by Lily Malone
He touched JT’s waist. The satin material slipped beneath his fingertips, the warmth of her skin radiated through it.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about Jasmine years ago? Why didn’t you tell me six weeks ago? That day after your dad whipped you. You asked me to marry you, remember? You said it was the one way I could help. This is what he was talking about, isn’t it? At the club, when he said I didn’t know anything. This is it.’
‘I know.’ She swallowed. ‘It is the only way. My mum will never come with me if you and I aren’t married. It’s all of us, or none of us. I won’t leave anyone behind.’
‘I feel like we’ve done this before, JT. When you showed me how he’d hit you, I asked why you stayed. Why didn’t you tell someone? There must have been services that could help. It’s crazy to think you tried to do this all on your own all these years.’
‘You make it sound like it should have been easy to get out,’ she said, lip twisting as the words splintered her mouth. ‘He’s not silly. If I was at home he was always there too. He’d take Jaz with him down the back of our farm to the quarry. If I wasn’t there and he had to go out on a delivery, he’d take Mum with him and he’d leave Jaz at home locked in the laundry—’
He couldn’t help interrupting. ‘Locked in the laundry?’
She nodded and kept going, like being locked in the laundry was normal. ‘She’d be in the laundry and he’d take Mum shopping or something. When I was at work they’d be home. He always made sure he split the three of us up. He never left me alone with them. He controlled the money. He controlled the mood. I thought about crushing a sleeping tablet and putting it in his food, but he’d change his mind all the time at the dinner table about what he’d eat and every now and then he’d swap whatever he had on his plate with what Jaz had.
‘If I acted out, if I challenged him ever, he hit one of them.’
He’d heard this before, most of it, but it didn’t mean it hurt any less the second time around. Where had he been while all this was going on for Jaydah? Where had any of them been? What good was a small close-knit community like Chalk Hill when a bastard like Keith Tully could get away with shit like this right under their nose?
‘I wish you’d trusted me. I wish you’d told me.’
‘I wasn’t sure you would love me if you knew what I did to Jaz.’
‘What you did to Jaz? What do you mean?’
‘It’s my fault she’s the way she is. I was born first. I got all the oxygen and she didn’t get enough. She says it wasn’t fair. She says she didn’t ask to be born second. She says she had no choice.’
He hauled her into his arms, hard up against his chest. ‘Jesus, JT. I would never think it’s your fault. What made you think I would?’
‘My dad. My dad said … he always said it’s my fault Jaz is the way she is. It’s my fault.’ She was shaking, and her river-water eyes, which usually sparked with resolve and defiance, were dead and old. Closed as he’d ever seen them.
‘Didn’t we just agree he’s an arsehole?’ Brix swore into Jaydah’s silky black hair, holding her close till he stopped her shakes. Then he put her away from him and tipped her chin. ‘Let’s go get them. Let’s do it. I said all the wrong things last time when you showed me what he did to your back. This time I’m just gonna do whatever you need and trust that you have a plan. I’ll ask my questions later, okay? We’ll deal with it as it comes. We’ll work it all out. I got you. I got your back, JT.’
Her knees buckled and she tripped into him and he had to hold her harder, keeping her straight.
‘Thank you.’ It was a whisper.
‘I love you. I want you to be my wife,’ he said, ‘but from now on you have to let me help you, okay? You don’t have to fight the fight alone. Let me be strong for you too. I got big shoulders. Okay?’
‘Okay. You keep me together, Brix. You’re the only thing all these years that kept me from breaking apart. I love you too.’
He kissed her forehead and then her temple, pressing his lips to her warm skin, and then she was sniffing and casting about the Birdmen’s shed for something to dry her tears, bare feet turning smaller circles on the dusty floor.
He untucked his shirt from his pants and pushed the loose tails at her. ‘Here, JT. Use this.’
* * *
‘I now pronounce you husband and wife,’ Anita said, ‘and you look like a man who wants to kiss his bride.’ She said it with a cheeky glance that said she knew how much more Brix wanted to do than just kiss his bride. He’d like to take his bride up in the plane, fly her to some deserted island that was all crystal waters and palm trees and kiss her all over, including her gorgeous bare toes, and make every bad thing float away on a tropical breeze.
‘Now normally I would say to you both to take a moment to gaze into each other’s eyes and think about your love and this moment and what it means to you to be pledging to spend the rest of your lives together … but I know this isn’t a conventional ceremony or gathering and I also know you are pressed for time. So I would just say that whenever I speak with couples who are married, when they look back on their wedding day and especially their wedding vows, they always say to me how fast it goes and then it’s over. That’s why I try to slow it down for just that special minute. But we are in the middle of a dusty airstrip and not exactly at a gorgeous winery or any idyllic glen or dell or on a beach … so it’s up to you. Take that minute if you like.’
Brix would have liked that minute. He could have stared into Jaydah’s eyes forever, really, and it never would have felt like long enough.
He concentrated on the feel of her fingers in his, her skin warm, springy and resilient. She’d been on her toes when she kissed him, and she was still on her toes, leaning into him as the breeze tossed softly through her hair.
He moved them a quarter turn, and his face threw a shadow over JT and it let the sun-glare squint in her beautiful eyes relax as she stared up. A camera shutter clicked and, vaguely, he sensed the photographer moving to his left.
‘I promise with everything inside me to always make you happy,’ he murmured.
‘I promise to trust you and never hurt you, and it is such an honour to be your wife.’
A fly buzzed near his jaw and he puffed it away, and the stupid thing blew and bounced into JT, making her flinch. He lost contact with the hand in his as she waved the insect on its way, and they stood back from each other, a laugh on his lips and a smile on hers.
‘Say: you get less years for murder!’ the pilot called at them, drawing their attention, and beside him, the camera shutter whirred as the photographer caught the pose.
‘Sheesh, Gav. Lousy timing,’ Anita said. ‘They were taking their moment.’
‘No, it’s okay,’ Jaydah said. ‘We need to keep moving.’
The celebrant put her hand on Jaydah’s arm. ‘I understand there are complications for you, but I am so glad you took that time just now. I can look at you both and I feel this beautiful connection and a joyous energy. It’s alive and it’s powerful and you are two amazing souls now joined as one. If you’d like to come with me, we’ll sign the certificate,’ she said.
‘Are you changing your name?’ Anita asked Jaydah.
‘God, yes. I’ve been waiting to change my name all my life.’
She signed Jaydah Honeychurch and stood back a bit, looking at the tight swirls and curls on the page beside the solid simple lines of Braxton Honeychurch. The pilot signed carefully as witness for her, and the photographer witnessed for Brix.
‘That’s it then,’ Anita said, presenting the certificate to them inside a pristine white envelope. ‘Happy days, guys. Happy life! Have a great Christmas.’
Gavin packed up the white cloth, folded the table and put the table in the plane and then climbed inside the cockpit, rubbing his hands. The photographer followed.
‘They’re not hanging around,’ Brix murmured.
‘Gav’s worried he’ll miss out on all the pork crackling,’ Anita said. ‘
What he doesn’t know is we’re doing vegetarian Christmas this year. I thought I’d change it up a bit. We’re having chickpea fritters.’
She winked at them and followed the two men into the plane.
‘My dad will be going nuts,’ Jaydah said softly as a breeze fluffed the hem of her dress.
‘Then let’s go, JT. Let’s get them out. Are you going to wear the dress or change out of it?’
She looked down at the white skirt. ‘I’ll wear it. It sends a message, you know? Straight up when he sees me, it tells him I’m not alone anymore. It will make my mum feel more comfortable.’
‘It’ll piss him off.’
‘That too.’
The plane’s engine cranked and settled, and then the wheels shifted on the sand and gravel, slowly at first, before picking up speed as the plane bumped away.
‘I’ll be right behind you.’
She met his gaze and found a smile. ‘I know.’
* * *
On the drive from the airstrip to the farm, Jaydah rang Lynne Farrell again. What a guardian angel this woman had turned out to be. If Jaydah owed Brix everything, she owed this lion-hearted redhead all she had left.
Lynne’s number one priority was Jaz’s welfare. She didn’t mind cutting corners, along with a bit of red tape if it was in Jaz’s best interest, plus she knew everybody in the system, everybody, having worked in disability services all over Western Australia for all these years.
In Lynne’s world, Jaydah’s situation wasn’t even that crazy. The woman didn’t make the cogs turn. She made them spin, and damn bloody quickly.
Lynne met them at the turn-off on Rendezvous Road and Muirs Highway. A police car brooded in the dappled shade and two officers stood at Lynne’s car, talking to her through the open window.
Jaydah drove into the shade behind Lynne and parked, climbing from the car. Lynne was expecting it, but the police officers’ eyes bugged when they saw her wearing a white wedding dress.
‘Lynny has told me what we’re into here,’ the older of the policemen said to Jaydah after Lynne did the introductions. He was short and stout, like the proverbial teapot, with lines around his eyes that might have been due to all those years spent squinting at the readout on a speed radar gun. Or maybe he was a happy, jolly copper who laughed a lot. He was definitely grinning at Lynne.
‘Enough of the Lynny, hey, Scotty? I know it’s Christmas and we’re all more casual but you’ll ruin my street cred,’ the coordinator said, screwing up her face in a way that joined all her smaller freckles into one.
‘She’s the only one who could get us out here on Christmas Day, let me tell you,’ the officer, First Class Senior Constable Scott Givens, said to Jaydah, still grinning.
‘Can you tell me if your father has any weapons at the house?’ the younger of the two officers spoke up. He had a wonky moustache over a straight top lip, and a crop of sandy-coloured hair beneath his uniform hat.
She thought of the double sticks on the lounge-room wall. ‘Yes.’
‘What kind of weapon?’
‘He practises kali. It’s a Filipino martial art.’
‘He any good?’
‘He’s very good,’ Lynne put in before Jaydah could speak.
The officers’ relaxed manner changed fast.
‘And who is that?’ Constable Givens indicated Brix’s white Toyota that had drawn in behind her car.
‘He’s my husband, Brix Honeychurch.’
‘That the Honeychurch family owns the hardware store in Chalkie?’
‘It is.’
‘Good family, that one. I played cricket with their father. He’s a bit older than me, mind, but he could bowl a bloody fast off-cutter. So he coming in with us too?’ The Constable nodded at Brix’s car.
‘I’d like him to, if that’s okay. I might need his help to get our stuff together. Clothes and just some of my mum and my sister’s things. We’ll be fast as we can.’
‘People are usually just glad to get out in these situations. Don’t usually worry that much about their things,’ the younger policeman—Jaydah hadn’t caught his name—said.
‘Jasmine Tully, that’s Jaydah’s adult sister, has an intellectual disability. It’s important that she have some familiar things with her. This is going to be traumatic enough.’ Lynne spread her hands wide. ‘It’s fine with me that they take some time to pack those favourite things.’
‘If it’s okay by you, it’s okay by us,’ Constable Givens said.
Then Lynne said, ‘Let’s try and keep this as calm as possible. The father is an out and out prick—’
‘Well, he better not be the prick that makes me miss my Christmas turkey,’ Constable Givens said, easy-going manner now gone. ‘This guy will be a pussycat next to my mother-in-law if I’m late for dinner. We ready?’
‘Ready,’ Lynne said, glancing and holding Jaydah’s gaze. ‘I’ll be right here. You got this.’
CHAPTER
14
It was awful from the beginning and it got worse.
Meltdown.
When the police vehicle headed the four-car convoy into the front yard and pulled up near the rock bays, her father bounced from the house like he was just heading out for a stroll, like it was perfectly normal for a cop car to drive into the farm on Christmas morning, and there was nothing to see here, Officers. Nothing to see at all.
Hammer started barking his head off before the patrol car rolled to a stop.
Jaydah climbed out of her car and if Val Honeychurch’s new old wedding dress made her dad lose his bounce, the sight of Brix in a suit killed his swagger.
His face turned pinched and mean.
Constable Givens did his best to keep things calm. He talked in low tones to her dad, explaining what was about to happen, and handed the monster the Order papers. He read them, and that’s when the ranting started.
‘Don’t think ya parents will ever get another cent out of me, Rosalie! You leave me now, you’ll never get another cent … You think you were anything when you were living in that slum? You were nothing. Nothing.’
From the kitchen window, her mum stared out into the yard, frozen behind the glass.
‘Let’s get this done quick as we can, Jaydah,’ Lynne said when the police had said their piece to her dad and signalled it was okay to enter the house.
Jaydah led Brix and Lynne past her father’s rage, beneath Christmas fairy lights that had already been turned off and through the open front door.
In the kitchen she put her arm around her mum’s shoulders, shocked at how soft and saggy those shoulders felt, as if her father’s hate had jellied her mother’s bones.
‘You’ll be safe with Brix and me, we’re married now, Mum. We’ll keep you safe. Ignore him, don’t look at him. The police have him. You can come with me now. Let’s pack up your things.’
‘I thought the police were here for me,’ her mum said in a hoarse whisper, body gone so wobbly Jaydah wasn’t sure it would hold her up. ‘I thought they were here to take me away. Like he said they would.’
‘They’re not here for you, Mum. They’re here for him. He can’t hurt us now.’
‘I’ll find Jasmine,’ Lynne said quietly, breaking into the conversation, making her mother jump.
Brix hovered in the kitchen doorway, arms filled with empty suitcases, eyes darting everywhere.
‘We can buy new things, Mum, so hurry. Pack anything special. Leave the rest. Brix, will you give Mum one of those bags please?’
‘Here, Mrs Tully.’ Brix unzipped the bag and let the others drop near his feet, scratching the paint where they came to rest against the wall.
‘Take your cooking things if you want them,’ Jaydah said, giving her mum a tiny push towards the kitchen cabinets and drawers.
‘Jaydah?’ Lynne said from the door.
‘Yes?’
‘I can’t find your sister.’
‘I know where she’ll be.’ She left her mum and prowled towards the back of the house.
>
The laundry door was locked shut. Jaz had locked it from the inside, like a good girl, staying out of the way like Daddy always said she should whenever strangers came to the house.
‘I’m a good girl. I’m a good girl,’ Jaz muttered behind the white dividing door, voice carrying loud and clear to Jaydah even over Hammer’s near-constant snap and snarl.
From the front of the house her dad’s raving continued, all of it mean and loud and nasty.
She knocked on the laundry door. ‘Jaz … Jazzy … please open up. It’s me. It’s Jaydah.’
‘Can I do anything?’ Brix said quietly.
The wail from behind the door got louder at the sound of Brix’s voice.
Meltdown.
‘Can you go into Jaz’s room and grab all the soft toys on her bed, all her drawing things and take down her pictures and posters, and pack them? And then grab her clothes and her shoes but only if you’ve still got space in the bags? We can replace her clothes. We can’t replace the drawings and she loves them. And there’s a beanbag in the lounge room. That needs to come too.’
‘I’m on it.’
‘There’s at least two huge fat files on her bookshelf too, Brix. They’ll have pictures of racehorses inside. Make sure you get those.’
‘Will do.’
‘Then can you get my clothes? They should fit in one bag. There’s nothing else I want in my room except the toiletry bag on my desk. Can you look in the lounge room for me too? Up on the wall, on the right-hand side, are my kali sticks. Can you grab those? The two on the right.’
‘Got it.’
Hammer barked. Jaz wailed. Her father raged.
Meltdown.
‘Jazzy? Jazzy, you have to open the door. Please open the door.’ Jaydah laid her palm flat on the white paint. She’d broken a nail since she got married, and couldn’t think how or where or when.
