Darkest Place

by Jaye Ford

  He took a moment to read the script, looked up at her as though he was making his own assessment. She found a brochure on the counter to study.

  ‘Carly is short for Charlotte,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re not from around here.’

  ‘No.’

  He squinted at the script. ‘Burden.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘North-west, isn’t it? Past Tamworth.’

  Okay, he got a point for that. ‘Most people have never heard of it.’

  ‘I guess I’m not most people.’

  That’s for sure. ‘I’m a little short on time. How long will it take?’

  He nodded as though she’d asked for advice. ‘Have you had this medication before?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I notice the script was written several months ago. Have you started any other medication in that time?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You should check the contraindications if you do. Even if it’s a herbal supplement.’

  ‘Okay.’ She checked her watch, hoped it would prompt him.

  ‘Do you have any other questions before you start on it again?’

  She hadn’t asked any to start with. ‘No.’

  ‘You can come back and ask anytime.’

  For god’s sake. ‘Thanks.’

  He straightened and smiled as though his job was done. ‘It’ll be about ten minutes. I noticed you looking at the vitamins. Do you need some advice while you wait?’

  She held up a hand. ‘No, really. I’ll just have a wander.’

  ‘The courtyard?’ Carly tipped her head towards the area beyond the campus cafe.

  Dakota pulled a face. ‘It’s friggin’ freezing outside.’

  ‘It’s not that bad, and I’ve got gloves if your delicate constitution can’t handle it.’ Carly picked up their coffees and started walking.

  ‘My delicate constitution could do with a blanket and a gas heater.’

  Carly needed the cold to fight the post–sleep paralysis aches and tiredness. Dakota zipped her jacket to the throat and wound her scarf around her throat until she looked like she was wearing a neck brace.

  ‘Hand over the gloves.’

  It was Newcastle, never as cold as Burden, but Carly found the gloves in her bag, feeling a little guilty she was subjecting Dakota to it.

  ‘Did you mention why we’re out here?’ Dakota cupped the gloves around her cappuccino.

  ‘I needed something to wake me up. I couldn’t keep my eyes open in that last class.’

  ‘You should’ve said. I could’ve slapped you. It would’ve been warmer.’

  Carly grinned. ‘I’ll remember that next time.’

  ‘You look a bit shit today, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  ‘I do mind. I’ll have my gloves back now.’

  ‘Is it the sleep thing again?’

  Carly hesitated. ‘Sleep thing?’

  ‘A while ago, you weren’t sleeping. I wondered if it was that again.’

  A shrug. ‘It comes and goes.’

  Dakota scooped foam from the top of her cup. ‘How does it work? You don’t sleep at all? You wake up and stare at the ceiling for hours? Walk the floor? Read until your eyes hang out?’

  Carly didn’t want to think about it. ‘A bit of all of that.’

  ‘Not much fun.’ It sounded like a throwaway line but Dakota reached out and laid her hand on Carly’s arm.

  It surprised her, made her think about telling Dakota about the sleep paralysis. She just wasn’t sure her easygoing twenty-year-old attitude would make her feel any better. ‘I have … nightmares. I don’t sleep afterwards.’

  ‘Not fun at all.’ Dakota gave Carly’s wrist a comforting squeeze, must have felt her watch underneath. ‘How’s our time?’

  It would be nice to dismiss the subject so easily, Carly thought as she hitched her sleeve. ‘Another five before we need to start walking.’ The chill air felt good on her hot skin so she pushed up the other sleeve, hoping a few goosebumps might help her energy levels.

  ‘Hey.’ Dakota pulled the arm to the table.

  There were four dark ovals on the pale flesh above her wrist. Companions for the ones on her knees and shins and the green one brewing on her hip that she could feel through her jeans. ‘Bruises.’

  ‘Well, yeah. What did you do?’

  Bounced off the steps and the floor. She looked at her other arm, at the long, thin bruise that seemed to grow from her watch – that one had got stuck in the rails. ‘I slipped on my stairs.’

  ‘Ow.’ Dakota ran fingertips across the four ovals. ‘Did someone grab you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Dakota spread her hand on Carly’s forearm, the pads of her fingers finding the four marks as though they were a guide. ‘My brother used to give me bruises like that with a Chinese burn.’

  Something snaked along Carly’s spine. A dream, not real … A dream, not real … But the warmth of Dakota’s palm reminded her of another hand, gripping hard, holding her down. She snatched her arm back, rubbing the sensation away.

  ‘What?’ Dakota asked.

  ‘Nothing. I …’ Carly pushed at her sleeves, covering the marks like they were shameful. ‘I …’ She’d fallen down stairs, crawled around like a baby. Any number of things could’ve put those smudges there. ‘We should go now. Keep the gloves, you can give them to me later. Tomorrow, whenever.’

  Dakota hooked her bag over a shoulder. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Let’s go.’

  Carly stood at the bottom of the stairs eyeing the railing that ran to the loft. Stainless steel, the top bar a circular tube, vertical bars underneath like the rungs of a ladder. They were wide enough for a fist to pass through, close enough to stop a kid getting its head stuck. Last night, they’d stopped her from falling into the kitchen below.

  She looked again at the dark ovals on the inside of her arm, held her forearm to the railing, comparing the struts and bruises. She sat on the steps and moved her arm about, trying to find an angle that would explain them. She walked to the top and looked down. It must have happened on the stairs, she’d bounced like a pinball.

  Maybe the four bruises were from more than one bump. She mimed slipping and twisting and thwacking the handrail so that her forearm hit several times but it didn’t feel like it had last night.

  Studying the marks again, she glanced around for something else with knobs or protrusions – but it was a staircase, just steps and railing.

  She’d tumbled and lurched about, there was no accounting for bruises sometimes, she told herself. She gave her arm a brisk scrub like the lesson was done and she could rub it out now. Sleep paralysis, she recited. Classic indicators: sense of menace, weight on the chest, choking sensation. She lifted her forearm, touched her fingers to the ovals, aligning the tips to the marks.

  ‘Fuck.’ Fuck, fuck.

  Then she was on her feet again, checking the deadlock, the chain, and across the room to the French windows. The doors were locked. They were locked this morning. They’d been locked every damn time. Sleep paralysis, Carly. Awake and asleep at the same time. Scaring the shit out of herself. She must have done it to herself, then. Right? Frightened, panicking, standing at the windows and holding herself so tightly she bruised her own arm. It had to be that.

  But what she remembered was the weight of a man on her body, his breath on her face, his hands pinning her down.

  An edgy uncertainty hummed inside as Carly stood to one side of the French windows once again. Not thinking about the bruises now, exhausted by the round and round of theories and possibilities. By sleeplessness and dragging fatigue.

  She watched lights come on in the neighbourhood, traffic and pedestrians until they thinned to a trickle. Through windows, a woman stirred at a stove, a man drank beer in front of the TV, a teenager had her feet on the desk and a keyboard in her lap. Carly thought about the sleeping pills on her counter, undecided – about holding them in
her hand, about bruises she couldn’t explain, about whether sleeping through the night was safer than waking.

  A figure in the street made her lift her chin for a better look. Shoulders hunched in a jacket, slight hitch to his gait. Nate. A twinge of guilt as she remembered his voice on the other side of the door – and her own, Leave me the hell alone.

  He was moving awkwardly, and not just from his bad knee. The pub he hadn’t recommended was around that corner, perhaps he’d had a few. He held a palm to his forehead for a moment, staggering a little. Maybe he’d been drinking for a while. Then he turned to cross the road and she saw blood on his face.

  Swinging the balcony door open, she watched from the railing as he stumbled down the kerb, a hand grazing the tarmac as he struggled to stay on his feet. She was four floors up, a shout wouldn’t help, so she waited to see where he went. When he’d disappeared into the warehouse entrance, she grabbed a towel and headed for the door.

  She’d never seen him in the lift but she stood at the doors, figuring he wouldn’t take the stairs if he couldn’t cross the road without falling. Except there were no sounds from the cogs. Leaning out into the atrium, she searched the foyer below. If he was there, he wasn’t making any noise.

  She made plenty hammering down the stairs, hurling herself around the turns, then pulling up suddenly at the bottom, a prickle of nerves across her shoulders as she remembered the bruises on her arm.

  The forest of columns was eerie in the gloom, and deserted. ‘Nate?’ Her voice bounced softly around the hollow centre of the building. There was only silence in its wake. Moving quickly, quietly, she headed for the security doors, saw him under the light in the entry bay – on the ground, slumped against the wall.

  26

  He smelled of alcohol and cigarettes and blood. One leg was out straight, as though it had slid from under him. The other was bent, supporting the hand that was holding one side of his face.

  ‘Nate?’ Carly squatted beside him.

  He looked up. There was blood between his fingers.

  ‘I saw you from my balcony.’ She wadded the towel and held it out to him. As he pressed it to his face, she saw a dark, congealing blob forming on his eyebrow. ‘Are you hurt anywhere else?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘What happened?’ She was thinking hit-and-run, a fall.

  ‘Someone’s fist.’

  ‘Oh my god. You were assaulted?’ Carly glanced warily into the street. ‘Are they still out there? We should call the police.’

  ‘No.’ It seemed to cover all her questions. He shifted, tried to get up, stopped with a hand to the wall, pulling in deep breaths.

  She grabbed an elbow, hoped he wasn’t about to throw up. ‘Do you need an ambulance?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You might need stitches. You could be concussed, you’re slurring a little.’

  ‘It happened at the pub. I’m pissed.’

  Oh, right …

  ‘Someone hit me. I hit something.’ He got both legs under him, waited a second before pushing upright. ‘A table, I think. Possibly a chair. And the deck. I definitely hit the deck.’ A couple of unsteady steps.

  Carly grabbed hold of him again, pushed the security door before remembering she’d only planned to wait for him in the corridor. ‘My keys. I left them inside.’ Goes to bleeding man’s aid, gets locked outside. Good job. ‘Have you got yours?’

  He patted his jacket, almost pushed himself over. Leaned against the wall and tried again. She wasn’t sure if it was alcohol or concussion, only knew he was never going to find them slapping like that.

  ‘Here, let me.’ She pressed palms to his pocket flaps, felt cold leather and solid chest. Worked her way down, searching for compartments in the lining and the pouches he stuffed his hands into.

  ‘Jeans?’ She glanced up, found his eyes on her.

  Without shifting his gaze, he opened one side of his jacket, the warm, musky scent of his skin filling the space between them. She hesitated and then briskly, like his body under her hands wasn’t making her mouth dry, she felt the front of his thigh, reached around to a back pocket, fingers skimming thick denim and the curve of firm buttock. She tried the other side, up to her shoulder inside his coat, cheek resting on the soft fabric of his shirt. ‘No keys.’

  He watched her for a long, silent moment.

  ‘Okay, well … I’ll buzz.’ Carly pressed Christina’s number. ‘Hi, it’s Carly. I’ve locked myself out.’

  ‘I was only thinking of you tonight.’

  ‘Great. Can you …’

  ‘I’ve pulled out some books I thought you might like.’

  ‘I’m locked …’

  ‘Novels, mostly. Come and get them anytime. We could have a coffee.’

  ‘That’d be great. Christina?’

  ‘Yes, hon.’

  ‘Can you buzz me in?’

  ‘Oh for god’s sake, what am I doing blathering on like that? It must be freezing out there. Here you go.’

  Carly turned to Nate as the door clicked. ‘Christina from the fifth floor. Apparently she’s got a library up there.’

  ‘Why are you here, Carly?’ It didn’t sound like here on the doorstep – it was more like here at the warehouse or in Newcastle. Maybe even here in his life.

  ‘To get you inside,’ she said.

  Nate staggered along beside her, veered away before they reached the lift.

  ‘It’s this way.’ She grabbed his arm.

  ‘I’m taking the stairs.’

  ‘You’re bleeding.’

  ‘I always take the stairs.’

  ‘Give yourself a night off.’

  ‘I don’t deserve a night off,’ he growled.

  It made her wonder about the raw look she’d seen in his eyes at other times. She softened her voice. ‘Everyone deserves a night off when they’re bleeding.’ She gave his arm a tug. ‘You can go back to beating yourself up tomorrow.’

  There was something defiant in his eyes as he resisted.

  ‘Besides,’ she added, ‘there’s no way I can get you up those stairs. There’s fucking hundreds of them, in case you haven’t counted.’ She hustled him around, grateful for his unsteadiness as she steered him across the foyer.

  ‘It’s not meant to be like this,’ he said when she’d pushed him into the lift.

  ‘No. You’re not meant to come home like this. Drunk is okay. Everyone needs to do that sometimes. But not concussed and bleeding and peeled off the front step. That’s not good.’

  On the fourth floor she got him out and stared across the atrium at her door. It was wide open. She’d left it that way, she remembered, only planning to go as far as the lift. But there were bruises on her arm and it was night and quiet and an open door was as good as an invitation. She glanced around the dim corridors as they crossed the walkway. How long had she been gone? Ten minutes?

  Nate stopped outside his place.

  ‘You’ll have to come to mine,’ she said.

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘You’re bleeding and wobbly and you have no keys.’ And anyone could have walked into mine. Even drunk and concussed, she’d feel better if he was there.

  ‘This isn’t right. It’s all fucking wrong.’

  ‘It’s fine. I can clean up your eye and you can sleep on the sofa.’ He slowed as they got closer. What was the problem? ‘Nate, it’s okay.’

  ‘It’s not. I fucked up. You shouldn’t have to do this.’ He propped on the threshold, a hand on the jamb.

  ‘I’m already doing it.’ She cast her eyes down the hallway, wished he’d keep walking.

  ‘No, Carly. I should be helping you.’

  Something tight and shameful caught in her chest then. She’d told him to leave her the hell alone this morning. ‘You have helped. This …’ She touched fingers to his bloodied temple. ‘Dragging you up here – awful for you but it’s a circuit-breaker for me.’

  It consoled him enough for Carly to get him to the living room and into a chai
r. ‘Wait here a minute.’ Flicking lights, she ran up the stairs, checked the loft and the ensuite. No one there. Scaring herself again.

  Nate sat on the toilet lid in the half bath while she washed his wound. Breathing through her mouth so she didn’t catch the copper smell of his blood, telling herself she hadn’t done it to him. He kept still as she worked, only pulling in a sharp breath when she sluiced it with antiseptic.

  ‘I think you might need a stitch,’ she said, her torso pressed to his shoulder in the tight space.

  ‘Tape it.’

  ‘It’ll leave a scar.’

  ‘It won’t be the first. Tape it.’

  She didn’t argue, glad to get it covered. ‘Have you eaten dinner?’

  ‘Don’t go to any trouble.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a no. Omelette okay?’

  Ten minutes later, he was out of the shower and back in the same clothes as she handed over a plate of eggs and toast. He’d opted for bourbon instead of painkillers and she topped up his glass, poured one for herself and sat on the coffee table while he ate on the sofa. He still smelled of second-hand cigarette smoke and blood but it was faint under the clean soapiness. There was a rip in the knee of his jeans, a piece of skin missing from a knuckle and a knot of swelling on his cheek. But it was the deep purple bruising starting around the eye that spoke of the violence behind it all. It made the small, brown smudges on her arm seem inconsequential. Seemed to confirm she had caused them herself. She waited until he’d put down his fork before asking, ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I got hit.’

  ‘No kidding. Did the other guy?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You didn’t swing or you missed?’

  He ran a finger around the edges of the bandage on his head. ‘He wanted to take a shot at a kid so I got in his way.’

  Carly frowned. ‘A kid? A little kid was at the pub?’

  ‘Some skinny young bloke with brand-new ID and no brains.’

  Not a bar brawl then. ‘You stood up for a teenager?’

  ‘Don’t make it something it’s not. I didn’t get anything I don’t deserve.’

  He thought he deserved a punch in the face? Carly had thought she’d earned the slap from her first husband but she hadn’t stepped in front of his hand. What had Nate done? ‘Just wondering. Does it make it go away or bring it all back?’