Which was when Helen had abruptly looked up, startled to see a young man – a family member of one of her patients if she was not mistaken – standing there looking expectantly at her, a tray in his hand. He smiled. ‘Mind if I join you?’
That kind of thing never happened to Helen. At least not since she was a teenager. She’d been reasonably popular at school, certainly not unpopular; she’d had her share of friends, but they had all moved on, while Helen remained in exactly the same place. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been on a date. It had just been too difficult to maintain relationships while she cared for her mother. So there was no time for dating, little time for socialising at all. Work had become her only social outlet, yet she kept her distance from the rest of the staff. Helen didn’t quite understand why she did that, but anything else seemed like too much work. Letting people in, giving explanations, opening up. It was easier, if lonelier, to keep to herself.
Only Mr Chapman’s son obviously didn’t know this about her, and he was still waiting expectantly beside her table. So Helen blushed, fumbled with the magazine to hide the article she was reading, then fumbled further to hide the cover of the magazine, then coughed and sniffed and finally looked up and met his eyes. They gazed steadily back at her, with what almost could have been described as affection. He didn’t even know her. Why was he looking at her like that?
‘Sure,’ she offered as a rather delayed response to his request to join her. Then she glanced at her watch and added, ‘I have to be back on ward soon.’
David had remained undaunted. He appeared to have thick skin, which he was going to need to finally win her over. Much later, when Helen had felt comfortable enough to ask him, David had put his persistence down to a longstanding fetish for nurses, or, when he wasn’t teasing her, to something he’d seen in her eyes. She’d reminded him of the beleaguered children in the refugee camps overseas who looked to aid workers like him for hope. Helen had inadvertently tugged at his heart in a way he couldn’t resist.
He sought her out every time he visited his father after that. The day Jim was being discharged he asked her for her phone number, and a few days later he rang, and a few weeks later she finally agreed to go out with him. A few months later he moved in.
And then a few years later he died. That’s how the story would end from now on.
The next time there was a knock on the door Helen froze momentarily before she remembered that it was probably Noreen. As she opened the front door she saw Jim’s car pull away from the kerb. Her mother-in-law looked shaken; her eyes were red and swollen under the make-up she’d hastily applied as camouflage. Must keep up appearances. They exchanged a stilted hug, but Noreen held on firmly to both of Helen’s wrists as they drew apart.
‘Helen, I want you to know you’ll never have to worry about Noah,’ she said in a trembling voice. ‘We are his family, he’ll never do without because of this, we won’t let that happen.’
The fog had descended soon after. For the next couple of days it was a blur of people in and out of the house, casseroles, cakes, so much food she and Noah could never have eaten it all. She packed up some and took it over to Brookhaven. Helen hadn’t seen her mother since the day before the accident, when she’d called in on her way to work. Marion wouldn’t have known the difference anyway. The staff clucked over the food as though they’d never had anything so special as a chocolate-chip muffin in all their lives. Helen wished everyone would stop being so laboriously nice: it was exhausting. She would be happy when things were back to normal and people could go back to ignoring her.
She walked into her mother’s room, dragging a chair over to the bed. She sat down and Marion’s eyes met hers expectantly. Helen knew that look: her mother had no idea who she was today.
‘Mum,’ she began, ‘it’s me, Helen.’
She saw the now familiar flicker cross her eyes, the confusion, uncertainty, doubt.
‘Hello Helen,’ she said politely, her expression suggesting it was Helen who was a few sandwiches short of a picnic and she’d best humour her.
‘I have to tell you about David,’ Helen pushed on. ‘Do you remember David, Mum?’
She seemed to be thinking about it. ‘Perhaps . . . I do remember a David. He was married to . . .’ She looked up at the ceiling as though the answer might be written there.
‘He was married to me, Mum, Helen. I’m your daughter.’ Helen held her mother’s hand in between hers. Please know me, remember me, just this once. ‘We have Noah, your little grandson? You only have one grandchild, Mum. Do you remember Noah?’
‘Of course I remember Noah,’ she said indignantly. ‘He built the ark and took the animals two by two, and then it rained, for forty days . . .’
Helen leaned her head down on her mother’s hand as she continued her fragmented account of Noah and the flood. She wanted to cry, she hadn’t been able to yet. She’d been frightened of tears at first, hadn’t wanted to break down in front of Noah, and then she’d suppressed them so much they wouldn’t come. Lying in bed that first night, alone, the smell of David still in his pillow, which she had hugged to get to sleep, she still hadn’t cried. She had hoped that telling her mother . . . if she had just had a glimmer of recognition . . .
‘Do you know Tony?’ Marion said suddenly, breaking off her narrative.
Helen lifted her head. ‘Yes, I know Tony.’ Her elder brother, living blissfully free of responsibility in London, following his apparently never-ending dream of becoming a theatre director. When Marion couldn’t even remember her own name, she always remembered Tony.
‘Will Tony be coming today?’ she asked hopefully.
‘No, Mum, Tony won’t be coming today.’
Marion paused, the disappointment plain in her eyes. After a while she looked back at Helen. ‘Do I know you, dear?’
The funeral had taken place the next day.
Jim had insisted there was to be no viewing, which left Helen with the unspoken horror, every time she closed her eyes, of the way David must have looked when Jim went to identify his body. Jim and Noreen had taken over all the arrangements for the funeral. Helen appreciated their help; she couldn’t have managed it herself anyway. How was a widow with a young child expected to plan a funeral in a few days? How was anyone who was grieving? So Jim and Noreen chose the order of service, the readings, hymns, everything, without so much as running it by her. Helen didn’t have the strength to fight with them, but she finally put her foot down when Jim tried casually to inform her where David was to be buried. That much she knew with absolute certainty – David had always said he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered off the headland at Garie Beach in the Royal National Park. Jim said that was romantic nonsense and that David was to be buried in the family plot Jim had purchased on his retirement. He had spoken to David about it. ‘Yes,’ Helen agreed, ‘and he told you no thanks.’ They’d tried to insist, but Helen held the power this time: papers had to be signed and she was the closest next of kin. She won, but they weren’t finished. Jim and Noreen sat her down and told her in no uncertain terms she was irresponsible to allow Noah to attend the funeral. He was too young, he wouldn’t understand, they insisted. That was right, Helen had replied calmly, but it would help him understand, it would give him a chance to say goodbye to his daddy. They were appalled. He was only a child, he didn’t need to be exposed to this. Besides, didn’t she realise how much his presence would upset everyone at the funeral? That, Helen told them, was not her problem.
‘You’re being a little selfish, dear.’ Noreen had finally spoken up; she’d been sitting in silence the entire time. ‘You’re unnaturally attached to that boy, Helen. You’re going to have to loosen the reins now, let some other people in. He needs more than just your influence in his life.’
David Alan Chapman’s funeral was a farce. It was solemn, pious and sanctimonious and it would have meant nothing to David; in fact, he would have hated it. Helen couldn’t help feeling she had let him down in
this, the last thing she would ever do for him.
She still hadn’t cried. She knew everyone was watching her, waiting, judging. Maybe they thought she was keeping it together for Noah’s sake; maybe they thought she was as cold as Lindy Chamberlain.
But no one could have known the remorse that had plagued Helen since that morning sitting in the front room, opposite Constable Hammond and Constable Murray, clutching David’s coffee cup in both hands. Since she’d woken up that morning she’d had a running commentary in her head listing his faults and shortcomings. He was being crushed, his body annihilated beyond recognition, while she whined about not having milk for her coffee. They were her last thoughts of him alive. She could not adequately describe how much she hated herself.
They hadn’t even spoken since the Wednesday night. On Thursdays David knocked off work early to pick up Noah from preschool, getting home after Helen had already left for the afternoon shift. To make up the time, he started early on both Thursday and Friday mornings, leaving the house while she was still asleep. That was their routine. Every single week they didn’t see each other for almost two whole days. Why didn’t she wake up to see him off? She would have done when they were first together. When had she stopped that?
She had tormented herself trying to remember their last words to each other, the precise details of their last night together. Days and weeks merged in her memory. Wednesdays they liked to watch Margaret and David on the movie show. What movies did they review that night? Had they been interested in any of them? Helen had been almost tempted to call the ABC and ask them for a transcript of the program. If she could jog her memory, maybe she could come up with what they’d said to each other. She so didn’t want her last words to him to be ‘Did you remember to set the alarm?’ but she suspected that’s precisely what they were.
The wake was held at Jim and Noreen’s place, of course, and that was just as well as Helen had no idea who half the people there were. She felt as though she was suffocating. Strangers kept thrusting their hands in hers, muttering ‘Lovely service’ with appropriate gravitas. She wanted to scream at them, No it wasn’t! But she didn’t. She just gazed blankly back at their earnest faces, nodding faintly, till they released her, visibly relieved to pass her along to the next in line. David’s brother, Steven, could not even offer his condolences, but then, he’d never known what to say to Helen at the best of times. And these were clearly not the best of times. He was a nice enough man, a little colourless, but certainly not unpleasant. His wife, Cheryl, was of the high-need variety – often sick, or tired, or otherwise miserable, their two pale-faced girls the same. Steven had married a version of his mother, but he lacked the domineering nature of his father to bring some kind of balance to the relationship. Consequently Steve and Cheryl seemed like two people treading water much of the time, waiting for someone to come along and rescue them. David had tried to get along with Steve, but they simply didn’t have much in common; they were more like acquaintances than brothers, their conversation reduced to polite observations about the weather, their work, the odd football game.
It had taken Helen half an hour to get to the kitchen. Everyone turned to gawk at her as she pushed through the door, catching her breath.
‘What’s the matter, dear?’ It was Noreen’s sister, Jeanette. David had always spoken fondly of his Aunt Jeanette; she had a little more verve and a lot more warmth than her elder sister.
‘I’m okay,’ Helen managed to say. ‘I just, well, I was after a cup of coffee, that’s all.’
‘But the coffee’s all set up out in the dining room,’ squawked Cheryl, grasping Helen by the elbow to propel her back out of the kitchen.
‘No,’ Helen protested, yanking her arm away. Everyone gaped at her.
‘I was just making another pot,’ said Jeanette in a voice that was kind but not condescending. No one else seemed to be able to manage that. ‘Come on, I’ll pour you a cup before I take it out.’
Helen met her eyes and managed a weak smile. Cheryl backed away. Everyone returned to their various tasks, cutting and slicing and buttering; nothing to see here, folks. Helen walked steadily across the kitchen to where Jeanette was pouring the steaming coffee into a cup. She smiled, handing it to her. ‘There you go. Do you take milk?’ she said, indicating a carton on the bench.
‘I’ll do it.’ Helen picked up the carton and was about to pour it into her cup when she realised it was empty. She looked automatically into the mouth of the carton. ‘There’s no milk left,’ she heard herself say.
Looking back on it, Helen couldn’t say what happened next, whether she dropped the cup before she fell or whether they both went down together. All she knew was that suddenly she was bent double on the floor, crying like a child, her chest heaving with heart-wrenching sobs. Everyone had gone into a spin, clustering around her, mopping up the coffee. She remembered the feel of Jeanette’s hand on her back, soothing her. ‘It’s okay, it’s going to be okay, love.’
Helen didn’t know if everything was going to be okay. Ever again. But she did know that finally she had shed tears for her dead husband. And that was at least some relief.
*
Central Railway Station, Sydney
Gemma stepped out of the carriage, heaving her backpack behind her. She looked up and down the platform, straining to see past the clusters of reuniting families, friends and couples, all hugging and laughing and generally being delighted to see one another. But Gemma couldn’t see Phoebe. It was unlike her younger sister to be late. Phoebe was nothing if not punctual. And precise, practical, pretty, perfect. She was just the kind of person Gemma would hate, if she wasn’t her sister, and she wasn’t also eminently kind and good-hearted. So Gemma tried to ignore the disappointment rising in her chest, the hint of panic hovering in her stomach. It was just that she had been so looking forward to seeing a familiar face, not only after fourteen hours on a train, but after weeks of being alone, weeks of staring down the barrel of the inevitability of her situation.
‘Gem! Gemma!’
She swung around and spotted Phoebe weaving through the crowds towards her, and immediately she felt tears welling in her throat. Oh, this was ridiculous – damned hormones.
‘Sorry, sorry I’m late,’ Phoebe called before she got to her. ‘There were roadworks on Park Street, I got stuck for ten full minutes and then I seemed to get every single red light, and then there were no spots in the parking area . . .’
She finally came to a halt right in front of Gemma. Perfect, pretty, fabulous Phoebe. Gemma didn’t think she’d ever been so happy to see anyone in her whole life, and without warning she threw her arms around her sister, hugging her tight.
‘Gem . . . Gemma,’ Phoebe protested mildly. ‘Come on, we only saw each other a few weeks ago. Get a grip.’ She drew back to look at Gemma, noticing the glassy eyes. ‘You are going to tell me what on earth is going on, aren’t you?’
‘I am, of course I am,’ Gemma promised. ‘But I’ve been sitting on a train for fourteen hours – I have to get out of these clothes and into a shower.’
‘You can start with why you took the train in the first place,’ Phoebe persisted.
‘I couldn’t afford to fly.’
‘I didn’t think there was much difference in the fares these days.’
‘There is when you can get a concession.’
Gemma saw it: Phoebe’s shoulders drooped noticeably.
‘Which means you’re on the dole again,’ she said, the resignation heavy in her voice. ‘Which means Luke is out of the picture, I take it?’
‘Mostly right,’ Gemma confirmed, trying to stay upbeat. ‘But I’m not actually on the dole, you’ll be pleased to know.’ It was called something different when you were pregnant.
‘Oh? So how did you get a concession?’
‘I’ll explain when we get to your place. Give me a hand with this, would you, Phee?’
Phoebe went to pick up her backpack. ‘Oh my God, Gem, what have you got in here?’
‘Just my life,’ she said blithely.
‘Don’t you think it’s about time you got over the backpacking thing and bought yourself a suitcase with wheels?’
Gemma opened her mouth to say something, but she realised she didn’t really have a comeback. ‘Come on, one strap each and we’ll manage.’
Phoebe’s eyes had become round and wide. Her mouth too. Gemma thought she was incapable of shocking Phoebe any more. Clearly she’d got that wrong.
‘You’re pregnant?’ Phoebe gasped. ‘How did that happen?’
‘Do I really need to explain it to you?’
‘Don’t be smart.’
Gemma had felt refreshed and revitalised after her shower. While she’d never felt particularly at home in Phoebe’s uber-sophisticated professional couple’s apartment conveniently located in central Pyrmont, at this particular juncture a hot shower in a pristine bathroom was better than sex, especially as sex was not exactly in the offing anyway.
When she had come back out to the living area, wrapped in Phoebe’s gorgeous cosy robe, her sister had already made her one of her trademark gourmet sandwiches – roasted vegetables and God only knew what else on Turkish bread – and a pot of fragrant coffee, the aroma of which was making Gemma nauseous. She’d had to tell Phoebe her news before she threw up all over the equally offending sandwich.
‘And, now that you know, well, I’m sorry you went to the trouble, Phee, but I just can’t eat that,’ said Gemma, pointing to the sandwich. ‘And, um, the smell of coffee makes me sick.’
Phoebe took a second to twig, before whisking the pot of coffee over to the kitchen and pouring it down the sink.
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ Gemma protested weakly, nonetheless glad that she had.
‘What about tea?’ asked Phoebe, running the cold water to wash all traces of the offending beverage down the sink. ‘Is tea all right? I have some herbal –’
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