor vehicle accident; multiple fractures and parents are in attendance..."

  I took another slurp of my lukewarm coffee, hoping it could still keep me awake through the last hour of my shift. One more hour and I'd have four days off – heaven, surely. I'd spend the first one sleeping and the second one looking for Nathan. The email he'd sent two night ago told me he was getting worse.

  The clustered nurses scribbled notes quickly as their patients came up in the droning, recorded voice.

  The nurse manager's voice rose, sounded hurried. "Patient in Room 214 is not assigned to one nurse –
Room 214 is to be included in all rounds this shift, once the patient is transferred from ED. Arrived by ambulance at noon and due for transfer once stabilised. Suicide watch patient, frequent checks as time permits. Unconscious at start of shift; when patient regains consciousness, notify Dr Hogan immediately. Patient name is..." The shuffling of papers punctuated her pause. "Nathan Miller."

  My empty mug shattered as it hit the floor.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Voices talked without cease, waking me up when all I wanted to do was sleep.

  Go away. I didn't open my mouth to say it, nor open my eyes to see who it was.

  "I just found him asleep." Chris hiccupped, or perhaps it was a dry sob. She sure didn't sound happy. "Then I saw the empty box of sleeping pills next to his bed. I don't know how many he took, but it was a new box last week..." She sounded like she was crying.

  "Has he been down or depressed lately?" asked a female voice I didn't know.

  "A little, for quite a while. I know he's had trouble sleeping since our sister died..." Chris sniffled.

  If you'd seen what they did to her, you'd have nightmares too. What they did to Alanna. What they did to Caitlin...

  I drifted back into dreams, none of them pleasant.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  "Have you had your tea break, yet?" This voice I only heard in dreams now, but I'd never heard it say this before. Wonderful. Hallucinations.

  "No, but Dr Hogan wanted someone to stay with this patient as much as possible, because he'll wake up soon and she wanted to be notified as soon as he's awake," an unfamiliar male voice mumbled.

  The dream voice sounded like she was smiling. "I'll stay with him for a bit and cover for you. I'm done with my patient list, but I'm still here for another half hour."

  Mumbling and flustered, he protested weakly, "Oh, no, Dr Miller, I couldn't..."

  Dr Miller. That would have been me or Alanna by now if I'd kept studying. If she'd lived. This had to be a dream and it would only end badly.

  I felt the heat of someone reaching over me and heard the huff of breath as she stood back on her feet before she reached over me again. The fabric of her shirt brushed my nose and I caught a slight whiff of her perfume. I tried to hold my breath so I didn't sneeze.

  "If you open your eyes now, you'll have the best view of my breasts anyone in this place has ever had," the dream voice told me archly. "I know you're waking up, Nathan."

  If I opened my eyes, I'd see that it wasn't her and I'd just imagined a voice like hers. But if I didn't, the dream would turn darker and more disturbing until I was forced to wake up.

  Groggily, I blinked at an expanse of blue shirt. I focussed on the name badge pinned to it. Dr Alana Miller, I read. Different spelling. Alanna was dead. I knew she was dead and it wasn't her voice I was hearing.

  "Oh shit."

  The room went dark as a flat piece of plastic smacked into my face and stayed there.

  Gentle hands lifted it away and patted my face. Her big, dark eyes, filled with concern, were all I could focus on. "Oh, Nathan, I'm sorry. It was clipped to the top of the bed head and I thought I could reach it, but it slipped..." She bit her lip. "I know you're not really one of my patients but I had to know. If you'd really...really tried to kill yourself." Her beautiful eyes filled with tears.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. My mouth was too dry to even clear my throat.

  "Oh! Let me get you a drink." As she walked over to the sink and poured a cup of water from the tap, she had lost none of her grace, but her dancing step was brisk and businesslike, more a march than the ballet I remembered.

  As my fingers closed around the cup, I realised that she was just as real as the plastic in my hand. She was alive. After so long, wondering and worrying... Five years. How much had she changed?

  I took a gulp of water and attempted to clear my throat. "You're alive. I tried to find you, but it was like you'd disappeared, or died," I rasped, taking another big mouthful of water. "What are you doing here?"

  "I went over to Melbourne to study. I wanted to come home to do my internship." She hesitated as if she wanted to add something else, but she didn't say it, looking down at her shirt instead. I followed her gaze to her name badge.

  "You're not Alanna Miller," I said. "You look nothing like her. You didn't even spell it the same."

  She looked uncomfortable. "I know. It's just that I had to change my name and this is the name ASIO gave me. Alana is my middle name and it seemed...appropriate, somehow."

  I wanted to throw the cup of water in her face and tell her it was NOT appropriate to name herself after my dead sister, but I'd drunk it all. I slid out of the hospital bed and lurched over to the sink to refill it, shrugging off her offer of assistance. I was dizzy by the time I made it back to bed and too glad to hit the pillows to throw the hard-won cup of water at anyone.

  "I tried calling your house, but for ages no one was home. One day Chris answered the phone and she told me that you probably wouldn't remember me and I shouldn't waste my time. I didn't call again." Her voice was low and sad. "I've been back here for only a few weeks and I hadn't worked up the courage to try to contact you again. I imagined you were happy and living your life again. I didn't think you'd appreciate someone you barely remember wanting to catch up. Then I came into work today and your name came up at handover. They said it was a possible suicide attempt and I couldn't stand not knowing. I couldn't believe that you would try to kill yourself." Her voice choked up with tears. "Nathan, why did you take so many sleeping pills?"

  "So I could sleep," I told her. "I wanted the bad dreams to go away and let me sleep."

  "You still have nightmares?" she asked in a low voice.

  "Who told you about them? Was it Chris? Did she tell you to stay away?" I demanded.

  Caitlin looked almost guilty. "No, Nathan. You had them in hospital and when we slept together. A couple of times you woke me up with your thrashing around or when you pulled me into a bone-crushing hug. I remember one night I was scared you'd break my ribs, you were so determined not to let me go."

  My mouth opened and wouldn't close. "I hurt you? Oh shit, I'm so sorry. You should've said something. If I'd known, I'd have slept by myself, somewhere where my nightmares couldn't hurt you."

  She pressed her lips together, as if she was trying to hold words in. "What are your nightmares about?" she asked timidly.

  "Mostly about you." I regretted the words even as I said them, downing the water so I didn't have to look at her. That lasted about a second – I couldn't keep my eyes off her. It'd been so long and I wanted to drink her in, not cold tap water.

  She looked stricken. "But it's been more than five years since you've seen me. Chris said you wouldn't even remember me." She sat down heavily in the chair beside the bed. "What did I do to you that still gives you nightmares now?" Her voice shook slightly and her hands tightened on the mattress beside me, her knuckles as white as the sheet she clutched. She looked down at her hands instead of me.

  Not wanting to answer, I followed her gaze to her hands. The faintest scar remained across her wrists and all bar one finger had healed straight. I found myself telling her without deciding I wanted to. "Your hands were covered in blood and your fingers were...broken." My fingers traced the impossible lines her fingers had been bent into. "There was so much blood. Sometimes, you were screaming at the pain and other times, you're dead, but I couldn't stop them. I couldn't do anything about it." I closed my eyes and the images were there, the ones I could never escape from. "I dream about what you looked like lying on the beach, when I thought you were dead, what you looked like in the ambulance, when I realised what I'd let them do to you. I dream about you lying cold and dead like Alanna was in the morgue, with the same broken fingers, the same...oh God, the same injuries." I opened my eyes to make the images go away, but I couldn't look at her. I stared at her hands, trying not to see the blood in my memories.

  Her voice was hesitant but curious. "In your file,
it says your nightmares are of her. Did you have to identify the body after it was found?"

  Wordlessly, I nodded. "She was so cold and so...damaged. I couldn't believe anyone could willingly hurt someone like that. And then when I saw you in the ambulance...I realised I'd let them do it to you and I hadn't stopped them. Sometimes the dreams start with her, but then it's you."

  I heard her gasp. "You gave me your sleeping pills. You stayed with me, night after night, and you didn't sleep. You were having the nightmares then and trying to protect Chris and me from what they did to her...Oh hell." She took a deep breath. "You let me tell you what they did, you wrote it all down."

  "I just tried to help you," I mumbled, embarrassed.

  She appeared to be fighting to say something – or not say it. When she finally opened her mouth again, it seemed to take a huge effort. "When...when I slept with you –" she blushed furiously, but continued,"– I remember you did sleep, sometimes. I mean, you weren't up all night...oh hell..." For all the innuendo in her words, there was no invitation in them. No, that door was firmly shut.

  "There were some nights we didn't get much sleep," I acknowledged with a smile, wanting both to remember and forget those amazing nights I'd spent with her. I remembered them in my dreams, the ones that had started out well, but they always ended with blood, screaming and death.

  My comment flustered her even more. "I meant that some nights, just by being there, maybe I helped you sleep. I wondered if it might help you if I stayed. One night, after all the nights you were there for me, is the least I can do."

  I wanted to say no. I wanted to tell her to stay far away from me and all the trouble that came with me. I wanted to tell her everything and apologise for still breathing. But more than all of that, I didn't want this dream to end.