Last Bridge Before Home

by Lily Malone

  ‘You tell me, mate.’

  ‘Have you ever asked her to live with you?’

  ‘She says she doesn’t want to live in Margaret River. She says her job’s here. She says her mum would never leave her dad and she won’t leave her mum there alone.’

  Brix didn’t want to get worked up. He’d come in here for coffee and warmth and to collect his thoughts, and to catch up with the brother he’d hardly seen in years because Abe had been in the city, working in his restaurants, making a crap-tonne of money till he lost it all. But the night before was raw as a rock concert in his head, and his brain wouldn’t turn the volume down.

  ‘I think old Keith runs a pretty tight ship out there,’ Abe observed. ‘Nobody ever sees Jaydah’s mum out on her own.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know what sort of ship he runs because she never tells me. I’ve never even been to her house,’ Brix said, exasperated. ‘Well, once I drove out there and bloody Keith sent me packing.’

  ‘All the more reason you’d think Jaydah would be busting to cut the apron strings.’

  He shrugged. Apron strings and Jaydah weren’t words he’d usually put together. ‘I dunno. I don’t push it with her because I know it’s a sore point, and I don’t want to start a fight. I don’t try to start fights with JT, you know. I just want to do the right thing. I can’t see why me wanting to meet her mum is a bad thing?’

  ‘Well, like I said, no one ever did see much of Mrs Tully,’ Abe said.

  Brix shook his head. There’d been lots of gossip about the Tullys when Jaydah first came to school, but not so much now. Jaydah was notoriously tight-lipped about her family. She’d told him Keith met Rosalie in Manila on a holiday and three weeks later he married her. They lived in Sydney before they came to Chalk Hill. They bought the farm on Jarradene Road cheap as chips because no one wanted to live on the same road as the rubbish tip. Now that the council had moved the tip, Keith would make a killing if he sold. The land was worth a lot more.

  ‘Keith was at the Bowling Club last night too,’ Abe kept on, ‘and even when I told him there were two blokes in the club giving his daughter a hard time and did he want to come in with me and make sure she was okay, he wasn’t interested. He said Jaydah needed taking down a peg or two. Everyone knows JT can handle herself but still, he’s a grumpy old bastard.’

  ‘You’re not wrong there.’ Brix took another slug of coffee. ‘Last night …’ He stopped, not sure what to say. Last night was nuts. He didn’t think JT would want him sharing that stuff with Abe.

  ‘What about last night?’ Abe prompted.

  ‘Well, when you rang me, I drove in from home to make sure she was okay after the club closed.’

  ‘And she was?’

  ‘Yeah, she was fine. Those blokes didn’t come back, but her car wouldn’t start. Someone stole the damn battery.’

  ‘That pair of arseholes.’

  ‘So I drove her home.’ And let her out at the Tully driveway with nearly two kilometres left to run in the rain because Keith Tully chucks a fit if I show up on his farm.

  ‘Least you patched it up though, right? You’ll see her again before you head home?’

  ‘Yeah. I got JT’s keys and her phone. Picked them up last night in case anyone took them and made sure her car was locked. Just in case.’

  Abe drained the dregs from his cup. ‘Well, much as I could sit and chat, I better get ready for the day, mate. Customers, you know?’

  ‘How’s it going then, the café?’ Brix said, glancing around. ‘Hardly recognise the place. Is the mulberry tree still out the back?’

  ‘The town would lynch me if I cut it down. Nanna Irma would turn in her grave.’

  They shared a grin.

  ‘So have you got much more to do out at the farm for Jake?’ Abe said.

  Brix nodded. ‘He left me a list. I’ll keep going on it this morning, then I have to head back to the vineyard so I’m back at work tomorrow. We’ve got a wine order that I have to package up for the truck for Sydney. You?’

  ‘I’m here till four. Then Taylor and I are gonna drive down after closing to Albany, see if we can see some whales, have dinner down there.’

  ‘If I don’t see you before I go, I’ll catch you at Christmas, okay?’

  ‘You gonna be home for Christmas?’

  ‘Mum would kill me if I didn’t. Specially seeing you’re here, and she hasn’t met Ella either. She’d be jumping out of her skin to see everyone. How long is it since we had Christmas together?’

  ‘Been a while.’

  Brix drained his coffee and picked up his wallet and phone. ‘I’ll get out of your hair. Thanks for that.’

  ‘See you soon, mate.’

  The two men shook hands, slapped backs, and Brix added a couple of bigger logs to the fire on his way out the door.

  The fresh air of the morning scratched at his face and he hitched his collar at the nape of his neck. It wasn’t raining, though the clouds looked mean enough to rain on a bloke just for breathing.

  Stepping down the front steps of the café, he was almost at his Toyota when Jaydah’s car swung into the café carpark. Where’d she find a new car battery on a Sunday morning in Chalk Hill?

  She waved at him from the driver’s seat and beckoned him to jump in the passenger side.

  ‘Morning,’ he said, as he folded his legs into the small space. He felt like a pilot in an ejector seat: one press of a button and he’d be launched straight through the windscreen. ‘Where’d you find a battery?’

  ‘Dad had a spare,’ she said. ‘I can’t stay. I have to get back.’

  ‘How’d you know where to find me?’

  ‘Lucky guess. I figured you’d either be here or at the farm, and at least in here you get good coffee.’

  She was dressed all in black. Fitted exercise pants. Tee-shirt. Her hair was scraped back in a ponytail. When they were in school, she’d never wear her hair in a ponytail because she said it made her eyes look more Asian. Like that was a bad thing.

  She’d always been beautiful to him.

  ‘So you made it home okay last night?’ he said, stretching his hand across the seat to touch her cheek, all of his confusion, worry and belly-ache disappearing at the slide of her skin.

  Jaydah leaned her cheek into his palm, trapping his hand there with her own. JT’s skin had always been his favourite brand of soft.

  She nodded.

  ‘I’ve got your phone in my car, and your keys,’ he said. ‘Your shoes and your bag from last night are in there too. I locked your car up last night just in case. I was worried you wouldn’t be able to get in it.’

  ‘I have a spare key under the wheel arch but I never lock it anyway.’

  ‘I should have known.’ He was smiling, but she wasn’t.

  ‘I can’t stay long. I have to get back,’ she said again.

  ‘Least you got your car this time. You don’t have to run home again.’ It came out bitter. He couldn’t help it.

  ‘Don’t, Brix.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  He leaned across the seat, wanting to feel her mouth under his so they could both forget all the crap about last night. She moaned low in her throat as their lips touched, a hum and a thrum, and a goodbye and a hello, all at the same time.

  That was the story of their lives.

  He traced the side of her neck, pulling away so he could tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, sitting back to see her face. Her eyes had closed in the kiss, but they fluttered open now. His hand slipped from her neck to her shoulder so he could lean her into him and kiss her again, and Jaydah flinched.

  He might have missed the flinch if her eyes were shut because there wasn’t much to it, but her eyes were open and he’d never missed a single detail about JT, so he saw her pain twice: the flinch of her shoulder, the flinch in her eyes.

  ‘Too much standing behind the bar?’ He continued to rub near her shoulder blade, trying to ease the tension that had sat her as straight as one of those pool cues in
the Bowling Club.

  Her ‘no’ came out strangled and short, and she shifted. He didn’t let go fast enough because he’d still been trying to massage her pain away, and in the end he made it all worse.

  She swore, closing her eyes and shutting him out, but not before he saw moisture seep at the corner of her eyes. Not before he saw her swipe the tears away.

  ‘Jesus, Jaydah. What’s up this time?’

  ‘Nothing’s up. I’m fine.’

  ‘If you tell me you’re fine one more time, so help me …’ He’d what? He’d what? ‘I’m gone, JT. I can’t do this. I honestly have to forget you and move on. This is all too crazy for me.’

  ‘Then go. Don’t let me stop you.’ Another tear snuck from the corner of her eye, and she didn’t swipe this one, she let it fall. It was the only thing that could have kept him sitting there.

  Jaydah reached behind her back and pulled her shirt from her skin, and hurt hissed through her clenched teeth. Brix couldn’t see any mark on her shirt—it was as black as her hair—but he did see something staining the car seat cover behind her.

  ‘You’re bleeding, JT.’

  ‘Something must have bitten me. A spider maybe. An ant.’

  ‘Are you kidding? An ant bite isn’t going to make you bleed all over your seat cover.’

  ‘It’s not blood. It must be paint or something. It’s probably been there years.’

  She was still trying to get her arm out from where she’d been adjusting the shirt behind her back, moving so slow and stiff she might have been tin left out in the rain to rust.

  Abruptly, Brix was out of the car, walking around the bonnet, and he had Jaydah’s car door open before either of them really had time to think.

  ‘Come on, hop out. Let me have a look.’

  Her eyes went wide. ‘No. I have to get home. I’m fine.’

  ‘Do I have to crawl in there and pick you up and carry you out?’

  ‘I swear to God, Brix …’

  ‘Right.’ He had a smile on his face as he leaned into the car, at least, he was pretty sure he had a smile on his face. Usually any time he was about to get physical with JT that’d be good reason for him to smile, but this time Jaydah’s face almost imploded with fear, and her tinny cut-off squeal as his left arm snuck around her shoulder almost split his ear drum.

  She smacked at his hands, smacked at him, and she couldn’t stop shaking.

  For those seconds that’s all there was, Jaydah’s pain screaming around the car like someone let a balloon fly loose.

  He let her go instantly, and she slumped back into the seat.

  ‘Sssh, honey. JT, ssssh, baby. It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here.’ Although was him being here helping? He didn’t know. He really didn’t know. ‘Ssh. Come on. I’ve got you. It’s okay.’

  He had one of his knees on the metallic silver edge of the body of her car and his other knee digging into the loose blue bitumen of the café carpark, and then Jaydah buried her head in his shoulder, herself half in, half out of the car, and she sobbed into his chest.

  He’d never know how long they held that pose, long enough for his hamstring to cramp, but slowly her sobs lessened and when Brix stood, Jaydah came with him, leaning against him so heavily that he was pretty sure if he let her go, she’d fall.

  Not that he’d ever let this girl fall.

  ‘I have to show you something,’ she said finally, taking two steps away.

  ‘Okay.’

  She put her hands on the hem of her shirt near each hip, and began to pull the shirt up as she turned—tin-in-the-rain stiff—presenting him with her back.

  He saw the first raised red welt and didn’t know what it meant, except that no ant did that and it looked sore and it was no wonder her back hurt, and he sucked in a breath.

  He held that breath as the shirt rose higher.

  Line after line, stripe after stripe, layered Jaydah’s skin until her hands and her shirt reached the only welt that had broken and bled, and she couldn’t lift her arms any further.

  ‘Who did this?’

  She’d been flogged. She’d been flogged.

  Who flogged a girl?

  Who flogged his girl?

  He knew the answer before she said it and definitely before she lowered the shirt and turned around.

  ‘Your dad did this.’

  ‘He did.’ Jaydah nodded.

  Brix couldn’t think, couldn’t think. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I was late home.’

  ‘Late for what?’ It came out on a croak.

  ‘I was just late, that’s all.’

  Brix blew out a breath. ‘Has he done it before?’

  Jaydah’s eyes closed and opened again, but not with a blink or a wink or anything fast. This was a slow close of the eyes and a slow open, and a guttural ‘yes’ that cut him hard as those stripes all over her back.

  ‘Does he hit your mum too?’

  ‘If I’m not there, yes.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’

  He could see her weighing an answer and hated that she had to censor. Why did she have to censor? Didn’t she know she could tell him anything?

  ‘Long ago, I said to him, I said please would he hit me and not hit them. I said I would take it for them.’

  ‘Jaydah, who is this them?’

  More hesitation. ‘I meant my mum. He hits my mum, or—’ her eyes slid away, ‘he hits the cat or he kills something. A sheep. One of the roosters. A chicken.’

  Jesus Christ. ‘I always knew he was crazy. This is insane. We should get you to a doctor. Someone needs to look at your back.’

  New fear sparked into her eyes. ‘No doctor.’

  ‘You have to talk with someone. Tell someone—’

  ‘No! What do you think I’m doing? I’m telling you!’

  ‘Jesus, I know.’ He threw his hands up. ‘And I don’t know what to do. I want to go up there and punch his lights out. I want to kill him. That’s what I want to do.’

  ‘You going up there will only make it worse.’

  ‘We have to get you and your mum out of there.’

  ‘I’m trying. Do you think I’m not trying? I’ve been working on getting out of there since I left high school. I think about that every day. It’s all I want.’

  ‘Then why are you still there? How do we get you help? JT, tell me, baby, what can I do? I’ll do anything. I’ll come with you right now. Confront him. He can’t treat you or your mum like that. He should be in jail for hitting you. Jesus, give me five minutes with him.’

  ‘No, no, no, Brix. You wouldn’t win.’ And she was shaking all over again.

  ‘The hell I wouldn’t! I’ll call Jake and Abe. We’ll all go up there!’

  She tugged his arm, face all ashen and grey, eyes like she’d seen a ghost. ‘Please don’t. You can’t. He’s stronger than he looks.’

  ‘So are you, JT. You’re the strongest woman I know. That’s why I don’t understand. Why don’t you stand up to him? Why don’t you leave?’

  ‘Because he hurts the people I love if I fight.’ It was a whisper. The ghost of a whisper. ‘He loves that I am strong. It makes him feel stronger that he can control me.’

  Tears bled into the corner of her eyes.

  ‘He only hits me when you’re around. He only gets mad then. That’s why you wanting to come up to our house … it makes it worse. It always made it worse. You can’t ever come up to our house. I was late last night. I wasn’t home in time and Dad knew you were around. He hit my … my mum because I wasn’t home in time to take it for her. That’s our deal.’

  Rambled, shambled words that swam in and out of his brain, making zero sense, and plucking just one of those words and making it stick was like trying to catch a fish with bare hands.

  ‘You have a deal with your dad that lets him hit you and not your mum?’

  She ducked her head so he couldn’t see her eyes. ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s fucked in the head.’

  She laughed. It bur
st from her gut, erupted from her throat, and it made him wish he could pick up her car and throw it just to see something break and smash.

  All this she’d been carrying around for all these years, while other teenagers bummed their first cigarette from their father’s stash and coughed up a lung; or stole their first beers from their father’s stash and spewed up two lungs and a bellyful of beer; or went to their first rock concert; or schoolies; or stayed out all night or crashed a car, or ran away.

  This was evil. This was the sick shit humans did.

  Brix reached for her hands. They were motionless at her sides, although her fingers weren’t bunched to a fist, not like his. His hand had been fisted so long it ached. He forced his hands to relax and rolled his fingertips over her skin, trying to comfort, and finally after a silence that stretched so long he thought it might snap like a string, he said again, ‘What can I do, JT? Tell me how to help.’

  She lifted her chin. ‘There is one thing.’

  ‘What? Tell me.’

  ‘Will you marry me?’

  CHAPTER

  4

  ‘Did you just ask me to marry you?’ His blue eyes narrowed, a frown creasing the corners.

  ‘If you marry me, my mum will leave him. She would come live with us. I could keep them safe that way.’ She would never convince her mum to come live with them if she and Brix weren’t married.

  ‘You’re talking about them again, JT?’

  ‘Her,’ Jaydah amended, kicking herself. ‘I could keep my mum safe.’

  She couldn’t tell Brix about Jasmine. Jaz took too much explaining. Her twin was a long story, and it wasn’t a pretty story. How did you explain in a few minutes that you had a mentally impaired twin sister your family kept secret, and it was your fault your sister was born wrong?

  There wasn’t time to tell him all that now; she had to get home. If she wasn’t back before her father returned from shopping … God, her head was all over the place. She wasn’t thinking straight. She couldn’t think beyond I have to get out. I have to get them out.

  ‘I know it’s a lot to ask. I won’t blame you if you say no. But please, Brix, it doesn’t have to be forever. I will sign something if you want me to. A pre-nup. A financial agreement. You won’t be lumbered with taking care of us forever. I prom—’